What does the Bible actually say about forgiveness?  The answer may surprise you.  New Testament scholar and Huffington Post writer Maria Mayo challenges traditional Christian assumptions about forgiveness in her research.  While not dismissing the idea of forgiveness or diminishing its importance, she takes issue with the current practice of forgivenes as an individual, psychological act.

Also on the program, Katy Scrogin reviews David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel, The Pale King.

This is bonus audio from our interview with Maria Mayo.

The object Christians call "The Bible" seems simple and straightforward.  As our guest Tim Beal shows us, however, a closer look reveals not "The" Bible, but many (and many different) Bibles.  In our conversation, we explore what that means for the past, the present, and the future, of consumer Bible culture. Beal is the author of The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book.

Later on the broadcast, David J. Dunn reflects on the recent shootings in Colorado, with an impassioned plea for rational gun control.

In this extra audio podcast for show #1205, we continue our conversation with Timothy Beal, and explore the deeper meanings of the word "religion," as well as the strange new world of American Bible culture.

In this week's bonus podcast, we expand on our conversation with Mary Button.  We talk more about the politics of art, and art as religious expression.  We discuss Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Gospels, and explore Button's most recent work, a Stations of the Corss based in narratives from the recent conflicts in Syria.

"I try to use old stories to draw my viewers into new meanings," says painter Mary Button.  Button trained in fine arts at New York University, and studied theology at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.  Her work has been featured in events at the United Nations and the national Council of Churches, and she is currently an artist-in-residence at First Congregational Church in Memphis, Tennessee.

Bonus audio from the interview with Robert Rhodes that we were unable to include in the broadcast version of the show due to time.

In 1995, Robert Rhodes and his family sold most of their possessions ans went to live on the Minnesota prairie in religious seclusion.  Rhodes had gone to live among the Hutterites, a 500 year old religious movement centered on communal ownership of property, radical pacifism, and an intense fervor for the Gospel.

By 2002, Rhodes and his family had left the Hutterites.  He chronicles his six years there in the book Nightwatch: An Inquiry into Solitude.

Also on the broadcast, Huffigton Post writer and lay theologian David J. Dunn explains to Christians why they should reconsider the ideas they have about Hell.

This is an extra part of the interview with Todd Green we weren't able to include in the broadcast portion of the show.

Legislation against Sharia law and vandalism against Mosques in Virginia and Tennessee are just the most recent outbreaks of anti-Muslim sentiment that many refer to as "Islamophobia."  Our guest, Todd Green, assistant professor of religion at Luther College, talks with us about the religious and political aspects of Islamophobia, and the factors that contribute to its presence in American culture.

Also, Travis Ables offers comments about the television show Community.