Things Not Seen Podcast

In his recent book, Reorganized Religion, our guest, veteran religion reporter Bob Smietana, offers an in-depth and critical look at why people are leaving American churches and what we lose as a society as it continues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author and educator David Dark returns to Things Not Seen to discuss the reframed and expanded edition of his book, Life's Too Short to Pretend You're Not Religious. As he reminds us, 'religion' touches on all our commitments, large and small, as we navigate our daily lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, jazz musician Deanna Witkoski, has written a spiritual biography of Mary Lou Williams, whose life and music helped to shape American Jazz and influence Catholic liturgy in the 20th Century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent book, The Magi, our guest Eric Vanden Eykel examines the birth of the Magi story; its enrichments, embellishments, and expansions in apocryphal writing and early Christian preaching; its artistic expressions in catacombs, icons, and paintings and its modern legacy in novels, poetry, and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Dr. Brian Schmisek, explores the many ways that we look to the world to find prophecies and signals for how we are meant to live. He talks with us about his recent book, Signs, Superstitions, and God's Plan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Martin Luther King Jr. said and wrote as much or more about the meaning, nature, and power of truth as any other prominent figure in the 1950s and '60s. Our guest, Lewis V. Baldwin, draws on King's published and unpublished sermons, speeches, and writings, in his recent book, The Arc of Truth, to explore King's lifelong pilgrimage in pursuit of truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rev. Maryann McKibben Dana returns to our show to talk about her recent book, Hope: A User's Manual. She reflects on the surprising place where hope is often found--in the messiness of our imperfect, flawed, beautiful human bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Jon M. Sweeney returns to our show to talk about his recent book, Teresa of Calcutta: Dark Night, Active Love. This biography shows Mother Teresa as the first great saint of television. Presented in three parts, this biography looks at the preparation, the call, and the legacy of the extraordinary woman whom Pope Francis named Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith returns to our show to explain that we must reckon with the past in order to discern the present and have hope for the future. In his recent book, How to Inhabit Time, Smith brings together popular culture, biblical exposition, and meditation, he helps us develop a sense of "temporal awareness" that is attuned to the texture of history, the vicissitudes of life, and the tempo of the Spirit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Princeton Seminary professor Keri Day, talks about her recent book, Notes of a Native Daughter. In it, she challenges the norms and assumptions of theological education and invites readers to a revolutionary hope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, anthropologist James Bielo, talks to us about his work studying the ways in which individuals and communities bring their Bibles to life through performance, rituals, and physical objects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book Race & Rhyme, our guest Love Lazarus Sechrest invites listeners to explore biblical narratives in ways that enliven and ethically inform our present conditions. She discusses her method of associative hermeneutics in this far-ranging conversation about race, theology, and repairing the broken world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book, The Aesthetics of Solidarity, our guest, professor Nichole M. Flores, explores how Our Lady of Guadalupe has been used as a symbol in democratic campaigns ranging from the Chicano movement and United Farm Workers' movements to contemporary calls for just immigration reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Robert C. Roberts offers a new and revolutionary reading of the Christian philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. Roberts suggests that it is virtue ethics, rather than existentialism, that holds the key to Kierkegaard's thought. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this riveting spiritual memoir, our guest Charles Marsh tells the story of his struggle to find peace and the dramatic, inspiring transformation that redefined his life and his faith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest, Robert Ellsberg, publisher of Orbis Books, joins us to discuss his friendship with Sister Wendy Beckett -- a friendship based on several hundred letters, exchanged on an almost daily basis, during the last three years of Sister Wendy's life. Initially they dealt with lives of saints, the meaning of holiness, and the spiritual life, but they soon expanded into a deep and intimate exchange that encompassed our whole lives, the subject of love, suffering, joy, and the presence of grace in everyday life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Lisa Sharon Harper takes us on a four-century journey through the history of her family, showing us how it entwines with the broken history of race in America.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Kate Ott discusses her recent book, Sex, Tech, & Faith, inviting readers into a realistic conversation about ethics in the 21st century Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her 2021 book, White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America, our guest Dr. Anthea Butler traces the long history of connections between American Evangelicalism and anti-Black racism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Kelley Nikondeha invites us to re-read the stories of the Old and New Testament through the lens of the so-called "Fifth Gospel": the lands of Israel and Palestine. Nikondeha encourages us to consider the imperial politics behind the Gospel narratives, both when they were first written, and now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices