A new Jewish voice: 6-18-09
June 18, 2009
If you've signed up for my class at Ghost Ranch next month (it's full; sorry), you know that we'll be talking about ways in which our prophetic voices can help repair the world.
Today that means using blogs and such social networking sites as Facebook to engage the world on issues that need attention and to offer your own faith-based perspective on them.
With that in mind, I was intrigued recently to learn about a new online Jewish publication called Tablet Magazine.
Here is its creators' description of this e-zine: "Tablet is a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture. A newspaper-magazine-blog hybrid, we offer up-to-the-minute reactions to the day's news, sophisticated cultural coverage, and in-depth investigations of broad trends in Jewish life."
Surf around at Tablet, whether you're Jewish or not, and I think you'll find a useful and quickly responsive site that will help you understand the world from a Jewish perspective. Yes, of course, I know that there are lots and lots and lots of Jewish perspectives -- even on the same subject. So over time I think you'll find a good variety of voices there.
Faith communities that don't learn to communicate effectively using up-to-date technology may well find themselves shrinking into obscurity. The trick is to maintain a consistent and authentic message no matter what means are used to communicate it.
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BETTER RED THAN GOD-IS-DEAD?
The Communist Party USA has created a new Religion Commission, the "On Faith" blog of the Washington Post reports. Apparently the goal is not to work to do away with religion but to attract people of faith to join the party. Hmmm. Wonder why I would join a sunken ship that, when it was sailing, wanted to haul me off to oblivion.
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P.S.: I take it as a hopeful sign that the senior cleric in Iran says nobody believes the recent presidential election there wasn't rigged. Good for him for not being afraid to speak out against what many see as an obvious injustice.