Tom Krattenmaker is a writer specializing in religion in public life. He is the author of "Onward Christian Athletes" and "The Evangelicals You Don’t Know." Formerly of Portland, he is now communications director at Yale Divinity School. He is not a believer in God or the supernatural. But he digs Jesus. In his latest book, "Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower," he talks about Jesus as a resource for those who don t have religious beliefs.
Sep 25, 2016•27 min
Carrie Newcomer is a songwriter, recording artist, performer, and educator. She has released 15 albums. She was on Progressive Spirit when it was called Religion For Life a couple of years ago when her album "A Permeable Life" and its companion book, "A Permeable Life: Poems and Essays" was released. She is with me again to talk about her latest album, "The Beautiful Not Yet," and its companion book, "The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays, and Lyrics."
Sep 18, 2016•27 min
The Beloved Community is a new 60 minute show that airs every second Friday from 9 to 10 a.m. on 90.7 KBOO/Portland. On the Beloved Community we address the philosophical and spiritual foundations for non-violence, activism, political engagement and peace building. We also hear voices of those who are building the beloved community. The goal is to gain inspiration, solidarity, wisdom, and insight for your own activism. On this episode I speak with Sarah Jaffe about her book, "Necessary Trouble: ...
Sep 14, 2016•58 min
Chade-Meng Tan (Meng) is a Google pioneer, award-winning engineer, international bestselling author, thought leader and philanthropist. He is Chairman of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, and Co-chair of One Billion Acts of Peace, which has been nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace Prize. But that isn’t why he is a happy guy. He was happy before he was successful. He has learned the skill of accessing joy on demand! Science can now measure what ancient wisdom discovered throu...
Sep 11, 2016•27 min
The rising population known as “nones” for its members’ lack of religious affiliation is changing American society, politics, and culture. Many nones believe in God and even visit places of worship, but they do not identify with a specific faith or belong to a spiritual community. Corinna Nicolaou is a none, and in her book, "A None’s Story: Searching for Meaning Inside Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam," she describes what it is like for her and thousands of others to live without reli...
Sep 04, 2016•27 min
Jenna Yokoyama is a Japanese American. She co-hosts the show Pacific Underground on KBOO in Portland, Oregon. It is heard on the FOURTH Friday of every month at 11:00 a.m. It is also on podcast via Soundcloud and iTunes. According to its website, "There are nearly 225,000 APIs in Oregon. But in one of America’s whitest states, the issues that impact us simply aren’t covered. Imagine: 225,000 stories untold. Pacific Underground is a show by Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs) taking the mic into ...
Aug 28, 2016•27 min
Scott Brown is the Cofounder of the Colorado Center for Restorative Practices. Scott has been a long-time activist working for over 15 years with organizations including Greenpeace, the Idaho Conservation League, and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. He is a leading advocate for consistent nonviolence and bringing the principles and practices of restorative justice to bear on the full range of social issues. He is travelling the country talking about his book, Active Peace: A Mindful Pa...
Aug 21, 2016•27 min
In his 1959 Sermon on Gandhi, Dr. King said: “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, so that when the battle’s over, a new relationship comes into being between the oppressed and the oppressor….The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of non-violence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.” On “The Beloved Community” we address the philosophical and spiritual foundations for non-v...
Aug 15, 2016•54 min
Seven of her twelve books have been New York Times bestsellers. Four have been #1 on that list. You have seen her on Oprah, Larry King Live, Bill Maher, Good Morning America, and Charlie Rose. You can watch her live each Wednesday on livestream through her website Marianne.com. Her spirituality is intimately connected with social justice. We discuss her latest book, Tears to Triumph: The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment. She takes seriously the grief of our world and the grief o...
Aug 14, 2016•27 min
Five years ago the nation was stunned by the case of the Bergholz beard cutters. The Bergholz Amish Community in southern Ohio found itself outside the law by following its bishop, Sam Mullet, who became increasingly authoritarian. He controlled his community, doling out punishments, sexually abusing the wives of the men he punished, instructing members to forcibly cut beards and hair of other members of the Bergholz community. The FBI became involved when Mullet ordered his followers to cut and...
