Beliefs

Houses of worship across the world are adapting to the challenges of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Keeping congregants feeling tied to their faith, themselves, and one another has been a challenge felt by all. But what if faith isn't at the center of the congregation? How are humanist, atheist and agnostic spiritual communities handling the isolation caused by the pandemic? 

James Croft, a clergyman at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, spoke with Beliefs producer Jay Woodward this week to share insight on how his congregation has handled the past several weeks.

Last episode we spoke to Father James Martin to ask simple questions about God, suffering, and the pandemic. His episode is the anchor of a daisy chain of conversations taking us around the world – faith to faith, place to place.  

Father Martin nominated our next guest, Sister Norma Pimintel, the Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. Her position servicing immigrants and refugees in the borderlands gives her unique perspective. If the pandemic can come for anyone from Prime Ministers to Louisiana Parishioners... what will we learn about human equality in the face of such a threat?

Sister Pimintel spoke to Beliefs Producer Jay Woodward from her office in Texas. 

This episode is part of a series of interviews speaking to the moral, ethical and spiritual takeaways from the global pandemic experience. 

It’s a personal note from me this week. Not usually appropriate for news the way I prefer it, but these are very different times. My friend Father James Martin wrote a short piece that ran in the New York Times called, ‘Where Is God In A Pandemic’. Like so many other people, I wanted to know what this man – whom I admire – would say to me, to us, during a moment of universal human suffering. We spoke, as everyone must these days, on the phone.  

Asking how ethics occur naturally, or emerge through faith takes us to speak to Professor Christine Firer Hinze.  Hinze is a professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University and the director of the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies.  

     This week's guest, Martin Doblmeier, is a documentary filmmaker specializing in content touching on faith, religion, and spirituality. He joined me for a discussion on his recent PBS film: "Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story”. 

     'Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story' traces Dorothy Day's journey from a young communist journalist, to a Catholic convert, to the co-founder of The Catholic Worker newspaper and the first "houses of hospitality," which sheltered New York City's homeless during the Great Depression.

Bishop John Michael Botean is the head of the Eparchy of St. George in Canton, Ohio. Botean's diocese, which permits priests to marry, is the only one of its kind outside of Romania. This week on Beliefs, host Bill Baker interviews Botean at his cathedral in Ohio.

Jana Riess is a senior commentator and author of the popular column, Flunking Sainthood for Religion News Service.

Sharing her personal experience with writing critical commentary on an aspect of her Church’s teachings, Riess stumbled into a strong backlash and an opportunity to re-think her opinion.

Then she did what sometimes seems unthinkable in the public sphere – she apologized and reconsidered. 

Jana Riess spoke with Beliefs producer Jay Woodward to sort through the experience. 

Spiritual advisor to President Trump Paula White was recently filmed in her church giving a sermon that employed idiosyncratic and fiery rhetoric. What is the new language of spiritual warfare? Where is it coming from and where is it taking us? 

Andre Gagne is Associate Professor in the Theological Studies Department of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. His work focuses on the Christian right, charismatic Dominionism, fundamentalism, religious violence and the interpretation of the Bible. 

This week on Beliefs, Gagne discusses spiritual warfare rhetoric through the lens of Paula White's recent sermons.

Stephen Johnston has narrated and sold more translations of the Bible than any other person in history. He graduated from college with a BA in Radio and Television and planned to become a news announcer. In 1976 he was approached about narrating the New Testament on cassette. The rest is scripture.

He has international reputation as a narrator; receiving many awards including an Emmy, the New York Film Critics Award, the National Silver Microphone Award and the Army Commendation Award.

Stephen joins Beliefs from his home in California.