Religion and the Public Square with Alan Wolfe, The Rev. Jim Wallis, Nancy Gibbs, Reza Aslan and Rabbi Irwin Kula speaking at the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival. Jon Meacham moderates the panel.
In this, its third year, Aspen Ideas Festival once again gathers scientists, artists, politicians, historians, educators, activists, and other great thinkers around some of the most important and fascinating ideas of our time. As these thinkers present their provocative ideas, they engage a sophisticated and highly motivated audience.
Bio
Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan is a writer and scholar of religions.
Born in Iran, Aslan is currently a research associate at the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy. He was a visiting assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Iowa and the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
A frequent commentator on television, radio, and in print, Aslan is a graduate of Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of Iowa. He is the author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam and How to Win a Cosmic War: Why We're Losing the War on Terror.
Nancy Gibbs
Nancy Gibbs is Time's executive editor, having been promoted in March 2010 by managing editor Rick Stengel. Named by The Chicago Tribune as one of the ten best magazine writers in the country, she is the author of more than 100 Time cover stories and regular essays and profiles.
Gibbs was Time's lead writer on virtually every major news event from the Oklahoma City bombing to Columbine to Hurricane Katrina, and won the National Magazine Award for her coverage in the black-bordered special edition about Sept. 11, 2001. When the news is quiet, she has focused on stories and essays exploring the intersections of religion, values and politics.
A frequent guest on radio and television talk shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, Gibbs co-authored The Preacher and the Presidents, a book about Billy Graham which served as the basis for her 2007 Chautauqua lecture. Her writing is included in The Princeton Anthology of Writing, Best Political Writing 2004 and numerous writing textbooks. She has twice served as the Ferris Professor at Princeton, where she taught a seminar on "Politics and the Press."
Gibbs graduated from Yale summa cum laude with honors in history, and has a degree in politics and philosophy from Oxford, where she was a Marshall scholar.
Rabbi Irwin Kula
Irwin Kula is the president of CLAL - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Author of Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life (2006), which won a "Books for a Better Life Award," Rabbi Kula was featured in the public TV special, "The Hidden Wisdom of Our Yearnings."
Named by both Fast Company magazine and Religion and Ethics Newsweekly (PBS) as one of the new leaders shaping the American spiritual landscape, he is the co-host of KXL's weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula (Portland, OR), is a regular on The Today Show, and is often quoted in the press. He is an eighth-generation rabbi.
Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham is the editor of Newsweek and the author of Franklin and Winston and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
Rev. Jim Wallis
Jim Wallis is founder of the Sojourners Community, a 30-year-old Christian ministry focused on social justice and peace, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, which covers faith, politics, and culture.
He is a speaker, author, activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. In 1995, Wallis was instrumental in forming Call to Renewal, a national federation of churches, denominations, and faith-based organizations from across the theological and political spectrum working to overcome poverty.
Wallis's columns frequently appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major newspapers. His most recent book is God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It; he has authored five in total.
He offers regular commentary and analysis for radio and television and teaches a course at Harvard University called "Faith, Politics, and Society."
Alan Wolfe
Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
His most recent books include Does American Democracy Still Work? (Yale University Press, 2006), Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What it Needs to Do to Recover It (Princeton University Press, 2005), The Transformation of American Religion: How We actually Practice our Faith (Free Press, 2003), and An Intellectual in Public (University of Michigan Press, 2003).
Relation of human beings to God or the gods or to whatever they consider sacred or, in some cases, merely supernatural. Archaeological evidence suggests that religious beliefs have existed since the first human communities. They are generally shared by a community, and they express the communal culture and values through myth, doctrine, and ritual. Worship is probably the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions also constitute elements of the religious life. Religions attempt to answer basic questions intrinsic to the human condition (Why do we suffer? Why is there evil in the world? What happens to us when we die?) through the relationship to the sacred or supernatural or (e.g., in the case of Buddhism) through perception of the true nature of reality. Broadly speaking, some religions (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are outwardly focused, and others (e.g., Jainism, Buddhism) are inwardly focused.
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