Abrams, David. "How a Man Turned Into a Raven." To the Best of Our Knowledge (November 20, 2021) ["Years ago, the animist philosopher David Abram was a sleight-of-hand magician who wanted to learn from the "traditional magicians" of Asia. So he apprenticed with a powerful shaman in Nepal, who seemed to have the ability to transform into a raven. What Abram experienced was its own life-changing kind of magic."]
Alberta, Tim. "COVID, Trump, Q-ANON: Evangelical Extremism." Breaking Points (December 9, 2023) ["Krystal and Saagar are joined by author Tim Alberta to talk about his new book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism." Book description: "Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal. For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD. Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing. Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?"]
Armstrong, Karen. "The Lost Art of Scripture." Radio West (December 31, 2020) ["Sacred text – with their often ambiguous wording and metaphorical meanings – are ready-made for differing interpretations from various groups. In her book, The Lost Art of Scripture, Karen looks into the history of these texts, showing how religious practitioners' relationships with them have changed, and how many of us have lost sight of what they were originally written for."]
Baheyeldin, Khalid, et al. "The Book of Dune." Imaginary Worlds (July 12, 2017) ["Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune and its sequels tackled a lot of big themes. The books are about ecology. They’re about journeys of self-realization through mind-altering substances. But religion is at the core of the series, since the main character Paul Atreides transforms from a teenage aristocrat into a messianic revolutionary leader of a nomadic desert tribe. And the real world religion that Frank Herbert borrows from the most is Islam. Khalid Baheyeldin, Salman Sayyid, and Sami Shah discuss why the book resonated deeply with them, despite the fact that Frank Herbert wasn’t Muslim. And Liel Liebowitz explains why the novel even spoke to him as an Israeli."]
Bass, Diana Butler. "Grateful." The Distillery Season #1 (2017) ["In this episode, Diana Butler Bass reimagines gratitude by examining two primary approaches: the self-help approach and the ethical approach. Acknowledging her inner ingrate, she critiques social systems of gratitude and turns to envision how we might become more grateful individuals and communities."]
Batchelor, Stephen. Confessions of an Atheist Buddhist. Random House, 2010. ["Written with the same brilliance and boldness that made Buddhism Without Beliefs a classic in its field, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist is Stephen Batchelor's account of his journey through Buddhism, which culminates in a groundbreaking new portrait of the historical Buddha. Stephen Batchelor grew up outside London and came of age in the 1960s. Like other seekers of his time, instead of going to college he set off to explore the world. Settling in India, he eventually became a Buddhist monk in Dharamsala, the Tibetan capital-in-exile, and entered the inner circle of monks around the Dalai Lama. He later moved to a monastery in South Korea to pursue intensive training in Zen Buddhism. Yet the more Batchelor read about the Buddha, the more he came to believe that the way Buddhism was being taught and practiced was at odds with the actual teachings of the Buddha himself. Charting his journey from hippie to monk to lay practitioner, teacher, and interpreter of Buddhist thought, Batchelor reconstructs the historical Buddha's life, locating him within the social and political context of his world. In examining the ancient texts of the Pali Canon, the earliest record of the Buddha's life and teachings, Batchelor argues that the Buddha was a man who looked at human life in a radically new way for his time, more interested in the question of how human beings should live in this world than in notions of karma and the afterlife. According to Batchelor, the outlook of the Buddha was far removed from the piety and religiosity that has come to define much of Buddhism as we know it today. Both controversial and deeply personal, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist is a fascinating exploration of a religion that continues to engage the West. Batchelor's insightful, deeply knowledgeable, and persuasive account will be an essential book for anyone interested in Buddhism."]
---. "Finding Ease in Aloneness." On Being (September 23, 2021) ["One of the great challenges of life is to learn to be alone peaceably, at home in oneself. The pandemic forced many of us inside both physically and emotionally, even if we were not home on our own. We’ve been forced to work out the difference between loneliness and solitude. With teachers across the ages, and drawing on his life from monasticism to marriage, Buddhist writer and scholar Stephen Batchelor teaches how to approach solitude as a graceful and life-giving practice." Stephen Batchelor teaches seminars and leads meditation retreats worldwide. He’s a co-founder and faculty member of Bodhi College, which is focused on the study and practice of early Buddhism. His many books include Buddhism Without Beliefs, The Faith to Doubt, and most recently, The Art of Solitude.]
Beydoun, Khaled A. "What is Islamophobia?" American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear. University of California Press, 2018: 1-22.
Biagetti, Samuel. "Myth of the Month 4: Secularization -- or, Send in the Nones." Historiansplaining (June 11, 2019) ["Do societies become more "secular" as they become modern? Do science, technology, or democracy weaken religious belief? We consider theories of secularization ranging from Max Weber's story of "disenchantment" to Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age." Current survey data show a dramatic rise in the number of "nones" -- those who do not adhere to any particular religious group, even though most of them still pray, read scriptures, or express belief in God."]
Billet, Alexander. "Pussy Riot for the 99 percent: on the growing campaign to free jailed Russian feminist punk rock collective Pussy Riot." Socialist Worker (July 30, 2012: reposted on Dialogic with relevant videos)
Blaine, Barbara and Pam Spees. "New Vatican Rules On Handling Priest Sexual Abuse Cases." Law and Disorder Radio (February 25, 2013)
Blum, Edward, et al. "The Origins of America's White Jesus." On the Media (December 28, 2022) ["During this holiday season, you likely encountered public nativity scenes depicting the birth of Jesus, presenting the family with very rare exceptions as white. And the same can be said of his ubiquitous adult portrait –– with fair skin and hair a radiant gold, and eyes fixed on the middle distance. In this segment from 2020, Eloise talks to Mbiyu Chui, pastor at the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit, about unlearning Jesus's whiteness. She also hears from Edward Blum, author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America, about how the image came dominate in the U.S., and psychologist Simon Howard on how White Jesus has infiltrated our subconsciouses. Lastly, Eloise speaks to Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, womanist theologian and Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary, about the theology of the Black Christ."]
Boggs, Grace Lee. "Becoming Detroit: Grace Lee Boggs on Reimagining Work, Food, and Community." On Being (July 18, 2013)
Bothwell, Cecil. "Billy Graham and the Gospel of Fear." Counterpunch (February 21, 2018)
Botton, Alain de. "Wants a Religion for Atheists: Introducing Atheism 2.0." Open Culture (January 26, 2012)
Boyle, Greg. "The Calling of Delight: Gangs, Service, Kinship." On Being (February 26, 2013) ["A Jesuit priest famous for his gang intervention programs in Los Angeles, Fr. Greg Boyle makes winsome connections between service and delight, and compassion and awe. He heads Homeboy Industries, which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses. This is not work of helping, he says, but of finding kinship. The point of Christian service, as he lives it, is about “our common calling to delight in one another.”"]
Branford, Sue. "Evangelical Group to Contact Indigenous Peoples in Amazon Amid Coronavirus Pandemic." Earth Island Journal (March 18, 2020) ["A fundamentalist Christian organization has purchased a helicopter with plans to visit and convert isolated groups in remote Brazilian rainforest."]
Brown, Alex. "Black Excellence: Honoring Kwanza Through Science Fiction." TOR (December 5, 2017)
The Burning Times (Canada: Donna Read, 1990: 56 mins) ["This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times. Part two of a series of three films on women and spirituality, which includes Goddess Remembered and Full Circle."]
Carroll, James, et al. "The Moral Crisis Faced by Christianity." Ideas (May 6, 2019) ["Christianity is the world's largest religion. One third of humanity identifies as Christian. Christian rituals and symbols have a special power even among non-believers in western countries — witness the outpouring of shock and sorrow over the fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The moral codes of Christianity are intrinsic to western societies and form the foundation of the ethics and mores of hundreds of millions of people. And yet, some of Christianity's most daunting challenges have derived from the moral failures of its biggest institutions and the failures of Christians to follow their religion's core teachings. The object of worship may be divine, but the church and the worshippers are very human. Some of the crises facing contemporary Christianity are obvious, such as the ever-widening revelations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and the role of bishops in covering it up. Some are less obvious, such as the embrace of anti-immigrant, xenophobic political movements in countries with large Christian majorities. On this month's edition of The Enright Files, conversations about the moral authority of the Church — and the struggles of Christians to live up to the principles of their faith — in the face of anxious, angry times and the Church's own crimes."]
Boggs, Grace Lee. "Becoming Detroit: Grace Lee Boggs on Reimagining Work, Food, and Community." On Being (July 18, 2013)
Bothwell, Cecil. "Billy Graham and the Gospel of Fear." Counterpunch (February 21, 2018)
Botton, Alain de. "Wants a Religion for Atheists: Introducing Atheism 2.0." Open Culture (January 26, 2012)
Boyle, Greg. "The Calling of Delight: Gangs, Service, Kinship." On Being (February 26, 2013) ["A Jesuit priest famous for his gang intervention programs in Los Angeles, Fr. Greg Boyle makes winsome connections between service and delight, and compassion and awe. He heads Homeboy Industries, which employs former gang members in a constellation of businesses. This is not work of helping, he says, but of finding kinship. The point of Christian service, as he lives it, is about “our common calling to delight in one another.”"]
Branford, Sue. "Evangelical Group to Contact Indigenous Peoples in Amazon Amid Coronavirus Pandemic." Earth Island Journal (March 18, 2020) ["A fundamentalist Christian organization has purchased a helicopter with plans to visit and convert isolated groups in remote Brazilian rainforest."]
Brown, Alex. "Black Excellence: Honoring Kwanza Through Science Fiction." TOR (December 5, 2017)
Burley, Shane. "Trans Talmud: Could A 1,500-Year-Old Book Have Any Relevance To the Struggle for Trans Equality and Liberation? Religion Dispatches (December 6, 2022) ["To many, last month’s brutal attack on a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs, in which five people were killed and 25 were injured, was the logical conclusion of the Right’s increasingly dehumanizing rhetoric against the LGBTQI+ community. This tragic event came at the tail end of a string of attacks from groups like the Patriot Front and the Proud Boys, who showed up at Pride events in an effort to portray queer communities as a threat, bringing the language of hundreds of anti-trans and queerphobic bills into the streets. Underwriting many of these anti-trans legislative efforts and campaigns certain claims stand out, such as the allegation, offered by many right-wing Christians, that, according to the Bible, transness isn’t just immoral, it doesn’t even exist. The irony is that the rabbis interpreted the same biblical books now being used to erase trans lives in a very different way during the days of the Oral Torah."]
The Burning Times (Canada: Donna Read, 1990: 56 mins) ["This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times. Part two of a series of three films on women and spirituality, which includes Goddess Remembered and Full Circle."]
Burton, Tara Isabella. "How Personal Branding Became an American Religion." On the Media (February 3, 2024) ["In January 2020, Equinox launched an ad campaign with the zeitgeist-capturing slogan, “Make Yourself a Gift to the World.” The message wasn’t just for devotees of luxury gyms. In the digital age, branding yourself, or actively defining a unique and “authentic” personal identity, is the new norm. Writer and social critic Tara Isabella Burton explores how we got here in her new book, “Self- Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to Kardashian.” Burton’s background is in history and theology. To her mind, our current obsession with personal identity and self-creation has deeply religious roots."]
Capper, Daniel. "Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World." Emergence (February 5, 2024) ["Daniel Capper's book Roaming Free Like a Deer: Buddhism and the Natural World (Cornell UP, 2022) delves into ecological experiences in seven Buddhist worlds, spanning ancient India to the modern West, offering a comprehensive analysis of Buddhist environmental ethics. Capper critically examines theories, practices, and real-world outcomes related to Buddhist perspectives on vegetarianism, meat consumption, nature mysticism, and spirituality in nonhuman animals. While Buddhist environmental ethics are often seen as tools against climate change, the book highlights two issues: uncritical acceptance of ideals without assessing practical impacts and a lack of communication among Buddhists, hindering coordinated responses to issues like climate change. The book, with an accessible style and a focus on personhood ethics, appeals to those concerned about human-nonhuman interactions."]
