Interfaith Voices Podcast (hour-long version)

Jeanne Lewis reflects on how faith-rooted work differs from the organizing of previous eras and rejects the notion that the progressive movement has lost religion.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez talks about the role of Christian pop culture in reshaping evangelical attitudes about gun rights, gender, and demographic changes sweeping across the country.

Two Catholic women share how they are working to educate and engage American Catholics to examine their beliefs and perceptions about Palestinians.

For many years, Dr. Duane Bidwell served as a hospital chaplain, working to offer spiritual support to people who were often in their most vulnerable moments.

The issue advocacy campaign to urge voters in Michigan to cast an uncommitted ballot as a protest vote exceeded organizers' expectations and has sparked a movement spreading to other primary states.

Women don’t always feel welcome in American mosques. They’re sometimes turned away, sent to basements to pray, or discouraged from serving on the boards of directors. Aisha al-Adawiya has devoted her life to changing that.

Author Ann W. Duncan describes the “sacred pregnancy movement” and examines three major organizations involved. Their services range from sacred belly painting in luxurious retreat settings to helping process pregnancy loss.

Samira Mehta discusses how words like “sacred,” “ensoulment,” “mother,” and “baby” have been used by both sides of the culture war over reproductive rights and how they have changed our perception of pregnancy.

This special segment was produced by NPR’s Code Switch, co-hosts B. A. Parker and Gene Denby explore the curious twists and turns in the relationship between freedom-seeking activists across oceans and borders. 

A group of public health workers in North Carolina worked to foster trusting relationships to tackle vaccine hesitancy among Native Americans.

A college student shares what it is like to be a religious Jew who rejects Zionism

Dr. Toni Pressley-Sanon's latest book, Lifting As They Climb: Black Women Buddhists and Collective Liberation explores how a growing number of Black women have integrated Buddhist practices into their spiritual lives.

Mike Merryman-Lotze joins us to share the struggles facing humanitarian workers in Gaza.

The Israeli military is using artificial intelligence and the targeting of low-level members of Hamas in their homes at a time when civilian casualties would be high.

Joy Ashford is the new religion reporter at the Dallas Morning News, supported by Report for America.  They join us to share some of the stories Joy has been covering in North Texas.

Bob Otis, founding pastor of Sacred Garden Community Church, outlines its beliefs and practices. Then, the author of God on Psychedelics describes how psychedelic worship communities are proliferating.

Pastor Bob Otis describes his faith journey from a Christian home in Tennessee to a psychedelic church in Berkeley. Then, Chief Phillip Scott discusses the fine line between respectful use and cultural appropriation.

In 2023, the Religion News Service hired Richa Karmarkar as the first national religion reporter covering the Hindu beat. She hopes the growth of the Hindu community sparks interest and curiosity about the diversity of a religious tradition that is not well understood.

A trailblazer in Christian feminist theology, Dr. Mary Hunt, joins to reflect on how the world for women in religion has changed and how groups like hers are adapting. 

Carolina Nieto, director of Ashoka's Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean office–established a "council of elders" drawn from Spanish speakers across Latin America, hoping to tap into its members' wisdom, patience, and spirituality.

Cultural anthropologist Lynsey Farrell, co-founder of The Grandmother Collective, is building community by connecting older women with adolescent girls.

Dr. Connie Zweig discusses why spirituality—however it may be defined—is crucial to a fulfilling old age.

A new poll released by the Pew Research Center reinforces one key finding: Americans believe religion is a force for good in society.

The leader of Word and Way, a Christian media company, is focused on building conversation spaces for Christians to deal with the MAGA version of Christianity and confront the political manipulation of scripture.

Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Oseguera joins us to explain why she sees interrogating the Western narrative of the enslaved as interconnected to Black Muslim mental health today.

Dr. Robert P. Jones, President and Founder of PRRI, discusses the latest research documenting the rising influence of Christian Nationalism in some segments of American politics.

As the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, a group of multifaith peace activists began a journey from Philadelphia heading for the White House.

Emgage Action Michigan interim executive director Hira Khan joins to explain why her organization and volunteer network worked with partners to encourage voters to use the ballot to send a message instead of disengaging.

Women don’t always feel welcome in American mosques. They’re sometimes turned away, sent to basements to pray, or discouraged from serving on the boards of directors. Aisha al-Adawiya has devoted her life to changing that. She’s inspired a national campaign — and a fatwa — that’s persuading the men who control mosques to share space and power. Our partners at "The Spiritual Edge" brought this story to us.

Kim Bobo, executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, joins us to discuss the 2024 legislative agenda and how the 42-year-old organization continues to grow and expand its base across the Commonwealth.

Among the hundreds of volunteers preparing to lobby lawmakers was Anne Murphy, a Catholic retiree and resident of Northern Virginia.  In this conversation, she describes why she has attended these annual lobbying events with the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.

Though the Founding Fathers were Christian, many of them held beliefs out of step with most American Christians of their time – and ours.

Both Union and Confederate leaders invoked God to advance their causes during the Civil War. But Abraham Lincoln refused to claim the divine on his side.

As a law student, Thomas Jefferson bought a Quran from an English publisher. But why? Did he read it as a sacred text? As a window into Muslim law?

Sick, tired, and hopeful, Central American migrants are bused daily from a detention center to a former Benedictine monastery in Tucson, Ariz., where a small army of volunteers offers showers, fresh clothes, and medical treatment.

We talk to Daisy Vargas, whose current work traces the history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic bias in the U.S.

Rev. Esau McCaulley confronts the controversy that the Civil War was not fought because of slavery but because of Southern heritage. 

We explore the inspiration behind Dr. Jemar Tisby's new book, How to "Fight Racism: A Young Reader's Edition".

Dr. Ryan Burge discusses the trends and data that may explain Mr. Trump’s ongoing appeal, evidenced in the 2024 Iowa Caucus results.

Journalist Jeff Sharlet talks about the "slow civil war" taking place in the United States and his book The Undertow.

Dr. Lewis V Baldwin discusses his new book, “The Arc of Truth: The Thinking of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” He looks at what we could lose if we forget the teachings of Dr. King.

Episcopal priest and writer Greg Garrett confronts the religious legacy of James Baldwin and the challenge his theology poses to anti-black racism in the United States.

Ronit Y. Stahl is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied how military chaplaincy evolved.

Filmmakers David Washburn and Razi Jafri introduce the three military Muslim chaplains profiled in their new documentary and describe how they came to spend seven years following them around the country.

The RNA’s Ken Chitwood breaks down the top three religion stories of the year.

Tia Kolbaba of Rutgers University co-teaches a popular course connecting religion to the hot-button headlines. Kolbaba teaches her students that religion is not separate from everything else but is almost always in the room.

In Spokane, Washington, a religion-news website called FāVS is bucking the national trend away from local news.

This week, we feature selections from the December 8, 2019, Sounds of Faith concert at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Tim Alberta’s new book, "The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory," examines the divisions threatening to destroy the American evangelical movement.

This week, Kelley Nikondeha joins to talk about why she wrote about that first season and how the book, released in October 2022, is now being discovered as more Christians want to learn about Palestine. 

Journey Films founder and director Martin Doblmeir talks about the documentary feature that tells the story of Black liberation theologian Howard Thurman and his legacy.  The feature film now airing on public television introduces audiences to the life of a man Doblmeir describes as “a poet" and “mystic.”