Progressive Spirit

Here is advice you don't often hear from clergy:  never pray again!  If you have ever wondered about the point (or pointlessness) of prayer, you'll find these friars to be fellow travelers.  My guests, Aric Clark, Doug Hagler, and Nick Larson are Two Friars and A Fool (Twitter, Facebook) and have authored a book, Never Pray Again!  Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get to Work!   They encourage us to turn prayer into action and they speak candidly about their own struggles with the concept of prayer.

We are familiar with the War Pentagon on the Potomac. In Southwest Virginia a building is under construction that could be more powerful, the Peace Pentagon. Laura George, executive director of The Oracle Institute speaks with me about a fascinating new community that is "an advocate for peace and a vanguard for conscious evolution."

Author of Leaving Church and An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor takes us on a tour of the dark places in her latest lyrical book, Learning to Walk in the Dark.  She explores real and metaphorical darkness and confronts the fear of that darkness.  She urges us to feel around in the dark whether that darkness be grief, doubt, or the unknown and rather than light it up, be present with it.  Join us on a journey in the dark!

Singer/songwriter/poet Carrie Newcomer has a new album A Permeable Life (Facebook).  Accompanying her cd is a book, A Permeable Life: Poems and Essays. She spoke with me on Religion For Life about the cd, songwriting, what she has learned from her dog, spirituality, building community, and keeping hopeful!  You'll love it!

I continue my conversation about the Book of Acts.   This week I speak with Dennis Smith, New Testament Professor at Phillips Theological Seminary, chair of the Acts Seminar and co-editor of Acts and Christian Beginnings:  The Acts Seminar Report.   The Acts Seminar spent ten years analyzing the Book of Acts from an historical perspective.   They made some important conclusions.  Here is a top ten list!   Bottom line:  Acts is a second-century myth of Christian origins.  They are ready to shake up scholarship and they invite critical response.

Is the Book of Acts in the New Testament history or myth?  For the next two weeks I speak with the two co-chairs of the Acts Seminar, Joseph Tyson and Dennis Smith. For ten years the Westar Institute has evaluated the historicity of the Book of Acts. They have produced Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report.  They have made some important conclusions. Here is a top ten list. This week I speak with Dr. Tyson of Southern Methodist University about his take on Acts and the Acts Seminar.

Charles "Chuck" Shingledecker cares about religion and about matters of faith.  He cares so much that he is willing to engage in the honest searching tradition of apophatic theology.  The fruit of this search is his book, Freedom to Doubt.   He puts his inquiring mind to work doubting biblical stories and theological doctrines and shows that doubt, not fear, is the beginning of wisdom.

Fed up with the arrogance, intolerance, and absolutism of religion? Rev. Martin Thielen, pastor of the Cookeville United Methodist Church in Cookeville, Tennessee is too.   But he says that is not what religion has to be.  He makes the case for good religion in his latest book, The Answer to Bad Religion is Not No Religion:  A Guide to Good Religion for Seekers, Skeptics, and Believers.  Join us for a candid conversation about religion, good and bad!

Why is the South so religious?   Why is it the Bible Belt?  Do begin to answer that complex question we need to go back to Colonial times before the First Great Awakening.  Dr. Thomas Little is associate professor of history at Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virginia and the author of The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism:  Religious Revivalism in the South Carolina Low Country, 1670-1760.   He spoke with me about the early history of religious revival in the South.

Dr. Blaine Schubert is the Director of the ETSU Museum of Natural History and Gray Fossil Site (Facebook, Twitter) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at East Tennessee State University.    We participated in a panel for Darwin Day earlier this year.  I invited him to speak with me on Religion For Life.  We discussed caves, the Cave Paleontology Program at ETSU, the fossil site and natural history museum at Gray, the importance of science education, evolution, Richard Dawkins, and spirituality!

In the second of my four-part series on Israel/Palestine, I speak with Jonathan Kuttab of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center.   He is a human rights attorney and Palestinian Christian.  He spoke to me about the Palestinian experience under Israeli occupation, the BDS movement, and Zionism Unsettled.   This is his keynote address to Friends of Sabeel in April 2013.

Rachel Fish is Associate Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University.   She is an educator and consultant and teaches about Zionism and Israeli history.   In this first of four broadcasts on Israel/Palestine she discusses the work of the Schusterman Center, her Ph. D. thesis on the history of Bi-Nationalism, and the history of Zionism.

In this fourth of my four-part series on Israel/Palestine I speak with Rabbi Brant Rosen of Jewish Voices for Peace.   The actions of Israel against Gaza in 2008 caused in him a change of heart which in turn made him revisit what Israel means to him.  He chronicled this change in his blog Shalom Rav.  This series of blog posts and comments became his book, Wrestling in the Daylight:  A Rabbi's Path to Palestinian Solidarity.  He discusses that book and why as a Jew he needs to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.

This is the third of my four-part series on Israel/Palestine.  I continue my conversation with Rachel Fish, Associate Director of the Schusterman Center for Israeli Studies at Brandeis University.  She speaks about Zionism Unsettled, the BDS movement, and defends the ideal of Israel as a Jewish state.

Sister Paula Gonzales is known as the "Solar Nun" for transforming a huge chicken barn into a solar home.  She is 81 years old and a Sister of Charity in Cincinnati.  She also has a Ph. D. in Biology and has given over 1900 presentations on energy, ecology, and ecospirituality.  She visited the Tri-Cities in April as a guest of Carol Landis and the Green Interfaith Network (Facebook).  I caught up with this remarkable person on Religion For Life to discuss ecospirituality.

Ken Wilson is Senior Pastor of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan.  He recently published A Letter to My Congregation:  An evangelical pastor's path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender into the company of Jesus.     He speaks to me on Religion For Life about how he came to see things and people differently.   He speaks candidly about his struggle to be authentic, the cost of change, and why it is worth it.

Jon Camp reached a milestone this Spring.  On March 28th, 2014 on the campus of the University of Georgia, he handed out his one millionth booklet.  For the past ten years he has been seeking to end cruelty to animals one flier at at time.   He finished this Spring's tour at the ETSU campus.  I caught up  with him and we talked about the work of Vegan Outreach, factory farms, and the importance of changing attitudes and practices toward animals.

Just in time for Easter, an historian's look at Jesus and how he was turned into a divine figure by those who believed in him.   Bart Ehrman (Facebook, Twitter) returns to Religion For Life to discuss his new book, How Jesus Became God:  The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.  This book is a fascinating look at the theological development of the Jewish preacher, Jesus.   We talk about the various ways ancients thought about the divine as well as how Jesus was believed to fit those models and how visions borne of grief turned into proclamations of resurrection.   Join me as I speak with one of the foremost scholars of the historical Jesus!

Chris Stedman (Facebook, Twitter) is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and the author of Faitheist:  How An Atheist Found Common Ground with The Religious.   He spoke to me on Religion For Life about coming out, his journey through religion, embracing atheism, and what he learned from his grandmother!

Religion needs an upgrade.   Galen Guengerich, senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City has authored a book to help religion on its evolving journey.  God Revised:  How Religion Must Evolve in A Scientific Age engages the question of God.    How to speak of God beyond supernatural theism.