In Good Faith

Steve speaks with Yasminah Respes Huberman about her family's Jewish heritage, her own experience moving to Israel, and the importance of education. Yasminah Huberman is the host of The Jewish Education Experience Podcast, and the founder of Lamed Learning Center which provides learning opportunities for families. She is originally from Southern NJ where she grew up attending Hebrew School and the Adat Beyt Moshe, the synagogue founded by her grandfather, Rabbi Abel Respes. Currently, she homeschools her three children.

Steven Kapp Perry speaks with Gray Cox about the new age of AI and its influence on religious life. Artificial Intelligence has made its way into nearly every conversation over the last few months. We're wondering, What does this mean for religious practice? Dr. Cox discusses how we train AI matters and reflects our own spiritual concerns. Gray Cox is the author of “Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth?”, a book about dialogue and collaboration in this new age of AI. He teaches courses in philosophy, peace studies, language learning, and artificial intelligence at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. He is a cofounder and current Clerk of the Quaker Institute for the Future.

This week, we hear from Alejandra Oliva, author of 'Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith and Migration'. She discusses the difference between being interested in an issue, and being involved in the issue. Her conversation with senior producer Heather Bigley covers the spiritual needs at the border. Alejandra Oliva is an essayist, translator, immigrant justice advocate, and embroiderer. Currently she teaches for NYU’s School of Professional Studies. She is a recipient of a 2022 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and was a Franke Fellow at the Yale Whitney Humanities Center in 2022. She has also worked at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago in Community Engagement. She holds a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

This week on In Good Faith, Steve speaks with Wendy Goldberg in the first half of the episode and Rabbi Joe Charnes in the second half. Both our guests are passionate in interfaith bridge building, and we were excited to hear what they are accomplishing in their communities. Wendy Goldberg is the executive director of the Tri-Faith Initiative, an interfaith organization that houses a mosque, synagogue, church, and interfaith center all on one campus in Omaha, Nebraska. She helped found the initiative and has been involved ever since. In addition to running the initiative as a whole, Wendy was on the board of trustees for Temple Israel synagogue, the Jewish congregation of the organization, for a decade. Rabbi Joe Charnes received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from California State University, Northridge. He went on to study in traditional Jewish seminaries in Los Angeles, California; Brooklyn, New York; and Jerusalem, Israel, and was ordained by Rabbi Mordechai Finley, PhD, of the Academy for Jewish Religion, California. Rabbi Joe's teachings center around recovering and encountering the inner dimension of sacred, Jewish wisdom. He is also deeply devoted to interfaith dialogue and engagement and has been involved in numerous Jewish-Christian interfaith, and multi-faith events. He has studied Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism comparatively for over 25 years, and more recently, Islam and Hinduism. He has lectured frequently at seminaries, universities, churches, synagogues, mosques, and military bases across the country.

Our first IGF Book Club of 2024! In this episode, we're reading the Bhagavad Gita, as translated by Laurie Patton. We actually interviewed Laurie on this show in 2020, so if you want to hear her voice, check out episode 77. Professor Ravi Gupta leads host Steven Kapp Perry through a discussion of the Hindu holy scripture; they're joined in studio by producers Heather Bigley, Lia King, and Ashton Rowan. Ravi M. Gupta, PhD, holds the Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies and serves as Professor and Department Head of the Department of History at Utah State University. He is the author or editor of four books, including an abridged translation of the Bhagavata Purana (with Kenneth Valpey), published in 2017 by Columbia University Press. Gupta has received four teaching awards, a National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowship, and two research fellowships at Oxford. He is a Permanent Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a past president of the Society for Hindu Christian Studies. His current research focuses on the Bhagavata Purana's Sanskrit commentaries. He enjoys teaching World Religions, Hinduism, Sanskrit, and Religious Studies Theory and Method.

This week on In Good Faith, host Steve is joined by Melissa Inouye and David Peters. Both guests discuss the idea of Sacred Struggles: trying times with a higher emphasis and draw to God. They also both draw parallels between the Christian Crucifixion and their own lives. Inouye and Peters are both published authors on the topic and we loved speaking to and learning from them. Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye is a scholar of modern Chinese history and religion and works as a historian at the Church History Department of The Chur of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the author of China and the True Jesus; Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church and Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman scholar’s ventures through life, death, motherhood, and cancer (not necessarily in that order). Melissa’s new book is called “Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance.” She enjoys hiking and digging in the dirt with her husband, four children, and Labrador-cattle dog cross, Bertie. David W. Peters served as an enlisted Marine and Army Chaplain, who deployed to Iraq in 2005. He is the author of several books, notably Death Letter: God, Sex, and War and Post-Traumatic God: How the Church Cares for People Who Have Been to Hell and Back. Today he serves as the vicar of St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church, a new church plant in the diocese of Texas.

