Listen Live on KKFI
Every Sunday at 3:00amAbout the Show
Inspired
Inspired is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality. Each week we offer you analyses of the big headlines alongside lesser-told stories – those of Orthodox Jewish artists and African-American atheists, Muslim feminists and spiritual seekers. Through these stories, a rough sketch of our country’s religious landscape begins to emerge. It’s a marketplace of beliefs and ideas too complex for sound bites, and too important to ignore.
National anniversaries are reminders of where we’ve been and what we’ve learned. On June 2, 2020, former President Donald Trump used military and law enforcement to forcibly clear peaceful protesters in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church so he could pose for a photo with a bible. That’s when Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde decided she had to speak out. Then, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed unpacks Juneteenth, our newest federal holiday, in a memoir with rich historical detail.
“And I Objected”.
Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C. and one of the most influential women in American Christianity. Her new book, “How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith,” was born from her response to President Donald Trump’s bible-waving photo op in front of an Episcopal church during the protest summer of 2020.
“Want to Be the Wind in the Sails”.
Our conversation with Bishop Mariann Budde continues and explores her journey from a teenage flirtation with evangelicalism to becoming the first woman elected as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C. Budde also discusses how someone in her position can transfer power to the next generation of spiritual leaders.
“History is an Art”: On Juneteenth and Black Texas.
In her 2021 book, “On Juneteenth,” award-winning historian and native Texan Annette Gordon-Reed offers a hybrid history and memoir that suggests many Americans have a hard time seeing the Lone Star state entirely because of the mythology of West Texas that dominates popular culture—arguing that by only seeing the cowboy and oilman, we are missing a character that may be even more important to understanding the story in Texas — the plantation owner.
