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Author: Robert Corcoran

Take off your shoes
February 25, 2021March 3, 2021

Take off your shoes

In the summer of 2002 Rev. Syngman Rhee addressed an international conference in Caux, Switzerland. Perched high above Lake Geneva, Caux Palace has offered a place of healing for bitterly divided groups – beginning with French and Germans after World War II. As he approached the podium, the Korean-born peacebuilder and respected leader of the Presbyterian church (USA), removed his […]

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Finding Our Humanity:  A Different Perspective
February 1, 2021February 2, 2021

Finding Our Humanity: A Different Perspective

A special guest column by Rev. Dr. Paige Lanier Chargois, a Baptist minister who has pioneered truth-telling and racial healing initiatives in Richmond, Virginia, and internationally, and who has served as chaplain at eight universities. Her books include Certain Women Called By Christ:  Biblical Realities for Today. This commentary continues our conversation on the theme of finding our humanity (see […]

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Bloody Sunday in 1965,  January 6th in 2021, and John Lewis’s Legacy
January 25, 2021January 27, 2021

Bloody Sunday in 1965, January 6th in 2021, and John Lewis’s Legacy

Guest column by Doug Tanner, Founding Director, The Faith & Politics Institute Over the last two decades, hundreds of the late Congressman John Lewis’s colleagues in the U.S. House and Senate—Democrat and Republican—joined him on an annual pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama marking the anniversary of March 7, 1965’s Bloody Sunday.  On that day, 25-year-old John Lewis and his civil rights […]

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Finding our humanity
January 25, 2021January 25, 2021

Finding our humanity

My recent blog, “No healing without truth,” has sparked some challenging conversations. A respected African American colleague, Rev. Paige Chargois, while agreeing wholeheartedly on the need for truth, writes, “Black folks have not been avoiding the truth. Quite the contrary! Black folks have been living that, writing that, teaching that, even adjudicating that for centuries!” She says that the real […]

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No healing without truth
January 14, 2021January 18, 2021

No healing without truth

On January 6, a white mob assaulted the US Capitol. “Hang Mike Pence!” they shouted as they forced their way into the Chambers. Some carried assault rifles and Confederate flags. Others brought explosives. One man had texted he was thinking of “putting a bullet” in Nancy Pelosi. There was no doubt about the intent of the ringleaders. They were hoping […]

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The bridge of trust
January 5, 2021January 10, 2021

The bridge of trust

It is becoming increasingly evident that trust is an essential moral foundation for the functioning of democracy. But what is trust? Most of us have an implicit understanding, but its multidimensional nature makes it hard to describe although we are very aware when it is present and when it is not. Kate Monkhouse, a British trainer and facilitator, likens it […]

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The wind, the sails and the rudder
December 18, 2020December 22, 2020

The wind, the sails and the rudder

“Rebuilding trust is, obviously, the work of a generation.” This is how David Brooks concludes a recent column in the New York Times. He surveys the threat to democracy presented by the refusal among large sections of the US population to accept reality and to trust proven data. He notes that social media are accelerants of paranoia by spreading misinformation, […]

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Questions for America
November 10, 2020November 13, 2020

Questions for America

History turns on small hinges. We may look back at the question posed by a 76-year-old African American woman as a key factor that made Joe Biden’s presidency possible. At a time when his primary campaign was floundering, Jannie Jones, a church usher beckoned to Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina and whispered, “I need to know who you’re going […]

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Stand still and listen
October 27, 2020November 3, 2020

Stand still and listen

“America is at a crossroads. One road leads to community, the other to the chaos of competing identities and interests.” These words, inspired by the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., are the opening sentences of A Call to Community, a manifesto for honest conversation about race that Hope in the Cities and its national partners launched in May, 1996 […]

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Are you a radiator or a thermometer?
October 16, 2020October 20, 2020

Are you a radiator or a thermometer?

My father-in-law, Alan Thornhill was an Anglican priest and playwright. My wife has been editing a book of reflections drawn from some of his sermons at the small country church in England which he served in retirement. In one of them he highlights three vital ingredients for a growing faith: air, food and exercise. We breath in and out as we […]

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Recent Posts

  • Take off your shoes
  • Finding Our Humanity: A Different Perspective
  • Bloody Sunday in 1965, January 6th in 2021, and John Lewis’s Legacy
  • Finding our humanity
  • No healing without truth
  • The bridge of trust
  • The wind, the sails and the rudder
  • Questions for America
  • Stand still and listen
  • Are you a radiator or a thermometer?

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