On Being

We revisit Krista's 2005 conversation with Eboo Patel, who calls al-Qaeda the most effective youth organization in the world. But contrary to the wisdom of secular society, he's working to deepen rather than tame the religious energies of the young across many traditions. And he believes this may be our only chance for survival. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/religious-passion-pluralism-and-young/159

We make a radio pilgrimage into the world of L'Arche, communities formed around people with mental disabilities and others who share life with them. At the heart of the L'Arche movement is a religious idea of difference as normal and imperfection as a source of strength. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/larche-community-brokenness-and-beauty/116

With Salvadoran-American scholar Manuel Vasquez, we explore how religious and spiritual worldviews anchor Latino cultures and are reshaping North American culture in fascinating ways. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/latino-migrations-and-changing-face-religion-americas/106

American ideals of courtship and marriage echo with Biblical imagery — "bone of my bones" "flesh of my flesh." But what does the Bible really say, and how has it been taught across the centuries in which the institution of marriage has changed dramatically? With a rabbi and a New Testament scholar, we explore nuances of biblical teachings about marriage, family, and divorce — the surprising ambiguities of the New Testament and the striking practicality of Jewish tradition across the ages. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/marriage-family-and-divorce/129

In this close-up look at the human dynamics of the war on terror, our guest speaks about her husband, journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Pakistan shortly after 9/11. She talks about Buddhism, her ethic of spiritual defiance, and her hopes for the future. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/spirit-defiance/58

With Iraq veteran and chaplain Major John Morris, we explore how war challenges the human spirit and the core tenets of a life of faith. The War on Terror, he says, presents its own spiritual challenges. He is working to support the reintegration of National Guard and Reserve personnel, who are being mobilized for active duty at record levels in Afghanistan and Iraq. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/soul-war/225

A conversation with South African Quaker and cosmologist George Ellis. He argues that ethics, like mathematics, is a part of the universe that we discover rather than invent. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/science-and-hope/172

Jimmy Carter -- former president and Nobel Laureate, author and global humanitarian -- speaks of his born-again faith with a directness that is striking even in today's political culture. He reflects on being commander in chief while following, as he says, "the Prince of Peace"; on upholding the law while privately opposing abortion; and on his marriage of 60 years as a metaphor for the challenge of human relationship both personal and global. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/private-faith-jimmy-carter/219

Last month, conservative Christian leaders demanded that Richard Cizik be silenced or removed from his post. They charged that his concerns about climate change and torture have shifted attention away from moral issues such as gay marriage and abortion. But for Cizik, poverty, war, and the environment are moral issues too. We revisit Krista's 2006 conversation with Cizik that took many listeners by surprise. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/evolution-american-evangelicalism/192

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) held public sessions from 1996 to 1998, and concluded its work in 2004. In an attempt to rebuild its society without retribution, the Commission created a new model for grappling with a history of extreme violence. The basic premise of the Commission was that any individual, whatever he or she had done, was eligible for amnesty if they would fully disclose and confess their crimes. Victims were invited to tell their stories and witness confessions. Through the TRC, many families finally came to know when and how their loved ones died. By the end of the hearings, the Commission took statements from more than 20,000 victims of Apartheid and received applications for amnesty from 7,100 perpetrators. We explore the religious implications of truth and reconciliation with two people — one black, one white — who did the work of the Commission in charge of it. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/truth-and-reconciliation/236/

In the final episode of this two-part series, we delve into Einstein's Jewish identity, his passionate engagement around issues of war and race, and modern extensions of his ethical and scientific perspectives with theoretical physicist S. James Gates, Jr. and biographer Thomas Levenson See more at www.onbeing.org/program/einsteins-ethics/89

Abraham is the common patriarch of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. His story spans dramatic territory of the modern world — both physical and spiritual — beginning in southern Iraq and ending in the West Bank city of Hebron. Journalist Bruce Feiler went in search of Abraham to understand the crises and possibilities of the 21st-century world. The story of Abraham, Feiler says, illuminates God and politics, sacred geography, and modern spirituality. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/children-abraham/77

Isabel Mukonyora has followed and studied a religious movement of her Shona people, the Masowe Apostles, that embraces Christian tradition while addressing the drama of African life and history. The founder of this movement, Johane Masowe, emphasized an ancient Jewish and Christian pull to the wilderness. Through her stories we explore modern African spirituality, diaspora, and finding meaning, as Mukonyora says, "in the margins." See more at www.onbeing.org/program/sacred-wilderness-african-story/169

Is our Western concern about women in Islam really a concern for the well-being of women? Is the veil a symptom of their problems, or ours? Our guest Leila Ahmed provides essential background and challenges Western thinking on these and other questions. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/muslim-women-and-other-misunderstandings/133

