This week on Beliefs, we return to a conversation with one of our favorite guests, scholar and writer Susan Jacoby.Secularism and atheism finds a full-throated defense in this episode. Jacoby takes us on a journey of where we were just one yea

Beliefs Archives: Protest and arrest - Rabbi Rachel Timoner on faith, reparations, protest, and justice

Jun 19th, 2020 19m 43s

From Our Archives: We revisit a conversation from our first season with the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim. She describes the clarity she feels from what she calls the unfinished business of America. Reparations for slavery, the rights of w

Quitting Liberty: Dr. Christopher A. House

Jun 12th, 2020 22m 9s

Speaker, Pastor and Scholar Dr. Christopher A. House resigned from Liberty University recently in protest of President Jerry Falwell Jr’s deleted tweet featuring both blackface and KKK characters.To speak to us about the moment when belief bec

Black Voices Matter: with Jemar Tisby, Pastor Tyler Burns, and guest host national reporter Adelle Banks

Jun 5th, 2020 39m 27s

Writer and historian Jemar Tisby, Pastor Tyler Burns of New Dimensions Christian Center in Pensacola, Florida co-host the podcast Pass The Mic for their organization The Witness - A Black Christian Collective. We gratefully thank Religion News

The call for congregation

May 29th, 2020 23m 48s

The steady call to reopen churches –amplified by Presidential encouragement- is thrilling to some and alarming others. How do we return to worship when the act of group singing, chanting, and praying can be so dangerous? How can churches

Al & Andi Tauber: Street ministry into song

May 22nd, 2020 28m 23s

A ministry of song and service, with devotion to the most invisible among us. The husband and wife singer-songwriting team of Al and Andi Tauber, Urban Mennonites: They seek and value the simple life – in much the same way as their Amish and

The ritual of remains.

May 15th, 2020 30m 18s

We all have Beliefs on where our soul goes upon death. What remains is just that – remains. How do we honor the vessel that held the person we used to know? From earth to water, and even to the sky, delivering the body back to dust contai

America leans in to faith

May 8th, 2020 28m 20s

To understand who we are, and what our numbers signify, we turn to the math, to the staticians. Some among us combine psychology, algebra, opinion, and faith to read the rivers of American opinion. Greg Smith is associate director of

Progressive faith and politics

May 1st, 2020 28m 13s

For decades, the political influence of faith has been seen in the might and the dominance of the Religious Right. A new book from Religion News Service political correspondent Jack Jenkins called American Prophets, The Religious Roots of

The Strength of Self: James Croft and the Ethical Society of St. Louis

Apr 24th, 2020 38m 44s

Houses of worship across the world are adapting to the challenges of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Keeping congregants feeling tied to their faith, themselves, and one another has been a challenge felt by all. But what if faith isn't at the

The case for Interfaith America with Eboo Patel

Apr 17th, 2020 16m 46s

On Feb. 3, 1943, the U.S.A.T. Dorchester - carrying 902 service men, merchant seamen and civilian workers was sunk in the cold Atlantic. Among those lost were four Army chaplains whose rescue efforts became the foundation of post-war interfa

God in the time of coronavirus, part II- with Sister Norma Pimintel

Apr 10th, 2020 17m 19s

Last episode we spoke to Father James Martin to ask simple questions about God, suffering, and the pandemic. His episode is the anchor of a daisy chain of conversations taking us around the world – faith to faith, place to place. Father Ma

God in the time of coronavirus - with Father James Martin, S.J.

Apr 3rd, 2020 14m 2s

It’s a personal note from me this week. Not usually appropriate for news the way I prefer it, but these are very different times. My friend Father James Martin wrote a short piece that ran in the New York Times called, ‘Where Is God In A Pandem

Ethics for humans: Professor Christine Firer Hinze

Mar 27th, 2020 25m 7s

Asking how ethics occur naturally, or emerge through faith takes us to speak to Professor Christine Firer Hinze. Hinze is a professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University and the director of the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American

The Dorothy Day Story: A conversation with documentary filmmaker Martin Doblmeier

Mar 20th, 2020 27m 44s

This week's guest, Martin Doblmeier, is a documentary filmmaker specializing in content touching on faith, religion, and spirituality. He joined me for a discussion on his recent PBS film: "Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story”.

Bishop John Michael Botean and the Romanian Catholic Church

Mar 13th, 2020 33m 25s

Bishop John Michael Botean is the head of the Eparchy of St. George in Canton, Ohio. Botean's diocese, which permits priests to marry, is the only one of its kind outside of Romania. This week on Beliefs, host Bill Baker interviews Botean at hi

How to be uncomfortable: faith and toxic perfectionism

Mar 6th, 2020 28m 58s

Jana Riess is a senior commentator and author of the popular column, Flunking Sainthood for Religion News Service. Sharing her personal experience with writing critical commentary on an aspect of her Church’s teachings, Riess stumbled into a

Satanic pregnancies and other misconceptions

Feb 28th, 2020 33m 32s

Spiritual advisor to President Trump Paula White was recently filmed in her church giving a sermon that employed idiosyncratic and fiery rhetoric. What is the new language of spiritual warfare? Where is it coming from and where is it taking us?

The Voice Of The Bible - with Narrator Stephen Johnston

Feb 21st, 2020 28m 34s

Stephen Johnston has narrated and sold more translations of the Bible than any other person in history. He graduated from college with a BA in Radio and Television and planned to become a news announcer. In 1976 he was approached about narratin

Into The Dark - A Conversation With Thanatologist Rev. Mary Bredlau

Feb 14th, 2020 36m 7s

The Rev. Mary Bredlau officiates 350 to 500 funerals a year.For Bredlau, an Episcopal priest and former Roman Catholic nun, there’s nothing more important than this painful ministry. Bredlau is a thanatologist, certified by the Association of

Fighting Apathy And Sustaining Congregational Leadership

Feb 7th, 2020 33m 45s

Author and minister Rebekah Simon-Peter presents a bold vision for houses of worship seeking to embody the heroic spirit of Jesus. Her ambitious model for deepening the spiritual engagement of entire congregations has produced her recent book,

A Yogi For The West – Paramahansa Yogananda & The Self-Realization Fellowship

Jan 31st, 2020 2m 1s

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the arrival in America of Paramahansa Yogananda – widely considered to be the father of yoga in the West. Yogananda devoted his life to traveling and speaking across America, bringing a message of spirit

Harrowing Legacy - Auschwitz, 75 Years Later

Jan 24th, 2020 18m 56s

Around 9am on January 27th, 1945, the Red Army liberated the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in south-western Poland. Over 1 million Jews and tens of thousands of others were killed at this sprawling complex of 48 concentration and extermina

Hinduphobia: Fighting bias at home and abroad

Jan 17th, 2020 28m 37s

India: a nation of 1.3 billion souls in an area a third the size of America.An ancient civilization with ancient traditions, deities, and beliefs. Often, amid the Western media political stories of Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim discriminat

Adapt or Die: Religious Evolution and Human History

Jan 10th, 2020 21m 41s

Observations on religion and faith on an international stage.Finding the ways that religion has served people through history, but also finding ways that religion makes itself irrelevant. That's what our guest is exploring this week.Since ret