Things Not Seen Podcast

We speak with Christian Coon, co-founder and co-pastor of Chicago's Urban Village church, about his new book and lessons learned

Direct download: 1712-Coon_96K_CBR_49m16s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 3:06pm CDT

We revisit our conversation with Valparaiso University professor of religion, Melanie Trexler, about her book, Evangelizing Lebanon, which looks at the history of Baptist mission work in the Near East

Direct download: TNS-1701b_Trexler_96K_CBR_53m53s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 5:17pm CDT

We revisit our 2014 interview with Reza Aslan. He has recently released a new book, God: A Human History

Direct download: TNS-1417b_Aslan_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:07am CDT

Best-selling author and Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber pastors a small church in Denver, at the same time that she has become more of a celebrity and well-known writer.

She is fiercely protective of her congregation, House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado. "The are very willing to share me," she says, referring to her rising celebrity status, "but when I am there, I need to be their pastor. Not take selfies."

In our conversation, Bolz-Weber discusses her conservative upbringing, her addiction and recovery, and her journey to become a pastor and church planter. We talk about her new book, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People.

Direct download: TNS_1516b_Bolz-Weber_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 6:24am CDT

Fr. Stephen Katsouros, SJ, talks about Arrupe College, a new dimension of Jesuit education designed to reach the students at the margins

Direct download: TNS-1711_Katsouros_96K_CBR_49m44s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 12:44pm CDT

The Christian Gospels, and the holy writings of many religions, focus on the importance of welcome and fellowship. Our guest, Joshua Jipp, speaks to us about the centrality of hospitality to religious traditions, and we discuss his new book, Saved by Faith and Hospitality.

Direct download: TNS-1710_Jipp_96K_CBR_48m49s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 11:42am CDT

The Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana is helping to train leaders in contextual theology for the 21st century.

Direct download: TNS-1709_Premawardhana_96k_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 9:46pm CDT

Attorney John Mauck has spent decades on the front lines of religious freedom litigation. We discuss his new book, Jesus in the Courtroom: How Believers Can Engage the Legal System for the Good of His World.

We discussed Mauck's role in the passage of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) in a previous episode, The Miracle on Capitol Hill.

Direct download: TNS-1708_Mauck_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 12:43pm CDT

On Palm Sunday in 1990, attorney Jeanne Bishop received a phone call with the news that three members of her family - including her sister - had been brutally murdered. We take the full hour of our show this week to hear Bishop's account of her twenty-five-year journey towards forgiveness and reconciliation with her sister's killer.

Direct download: TNS_1419c_Bishop_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 9:09pm CDT

This hour we revisit our interview with actor and director Curt Cloninger, who has spent 30 years traveling the country performing thoughtful and thought-provoking one-man shows.

Direct download: TNS-1506_Cloninger_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 8:38pm CDT

Kenneth Briggs went on a road trip to discover the condition of the Bible in America. What he found may surprise you.

Direct download: TNS-1622c_BRIGGS_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 4:48pm CDT

Jason Micheli has cancer, and its not going away. His recent book, Cancer is Funny, is an honest, heartfelt reckoning with the reality of mortality and the Gospel.

Direct download: TNS-1703b_96K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 4:32pm CDT

We revisit our award-winning talk with Nancy Ellen Abrams, author of A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet, about new discoveries in cosmology and their profound effect on our understanding of the universe and religion.

In 2016 this episode won a national award for excellence in radio and podcasting from the Religion News Association.

Direct download: TNS-1508c_Abrams_64K_CBR_49m45s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 4:52pm CDT

Amy Lillis is former Acting Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs. In our conversation, we discuss why the State Department took up religion as a diplomatic issue.

Direct download: TNS-1707-Lillis_96K_CBR_49m44s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:58pm CDT

Michelle Van Loon has been a writer for more than three decades. With her recent book, If Only: Letting Go of Regret, the author has turned her attention to the important subject of grief and regret, and has written a practical spiritual guide for getting over the feelings of "woulda, coulda, shoulda" that affect us all.

Direct download: TNS-1501b_Van-Loon_96k_CBR_49m44s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 3:19pm CDT

Author and journalist Susan Katz Miller is both an interfaith child and an interfaith parent. Her book, Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, is both a memoir and a call to action for intentional interfaith community.  In this rebroadcast from 2014, we talk about how her experiences have shaped her approach to family and religious practice, and the politics of raising interfaith families.

