The State of the Black Church in America
- play show:
Date: 14 April 2010
The Black Church: What is It Now, and Was It Ever What You Thought It Was?
At the end of February, a Princeton scholar published what you might call an obituary for the black church. Eddie Glaude, Jr.’s article, “The Black Church is Dead,” argues that the church as a prophetic, moral voice has changed so much that it has all but disappeared. And he says that now, in a time when African-American unemployment is at its highest in 25 years, the church must renew its commitment to social change. So this week we examine the reality of the black church in America - where it’s been, how it’s evolved, and what it needs to do to stay relevant in the age of Obama.
Pictured: Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at an interfaith civil rights rally in San Francisco, 1964
Anthea Butler, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
Kenyatta Gilbert, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at the Howard University School of Divinity
A History of Faith and The Bomb
Begins at 22 min 30 sec
We’ve come a long way from the duck-and-cover drills of the fifties and sixties. Today, we know that terrorists could kill hundreds of thousands of people with a piece of plutonium the size of an apple - and that ducking under desks won't protect us. David Cortright explains why the recent Nuclear Security Summit has special meaning for the world’s faith communities, who largely support nuclear disarmament.
Pictured: A nuclear bomb test
David Cortright, Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
A Guide to the Good Book (For the Rest of Us)
Begins at 39 min
The Bible looks like any other book - pages bound between two covers, divided into chapters with an apparent beginning, middle and end. But that’s where the similarities stop. With dozens of authors, a jumpy chronology, and constantly changing character names, it can be hard to know what to make of the world's best-selling book. Kristen Swenson has written a new guide to the Bible - what it is, what’s in it, and how to read it.
Kristin Swenson, author of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time
