Multifaith Matters

Elizabeth Drescher discusses The Nones

To the dismay of religious leaders, study after study has shown a steady decline in affiliation and identification with traditional religions in America. By 2018, twenty-six percent of adults identified as unaffiliated–up more than seventeen percent since 2009. Even more startling, more than thirty percent of those under the age of thirty now identify as "Nones"–answering "none" when queried about their religious affiliation. Is America losing its religion? Or, as more and more Americans choose different spiritual paths, are they changing what it means to be religious in the United States today? Elizabeth Drescher helps us explore this topic. Her research, teaching, and writing focuses on religion, spiritual, and nonreligion as it is practiced by ordinary people in the contexts of everyday life. She holds a PhD in Christian Spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union, and an MA in Roman Catholic Systematic Theology from Duquesne University (2000). Dr. Drescher is the author of several books, including Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of American Nones (Oxford University Press, 2016). She has published popular articles on American religious and spiritual life, new media and religion, and the challenges of religious leadership in America, The Atlantic Wire, AlterNet, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, Religion Dispatches, Christianity Today, Sojourners, and other national publications. 
 
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George Draffan discusses Buddhism in America

Buddhism has been in America for quite some time, yet few evangelicals know much about it. In this conversation on American Buddhism, we talk to George Draffan. George is a Seattle-based teacher and coach who is passionately interested in bringing together diverse Buddhist and Taoist practices to benefit people. He began studying Buddhism at the University of Wisconsin in the 1970s. Since then he’s received instruction and participated in many retreats with teachers in the Tibetan, Theravadin, and Zen Buddhist traditions. George has been a volunteer with the Northwest Dharma Association for more than 25 years, organizing events and at various times serving on the board and as executive director.

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Fred Stella on Hinduism in America

Hinduism is one of the major world religions, one with a presence in America, but about which Christians know very little. In this podcast Fred Stella joins us for a conversation about Hinduism in America.

Fred Stella is a product of 16 years in the Catholic education system, including his time at the University of Detroit, where he obtained his degree in Communications & Mass Media. His interest in Hinduism began at age 15 when studying comparative religions. By the time he was in his mid-30s he formally embraced the Dharma. Over the years Fred has spent time expanding his knowledge with study & practice in various ashrams & temples in the US and India. In 2009 The West Michigan Hindu Temple ordained him as Pracharak or “Outreach Minister.” Fred is often a featured speaker at international conferences, and has completed extensive lecture tours in India and Guyana.

One of Fred’s passions is interfaith dialogue and cooperation. For the past 23 years he has served as President of the Michigan organization, Interfaith Dialogue Association, an affiliate of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. In this capacity he, among other things, hosts the program, Common Threads, which airs over local Michigan NPR affiliate, WGVU-FM. He is also a weekly contributor to the Grand Rapids Press column, “Ethics and Religion Talk,” where he and fellow clerics answer questions on theology, morality and personal issues.

In 2012 Fred was presented with his city's "Champion of Diversity Award" for his work in interfaith relations. Finally, Fred sits on the National Leadership Council of the Hindu American Foundation in Washington DC. For more on Hinduism, see HAF’s “Hinduism 101.”  

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Tom Krattenmaker discusses Secular Humanism

The media and religion scholars have talked quite a bit about "The Nones," those who report no religious affiliation in religion surveys. A segment of this group includes Secular Humanists, atheists and agnostics. Evangelicals need to understand this growing segment of America's population that is having a strong impact on religion and politics. In this episode, our guest is Tom Krattenmaker, who discusses Secular Humanism and related topics. Tom is a writer specializing in religion in public life and author of Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower (Convergent, 2016), honored as one of the top two religion books of the year by the Religion News Association. Krattenmaker's second book, The Evangelicals You Don’t Know (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), on the "new evangelicals" in post-Christian America, was a winner in the best books competition of the Religion Newswriters Association in 2014. You can read more about Tom and sign up for his newsletter at https:tomkrattenmaker.com.

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Bernie Sanders and lingering questions about pluralism

In 2017 Senator Bernie Sanders clashed with Russ Vought, then a nominee for the position of deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Their exchange about Christian exclusivity and religious pluralism in the public square is perhaps even more important in the post-Trump, post-evangelical era. In this podcast we share a clip of their exchange, and provide commentary.

