Imagine you go into atrial fibrillation and the doctors tell you that they will be back in a few minutes to "put the paddles on you" after the anesthesia takes effect.  It will likely be okay, but something might go wrong.  What goes through your mind during those two or three minutes?  For Michael Boone, founder of MWBoone & Associates (now Boone Wealth Advisors, LLC), he started thinking "motorcycle road trip through the Western United States," of course!  Fortunately for our podcast,...

Keep on reading: Michael Boone’s Spiritual 40 Day Road Trip

What is sharia law?  How can sharia law be accommodated into formal constitutions?  These questions and more are the topic of discussion with Prof. Clark Lombardi, the Law Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Washington.  Prof. Lombardi explains what sharia law is and how it compares with Western variants such as common law and canon law.  We dig into the historical development of sharia law and how, given the decentralized nature of Islam, that there were numerous...

Keep on reading: Clark Lombardi on Sharia Law

The middle of the 19th century was a time of immense demographic, economic, and social change in the United States.  Foremost among these changes was a wave of immigration that remade the economic and political landscape of the country.  We invite Dr. Maureen Fitzgerald, an associate professor of history at the College of William & Mary, to discuss the little known history of how Irish Catholic nuns helped shepherd immigrants into this new and changing environment, and how those nuns, in...

Keep on reading: Maureen Fitzgerald on Irish Nuns and Welfare

When disaster strikes your community, who ya gonna call?  Churches and other religious organizations, that's who!  As an integral part of civil society, religious congregations are often the best positioned to be first responders in an emergency, and to be the organizations that can offer long-term recovery assistance long after other emergency responders have moved on.  Prof. Jamie Aten, the Rech Associate Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, discusses his experience with natural and...

Keep on reading: Jamie Aten on Religion and Disasters

Our 300th unique episode!  Help us celebrate by sharing our podcast with a friend or colleague.

Traditional sociological notions of religion argued that modernization would lead to more "rational" and standardized forms of spiritual faith.  Dr. Nile Green, professor of history at the University of California - Los Angeles, examines this thesis in the context of Islam in 19th century India and surrounding regions.  We discuss his award-winning book Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of th...

Keep on reading: Nile Green on Islam in Bombay and Beyond

The biggest trend in American religiosity in the past two decades has been the increase in "religious nones," individuals who do not proclaim an affiliation with any particular denomination or faith tradition.  We invite Prof. Joseph O. Baker, assistant professor of sociology at Eastern Tennessee State University, to talk about this phenomenon in light of his recent book (with Buster Smith) entitled American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief Systems.  After a brief chat...

Keep on reading: Joseph O. Baker on American Secularism

Walking across hot coals.  Piercing your cheeks with sharp skewers. Pulling your skin with sharp hooks.  What would possess individuals to do such things?  And are they crazy?!  Dr. Eleanor (Elly) Power, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, explains what would motivate people to engage in such "odd rituals" and the fascinating and extensive ethnographic study she conducted for several years in two small villages in India.  Our conversation begins with explaining the concept of...

Keep on reading: Eleanor Power on Rituals, Community, and Signaling

While Tony and his son, a recently minted Eagle Scout, are at Philmont Scout Ranch on a high adventure trek, please enjoy this encore presentation from 2012.  We will return on July 24 with crescent fresh episodes.

"On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty, to God and my country...."  And so begins the Oath of the Boy Scouts of America, an organization now over a century old and the largest youth organization in America.  It is also an organization with a global reach.  To what extent...

Keep on reading: Sung Joon Jang on the Boy Scouts of America (Encore Presentation)

In the 19th century, as the US population was expanding westward, Jewish immigrants and their children played an important economic role in moving supplies via merchant channels.  Relative to their numbers in the population, Jews were disproportionately represented as peddlers and merchants.  Prof. Colleen Haight, an associate professor of economics at San Jose State University, returns to the program to discuss this phenomenon and how it relates to the economics of religion.

After a bit of...

Keep on reading: Colleen Haight on Jewish Peddlers in 19th Century America (Encore Presentation)

The issue of special exemptions to laws based upon a person's religious views has been a hot topic in the news lately (e.g., Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters of the Poor, and Arlene's Flowers).  Prof. Mark David Hall, the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University and a senior research fellow at Baylor's ISR, reviews the history of such religious accommodations to federal and state statutes.  As an expert witness in the State of Washington vs. Arlene's Flowers case,...

Keep on reading: Mark David Hall on Religious Accommodations and the Common Good