On Being with Krista Tippett

Mayfair Yang is Director of the East Asia Center at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She has produced two films about China and is the author of Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation.

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.

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...

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...

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 onbeing.org/program/ein...

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 onbeing.org/program/ein...

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 onbeing.org/program/ein...

Part two of this series delves into Einstein’s Jewish identity, his passionate engagement around issues of war and race, and modern extensions of his ethical and scientific perspectives.

A poet and self-described literary activist, E. Ethelbert Miller attended Howard University in 1968 — the age in which Black Power was finding its voice. He has remained there ever since, observing and making sense of the trajectory of black history and culture. He pushes at the parameters within which mainstream America routinely sees what he calls “blackness.” Krista’s unedited conversation with...

A poet and self-described literary activist, E. Ethelbert Miller attended Howard University in 1968 — the age in which Black Power was finding its voice. He has remained there ever since, observing and making sense of the trajectory of black history and culture. He pushes at the parameters within which mainstream America routinely sees what he calls “blackness.”

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. Krista Tippett’s un...

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.

In this Unheard Cut, Krista speaks with author and translator Stephen Mitchell. She interviewed him on April 22, 2002 from the studios of American Public Media in St. Paul, Minnesota; he was at his home in California. This interview is included in our program Approaching Prayer. Americans are religious and non-religious, devout and irreverent. But in astonishing numbers, across that spectrum, most...

In this Unheard Cut, Krista speaks with Roberta Bondi, a professor of Church History Emeritus at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Krista interviewed her in April 2002 in a New York City hotel where they were both attending a conference. This interview is included in our program Approaching Prayer. Americans are religious and non-religious, devout and irreverent. But in astonishi...

In this Unheard Cut, Krista speaks with musician Anoushka Shankar from a Minneapolis hotel while she was touring in 2002. This interview is included in our program Approaching Prayer. 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 t...

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.

In this unedited conversation, Krista speaks with Karen Armstrong, a best-selling author, scholar, and Catholic nun. Hear their complete conversation as Armstrong tells the story behind her developing ideas about God. 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...

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...

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 onbeing.org/program/curiosity-over-assumptions-interreligiosity-meets-...

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.

This unedited conversation with Eckhart Tolle comes from our produced show “Eckhart Tolle on the Power of Now.” 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 accumulate...

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...

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...

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

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.