Sacred & Profane

Bhutan is a small country in the Himalayas with a long Buddhist tradition, and a more recent reputation for embracing careful development and cultural preservation. Many of the visitors who are willing to pay the $200 a day tourist visa to come to Bhutan are drawn to a beautiful landscape that's seen as largely untouched by the problems facing more industrialized nations.

But of course, no country is a Shangri-La. We spoke with people across Bhutan about the real choices and challenges that come with efforts to balance tradition, development, and environmental preservation. And we look at one valley in particular that is trying to balance the needs of local farmers, monasteries, international tourism, and the endangered black-necked crane.

Over the last few years, Americans have removed statues from public spaces at what might be a record clip. In 2022, we spoke with art historian Erin Thompson and our colleague Jalane Schmidt about why these demands by average Americans to control their public space are a departure from much of American history. But they're not without precedent -- and they're definitely not so unusual considering humanity's very long history of destroying statues of kings, gods, and other public figures who have fallen from grace.

If you had to guess one of the best-selling poets in America, a long-dead Sufi mystic named Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi might not be at the top of your list. And yet, his poetry has found a wide audience in the U.S. -- centuries after his death, and thousands of miles from his home. You can find Rumi quotes everywhere, from Pinterest boards to Brad Pitt's underarm. But are these inspirational snippets of poetry missing a key element of Rumi's work? Our hosts speak with translator Muhammad Ali Mojaradi on what's absent from the most popular English interpretation of Rumi's verse - and why the internet still cares about a poet who died nearly 800 years ago.

Here in the States, it's become an annual tradition for conservative commentators to bemoan the "war on Christmas." That's the idea that Christmas is being pushed out in favor of non-Christian holidays or more secular winter celebrations.

But as our fellow Jue Liang tells us, in China, the government is actually cracking down on Christmas and many other holidays as the ruling party looks to the calendar as a way to promote Han Chinese identity.

Each year, Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks, parades, and barbecues. Celebrating July Fourth is part of what some scholars identify as America’s civil religion. And like any religion, civil religion is built in part upon foundational myths and symbols that Americans, regardless of their religious faith, believe in and rally behind.

Those symbols include documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. There are many Americans who view those two documents as sacred texts, both in a figurative and literal sense.

We're joined by our colleague, Lisa Woolfork, who teaches a version of the Declaration of Independence that tackles the tension between those documents as sacred texts, and the reality of the government they created.

The media often cover the Satanic Temple as an elaborate prank, pulled off by a group of dedicated trolls trying to rile conservative Christians. But despite those public perceptions, in 2019 the IRS recognized the Satanic Temple as a tax exempt religious organization. And even though many do not see them as a "real" religious movement, Satanists play an important role in American religious and political life, showing us how ideas about religion, pluralism, and the separation of church and state are changing in the U.S.

Renowned Biblical scholar Dr. Renita Weems joins us to discuss how the translation of one particular word can profoundly change the meaning of a well-loved book of the Hebrew Bible — and what translation choices can reveal about race and gender in the modern world, as well as the ancient one.