Carroll, James, et al. "The Moral Crisis Faced by Christianity." Ideas (May 6, 2019) ["Christianity is the world's largest religion. One third of humanity identifies as Christian. Christian rituals and symbols have a special power even among non-believers in western countries — witness the outpouring of shock and sorrow over the fire that ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The moral codes of Christianity are intrinsic to western societies and form the foundation of the ethics and mores of hundreds of millions of people. And yet, some of Christianity's most daunting challenges have derived from the moral failures of its biggest institutions and the failures of Christians to follow their religion's core teachings. The object of worship may be divine, but the church and the worshippers are very human. Some of the crises facing contemporary Christianity are obvious, such as the ever-widening revelations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and the role of bishops in covering it up. Some are less obvious, such as the embrace of anti-immigrant, xenophobic political movements in countries with large Christian majorities. On this month's edition of The Enright Files, conversations about the moral authority of the Church — and the struggles of Christians to live up to the principles of their faith — in the face of anxious, angry times and the Church's own crimes."]
Cave, Nick. "Loss, Yearning, Transcendence." On Being (November 22, 20230 ["Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the “universal condition” of yearning, and of loss; a “spirituality of rigor”; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and actor first made a name in the wild world of ’80s post-punk and later with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He also underwent public struggles with addiction and rehab. Since the accidental death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2015, and a few years later, the death of his eldest child Jethro, he has entered yet another transfigured era, co-created an exquisite book called Faith, Hope and Carnage, and become a frank and eloquent interlocutor on grief. As a human and a songwriter, Nick Cave is an embodiment of a life examined and evolved. He sat with Krista in the On Being studio in Minneapolis, and the gorgeous conversation that followed is woven in this episode with his gorgeous music."]
Claiborne, Shane. A Monastic Revolution On Being (July 1, 2010) ["Shane Claiborne is a leading spirit in a gathering movement of young people known as the New Monastics. Emerging from the edges of Evangelical Christianity, they are patterning their lives in response to the needs of the poor — and the detachment they see in our culture’s vision of adulthood."]
Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair. "The Preacher and Vietnam: When Billy Graham Urged Nixon to Kill One Million People." Counterpunch (September 27, 2017)
Crandall, Chris, Erin Kearns and Muniba Saleem. "The Weight of Our Words." Hidden Brain (April 13, 2018) ["... we look at the language we use around race and religion, and what it says about the culture we live in."]
Curley, Melissa Anne-Marie. "Dead Men Don’t Lie: Sacred Texts in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man and Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai." Journal Of Religion & Film 12.2 (October 2008)
Curtis, Mary C. "'There Is Not Some Separation Between Jesus and Justice.' How Rev. William J. Barber II Uses His Faith to Fight for the Poor." Time (February 21, 2020)
Davidson, Richard. "Investigating Healthy Minds." On Being (2012) ["Once upon a time we assumed the brain stops developing when we're young. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson helped overturn this idea by studying the brains of meditating Buddhist monks. Now he's working on conditions like ADHD and autism. He focuses not on fixing what is wrong, but on rewiring our minds with life-enriching behaviors." Introductory statement by Krista Tippett: "Transformation is Compatible with the Heart of Science."]
DebGod. "Pussy Riot Is On Trial Today." Skepchick (July 30, 2012)
Diaz, Junot. "Radical Hope is Our Best Weapon." On Being (September 14, 2017) ["'From the bottom will the genius come that makes our ability to live with each other possible. I believe that with all my heart.' These are the words of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz. His hope is fiercely reality-based, a product of centuries lodged in his body of African-Caribbean suffering, survival, and genius."]
Dunning, Brian. "Animal Predictors: Psychic, Sensitive, or Silly?" Skeptoid (April 29, 2014)
---. "New Age Energy: An examination of energy, as New Agers use the term." Skeptoid #1 (October 3, 2006)
Ea, Prince. "Choose Your Friends with Caution." (Video: July 7, 2018)
Eckholm, Erik. "An Iowa Stop in a Broad Effort to Revitalize the Religious Right." The New York Times (April 3, 2011)
Eisen, Arnold. "The Opposite of Good is Indifference." On Being (September 21, 2017) ["'In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.' A mystic, a 20th-century religious intellectual, a social change agent, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., famously saying afterwards that he felt his legs were praying. Heschel’s poetic theological writings are still read and widely studied today. His faith was as much about 'radical amazement' as it was about certainty. And he embodied the passionate social engagement of the prophets, drawing on wisdom at once provocative and nourishing."]
Eisenbrandt, Matt. "'Assassination of a Saint': Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero Is Canonized as Murder Remains Unsolved." Democracy Now (October 15, 2018) ["As Pope Francis names Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint, we continue our interview with Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and the author of “Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice.” Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 at the beginning of the brutal U.S.-backed military campaign in El Salvador. Eisenbrandt served on the trial team that brought the only court verdict ever reached for Romero’s murder."]
---. "Vatican Canonizes Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, Who Was Killed by a U.S.-Backed Death Squad." Democracy Now (October 15, 2018) ["Pope Francis has named Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint. Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 at the beginning of the brutal U.S.-backed military campaign in El Salvador. Wearing the blood-stained rope belt that Romero wore when he was assassinated, Pope Francis praised Romero for disregarding his own life “to be close to the poor and to his people.” We speak with Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and the author of “Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice.” Eisenbrandt served on the trial team that brought the only court verdict ever reached for Romero’s murder."]
Eisenstein, Charles. The Ascent of Humanity. (Panathea Productions, 2007)
Elba, Mariam. "How Islamophobia was Ingrained in America's Legal System Long Before the War on Terror." The Intercept (May 6, 2018)
Elias, Christopher Michael. "Sons of God: Postwar Gender and Spirituality in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life." Film Criticism 44. 1 (January 2020)
Ewing, Heidi and Rachel Grady. "One of Us." Film School Radio (October 15, 2017) ["In their new documentary ONE OF US, acclaimed observational filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (JESUS CAMP, DETROPIA) take a deep and moving look at the lives of three individuals who have chosen to leave the hugely insular world of Hasidic Judaism.The film follows Etty, a mother of seven, as she decides to leave a violent marriage and divorce her husband; Ari, a teenager on the verge of manhood who is struggling with addiction and the effects of childhood abuse; and Luzer, an actor who, despite having found success in the secular world, still wrestles with his decision eight years earlier to leave the Hasidic community. Produced over three years, ONE OF US offers unique and intimate access to the lives of all three as they deal not only with questions of their beliefs but also with the consequences of leaving the only community they have ever known. With their trademark sensitivity and keen interest in the nature of faith, Ewing and Grady chronicle these journeys towards personal freedom that comes at a very high cost. Co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady join us for a conversation on their emotionally wrenching look into a world of dogmatism, ostracism and community."]
Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair. "The Preacher and Vietnam: When Billy Graham Urged Nixon to Kill One Million People." Counterpunch (September 27, 2017)
Crandall, Chris, Erin Kearns and Muniba Saleem. "The Weight of Our Words." Hidden Brain (April 13, 2018) ["... we look at the language we use around race and religion, and what it says about the culture we live in."]
Curtis, Mary C. "'There Is Not Some Separation Between Jesus and Justice.' How Rev. William J. Barber II Uses His Faith to Fight for the Poor." Time (February 21, 2020)
Davidson, Richard. "Investigating Healthy Minds." On Being (2012) ["Once upon a time we assumed the brain stops developing when we're young. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson helped overturn this idea by studying the brains of meditating Buddhist monks. Now he's working on conditions like ADHD and autism. He focuses not on fixing what is wrong, but on rewiring our minds with life-enriching behaviors." Introductory statement by Krista Tippett: "Transformation is Compatible with the Heart of Science."]
DebGod. "Pussy Riot Is On Trial Today." Skepchick (July 30, 2012)
Diaz, Junot. "Radical Hope is Our Best Weapon." On Being (September 14, 2017) ["'From the bottom will the genius come that makes our ability to live with each other possible. I believe that with all my heart.' These are the words of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz. His hope is fiercely reality-based, a product of centuries lodged in his body of African-Caribbean suffering, survival, and genius."]
---. "New Age Energy: An examination of energy, as New Agers use the term." Skeptoid #1 (October 3, 2006)
Ea, Prince. "Choose Your Friends with Caution." (Video: July 7, 2018)
Eisen, Arnold. "The Opposite of Good is Indifference." On Being (September 21, 2017) ["'In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.' A mystic, a 20th-century religious intellectual, a social change agent, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., famously saying afterwards that he felt his legs were praying. Heschel’s poetic theological writings are still read and widely studied today. His faith was as much about 'radical amazement' as it was about certainty. And he embodied the passionate social engagement of the prophets, drawing on wisdom at once provocative and nourishing."]
Eisenbrandt, Matt. "'Assassination of a Saint': Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero Is Canonized as Murder Remains Unsolved." Democracy Now (October 15, 2018) ["As Pope Francis names Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint, we continue our interview with Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and the author of “Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice.” Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 at the beginning of the brutal U.S.-backed military campaign in El Salvador. Eisenbrandt served on the trial team that brought the only court verdict ever reached for Romero’s murder."]
---. "Vatican Canonizes Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, Who Was Killed by a U.S.-Backed Death Squad." Democracy Now (October 15, 2018) ["Pope Francis has named Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint. Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 at the beginning of the brutal U.S.-backed military campaign in El Salvador. Wearing the blood-stained rope belt that Romero wore when he was assassinated, Pope Francis praised Romero for disregarding his own life “to be close to the poor and to his people.” We speak with Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and the author of “Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice.” Eisenbrandt served on the trial team that brought the only court verdict ever reached for Romero’s murder."]
Elba, Mariam. "How Islamophobia was Ingrained in America's Legal System Long Before the War on Terror." The Intercept (May 6, 2018)
Elias, Christopher Michael. "Sons of God: Postwar Gender and Spirituality in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life." Film Criticism 44. 1 (January 2020)
Ewing, Heidi and Rachel Grady. "One of Us." Film School Radio (October 15, 2017) ["In their new documentary ONE OF US, acclaimed observational filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (JESUS CAMP, DETROPIA) take a deep and moving look at the lives of three individuals who have chosen to leave the hugely insular world of Hasidic Judaism.The film follows Etty, a mother of seven, as she decides to leave a violent marriage and divorce her husband; Ari, a teenager on the verge of manhood who is struggling with addiction and the effects of childhood abuse; and Luzer, an actor who, despite having found success in the secular world, still wrestles with his decision eight years earlier to leave the Hasidic community. Produced over three years, ONE OF US offers unique and intimate access to the lives of all three as they deal not only with questions of their beliefs but also with the consequences of leaving the only community they have ever known. With their trademark sensitivity and keen interest in the nature of faith, Ewing and Grady chronicle these journeys towards personal freedom that comes at a very high cost. Co-directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady join us for a conversation on their emotionally wrenching look into a world of dogmatism, ostracism and community."]
Fontainelle, Earl. "Esoteric Orientalism Part II: The Greeks are Always Children?" The Secret History of Western Esotericism #9 (October 18, 2017) ["We looked in the last episode at the phenomenon of orientalism among the ancient Greeks, and at the particular brand of orientalism known as ‘Platonic’, an approach to non-Greek civilizations which sees them as ancient sources of wisdom personified by wise men like Zoroaster, Hermes, and others. In our second excursion into the ancient Greeks’ reception of their ancient neighbors, we look at the common Greek claim that they learned their sciences from the wise barbarians. Were they right to say this? We don’t manage to get very far toward answering this question in a general way, but we do settle a few points, including the fact that we must look to Mesopotamia for the origins of scientific astronomy, and that the Greeks were standing on the shoulders of Babylonian giants when they made their own striking advances in astronomy in the Hellenistic period. Having concluded this much, we can’t resist a quick look at the controversy surrounding Martin Bernal’s work Black Athena, which is still raging (if staid academic debates can be said to ‘rage’) thirty years on from the publication of its first volume. Bernal’s work takes an interesting angle on the ‘Greeks are always children’ theme, claiming that ancient Egyptian culture was hugely influential on the development of Greek culture. We don’t agree or disagree with this claim (yet), but we do agree with Bernal’s important observation that the classical history of the nineteenth century wrote the near east out of the Greek story for reasons that have more to do with ideas of ‘Aryan European’ identity than with historical evidence."]
---. "Methodologies for the study of Magic." The Secret History of Western Esotericism (September 20, 2017) [MB - OK, quick, what comes to your mind when you hear the word magic? I'm really grooving on this podcast. I like the way Earl Fontainelle looks at these subjects from multiple angles. Here in order to start off an exploration of of understandings/histories of magic, he breaks down the etymology, histories, and disinformation surrounding the word/concept. Highly recommended for those that practice magic, those that think magic is silly/dangerous, those that have deep religious beliefs (especially of a Manichean nature), those that are rigidly atheist (I would say fundamentalist), and definitely those that are wrapped up in fanatical ideologies (the type where whole groups of beings/cultures are the enemy and need to be wiped out). What is good or bad - how do we decide? what are the consequences of those decisions? The overall series is a treasure for artists/creatives/seekers (and Humanities professors like me :) What comes to your mind when you think of magic - what happens when we actual explore a concept and think about the multiple ways it is framed?]
---. "Prayer to the Gods of Night: The Near-Eastern Roots of Astrology." The Secret History of Western Esotericism #10 (October 25, 2017) ["The idea that the heavenly bodies follow recurring patterns seems obvious, but it only became obvious when someone discovered it. In fact, the Greeks seem not even to have known that the planets ‘wandered’ until the fifth century BCE. It was the Mesopotamian civilisation of the Babylonians who were really going hard with this stuff. From about 1,000 BCE (speaking very roughly) we see both a well-developed omen-literature, attributing earthly effects to numerous astronomical phenomena, and the beginnings of mathematical models whereby the movements of the various astral ‘gods’ could be predicted. This developed into both the first mathematical astronomy (as we saw last episode) and the beginnings of the first astrology (as we see this episode)."]
Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick." Weird Studies #9 (April 11, 2018) ["The plan was to discuss the introduction to Aleister Crowley's classic work, Magick in Theory and Practice (1924), a powerful text on the nature and purpose of magical practice. JF and Phil stick to the plan for the first part of the show, and then veer off into a dialogue on the basic idea of magic. Along the way, they share some of the intriguing results of their own occult experiments."]
Friends Committee on National Legislation ["The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) fields the largest team of registered peace lobbyists in Washington, DC. Founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), FCNL staff and volunteers work with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people from many different races, religions, and cultures to advocate social and economic justice, peace, and good government. FCNL is nonpartisan. FCNL is also the oldest registered ecumenical lobby in Washington, DC. The organization's legislative priorities and policies are set by a General Committee made up of some 220 Quakers from around the country. FCNL's multi-issue advocacy connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity, and truth with peace and social justice issues which the United States government is or should be addressing. We take the long term view of the world we seek, and the specific policies and legislative priorities we advocate. In our day-to-day lobbying work, we work to identify specific, practical steps individuals can take to persuade the federal government to advance our country toward our longer-term objectives."]
Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick." Weird Studies #9 (April 11, 2018) ["The plan was to discuss the introduction to Aleister Crowley's classic work, Magick in Theory and Practice (1924), a powerful text on the nature and purpose of magical practice. JF and Phil stick to the plan for the first part of the show, and then veer off into a dialogue on the basic idea of magic. Along the way, they share some of the intriguing results of their own occult experiments."]
---. "On the I Ching." Weird Studies #82 (September 16, 2020) ["The Book of Changes, or I Ching, is more than an ancient text. It's a metaphysical guide, a fun game, and -- to your hosts at least -- a lifelong, steadfast friend. The I Ching has come up more than once on the show, and now is the time for JF and Phil to face it head on, discussing the role it has played in their lives while delving into some of its mysteries."]
---. "Philip K. Dick: Adrift in the Universe." Weird Studies #10 (April 18, 2018) ["In 1977, Philip K. Dick read an essay in France entitled, "If You Find this World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others." In it, he laid out one of the dominant tropes of his fictional oeuvre, the idea of parallel universes. It became clear in the course of the lecture that Dick didn't intend this to be a talk about science fiction, but about real life - indeed, about his life. In this episode, Phil and JF seriously consider the speculations which, depending on whom you ask, make PKD either a genius or a madman. This distinction may not matter in the end. As Dick himself wrote in his 8,000-page Exegesis: "The madman speaks the moral of the piece.""]Friends Committee on National Legislation ["The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) fields the largest team of registered peace lobbyists in Washington, DC. Founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), FCNL staff and volunteers work with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people from many different races, religions, and cultures to advocate social and economic justice, peace, and good government. FCNL is nonpartisan. FCNL is also the oldest registered ecumenical lobby in Washington, DC. The organization's legislative priorities and policies are set by a General Committee made up of some 220 Quakers from around the country. FCNL's multi-issue advocacy connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity, and truth with peace and social justice issues which the United States government is or should be addressing. We take the long term view of the world we seek, and the specific policies and legislative priorities we advocate. In our day-to-day lobbying work, we work to identify specific, practical steps individuals can take to persuade the federal government to advance our country toward our longer-term objectives."]
García, Alixa. "On Extinction & Enchantment." Sounds of Sand #58 (October 26, 2023) ["Alixa García is a Colombian born, globally-raised, multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and cultural activator whose work is imbued in ritual, spirit, and deep reverence for our Great Mother, Great Lover, our Earth. She is an award-winning activist, poet, and filmmaker. She is also a professional writer, visual artist, musician, and facilitator. Her work has been published by Whit Press, AK Press, Hatchett, & Daraja Press."]
Gatto, John Taylor. "The Neglected Genius of American Spirituality" Unwelcome Guests #631 (November 24, 2012)
Gawande, Atul. "What Matters in the End?" On Being (October 26, 2017) ["What does a good day look like? This is the question that transformed Atul Gawande's practice of medicine. He's a citizen physician on the frontiers of human agency and meaning in light of what modern medicine makes possible. In his writing in The New Yorker, and in his book Being Mortal, he's opening a new conversation about what dying has to do with living."]
Gillepsie, Alex, Philip Horne and Sandra Jovchelovitch. "Literary Festival 2014: More Tales from the Two James(es)." The London School of Economics and Political Science (February 23, 2014) ["... readings from the work of William and Henry James to explore the links between psychology and fiction."]
Gatto, John Taylor. "The Neglected Genius of American Spirituality" Unwelcome Guests #631 (November 24, 2012)
Gawande, Atul. "What Matters in the End?" On Being (October 26, 2017) ["What does a good day look like? This is the question that transformed Atul Gawande's practice of medicine. He's a citizen physician on the frontiers of human agency and meaning in light of what modern medicine makes possible. In his writing in The New Yorker, and in his book Being Mortal, he's opening a new conversation about what dying has to do with living."]
Gioia, Dana. "On Charles Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil." Sacred and Profane #56 (December 2022) ["I am joined by the poet and critic Dana Gioia to discuss Charles Baudelaire's famous book of poems, Les Fleurs du Mal, or The Flowers of Evil. We tackle some big questions in this episode, such as whether and how evil can be beautiful, the nature of Catholic art and poetry, original sin, and the poet as a damned figure."]
Goddess Remembered (Canada: Donna Read, 1989: 55 mins) ["This documentary is a salute to 35,000 years of the goddess-worshipping religions of the ancient past. The film features Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Luisah Teish and Jean Bolen, all of whom link the loss of goddess-centric societies with today's environmental crisis. This is the first part of a 3-part series that includes The Burning Times and Full Circle."]
Goff, Philip. "Why? The Purpose of the Universe." New Books in Philosophy (December 23, 2023) ["Does the universe have a purpose? If it does, how is this connected to the meaningfulness that we seek in our lives? In Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023), Philip Goff argues for cosmic purposivism, the idea that the universe does have a purpose – although this is not because there is an all-powerful God who provides it with one. Instead, Goff argues, fundamental physics provides us with reason to think it is probable there is a cosmic purpose – and, moreover, the best explanation of these reasons is to posit cosmopsychism: the idea that there are fundamental forms of consciousness such that the universe itself is a conscious mind. Goff, who is professor of philosophy at Durham University, argues that these claims are not as extravagant as they may initially seem, and that his view provides a way for understanding human purposes that lies between secular humanism and religious or spiritual perspectives."]
Golluber, Michael. "Sophrosyne: In Search of Moderation." Continuing the Conversation (March 14, 2023) ["Sophrosyne is the ancient Greek word for moderation, which is one of the four classical virtues. But what does Socrates’ definition of moderation really mean and how is it connected to another classical virtue: courage? Santa Fe tutor Michael Golluber explores this question by juxtaposing Plato’s Charmides against his own passion for the good life, which he defines as consisting of good food, good wine, good company, and good conversation. Together with host Krishnan Venkatesh Golluber seeks to untangle the complexity of sophrosyne—a virtue that often masks a desire for order and control—revealing how difficult it is to both understand and attain."]
Good, Dierdre and Karen King. "Mary Magdalene." Radio West (June 13, 2019) ["The Gospel of Mary, written in the name of Mary Magdalene, didn’t make it into the Biblical canon. The image of a powerful woman who was a spiritual leader among Christ’s disciples may have seemed risky to early members of the faith. But what the gospel taught was even more threatening. It challenged the basis of authority, the nature of sin, and it spoke of an inner journey to spirituality. The scholars Dierdre Good and Karen King join us talk about the facts and myths surrounding Mary Magdalene."]
Good, Dierdre and Karen King. "Mary Magdalene." Radio West (June 13, 2019) ["The Gospel of Mary, written in the name of Mary Magdalene, didn’t make it into the Biblical canon. The image of a powerful woman who was a spiritual leader among Christ’s disciples may have seemed risky to early members of the faith. But what the gospel taught was even more threatening. It challenged the basis of authority, the nature of sin, and it spoke of an inner journey to spirituality. The scholars Dierdre Good and Karen King join us talk about the facts and myths surrounding Mary Magdalene."]
Gosden, Chris. "Shapeshifters, Shamans, and the New Animism." To the Best of Our Knowledge (November 20, 2021) ["Shapeshifting images run deep in human history, going back to ancient cave paintings. Oxford University archeologist Chris Gosden thinks they're linked to the shaman's ability to cross into the spirit world where humans and animals merge. He says animist beliefs are gaining new traction among some scientists, and they raise profound questions about the nature of consciousness."]
