On Being with Krista Tippett

Her last book was Becoming Wise, an Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, which is a really beautiful book.

Becoming Wise, an Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living,

On Being is supported in part by Penguin Books, announcing the paperback release of Krista Tippett's New York Times bestselling book, Becoming Wise and inquiry into the mystery and art of living.

The Washington Post named it a best book of the year, demonstrating how the longing to lead a good life, a moral life, remains powerful and pervasive in our day. Find the paperback wherever books are sold.

On being a supported in part by Penguin Books, announcing the paperback release of Chris Attippett's New York Times bestselling book, Becoming Wise and inquiry into the mystery and art of living.

The Washington Post named it a best book of the year, demonstrating how the longing to lead a good life, a moral life, remains powerful and pervasive in our day. Find the paper back wherever books are sold.

We had a program last night at the Aspen Wife Institute with Mark Steiner who came from Baltimore to interview Krista and about her book Becoming Wise which many of you have a copy of.

Penguin Books, announcing the paperback release of Krista Tippett's New York Times bestselling book, Becoming Wise and inquiry into the mystery and art of living.

The Washington Post named it a best book of the year, demonstrating how the longing to lead a good life, a moral life, remains powerful and pervasive in our day.

Find the paperback wherever books are sold.

On being supported in part by Penguin books, announcing the paperback release of Chris Attippett's New York Times bestselling book, Becoming Wise and inquiry into the mystery and art of living.

The Washington Post named it a best book of the year, demonstrating how the longing to lead a good life, a moral life, remains powerful and pervasive in our day. Find the paper back wherever books are sold.

We had a program last night at the Aspen Wife Institute with Mark Steiner who came from Baltimore to interview Krista and about her book Becoming Wise which many of you have a copy of.

Becoming Wise challenges all forms of dogma, in science, politics and philosophy as well as religion, and it affirms the holiness of the body and the glory of the inquiring mind.

The Washington Post says, Becoming Wise challenges all forms of dogma, In science, politics and philosophy, as well as religion, And it affirms the holiness of the body and the glory of the inquiring mind. Available now wherever books are sold.

her brand new book, Becoming Wise, is for me her most eloquent and passionate book yet. And it's really a call to hope, and a call to action.

So it is an incredible thrill to welcome Christa to Santa Barbara.

But her brand new book, Becoming Wise, is for me her most eloquent and passionate book yet. She's really a call to hope and a call to action.

I think in this book you write, we are living breathing both hands. And that seems again, so the essence of the way you see the world.

And in fact, you were saying on our way over here that there are old truths but there are also old truths that we've forgotten. And that's one of them because it sounds so self-evident.

Yes. And people have been asking me these last few days I had to find wisdom because even though I wrote a book with the word wise and the title I don't ever say this is wisdom.

I think one of the bravest things that you do in your writing is I'm guessing your fairly shy person despite your position in the public. And you write about the difficulties in your own life.

On Being is supported in part by Penguin Press, the publishers of Becoming Wise and inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Krista Tippett's book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century, of personal growth, renewed public life, and human spiritual evolution.

The Washington Post says, Becoming Wise challenges all forms of dogma, in science, politics and philosophy as well as religion, and it affirms the holiness of the body and the glory of the inquiring mind.

Available now, wherever books are sold.

Becoming Wise challenges all forms of dogma, In science, politics and philosophy, as well as religion, And it affirms the holiness of the body and the glory of the inquiring mind.

her brand new book, Becoming Wise, is for me her most eloquent and passionate book yet. And it's really a call to hope, and a call to action.

in some ways the whole thing is a meditation on that but it's it's I'm never kind of direct attacking it.

But her brand new book, Becoming Wise, is for me her most eloquent and passionate book yet. She's really a call to hope and a call to action.

I think we learn to walk by falling down and it's a perfect reminder that we can't do anything I'm just feeling to fall.

And in fact, you were saying on our way over here that there are old truths but there are also old truths that we've forgotten. And that's one of them because it sounds so self-evident. Yes. But we go through life, pushing everyone aside as if we never knew it.

And I think one of the bravest things that you do in your writing is I'm guessing your fairly shy person despite your position in the public. And you write about the difficulties in your own life.

In the end, will be measured not by what we've accomplished but by how we love.

On Being is supported in part by Penguin Press, the publishers of Becoming Wise and inquiry into the mystery and art of living. Krista Tippett's book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century, of personal growth, renewed public life, and human spiritual evolution.

and she's a Peabody award winner a National Humanities medalist and a best-selling author of several books including becoming wise Einstein's God and Speaking of faith and she just dropped a new TED talk which I had the pleasure of seeing live and which you can watch by Clicking the link in the show notes

Einstein's God, Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit

Einstein's guard orchestrates a dialogue between religion and science, but her brand new book, becoming wise, is for me her most eloquent and passionate book yet.

