Beyond the blog-rolll, here our a few of our favorite sites:
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Founded by Quakers committed to non-violence during World War I, AFSC promotes peace and justice through service, development, and peace programs throughout the world. The site witnesses to AFSCʼs local and international work and to Quaker values of peacemaking and the belief in the worth of every human being. Via articles, links and multimedia stories ranging in topics from immigration policy, to addressing humanitarian crises, to eliminating nuclear weapons, to transforming the criminal justice system, the site is a powerful example of faith engaging in social action.
Sojourners: Faith in Action for Social Justice
Sojourners is essential reading for those interested in the intersections of theology and social justice, faith and politics. For over 40 years, the Sojourners community has been engaging in public ministry and providing a reliable progressive Christian voice to the faith and political landscape. Through the print and digital magazine, Sojourners offers regular commentary and feature articles on topics such as faith and spirituality, peace and non-violence, creation care, poverty, and faith and politics. Featured authors and contributors come from a wide range of faith perspectives, including Eboo Patel, Joan Chittister, Walter Brueggemann, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and from founder and self-described public theologian, Jim Wallis.
Commonwealʼs mission, as stated on their website, is to provide a forum for civil, reasoned debate on the interaction of faith with contemporary politics and culture. Commonweal is an independent Catholic journal of opinion, giving voice to Catholic principles and perspectives, especially those of lay-persons and voices that may be marginalized within the church. Think The Nation or The New Republic with a distinctly Catholic flavor and you get Commonweal: critical, in-depth analysis of issues the church and Catholics (and others) care about and wrestle with.
FPL aims to be a powerful and progressive force for justice, compassion and the common good by serving as a strategy and resource center for the faith community and religious leaders to engage effectively in the public sphere. Utilizing strategic communication and capacity-building tools, FPL designs and implements public campaigns to change the narrative about the role of faith in politics and affect and change policy in support of social justice. The site features a blog of relevant news and commentary and a faith map, a searchable database of allies who are engaging faith for justice and the common good.
On Being with Krista Tippett is the online extension of the public radio production that first aired in 2003 as Speaking of Faith. Broadly described as an “exploration of the animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?” – The On Being website intersects with the questions of public theology as home base to the Civil Conversations Project, an “emergent approach” to public discourse and relationship in a pluralistic technological culture. On Being creator, host, and executive producer Krista Tippett is a 1994 Masters of Divinity graduate of Yale Divinity School.
The website of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University is a treasure trove of informational resources on the religious pluralism of this nation. The mission of the project is “to help Americans engage with the realities of religious diversity through research, outreach, and the active dissemination of resources.” There are two areas within the site that resonate with the issue of public theology: the interactive web resource On Common Ground: World Religions in America and the section titled “Public Square”.
Patheos: Hosting the Conversation on Faith
Patheos website self-describes as the “premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality.” The site clearly aspires to provide wide-ranging information as well as opportunities for exploration and conversation under one digital roof. There is an intention here to bring together voices from myriad locations: faith communities, academia, and the wider public. Most integral to the focus on public theology can be found in the section titled “Public Square”.
Religion Dispatches is an online magazine featuring politically and theologically liberal writing on religion and public life. Affiliated with the USC-Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, it features essays and interviews geared toward an educated audience, and often focusing on current events, popular culture, and politics. The site’s writers tend to be either journalists and professional scholars, and they represent positions ranging from atheist to religiously committed political liberal. Among other things, Religion Dispatches is distinguished by its openness to religious interpretations of conventionally “non-religious” phenomena. It’s list of article categories suggests it’s range: sexuality/gender, politics, culture, science (a)theologies, and books.
Public Theology 