Gottschalk, Peter. "American Heretics: Catholics, Jews, Muslims and the History of Religious Intolerance." After Words (November 22, 2013) ["Peter Gottschalk talks about his book, American Heretics: Catholics, Jews, Muslims and the History of Religious Intolerance, in which he argues that religious intolerance has been strong in America since the middle of the nineteenth century."]Gribben, Crawford. "Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford University Press, 2021)." New Books in Christian Studies (March 29, 2021) ["In America's Pacific Northwest a group of conservative Protestants have been conducting a new experiment in cultural transformation. Dissatisfied with what they see as the clumsy political engagement and vapid literary and artistic culture of mainstream Evangelicals, these Christian Reconstructionists have deployed an altogether different set of strategies for the long game, fueled by their Calvinist theology and much-more-hopeful apocalypse. In Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford UP, 2021), Crawford Gribben presents a hybrid study of historical, theological, literary, and anthropological analysis of this variant of Evangelical counter-culture. Gribben paints a rich and detailed portrait of this loosely banded, sometimes coordinated migration to the "American redoubt." This migration has led, in part, to the establishment of a network of communities and institutions that include churches, a liberal arts college, a publishing house, and an ambitious media strategy that has already had an outsize impact. From their outpost in Idaho and prompted by their revised postmillennial eschatology, these Christian conservatives are preparing to survive the collapse American society and to reconstruct a godly society that will usher in the Kingdom of Christ. For this group of born-again Protestants, their apocalyptic strategy is precisely to be left behind."]
Hall, Anna. "In the Shadow of 'Citizens United.'" Sojourners (January 27, 2014) ["Last week marked the fourth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-4 ruling, the court ruled that corporations are entitled to the same free speech rights as individual humans as guaranteed under the First Amendment. The political repercussions of Citizens United include the rise of “Super PACs” — political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, independent of direct campaign contributions, to influence politics. The power yielded to such corporations, as well as indiscriminate spending allowance, has deleterious effects upon our democracy."]Hanegraaff, Wouter. On Western Esotericism." The Secret History of Western Esotericism #3 (September 5, 2017) ["We ... discuss the thesis of his recent book Esotericism and the Academy, and in the process explore the contours of the historical development of western esotericism from late antiquity down to modern times, and consider the formation of western esotercism as an object of historical study in now almost forgotten polemics of the Reformation period. Finally, Professor Hanegraaff gives a cogent and forceful argument that the study of western esotericism is not just interesting to specialists and nerds (although it is), but absolutely essential to creating a more accurate history of the development of western thought as a whole."]
Hanh, Thich Nhat. "The Fourteen Precepts of Engaged Buddhism." Lion's Roar (April 12, 2017) ["Thich Nhat Hanh’s guidelines for anyone wishing to live mindfully."]
---. The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Mindfulness. Trans. by Mobi Ho. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987. ["In this beautiful and lucid guide, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh offers gentle anecdotes and practical exercise as a means of learning the skills of mindfulness--being awake and fully aware. From washing the dishes to answering the phone to peeling an orange, he reminds us that each moment holds within it an opportunity to work toward greater self-understanding and peacefulness."]
Harris, Shayla, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad and Ilyasah Shabazz. "Malcolm X’s Daughter Ilyasah Shabazz on Her Father’s Legacy & the New Series Who Killed Malcolm X?" Democracy Now (February 21, 2020) ["Fifty-five years ago today, Malcolm X was assassinated. The civil rights leader was shot to death on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. He was only 39 years old. Details of his assassination remain disputed to this day. Earlier this month, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said he was considering reopening the investigation, just days after a new documentary series about the assassination was released on Netflix called “Who Killed Malcolm X?” It makes the case that two of the three men who were convicted for Malcolm X’s murder are actually innocent and that his uncaught killers were four members of a Nation of Islam mosque in Newark, New Jersey. We are joined by Ilyasah Shabazz, one of six daughters of Malcolm X, who was just 2 years old when her father was assassinated in front of her, her siblings and her mother. We also speak with award-winning author Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, independent scholar, historian, journalist, writer and activist, who is widely regarded as one of the most respected authorities on the life and legacy of Malcolm X and is featured in the new documentary series, and Shayla Harris, a producer for the series and an award-winning filmmaker and journalist."]
Hasan, Mehdi. "When Christians Are Under Attack, Muslims and the Left Need to Defend Them." The Intercept (April 22, 2019)
Hasan, Mehdi. "When Christians Are Under Attack, Muslims and the Left Need to Defend Them." The Intercept (April 22, 2019)
Hedges, Chris. "The Death of the Liberal Class." (Video of presentation at The Sanctuary for Independent Media: October 17, 2010)
Hedges, Chris and Hamza Yusuf. "Does God Love War? (A Dialog on Religion and the State)." Unwelcome Guests #306 (May 14, 2006)
Hendel, Ronald. "Genesis." Writ Large (December 7, 2022) ["The Book of Genesis is an account of the origins of the world, human beings, and the Jewish people. It is a foundational text for three world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For thousands of years, Genesis has given its readers an existential foundation, an account of why the world exists, who we are, and how we should act. In a chaotic and unpredictable world, Genesis, this ancient set of stories, offers grounding, continuity, and deep meaning. Ronald Hendel is the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Book of Genesis: A Biography."]
Hennessey, Martha and Carmen Trotta. "Kings Bay Plowshares: Meet Two of the Seven Activists Who Secretly Entered a Nuclear Submarine Base." Democracy Now (July 24, 2018) ["We look at the resistance against nuclear weapons here in the United States. On April 4, 2018—the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination—seven Catholic Plowshares activists secretly entered Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia, one of the largest nuclear submarine bases in the world. They were armed with just hammers, crime scene tape, baby bottles containing their own blood, and an indictment charging the U.S. government for crimes against peace. Their goal was to symbolically disarm the nuclear weapons at the base, which is home to at least six nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Each submarine carries 20 Trident thermonuclear weapons. The activists said they were following the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.” It was the latest of 100 similar anti-nuclear Plowshares actions around the world beginning in 1980 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The first Plowshares action in 1980 was led by the late Daniel Berrigan and Phil Berrigan. Phil’s wife, Liz McAlister, was one of seven arrested at the April 4 action. McAlister and two other activists, Jesuit priest Stephen Kelly and Mark Colville, remain locked up in pretrial confinement in Brunswick, Georgia. Four others—Patrick O’Neill, Carmen Trotta, Martha Hennessy and Clare Grady—are under house arrest. All seven could face years in prison, if convicted. We speak with Martha Hennessy and Carmen Trotta. Hennessy is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Carmen Trotta helps run the St. Joseph Catholic Worker House in New York."]
Hiltermann, Joost. "Bahrain: A New Sectarian Conflict?" The New York Review of Books (May 8, 2012)
Holland, Tom and Dominic Sandbrook. "Luther: The Man Who Changed the World (Part 1)." The Rest is History (March 24, 2024) ["The Reformation, launched in 1517, stands as one of the most convulsive and transformative events of all time, shattering Christendom and dividing Europe for centuries. Its outcome determined the fates of Kings and Emperors, and saw the souls of millions consigned to the fiery pit of heresy. The man behind it all was Martin Luther, a humble monk of obscure origins. Bold, intellectually arrogant, and a master of spin, the assault he unleashed on the medieval Church had him excommunicated by the Pope. But what was it about Luther’s humble upbringing in Saxony and his strained relationship with his intimidating father that led him down a path of insolence? And was the religious revolution that he sparked inevitable? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the early life of Martin Luther, the apocalyptic environment from which he and his radical ideas emerged, and the Catholic Church he would come to take on…"]
Honey, Michael and James Lawson. "He Gave His Life in the Labor Struggle: MLK’s Forgotten Radical Message for Economic Justice." Democracy Now (April 3, 2018) ["Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 50 years ago this week while in Memphis, where he was supporting striking sanitation workers and building support for his Poor People’s Campaign. We look at King’s long history of fighting for economic justice, with the Rev. James Lawson and historian Michael Honey, author of the new book “To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice.”"]
"Identity Unmasked." Intelligence Report #167 (Summer 2019) ["Using fake names and fictional avatars, wannabe killers and hatemongers exude courage and commitment to their hateful causes. Until the world learns their real names. Until someone exposes their plans. In the anonymity provided by chat rooms, angry, prejudiced hate-filled people express lethal intentions and develop plots to harm or marginalize people because of their faith, ethnicity or sexual orientation. In this issue of the Intelligence Report, we unmask people who are brave in the dark and expose the impact of fighting hate with light."]
Isay, David. "Listening as an Act of Love." On Being (April 17, 2014) ["“The soul is contained in the human voice,” says David Isay, founder of StoryCorps. He sees the StoryCorps booth — a setting where two people ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask each other — as a sacred space. He shares his wisdom about listening as an act of love, and how eliciting and capturing our stories is a way of insisting that every life matters."]
Jaschik, Scott. "Church and Tenure." Inside Higher Ed (May 5, 2014) ["The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued two unanimous decisions that strengthen the rights of tenured professors at religious institutions."]
Kahn, Emcee Ayesha, et al. "Combating Islamophobia in the Media." Needs No Introduction (April 11, 2016)
Kan, Elianna. "Buy High, Sell Cheap: An Interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky." The Paris Review (March 8, 2018)
"Identity Unmasked." Intelligence Report #167 (Summer 2019) ["Using fake names and fictional avatars, wannabe killers and hatemongers exude courage and commitment to their hateful causes. Until the world learns their real names. Until someone exposes their plans. In the anonymity provided by chat rooms, angry, prejudiced hate-filled people express lethal intentions and develop plots to harm or marginalize people because of their faith, ethnicity or sexual orientation. In this issue of the Intelligence Report, we unmask people who are brave in the dark and expose the impact of fighting hate with light."]
Isay, David. "Listening as an Act of Love." On Being (April 17, 2014) ["“The soul is contained in the human voice,” says David Isay, founder of StoryCorps. He sees the StoryCorps booth — a setting where two people ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask each other — as a sacred space. He shares his wisdom about listening as an act of love, and how eliciting and capturing our stories is a way of insisting that every life matters."]
Jaschik, Scott. "Church and Tenure." Inside Higher Ed (May 5, 2014) ["The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued two unanimous decisions that strengthen the rights of tenured professors at religious institutions."]
Jilani, Zaid. "Martin Luther King Jr. Spent the Last Year of His Life Detested by the Liberal Establishment." The Intercept (January 15, 2018)
Katz, Sandor. "Fermentation as Metaphor: A Conversation." Emergence Magazine Podcast (October 22, 2020) ["In this interview, Sandor Katz discusses his new book, Fermentation as Metaphor. A world-renowned expert in fermented foods, Sandor considers the liberating experience offered through engagement with microbial communities. He shares that the simple act of fermentation can give rise to deeply intimate moments of connection through the magic of invisible forces that transform our foods and our lives, generation by generation."]
King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Letter From a Birmingham Jail." African Studies Center of University of Pennsylvania (April 16, 1963)
Kingston, Maxine Hong. "Warrior of Peace." LARB (March 23, 2018) ["The great author reflects on a lifetime of writing, an unorthodox career, and her current work as a teacher and healer, which couldn’t be more relevant for our troubled times."]
Knust, Jennifer, Scott Lewis and Delphine Lourtau. "The First Stone: Jesus, The Accused, and Us." Ideas (April 18, 2019) ["Sean Foley asks: what does the story say to us about some of our deepest dilemmas?"]
Kingston, Maxine Hong. "Warrior of Peace." LARB (March 23, 2018) ["The great author reflects on a lifetime of writing, an unorthodox career, and her current work as a teacher and healer, which couldn’t be more relevant for our troubled times."]
Knust, Jennifer, Scott Lewis and Delphine Lourtau. "The First Stone: Jesus, The Accused, and Us." Ideas (April 18, 2019) ["Sean Foley asks: what does the story say to us about some of our deepest dilemmas?"]
Kumar, Deepa. "A Deeper Look at Islamophobia in the American Empire." The Empire Files (January 12, 2016) ["2015 wrapped up as the most dangerous year for Muslims in America, setting records for hate crimes against them. There have been dozens of attacks on mosques, including firebombings, and physical assaults like stabbings, shootings and beatings against Muslims--and perceived Muslims--grew to the highest numbers ever recorded. Abby Martin interviews Dr. Deepa Kumar, professor of media studies at Rutgers University and author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, about the roots of this alarming situation. From confronting right-wing arguments, to examining the reality behind Donald Trump's proposed ban on Muslims, to how Islamophobia is a reinforcement and basis for the structures of Empire, the first Empire Files episode of 2016 gives essential context to the wave of anti-Muslim hate in America and beyond."]