Aug 07, 2016•27 min
David Ray Griffin will go down in history (assuming the future has a history) as the most important theologian and prophet of the latter part of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is a philosopher/theologian who has written over 25 books on that topic. He wrote another dozen on 9/11 making him the premier scholar on the search for the truth behind 9/11. His latest book speaks with clarity, scholarship, and urgency to the most crucial event in our time, global warming and climate change. I spe...
Jul 31, 2016•27 min
Veda Gill is the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan (Facebook). She oversees a number of schools that educate over 6,000 students. These schools founded initially by Presbyterian missionaries in the mid 19th century are now far superior to government-run schools and they reach out to the poorest, both Muslim and Christian. She believes that education is the key to peace. She speaks with me about her important work.
Jul 24, 2016•27 min
Rick Ufford-Chase was the moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly from 2004 to 2006. He worked as a Presbyterian Mission Worker for twenty years on the U.S./Mexico border, supporting migrants and refugees and developing educational programs for people of faith who are interested in the complexities and challenges of the border region. He was formerly the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and is currently the Co-Director (with his wife, Kitty) of Ston...
Jul 17, 2016•27 min
On a Friday night in March 1981 Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile, Alabama in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found nineteen-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone. Hays and Knowles abducted him, beat him, cut his throat,...
Jul 10, 2016•27 min
Beaverton is one of the most diverse cities in Oregon with one in 5 residents born in a different country and 99 different languages spoken in homes. Megan Cohen is the Cultural Inclusion Specialist with the Mayor’s office. She discusses the Cultural Inclusion Program the city has begun to celebrate this diversity and to meet the challenges of these demographic shifts. This program was broadcast July 7th, 2016 on KBOO’s “News In Depth.”
Jul 08, 2016•14 min
Here is a special report for Progressive Spirit on the 222nd General Assembly that met July 18-25 in Portland at the Oregon Convention Center. The Assembly meets once every two years. It previously met in Portland in 1967 and before that in 1893. I speak with former moderator, Rick Ufford-Chase, newly elected stated clerk of the PCUSA, J. Herbert Nelson, Palestinian Christian, Nahida Gordon, Jeffrey DeYoe of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network, Ned Rosch of Jewish Voice for Peace, Ray Bagnuolo ...
Jun 29, 2016•13 min
Dr. Nahida Gordon, a Palestinian-American was nine years old when she and her parents had to leave their home in Jaffa in 1948. Palestinians refer to this event as al Nakba or the Catastrophe. She still has the keys to her childhood home. In her book, "Palestine Is Our Home: Voices of Loss, Courage, and Steadfastness," she brings to the West the voices of Palestinians, their culture, their resistence to Israeli occupation, and their hope to return to their homeland.
Jun 17, 2016•27 min
Krista Tippett is the host of NPR’s On Being. It is a show that asks, “What does it mean to be human and how do we want to live?” She was trained as a journalist and reported from divided Berlin. She received a Masters of Divinity Degree from Yale in 1994 and turned her attention from politics to the larger questions of life. She visited with me in the KBOO studio to talk about her own spiritual journey and her book, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.
Jun 13, 2016•27 min
Patricia Tull is An ordained Presbyterian minister and professor of Hebrew Bible. She retired from Louisville Theological Seminary where she is A.B. Rhodes Professor Emerita of Old Testament. She is the author of Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis. In this book she demonstrates how the Hebrew Scriptures can open our minds to ecology, justice, and value. She will be speaking at Southminster Presbyterian Church June 19th in conjunction with the 222nd PC(USA) General ...
Jun 05, 2016•27 min
“I didn’t squander my youth on responsibility,” quips Steve Theme, author of Asphalt Asylum: The Dark Roads to Light. It is part hitchhiking journal, part mythic adventure as Steve Theme tells the story of his 7,000 mile hitchhiking quest to run away and find home again. Steve introduces us to the fascinating people you meet on the road. More than that, he offers a window into the angst and idealism of a nineteen year-old-male as his 50+ self reflects on what it means to be human, to connect wit...