Einstein's guard orchestrates a dialogue between religion and science, but her brand new book, becoming wise, is for me her most eloquent and passionate book yet.

I had actually finished your book about three weeks ago. Are there Einstein's God?

There's a book that I wrote that came out of my interviews with scientists. It's been translated in Published in Turkey.

Einstein's God? Yes. That's a small publisher, I think it's a small piece.

I had actually finished your book about three weeks ago. Are there Einstein's God?

There's a book that I wrote that came out of my interviews with scientists. It's been translated in Published in Turkey.

Einstein's God? Yes. That's a small publisher, I think it's a small piece.

Like God doesn't throw dice from that kind of line. Yeah, but actually that one is... That's the one everybody knows, but that one was... That was actually not at the elementary school statement.

Well, I've already, that's one that's like my child that's graduated in gunned college and I don't think about anymore.

Announcing Chris de Tipit's new book, Einstein's God, Conversations about science and the human spirits available in bookstores now.

On April 27th, I'll be speaking in Philadelphia about the interplay between scientific and spiritual questions, not as argued but as lived. This is a thrilling topic to me and it's the subject of my new book, Einstein's God.

The Philadelphia event is sold out, but you can still have a front row seat by way of the free live video stream on our website. There you can also check out video footage of my recent Einstein's God conversation with NPR's Michelle Martin in Washington, D.C.

American public media, announcing Chris Dittipit's new book, Einstein's God, conversations about science and the human spirit available in bookstores now.

I'm speaking in a few cities this month about the interplay between scientific and spiritual questions not as argued but as lived the subject of my new book Einstein's God.

And in the coming weeks I'll be in Boston and Philadelphia taking your questions about Einstein's God.

Announcing Christopher's new book, Einstein's God, conversations about science and the human spirits available in bookstores now.

We've turned 10 of them into a book, Einstein's God, with this program you've just heard at its core and in readable form.

It's out now direct in paperback as an affordable resource for individuals and groups of every size.

Announcing Chris de Tipit's new book, Einstein's God, Conversations about science and the human spirits available in bookstores now.

On April 27th, I'll be speaking in Philadelphia about the interplay between scientific and spiritual questions, not as argued but as lived. This is a thrilling topic to me and it's the subject of my new book, Einstein's God.

American public media, announcing Chris Dittipit's new book, Einstein's God, conversations about science and the human spirit available in bookstores now.

I'm speaking in a few cities this month about the interplay between scientific and spiritual questions not as argued but as lived the subject of my new book Einstein's God.

And in the coming weeks I'll be in Boston and Philadelphia taking your questions about Einstein's God.

Announcing Christopher's new book, Einstein's God, conversations about science and the human spirits available in bookstores now.

We've turned 10 of them into a book, Einstein's God, with this program you've just heard at its core and in readable form.

It's out now direct in paperback as an affordable resource for individuals and groups of every size.

and she's a Peabody award winner a National Humanities medalist and a best-selling author of several books including becoming wise Einstein's God and Speaking of Faith and she just dropped a new TED talk which I had the pleasure of seeing live and which you can watch by Clicking the link in the show notes

I wrote a book. Yeah, I have published, well, I wrote one book that's a written book, which is a memoir, which I didn't know this. Yeah, it's called Speaking of Faith.

She has produced three books so far, speaking on faith takes us into her life and her vision, her work.

she's produced three books so far, speaking on faith takes us into her life and her vision, her work.

now in an updated and expanded paperback edition with reader's guide in bookstores everywhere

Krista Tippett's new book Speaking of Faith why religion matters and how to talk about it now on paperback with an index and readers guide in bookstores this Tuesday

now in an updated and expanded paperback edition with reader's guide in bookstores everywhere

now on paperback with an index and readers guide

Speaking of Faith, Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It. Now in paperback with an index and readers guide in bookstores on January 29th.

This book is a chronicle of a change of mind and of a discipline of listening that keeps my mind and my spirit stretching.

There are places in human experience that politics cannot analyze or address, and they are among our raw, essential, heartbreaking, and life-giving realities.

I read it in Weavings and then again in Let Your Life Speak.

As I say in Let Your Life Speak, in the chapter on depression, people walk around saying, I don't understand why so-and-so committed suicide.

I read it in Weavings and then again in Let Your Life Speak.

You've written so eloquently about it and I'd be interested if there's anything that isn't in the book that seems important to you now or that if you've continued to reflect on this in different ways.

As I say in Let Your Life Speak, in the chapter on depression, people walk around saying, I don't understand why so-and-so committed suicide.

