Imagine it’s a bright and pleasant Sunday morning. You walk through the doors of your church and are greeted by familiar faces, friendly handshakes, and warm coffee. The service is an uplifting refuge from a challenging week full of difficulties at home and at work. You sing songs and read scripture in unison as you feel a powerful sense of connection with your church community in this weekly ritual. You listen to your pastor’s sermon and regain a spiritual awareness and meaning that was lost in the week’s rat race and turbulent headlines. Perhaps you make plans with your church friends to...

“I wear two hats, one representing the people of Israel, the other representing the Jewish people around the world." These are the words I was instructed to write into more remarks than I can remember over my eight and a half years working as the Strategic Outreach Director for the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest United States. Carefully consider the gravity of that statement. The more time I spent conducting interfaith outreach efforts for the Israeli government, the more confused I felt about Judaism as a religion, its nature as an ethnic identity, how the contemporary state...

Though I do not personally identify as a libertarian, one of the things I admire about libertarians is their emphasis on protecting individual rights. Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are among our most important rights. I’ve made no secret about not being a fan of religion, and I do think we need to be able to honestly criticize bad ideas. I could easily write this article to be a brutal condemnation of radical Islam and its danger to society; but to do so would be to tread on well-trodden territory. When it comes to how we treat our neighbors and fellow citizens, there are...