Note About This Issue Charles P. Henderson This issue of CrossCurrents falls into two parts. The first part, on the topic, “Jewish Liturgy,” consists of a paper delivered by Catherine Madsen at a recent conference on Jewish Renaissances at the University of Virginia. The transcript of her presentation is followed by a series of responses by people who will be familiar to our readers. Reading this set of articles as a Christian, I see a number of parallels, if not a total match, with the similar, often agonizing struggle over “creative liturgy” within many Christian denominations. Such conversations have echoed in the sanctuaries and board rooms of congregations and denominational offices around the world for several decades and continue to do so today. And there are few topics more important for Christians, as well as Jews, to be engaged in. For liturgy lies at the heart and center of who we are as peoples, not only shaping our identity, but informing the ways in which we relate to each other within our diverse communities, as well as with the various publics we encounter every day. The second part of this issue flows seamlessly from the first, moving out from the context of the sanctuary toward the broader civil society, and to the realm of politics in particular. Here we venture out from the more personal and subjective realm of the poet, toward those more public, contentious struggles over race, class, and how we negotiate our differences to become a people. Finally, Gary Dorrien sets the stage for the 2012 presidential election with his sweeping analysis of the Obama administration and its critics. By no means an apology for the often disappointing policies and decisions of this president’s first term, Dorrien instead frames a positive agenda for a second Obama administration, one which could, quite possibly, move us forward, absent the constraints associated with anxiety about the likelihood of reelection. © 2012 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life