Multifaith Matters

Many conservative Christians are deconstructing and reconstructing their faith. One of the areas in which this takes place is how to understand the Bible. Jared Byas is our guest who talks about this in relation to his book Love Matters More: How Fighting To Be Right Keeps Us From Loving Like Jesus . Along the way we discuss our respective faith journeys and how our understanding of the Bible has...

As a part of our series in response to the Pentagon report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs/UFOs), the noted scholar of new religious movements, Benjamin Zeller , discusses UFO religions. Zeller is associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College. He is the author of a number of books including Heaven's Gate: America's UFO Religion , and editor of Brill's Handbook of UFO Religions .

Belief in the paranormal has remained high among Americans. What is the paranormal, what phenomena are involved, what can be said about the recent Pentagon UFO/UAP report , and why should religion scholars take the paranormal seriously? Darryl Caterine discusses this and more. Caterine is a professor of religious studies at LeMoyne College. He is a historian of religions whose research focuses on...

In her book, Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists , Chenxing Han writes that, "more than two thirds of U.S. Buddhists are Asian American. But you’d never guess this from mainstream representations, which all too often whitewash the racial and cultural diversity of American Buddhist communities. "Be the Refuge is both critique and celebration, countering the erasure of Asia...

Programs like The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy include a lot of humor related to religion. But what does it mean? David Feltmate discusses his book Drawn to the Gods where he examines how these animated comedies feature Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Native American religions, Hinduism, new religious movements, and atheism. Feltmate is Associate Professor of Sociology at Auburn Un...

This episode brings together Thomas K. Johnson and C. Holland Taylor to discuss the publication of the significant volume they co-edited, God Needs No Defense: Reimagining Muslim-Christian Relations in the 21st Century, a festschrift in honor of Dr. Thomas Schirmacher, Secretary General and CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance. This book brings together Christian and Muslim thinkers who articulat...

Given the work of the Perseverance Rover on Mars, and the recent release of the Pentagon's report on UFOs or Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, speculation about the possibility of the existence of alien life is on our minds. Ted Peters helps shed light on this in this podcast episode. Dr. Peters teaches systematic theology and ethics at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He co-ed...

Jeremiah Films produced a number of films and pseudo-documentaries that included satanic conspiratorial elements. Think of Gods of the New Age and The Pagan Invasion. In an article in Diabolique, Robert Skvarla argued that this didn't stop with the end of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, but instead shifted from religion to politics. Skvarla is a freelance writer from Philadelphia. His focuses incl...

Renewed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is the background for this episode. Munther Isaac is our guest, and as his book The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope describes, Christians have lived in Palestine since the earliest days of the Jesus movement. Yet, in the heated tensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the voices of Palestinian Chri...

Although they are the fifth largest major world religions, Sikhs are often an ignored or stigmatized religious community in the US. They have been the victims of prejudice and violence at times due to a confusion with Muslims in post-9/11 America. In this episode our guest helps us understand Sikhism, how the Sikh community is woven into the fabric of American life, and how they have responded to...

Evangelical-Mormon dialogue has tended to focus on beliefs, sacred texts, and founding historical narratives. But what if we expanded our conversations to include how religion is lived in daily live, such as how the objects of material culture function and are valued? In this podcast Cory Willson discusses his chapter contribution in T alking Doctrine: Mormons and Evangelicals in Conversation with...

Darren Duerksen is a Christian who teaches at Fresno Pacific University, and Fred Stella is a Hindu affiliated with the Hindu American Foundation. Both men have been guests individuall on the podcast previously, but they come together in a conversation from Facebook Live to discuss “Why should I love my neighbor?: Hindu and Christian similarities and differences on the origins and nature of love.”...

The centrality of the cross of Jesus in Christian spirituality cannot be overestimated (Phil. 2:5-8; 1 Cor. 2:2). But what does this cruciform or cross-shaped spirituality spoken of by the Apostle Paul mean and look like? And how might it be more purposefully applied by American evangelicals and other Christians to our present circumstances, including multifaith engagement. Michael J. Gorman is th...

Rachel Mikva is our guest discussing her book Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam . Her book reveals how faith traditions have always passed down tools for self-examination and debate, because all religious ideas - not just extremist ones - can cause harm, even as they also embody important moral teachings. Rachel S. Mikva serves as...

Religion Unplugged is reporting that Zondervan and Harper Collins are releasing a God Bless the USA Bible in September for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It will include "the full texts of the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and pledge of allegiance. The holy book also includes licensed lyrics to the popular 1984 song by country music singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood,...

The Simpsons has been on the air for over thirty seasons, but not all of the characters have been well received. For example, Apu has generated controversy, with some Hindus and South Asians seeing him negatively as a racist stereotype , and others finding finding him unproblematic . In this episode, Fred Stella , host of the Common Threads podcast, President of The Interfaith Dialogue Association...

Why is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such an unending cycle of violence? What is the psychology underlying conflict over land and religion? Daniel Bar-Tal explores this with us in this episode. Bar-Tal is an Israeli academic, author and Branco Weiss Professor of Research in Child Development and Education at School of Education, Tel Aviv University. He is the author and editor of a number of bo...

The QAnon conspiracy said that an underground Satanic pedophile ring of liberal Democrats was preying on our children. But such fears didn't start with them. In the 1980s, America was gripped by widespread panics about Satanic cults. Conspiracy theories abounded about groups who were allegedly abusing children in daycare centers, impregnating girls for infant sacrifice, brainwashing adults, and ev...

The growth of The Nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making The Nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that The Nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade. They repres...

In this podcast Thomas K. Johnson discusses his new books Humanitarian Islam, Evangelical Christianity, and the Clash of Civilizations , as well as The Protester, the Dissident and the Christian: Essays on Human Rights and Religion . (Free PDF copies have been made available on the Multifaith Matters recommended books page.) Johnson is Senior Theological Advisor to the World Evangelical Alliance (...

In The Politics of Vulnerability , Asma Uddin , American Muslim public intellectual, religious liberty attorney, and activist, provides a unique perspective on the complex political and social factors contributing to the Muslim-Christian divide. Unlike other analysts, Uddin asks what underlying drivers cause good people to do, or believe, bad things? Why do people who value faith support measures...

Michael T. McRay is a Nashville-based writer, facilitator, and story-practitioner, and the award-winning author of I Am Not Your Enemy . In the pages of this book, visits divided regions of the world and interviews activists, peacebuilders, former combatants about their personal stories of conflict, justice, and reconciliation. In Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, he hears...

Religion informs our disagreements over social and political issues, and how to care for the environment and climate change is at the top of the list. Bron Taylor ,  professor of religion and nature, environmental ethics, and environmental studies at the University of Florida and author of Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future , joins with Loren Wilkinson, retired Profe...

I was a guest on Phil Wyman's The Wild Theology podcast via Facebook Live where we discussed our practice of befriending those in other religions. We shared our stories, the responses of those in other religions, the harsh criticism we've sometimes received from fellow evangelicals, and related theological questions and concerns.

In this episode, we discuss the book The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently with co-authors Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Department of Jewish Studies. She has also taught at Swarthmore C...