This episode is a culmination of comfort and activism. Quilts are usually a symbol of tranquility and peace, but this week we hear from a group that utilized quilts to advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. First, we follow up with a group we met at the Parliament of the World's Religions: The Sacred Ally Quilt Ministry. We speak with Rev. Mark Koyama, Kathy Barrett Blair, and Dr. Harriet Ward. Rev. Mark Koyama grew up in South East Asia and New Zealand before coming to live in the United States in 1980. He was educated at Bates College, Union Theological Seminary (MA 1992), University of Massachusetts Amherst (MFA 2010), and Yale Divinity School (MDiv 2015). Mark teaches literature and religious studies at Northfield Mount Hermon School and is the settled pastor at the United Church of Jaffrey, in Jaffrey New Hampshire. Kathy Barrett Blair has a degree in Occupational Therapy from UNH, and worked as the preschool occupational therapist for the Keene School District for 34 years. She chaired the NHCUCC Ukama Mission Group in partnership with UCC churches in Zimbabwe. Kathy designed and coordinated the renovation of UCC Keene’s Elsie Priest Park and children’s playground. She expresses her creativity through fabric, including the design and construction of Quilt #4 of the George Floyd Quilts. Dr. Harriet Ward is a scientist and a Christian activist. Her doctorate from Brown University (1988) empowered her to serve infants and young children with vision loss, blindness and additional health and developmental challenges. Called by Christ to Antiracism work, Harriet is a powerful voice in the United Church of Christ where she has served on the Board of Directors of the National United Church of Christ and as Chair of the Anti-Racism Ministry group (ARMg) New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ. Then, we hear from Sara Jolena Wolcott. Sara founded her company Sequoia Samanvaya to champion the concepts of ReMembering and ReEnchanting our world. It is centered around rediscovering the spiritu

Welcome to the first IGF episode of 2024! We are speaking with Pastor Jeff McCullough and Russell Moore. Jeff McCullough is the host and producer of the YouTube Channel Hello Saints, which records his journey as an evangelical pastor to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Recently, Jeff and his wife Joy relocated to Utah. Jeff graduated from the private free-Methodist college Greenville University with a degree in audio and video production. Russell Moore is Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today and is the author of Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America (Penguin Random House 2023). An ordained Baptist minister, Moore served previously as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and, before that, as the chief academic officer and dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also taught theology and ethics. He also hosts the weekly podcast The Russell Moore Show and is co-host of Christianity Today’s weekly news and analysis podcast, The Bulletin.

Happy New Year! Join host Steven Kapp Perry and producers Heather Bigley, Lia King, Katarina Martinic, and Ashton Rowan in recounting 2023. They will each discuss some of their favorite interviews from the year, sharing a short soundbite from each. We are so grateful for every opportunity we have had in 2023, so thank you for following along. Stay tuned to see what we have in store for 2024—should be a great year!

Think of it as a family Christmas devotional: a little praise, a little witness, some tears, and some laughter, familiar, yet loose around the edges. We'll hear from Cherie Call, Paul Jacobsen, and Molly in the Mineshaft, as well as pianist Jared Pierce and Mark Geslison, who is the director of several student ensembles here at BYU. Our first hymn is "Once in Royal David's City", performed by Cayson Renshaw and Riley Davis. Cayson Renshaw is a singer-songwriter from the San Francisco Bay-area, currently based in Utah. He's joined here by guitarist and vocalist Riley Davis. See their performance on YouTube Next, Steve speaks with Mark Gelison, leader of the Celtic Ensemble for 30+ years, a student performance group at BYU, who will perform "O Come O Come Emmanuel." This year the ensemble includes, Emily Wall, Kaydie Gillam, Kate Reich, Brandon Torruella, Sarah Shipp, Rebecca Meiss, Eric Christensen, James Hecht, Owen Clarke, and Lawson Archibald. Following this performance comes 'Molly in the Mineshaft'. They play "Gesu Bambino" and "We Three Kings", arranged by Scott and Grace Monson from the contemporary folk ensemble. Molly in the Mineshaft is made up of Lucy Larsen, Grace Monson, Jordan Benson, Douglas Patterson, Talmage Haines, Alex Vincent, and Scott Monson. See their performance on YouTube. Then, Paul Jacobsen performs the spiritual "Go Tell it on the Mountain" for us in the studio. Paul Jacobsen is a singer-songwriter who performs independently but also with the Madison Arm and The Lower Lights. See his performance on YouTube. Mark Geslison returns with Mountain Strings, a student ensemble from BYU playing a medley of "The Holly and the Ivy"/ "Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plain"/"Joy to the World". Mountain Strings includes Madeline Charles, Arthur Prusso, Austin Johnson, Ellie Geslison, Emily Wall, Tyler Anderson, Christina Iverson. Next we're talking with Cherie Call, a singer-songwriter who brought us one of her own compositions, a modern Christmas song about modern challenges during the holiday sea