---. "Bicameralism, Part 2: The Silent Pantheon." Stuff To Blow Your Mind (September 28, 2017)
Lane, Penny. "Hail Satan?" Radio West (May 10, 2019) [MB - I was interested in seeing this documentary and after listening to this discussion with the director Penny Lane I'm thinking it could be a great opportunity in my Peace Studies' courses for discussing the problems with authoritarian impulses and rigid/controlling dogmas of traditional/mainstream religions (or any dominant/controlling ideology/worldview).]
Laycock, Joseph. "Late Night With the Devil Reflects The Role of Talk Shows in Sensationalizing the Satanic Panic of the 1980s." Religion Dispatches (March 26, 2024) ["Despite its supernatural premise, Late Night with the Devil is a work of realism. Most of the characters and events in the film are references to actual figures from 1970s occulture. It also reflects on the way that talk shows became a vector through which rumors of Satanic cults spread, fueling the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. As described in my book The Exorcist Effect, filming a live exorcism was a goal of network news media for two decades."]
Lederach, John Paul. "The Art of Peace." On Being (July 8, 2010) ["What happens when people transcend violence while living in it? John Paul Lederach has spent three decades mediating peace and change in 25 countries — from Nepal to Colombia and Sierra Leone. He shifts the language and lens of the very notion of conflict resolution. He says, for example, that enduring progress takes root not with large numbers of people, but with relationships between unlikely people."]
Lyonhart, Jonathan D. "Peele’s Black, Extraterrestrial, Critique of Religion." Journal of Religion & Film (October 2023) ["While Jordan Peele’s films have always held their mysteries close to the chest, they eventually granted their viewers some climactic clarity. Get Out (2017) used an 1980s style orientation video to clear up its neuroscientific twist, while Us (2019) had Lupita Nyongo’s underworld twin narratively spell out the details of the plot. Yet Nope (2022) refuses to show its hand even after the game is over, never illuminating the connection between its opening scene and the broader film, nor a myriad of other questions. As such, critics complained that it stitched together two seemingly incongruent plots without explanation; one where a chimp attacks the crew of a successful Hollywood show, the other where an alien organism haunts a small ranch in the middle of nowhere. In this paper, I will argue that a theological interpretation of Nope helps explain some of these mysteries at its center, while revealing Peele’s underlying religious critique and its place within his broader oeuvre."]
Macy, Joanna. "A Wild Love for the World." On Being (September 16, 2010) ["A Buddhist philosopher of ecology, Joanna Macy says we are at a pivotal moment in history with the possibility to unravel or create a life-sustaining human society. Now entering her 90s, Macy has lived adventurously by any definition. She worked with the CIA in Cold War Europe and the Peace Corps in post-colonial India and was an early environmental activist. She brings a poetic and spiritual sensibility to her work that’s reflected in her translations of the early-20th-century poet Rainer Maria Rilke. We take that poetry as a lens on her wisdom on the great dramas of our time: ecological, political, personal."]
Markides, Kryiakos. The Magus of Strovolos: The Extraordinary World of a Spiritual Healer. Penguin Books, 2003. ["In this vivid account, Kryiacos C Markides introduces to us the rich and intricate world of Daskalso, The Magus of Strovolos. In what appears at first to be an exercise in fantasy, we see Daskalos draw on seemingly unlimited mixture of esoteric teachings, psychology, reincarnation, demonology, cosmology and mysticism, from both eastern and western traditions. But Daskalos is first and foremost a healer, whose work is firmly rooted in a belied in 'Holyspirit' or absolute love, and whose aim is the expansion of reason and spiritual evolution."]
Marshall, Robert. "The Dark Legacy of Carlos Castaneda." Salon (April 4, 2007)
Marvin, Carolyn and David W. Ingle. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. Cambridge University Press, 1999. [excerpt, first ten pages]
McElwee, Sean and Abigail Salvatore. "New Atheism’s big mistake: Debating creationists solves nothing: Fundamentalism isn't really about the Bible; it's about politics. So attacking religion doesn't fix the problem." Salon (February 1, 2014)
McFerrin, Bobby. "Catching Song." On Being (February 27, 2014) ["He is a genius of improvisation; a genre-bending vocal magician and conductor. And he sings the territory between music, mystery, and spirit. Who better to contemplate the human voice — its delights, its revelations, and its mystery — than Bobby McFerrin?"]
Measom, Tyler. "Through the Lens: An Honest Liar." Radio West (April 28, 2014) [Documentary on The Amazing Randi]
Moss, Candida. "Trump and the Christian Persecution Complex." On the Media (June 3, 2020) ["On Monday, President Trump stood outside St. John's Episcopal Church, which had caught fire the day prior in protests for racial justice. When he brandished a Bible before photographers, Trump knew exactly what message he was sending: Christianity is under siege and the president is the defender of the faith. Never mind the fact that peaceful protesters, clergy among them, were driven from the area minutes before with tear gas to make way for the photoshoot. The narrative of Christianity under attack is a familiar one. Just a few weeks ago, Trump declared that houses of worship should open amid the pandemic on the grounds of religious liberty — despite the public health risk. But it turns out, the myth of Christian persecution can be traced far further back than the Culture Wars. In fact, according to Candida Moss, Christian historians coined the idea that to be persecuted was to be righteous in the 4th Century and they exaggerated claims that Christians were persecuted in the first place. Moss is a professor of theology and religion at Birmingham University in the U.K., and author of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. Moss spoke to Bob just after Trump has announced his call for churches to open. In this week's Pod Extra she explains how Christian history has been revised for political means, from the early church to present day."]
Murphy, Ian. "Militant Atheist for Congress." Equal Time for Free Thought (April 2, 2011)
Nakahodo, Neil, Sarah Smith and Shelly Yang. "The Spirit of Fear." McClatchy (December 9, 2018) ["Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S."]
Nesteroff, Kliph. "A History Of Christian Archie Comics." (June 7, 2010)
Newman, Ben. "The Canon Revisited." Imaginary Worlds (December 27, 2017) ["The Last Jedi may be the most controversial film in the Star Wars series. While the movie has been critically acclaimed, many Star Wars fans have argued that the film violated canon in a number of ways, especially how it depicted Luke Skywalker. This week, I revisit my 2014 episode “The Canon,” and I have a follow-up conversation with Rabbi Ben Newman about the state of the Star Wars canon. Until now, Ben and I had been on the same page about the new films, but like many fans, we found ourselves at odds when evaluating The Last Jedi."]
Ng, Edwin. "The (Zen) Buddhist Heart of I ♥ Huckabees." Journal of Religion and Film 14.1 (April 2010)
Nightingale, Andrea. "Epicurus and Epicureanism." Entitled Opinions (November 8, 2005)
Nisa, Eva. "'They Are Us': : New Zealand Mourns After Mosque Attacks Killed 50 Including Refugees & Immigrants." Democracy Now (March 19, 2019) ["Burials are beginning in New Zealand as the country mourns the loss of 50 Muslim worshipers gunned down in two mosques in Christchurch by a white supremacist Friday. It was the deadliest attack in New Zealand’s history. The worshipers killed in the Christchurch massacre came from around the world. Most of them were immigrants, or refugees who had come to New Zealand seeking safety. Six Pakistanis, four Jordanians, four Egyptians and at least three Bangladeshis are among the dead. The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said that six of the victims were of Palestinian origin. We speak with Eva Nisa, a lecturer in religious studies at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her recent article for Middle East Eye is titled “New Zealand has been a home to Muslims for centuries, and will remain so.”"]
Norton, Blake and Sophie Novack. "Texas Woman: I Was Forced to Consent to Bury Fetal Remains After Miscarriage in 'Horrific' Ordeal." Democracy Now (April 25, 2018) ["Last week, a U.S. appeals court declared unconstitutional an Indiana law signed by then-Governor, now Vice President, Mike Pence, that requires fetuses to be buried or cremated. This comes as Texas passed a law last year saying all fetal remains had to be buried or cremated, and also banned donation of that tissue for research purposes. In January, U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra temporarily halted the fetal remains law, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has vowed to continue fighting for it. For more, we speak with Blake Norton, who had a miscarriage in 2015 at the Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, and was forced to choose whether she would let the hospital bury the remains in a shared grave, or arrange for a “private burial” at her own expense. We’re also joined by Texas Observer reporter Sophie Novack, whose cover story about Blake Norton is headlined 'Indoctrinated: A Catholic hospital in Austin forces patients who miscarry to consent to fetal burials. For one woman, that made a painful loss even worse—and she worries it could soon become routine across Texas.'"]
Nuland, Sherwin. "The Biology of Spirit." On Being (March 6, 2014)["Dr. Sherwin Nuland died this week at the age of 83. He became well-known through his first book, How We Die, which won the National Book Award in 1994. But pondering death was for him a way of wondering at life. He reflected on the meaning of life by way of scrupulous and elegant detail about human physiology."]
Marshall, Robert. "The Dark Legacy of Carlos Castaneda." Salon (April 4, 2007)
Marvin, Carolyn and David W. Ingle. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. Cambridge University Press, 1999. [excerpt, first ten pages]
McElwee, Sean and Abigail Salvatore. "New Atheism’s big mistake: Debating creationists solves nothing: Fundamentalism isn't really about the Bible; it's about politics. So attacking religion doesn't fix the problem." Salon (February 1, 2014)
McFerrin, Bobby. "Catching Song." On Being (February 27, 2014) ["He is a genius of improvisation; a genre-bending vocal magician and conductor. And he sings the territory between music, mystery, and spirit. Who better to contemplate the human voice — its delights, its revelations, and its mystery — than Bobby McFerrin?"]
Measom, Tyler. "Through the Lens: An Honest Liar." Radio West (April 28, 2014) [Documentary on The Amazing Randi]
Moss, Candida. "Trump and the Christian Persecution Complex." On the Media (June 3, 2020) ["On Monday, President Trump stood outside St. John's Episcopal Church, which had caught fire the day prior in protests for racial justice. When he brandished a Bible before photographers, Trump knew exactly what message he was sending: Christianity is under siege and the president is the defender of the faith. Never mind the fact that peaceful protesters, clergy among them, were driven from the area minutes before with tear gas to make way for the photoshoot. The narrative of Christianity under attack is a familiar one. Just a few weeks ago, Trump declared that houses of worship should open amid the pandemic on the grounds of religious liberty — despite the public health risk. But it turns out, the myth of Christian persecution can be traced far further back than the Culture Wars. In fact, according to Candida Moss, Christian historians coined the idea that to be persecuted was to be righteous in the 4th Century and they exaggerated claims that Christians were persecuted in the first place. Moss is a professor of theology and religion at Birmingham University in the U.K., and author of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. Moss spoke to Bob just after Trump has announced his call for churches to open. In this week's Pod Extra she explains how Christian history has been revised for political means, from the early church to present day."]
Murphy, Ian. "Militant Atheist for Congress." Equal Time for Free Thought (April 2, 2011)
Nakahodo, Neil, Sarah Smith and Shelly Yang. "The Spirit of Fear." McClatchy (December 9, 2018) ["Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S."]
Newman, Ben. "The Canon Revisited." Imaginary Worlds (December 27, 2017) ["The Last Jedi may be the most controversial film in the Star Wars series. While the movie has been critically acclaimed, many Star Wars fans have argued that the film violated canon in a number of ways, especially how it depicted Luke Skywalker. This week, I revisit my 2014 episode “The Canon,” and I have a follow-up conversation with Rabbi Ben Newman about the state of the Star Wars canon. Until now, Ben and I had been on the same page about the new films, but like many fans, we found ourselves at odds when evaluating The Last Jedi."]
