Welcome back to our America at 250 series on faith, in which Free Press writers reflect on belief, history, and the freedoms that shape American life. You can catch up on what we’ve published so far, including Meir Soloveichik on why biblical faith lies at the origin of American equality, here.
Today, Matthew Walther, editor of Catholic literary journal “The Lamp,” explores what he calls the “attic” of American religious history: the Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, and Swedenborgians who helped pave the way for our modern religious pluralism. That pluralism, Walther writes, is wild, weird, and inherently paradoxical—and it is the very lifeblood of this nation. —The Editors
In the land that the Native Americans called “the place of the bad smell,” a great city arose by the lake, and in this city was a golden hall, and in this hall, in the presence of the sage who had come from Serendip, the Island of Dharma, the merchant bowed and pledged himself to the Awakened One.
