Our artificial individualism needs to be re-embedded in communities

Our artificial individualism needs to be re-embedded in communities By Marcia Pally ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS 10 OCT 2012 BEING FORCED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN SEPARABILITY OR SITUATEDNESS, BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM OR COMMUNITY AND TRADITION, LEADS THE WEST TO THE WORST […]

Forgive Us Our Trespasses? What Does That Mean?

Forgive Us Our Trespasses? By Marcia Pally The Living Church Magazine, Tuesday, March 14, 2017 “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” What is it that we’re forgiving? As our various English translations have it, do we mean […]

Hardwired for Generosity

Hardwired for Generosity: Sacrifice & the Common Good By Marcia Pally Commonweal Magazine,  March 2017 The Good Samaritan, Pelegrín Clavé y Roqué In today’s America, “sacrifice” sounds like a bad thing—like having to give up what you deserve, like an […]

It’s the Genes! It’s “Cooperativity”: Evolution and Populism

It’s the Genes! It’s the Hair! It’s “Cooperativity”: An Evolutionary Account of Populism By Marcia Pally   It’s a virus, a friend of mine said about the far-right wins in the May elections for the European Parliament. A 31 percent vote […]

Matthew 6: 19-24

Bible Study: Matthew 6: 19-24 Biennial Church Day [Kirchentag], Dresden, Germany, June 4, 2011 By Marcia Pally              First, we’d like to thank you for coming all the way out here to consider a few thoughts about this passage in Matthew. […]

Religion as practical scapegoat: A response from relational theology

Religion as practical scapegoat: A response from relational theology By Marcia Pally Presented at the German Federal Cultural Foundation Conference:  “Trial of Faith – On Religion and Growth,” Cologne June 12-14, 2015. https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/en/magazine/magazine_24/the_practical_scapegoat.html Looking at European debates about religion, one […]

Asymmetric Warfare: The First Three Thousand Years

 Asymmetric Warfare: The First Three Thousand Years By Marcia Pally  ·  Thursday, April 27, 2017 The thoughts below were first presented at the 2017 Telos Paul Piccone Institute conference, “Asymmetrical Warfare: The Centrality of the Political to the Strategic.”   On the perhaps naïve […]