Let Your Life Speak

You said you should read Parker Palmer. Yes, quicker author right. Yeah, which I did and that was uh that was an an influence as well. You know I think of um there's that um quote uh that I and again I don't know if this is a impactful story or not but there's the story about um Dan Rather uh interviewing mother Teresa and he asked her what she said during her prayers and she said I listen and uh rather than said well then what does God say to you and she said he listens.

And that's the one quote one quote I can give back to you. Yeah yeah and that title of Parker Palmer's book it's a little book Let Your Life Speak. Yep. Also you know it could be a it could be like a mission statement for you or me you know I mean that we let live speak um Absolutely

You know I think of there's that quote and again I don't know if this is a powerful story or not but there's the story about Dan Rather interviewing mother Teresa. And he asked her what she said during her prayers and she said I listen and rather than said well then what does God say to you and she said he listens.

That title of Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak.

Let Your Life Speak

Michelle Alexander has written this marvelous, challenging work called The New Jim Crow on mass incarceration and what it is doing to especially the young people of color in American society. And therefore, of course, what it's doing to American society. I think that's a book that people ought to wrestle with in churches and schools and on public radio programs like this.

Amy turned me on to this book, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. And I mean, they're just about mass incarceration of African-Americans, if you don't know that book.

as Michelle Alexander writes so beautifully in The New Jim Crow, the mass incarceration state was one that was created and promulgated really based on. You know racial injustice and the libertarian movement which is so. So predominantly at least in my experience of it white men.

I think, you know, for so many ways the whole process of writing this book and touring and speaking to a wife. Speaking to a wide range of people, I've spoken in prisons, I've spoken in churches, judicial conferences, you know, interacting with. Why range of people who, you know, are all kind of slowly awakening to the reality of what we as a nation have done.

Again, you know, we've done this thing as a nation and you know, I think for me one of the reasons that I'm so have become so passionate about this issue is that I think in many ways how you respond to the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States is really critical test for American democracy.

Yes, and I guess you know, your book The New Jim Crow is, you know, it's just extraordinary and it's become a really important text.

I think this is it. He says you know this is the crime of which I accused my country and my country and it is their innocence which constitutes the crime. Another is a form of culpability.

She published The New Jim Crow, Mass and Carceration in the Age of Colorblindness in 2010 and it's gradually become a phenomenon, a source of national discussion and reflection.

I think that what's often lost in the telling of that history is that there was a brief moment. And we were in the populist era where you know freed slaves and their descendants joined together with poor and working class whites.

And that brief moment of interracial unity and solidarity for economic justice was destroyed by a small number of political elites, political and economic elites who were threatened by that movement and felt that Jim Crow segregation laws would be the best way to drive a wedge through that movement and that by disenfranchising black people, stripping them of the right to vote. White swit before us to turn against their former black allies.

And then we had the period of Jim Crow segregation, which I think is far more brutal, psychologically and economically than many people would even want to admit today.

And I guess, you know, your book, The New Jim Crow is, you know, it's just extraordinary and it's become a really important text.

I mean, really you've, it's inserted language and to think, you know, that's become that phrase, The New Jim Crow has meaning and it has, it has, it's changed, changing narrative and vocabulary and has policy and vocational and so I think, so we will talk about that and the ideas that you've brought forward.

And so, what was this? What, what, what, so I guess that, where was in the early 60s? Yeah, so you know, I was raised with the understanding that faith and church are not synonymous.

Yeah, I thought that was hyperbole. I, you know, shook my head and said, yeah, you know, criminal justice system is racist in a lot of ways, but it doesn't help to make such absurd comparisons to Jim Crow people just think you're crazy.

You know, in this so-called era of color blindness, we've managed to create this vast new system of racial and social control that has relegated tens of millions of people to a second class status.

He says you know this is the crime of which I accused my country and my country and it is their innocence which constitutes the crime.

And then I hopped on the bus and headed to my new job as director of the racial justice project for the ACLU and California.

I'm officially off the road right now, which feels good.

But it's a very strange moment on my part.

I think my brain slowed down, such a glacial pace in those years.

I mean, really you've, it's inserted language and to think, you know, that's become that phrase, The New Jim Crow has meaning and it has, it has, it's changed, changing narrative and vocabulary and has policy and vocational and so I think, so we will talk about that and the ideas that you've brought forward.

I was raised to believe that...we are on the right path and we may have a long way to go, but we are on the right path.

And what a lot of people don't know is that John Kerry attends mass whenever he possibly can, which is at least once a week. And is informed quite a bit by Catholic social teaching, and yet was extremely uncouchable talking about it.

And this was a detail I found out after the fact by someone who had seen it in his office, it was certainly not something that the campaign ever thought was relevant or that voters would want to know about.

The Purpose Driven Life came out on 9-11, 2002.

has a leather bound embossed copy of The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, which is a book read by millions and millions of Americans.

And he reads it every day.

