Our guest, MaryAnn McKibben Dana, is a mother, a spouse, a writer and a very busy pastor.  Like many of us, she found herself, and her family, constantly on the go.  Then one day she wondered, What would it be like to stop, just for a little while?

Thus Dana and her family began a year-long experiment with keeping the Sabbath.  Little by little, they worked to find time each week to be still and to rest.  It wasn't easy.  In the process, however, they learned a great deal about themselves, and about trusting in the providence of God.

Dana recounts her year in the book Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family's Experiment with Holy Time (find out more about the book here).  Dana is the pastor of Idylwood Presbyterian Church in Falls Church, Virginia, and she blogs regularly at The Blue Room Blog.

This is a gift for our podcast listeners: A short piece highlighting a religious fact about a given date (in this case, the Las Posadas festivals that run up to December 24).  We hope to do more of these in the future.  Thank you for listening to Things Not Seen this year!

David LaMotte has been writing and perfoming music all over America and the world for over two decades now.  In 2008 he put music on hold to accept a Rotary World Peace Fellowship to study International Relations, Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.  He is the author of two books, S.S. Bathtub, a children's book based on one of his songs, and White Flour, which is based on events that occurred during a two thousand seven protest of a rally by the Ku Klux Klan.  LaMotte describes the book as a story of humor conquering hatred.

LaMotte has also been a key organizer of The Abraham Jam, a semi-annual evening of music and poetry featuring musicians from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths.

This is extra audio for show #1224, featuring David LaMotte.  We talk a bit more about his arrest on the floor of the NC state legislature, and about Myles Horton.

This is extra audio from our interview with Aaron Simmons in show #1222.  We discuss the "hermeneutics of suspicion" and the way Evangelicals engage environmental issues.

The word "postmodernism" has an interesting history over the past fifty years.  Originally the term described a style of architecture.  The word postmodern has since spread to all aspects of culture.  Moreover, it has become a key term in the culture wars, especially with regard to certain strands of religious faith.  Postmodernism in these contexts is viewed as the enemy of rationality, revealed religion, and even truth itself.

But not all persons of faith agree with this assessment of postmodernism.  Our guest, Aaron Simmons, sees postmodernism as one way for religions to recapture a lost humility in the public sphere.  For Simmons, postmodernity has less to do with denying truth than it does with saying that truth has certain characteristics that make objectivity and absolute certainty difficult. 

Aaron Simmons is assistant professor of philosophy at Furman University in South Carolina.  He is the author of God and the Other: Ethics and Politics after the Theological Turn, and he is the editor of several other books dealing with philosophy and religion.

During the recent campaign season, the word Secularism became something of a taboo. Our guest today points out that the word itself was mentioned fewer than a dozen times. Jacques Berlinerblau claims that a secular government is what actually protects religious freedom, giving religious minorities the freedom to exist.

Jacques Berlinerblau is the author of How To Be Secular (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). He is Associate Professor and Director of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University. He has written about faith and values in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and The Chronicle for Higher Education. 

Also on the show, Katy Scrogin reviews God Believes in Love, by Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson.

This is extra audio for podcast #1223

During the recent campaign season, the word Secularism became something of a taboo. Our guest today points out that the word itself was mentioned fewer than a dozen times. Jacques Berlinerblau claims that a secular government is what actually protects religious freedom, giving religious minorities the freedom to exist.

Jacques Berlinerblau is the author of How To Be Secular (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). He is Associate Professor and Director of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University. He has written about faith and values in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and The Chronicle for Higher Education.