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.
Le Secte, Le Culte, and the Ideals of the French Republic
We begin our journey to France with a look at Scientology, Jehova’s Witnesses and other religions the government classifies as dangerous “cults.” Reporter Gerry Hadden brings us the story. Thanks to producers Jocelyn Frank and Jonathan Miller.
If you remember anything you learned about the French Revolution — anything that doesn’t involve cake — it’s probably the famous three-word motto: liberty, equality, fraternity. For more than 200 years, those ideals have served as the pillars of the French Republic. While the staunchly secular government officially recognizes all faiths as equal, it puts strict limits in those religions is sees as a threat to national identity.
John Bowen, professor of sociocultural anthropology at Washington University in St. LouisNacira Guénif-Souilamas, professor of sociology at the University of Paris
An Awakened Dream’: In the studio with Stephane Wrembel
We end our journey to France with a truly special treat – our own private concert with the French-American guitar virtuoso, Stephane Wrembel. Wrembel is a spiritual seeker, preferring to explore many paths over one particular faith. If he does approach religion in some way, it’s through making music – he thinks of the creative process as a mystical journey. He tells us, “This is what I hope for my audience: to bring people with me in an awakened dream, in a state of dreaming.”
Pope Francis Visits the Holy Land, Leaves a Trail of Powerful Images
In an unscripted moment on his first trip to the Holy Land, Pope Francis rested his head against “The Wall” – the concrete barrier that divides Israel from the West Bank in Palestine. Later he placed a prayer in the cracks of the Jewish sacred site, the Western Wall, and called Muslims his “brothers” at the Dome of the Rock, the third-holiest spot in Islam. These and other symbolic gestures were his way of calling for peace, and a two-state solution, during his three-day visit to the Holy Land.
