On Being

A filmmaker and scholar gives us a parallel story to the ubiquitous news of China's economy and politics. Mayfair Yang discusses the ancient and reemerging traditions of reverence and ritual — revealing background to its approach to Tibet. And, she tells us how China gleaned some of its recent dismissive attitudes towards religion from the West. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/chinas-hidden-spiritual-landscape/78

The word "healing" means "to make whole." But historically, Western medicine has taken a divided view of human health. It has stressed medical treatments of biological ailments. That may be changing -- Mehmet Oz, a cardiovascular surgeon, is part of a new generation of doctors who are taking medicine to new technological and spiritual frontiers. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/heart-and-soul-mehmet-oz/108

Robert Wright charts an intellectual path beyond the faith versus reason debate. He takes a relentlessly logical look at the history of religion, exposing its contradictions. Yet Wright also traces something "revelatory" moving through human history. In this public conversation -- recorded before a live audience -- we explore the story he tells, the import he sees in it for our culture, and where it has personally taken him. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-god/193

Albert Einstein's quip that "God does not play dice with the universe," was about quantum physics, not a statement of faith. But he did ponder the relationship between science and religion and his sense of "the order deeply hidden behind everything." With guests Freeman Dyson and Paul Davies we explore Einstein's wisdom on mystery, eternity, and the mind of God. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/einsteins-god/90

E. Ethelbert Miller is a poet and self-described literary activist at Howard University. His writing and thought have pushed at the parameters of the evolving narrative of blackness -- determined not by the color of skin, but by the color of ideas. We'll explore his poetry along with the words and art of others including Malcolm X, Charles Johnson, Lucille Clifton, and John Coltrane. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/black-universal/73

British activist Ed Husain was seduced, at the age of 16, by revolutionary Islamist ideals that flourished at the heart of educated British culture. Yet he later shrank back from radicalism after coming close to a murder and watching people he loved become suicide bombers. He dug deeper into Islamic spirituality, and now offers a fresh and daring perspective on the way forward. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/reflections-former-islamist-extremist/150

Americans are religious and non-religious, devout and irreverent. But in astonishing numbers, across that spectrum, most of us say that we pray. We explore the subject of prayer, how it sounds, and what it means in three different traditions and lives. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/approaching-prayer/67‎

Karen Armstrong speaks about her progression from a disillusioned and damaged young nun into, in her words, a "freelance monotheist." She's a formidable thinker and scholar, but as a theologian she calls herself an amateur — noting that the Latin root of the word "amateur" means a love of one's subject. Seven years in a strict religious order nearly snuffed out her ability to think about faith at all. Here, we hear the story behind Armstrong's developing ideas about God. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/freelance-monotheism-karen-armstrong/197

We shine a light on two young leaders of a new generation of grassroots Muslim-Jewish encounter in Los Angeles. They're innovating templates of practical relationship that work with reality, acknowledge questions and conflict, yet resolve not to be enemies — whatever the political future of the Middle East may hold. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/curiosity-over-assumptions-interreligiosity-meets-new-generation/81

One of today's most influential spiritual teachers shares his youthful experience of depression and despair -- suffering that led him to his own spiritual breakthrough, and ultimately, freedom and peace of mind. He also explicates his view of what he calls "the pain body" -- the accumulated emotional pain that may influence us and our relationships in negative ways. And Tolle talks about spirit and God, and what those concepts mean to him. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/power-eckhart-tolles-now/217

Novelist and translator David Treuer is helping to compile the first practical grammar of the Ojibwe language. He describes an unfolding experience of how language forms what makes us human. Some memories and realities, he has found, can only be carried forward in time by Ojibwe. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/language-and-meaning-ojibwe-story/118

Nine Muslims, in their own words, reveal a creative convergence of Islamic spirituality and American identity that is unfolding, largely unnoticed, in the United States. A lawyer turned playwright, a teacher who's a lesbian, a retired federal prosecutor -- all giving shape to the nature and meaning of Muslim identity, and sharing how tricky it can be to unravel Islamic religious tradition from the many cultural traditions. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/living-islam/126

We explore the complex ethics of global aid with a young writer from Kenya, Binyavanga Wainaina. He is among a rising generation of African voices who bring a cautionary perspective to the morality and efficacy behind many Western initiatives to abolish poverty and speed development in Africa. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ethics-aid-one-kenyans-perspective/190

