NEWS FEATURE: Public Radio Program Lets Believers Speak Their Faith At Length

c. 2003 Religion News (UNDATED) Krista Tippett has spent time in journalistic, diplomatic and theological circles. But it was her time on a lakefront, wooded property taking oral histories of people involved in the 20th century movement for church unity that led her to start a radio program called “Speaking of Faith.” The hourlong show, […]

c. 2003 Religion News

(UNDATED) Krista Tippett has spent time in journalistic, diplomatic and theological circles.

But it was her time on a lakefront, wooded property taking oral histories of people involved in the 20th century movement for church unity that led her to start a radio program called “Speaking of Faith.”


The hourlong show, produced by Minnesota Public Radio, has been carried by 250 stations nationwide since its monthly _ now weekly _ broadcasts began in 2001.

Years before hosting the program, Tippett spent time at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minn., talking to “great minds” of the church who had been involved in ecumenical work, from Pentecostals to Armenian Orthodox.

“At the institute … they engage people in the first person,” she said. “People have to combine theology and experience and they can only talk about things that they know to be true.”

For Tippett it was a revelation: instead of the “few loud voices” representing religion, she suggested to Minnesota Public Radio they try the first-person approach, using religious experts as well as grass-roots people.

“It’s not a religion news program per se,” she said. “I think what we’re doing is complementary to religion news.”

As the host of a pilot program starting in 1999, Tippett said it got “minimal funding and minimal attention,” but listener response and Sept. 11 made a difference.

“It was not a hard sell after 9-11,” she said.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the program released a three-part series, “Where Was God?” “The Spirit of Islam,” and “Justice and a Just War.”

“I never would have dreamed that I could have put a show on public radio called `Where Was God?’ and that 150 stations carried it,” she said.


Some of the topics Tippett addresses are not strictly religious but may relate to spirituality. For example, in January she explored the spiritual aspects of depression with Jewish author Andrew Solomon, Buddhist poet and psychologist Anita Barrows and Quaker author Parker Palmer.

“Going into my experience of depression, I thought of the spiritual life as kind of climbing the mountain until you got to this high, elevated point where you could touch the hands of God,” Palmer said. “I no longer think of God as up there somewhere. I think of God as down here.”

More recently, Tippett’s work has featured a series on marriage featuring feminists from the mainline Protestant, evangelical and Muslim perspectives. In early August, just after the Episcopal Church approved its first openly gay bishop, she interviewed two bishops who came from different vantage points on the show’s topic of “Homosexuality and the Divided Church.”

Tippett said the weekly format will allow the show to “weigh in on things in a newsier way.”

The program, based in St. Paul, Minn., began its weekly broadcasts in April and is now carried by two dozen stations weekly, including stations in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Detroit.

Funders of the program say its unique approach persuaded them to support it. “Speaking of Faith” has received a $650,000 grant from Pew Charitable Trusts, followed by a $500,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Both are for two years, ending in 2004.


Diane Winston, program officer for religion and media at the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, said the length of each program defies usual notions about Americans’ short attention span.

“Here’s a program that really believes that people want to know more, they’re curious and they want to be intellectually, emotionally and spiritually … fed,” she said. “You need the hour to really develop the theme.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS).

Jeff Ramirez, manager of radio projects for the Washington-based Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said just as “Marketplace,” another program produced by Minnesota Public Radio, interprets the news from the business world, “Speaking of Faith” has a similar function concerning the religious realm.

“It explores and examines the ways and diverse perspectives that faith illuminates Americans’ every day public and personal lives,” he said.

Future broadcasts include interviews with FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, religious historian Jaroslav Pelikan and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

Tippett, an Episcopalian and former Southern Baptist, says the first-person approach may help people learn about particular traditions in a way that’s different from a prepared lecture.


“It’s a difference … between someone saying to you `This is the truth,” and “This is my truth,”’ she said. “They say in Collegeville, you can disagree with someone’s opinion but you can’t disagree with their experience.”

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