Nightingale, Andrea. "Epicurus and Epicureanism." Entitled Opinions (November 8, 2005)
Nisa, Eva. "'They Are Us': : New Zealand Mourns After Mosque Attacks Killed 50 Including Refugees & Immigrants." Democracy Now (March 19, 2019) ["Burials are beginning in New Zealand as the country mourns the loss of 50 Muslim worshipers gunned down in two mosques in Christchurch by a white supremacist Friday. It was the deadliest attack in New Zealand’s history. The worshipers killed in the Christchurch massacre came from around the world. Most of them were immigrants, or refugees who had come to New Zealand seeking safety. Six Pakistanis, four Jordanians, four Egyptians and at least three Bangladeshis are among the dead. The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said that six of the victims were of Palestinian origin. We speak with Eva Nisa, a lecturer in religious studies at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her recent article for Middle East Eye is titled “New Zealand has been a home to Muslims for centuries, and will remain so.”"]
Offerman, Nick. "Working with Wood, and the Meaning of Life." On Being (February 23, 2023) ["Nick Offerman has played many great characters, most famously Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation, and he starred more recently in an astonishing episode of The Last of Us. But he is driven by passionate callings older and deeper than his public vocation as an actor and comedian. He works with wood, and he works with other people who work with their hands making beautiful, useful things. And this, it turns out, is also a primary source of his tethering in values. It’s a source of a spiritual thoughtfulness that runs through this conversation with Krista. So is his love and study of the farmer-poet Wendell Berry, whose audiobook The Need to Be Whole Nick just recorded. This is a moving and edifying conversation that is also, not surprisingly, a lot of fun."]
Page, Blake. "Why I Don’t Want to Be a West Point Graduate." Huffington Post (December 3, 2012)
Parramore, Lynn Stuart. "God’s Racket: Why It’s High Time to Shut Down the Vatican Bank." AlterNet (February 25, 2013)
Partridge, Christopher. The Re-Enchantment of the West Volume 1: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. Bloomsbury, 2005. ["As a book about emergent spirituality in the contemporary West, this book's focuses on the nature, evolution and significance of new forms of religion and alternative spiritualities. Part One of the book provides the theoretical background and guides the reader through some of the principal debates. After an overview of the secularization thesis, which argues that the West is becoming increasingly disenchanted, the second chapter turns to the sociological analysis of new religions and alternative spiritualities. Particular attention is given to the ideas of the sociologist of religion Ernst Troeltsch, especially his enigmatic analysis of the emergence mystical religion, which presciently provides helpful insights into understanding the contemporary alternative religious milieu. Against sociologists such as Bryan Wilson and Steve Bruce, this and the subsequent chapter argues that, rather than being insignificant, new forms of spirituality are actually proving to be a significant part of Western re-enchantment. Chapter 3 constructs a general theory of the re-enchantment of the West."]
Page, Blake. "Why I Don’t Want to Be a West Point Graduate." Huffington Post (December 3, 2012)
Parramore, Lynn Stuart. "God’s Racket: Why It’s High Time to Shut Down the Vatican Bank." AlterNet (February 25, 2013)
Partridge, Christopher. The Re-Enchantment of the West Volume 1: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. Bloomsbury, 2005. ["As a book about emergent spirituality in the contemporary West, this book's focuses on the nature, evolution and significance of new forms of religion and alternative spiritualities. Part One of the book provides the theoretical background and guides the reader through some of the principal debates. After an overview of the secularization thesis, which argues that the West is becoming increasingly disenchanted, the second chapter turns to the sociological analysis of new religions and alternative spiritualities. Particular attention is given to the ideas of the sociologist of religion Ernst Troeltsch, especially his enigmatic analysis of the emergence mystical religion, which presciently provides helpful insights into understanding the contemporary alternative religious milieu. Against sociologists such as Bryan Wilson and Steve Bruce, this and the subsequent chapter argues that, rather than being insignificant, new forms of spirituality are actually proving to be a significant part of Western re-enchantment. Chapter 3 constructs a general theory of the re-enchantment of the West."]
---. The Re-Enchantment of the West, Vol 2: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture and Occulture. Bloomsbury, 2005. ["The Re-Enchantment of the West challenges those theories that predict widespread secularization beyond traditional institutional religiosity. Spiritualities are emerging that are not only quite different from the forms of religion that are in decline, but are often defined over against them and articulated and passed on in ways quite different from those of traditional religion. In particular, it is argued that such contemporary Western spirituality is fed by a constantly replenished reservoir of ideas, practices, and methodologies, which is here termed 'occulture'. Moreover, such occultural ideas both feed into and are resourced by popular culture. Indeed, popular occulture is a key feature of the re-enchantment of the West. Demonstrating the significance and ubiquity of these ideas, this book examines, for example, healthcare and nursing, contemporary environmentalism, psychedelia and drug use, the Internet and cyberspirituality, belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life, demonology and the contemporary fascination with the figure of Satan, the heavy metal subculture, popular apocalypticism, and millennial violence."]
Paul, Gregory and Paul Zuckerman. "Why Do Americans Still Dislike Atheists." Washington Post (February 18, 2011)
Perel, Esther. "The Erotic is an Antidote to Death." On Being (July 11, 2019) ["Therapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, books, and singular podcast, Where Should We Begin?, in which listeners are invited into emotionally raw therapy sessions she conducts with couples she’s never met before. For Perel, eroticism is a key ingredient to life — and it’s more than just a description of sexuality. “It is about how people connect to this quality of aliveness, of vibrancy, of vitality, of renewal,” she says. “It is actually a spiritual, mystical experience of life.”"]
Pinn, Anthony. "Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community." Mindscape (July 12, 2018) ["According to atheism, God does not exist. But religions have traditionally done much more than simply proclaim God’s existence: they have provided communities, promoted the arts, handed down moral guidance, and so on. Can atheism, or perhaps humanism, replicate these roles? Anthony Pinn grew up as a devout Methodist, but became a humanist when he felt that religion wasn’t really helping the communities that he cared about. Today he is a professor of religion who works to bring together atheism and the black community. We talk about humanism, identity politics, and the way forward."]
Paul, Gregory and Paul Zuckerman. "Why Do Americans Still Dislike Atheists." Washington Post (February 18, 2011)
Perel, Esther. "The Erotic is an Antidote to Death." On Being (July 11, 2019) ["Therapist Esther Perel has changed our discourse about sexuality and coupledom with her TED talks, books, and singular podcast, Where Should We Begin?, in which listeners are invited into emotionally raw therapy sessions she conducts with couples she’s never met before. For Perel, eroticism is a key ingredient to life — and it’s more than just a description of sexuality. “It is about how people connect to this quality of aliveness, of vibrancy, of vitality, of renewal,” she says. “It is actually a spiritual, mystical experience of life.”"]
Pinn, Anthony. "Humanism, Theology, and the Black Community." Mindscape (July 12, 2018) ["According to atheism, God does not exist. But religions have traditionally done much more than simply proclaim God’s existence: they have provided communities, promoted the arts, handed down moral guidance, and so on. Can atheism, or perhaps humanism, replicate these roles? Anthony Pinn grew up as a devout Methodist, but became a humanist when he felt that religion wasn’t really helping the communities that he cared about. Today he is a professor of religion who works to bring together atheism and the black community. We talk about humanism, identity politics, and the way forward."]
Pogue, Neall W. "The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement." New Books in Religion (January 18, 2024) ["How does the Bible instruct humans to interact with the Earth? Over the last few decades, white conservative evangelical Christians have increasingly taken positions against environmental protections. To understand why, Meghan Cochran talks with Neall W. Pogue about his book The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement (Cornell University Press, 2022) in which he examines how the religious right became a political force known for hostility toward environmental legislation. Until the 1990s, theologically based, eco-friendly philosophies of Christian environmental stewardship were uncontroversial. However, when some in the evangelical community began to lean towards environmental activism in response to human caused climate change, their effort was overwhelmed by some conservative leaders who stressed a position against environmentalism. They ridiculed conservation efforts, embraced conspiracy theories, and refuted the expanding scientific literature. Pogue explains how different ideas of nature helped to construct a conservative evangelical political movement that rejected long-standing beliefs regarding Christian environmental stewardship."]
Pope John XXIII. "Pacem in Terris." Vatican: The Holy See (April 11, 1963)
Potter, Gary. "Fundamental Violence: Protestant Fundamentalism and Violent Crime." Uprooting Criminology (November 11, 2013)
The Power of Nightmares (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004)
Raven, Chantelle. "Empowering Yourself with Archetypes." Eliyah Tantric School (July 31, 2018)
Remen, Rachel Naomi. "Listening Generously: The Healing Stories of Rachel Naomi Remen." On Being (July 29, 2010) ["The conversation of this hour always rises as an early experience that imprinted everything that came after at On Being. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the wise people in our world. She trained as a doctor in a generation that understood death as a failure of medicine. Yet her lifelong struggle with Crohn’s Disease and her pioneering work with cancer patients shaped her view of life. Becoming whole, she teaches, is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses; rather, the way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. That arresting notion, and the distinction Rachel Naomi Remen draws between curing and healing, makes this an urgent offering to our world — of healing we are all called to receive and to give."]
Robbins, Tim. "Actor, Director Tim Robbins Takes Up Historic Vietnam War Protest in Production of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine." Democracy Now (August 27, 2009)
Rohr, Richard. "Christianity and Unknowing." Sounds of Sand #28 (March 30, 2023) ["Richard Rohr, as a Catholic priest and Franciscan Friar, offers a concise history of how Western Christianity once had, soon lost, tried to retrieve, and now is roundly rediscovering its own traditional understanding of unitive consciousness (which was our word for non-dual thinking). The Christian contemplative mind was usually a subtext, and yet it was always clearly there too, and much closer to the surface, but only for those exposed to the mystical base that was revealed in the Gospel of John, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Celtic and monastic traditions, and what was generally referred to as the apophatic or wisdom stream of Christianity. These were our many saints and mystics. This possibility was brought to the fore by Thomas Merton in the middle of the last century, and is now flowing in many positive directions. It is now our task to rediscover the pre-Enlightenment Christianity that reveled in "the cloud of unknowing", what some called "learned ignorance", and the very notion of Mystery itself. Only when we got into competition with rationalism and secularism, did we adopt this rather recent mania for certitude and a very limited kind of scientific knowing. Almost the entire history of Protestantism emerged in this period, and thus the contemplative mind is an utterly new revelation for them, and frankly for all of us, as we again learn to be comfortable living on the edge of both the knowable and the unknown. Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard’s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. Fr. Richard is the author of numerous books, including Everything Belongs, Adam’s Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Falling Upward, Immortal Diamond, and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi."]
Potter, Gary. "Fundamental Violence: Protestant Fundamentalism and Violent Crime." Uprooting Criminology (November 11, 2013)
The Power of Nightmares (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004)
Raven, Chantelle. "Empowering Yourself with Archetypes." Eliyah Tantric School (July 31, 2018)
Remen, Rachel Naomi. "Listening Generously: The Healing Stories of Rachel Naomi Remen." On Being (July 29, 2010) ["The conversation of this hour always rises as an early experience that imprinted everything that came after at On Being. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the wise people in our world. She trained as a doctor in a generation that understood death as a failure of medicine. Yet her lifelong struggle with Crohn’s Disease and her pioneering work with cancer patients shaped her view of life. Becoming whole, she teaches, is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses; rather, the way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. That arresting notion, and the distinction Rachel Naomi Remen draws between curing and healing, makes this an urgent offering to our world — of healing we are all called to receive and to give."]
