Added 6.12.18. Milt in this 2011 interview debriefs Sara Anson Vaux, who taught religious studies and film at Northwestern University and authored the treatise, “The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood.” She contends Eastwood’s films, while broadly understood to be ripping good stories, also cover important ethical, religious, and philosophical grounds which should not be given short shrift. She and Milt delve into motifs in Eastwood’s ouvre including divine judgement and the hereafter, reconciling terrible misfortune with a divine presence, and the moral implications of war. The proceedings are further enlivened by audio clips of various signal moments from some of the Eastwood films under discussion.

Added 6.5.18. Some of the major charismatic preachers who made a difference in religious life, have also changed the course of history.  For starters, think Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohammed, and Rabbi Hillel. How exactly does this happen, and why? Milt explores the anatomy of religious leaders’ influence on society. He is joined by Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear Pashman, and Dartmouth religion professor and author Randall Balmer.  He is the author of numerous books, including, “The Making Of Evangelism,” and “God In The White House: How Faith Shaped The Presidency From John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush.”

And, if so, what does “He” want of us? Three scholars–a rabbi, a Christian minister and a Professor of Divinity–join us in a mind-stretching and probing discussion of competing theologies.

The two debaters in this program from ten years ago are David Dennett, famous philosopher from Tufts University (and one of the main advocates of the “new atheism”) and David Cook, professor of philosophy at Wheaton College. Of some seven or eight times that we did discussions on the atheism/religion conflict, this one was most frequently requested for rebroadcast.

Dr. Philip Jenkins has written extensively on the ‘Lost Gospels‘. In this newest book, The Many Faces of Christ, he takes on the notion that these books on the life and divinity of Jesus were never really accepted by the church. To the contrary, they were openly and regularly discussed by early church fathers and elders all the way through the middle ages. The story of how we came to the books of the Bible is well documented. Now Jenkins rights the historical inaccuracies long accepted on these gospels. How the misconceptions came to be and, more important, what those books contain, is utterly fascinating.