What is the the Qur’an? An Agnostic Jew Speaks. Lesley Hazelton at TEDx

Working to boost social activism among Muslims – latimes.com. What does community banking have to do with his commitment to Islam? Everything, says Shah, 41, who is also a professional accountant and a former director of Humanitarian Day, an American Muslim day of service to local communities, especially the homeless.

Within a month, two interesting pieces regarding teaching and talking about religion came into my RSS feeder. [Apparently the new NY Times permalink generator next to the article doesn’t produce permalinks. Go NY Times, try really hard to make yourself irrelevant in the digital age, and you may actually succeed at something in the 21st century.] The first is about a professor asked to teach by a religious program. The second is by a professor of religion who writes about our inability to talk about religion in the classroom. I’m reminded of a story when I was teaching an introductory…

slacktivist: Please forgive me for the actions of extremists I have never met who commit acts of violence that I have never advocated. As a white male Baptist, it is my duty today to denounce the violence perpetrated by Patrick Gray Sharp, 29, who yesterday attacked the police headquarters in McKinney, Texas, in a heavily armed but ineffectual assault involving a high-powered rifle, road flares, “gasoline and ammonium nitrate fertilizer.” I understand that this denunciation must be swift and unambiguous and that, in the absence of such denunciations made by and on behalf of every and all white male Baptists,…