{"id":178,"date":"2005-09-14T01:04:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-14T08:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=178"},"modified":"2005-09-14T01:04:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-14T08:04:00","slug":"two_religions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2005\/09\/two_religions\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Religions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Stites, a former editor at <em>The Chicago Tribune<\/em> and <em>The Kansas City Star<\/em>, also edited the fine magazine <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jazzdiscography.com\/JazzMag\/one.htm\"target=\"_blank\">Jazz<\/a><\/em>, which published from 1976 to 1981. <em>Jazz <\/em>featured some of the best writers on the subject, including Dan Morgenstern, Ira Gitler, Tom Piazza, Bob Blumenthal, Leonard Feather, Sy Johnson, Peter Keepnews and Stites himself. The magazine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approach was serious but not pompous. It avoided the fanzine excesses and shallowness of too much jazz journalism, and it got beneath the surface of the music into its essence. Based on quality, it deserved to succeed, but after an impressive run, it died. Stites went back to newspapers for a while and then took a job as editor of the magazine of the Unitarian Universalist religious denomination. A friend of his says that Stites is probably the only person alive who has edited the magazines of both his religions.<br \/>\nI winced a bit when I saw the title of an article Stites wrote for <em>UUWorld<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Improvisational Faith:Jazz and Unitarian Universalist Thelology\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut  a few paragraphs in, skepticism faded that this would be another exercise in the church-goes-pop movement that has produced weak theology and weak music. It was thoughtful, provocative and, somehow, reassuring. Regardless of your religious orientation or non-orientation, you may find it interesting. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6both jazz and Unitarian Universalism are inclusive rather than exclusive. Everybody is welcome, and everybody is welcome to improvise. In jazz, improvisation means spontaneous composition of music in the moment it is played. In Unitarian Universalism, it means that each of us must search for our own truth and meaning\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand, like jazz players, we draw from many sources of inspiration. And neither jazz nor Unitarian Universalist improvisation is for the faint-hearted. It requires real courage to take responsibility for our own religious lives, both as individuals and as congregations. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To read all of Tom Stites\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s piece, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uuworld.org\/2003\/05\/feature1.html\"target=\"_blank\">go here<\/a>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good to know that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing, and where to find him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Stites, a former editor at The Chicago Tribune and The Kansas City Star, also edited the fine magazine Jazz, which published from 1976 to 1981. Jazz featured some of the best writers on the subject, including Dan Morgenstern, Ira Gitler, Tom Piazza, Bob Blumenthal, Leonard Feather, Sy Johnson, Peter Keepnews and Stites himself. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}