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James Calvin Davis on Roger Williams and his legacy of civility through difference and religious freedom

Roger Williams is not only the founder of Rhode Island, and our forgotten Founding Father, he also left a legacy for us to consider on civility through deep religious and political difference, and religious freedom. In this podcast we discuss Williams with James Calvin Davis, George Adams Ellis Professor of Liberal Arts and Religion at Middlebury College. He is the author of five books on the relationship between Christianity and public life, including The Moral Theology of Roger Williams (2004), In Defense of Civility (2010), Forbearance (2017), and the forthcoming American Liturgy: Finding Theological Meaning in the Holy Days of US Culture.

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S. Jonathan O’Donnell and Phil Wyman on Pentecostalism, Demonology and Spiritual Warfare in Politics

Extensive analysis has been done trying to explain why a large percentage of White evangelicals voted in support of Trump, a candidate whose character was at odds with evangelical moral values. Scholars have identified the importance of Christian nationalism as a major factor, and this overlaps with the influence of Pentecostal demonology and spiritual warfare that was also a part, particularly among those labeled “court evangelicals.” In this podcast Phil Wyman, host of the Wild Theology podcast and author of Burning Religion, joins in a discussion with S. Jonathan O’Donnell on this topic. O’Donnell is a postdoctoral fellow in American Studies at University College Dublin, with a research focus on the intersection of religious demonology with systems of power in post-9/11 America. He is the author of Passing Orders: Demonology and Sovereignty in American Spiritual Warfare (Fordham University Press, 2020).

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Amos Yong on Hospitality in Multifaith Engagement

Hospitality is an ancient Christian practice that holds great potential in multifaith engagement. Amos Yong, Dean of the School of Theology and School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Seminary, is our guest in this episode. He has written on this topic in his book Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practices, and the Neighbor (Orbis Books, 2008), as well as in the chapter “Hospitality and Religious Others: An Orthopathic Perspective” in the volume A Charitable Orthopathy: Christian Perspectives on Emotions in Multifaith Engagement (Pickwick, 2020).

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Theology for Elephants: A Metaphor for Multifaith Engagement

The metaphor of the rider and the elephant has been used in social psychology and neuroscience to illustrate how the mind works in regards to behavior. On the one hand there is the rider of the elephant, representing the conscious and rational part of our cognition, and on the other hand there is the elephant, representing the subconscious and emotional aspects. Many times it is the elephant that leads the way rather than the rider. Much of the work among Christians in multifaith has been directed at the rider. This podcast discusses the metaphor and asks how might we pay greater attention to the significance of the elephant underlying outgroup bias in multifaith contexts. (This podcast includes clips from sources used in keeping with Fair Use for educational purposes, including The Brain with David Eagleman from PBS, as well as the film The Sultan and the Saint, used with permission by Unity Productions Foundation. To use this film in interfaith dialogue free of charge, visit www.sultanandthesaintfilm.com/encounters/.)

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Anthony Le Donne and Larry Behrendt on Jewish-Christian dialogue

In this episode Anthony Le Donne and Larry Behrendt discuss Christian-Jewish dialogue, the focus of their book, Sacred Dissonance: The Blessing of Difference in Jewish-Christian Dialogue. (See my review of this volume here.) Behrendt is a Jewish lawyer and a specialist in interreligious dialogue with a specific emphasis on Jewish-Christian relations, and Le Donne is a Christian New Testament scholar teaching at United Theological Seminary. In this podcast we discuss aspects of their book, which "challenges the notion that a passive and self-contained approach to religious distinction will bring about peaceful coexistence. In candid conversations between the authors, every section of Sacred Dissonance models the ways in which conversation can be the means of both addressing a difficult past and a challenging present. In the course of exploring the ways in which Jews and Christians can speak to one another, Le Donne and Behrendt show that Christianity can become a 'pro-Jewish' religion, Judaism can become a 'pro-Christian' religion, and communities of faith can open space for others, rather than turning them away, even without breaking down the differences between them."

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