The return of HBO's adaptation of Philip Pullman's classic series "His Dark Materials" is the perfect time to dive into his new trilogy, "The Book of Dust." The tales of an older Lyra Belacqua probe more deeply into the central question of his earlier books: What is the nature of consciousness? More
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Religion and Philosophy
It's common in literary and historical accounts of powerful women to make them out to be villains — witches, demons, succubi, changelings — or erase them entirely. Historian Kara Cooney, author Madeline Miller, Religious scholar Serenity Young, and classics scholar Emily Wilson talk about why that might be.More
Singer/songwriter Tori Amos tells Steve Paulson that her new album, "The Beekeeper," is all about reclaiming representatives of the sacred feminine tradition who weren't afraid of their own sexuality.More
Feeling hopeless? How about cake recipes for the Apocalypse? Shannon O'Malley offers a few of her favorite recipes.More
Long before Timothy Leary's study of LSD, psychiatrist Stanislav Grof launched his own investigation of psychedelics. Since then he's devoted his life to exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness.More
Tucker Malarkey has written a novel called "Resurrection" about the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in Egypt in 1945.More
The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform an even further abridged version of their theatrical show "The Bible: The Complete Word of God" - abridged.More
Karen King tells Anne Strainchamps that there are many early Christian texts that didn't make it into the Bible.More
Reverend Alex Gee tells Steve Paulson how rappers like Tupac Shakur function as prophets for the hip hop generation, and how he incorporates rap music into his liturgy.More
Kyle Bowser is the producer of "The Bible Experience" — a 19-CD audio recording of the New Testament featuring a celebrity all-black cast.More
Patti DiVita is a waitress in Elkorn, Wisconsin, and what's wrong with that? She tells Jim Fleming how she was inspired to make a movie about people in the food service industry.More
Laura Waterman is the author of a memoir called "Losing the Garden: The Story of A Marriage." The book explores how Laura could have permitted her beloved husband of thirty years to kill himself while suffering a profound depression.More
After a spate of panic attacks and bouts of depression, Jules Evans says philosophy saved his life - especially the ancient Stoics, who inspired today's Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.More
Listener Bill Lowman's Dangerous Idea? Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) need to be one of the lead agencies to define and defend African humanity.More
Garry Wills tells Jim Fleming that we know very little about the historical Jesus and that it doesn't matter because faith does not depend on historical facts.More
Garry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a practicing Catholic. He tells Jim Fleming that the apostle Paul didn't say most of the things people blame him for.More
Historian Garry Wills tells Jim Fleming that despite his “Confessions,” Augustine was no libertine, and dealt with all the major theological problems of early Christianity.More
Bart Ehrman talks about the complex set of beliefs that existed in the early days of Christianity and says it was several hundred years before a single version of the truth was negotiated.More