About this project

This project started with a conversation, held while confused and concerned about whether recent events and the ideology being talked about squared with basic morality and with foundational American values. The habit behind it is an old one: ask questions, do your own research, and form your own opinion rather than borrowing one.

Project Middle Ground takes the questions that arise and looks at them through the actual lens of both religious texts and the founding documents of the United States. It is a no-spin assessment without a lean — not a religious position, not a political one.

That said, every reference is called out. Please go to the source material itself and validate it. You can see motivation or bias in the questions asked, and it's likely your own opinion or the teachings you've absorbed will differ somewhere. That's fine. The texts are the arbiter, not this site.

We're in an opinionated and divisive time with a lot of manipulation going on. What this project tries to bring to light is the general middle of these issues from a moral, ethical, religious, and founding-documents perspective — the ground that most traditions and most of the founders would recognize.

If you disagree with something here, just know this is the middle. Your stance is likely to one side of it, and possibly far to that side. If you want to have conversations with people, starting in the middle is a good entry point, and discussing why your stance differs from it is a better conversation than most of the ones happening right now.

How each question is handled

Every one of the 161 questions gets the same treatment, laid out side by side:

• Religious perspectives — what Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and where relevant Hinduism and Indigenous traditions teach in their own primary texts. Chapter-and-verse citations are linked so you can read the passage in context.
• Constitutional and legal framework — what the Constitution, its amendments, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, statutes, and Supreme Court opinions actually say, linked to the annotated Constitution and the opinions.
• Bottom line — where the two readings converge, and where they don't. Where a reasonable counter-argument exists, it's stated.

Questions are added as events warrant. The original conversation that started the project is preserved unchanged.

Read the source texts

All of these are free.

Core principle

Lift others up. Don't tear them down.

Thank you for taking the time to ask questions, gather information, ponder, and form your own opinion.