Inspired (formerly Interfaith Voices) 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.
That’s why Inspired matters.
We believe interfaith understanding is more than hollow jargon. It is integral to being informed and engaged citizens in the most religiously diverse country on earth. Polite society might try to avoid talking about religion and politics, but Inspired believes that we must talk about both – together.
We strive to:
- educate the public about the religious and ethical issues behind the news
- explore the mystery of spiritual experience
- invite guests and listeners from a wide diversity of traditions, including those with no religion
- promote dialogue, especially on contentious moral topics
- present many faith traditions and points of view – faithfully, clearly and compellingly
Inspired does not preach or proselytize, and is not affiliated with any religious organization. We are an independent public radio program.
April 21, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
AI in Israel’s Bombing Campaign in Gaza, and the Religion Beat in Dallas
Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza is employing AI tools and a shocking redefinition of collateral damage that raises ethical questions. Then we talk to the new religion beat reporter for the Dallas Morning News.
ListenApril 14, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Plant Time: Inside a Psychedelic Church
At Sacred Garden Community Church in Berkeley, California, services and sacraments are centered on entheogen -- a chemical produced naturally by some plants that, when ingested, can sometimes lead to a heightened sense of spiritual or religious enlightenment. Some call these hallucinogens or psychedelics. They include ayahuasca, mescaline, peyote cacti, and psilocybin mushrooms – all known by indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Psychedelic congregations like Sacred Garden are one of the fastest-growing faith communities in the U.S. and beyond and are taking root in Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and non-denominational settings. But how sustainable is this model of worship? Is it another form of cultural appropriation? What is the future – if any – of so-called “psychedelic churches?
Read MoreApril 7, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Supporting Religious Feminists and Stories from the Hindu Beat
Dr. Mary Hunt is a feminist theologian, scholar, and activist who reflects on how women find their voice and express leadership in religious spaces inside and beyond institutions. Religion News Service National Religion Reporter Richa Karmarkar reviews some of the trends she follows on the Hindu beat.
Read MoreMarch 31, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
The New Longevity – Living Longer, Living Spiritually
According to Stanford University's Center on Longevity, half of today's five-year-olds may live to 100. And by 2050, all newborns can expect to live at least that long. Doctors, educators, social scientists, and other professionals are increasingly focusing on "the new longevity"—expanding the quality of our increasingly lengthy lifetimes. This week, we look at the spiritual power and possibilities of the new longevity.
Read MoreMarch 17, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Muslim Wellness Foundation Founder: Our story does not start with oppression.
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Oseguera is the Founder and President of the Muslim Wellness Foundation (MWF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting healing and emotional well-being in the American Muslim community. Oseguera joins to discuss her work at the Omar Ibn Said Institute for Black Muslim Studies and Research and explains why she sees interrogating the Western narrative of the enslaved as interconnected to Black Muslim mental health and well-being.
Read MoreFebruary 4, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
How Far to the Promised Land with Rev. Esau McCaulley
In 2017, an unexpected traffic accident killed Rev. Esau McCaulley’s father. His family then asked him to take on a difficult task: delivering a eulogy for a father who abandoned him. The ritual of learning about his father led him on a journey to discover parts of his family and his story that were until then missing. In conversations with elders, he saw complexity and began to interrogate the ideas of Black success that sometimes made him feel trapped. Those stories also provided a sharp contrast to the history he learned in school. Today, he sees the controversies around lessons on Black American history connected to a persistent mythology that the Civil War was not fought because of slavery but Southern heritage.
Read MoreJanuary 21, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Two Pillars of the Civil Rights Movement
We consider the legacies of James Baldwin and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the challenges they put before the world today.
Read MoreJanuary 7, 2024 National, News & Public Affairs
Ronit Y. Stahl, author of “Enlisting Faith,” gives a brief history of chaplaincy in the military. Then, the filmmakers of the new documentary Three Chaplains discuss the challenging nature of the work of Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military. They follow two men's careers and that of the first female Muslim chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. The filmmakers describe the pressing issues these chaplains confront daily and tell how they – two civilians – were moved and changed during seven years working on the film.
Read MoreDecember 24, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs
Exploring America’s Religious Diversity Through Music
In this special episode, we feature selections from the December 8, 2019, Sounds of Faith concert at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, along with interviews with Dr. Peter Manseau, the Lilly Endowment Curator of Religious History. Manseau explains how music transcends the separation often found in museums and creates a different way for the public to understand America’s complicated religious history. Performances from Orfeia showcase Bulgarian and Balkan songs from Koleda, an ancient pagan holiday from Eastern Europe, along with traditional Hanukkah songs performed by Senior Cantor Arianne Brown from the Addas Israel Congregation in Washington, DC.
Read MoreNovember 19, 2023 National, News & Public Affairs
Adventures in Faith & Food
Food is not traditionally included in the study of religion. Still, as our guest says, “Everyone eats!” Ben Zeller is an associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College and a researcher of food’s relationship to religion. He says including food in religious studies is essential because it re-centers religious studies on the lived experience of everyday people and illuminates what a particular faith dictates about the body, self-control, celebration, and community. One feature of religion and food that is almost universal to every faith is feasting. Zeller also discusses arguably the biggest feast in America, Thanksgiving, and how it went from a regional day of prayer and gratitude to the standardized, commercialized, civil holiday we celebrate today.
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