Mary Doria Russell has grappled with large moral and religious questions on and off the page. We discover what she discerned -- in the act of creating a new universe -- about God and about dilemmas of evil, doubt, and free will. The ultimate moral of any life and any event, she believes, only shows itself across generations. And so the novelist, like God, she says, paints with the brush of time. See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/novelist-god/215

President Obama has cited Reinhold Niebuhr's teachings as significant in shaping his ideas about politics and governance. In a public conversation, we discuss the great public theologian's legacy and ideas -- and what influence they may play in the future of American politics. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obamas-theologian-david-brooks-and-ej-dionne-reinhold-niebuhr-and-american-present/136

James Prosek is an artist, fly-fisher, author, and environmental activist who has always, as he puts it, found God "through the theater of nature." From a young age he has been fascinated by trout and now eel -- which he sees as "mystical creatures" -- and he's captured them literally and artistically, by way of both angling and paint. We explore the sense of meaning and mystery he has developed along the way, including his concern with how we humans limit our sense of other creatures by the names we give them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/fishing-mystery/100

Last fall we began to conduct an online conversation parallel to but distinct from our culture's more sustained focus on economic scenarios. For in each of our lives, whoever we are, very personal scenarios are unfolding that confront us with core questions of what matters to us and what sustains us. We made a list of our guests across the years who we thought might speak to this in fresh and compelling ways. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/repossessing-virtue-wise-voices-religion-science-industry-and-arts/162

We explore human and spiritual aspects of economic downturn with a wise public intellectual of our time, the Quaker author and educator Parker Palmer. He works with people from all walks of life at the intersection of spiritual, professional, and social change, and stresses the need to acknowledge the inner life of human beings as a source of reality and power. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/repossessing-virtue-parker-palmer-economic-crisis-morality-and-meaning/161

Diane Winston appreciates good television, studies it, and brings many of its creators into her religion and media classes at the University of Southern California. In what some have called a renaissance in television drama, we examine how TV is helping us tell our story and work through great confusions in contemporary life. And, we play clips from "The Wire," House," "Lost," and "Battlestar Galactica". See more at www.onbeing.org/program/tv-and-parables-our-time/237

In a few breathtaking months, we've culturally moved from seeing Wall Street as an icon of thriving civil society to discussing its workings with book titles like "House of Cards" and "Animal Spirits." As part of our ongoing Repossessing Virtue series, we'll talk to pioneering neuroeconomist Paul Zak. We look at what science is learning about trust, fair play, and empathy -- and what these qualities have to do with human character and economics. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/science-trust-economics-and-virtue/223

A live public conversation with Joshua DuBois -- the 26 year-old political strategist and Pentecostal Minister who is heading the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Obama White House. We'll explore what is being retained from the Bush years, what will change -- and how the experience of the Obama campaign shaped Joshua DuBois' vision of what is possible. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obamas-faith-based-office-meeting-joshua-dubois/135

We seek fresh insight into the history and the human and religious dynamics of Islam's Sunni-Shia divide. Our guest Vali Nasr says that it is not so different from dynamics in periods of Western Christian history. But he says that by bringing the majority Shia to power in Iraq, the U.S. has changed the religious dynamics of the Middle East. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/sunni-shia-divide-and-future-islam/231

A new installment in our ongoing series, Repossessing Virtue, bringing the voices of our listeners into the conversation we've been building online and on-air since the economic downturn began last year. Many are grappling with the shame that comes in American culture with the loss of a job, and many are seeking community in old places and new. For some, economic instability -- a kind of life on the edge -- is not new. They've been cultivating virtues of patience, self-examination, service and good humor that might help us all. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/repossessing-virtue-living-differently-beyond-economic-crisis/125

As a society, we're increasingly aware of the many faces of depression, and we've become conversant in the language of psychological analysis of depression and medical treatment for it. But there is a growing body of literature by people who have struggled with depression and found it to be a lesson in the nature of the human soul. In this program you'll hear intimate conversations with author Andrew Solomon, Quaker activist and educator Parker Palmer, and poet and psychologist Anita Barrows on their lived and spiritually edifying experiences with depression. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/soul-depression/224