What Rick Warren calls the purpose-driven paradigm is based on a course of study that accompanies his 2002 book, The Purpose Driven Life.

Warren originally conceived this book as a discussion series to mobilize his congregation toward deeper levels of personal faith and mission in the world, Christian Purpose.

Though The Purpose Driven Life did not immediately show up on major bestseller lists, it sold in bulk at phenomenal levels in Christian bookstores and through Warren's global online network of pastors.

Sales are now approaching 30 million.

A table in Rick Warren's office is lined with copies of the book in some of the 60 languages into which it has now been translated.

What Rick Warren calls the Purpose Driven Paradeime is based on a course of study that accompanies his 2000 to book The Purpose Driven Life.

Warren originally conceived this book as a discussion series to mobilize his congregation toward deeper levels of personal faith and mission in the world.

Though The Purpose Driven Life did not immediately show up on major bestseller lists, it sold in bulk at phenomenal levels in Christian bookstores and through Warren's global online network of pastors.

Sales are now approaching 35 million.

A table in Rick Warren's office is lined with copies of the book in some of the 60 languages into which it has now been translated.

next week we'll speak with The Purpose Driven Life author and entrepreneurial pastor rick warren

rick warren is the author of The Purpose Driven Life one of the best-selling books in history and he built and leads one of the largest churches in the u.s.

It took me 12 hours a day for seven months to write that book starting at about five in the morning to five in the afternoon

There's not a single new thought in purpose driven life that hasn't been said in historic christianity for 2000 years not one

I simply said it in a simple way and in an organized way I have an ability to take a lot of ideas and synthesize them in a simple way

It was a total surprise. I mean nobody could have imagined that

Publishers weekly said it's the best selling hardback in america history

After the phenomenal sales of Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life, Kay Warren became a bridge-building activist on AIDS.

Rick Warren is best known as pastor of one of the largest churches in the U.S. and author of one of the world's best-selling books, The Purpose Driven Life.

What Rick Warren calls the purpose-driven paradigm is based on a course of study that accompanies his 2002 book, The Purpose Driven Life.

it sold in bulk at phenomenal levels in Christian bookstores and through Warren's global online network of pastors. Sales are now approaching 30 million.

A table in Rick Warren's office is lined with copies of the book in some of the 60 languages into which it has now been translated.

Next week we'll speak with The Purpose Driven Life author and entrepreneurial pastor rick warren together with his wife k she's become a bridge building force in the global fight against aids the warrens are a rising influence primarily in traditionally conservative circles

Rick Warren is the author of The Purpose Driven Life one of the best-selling books in history and he built and leads one of the largest churches in the u.s.

the most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true

the most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true

the atheists look at the religious and think that they're stupid and the religious look at the atheists and think that they're damned and both sides at fiercely entrenched.

the most boring question you can ask of any religion is whether it is true, but how to live, how to die, what is good and what is bad, these are questions religion has sophisticated ways of addressing.

I don't think atheists have spiritual lives too.

many of these bits of religion do impact me greatly. I don't know what it would be like to be part of a community and actually believe or to look at religious art and actually believe in it etc.

The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.

I'm arguing that non-believers today can do a little bit of this with religion just as religion did it with them.

The human animal is crooked. We are slightly wrong and imperfectible.

The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.

The argument about whether God does or doesn't exist is I think ultimately one, when most individuals are not rationally aware of their reasons for believing in what they believe.

Religions are aware that our minds are like sieves. If you tell someone something once it will just fly out of their mind immediately. What you need to do is repeat lessons...

With no evident awareness of the contradictions they may in the same breath, the gruffly dismissable leaf and angels while sincerely trusting in the combined powers of the IMF, the medical research establishment, Silicon Valley, and democratic politics could together cure the ills of mankind.

The Catholic idea of original sin, fascinating idea, beautiful idea starts from the notion that the human animal is crooked. We are slightly wrong and imperfectible.

the most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true

the most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true

the most boring question you can ask of any religion is whether it is true, but how to live, how to die, what is good and what is bad, these are questions religion has sophisticated ways of addressing

The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.

The argument about whether God does or doesn't exist is I think ultimately one, when most individuals are not rationally aware of their reasons for believing in what they believe.

Religions are aware that our minds are like sieves. If you tell someone something once it will just fly out of their mind immediately. What you need to do is repeat lessons, which is why all the faiths have calendars...

With no evident awareness of the contradictions they may, in the same breath, gruffly dismiss leprechauns and angels while sincerely trusting in the combined powers of the IMF, the medical research establishment, Silicon Valley, and democratic politics could together cure the ills of mankind.

I don't think atheists have spiritual lives, too. I think if it's then it ends up depending on how you're defining spiritual, but when we the assumption that they wouldn't or or an assertion by atheists that they don't is is part of what excludes Non-religious people from, as you say some of these really important things we grapple with in religion

The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true.

