The urgency of now

All week long I’ve been deeply engaged in the Luce Seminar on theologies of religious pluralism and comparative theologies. I’m sure I’ll have more to write when I get a chance to “come up for air” and integrate a bit. In the meantime, as I read the news this morning, I recognize how crucial the work we’re doing is, since I think — perhaps it’s more of a hope at the moment — that doing this kind of work can, in the long run, build more understanding. Today on the front page of the electronic NYTimes there is a story about an Islamic private elementary school in Virginia whose neighbors are fighting its presence, and there is a story about a white supremacist who walked into the Holocaust Museum in DC and started shooting, killing one guard before he, himself, was shot.

The kind of theological work we're engaged in, in the seminar, is not a short term "fix" to misunderstanding and hatred, but it does begin to create a better ground for understanding.