Today we bring back one of the speakers from our Acting with Awareness event on March 28th, Dr. Amishi Jha, to discuss her work in bringing mindfulness meditation to pre-deployment training in the military and into the world of college-level sports. For more from Dr. Jha, check out our last podcast, which has the full audio from Acting with Awareness!

MindfulNYU, in co-sponsorship with NYU's Leadership Initiative and NYU Stern's Leadership Development Program, is proud to bring you an evening dialogue entitled "Acting with Awareness: Mindfulness, Resilience and Leadership”.

Dr. Amishi Jha and US Major General Piatt will discuss their work together bringing mindfulness training to active duty military cohorts in an interview-style evening dialogue, moderated by special guest and New York Times reporter, David Gelles.

The insights and empirical evidence they have gained suggest that mindfulness is key for surviving, thriving, and leading in high pressure settings.

This week we are doing some acrobatics and flipping our host to become the interviewee! After just releasing Teaching Religious Literacy, a guide to teaching religious and spiritual diversity on college campuses, Ariel gives us some information on NYU's own Faith Zone program and why it is important to work in higher education. For more information on the book, check out: https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-Religious-Literacy-A-Guide-to-Religious-and-Spiritual-Diversity/Ennis/p/book/9781138635852

Listen for the full event audio of this year's Veritas Forum at NYU, The Closing of the Modern Mind: An Atheist and a Christian Discuss Pluralism, Faith, and Moral Disagreement. This event featured Pastor Time Keller, New York Times Best-Selling Author and Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and Dr. Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooler Professor of Ethical Leadership at the Stern School of Business at NYU. To learn more about Veritas- Forum, check our their website at veritas.org.

Speaker Bios:

Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000. He is also Chairman of Redeemer City to City, which starts new churches in New York and other global cities, and publishes books and resources for faith in an urban culture. In over ten years they have helped to launch over 250 churches in 48 cities. More recently, Dr. Keller’s books, including the New York Times bestselling The Reason for God and The Prodigal God, have sold over 1 million copies and been translated into 15 languages. Christianity Today has said, “Fifty years from now, if evangelical Christians are widely known for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love of their neighbors, Tim Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians.” Dr. Keller was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and educated at Bucknell University, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Westminster Theological Seminary. He previously served as the pastor of West Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Hopewell, Virginia, Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, and Director of Mercy Ministries for the Presbyterian Church in America.

Professor Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program at New York University. He received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Haidt is a social psychologist whose research examines the intuitive foundations of morality. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. At Stern, he is applying his research on moral psychology to rethink the way business ethics is studied and is integrated into the curriculum. His goal is to draw on the best behavioral science research to create organizations that function as ethical systems, with only minimal need for directly training people to behave ethically.

Description: Today we are honored to welcome renowned meditation teacher and New York Times best selling author Sharon Salzberg to the podcast to help us get to know a little bit more about her personal journey through mindfulness, as well as the usefulness of mindfulness in a time as fragile as the current moment.

No, it's not a typo! Today we return to a subject we've explored before, interfaith work on college campuses, but through a new lens. We have a conversation with three researchers who are part of the IDEALs (Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey) research study, who give us some insight on what their study looks like and the implications it has for religious life on college campuses.

Today we are joined by Yavilah McCoy, one of the foremost leaders in race-related Jewish studies and CEO of Visions, Inc. She helps us start to dissect the intersectionality of race and Judaism and gives us some insight on what it means to engage in social justice as while holding both of these identities.

Alex Mar, author of Witches of America and director of the film American Mystic, joins us to shed light modern day Paganism and the various ways it is being practiced today in the United States. Be sure to check out her book here: http://alex-mar.com

This week we welcome Rabbi Bruce Cohen, Rabbi of the oldest Messianic Jewish congregation in New York City. We delve into a discussion on what exactly Messianic Judaism is, how it's different from other forms of Judaism and Christianity, and how to dialogue about one's religion when it complicates existing standards and practices.

On this week's episode, we pay tribute to November's LGBTQ history month in a conversation with the director of NYU's LGBTQ student center, Jon Hurst. We discuss the history and function of LGBTQ student spaces, the intersectional nature of queer spirituality, and what it means to be an ally.