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This episode is part of one of my ongoing series I call “Christian Music Not Played On Christian Radio.” The purpose of the series is heighten awareness that although traditional Christian music may no longer be the dominant music style experienced in Christian Churches in the United States, the composition of new music in the traditional forms of hymns and anthems is thriving.

In this episode we get the pleasure of experiencing the fruit of a long and wonderful partnership between lyricist, Dr. Mary Louise, ‘Mel,’ Bringle and composer Sally Ann Morris. Much of their music is intended for congregational singing. They share with us a smidgen of the range of their work and give us insights into the process of their partnership.

Sally Ann Morris has composed upwards of 200 hymn tunes and congregational songs, many of which are found in multiple denominational hymnals in the United States, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Japan. Her musical styles range from classically traditional influences to lyric melodies, jazz, folk, and pop. Sally is a Life Member of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and, in 2021, was named a Fellow of the Society, its highest honor. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC, and is Musician in Residence at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity where she leads, enlivens, encourages, demonstrates and teaches the diverse wealth of congregational song for chapel services.

Mary Louise (Mel) Bringle is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion and coordinator of interdisciplinary studies at Brevard College in Brevard, NC; she is also a ruling elder at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, NC. Her Ph.D. in practical and pastoral theology is from Emory University.  An award-winning hymn writer whose original texts and translations appear in the hymnals of numerous denominations in North America and Scotland, she has served as President of The Hymn Society in the US and Canada and as chair of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song, responsible for creating the hymnal Glory to God.  In the summer of 2020, she was named a Fellow of the Hymn Society.

Mel and Sally’s music played for this episode is published by GIA Publications and is used by permission.

The intro and outro music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project.

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Peacebuilding, social justice, and bridge building all overlap and interweave. My guest for this episode exemplifies the desire and quest for all three of these.

The Rabbi Dr. Joseph A. Edelheit has been a long-time activist in interfaith dialogue. He is Emeritus Professor of Religious and Jewish Studies at St. Cloud State University (St. Cloud, Minnesota) where he initiated and facilitated the transition of a Religious Studies program from a minor in the Philosophy Department to an independent college level program in the College of Liberal Arts, and worked in the surrounding communities on issues of anti-Semitism and interfaith dialogue. In addition to teaching for over 25 years in university settings, Rabbi Edelheit served over 45 in the rabbinate, serving Reform Jewish congregations in Michigan City, Chicago, and Minneapolis. He is currently volunteering in Jewish communities in Brazil.

Rabbi Edelheit served on the Clinton administration’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (1995-2000) and also initiated and directed a non-governmental organization, Living India, for almost a decade, providing HIV/AIDS care to orphans in India.

Rabbi Edelheit is coeditor of and contributor to Reading Scripture with Paul Ricoeur and is the author of What Am I Missing: Questions on Being Human.

Rabbi Edelheit is the 2021 University of Chicago Divinity School Alumnus of the Year.

The intro and outro music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project.

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There are folks who approach faith creatively. They use their gifted intelligence and artistry to explore the Mystery, the Divine, the Sacred, God. In doing so, they often have profound encounters. When they are gracious to share with us their experiences and learnings they provide us with resources for our own journeys that enable us to understand and experience the Holy more deeply and fully. They provide insights, guidance, and wisdom that equip and empower us. One such explorer is my guest for this episode, The Reverend Dr. John R. Mabry.

John is an author, songwriter, spiritual director, and seminary professor. A retired United Church of Christ minister, John served as pastor at Grace North Church in Berkeley for 27 years. His 35 books include, on the academic and non-fiction side, spirituality, spiritual direction, and theology, and, on the fiction side, science fiction and fantasy. John is the vocalist for two progressive rock bands—Mind Future, and Metaphor—but has also just released his first solo album, the folk-influenced “I Want To Be Changed.”

The two songs John shares with us, “Come on In”, and “The Harlot at the Side of the Road” come from that solo album and are used by permission.

You can learn more about John and have access both to his music and books from his website.

johnrmabry.com

The music for the intro and outro of this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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My guest for this episode is David LaMotte. David is an internationally know musician, speaker, writer, and peacebuilder. The best access to all that David has done and is doing–his twelve cds, his three books, the store, videos of his speaking engagements and performances, his calendar and touring information, and the means of contacting his–is his website:

https://www.davidlamotte.com/

Fuller bio information about David is here:

Bio

Two of the projects we discuss in the interview that David is involved in and helped create are his Let’s Be Neighbors project and the musical group Abraham Jam, which is a Muslim, Jewish, and Christian trio of musicians performing together seeking to build peace and bridges across conflict.

The website for Let’s Be Neighbors is here:

https://www.letsbeneighbors.org/

The website for Abraham Jam is here:

https://abrahamjam.com/

David has been so kind and gracious as to let me debut the song, Coming Alive, from his soon to be released thirteenth cd/album, Still. That and the Abraham Jam song, Braided Prayer, which is from the album White Moon, are used with permission.

