Religion Unplugged

Professor Robert Alter was translating portions of the Bible when Roberta Ahmanson asked him, "Are you going to do the whole thing?" Years later, Robert Alter has completed and published the full Bible with a complete new translation and commentary. Senior Contributor and Board Member Roberta Ahmanson Interviews Robert on the process of creating the new translation, why it was needed and w...

Ministry Watch: Episode 115 On today’s MinistryWatch EXTRA episode I’m pleased to welcome back to the program Paul Glader. Paul is the editor-in-chief at Religion Unplugged and the director of the journalism program at The King’s College in New York City. His journalism experience includes a long tenure with the Wall Street Journal. We begin with a story by Ryan Burge on the Decline of the Mainlin...

Inflated concerns about transporting victims on airplanes, and the fear that "it could happen to anybody" has in some cases overtaken the actual needs and concerns of sex trafficking victims. Elsa Cruz interviews Ava, a victim and advocate for sex trafficking victims about what Christians have gotten wrong about how sex trafficking works, and what Christians can do better to help improve t...

Mitchell West (Street Hymns) is one of the founding members of the Christian battle rap group Four Horsemen. Senior Contributor and Board Member Roberta Ahmanson interviews Street Hymns on his role and history with Christian rap, battle rap and the interconnected ways that faith and rap have influenced one another.

As the United States prepares for gathering in public again, the fractures in politics, technology, personal faith, and institutional trust are at a crossroads. Clemente Lisi talks to Director of Program Outreach at The Acton Institute, Dan Churchwell about the potential future of these divides and what the Acton Institute is working towards on all fronts.

Ministry Watch: Episode 104 On today’s MinistryWatch EXTRA episode I’m pleased to welcome back to the program Paul Glader. Paul is the editor-in-chief at Religion Unplugged and the director of the journalism program at The King’s College in New York City. His journalism experience includes a long tenure with the Wall Street Journal. To find out more about Religion Unplugged and the stories we disc...

In the third and final episode of our series on the Equality Act, Ryan Anderson, president of the conservative think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) and author of "When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment”, interviews Carlo Lancellotti, mathematics professor at CUNY with an expertise on Italian philosopher Augusto del Noce. Lancellotti translated and edited D...

In the second episode of our series on the Equality Act, Ryan Anderson, president of the conservative think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) and author of "When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment”, interviews Margaret McCarthy, a professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute and editor of the quarterly “Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture, and Science”. M...

Ryan Anderson, president of the conservative think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) and author of "When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment”, interviews Mary Hassan, a Catholic fellow at EPPC who testified for the Republican side at the recent Senate hearing on the Equality Act. Hasson discusses the impacts and legal questions the Equality Act raises for relig...

In a difficult year in 2018, Tish Harrison Warren started writing "Prayer in the Night: For those Who Work or Watch or Weep," a new book which now in the context of a host of unprecedented upheaval has the potential to carry helpful messages for Anglicans and people of faith in many liturgical traditions. Executive Director, Paul Glader interviewed Warren to discuss the creation of the boo...

Senior Programs Manager for The Media Project Melissa Harrison interviewed author, podcaster and co-founder of African Mission Healthcare, Mark Gerson, about his upcoming book. In “The Telling”, Gerson investigates Passover, the Seder and the meaning of life in some of the earliest Jewish traditions.

Taking advantage of Indonesia's status as the largest Muslim nation in the world and the shift to digital during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Leimena Institute is setting an enormous example for harmonizing relationships between Abrahamic faiths. The institute’s quickly growing online seminars have brought together scholars, powerful religious leaders and people of faith from dozens of countries...

Ministry Watch: Episode 82 Today, I’m pleased to welcome back to the program Paul Glader. Paul is the editor-in-chief at Religion Unplugged and the director of the journalism program at The King’s College in New York City. His journalism experience includes a long tenure with the Wall Street Journal. Here at MinistryWatch we bring you news about Christian ministries, as well as the latest in chari...

London-based Ethiopian Religion Unplugged contributor Desta Heliso weighs in with Religion Unplugged Managing Editor Meagan Clark on the recent war sparked in Ethiopia between federal armed forces and the Tigray region’s militia. In addition, we talk to Desta about what we know and don’t know yet about alleged brutal massacres of Ethiopian Christian civilians in November in light of reports from A...

The Biden administration recently announced the restoration of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The office has functioned as an engine for policy, neighborhood engagement and public communication to promote religious freedom, negotiating the conflicts between LGBTQ+ rights, religious nonprofit protections and the distribution of funding for public programs involving religio...

On Sept. 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church was attacked by White supremacist domestic terrorists in a dynamite explosion which left four children dead and dozens of others wounded including The Fifth Girl, Sarah Collins Rudolph. Mattie Townson spoke with Rudolph to hear her story about the bombing, the legacy of her and her sister who died in the attack and for her thoughts on whether real...

This week, evangelical finance advisor Dave Ramsey’s organization fired off a sarcastic email to Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana that you don’t want to miss. The rant was in response to Smietana’s robust report on toxic workplace culture at Ramsey’s company.

The inauguration of President Biden left pentecostal and other charismatic church leaders scrambling for explanations and apologies after widespread prophecies of the guaranteed victory for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Senior Programs Manager Melissa Tamplin Harrison interviewed Dr. James Beverley, Professor at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Canada and author of the recent book, The Q...

In the wake of the violent attempt to overthrow a democratic election at the United States Capitol by a large group of Trump voters that included conspiracy theorists and self-described conservative Christians, journalist Tore Hjalmar Sævik from the Norwegian Christian newspaper, Dagen, wanted to understand what the future of American Christianity and politics might look like. Sævik interviewed Re...

The Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict escalated rapidly this fall with reported war crimes by both Armenian and Azeri soldiers, including multiple attacks on Armenian hospitals, churches and historic religious sites. Senior contributor and board member Roberta Ahmanson interviews United Kingdom House of Lords member, Baroness Caroline Cox, who is urgently concerned with the potential for a new Armenian...

Ministry Watch: Episode 62 Here at MinistryWatch we bring you news about Christian ministries, as well as the latest in charity and philanthropy, all designed to help us become better stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. Regular listeners to the program know that I do a regular weekly roundup of the week’s ministry news with my co-host Natasha Smith. But these MinistryWatch Extra epi...

The second season of “Star Wars” spin-off television show “The Mandalorian” deals heavily with the protagonist’s religious creed that prevents him from removing his helmet. Executive Director Paul Glader talked with reporter and editor Jillian Cheney and contributor, Joseph Holmes about the religious implications of the show and what to expect next.

In July, Bevelyn Beatty, a fiery Christian, conservative and Black woman, got America’s attention when she painted over three Black Lives Matter memorials in New York City to promote “Jesus Matters.” Princess Jones spoke with Beatty about her life and her fight to reveal the truth as she sees it about the state of the Black community and Black church. 

Markus Spieker is an author, reporter, editor and board member of The Media Project. His new book “Jesus. Eine Weltgeschichte” approaches the story of Jesus from a biographical and journalistic perspective. The book investigates the source material of what we really know about Jesus with combined references from secular, Muslim and Jewish archives in addition to recent scholarship describing previ...

Famous for his quirky roles in everything from The Office to Star Trek: Discovery, Rainn Wilson sat down with Meagan Clark and Mattie Townson to discuss his Bahaʼi faith and to give a crash course on a little known religious tradition. Wilson's faith dates back to his childhood and is part of a much larger community of over 7 million Baháʼí around the world.