The argument about whether God does or doesn't exist is I think ultimately one, when most individuals are not rationally aware of their reasons for believing in what they believe.

I'm arguing for a kind of reverse colonization. In the same way that Christianity colonized the pagan world, absorbing its best elements, so I'm arguing that non-believers today can do a little bit of this with religion just as religion did it with them.

These religions at their highest points are their most complex and subtle moments are far too interesting to be abandoned merely to those who believe in them.

with no evident awareness of the contradictions they may in the same breath, the gruffly dismissable leaf and angels while sincerely trusting in the combined powers of the IMF, the medical research establishment, Silicon Valley, and democratic politics could together cure the ills of mankind.

There's your most recent book on this subject is The Course of Love, which is a novel.

And you said at one point their relationship is secretly yet mutually marked by a project of improvement, which I think we all recognize.

And you said at one point their relationship is secretly yet mutually marked by a project of improvement, which I think we all recognize. And then there's this moment where you say, after the dinner party, Robbie is sincerely trying to bring about an evolution in the personality of the wife he loves. But his chosen technique is distinctive to call Kirsten materialistic, to shout at her and then later to slam two doors.

I mean there's this wonderful line from The Course of Love about these two parents, the children, the tired child inside each of them is furious at how long it has been neglected and in pieces.

their relationship is secretly yet mutually marked by a project of improvement

Robbie is sincerely trying to bring about an evolution in the personality of the wife he loves. But his chosen technique is distinctive, to call Kirsten materialistic, to shout at her, and then later to slam two doors.

the tired child inside each of them is furious at how long it has been neglected and in pieces.

romanticism is the single greatest enemy we face for love

The problem of modern love is one of his favorite topics and it's the theme of his novel The Course of Love.

Anytime anyone starts a sentence with 'the founding fathers believed,' you should immediately have a lot of skepticism.

One of the things I learned is that there is no such thing as the founding fathers as a unitary block when it comes to these issues; they actually disagreed with each other.

Understanding Thomas Jefferson's take on faith means understanding a fury, it's fury.

I don't have your book in front of me. Remember what is the precise title?

Founding Faith. Providence politics and the birth of religious freedom in America.

I think the book you've done is different.

I had no idea how important and central the role of evangelical support for separation of church and state was. And I had no idea that they were such crucial allies of Madison and Jefferson.

It's a terrific book.

Not a day would go by where I wouldn't get an email from some interest group or advocacy group on left or right, claiming that the founding fathers agreed with them about something.

It was always it was amusing because I'd have a liberal group one day saying the founding fathers agree with our position on parent school. I would get an email from a conservative religious Christian group saying the founding fathers obviously agree with us on this.

So I got curious about that and as I went deeper into it what I came to realize is that the culture wars, the kind of hostile attacks had so distorted our sense of history that we really didn't have the foggyest idea how we ended up with religious freedom in America.

I also just came to believe that a lot of what we believe about why we have religious freedom in America is wrong and that it's kind of an important thing for us to understand so we can treasure it.

Well first I say that when it comes to this topic anytime anyone starts a sentence with the founding fathers believed you should immediately have a lot of skepticism.

I don't have your book in front of me. Remember what is the precise title?

Founding Faith. Providence politics and the birth of religious freedom in America.

I had no idea how important and central the role of evangelical support for separation of church and state was.

It's often talked about now it's like well if you don't have separation of church and state it's kind of hurt the political process. That was not Madison's primary concern Madison feared that if you didn't have separation of church and state it would warp and sap religion.

He said the separation of church and state worked because and we can see it because religion is thriving.

It's a journalistic and historical investigation of the volatile, gradual formation of a new kind of relationship between religion and state in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Is it therefore useless to study the founding fathers? Not at all, if we know how to use them properly. It's time we stopped using the founders as historical conversation stoppers. As in, 'I'm right and you can tell because the founding fathers agree with me.' Instead, we must pick up the argument that they began and do as they instructed. Use our reason to determine our views.

The mind, as Jefferson reminded us, is the only Oracle God gave us. Jefferson wanted people less dependent on the Bible. I would extend the idea, Walman writes, and urge us to be less dependent on Jefferson.

Many modern church-state questions fall into a constitutional gray zone, and squinting at the founding documents with greater intensity will not change that. We need to ask a different question, not 'Are these practices constitutional?' but 'Are they wise?'

freedom of conscience means not only the freedom to believe but also the freedom to change, not only the right to practice one faith but also the right to a spiritual journey.

Founding Faith yeah providence politics and the birth of religious freedom in America

I had never heard of her before

She was that she was sentenced to death

The Jefferson Bible

Freedom of conscience means not only the freedom to believe but also the freedom to change

Founding Faith: Providence, politics, and the birth of religious freedom in America

Not a day would go by where I wouldn't get an email from some interest group or advocacy advocacy group on left or right claiming that the founding fathers agreed with them about something.

