Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, welcomed into his home a university professor who had asked to see him. The professor arrived, answered the master’s simple, polite greeting with a brusque, arrogant reply, and strode past him into the house….

Once upon a time, two sisters lived side by side. They both owned farms: One grew the sweetest grapes for miles around, the other raised vegetables. A small creek ran between the two farms. For decades, the sisters were as close as could be….

From The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.Genesis, Chapter 12, Verses 1-9 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred an…

The following account is one young person’s encounter with a fundamentalist extremist group. In June of 1998, I lost an uncle to an AIDS related illness. He was brilliant, he was Christian, and he was gay. I was only five years old when he died and I didn’t know anything about AIDS. I just knew I…

Excerpted, with permission, from an article by Greg Damhorst posted February 15, 2011 on the Faith Line Protestants website. Read the full article online: “Feeding the Hungry: an Example that Compels us Toward Interfaith Work.”Just over a year ago I was on a train home to visit my parents in the…

At the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, Minnesota, people of all ages carry their own Passport to Justice. They are on a journey to help others….

The Reverend James Jones was a charismatic young man of 24 when he founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. He preached racial equality, and, amazingly, more than half the Peoples Temple members were of racial minorities—a level of diversity almost unheard of in the 1950s. The church…

Remarkable women have done remarkable things in every part of the world in every time in history. Most of their accomplishments were not recorded in history books….

Mary McCarthy’s parents died in the influenza epidemic of 1918 when she was six years old. She lived first with an aunt and uncle, who mistreated her cruelly, then was taken in by her maternal grandparents in Seattle. Her grandmother was Jewish and her grandfather Episcopalian, but to honor the…

Born in 1793, Lucretia Mott was raised a Quaker in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The faith had made inroads on that island almost a century before when Mary Starbuck, a prominent woman merchant and civic leader, discovered that Quakers espoused the equality of the sexes. Still, even the Quakers had…

Lydia Maria Child is not as famous now as she was when she lived— famous as a radical and reformer, a brilliant thinker and author, and a tireless advocate for oppressed members of society, specifically Native Americans, children, Africans and African Americans held in slavery, and women. Lydia…

NARRATOR: Martin Luther was born in 1483 in what is now Germany. He was christened in the Roman Catholic Church, like everyone else in the Holy Roman Empire, which stretched through most of Europe at the time. He received his doctorate in theology from Wittenberg University in 1512. Five years…

From Hebrew scripture, the Book of Exodus….

Based on a story of indigenous people of Australia/New Zealand.There was a time when everything was still. All the spirits of the Earth were asleep—or almost all. The great Sun Mother was awake, and as she opened her eyes a warm ray of light spread out toward the sleeping Earth. “Ah!” the Sun…

A traditional Jataka tale from the Buddhist tradition. Note: The banyan tree is also known as the bodhi tree. Kings come in all shapes and sizes. A true king, however, is known not just because of the crown on his head, but because he is compassionate and rules in the best interest of his subjects.

Mother Earth, unable to bear the burden of the sins committed by evil kings and rulers, appealed to Brahma, the Creator, for help. Brahma prayed to Supreme Lord Vishnu, who assured Brahma that Vishnu himself would soon be born on earth to annihilate tyrannical forces….

Based on a European Jewish folk tale.Once there was a woman who lived in a simple village. She had a simple life, with few needs. One night, she had a dream. She dreamed a treasure was buried under a bridge far away, in the capital city. The dream did not feel like a dream at all….

The Catanna website published by Catresea Ann Canivan was a source for this story and offers deep information about Paganism. Come with me on a journey—a journey that is as old as time itself. Repeated so often, the earth knows the rhythm and follows it, like a cosmic dance. First steps of the…

Adapted from Christian scripture, New Revised Standard Version.Jesus of Nazareth, baby of a poor Jewish family, was born in a stable in Bethlehem in the region of Galilee. His parents, Mary and Joseph, had traveled there as required by law for the Roman census….

Arabia in the sixth century was dangerous and chaotic. [Leader: On a map or globe, indicate Arabian Peninsula, sweeping over Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya.] There were shortages of food and other goods, which led many to steal. A few people were rich, but most were very poor. The…

The name “Buddha” means “enlightened one” or “awakened one.” However, the founder of the Buddhist religion was not born enlightened. He was born Siddhartha Gautama, son of King Suddodana and Queen Maya, rulers of Kapilavastu, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas in 566 BCE….

A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. The man fled, running as fast as he could go, with the tiger chasing fiercely after him. The man came to the edge of the field. It was a cliff! He leaned over the edge of the cliff, grabbed a vine, and swung down against the cliff face. The tiger…

How did an American religion that began with a boy praying in the woods become, in less than 200 years, a major world religion? How did a story as surprising as his—of Jesus visiting the Americas and modern-day Native Americans descending from the Hebrews—gain acceptance by 13 million people…