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The Sunday Forum, February 3, 2008 Why Religion Matters and How to Talk about It |
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Sunday Forums
Sunday Forum On-Demand:
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Sunday, February 3, 2008, 10–10:50 am Why Religion Matters and How to Talk about It with Krista Tippett, host of public radio’s “Speaking of Faith”
Years ago, as a student at divinity school, Tippett valued the thoughtful, nuanced discussions that took place there. By contrast, at that time, “strident” voices in politics and media were the only Christian voices being heard. Americans were generalizing about who Christians were, and what Christianity is, on the basis of these strident voices. The rest of the discussion of faith was missing.
In more recent years, discussion of faith has become more complex and thoughtful, Tippett finds. In addition, another cultural change has occurred: “We’re rediscovering in general the power of story in our culture, which is a great development,” she says. Her own approach to discussing faith has Benedictine influences. The Benedictines, she says, believe that they predate all divisions within Christianity, “not just Protestant/Catholic, but East/West.” The Benedictine model of international ecumenical discussion is a narrative, first-person approach.
“We human beings are called to discern truth,” she summarizes. At the same time, Tippett welcomes the mysteries all around: the mysteries of Christianity, of others’ beliefs, and of God’s universe. 
About the GuestKrista Tippett is a journalist, former diplomat, and creator of the weekly public radio program, “Speaking of Faith.” She is the author of Speaking of Faith–Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It. Tippett wrote and reported for international media in divided Berlin in the 1980s and later served as a special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. She received an M.Div. from Yale/Berkeley in 1994 She has produced and hosted her radio program at American Public Media since its inception as an occasional series in 2000. “Speaking of Faith” has been called “the most intelligent and inquisitive program on religion anywhere on the air” and is now heard globally via podcast and internet and on over 200 public radio stations in the U.S.
(also listed in Cathedral worship service leaflets) For more information, please contact Deryl Davis at (202) 537-6382 or e-mail ddavis@cathedral.org. |
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Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III holds a conversation with Krista
Tippett, host of the weekly “Speaking of Faith” broadcast on National
Public Radio.
This observation forms part of the impetus behind Tippett’s highly
successful radio program. “My longing,” says Tippett, “was to start a
new conversation that would be diverse, the way this aspect of life
[i.e., faith] is diverse, which would have as much to do with questions
as…with answers—which is also how I believe this part of life
functions for many of us, much of the time.”
Reconciliation—both within and between religions—emerges several
times during the discussion. Tippett asserts, for example, that the
alleged conflict between faith and science has been exaggerated. “If God
is God, we can’t be afraid of what we can learn,” she says. “If God is
the Creator, God was the original evolutionary biologist, physicist,
mathematician.”