First there had been a number of books about the particular spiritual lives of the founding fathers and and that's fascinating Absolutely fascinating and I do go into that but I went out of from with a very particular question in mind Which was how did their personal spiritual lives affect Their views on the separation of church and state or on religious liberty.

Freedom of conscience means not only the freedom to believe but also the freedom to change Not only the right to practice one's faith, but also the right to a spiritual journey

Rebellion to tyrants Is obedience to god

It's a journalistic and historical investigation of the volatile, gradual formation of a new kind of relationship between religion and state in the US in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Is it therefore useless to study the founding fathers? Not at all, if we know how to use them properly. It's time we stopped using the founders as historical conversation stoppers. As in, I'm right and you can tell because the founding fathers agree with me. Instead, we must pick up the argument that they began and do as they instructed. Use our reason to determine our views.

The mind as Jefferson reminded us is the only Oracle God gave us. Jefferson wanted people less dependent on the Bible. I would extend the idea, Walman writes, and urge us to be less dependent on Jefferson.

Many modern church-state questions fall into a constitutional gray zone and squinting at the founding documents with greater intensity will not change that. We need to ask a different question, not are these practices constitutional but are they wise?

freedom of conscience means not only the freedom to believe but also the freedom to change, not only the right to practice one faith but also the right to a spiritual journey.

I don't have your book in front of me. I have all my notes. I've taken remind me what is the precise title

Founding Faith yeah providence politics and the birth of religious freedom in America

First there had been a number of books about the particular spiritual lives of the founding fathers and and that's fascinating Absolutely fascinating and I do go into that but I went out of from with a very particular question in mind Which was how did their personal spiritual lives affect Their views on the separation of church and state or on religious liberty.

One of the things that understanding Thomas Jefferson's take on faith means understanding a fury his fury

He literally sat there with four versions of the Bible Greek Latin French and English Went through with a knife or scissors and cut out the parts that he liked most and pasted it in to a fifth volume. He created his own Bible

Founding Faith: providence, politics, and the birth of religious freedom in America

Not a day would go by where I wouldn't get an email from some interest group or advocacy advocacy group on left or right claiming that the founding fathers agreed with them about something.

I tried to tie the spiritual issues back to the question of why we have religious freedom in America.

First there had been a number of books about the particular spiritual lives of the founding fathers and and that's fascinating Absolutely fascinating and I do go into that but I went out of from with a very particular question in mind Which was how did their personal spiritual lives affect their views on the separation of church and state or on religious liberty.

Freedom of conscience means not only the freedom to believe but also the freedom to change Not only the right to practice one's faith, but also the right to a spiritual journey

My last book is called Healing the Heart of Democracy and in that book I talk about five habits of the heart borrowing a phrase from Alexis to Tockeville that I think we need to get our democracy back in a citizen movement but when I give talks about it I say if five is too many for you to hold on to you really only need to you need putspa and humility you know you need you need the hoodspot to know that you have a voice worth speaking and things worth saying and you need the humility to know that it's vital to listen because you may not have it right at all or only a very partial grasp on the truth so I think it's in holding these paradoxes that we start to sort things out we there's so much of this life that we're all trying to live that's just not about either or even though we've been trained to think and binary code right I mean that in the larger sense the metaphorical sense of that term it's both hand I breathe in and I breathe out I really it would really be dangerous for me to say I think I'm basically a breathing out kind of guy so that's how I'm gonna you know devote my life to I am an individual with a voice I am also embedded in a community on which I'm highly dependent from which I came into which I will return and I include the community of the natural world in that and and I need both the hoodspot and the humility to be there fully to be there now and to be there in a life-giving way.

My last book is called Healing the Heart of Democracy and in that book, I talk about five habits of the heart but when I give talks about it, I say, if five is too many for you to hold onto, you really only need two. You need Hutspa and humility.

My last book is called Healing the Heart of Democracy and in that book I talk about five habits of the heart borrowing a phrase from Alexis to Tockeville that I think we need to get our democracy back in a citizen movement but when I give talks about it I say if five is too many for you to hold on to you really only need to you need putspa and humility you know you need you need the hoodspot to know that you have a voice worth speaking and things worth saying and you need the humility to know that it's vital to listen because you may not have it right at all or only a very partial grasp on the truth so I think it's in holding these paradoxes that we start to sort things out

Earlier in 2013, I came across The Righteous Mind, Professor Haidt's book. It was actually recommended to me by Michael Hill, who runs the DeRote Foundation. And I caught myself surprised on every page how resonant your work was for the work that we're doing.

And so a couple of weeks later, it turns out that a supporter of ours, Jonathan Lopatin, was also reading The Righteous Mind, Hivruta, study partner in the book.

