A passionate discussion is unfolding in public and in private among Evangelical leaders and communities. Should Christians be involved in politics and if so, how? What has gone wrong, and what has been learned from the Moral Majority up until now. In this live public conversation, Krista probes these ideas with three formative Evangelicals.
Khakis, blue jeans, and dungarees graced the stage at this public event in San Diego. The generational differences seemed obvious. But this lively conversation revealed a shared theology that guides these three men — as they interpret and live out their values in varying ways.
Chuck Colson and Greg Boyd listen to Shane Claiborne while speaking at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego in 2008.
Colson is the founder of Prison Fellowship and author of God & Government.
Boyd is founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church, a megachurch in Minnesota, and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation.
Claiborne is founder of The Simple Way and co-author of Jesus for President.
Host/Producer: Krista Tippett
Managing Producer: Kate Moos
Producer: Colleen Scheck
Associate Producer: Shiraz Janjua
Associate Producer: Rob McGinley Myers
Online Editor/Producer: Trent Gilliss
Associate Web Producer: Andrew Dayton
The first in a two-part series on influential leaders who are reshaping Evangelical Christianity from within progressive and conservative circles. Jim Wallis founded "Sojourners" and now advises presidential candidates and world leaders in what he calls the "post-Religious Right" era. He is determined to put poverty at the top of America's "moral values" agenda.
The second program in our series on guiding figures in what some are calling the "post Religious Right era." This program's guests are conservative Evangelicals who are increasingly being watched by a new generation of Christian and secular leaders. They want to move beyond the partisan and cultural divides of recent years to fight poverty, AIDS, and homelessness.
Jimmy Carter -- former president and Nobel Laureate, author and global humanitarian -- speaks of his born-again faith with a directness that is striking even in today's political culture. He reflects on being commander in chief while following, as he says, "the Prince of Peace"; on upholding the law while privately opposing abortion; and on his marriage of 60 years as a metaphor for the challenge of human relationship both personal and global.
Environmentalism and climate change are hot topics; yet they're still often imagined as the territory of scientists, expert activists, and those who can afford to be environmentally conscious. We discover two people who are transforming the ecology of their immediate worlds in Dunn, Wisconsin and New York's South Bronx.
Last month, conservative Christian leaders demanded that Richard Cizik be silenced or removed from his post. They charged that his concerns about climate change and torture have shifted attention away from moral issues such as gay marriage and abortion. But for Cizik, poverty, war, and the environment are moral issues too. We revisit Krista's 2006 conversation with Cizik that took many listeners by surprise.
Stereotypes tell us this: Evangelical Christians are politically conservative, closed-minded, morally judgmental, and anti-science. We speak with two creative members of a new generation of Evangelical thinkers and teachers, who defy stereotypes and reveal an evolving character for this vast movement that describes 40 percent of Americans.
Our culture's acrimonious debate on the morality of gay marriage has been framed in religious — largely conservative Christian — terms. We go behind the rhetoric to explore the human confusion, hopes, and fears this subject arouses. We'll name hard questions that these religious people on both sides of the issue are asking themselves, and that they would like to ask of others.
comment
read/add yours