TAGS
RELIGION
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
At the time, 97 percent of Americans believed in God. By 2014, that number had shrunk to 63 percent. Does that mean Americans are abandoning spirituality? The answer is a resounding “no.”
TOLERANCE
Some of the people I most admire are those who are devout in their personal faith but also curious and generous in their interest to learn about others who may have a different one.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Each one of them has a different set of religious beliefs but they are all working together toward a common goal of healing a society that seems to be splitting apart. They all admire each other. They all respect each other. And they are all in communication.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Today we think of apartheid’s end in 1994 as inevitable. But it took the concerted efforts and sacrifice of many for 50 years, both inside and outside South Africa.
COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE
It’s human nature to want to understand things. Our relentless curiosity is what drives us forward as individuals and as a culture. Most people take it for granted that the present is a more enlightened age than any previous one, the idea being that we are constantly evolving and improving.
SCIENTOLOGY RELIGION
Though I grew up Catholic, I’ve been into many churches of different types and one thing I’ve always noticed is the same sense of relief from the world and the safe space a church can provide.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
The big question is: how did the filmmakers navigate the minefield of religious dogma when it comes to the representation of what a soul is, and what happens before and after life in the “meat suit,” as one of the characters puts it?
TOLERANCE
It was the early 90s and we were sitting in a dingy film editing room in Encino, California. I looked over at Steve, who’d just asked me the question. He was a fellow film editor; we’d both met earlier that day when our boss, Fima, had pointed to stacks of film reels and told us in his thick Russian-Yiddish accent, “We have three film to cut, I don’t care who cuts which one.”
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
As I dug deeper into his website I discovered a 28-minute video clip of a talk he gave several years ago at the Messiah Lutheran Church in Weldon Spring, MO. The talk was on Christian-Muslim relations. He was speaking passionately about increasing understanding between these two religious traditions. Turns out this is what he does. He says his calling is to increase the level of religious literacy in the world. Greater understanding paves the way to greater tolerance. He goes on to say that for him it’s more than work—it’s a divine inspiration.
RELIGIOUS LITERACY
Fear breaks down a man’s sense of brotherhood. Make a man afraid, and he takes refuge in superstition.