And so we wanted to turn to your work and ask what might The Righteous Mind have to teach us about this moment in our community?

When it comes to moral judgments, he says, we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.

In his acclaimed book, The Righteous Mind, he examined the conundrum behind good people divided by religion and politics.

Earlier in 2013, I came across The Righteous Mind, Professor Haidt's book. It was actually recommended to me by Michael Hill, who runs the DeRote Foundation. And I caught myself surprised on every page how resonant your work was for the work that we're doing.

And so a couple of weeks later, it turns out that a supporter of ours, Jonathan Lopatin, was also reading The Righteous Mind, Hivruta, study partner in the book.

And we sort of batted around ideas about how resonant what you were talking about in terms of the moral matrix and the five moral foundations and the divide between liberals and conservatives was for the American Jewish conversation on Israel and for the work of Encounter.

When it comes to moral judgments, he says, we think we are scientists discovering the truth, but actually we are lawyers arguing for positions we arrived at by other means.

as a young woman I dreamed of changing the world. In my 20s I went to Africa to try and save the continent only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving.

I spent the last few days immersed in your book and also listening to you speak and, you know, reading other things you've written and said and things that have been written about you.

I think that we could spend an hour just talking about your story as it's told in the book.

And I think that I want to spend a bit of time there, but I want to focus on the present and what you're doing now and what you're learning now and we then the formative experiences you had in that way rather than spend 45 minutes telling the story of how you got here.

There's some place in your book I think where you're talking about a quality someone saw in you as an adult. And you talked about how the among the, among the qualities they saw, they saw the Catholic girl who can scrub a floor, scrub a kitchen floor into every, until every corner of the signs.

I believe it's in The Blue Sweater I think it's a very striking sentence here at generosity is easier than justice.

as a young woman I dreamed of changing the world. In my 20s I went to Africa to try and save the continent only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving.

I spent the last few days immersed in your book and also listening to you speak and, you know, reading other things you've written and said and things that have been written about you.

I think that we could spend an hour just talking about your story as it's told in the book.

And I think that I want to spend a bit of time there, but I want to focus on the present and what you're doing now and what you're learning now and we then the formative experiences you had in that way rather than spend 45 minutes telling the story of how you got here.

I love that. Okay, all right. So I mean, I would do want to spend a little bit of time telling some of that and I can tell some of it in the script too, but I just think it's important for people to know what's happening, you know, what this is now and what it means now.

There's some place in your book I think where you're talking about a quality someone saw in you as an adult. And you talked about how the among the, among the qualities they saw, they saw the Catholic girl who can scrub a floor, scrub a kitchen floor into every, until every corner of the signs.

I see a conservative movement and a republican party that is not in some pretty deep ways very conservative.

we are conservatives who stand outside the contemporary conservative mainstream

we like it here the view is better for we can see things that matter more clearly

I've been reading you across the years and reading snippets but I very much enjoyed it and I liked getting into your columns and your blog and so it's been great.

your book, your 2000s, books you called Crunchy Cons and this grew from an article in the National Review online, Berkins stocked Berkins.

And you know, the first tenet of what you call the Crunchy Cons manifesto is we are conservatives who stand outside the contemporary conservative mainstream.

We like it here. The view is better for we can see things that matter more clearly.

How Birkenstocked Birken's gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America or at least the Republican Party.

That is, we were becoming the sort of people who viewed the physical aspects of our lives, the food that we ate, the place that we lived and the world in which we moved as being inseparable from spiritual reality.

It was so gratifying but also shocking. I mean we had this one guy who wrote and said, I'm a Buddhist Republican and I just want to invite George W. Bush over to sit over a bowl of doll and talk policy with me.

That is, we were becoming the sort of people who viewed the physical aspects of our lives, the food that we ate, the place that we lived and the world in which we moved as being inseparable from spiritual reality.

Crunchy Conservatism draws on the religious, philosophical and literary heritage of conservative thought and practice to cobble together a practical, common sense and fruitful way to live.

I've been reading you across the years and reading snippets but I very much enjoyed it and I liked getting into your columns and your blog and so it's been great.

your 2006 books you called Crunchy Cons and this grew from an article in the national review online Birkenstocked Birkeans

I ended up writing a book about these people because there was such passion there when people would read my essay and said that's me that is exactly who I am thank you for articulating it and that's how I got a book out of it

I'm more interested in being religious and being culturally engaged than I am and being politically engaged

in my book Crunchy Cons uh interviewed an Orthodox guy Huo Byrne who said who had been a Catholic too and he told me for the book he said you know the thing about being an Orthodox is you're not on a war footing

your book, your 2000s, books you called Crunchy Cons and this grew from an article in the National Review online, Berkins stocked Berkins.

the first tenet of what you call the Crunchy Cons manifesto is we are conservatives who stand outside the contemporary conservative mainstream.

