The single most important thing we can do as humans is create community. My community is what makes me feel alive. They have given me wings in my quest to make the entire world feel like they belong.

~Radha Agrawal

may we understand that tolerance is not about ignorance…..

inquiry for today~   how can we forgive and honor and hold our boundaries?  how can we know religion as the deep and powerful presence of faith and not another way to allow our systems to fail us?

Clerical abuse of children is an evil rooted in masculine power, patriachal hierarchy, and the male God who supports and is supported by both. The Father-King-Lord-Shepherd God reduces us to children, vassals, slaves, and sheep. This asymmetric power relationship demands that we surrender our autonomy to God and God’s representatives, almost all of whom are men. Such surrender makes abuse of all kinds inevitable. While I support married priests and the ordination of women, neither will solve the problem. The problem is the God who buttresses asymmetric masculine power and patriarchy; who demands absolute obedience to Himself and His representatives; and who promotes a fear-based, zero-sum worldview that divides humans into competing and often warring camps at the expense of human freedom and flourishing. The solution for every religion given to patriarchy and clerical authoritarianism is a theological revolution that topples masculine power and the God who enfranchises it. I doubt this will happen anytime soon. In the meantime, if the patriarchal religions won’t change Gods, I suggest the godly change religions.

~Rabbi Rami Shapiro