Direct download: TNS-1420_Miller_96K_CBR_49m44s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 11:43am CDT

We're rebroadcasting our 2014 interview with the late Phyllis Tickle. In our conversation we explore the idea that our culture has been shaped by roughly 500-year cycles, which have helped define our major religious traditions for the past two millennia. According to Tickle, our present epoch - referred to by some as "The Great Emergence" - has the potential to yield a new Christianity distinct from Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy. Dr. Tickle passed away in 2016.

Direct download: TNS-1401a_Tickle_128K_CBR_49m43s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 9:26pm CDT

We revisit our 2015 interview with Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners. We discuss his recent book, America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America  

Direct download: TNS-1518c_Wallis_128K_CBR_49m24s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:32pm CDT

We revisit our 2015 interview with Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners. We discuss his recent book, America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America  

Direct download: TNS-1518c_Wallis_128K_CBR_49m24s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:32pm CDT

Mahany's new book, Motherprayer, is a meditation on divine love, seen through the lens of mothering love. 

Direct download: TNS-1706_Mahany_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 9:51am CDT

We talk with Heather King about her life as a poly-addicted alcoholic, and the central role of her religious faith in her recovery. Her most recent book, Holy Desperation: Praying As If Your Life Depends On It, is a chronicle of her journey.

Direct download: TNS-1705_King_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:27am CDT

We talk with Heather King about her life as a poly-addicted alcoholic, and the central role of her religious faith in her recovery. Her most recent book, Holy Desperation: Praying As If Your Life Depends On It, is a chronicle of her journey.

Direct download: TNS-1705_King_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:27am CDT

Michelle Alexander's work examines the hidden structures of control exerted by our criminal justice system, and the effects this control has particularly on minority populations in America. Her 2010 book, The New Jim Crow, set the tone of the conversation for understanding recent events in race relations.

Direct download: TNS-1509a_Alexander_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:19am CDT

Professor Plate's teachings and writings explore relations between sensual life and spiritual life. He has authored/edited eleven books and writes regularly for the Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches, Killing the Buddha, OnFaith, and other sites. He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief, co-founder and president of SCRIPT (Society for Comparative Research in Iconic and Performative Texts), president of CrossCurrents/ The Association of Religion and Intellectual Life, and is a board member of the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, NY. His most recent book is A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects: Bringing the Spiritual to its Senses.

Direct download: TNS_1413a_Brent-Plate_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 3:47pm CDT

Heidi Neumark spent twenty years as the pastor of Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the South Bronx in New York City, and has spent the past decade at Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan. At both posts, she has encountered the same need: people on the margins - cast out and unwanted - who need to hear the Good News that they are wanted, needed, and valued.

So Reverend Neumark has focused her ministry on immigrants, the homeless, and queer and LGBTQ youth, offering them shelter and welcome in a city that is often harsh and violent.

Host David Dault speaks to Reverend Neumark about what motivates her ministry, how she reads the Bible, and what gives her hope.

Also on the show, our guest producer, Katie Lynn Murphy, files a report about her experiences of China during the recent protests.

Direct download: TNS_1418a_Neumark_128K_CBR_47m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:00am CDT

Tattoos, foul language, and a heart for the Gospel. pastor and author Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about her new book, Accidental Saints, and the centrality of grace.

Direct download: TNS-1516a_Bolz-Weber_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 11:16am CDT

In the year 2000, against strong opposition,  pasthe Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, passed Congress by unanimous vote. It's supporters proclaimed that "God worked a miracle" that day on Capitol Hill. Our guest, John Mauck, was instrumental in crafting the ideas and language that became the Act. He tells us the story of how it became law.

Direct download: TNS_1414a_John-Mauck_128K_CBR_49m_01s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 9:19am CDT

We revisit our 2012 interview with Furman University philosophy professor J. Aaron Simmons, to discuss the relationship of Christianity and postmodern thought. Simmons identifies as a Pentecostal, a traditionally conservative Christian denomination. But his views on social issues complicate this easy label. We talk about the complexities he sees in the life of faith during this hour of conversation.

Direct download: TNS-1222a_Simmons_128K_CBR_48m_59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 2:01pm CDT

Our host David Dault speaks with award-winning poet, author, and journalist Judith Valente. We discuss her career as a religion reporter, as well as her explorations of modern monasticism.

Direct download: TNS-1505a_Valente_128K_CBR_48m_59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 8:04pm CDT

For Earth Day, we welcome back Boston Law Professor Jay Wexler to talk about his recent book, When God Isn't Green, which finds him exploring the points around the globe where religion and environmentalism come into conflict.

Direct download: TNS-1608_Wexler_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 6:34am CDT

Around the world, Catholic and Protestant Christians are making preparations for Holy Week, a series of worship services leading up Easter, the day that Christians proclaim Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. During the day known as Good Friday,there is a tradition in many Christian communities to reflect on a series of phrases known as the "Seven Last Words" of Jesus as he hung on the cross.