We like it here. The view is better for we can see things that matter more clearly.

And that's how I got a book out of it.

I write in my book about these farm families out in rural East Texas who raise livestock organically

how Birkenstocked Birken's gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America or at least the Republican Party.

It was so gratifying but also shocking.

I'm a Buddhist Republican and I just want to invite George W. Bush over to sit over a bowl of doll and talk policy with me.

I'm a convert to Catholicism back in the early 1990s. When I came back to faith as an adult, I came back through the Catholic Church and through reading Thomas Merton and through reading Walker Percy and Soren Kierkegaard, who of course wasn't a Catholic.

how Birkenstocked Birken's gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America or at least the Republican Party.

That is, we were becoming the sort of people who viewed the physical aspects of our lives, the food that we ate, the place that we lived and the world in which we moved as being inseparable from spiritual reality.

Pico Ayer's cherished books include The Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and The Art of Stillness, Adventures in Going Nowhere.

Pico Ayer is the author of many books, including The Global Soul, Jet Lag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home. Also, The Open Road, The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and The Art of Stillness, Adventures in Going Nowhere.

They've both been guests on this show in recent years, Pico on The Art of Stillness and Liz on Choosing Curiosity Over Fear.

the point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or the mountaintop, but to bring that calm into the motion, the commotion of the world

the point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or the mountaintop but to bring that calm into the motion the commotion of the world

I think a writer is in a blessed position because in some ways our job is to sit still and to meditate for a living.

Pico is the author of two novels and ten works of nonfiction, including in recent years, The Art of Stillness and the open road.

Pico is the author of two novels and ten works of nonfiction, including in recent years, The Art of Stillness and the open road.

and he's the author of the irresistible revolution.

We are trying to raise up an army, not simply of street activists but of lovers. A community of people who have fallen desperately in love with God and with suffering people and who allow those relationships to disturb and transform them.

We are trying to raise up an army, not simply of street activists but of lovers. A community of people who have fallen desperately in love with God and with suffering people and who allow those relationships to disturb and transform them.

I wrote a book about it. I hate to pull that play, but it's called "A Hidden Wholeness", the journey toward an undivided life and in a lot of ways the central theme of that book is how we create safe spaces for the kinds of conversations that you're referring to and that we've really been talking about up here.

One of the things this society is most deficient in is safe spaces for truth-telling about the condition of our souls and if if the word soul isn't work for you it's identity and integrity in the language of secular humanism it's the spark of the divine and the language of hasitic Judaism it's big self or true self big self or no self in the paradoxical language of Buddhism everybody has a name for it different name and nobody knows its true name.

So I wrote a book about it. I hate to pull that toy. But it's called a hidden holeness, the journey toward an undivided life. And in a lot of ways, the central theme of that book is how we create safe spaces for the kinds of conversations that you're referring to and that we've really been talking about up here.

I wrote a book about it. I hate to pull that play but it's called A Hidden Wholeness the journey toward an undivided life and in a lot of ways the central theme of that book is how we create safe spaces for the kinds of conversations that you're referring to and that we've really been talking about up here

The myth of pure evil is the ultimate self-serving bias, the ultimate form of naive realism.

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of ethical leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He's the author of The Happiness Hypothesis, Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, and The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Oh, so you've read my first book, The Happiness Hypothesis?

So, yeah, so just that book was a collection of 10, it was an analysis of 10 ancient ideas. And it turns out that the ancients, as Christa was saying, it's a great repository of wisdom about human relationships.

And one thing that you find in most of the great wisdom traditions is the idea that reality as we see it is an illusion, it's a veil, it blinds us. And enlightenment is taking down the veil, seeing things as they are, transcending dualities.

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of ethical leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He's the author of The Happiness Hypothesis, Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, and The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

modern life, The Human Condition is unpredictable. This is what, since the advent of modernity, we've had rapid change. The world has become unpredictable in new ways.

she says, modern life, The Human Condition is unpredictable. This is what, since the advent of modernity, we've had rapid change. The world has become unpredictable in new ways.

And if you read The Human Condition, which is, I mean, I recommend to cheer you up actually in these dark times.

It's a model of, you know, she'll talk about the importance of new beginnings, the importance of natality, the importance of action, the importance of speaking. And she'll talk about the world.

she says, globalization is about the accumulation of capital. It's expansion for expansion's sake. So it will not produce more equality. It will produce more inequality, hence the background of difference.

she'll talk about the importance of new beginnings, the importance of natality, the importance of action, the importance of speaking. And she'll talk about the world.

globalization is about the accumulation of capital. It's expansion for expansion's sake. So it will not produce more equality. It will produce more inequality, hence the background of difference.