Episodes
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
Beliefs Archives: Celebrant of Atheism & Humanism Susan Jacoby
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
This week on Beliefs, we return to a conversation with one of our favorite guests, scholar and writer Susan Jacoby.
Secularism and atheism finds a full-throated defense in this episode. Jacoby takes us on a journey of where we were just one year ago: presidential politics on the rise, the rise of secularism, no pandemic in sight, and a world less complicated.
Jacoby brings together the threads of various moments in history to identify her view that religion and politics have never comfortably coexisted.
Friday Jun 19, 2020
Friday Jun 19, 2020
From Our Archives:
We revisit a conversation from our first season with the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim. She describes the clarity she feels from what she calls the unfinished business of America. Reparations for slavery, the rights of women to control their bodies, and opposition to xenophobic oppression; all a part of the central moral character Rabbi Timoner feels is her purpose. As a rabbi, as a Jew, and as a social justice activist.
Friday Jun 12, 2020
Quitting Liberty: Dr. Christopher A. House
Friday Jun 12, 2020
Friday Jun 12, 2020
Speaker, Pastor and Scholar Dr. Christopher A. House resigned from Liberty University recently in protest of President Jerry Falwell Jr’s deleted tweet featuring both blackface and KKK characters.
To speak to us about the moment when belief becomes action, Beliefs producer Jay Woodward asked Dr. House for a conversation.
Friday Jun 05, 2020
Friday Jun 05, 2020
Writer and historian Jemar Tisby, Pastor Tyler Burns of New Dimensions Christian Center in Pensacola, Florida co-host the podcast Pass The Mic for their organization The Witness - A Black Christian Collective.
We gratefully thank Religion News Service reporter Adelle Banks for leading the conversation.
Friday May 29, 2020
The call for congregation
Friday May 29, 2020
Friday May 29, 2020
The steady call to reopen churches –amplified by Presidential encouragement- is thrilling to some and alarming others. How do we return to worship when the act of group singing, chanting, and praying can be so dangerous?
How can churches be told to cease their primary function?
Beliefs producer Jay Woodward spoke with RNS opinion columnist Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, and RNS Editor-In Chief Bob Smietana to assess the tensions facing churches across the country.
Friday May 22, 2020
Al & Andi Tauber: Street ministry into song
Friday May 22, 2020
Friday May 22, 2020
A ministry of song and service, with devotion to the most invisible among us.
The husband and wife singer-songwriting team of Al and Andi Tauber, Urban Mennonites:
They seek and value the simple life – in much the same way as their Amish and Quaker spiritual cousins, but their calling returns them to urban spaces; to pressing societal concerns.
This episode of Beliefs was produced by Monique Parsons in collaboration with KALW's The Spiritual Edge, the University of California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, and Religion News Service.
Friday May 15, 2020
The ritual of remains.
Friday May 15, 2020
Friday May 15, 2020
We all have Beliefs on where our soul goes upon death.
What remains is just that – remains.
How do we honor the vessel that held the person we used to know?
From earth to water, and even to the sky,
delivering the body back to dust contains deep ritual for many faith traditions.
Bill Baker speaks with Hamilton College Professor S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate
to find guidance on the comfort of the ritual of passing.
Friday May 08, 2020
America leans in to faith
Friday May 08, 2020
Friday May 08, 2020
To understand who we are, and what our numbers signify, we turn to the math, to the staticians.
Some among us combine psychology, algebra, opinion, and faith to read the rivers of American opinion.
Greg Smith is associate director of research at Pew Research Center. He helps to coordinate the Center’s domestic polling on religion.
As the world gets stranger, we look for answers - from the divine, and from the numbers...
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Progressive faith and politics
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
For decades, the political influence of faith has been seen in the might and the dominance of the Religious Right.
A new book from Religion News Service political correspondent Jack Jenkins called American Prophets, The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country charts the so-called Religious Left.
Beliefs producer Jay Woodward and I spoke with Jack about his new book and the emergence of a powerful new political identity.
Friday Apr 24, 2020
The Strength of Self: James Croft and the Ethical Society of St. Louis
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Houses of worship across the world are adapting to the challenges of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Keeping congregants feeling tied to their faith, themselves, and one another has been a challenge felt by all. But what if faith isn't at the center of the congregation? How are humanist, atheist and agnostic spiritual communities handling the isolation caused by the pandemic?
James Croft, a clergyman at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, spoke with Beliefs producer Jay Woodward this week to share insight on how his congregation has handled the past several weeks.