As the bicentennial of Darwin's birth is celebrated, we seek to understand the world that formed him, and what his observations about the natural world really said about God. Darwin took religion seriously, but he understood creation as an unfolding process. He rejected the Victorian idea of a God who had fixed every detail -- including every social flaw and injustice -- at the beginning of time. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-and-wonder-understanding-charles-darwin/94

A few years ago, journalist Pankaj Mishra pursued the social relevance of the Buddha's thought across India and Europe, Afganistan and America. He emerged with a startling critique of Western political economy that is even more resonant at present. Mishra is the author of "An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World," and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and The Guardian. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/buddha-world/186

Poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht says that as a scholar she always noticed the "shadow history" of doubt out of the corner of her eye. She shows how non-belief, skepticism, and doubt have paralleled and at times shaped the world's great religious and secular belief systems. She suggests that only in modern time has doubt been narrowly equated with a complete rejection of faith, or a broader sense of mystery. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/history-doubt/51

Psychiatrist Robert Coles has spent his career exploring the inner lives of children. He says children are witnesses to the fullness of our humanity; they are keenly attuned to the darkness as well as the light of life; and they can teach us about living honestly, searchingly and courageously if we let them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/inner-lives-children/204

We remember Studs Terkel, who recently died at the age of 96. The legendary interviewer chronicled decades of ordinary life and tumultuous change in U.S. culture. We visited him in his Chicago home in 2004 and drew out his wisdom and warmth on large existential themes of life and death. A lifelong agnostic, Studs Terkel shared his thoughts on religion as he'd observed it in his conversation partners, in culture, and in his own encounters with loss and mortality. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/studs-terkel-life-faith-and-death/180

Americans remain divided about how much religion they want in their political life. As we elect a new president, we return to an evocative, relevant conversation from earlier this year with journalist Steven Waldman. From his unusual study of the American founders, he understands why 21st-century struggles over religion in the public square spur passionate disagreement and entanglement with politics at its most impure. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/liberating-founders/122

The current U.S. presidential election has illustrated how gender, race, and religion can become lightning rods, and may be seen as potential stumbling blocks to leadership. Vashti McKenzie is a pioneering figure on all these fronts. When she became the first woman bishop of the oldest historic black church in America, she declared, "The stained glass ceiling has been pierced and broken." We offer her story, her wisdom, and her good humor as an edifying lens on the American past, present, and future. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/african-american-woman-leader/62‎

The second part of our examination of religious energies below the surface of the 2008 presidential campaign. Conservative columnist Rod Dreher is an outspoken critic of mainstream Republican economic and environmental ideas and the conduct of the Iraq war, but he voted for George W. Bush twice. We explore the little-known story of religiously-influenced impulses within the conservative movement that diverge from the Religious Right. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/faith-life-party-part-ii-right/196

The Religious Right has gotten a fair amount of coverage in recent years, while the political Left has rarely been represented with a religious sensibility. Our guest, a national correspondent for Time magazine is a political liberal and an Evangelical Christian who has been observing the Democratic Party's complex relationship with faith and the little-told story of its response to the rise of the Religious Right. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/faith-life-party-part-i-left/195

The birth of the Pentecostal movement began 100 years ago on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. We'll be taking our show on the road to cover this global gathering and revival that is reshaping Christianity, culture, and politics worldwide. http://www.onbeing.org/program/spiritual-tidal-wave-origins-and-impact-pentecostalism/176

The American experience of stress has spawned a multi-billion dollar self-help industry. Wary of this, Esther Sternberg says that, until recently, modern science did not have the tools or the inclination to take emotional stress seriously. She shares fascinating new scientific insight into the molecular level of the mind-body connection. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/stress-and-balance-within/179

Evangelical leader Rick Warren is in the news for bringing John McCain and Barack Obama together at his Saddleback Church in California. This two-hour event, broadcast live on CNN, is just one sign of the cross-cultural authority Warren and his wife Kay have achieved in a handful of years. We revisit Krista's conversation with them at Saddleback last year -- exploring who they are and what motivates them. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/rick-and-kay-warren-saddleback/167

The news has been marked in recent years, at regular intervals, by the moral and practical downfall of prominent businesses. Jonathan Greenblatt is among a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to lead a fundamental shift in corporate culture as well as philanthropy -- a merger between making a profit and doing good. We explore his way of seeing the world and his economics of "ethical brand architecture" and "fiercely pragmatic idealism." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/business-doing-good/187

