Progressive Spirit

This week on Religion For Life, my guest is Rev. Carol Howard Merritt.  She is the author of Tribal Church:  Ministering to the Missing Generation and Reframing Hope:  Vital Ministry In A New Generation.   She is part of my "Future of Faith" series and has insights on ministry with a new generation.   You can hear her on her radio podcast, God Complex Radio, and follow her blog, Tribal Church.Rev. Merritt will be the Theologian In Residence at Tusculum College in February 2013.   She will offer lectures on these issues every Tuesday in February from 10 am to 1:30 pm.  These lectures are free and open to the public.    Here is more information about the series of lectures and a registration form.

This week Brian McLaren asks an age old riddle.   His new book is entitled, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammad Cross the Road?  Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World.   In this engaging and candid conversation, Dr. McLaren talks to me about the challenge and hope of religious pluralism.   If the followers of our religious traditions behaved toward one another like our founders would, we would all be more gracious toward one another.   He talks about his own journey including the importance of taking risks for justice and conscience.  Don't miss Brian McLaren on Religion For Life!

What happens when you bring the historical Jesus to church? In other words, if we strip away the myth from the man and develop a community based on humanistic principles, what would it look like? It might look like the Quest Learning Centre for Religious Literacy, a community founded on the historical Jesus, in Hamilton, Ontario. My guest, Dr. David Galston, is the leader of this community. He is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar and the author of an exciting new book, Embracing the Human Jesus: A Wisdom Path for Contemporary Christianity. David speaks with me about his book, his community, and explores the phrase, "post-atheism." It is part of my "future of faith" series on Religion For Life!

My "Future of Faith" series continues with Diana Butler Bass, author of Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. She reminds us that the religious structures in which we live were founded on corporate models and they are crumbling. Faith, however, is taking vibrant new forms that is far less interested in dogma and hierarchical structures and more interested in practices that sustain and heal one another and Earth.  Join us for this forward thinking conversation on Religion For Life!

Dr. Brene Brown has done research on topics no one wants to discuss, shame and vulnerability. Yet it is through these human experiences that we find the courage to "dare greatly" and become "wholehearted." She has been featured on TED, The Power of Vulnerability, and Listening to Shame.   She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Daring Greatly.   In this candid conversation she weaves her own experience with her research and thus inspires us all to live courageous lives.

Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence and Emergence Christianity, is an historian of religion and a native of Johnson City, Tennessee.  She is so filled with information and insight that she is my guest for two programs on Religion For Life.   In this second program she talks with me about how Christian communities are changing regarding authority, technology, and empire.    She also talks about growing up in Johnson City and the importance of Balaam's Ass.   It is part of my “future of faith” series!

Phyllis Tickle, author of The Great Emergence and Emergence Christianity, is an historian of religion and a native of Johnson City, Tennessee.  She is so filled with information and insight that she is my guest for the next two programs on Religion For Life.   She provides a whirlwind tour of the history of Christianity and says that we are in the middle of a big whoopie in regards to cultural and religious change.   It is part of my "future of faith" series! 

David Kinnaman of the Barna Group is my guest on Religion For Life.  He is an evangelical and he talks candidly about why young people are leaving the Christian faith.   His research and reflections have been published in two books, You Lost Me:  Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church...and Rethinking Faith and unChristian:  What  a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity...and Why It Matters.    He is my first guest in my "Future of Faith" series.

Film director, Paul Verhoeven has directed over 16 films including  blockbusters such as Robocop, Basic Instinct, and Total Recall.   He has a new film on the horizon about the historical Jesus!  He has already written the book, Jesus of Nazareth.  For twenty years, Verhoeven has deliberated with the Jesus Seminar and finally is ready to put the fruits of his efforts onto the big screen.  He talks with me about his book, Jesus, and his upcoming film on Religion For Life.

Tory Mills, External Affairs Coordinator of Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee. She will talk about the work of Planned Parenthood including the new health center in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind:  Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.  Haidt's newest book is about one of the hottest topics in the sciences - morality. It’s about how we evolved to live in moral “matrices,” which bind us together around sacred values and then blind us to the truth. It’s about righteousness, moral diversity, politics and religion.

Debbie Shields, Kathy Haga and Ellie Novak-Scoffield, are hospital chaplains for the Mountain States Health Alliance. They speak about the important healing work of hospital chaplains for Pastoral Care Week. Pastoral Care Week gives opportunities for organizations and institutions of all kinds and types to recognize the spiritual caregivers in their midst and the ministry which the caregivers provide.

Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education will be in Nashville October 27th.  The title of her presentation is "Why the Tennessee Academic Freedom Act Matters to YOU."    She is my guest on Religion For Life to discuss this legislation, offer history and insights to the evolution/creationism controversy, and promote the teaching of science.

Physicist Lawrence Krauss talks about his new book, A Universe From Nothing:  Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing.    The book arose from the response to this Youtube lecture that has received over a million and one half views.    He describes the universe without any recourse to "supernatural shenanigans."   Join us for a fascinating and lively conversation about the universe as science reveals it!

My guest this week on Religion For Life is Sam Jones who blogs at Tennessee Transitions. She is a community activist and advocate for transitioning our communities and our lives to the post-petroleum reality that is coming.  She speaks candidly about the issues that we are facing as well as the importance of living simply.

We are facing some huge issues, Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Environmental Crises, and according to my guest, James Howard Kunstler, we are addressing these events with magical thinking. The author of The Long Emergency speaks engagingly and honestly with me about our future, in his latest book, Too Much Magic:  Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation.  The Independent writes: "If you give a damn, you should read this book."  Likewise, you should listen to this interview!

This week on Religion For Life we get the down and dirty on sin.   Where did this idea come and from and why and how did it develop?  Dr. Paula Fredriksen, The Aurelia Professor of Scripture Emerita at Boston University, is my guest.  She talks about her new book, Sin:  The Early History of An Idea and traces the development of this idea from Jesus to Augustine.

In this conversation with John Michael Greer we discuss the "apocalypse meme." He is the author of Apocalypse Not: Everything You Know About 2012, Nostradamus, and the Rapture Is Wrong. Why is that human beings predict and even seem to desire an "end"?  Join us for this fascinating discussion of apocalyptic movements in history.Almost since the beginning of civilization, an insatiable willingness to believe has driven people to dream of the apocalypse that will replace the world they've got with the one they've always wanted.  All of these predictions have one thing in common:  everyone of them has been wrong. John Michael Greer talks to me about the "apocalypse meme" as well as some real things to concern ourselves about such as how we are managing our stewardship of Earth.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries between three and five thousand African-Americans were lynched in the South. They were lynched by white Christians. My guest, Dr. James Cone, the Charles Augustus Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, in his latest book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree makes the connection between the lynching of African-Americans and the execution of Jesus.  Listen to this important conversation about race and religion in America on Religion For Life.  Dr. Cone is the author of 12 books including Black Theology and Black Power and A Black Theology of Liberation.

Dr. Jay Mehta is a board member of the Regional Indian-American Community Center in Kingsport, Tennessee. Dr. Mehta spoke to me about the work of the center and about the tradition of Hinduism. In this engaging conversation on Religion For Life we discuss this intriguing spiritual path and how its vision of peace and tolerance can transform our society for the better.