Segments
At the beginning of a new year, we tend to take stock of the events of the year that has passed; State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, is no different. This week, Rev. Welton Gaddy will discuss the major religion news of 2015, the unchanging intersection of politics and religion over 200 years of American history, and the relationship between several religions and God. We will welcome Religion News Service editor-in-chief Jerome Socolovsky to help us examine the effect that religion had on 2015. Then, since this month is the actual ten-year anniversary of the beginning of our show, we will mark the occasion by sharing two interviews from our archives. First, we will replay a 2008 segment in which the late Rev. Forrest Church described the history of the relationship between religion and politics in this country and claimed that this relationship has remained relatively constant for 200 years. Lastly, we will bring you a 2009 interview with Samir Selmanovic, an author and activist, in which he discusses both God and religion.
A Look Back at Religion News in 2015
Religion has received a lot of attention in the last year and, in our annual reflection on the year in religion news, we’ll discuss both the prominent stories and the lesser-known, but still important, developments within the realm of religion. Jerome Socolovsky, editor-in-chief at Religion News Service, will join us as we consider the impact that religion – and coverage of it – has had on the world throughout 2015.
From the Archives: 200 Years of Similarity – The Relationship between Religion and Politics in the U.S.
We’ll start this week’s commemoration of ten years of State of Belief by sharing a 2008 interview with the late Rev. Forrest Church, a writer, speaker, and theologian. Rev. Church served as a guest on our show many times before he passed away in 2009, and, in this appearance, he reflected on the largely static nature of the relationship between religion and politics in the United States over the course of the last 200 years.
From the Archives: Many Religions and God
Our celebration of the ten-year anniversary of State of Belief continues with an interview from 2009, when author and activist Samir Selmanovic spoke with us about his book, It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian. In this interview, he shared his perspective on what every person of faith – and of no faith – should keep in mind with regard to the Divine.