May 29, 2016•27 min
On September 29th, 1962, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett spoke before a halftime crowd at a University of Mississippi football game. He said he loved Mississippi's heritage. This compelled him to personally block African-American James Meredith from enrolling at Ole Miss. Eventually Meredith was enrolled, violence followed, and 28 clergy, white Methodist clergy, signed a statement, Born of Conviction, opposing the white power structure and its racism. Of the 28 signers, three lost their positi...
May 22, 2016•27 min
The Kamasutra brings to mind (and to Google searches) erotic and exotic sexual positions. OK, it is that. But it is much more. It is about the art of living. Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago, is a leading scholar in Hinduism and mythology. She has written over forty books including Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook, Translated from the Sanskrit, The Laws of Manu, and a new translation of the Kamasutra. Her latest is Red...
May 15, 2016•27 min
America's leading atheist, the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and co-host of Freethought Radio, Dan Barker, talks about his latest book, God the Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (audiobook) The roots of the book go to Richard Dawkins' famous description of God in his book The God Delusion. “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodth...
May 08, 2016•27 min
John Loftus was an evangelical minister. He has several degrees in Christian apologetics. He pastored churches and taught at Christian colleges. Then he left it all. He has written a dozen books with titles such as Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity and The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True. His latest book is How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from An Atheist. He cuts through the mischaracterizations, special pleading and outright li...
May 01, 2016•27 min
What is the purpose of satire? It is it effective? Can it get you in trouble? Terry Lindvall is the CS Lewis Professor of Communication and Christian Thought at Virginia Wesleyan College. He writes about humor and in his latest book, God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire From the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert, he explores the role of religious satire throughout history. From Elijah to Alexander Pope to Robert Ingersoll and more, Lindvall introduces us those who tickle our funny bone whil...
Apr 24, 2016•27 min
Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, is an evangelical Christian with a social conscience. He speaks and writes about ethics and public policy. His latest book is called America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to A New America. He has been engaging in town meetings around the country to discuss what it means for white people to “die to whiteness” and what we all need to do to make a bridge to a multi-cultural America. Here is a report about the town meeting in...
Apr 17, 2016•27 min
A pioneer of the progressive Christian movement, John Shelby Spong, returns for the third time to Progressive Spirit. We discuss his 25th book, Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy. The retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark demonstrates that the gospel writers were not writing material to be taken literally but liturgically. As Christianity moved away from Judaism it lost its ability to interpret the stories about Jesus. The Christian faith became a matter of believing things that can't possibly b...
Apr 10, 2016•27 min
What do palm fronds, statues of Ganesh, and eagle feathers all have in common? They are religious objects that pose a challenge for the environment. Jay Wexler is a professor at the Boston University School of Law. He specializes in environmental law and church/state issues. His latest book is When God Isn't Green: A World-Wide Journey to Places Where Religious Practice and Environmentalism Collide. With humor and a hope for raising consciousness and finding balance, he makes the case for contin...
Apr 03, 2016•27 min
Were the authors of the gospels who told fanciful stories about Jesus making stuff up, or did they have faulty memories, or both? Bart Ehrman, The James A Gray Professor of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina tackles the issue of Jesus and memory. He is one the most renowned and controversial religious scholars in the world. He studies the historical Jesus and early Christian writings but is not a Christian. He has written over twenty books and has appeared on this program twic...
Mar 27, 2016•27 min
John Caputo is Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. He is a "radical" theologian. From his website: "Caputo treats "sacred" texts as a poetics of the human condition, or as a 'theo-poetics,' a poetics of the event harbored in the name of God." In this conversation we discuss his book for the popular reader, The Folly of God: A Theology of the Unconditional. How to speak of God when G...
Mar 20, 2016•27 min
