From The Crusades To The Holocaust: Why History and Love Stories Matter

Religion, violence, anti-semitism, and the fate of the Catholic Church. All subject as contemporary as today’s headlines. To often we see these headlines and think about these issues in the moment, in the now. Yet to really understand any of these issues, begs for a deeper understanding of history.

And what better way to get that history, then in the storytelling of a great novel. That’s what James Carroll has been helping us with for years. Teaching us, while he entertains us.

James Carroll is a distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University and a columnist for The Boston Globe. He is the author of ten novels and seven works of nonfiction. He is a winner of the National Book Award, the best selling author of Constantine’s Sword and his latest work is The Cloister

My conversation with James Carroll:

Religion and mass incarceration

It has been said, although the origin is uncertain, that there are no atheists in foxholes. The same might be said of prisons. Particularly prisons in America; a country that has both a high regard for religion and and an even higher regard for mass incarceration.

Joshua Dubler, in his new book Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison, takes a look at how these ideas might be related and what his microcosm of prison and religion might say, not only about the men he talks to, but about our society at large.

My conversation with Joshua Dubler:

The historical Jesus vs. The religious Jesus

It is the job of historians and scholars to take new and contemporary information and give context and connection to events far beyond the time in which they happened. This is as true for wars, as it is for the story of Jesus. Thus it is no accident that for over 2000 years, every word every written about Jesus was written by people that did not know him when he was alive. It’s significant to note that this was as true in the twenty years after his death, as it is today. Only today we have a broader compendium of knowledge from which to draw on and a keener understanding of the historical context.

With respect to the Jesus story, this makes it easier in some ways to separate out the religious Jesus from the historical Jesus and in so doing, better understand the origins of Christianity, in its birth time, and as it has evolved for over 2000 years.

Few do this better than writer and scholar Reza Aslan. The internationally acclaimed author of No God But God, has now written Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

My conversation with Reza Aslan:

Baseball as a Road to God?

This past week saw the pageantry of religion in the selection of a new Pope. Next month we will experience a different kind of pageantry, as the baseball season opens and for many it will be a kind of religious experience in its own right.

Long the national pastime, baseball has a special place in the pantheon of sports and entertainment. But with all of the competition these days, does baseball still have the same kind of appeal? Has it’s superstitions, streaks, luck, and it’s sense of “you gotta believe," been flattened by metrics? Has William James been replaced by Bill James, and has the inspiration fostered by a father and son praying at the altar of driveway catch, given way to Nate Silver and Billy Bean?

This is part of the story told by controversial NYU President John Sexton in Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game. A book based on his wildly popular class at NYU.

My conversation with John Sexton:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

Atheism 2.0

The battle between religion and secularism seems to have reached a feaver pitch in the US. Alain de Botton argues in his new work, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion, that there may be a middle ground. That religions have important things to teach the secular world. That the tired old debate between atheists and believers is not helping the modern world and that we need to move onto more fruitful ground. For too long, de Botton says, we have faced a false choice between either swallowing doctrines or doing away with some worthwhile rituals and ideas. Botton's is a kinder, gentler atheism.

 My conversation with Alain de Botton:

Click here to listen on your iphone or ipad

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