It’s almost always a category mistake to generalize about “religion.” This is such an amorphous category that it is like attempting to generalize about all people who have ever labored. Our stance should indeed be agnostic before we dig into cases.

Hardwired into religious traditions, as part of longstanding sensibilities, are teachings about justice, care for the weak, and attention to the common good: teachings that command nontrivial respect in the public sphere.... Common sense plus the moral legacies of our religious traditions add up to a combined weight that is not trivial. We may not be able to fight a riptide, but if we can fund a war, then surely we can fund a school.

[Note: if you came here on my poems thread, the poem part is at the end.] A few weeks ago the New York Times  found it newsworthy that a...

“It’s Christmas time in Washington, and the Democrats rehearse. Getting into gear for one more year of things not getting worse....

First things first: in this essay I introduce my new lyrics and adapted tune for an underrated song by the underrated British songwriter,...

This post is cross-published here on Narrative Paths Journal I fielded a query from a University of Tennessee campus newspaper about...

I know I’m not supposed to play the proud parent too much, especially when my daughter (Lucia Hulsether) moves in some of the same...

Before I began my previous post, I imagined an introduction to set up a lightly edited version of some notes I prepared for a reporter....

NOTE: I've tagged this for "oldies but goodies," partly because it's a follow-up to my piece on Chris Hedges referenced below, and...