An environmentalist who pursued the ecological impulse of Paganism, from its ancient roots to its modern revival in Europe and North America, discusses his observations about the spirit of Paganism and its influence on everyday Western culture -- and even on old-time religion. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pagans-ancient-and-modern/139

Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson once said that the program he helped create is, "utter simplicity which encases a complete mystery." We explore the spiritual foundations of addiction and recovery with authors Kevin Griffin and Susan Cheever. Griffin reflects on the consonance of Buddhist teachings and the 12 Steps; Cheever tells her personal story and that of her father, the late fiction writer John Cheever. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spirituality-addiction-and-recovery/229

We depart from our usual format and listen to a spectrum of lay Catholic voices on the force of this vast and ancient tradition on their lives, the way they struggle with it, the sources of their love for it. Even to be a "lapsed Catholic," we hear, is a complex state of being. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/beauty-and-challenge-being-catholic-hearing-faithful/183

In a recent Pew poll, 16 percent of Americans identified themselves as "unaffiliated" - atheist, agnostic, or most prominently "nothing in particular." Greg Epstein, a Humanist chaplain at Harvard, described himself that way until he discovered the tradition of humanism. He is passionate about articulating an atheist identity that is not driven by a stance against religion but by positive ethical beliefs and actions. See more www.onbeing.org/program/exploring-new-humanism/97

Ingrid Mattson, the first woman and first convert to lead the Islamic Society of North America, describes her experience of Islamic spirituality, which she discovered in her twenties after a Catholic upbringing. We probe her unusual perspective on a tumultuous age for Islam in the West and around the world. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/new-voice-islam/54

Before a live audience at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, Krista reads from her book, "Speaking of Faith." She traces the intersection of human experience and religious ideas in her own life, just as she asks her guests to do each week. Krista reflects on her adventure of conversation across the world's traditions -- and on the whole story of religion in human life, beyond the headlines of violence. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/remembering-forward/160

Americans have been hearing about Mormonism in the context of the presidential campaign. But we're learning about this faith of 13 million people indirectly, by way of rhetoric and defense. In this program, we avoid well-trodden, controversial ground and seek an understanding of some doctrinal and spiritual basics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Robert Millet, a leading scholar of the church and a lifelong practitioner, describes a developing young religion with distinct mystical and practical interpretations of the nature of God, family, and eternity. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/inside-mormon-faith/112

A rich global dialogue is taking place between religious thinkers and scientists of many disciplines. The global dialogue between science and religion often is obscured by headlines of a science/religion clash. V.V. Raman, a Hindu physicist, shares the ideals of his spirituality and insights from his study of physics. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/hearts-reason-hinduism-and-science/202

Former Burmese Buddhist nun and anthropologist Ingrid Jordt takes us inside the spiritual culture of Burma, exploring the meaning of monks taking to the streets there in September, the way in which religion and military rule are intertwined, and how Buddhism remains a force in and beyond the current crisis. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/burma-buddhism-and-power/75

Reinhold Niebuhr was a 20th-century theologian who had crossover appeal among religious and secular Americans. He's now being rediscovered as decision-makers on the right and the left ponder war, nation-building, and the relationship between politics and religion. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/moral-man-and-immoral-society-rediscovering-reinhold-niebuhr/132

In 1965, young Harvard professor Harvey Cox became the best-selling voice of secularism in America with his book "The Secular City." He sees the old thinking in the "new atheism" of figures like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Cox says that either/or debates between religion and atheism obscure the truly interesting interplay between faith and other forms of knowledge that is unfolding today. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/beyond-atheism-religion-divide/71/

In over 50 years as a Benedictine nun, Joan Chittister has emerged as a powerful and at times uncomfortable voice in Roman Catholicism and in global politics. If women were ordained in the Catholic Church in our lifetime, some say, she should be the first woman bishop. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/obedience-and-action/137

Anchee Min has recently published the second book in her fictional account of the last Chinese imperial court and its empress. In her personal story and in her writing, Anchee Min offers a window into spiritual instincts and experiences that mark a rapidly evolving China into the present. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/surviving-religion-mao/181