Publication

In this far-reaching essay, renowned historian of religion, Huston Smith, and his wife, the scholar Kendra Smith, trace the American sense of liberty as a spiritual concept that has both inspired us and eluded us through a checkered history in which we have trampled many in the name of the very equality and freedom we hold so sacred. They trace the erosion of the American Dream in the twentieth century and look toward our inevitable membership in the global family of nations that is forming in the world today.

This provocative essay by Betty Sue Flowers examines the limitations and deeper opportunities of the economic myth which governs our society today. It asks how we might articulate a common good through which we might treat each other as citizens and not just consumers. We are challenged to imagine ourselves anew: “We can't hold up a myth of community and wait for it to take hold. We have to work within our own myth, however impoverished it seems to us. To deepen the American Dream is to engage the imagination—to create better stories of who we are and who we might become.”

This essay, by Robert Inchausti, is a convincing look at how we "see," how living in America can impair our deepest "seeing," and how education is the sacred medicine entrusted in each generation with restoring that deeper sight that lets us know that we are each other.

An elder of the Civil Rights Movement, Vincent Harding suggests that the dream is never finished but endlessly unfolding. He suggests that America's most important possibility for the world is not to dominate, threaten, or compete with, but to help each other in a search for common ground. He suggests that when we simply attempt to replicate our free-market materialism, we miss our most vital connections.

In this essay, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela draws from her experience and observations as a member of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She discusses the relationship between empathy and the victims' capacity to forgive perpetrators and argues that empathy toward others is the essence of our ethical responsibility. She evokes the word inimba in her native Xhosa language, which can be translated as “umbilical cord,” to locate the origins of the response of empathy in the body.

This essay explores America's relationship with the rest of the world. As executive director of The United Religions Initiative, Rev. Gibbs proposes that “The future of America cannot be separated from the future of the rest of the world. There are no longer chasms deep enough or walls high enough to protect us or to protect others from us. So what do we do? We might begin by seeing ourselves as citizens of Earth and children of the abiding Mystery at the heart of all that is.”

In this essay, Carolyn T. Brown speaks deeply about the gifts and frictions that exist between our authentic self and the society we live in and grow in, and how returning to the well of spirit keeps forming who we are in the world.

Steering between what distinguished sociologist of religion Robert Bellah calls “Enlightenment fundamentalists” on the one hand, and religious fundamentalists on the other, this essay argues against both the common secularist view that religion should be excluded from public life and the dogmatic view that would exclude all secular and religious views except one. Instead it proposes a more moderate, nuanced, and robust role for faith and religion in the common life of America and Americans.

In a time when our country is more polarized than ever, David Abshire, former Ambassador to NATO, and a historian himself, traces the history of commitment and tolerance in an effort to revitalize the respect, listening, and dialogue that constitute civility. Nobel Peace Laureates reflect on hopes and fears "Which, then, is the true America?” he asks, “The America of division or the America of unity? The America of endless public and partisan warfare or the America of cooperation, civility, and common purpose? The America of many or the America of one?”

Ocean Robbins, the founder and director of YES! “Helping Visionary Young Leaders Build a Better World” and coauthor of Choices for Our Future: A Generation Rising for Life on Earth writes of his experiences in meeting and working with people from diverse backgrounds and countries and how, even in times of conflict, they have built bridges of friendship and understanding.