A great public theologian and historian, Martin Marty offers personal and historical perspective on religion in modern life — including the nature of fundamentalism, and the decline of America's mainline Protestant majority as Evangelical Christianity gains in influence. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/americas-changing-religious-landscape-conversation-martin-marty/65

Experts once predicted that as the world grew more modern, religion would decline. Precisely the opposite has proven true; religious movements are surging and driving "alternative globalizations" across the world. Two leading thinkers offer a penetrating view of how and why religion of all kinds is shaping the global economy and political order. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/globalization-and-rise-religion/105#sthash.nW578dAw.dpuf

Politics driven by a religious agenda, Danforth says, is true neither to his understanding of Christian faith nor to the traditional values of the Republican party. This veteran politician speaks about the values that have helped him navigate the line between private faith and public life and his current concerns about religion in his own party and in the world. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/conservative-politics-and-moderate-religion/80

Dramatic headlines convey a predominantly violent picture of global Islam. But, during the past five years, Muslim guests on SOF have conveyed a thoughtful, questing, diverse, and compelling faith. Step back with us and hear these voices from the traditional and evolving center of Islam. And, Krista speaks with Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an esteemed Muslim scholar who brings a broad religious and historical perspective to hard questions about Islam and the West that have lingered uncomfortably in American life since 9/11. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/hearing-muslim-voices-911/107

Hurricane Katrina brought urban poverty in America into all of our living rooms. In this program, David Hilfiker tells the story of how poverty and racial isolation came to be in cities across America. He lives creatively and realistically with questions many of us began to ask in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/seeing-poverty-after-katrina/173

Our culture's acrimonious debate on the morality of gay marriage has been framed in religious — largely conservative Christian — terms. We go behind the rhetoric to explore the human confusion, hopes, and fears this subject arouses. We'll name hard questions that these religious people on both sides of the issue are asking themselves, and that they would like to ask of others. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/gay-marriage-broken-or-blessed-two-evangelical-views/103

A survivor of the Holocaust, in which he lost most of his family, Wiesel is a seminal chronicler of that event and its meaning. Wiesel shares some of his thoughts on modern-day Israel and Germany, his understanding of God, and his practice of prayer after the Holocaust. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/tragedy-believer/232

The wildly popular novel turned movie reimagines the New Testament, in part, as a cover-up. What really happened in the fluid early years of Christianity? What is the truth about Mary Magdalene? We separate fact from fiction in the story's plot with two New Testament scholars who say that the story is simpler and much more interesting than conspiracy theories suggest. See more at: http://www.onbeing.org/program/deciphering-da-vinci-code/83

Joel Hanson has schizophrenia and believes he is God. His parents reflect on living with their son and how they have learned to see mental illness, normalcy, and religion differently. Is there room in our culture to consider a schizophrenic personality as another form of human difference and diversity? See more at www.onbeing.org/program/room-j-one-familys-struggle-schizophrenia/168

In the second of a two-part series, continue listening to experiences and perceptions that divide Israelis and Palestinians even as they share a land they both consider holy. Two Muslim Palestinians, Mohammed Abu-Nimer and Sami Adwan, speak about the intersection of the spiritual and the political in their lives.' See more at www.onbeing.org/program/two-narratives-reflections-israeli-palestinian-present-part-1/238

In the first of a two-part series, we'll seek to understand the difficulty of peace in a land that its inhabitants, on both sides of conflict, consider holy. We listen this hour to journalist Yossi Klein Halevi's perceptions and perspectives as an Israeli Jew. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/two-narratives-reflections-israeli-palestinian-present-part-1/238

In an age of Enron and WorldCom, how can we imagine a place for business ethics, much less religious virtue, in the global economy? We speak with a Hindu international business analyst who offers learned, fascinating observations about how the world's myriad religions have shaped global business norms and practices. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/gods-business/199#sthash.4Qf34SrR.dpuf

Our guest, an American Muslim and religious scholar, helps untangle the knot of violent and bewildered reactions to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/face-prophet-cartoons-and-chasm/194

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose life spanned the rise and fall of Hitler's Germany, offers us a model of personal morality and conscience in the most troubled and immoral of times. His resistance of Nazi ideology, while much of the German church succumbed, is a testament to his moral vision and faith. Krista speaks with producer Martin Doblmeier, whose 2003 documentary chronicled Bonhoeffer's life and thought, about the legacy of this unusual theologian. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/ethics-and-will-god-legacy-dietrich-bonhoeffer/91#sthash.hBqiHiAB.dpuf