Ricard, Matthieu. "Happiness as Human Flourishing." On Being (2017) ["A French-born Tibetan Buddhist monk and a central figure in the Dalai Lama's dialogue with scientists, Matthieu Ricard was dubbed "The Happiest Man in the World" after his brain was imaged. But he resists this label. In his writing and in his life, he explores happiness not as a pleasurable feeling but as a way of being that gives you the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life and that encompasses many emotional states, including sadness. We take in Matthieu Ricard's practical teachings for cultivating inner strength, joy, and direction." Krista Tippett's introduction "Compassion is a Skill to be Developed."]
Robbins, Tim. "Actor, Director Tim Robbins Takes Up Historic Vietnam War Protest in Production of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine." Democracy Now (August 27, 2009)
Rohr, Richard. "Christianity and Unknowing." Sounds of Sand #28 (March 30, 2023) ["Richard Rohr, as a Catholic priest and Franciscan Friar, offers a concise history of how Western Christianity once had, soon lost, tried to retrieve, and now is roundly rediscovering its own traditional understanding of unitive consciousness (which was our word for non-dual thinking). The Christian contemplative mind was usually a subtext, and yet it was always clearly there too, and much closer to the surface, but only for those exposed to the mystical base that was revealed in the Gospel of John, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Celtic and monastic traditions, and what was generally referred to as the apophatic or wisdom stream of Christianity. These were our many saints and mystics. This possibility was brought to the fore by Thomas Merton in the middle of the last century, and is now flowing in many positive directions. It is now our task to rediscover the pre-Enlightenment Christianity that reveled in "the cloud of unknowing", what some called "learned ignorance", and the very notion of Mystery itself. Only when we got into competition with rationalism and secularism, did we adopt this rather recent mania for certitude and a very limited kind of scientific knowing. Almost the entire history of Protestantism emerged in this period, and thus the contemplative mind is an utterly new revelation for them, and frankly for all of us, as we again learn to be comfortable living on the edge of both the knowable and the unknown. Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard’s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and self-emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. Fr. Richard is the author of numerous books, including Everything Belongs, Adam’s Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Falling Upward, Immortal Diamond, and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi."]
---. "Growing Up Men." On Being (June 13, 2019) ["Men of all ages say Richard Rohr has given them a new way into spiritual depth and religious thought through his writing and retreats. This conversation with the Franciscan spiritual teacher delves into the expansive scope of his ideas: from male formation and what he calls “father hunger” to why contemplation is as magnetic to people now, including millennials, as it’s ever been. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan writer, teacher, and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His many books include Falling Upward, Divine Dance, and most recently, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe."]
Roshi, Susan Murphy. "Earth as Koan, Earth as Self." Emergence (April 1, 2024) ["What becomes possible when we open and orient our consciousness towards uncertainty, emptiness, and a sense of relationship with the world beyond the self? Australian writer and Zen teacher Susan Murphy Roshi immerses us in the tradition of Zen koan and the power of the not-knowing mind to open a treasury of resources for navigating the climate crisis."]
Salzberg, Sharon. "Love and Wisdom." Mind & Life (September 9, 2022) ["Wendy speaks with renowned and beloved meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. Sharon has been teaching meditation in the West for over 40 years, and is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society."]
Sanders, Seth. "Despite Conflation of Israel with Judaism, Anti-Zionism is More Kosher Than You Think." Religion Dispatches (January 14, 2024) ["Like the Israeli government, Levy implies any charges against Israel as a nation-state are attacks on the Jewish people as a whole: that any anti-Zionism is antisemitic. So is the state of Israel actually the sole political representative of the Jews? Or, per the world’s largest Hasidic court, does Israel have no legitimate Jewish status at all? For Satmar authority Rabbi Shimon Israel Posen argued that Israel’s claim to legally represent Judaism is nothing less than “forging the signature of God.” And is the identification of the state of Israel with Judaism a political exaggeration? Is it, as Shaul Magid writes, “just another chapter in the narrative to make sure Jews in America don’t feel too safe, or too wanted, as Jews [because that] is not very good for Israel”? In Magid’s argument, automatic identification with Israel “gives American Jews, who have largely abandoned religion, a solid foundation of Jewish identity that requires very little effort.” Indeed, when the House of Representatives passed a GOP bill asserting all anti-Zionism was antisemitism they found a surprising opponent in Jerry Nadler (NY-12), the representative with the largest Jewish constituency in the country. Painfully alive to the problem of antisemitism, Nadler nonetheless described the bill as trying “to weaponize Jewish lives for political gains.” He ripped into the House claim as “either intellectually disingenuous or just factually wrong,” and argued that “the authors, if they were at all familiar with Jewish history and culture, should know about Jewish anti-Zionism that was, and is, expressly NOT antisemitic [because] even today, certain orthodox Hasidic Jewish communities…as well as adherents of the pre-state Jewish labor movement have held views that are at odds with the modern Zionist conception.”]
Sanford, Matthew. "The Body's Grace." On Being (October 5, 2006) ["Matthew has an immensely energetic physical presence. He has been paralyzed from the chest down since a car accident in 1978. But he likes to say that his experience is only more extreme, not so different, from that of everyone else. He’s written, “We are all leaving our bodies — this is the inevitable arc of living. Death cannot be avoided; neither can the inward silence that comes with the aging process.” Matthew’s intricate knowledge of that “inward silence,” which he was forced to befriend after the noisy connections which most of us take for granted were severed — it’s revelatory. So is his insistence that it’s not possible to live more deeply in your body — in all its grace and all its flaws — without becoming more compassionate towards all of life. And: if you do yoga, you will never think about what it is affecting inside you in the same way again. Krista sat with Matthew Sanford in 2006, just after he’d published his beautiful book Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence."]
Schneider, Kirk. Horror and the Holy: Wisdom-Teachings of the Monster Tale. Open Court, 2013. ["Throughout history, human beings have been strangely fascinated by the monstrous and the macabre. In Horror and the Holy, a study of the classic horror story, Kirk Schneider explains the compelling power of such tales as a result of our thirst for the sacred, and identifies elements of the holy in familiar blood-curdling yarns.True horror arises when the mundane becomes unexpected and when the contained breaks free of its confining chains to become unlimited. Anything boundless tends to become terrifying, argues Schneider. It is infinitude, which draws us to the unsavory, infinitude that lurks behind dread. Sheer bliss, paradise, or Nirvana therefore always has the potential to turn into horror, as limits fall away and the boundless expanses of infinity open up. While ecstasy is a glimpse of the infinite, terror is full disclosure. Drawing upon a detailed and telling analysis of eleven well-known horror stories, Dr. Schneider finds that a spiritual understanding of life can be attained through horror. Classic horror steers a middle path between fanaticism and despair: the path of wonderment. Horror teaches us that human personality is paradoxical; that revulsion and disgust are the obverse of excitement and freedom, and that both poles are vital to individual, social, and ecological well-being."]
Seaford, Richard. "On the Origins of the Soul." The Secret History of Western Esotericism (September 13, 2017) ["In some of the earliest documents we possess from Indo-European cultures – the Rg Veda and the Homeric poems – the human beings depicted do not have ‘souls’. That is to say, they have organs of what we might call different types of consciousness, but there is no indication that there is a unifying principle which knits all the different organs together. Then, at the beginning of the sixth century BCE, something rather startling happens: in both Indian texts (the Brahmanas, Upanishads, and others) and in Greece (in the movement known as Pre-Socratic philosophy) the notion arises that there is indeed a unifying, bounded, and possibly immortal soul. Richard Seaford has a provocative theory, based in a sociological / anthropological approach, as to why this new and revolutionary idea comes into being at just this time in just these places. Whether you agree with him or not, you will not want to miss Professor Seaford’s masterful survey of the Greek and Sanskritic evidence for the first appearance of that most essential entity, the soul.
Other fascinating themes touched on:What is the ‘Axial Age’, and what makes it so ‘axial’?
The problems of dating the Homeric poems and the Rg Veda
The origins of the concept of the incorporeal in Greece and India
What money and private property have to do with the rise of the soul"]
Other fascinating themes touched on:What is the ‘Axial Age’, and what makes it so ‘axial’?
The problems of dating the Homeric poems and the Rg Veda
The origins of the concept of the incorporeal in Greece and India
What money and private property have to do with the rise of the soul"]
Selod, Saher. "Forever Suspect: Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press, 2018)." New Books in Sociology (March 29, 2021) ["How does a specific American religious identity acquire racial meaning? What happens when we move beyond phenotypes and include clothing, names, and behaviors to the characteristics that inform ethnoracial categorization? Forever Suspect, Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press, 2018) provides a nuanced portrayal of the experiences of South Asian and Arab Muslims in post 9/11 America and the role of racialized state and private citizen surveillance in shaping Muslim lived experiences. Saher Selod, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Simmons University, shares with us her story of growing up in Kansas and Texas and how writing this book helped her reclaim her own racialized experiences as the children of Pakistani immigrants to the US. Saher first began this project as a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin. As she returned to the dissertation to craft it into a book, she realized that beyond just race, racism and racialization, surveillance was a key recurring theme for the interview respondents. In today’s conversation, we explore the nuances of gender, race and surveillance, what it means to “Fly while Muslim”, and the harmful consequences of institutional surveillance laws like “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) that came about during the Obama Administration. We also touch on limitations of the book, including the exclusion of Black Muslims from this specific project. Saher’s openness with which she shares how her thinking has evolved over the years since this project first began leads us to discuss the ways in which non-Black Muslim immigrants and American born Muslims enact and maintain white supremacist structures. Forever Suspect provides an important and eye opening lens for us to consider how racialized surveillance, in all dimensions and forms, the War on Terror and U.S. Empire building continues to impact Muslim communities in the U.S."]
Shaw, John. "The problem of the poor: faith, science and poverty in 19th century Britain." The National Archives Podcast Series (September 28, 2006)
Sheehan, Thomas. "On the Historical Jesus." Entitled Opinions (January 31, 2006)
Shaw, John. "The problem of the poor: faith, science and poverty in 19th century Britain." The National Archives Podcast Series (September 28, 2006)
Sheehan, Thomas. "On the Historical Jesus." Entitled Opinions (January 31, 2006)
Shumsky, Susan. "The Inner Light: How India Influenced the Beatles." Booked on Rock (November 17, 2022) ["The spiritual journey of the Beatles is the story of an entire generation of visionaries in the sixties who transformed the world. The Beatles turned Western culture upside down and brought Indian philosophy to the West more effectively than any guru. "The Inner Light" illumines hidden meanings of the Beatles’ India-influenced lyrics and sounds, decoded by Susan Shumsky—a rare insider who spent two decades in the ashrams and six years on the personal staff of the Beatles’ mentor, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. This eye-opening book draws back the curtain on the Beatles’ experiments with psychedelics, meditation, chanting, and Indian music. Among many shocking revelations never before revealed, we discover who invented "raga rock" (not the Beatles), the real identity of rare Indian instruments and musicians on their tracks, which Beatle was the best meditator (not George), why the Beatles left India in a huff, John and George’s attempts to return, Maharishi’s accurate prediction, and who Sexy Sadie, Jojo, Bungalow Bill, Dear Prudence, Blackbird, My Sweet Lord, Hare Krishna, and the Fool on the Hill really were. Half a century later, the Beatles have sold more records than any other recording artist. A new generation wants to relive the magic of the flower-power era and is now discovering the message of this iconic band and its four superstars. For people of all nations and ages, the Beatles’ mystique lives on. “The Inner Light” is Susan Shumsky’s gift to their legacy. Susan Shumsky holds a Doctor of Divinity degree and has authored twenty books in English. She’s released thirty-six foreign editions, won forty-one book awards, and done 1,300 media appearances. A rare insider, she was on the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s personal staff for six years and lived in his ashrams for twenty years."]