The music for the intro and outro for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is also used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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When folks think about ethics common thoughts relate either to decisions about daily behaviors or to university philosophy or theology departments developing and discussion the merits of various ethical theories. There are organizations where the daily activity so regularly bears on ethical situations that they employ ethicists to help the organization navigate decisions that must be made regarding ethically infused contexts. One such type of organization is the hospital and one such context is medicine and medical ethics.

My guest today is The Reverend Mary Caldwell. Reverend Caldwell was a chaplain and clinical ethicist for thirty years at Mission Health in Asheville, North Carolina and is here to help us understand the work of a medical ethicist.

Mary earned her Bachelor of Arts  in religion from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and her Master of Arts in philosophy with a concentration in medical ethics from The University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Mary has provided the following links to equip us with end-of-life planning.

https://www.planningmyway.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmKiQBhClARIsAKtSj-nDwhKJaZvgvdEXMwKfY_9aLS_FRMpgKZSWQNCU1yc8xtWWWNT96hIaAlWVEALw_wcB

https://compassionandchoices.org/end-of-life-planning/

https://www.cdc.gov/aging/pdf/acp-resources-public.pdf

The last option is the one Mary recommends if you only choose to read one.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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In this episode, Dr. John Pierce explains the Jesus Worldview Initiative and offers it as an alternative to the ‘Biblical worldview’ as defined by Conservative evangelicals. In doing so, John is enabling those participants in the Jesus Worldview Initiative to provide a counter-voice to a position that is compatible with the growth of Christian nationalism, and to provide another means of being a passionate and faithful Christian.

Dr. Pierce is Executive Editor/Publisher for Good Faith Media — formed in 2020 by combining the resources of two nonprofits, Nurturing Faith and EthicsDaily. In this role he continues to serve as editor of the national publication, Nurturing Faith Journal, a position he assumed in 2000. Previously he was managing editor of The Christian Index and, earlier, Baptist campus minister at Kennesaw State University and then Georgia Tech. Frequently, he speaks in churches and consults with congregations concerning communication strategies.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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The election of Donald Trump was surprising, but, once people began to explain why they voted the way the did, it became understandable. What hasn’t been understandable, however, is the subsequent devotion to him by white evangelicals. His past and continuing lifestyle is so at odds with the things white evangelicals have publicly professed to value. This devotion seems different from the type of hero status given to President Reagan or the support given to any incumbent Republican president considered the most likely to advance the Christian Republican religious and political agenda. The devotion being expressed goes beyond these, seemingly to elevate Trump to the status of God’s chosen and thus an almost Messianic position.

My guest today, Dr. Dan Stiver, believes this devotion to Trump by white evangelicals is, in part, rooted in their approach to understanding and interpreting the Bible. Dan helps us understand this white evangelical hermeneutic and then offers us an alternative and a way forward drawing from the insights of Christian philosopher Paul Ricoeur.

Dr. Stiver came to Logsdon Seminary of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, in 1998 from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he taught Christian philosophy for 14 years. His books include The Philosophy of Religious Language: Sign, Symbol, and Story (1996) Theology after Ricoeur: New Directions in Hermeneutical Theology (2001), Life Together in the Way of Jesus Christ: An Introduction to Christian Theology (2009), and Ricoeur and Theology (2012). He has served as pastor in Missouri and Indiana and as chair of the board for the non-profit organization Just People.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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One of the most important lessons I have learned from Meta Commerse is the importance of white people telling their own race story. A significant part of the problem with our ability as white people to fulfill that task is due to the truth that because we are so conditioned by our white-dominated culture, we both don’t tend to think about ourselves as having a race story and don’t know how to go about telling our own race story. Gentle and wise guides like Meta have been helping us white folks learn to do that for over 25 years, but the burden needs to shift. We as white people need to take more responsibility in recognizing that we all and each have a race story, in beginning to tell our own race story, and in being more active in creating change away from the white-dominated culture.

Robert P. Jones has given us a good model in his two books, The End of White Christian America, and White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,. These books include Robert’s own story, but focus more on the cultural level. They do not enable us as individuals know how to tell our own race story.

My guest for this episode has provide us with such a resource. Dr. Benjamin Boswell has developed a course that can be used in multiple contexts and by a variety of people. Ben is here to tell us is own race story and then to give us an understanding of his course, why he developed it, and how we can have access to it.

Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell (he/him) serves at the intersection of strategic leadership, spiritual formation, and social justice. In his professional capacity, Dr. Boswell is a preacher, pastor, author, civil rights leader, and sought after public speaker. Dr. Boswell is also a former infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard, a graduate of Marion Military Institute (AA), Campbell University (BA), Duke Divinity School (MDIV), and Saint Paul’s School of Theology (DMIN) where his doctoral thesis was “Identifying Whiteness: Discerning Race through Spiritual Practice in the White Dominant Church.” Dr. Boswell was born in Lynchburg, VA, grew up in Bethlehem, PA, and graduated from high school in Kannapolis, NC. Before joining the staff at MPBC, Dr. Boswell served as Senior Pastor at Greenwood Forest Baptist Church in Cary, NC. Prior to his time in Cary, Dr. Boswell was Pastor at Commonwealth Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA, and an Adjunct Professor of Political Theology and Ethics at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies. He was also the lone clergy member of the NC Commission of Inquiry on Torture; a citizen group that worked to expose North Carolina’s participation in the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program. Dr. Boswell has received numerous awards and honors for his work as a pastor and civil rights leader. In 2021 he was was awarded the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Medallion, which is the city’s highest honor given to a person who promotes racial equality, social justice, and community service. In addition to his pastoral responsibilities, Dr. Boswell facilitates spiritual formation anti-racism trainings called, “What Does It Mean to Be White?” and he is the author of the forthcoming book Confronting Whiteness to be published by Upper Room in July of 2022.

You can learn more about and have access Ben’s course from the two websites: brownicity.com, and myerspartbaptist.org.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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Mohandas (know by the honorific, ‘Mahatma,’ meaning ‘great-souled’) Gandhi is one of humanity’s great figures in making the world better. His lifestyle and teachings of nonviolence and his leadership in non-violent resistance has brought great change, especially in India. Many have followed Gandhi’s methods–The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States being a significant example–so that his influence is global.

What is not as well know is that Gandhi’s children and their families and his grandchildren and their families have continued his work and carried it forward. One of those grandchildren is my guest for this episode, Arun Gandhi. Arun, as he prefers to be called, is the fifth grandson of Mahatma Gandhi through his second son Manilal.

There are two things for me that seem to characterize Arun’s life. The first is drawn from a story Arun tells about advice he learned from his mother, Sushila. In helping to teach her children how to deal with being a close relative of Gandhi and his legacy, Arun’s mother advised all of her children by saying, “There are two ways of dealing with it. You can either choose to be overwhelmed and live in Grandfather’s shadow, or you can use the glow of his light to illuminate your path (Legacy of Love, p.11).” Arun has allowed the glow of his grandfather’s light to illuminate his path.

The second thing is drawn from Gandhi’s often expressed conviction to be the change one wishes to see in the world. In living out this teaching, among the many things Arun and his wife, Sunanda, have done, they rescued over 125 orphan children from the streets and placed them in loving homes around the world and began a Center for Social Change, which transformed the lives of millions in villages in the western state of Maharashtra. Together, Arun and Sunanda started projects for the social and economic uplifting of the oppressed using constructive programs, the backbone of Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence.The programs changed the lives of more than half a million people in over 300 villages and they still continue to grow. In 1987 Sunanda and Arun came to the US and in 1991 they started the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. In the time Arun was associated with the Institute, he took the message of nonviolence and peace to hundreds of thousands of high school and University youth around the US and much of the Western World. After his wife died in 2007, Arun founded the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute in 2008, headquartered in a suburb outside of Chicago, ILL. The Institute was founded to promote community building in economically depressed areas of the world through the joining of Gandhian philosophy and vocational education for children and their parents. In November 2013, Arun was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World Religions.

Arun has written numerous books. Among them are Legacy of Love: My Education in the Path of Nonviolence, The Gift of Anger: And Other Lessons from My Grandfather Mahatma Gandhi, Kasturba: A Life, and two children’s books, Grandfather Gandhi, and Be the Change: A Grandfather Gandhi Story. 

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.

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My guest for this episode is novelist Jeanine Joyner. If you have been listening to podcast, you may remember Jeanine from my interview with the folks of Foundling House in episode 33.

Christians who are artists understand the relationship between their art and their faith in different ways and perceive the purpose of their art in different ways. Exploring this relationship between a particular Christian’s art and that Christian’s faith is a significant part of my interest in interviewing the Christians who are artists that I do.

Jeanine’s novel is Paper Dolls: Trust Your Instincts. I chose Jeanine’s book not just as a specific example of how Jeanine understands the relationship between her faith and her art, but also because of the subject matter of the book. To talk about that subject matter requires a fundamental spoiler, but Jeanine is more concerned about discussing the topic than preventing spoiler.

Paper Dolls is about the sexual trafficing and prostituting of children. It is an open and hard look at a terrible reality. Consequently, as different art forms have always done, Paper Dolls is a means of raising awareness and providing options and incentive for action. Thanks to Theodore Roosevelt’s reading of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the food we eat is safe and more healthy, due to government oversight and protection. Art can create change. Hopefully your reading of Jeanine’s Paper Dolls will do just that!

Jeanine is a native Texan transplanted into Middle Tennessee. A mother of five, she somehow carved out the time to write her debut novel Paper Dolls: Trust Your Instincts between homeschooling and hosting house concerts. She now lives in a home surrounded by rolling hills and farmlands, appropriately named Arundelle Green, after a character who captured her imagination in the Andrew Peterson book, The Warden and the Wolf King. You can learn more about Jeanine at arundellegreen.com.

The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.