We speak with Fr. James Martin about his book, Seven Last Words, a collection of his meditations on the final hours of Jesus, and what it means for believers and nonbelievers alike. 

Direct download: TNS-1604a_Martin_128K_CBR_48m_59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 8:49pm CDT

Marge Nykaza is the founder and director of Harmony, Hope and Healing - a ministry to homeless and under-resourced families across the Chicago area. The most visible part of the ministry is choral groups composed of the homeless - but as Nykaza points out, their work is much more about the soul repair, which happens through the music.

Direct download: TNS-1601a_Nykaza_128K_CBR_48m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 9:32pm CDT

On Palm Sunday in 1990, attorney Jeanne Bishop received a phone call with the news that three members of her family - including her sister - had been brutally murdered. We take the full hour of our show this week to hear Bishop's account of her twenty-five-year journey towards forgiveness and reconciliation with her sister's killer.

Direct download: TNS_1419a_Jeanne-Bishop_128K_CBR_49m01s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:24pm CDT

This hour we revisit our interview with actor and director Curt Cloninger, who has spent 30 years traveling the country performing thoughtful and thought-provoking one-man shows.

Direct download: TNS-1506a_Cloninger_128K_CBR_48m55s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:08pm CDT

Jason Micheli has cancer, and its not going away. His recent book, Cancer is Funny, is an honest, heartfelt reckoning with the reality of mortality and the Gospel.

Direct download: TNS-1703_Micheli_128K_CBR_49m28s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 8:00pm CDT

We revisit our award-winning talk with Nancy Ellen Abrams, author of A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet, about new discoveries in cosmology and their profound effect on our understanding of the universe and religion.

In 2016 this episode won a national award for excellence in radio and podcasting from the Religion News Association.

Direct download: TNS-1508_Abrams_128K_CBR_49m28s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:24pm CDT

Kenneth Briggs went on a road trip to discover the condition of the Bible in America. What he found may surprise you.

Direct download: TNS-1622_Briggs_128K_CBR_49m28s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 4:27pm CDT

We revisit our 2014 interview with Reza Aslan. In early March, Aslan will premiere "Believer," a new documentary series on CNN

Direct download: TNS-1417a_Aslan_AM_96K_CBR_49m25s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 1:18pm CDT

#1401a - Emerging, Emergence, Emergent: Phyllis Tickle [Rebroadcast]

We're rebroadcasting our 2014 interview with the late Phyllis Tickle. In our conversation we explore the idea that our culture has been shaped by roughly 500-year cycles, which have helped define our major religious traditions for the past two millennia. According to Tickle, our present epoch - referred to by some as "The Great Emergence" - has the potential to yield a new Christianity distinct from Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy. Dr. Tickle passed away in 2016.

Direct download: TNS-1401a_Tickle_128K_CBR_49m25s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:31am CDT

#1518a - The Gospel Is Personal, Never Private: Jim Wallis [Rebroadcast]

We revisit our 2015 interview with Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners. We discuss his recent book, America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America  

Direct download: TNS-1518a_Wallis_49m06s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 3:56pm CDT

#1604a - Rethinking the Church in the 21st Century: Diana Butler Bass [Rebroadcast]

We revisit our far-ranging conversation with Diana Butler Bass. Her recent book Grounded: Finding God in the World--A Spiritual Revolution is now out in paperback

Direct download: TNS-1603a_Butler-Bass_128K_CBR_49m06s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 3:27pm CDT

#1701 - Evangelizing Lebanon: Dr. Melanie Trexler

We speak with Melanie Trexler about her new book, which looks at the history of Baptist mission work in the Near East

Direct download: TNS-1701_Trexler_96K_CBR_55m06s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 8:20pm CDT

#1512a - The Fear of Islam: Dr. Todd Green [Rebroadcast]

Todd Green returns to our show to discuss his new book, The Fear of Islam: an Introduction to Islamophobia in the West.

Direct download: TNS-1512_AM_Green_128K_CBR_45m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 7:16pm CDT

#1513a - Soul Repair: Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock

We speak to Rita Nakashima Brock, one of the scholars working on the issue of moral injury and co-author of the book Soul Repair

Direct download: TNS-1513am_Brock_128k_CBR_45m_59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 10:32am CDT

#1515am - Civic Virtue: John Danforth on Religion and Politics

For our first radio broadcast, we revisit a conversation with Senator John Danforth

Direct download: TNS-1515_Danforth_AMCLOCK-45m59s.mp3
Category:Religion & Spirituality -- posted at: 3:23pm CDT

1