Stavrakopoulou, Francesca. "God: An Anatomy (Knopf, 2022)." New Books in Ancient History (November 14, 2022) ["The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male. God: An Anatomy (Knopf, 2022) present a portrait—arrived at through the author’s close examination of and research into the Bible—of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe—and every part of the body in between—this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before."]
Sutton, Matthew, et al. "Apocalypse Now." Throughline (June 13, 2019) ["Evangelicals have played an important role in modern day American politics - from supporting President Trump to helping elect Jimmy Carter back in 1976. How and when did this religious group become so intertwined with today's political issues? In this episode, what it means to be an evangelical today and how it has changed over time."]
Tabachnick, Rachel. "The Evangelicals Engaged In Spiritual Warfare." Fresh Air (August 24, 2011)
Taub. Ben. "Guantanamo's Darkest Secret." The New Yorker (April 15, 2019) ["The U.S. military prison’s leadership considered Mohamedou Salahi to be its highest-value detainee. But his guard suspected otherwise."]
Taylor, Matthew D. "How the Alabama IVF Ruling Was Influenced by Christian Nationalism." On the Media (February 23, 2024) ["In the latest battle over reproductive health care, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. Shortly after, the state's largest hospital said it would pause IVF treatments, leaving couples with fertility problems with incredibly few options. But what made headlines in the aftermath of the ruling was the particular vocabulary used by Chief Justice Tom Parker in his concurring opinion—namely, quotes from the Bible. It's no secret that Parker is loath to separate church and state, but his preferred brand of Christian fundamentalism has mostly flown under the radar—until now. Justice Parker subscribes to the charismatic evangelical Christian leadership networks known as the New Apostolic Reformation, or the NAR, a term coined in 1996. This week, Brooke sits down with Matthew D. Taylor, scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies in Baltimore and author of the forthcoming book, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy, to talk about how a movement, once on the fringe of America’s religious landscape, is slowly emerging as a political force."]
Thornton, Katie. "The Divided Dial: Episode 1 - The True Believers." On the Media (November 15, 2022) ["In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn't do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections. We meet the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country – and perhaps the most influential media company you’ve never heard of."]
---. "The Divided Dial: Episode 2 - From Pulpit to Politics." On the Media (November 22, 2022) ["How did the little-known Salem Media Group come to have an outsized political influence? In this episode we trace the company’s rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s to the present day — a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right. We learn that Salem is tightly networked with right wing political strategists, pollsters, big donors, far right leaders and Republican party mainstays thanks to their involvement with the Council for National Policy — a secretive group of Evangelical and conservative leaders. For decades, the CNP has been working behind the scenes to get a specific, highly influential subset of voters to act. And Salem has been a megaphone for their cause."]
Thurman, Bob. "Wisdom and Bliss." Mind & Life (June 3, 2022) ["Wendy speaks with Buddhist scholar and author Robert (Bob) Thurman. Bob is one of the foremost scholars in the world on Tibetan Buddhism, and played a major role in bringing Buddhism to America."]
Tippett, Krista. "Foundations 4: Calling and Wholeness." On Being (2022) ["The language of vocation comes from the Latin “vocari”: “calling.” It is a word we use often at On Being as a pointer for the way forward. In Western culture, vocation has long been equated with work and with job title. But each of us is called not merely to be a professional, but to be a friend, neighbor, colleague, family, citizen, lover of the world."]
---. "Three Skills for Staying Calm, Sane, and Open in a Chaotic World." Ten Percent Happier (October 23, 2023) ["The host of On Being shares lessons learned from 20 years of interviews, including: how to live with open questions, counterprogramming against your negativity bias, and getting over the God question."]
Torre, Miguel de la. "Dumping Satan: It’s Time to Let Go." Religion Dispatches (October 26, 2011)Trungpa, Chögyam. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Shambhala, 2007. ["The genuine heart of sadness comes from feeling that your nonexistent heart is full. You would like to spill your heart's blood, give your heart to others. For the warrior, this experience of sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Conventionally, being fearless means that you are not afraid or that, if someone hits you, you will hit him back. However, we are not talking about street-fighter level of fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others. (32) ... But then, as you experience this sadness more and more, you realize that human beings should be tender and open. So you no longer need to feel shy or embarrassed about being gentle. In fact your softness begins to become passionate. You would like to extend yourself to others and communicate with them. When tenderness evolves in that direction, then you can truly appreciate the world around you. (36)"]
Vaneigem, Raoul. "The Resistance to Christianity. The Heresies at the Origins of the 18th Century." (1993: archived on the Anarchist Library)
Waldron, Travis. "Kentucky Church Unanimously Votes To Stop Signing Marriage Licenses Until Gay Marriage Is Legalized." Think Progress (April 21, 2011)
Walsh, David. "Why has The Passion of the Christ evoked such a popular response in America?" World Socialist Web Site (March 5, 2004)
Weatherford, Jack. "Genghis Khan's Surprising Legacy." Radio West (March 2, 2018) ["What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name Genghis Khan? Conquest, right? The terrifying Mongol hordes. But Genghis Khan’s legacy wasn’t built entirely on the battlefield. Motivated by fear and love, he was remarkably fair to the people he subjugated, going so far as to grant them religious freedom. Anthropologist Jack Weatherford has chronicled Genghis’s life and ideas, and he joins us to discuss their place in American political life and what they can teach us today."]
Vaneigem, Raoul. "The Resistance to Christianity. The Heresies at the Origins of the 18th Century." (1993: archived on the Anarchist Library)
Walsh, David. "Why has The Passion of the Christ evoked such a popular response in America?" World Socialist Web Site (March 5, 2004)
Weatherford, Jack. "Genghis Khan's Surprising Legacy." Radio West (March 2, 2018) ["What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name Genghis Khan? Conquest, right? The terrifying Mongol hordes. But Genghis Khan’s legacy wasn’t built entirely on the battlefield. Motivated by fear and love, he was remarkably fair to the people he subjugated, going so far as to grant them religious freedom. Anthropologist Jack Weatherford has chronicled Genghis’s life and ideas, and he joins us to discuss their place in American political life and what they can teach us today."]
West, Stephen. "Confucianism." Philosophize This! #8 (October 29, 2013) ["On this episode of the podcast, we learn about Confucius, a man whose ideas impacted China and eastern philosophy for thousands of years after his death. We find out how Confucius went from being the poor, friendless son of an ancient Chinese 'Teen Mom' to becoming one of the most quoted people in history, as well as how he was reduced to selling his philosophy door-to-door after a brief career as a politician which ended in conspiracy and bribery."]
---. "New Atheists and cosmic purpose without God - (Zizek, Goff, Nagel)." Philosophize This! #197 (March 10, 2024) ["As we regularly do on this program-- we engage in a metamodernist steelmanning of different philosophical positions. Hopefully the process brings people some joy. Today we go from ideology, to New Atheism vs Creationism, to Aristotle, to Thomas Nagel, to Phillip Goff's new book called Why? The Purpose of the Universe."]
Wilder, Forrest. "Rick Perry's Army of God." Texas Observer (August 3, 2011)
Wilder, Forrest and Anthea Butler. "Rick Perry and Conservative Christian Politics." Radio West (August 19, 2011)
Williams, Duncan Ryuken. "Thus Have I Heard: An American Sutra." Tricycle (Spring 2019) ["With the outbreak of World War II, Japanese Americans were incarcerated by the thousands. Out of the crucible of the camps, a uniquely American Buddhism was born."]
Wilson, Lana. The Departure Film School (October 15, 2017) ["THE DEPARTURE, Lana Wilson’s (After Tiller) poetic and deeply moving look at a former punk-turned-Buddhist priest in Japan who has made a career out of helping suicidal people find reasons to live. One of the discoveries of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and featured at some of the world’s top documentary festivals, THE DEPARTURE follows a 44-year-old Tokyo native, Ittetsu Nemoto loves riding his motorcycle and dancing all night in clubs. But he’s also a Rinzai Zen priest, who lives with his wife, mother and baby son at a temple in the remote countryside of Gifu prefecture, Japan. There, over the last ten years, he has become famous for his work in combating suicide. But this work has come increasingly at the cost of his own family and health, as he refuses to draw lines between the people he counsels and himself. With astonishing access and artistry, Wilson’s camera captures Nemoto at a crossroads, when his growing self-destructive tendencies lead him to confront the same question his patients ask him: what makes life worth living? Director Lana Wilson (After Tiller) joins us for a conversation about death, love, priorities and family."]
Wolchover, Natalie. "A New Physics Theory of Life" Quanta (January 22, 2014)
Young, Lloyd. "Ramadan Begins." The Big Picture (August 3, 2011)
Wilder, Forrest. "Rick Perry's Army of God." Texas Observer (August 3, 2011)
Wilder, Forrest and Anthea Butler. "Rick Perry and Conservative Christian Politics." Radio West (August 19, 2011)
Williams, Duncan Ryuken. "Thus Have I Heard: An American Sutra." Tricycle (Spring 2019) ["With the outbreak of World War II, Japanese Americans were incarcerated by the thousands. Out of the crucible of the camps, a uniquely American Buddhism was born."]
Wilson, Lana. The Departure Film School (October 15, 2017) ["THE DEPARTURE, Lana Wilson’s (After Tiller) poetic and deeply moving look at a former punk-turned-Buddhist priest in Japan who has made a career out of helping suicidal people find reasons to live. One of the discoveries of the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and featured at some of the world’s top documentary festivals, THE DEPARTURE follows a 44-year-old Tokyo native, Ittetsu Nemoto loves riding his motorcycle and dancing all night in clubs. But he’s also a Rinzai Zen priest, who lives with his wife, mother and baby son at a temple in the remote countryside of Gifu prefecture, Japan. There, over the last ten years, he has become famous for his work in combating suicide. But this work has come increasingly at the cost of his own family and health, as he refuses to draw lines between the people he counsels and himself. With astonishing access and artistry, Wilson’s camera captures Nemoto at a crossroads, when his growing self-destructive tendencies lead him to confront the same question his patients ask him: what makes life worth living? Director Lana Wilson (After Tiller) joins us for a conversation about death, love, priorities and family."]
Young, Lloyd. "Ramadan Begins." The Big Picture (August 3, 2011)
Yunkaporta, Tyson. "Deep Time Diligence." Emergence (February 19, 2024) ["Aboriginal scholar and author Tyson Yunkaporta illustrates how deep time thinking, born of an intimate relationship between a place and its community, can radically reshape our relationship to the cosmic order."]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Access to healthcare is a spiritual issue, deeply rooted in a compassionate world view. Currently, in America, more than 40 million people are uninsured and millions more have insurance with such a high deductible that they cannot afford to use it. It is estimated that 22,000 Americans die prematurely every year because of a lack of access to healthcare. Why can't we cover everyone? Why do we spend twice as much as every other western democracy while getting less than France, Belgium, England, etc.? Why are politicians on both sides of the political spectrum seemingly in the pocket of healthcare insurance and pharmaceutical companies . . . and why are most churches silent about this travesty?"
The genuine heart of sadness comes from feeling that your nonexistent heart is full. You would like to spill your heart's blood, give your heart to others. For the warrior, this experience of sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Conventionally, being fearless means that you are not afraid or that, if someone hits you, you will hit him back. However, we are not talking about street-fighter level of fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others. (32)
... But then, as you experience this sadness more and more, you realize that human beings should be tender and open. So you no longer need to feel shy or embarrassed about being gentle. In fact your softness begins to become passionate. You would like to extend yourself to others and communicate with them. When tenderness evolves in that direction, then you can truly appreciate the world around you. (36) -- Trungpa, Chögyam. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Shambhala, 2007.
No comments:
Post a Comment