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Every Sunday at 3:00amAbout the Show
Inspired
Inspired is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality. Each week we offer you analyses of the big headlines alongside lesser-told stories – those of Orthodox Jewish artists and African-American atheists, Muslim feminists and spiritual seekers. Through these stories, a rough sketch of our country’s religious landscape begins to emerge. It’s a marketplace of beliefs and ideas too complex for sound bites, and too important to ignore.
The End of the Dalai Lama? Not Quite
Heads turned last week when the Dalai Lama said he sees no need for a successor. But he’s been threatening this for years–and it’s a shrewd a political move. On September 7th, many news outlets picked up a breaking story: The Dalai Lama announced he saw no need for a new Lama to take his place, and that he will not reincarnate in a Chinese-controlled Tibet. But it turns out, he’s been saying that for decades as a way to loosen the Chinese government’s grip on Tibetan religion and culture. It’s a statement deeply rooted in the Buddhist belief of reincarnation, and it has as much a political message as a spiritual one.
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The Shofar: The Sacred Sound of Judaism
Also on this week’s Interfaith Voices, we hear the sacred sounds of the shofar. Iif Judaism has a sound, it’s the trumpet-like blast of the shofar, an instrument made from an animal horn. According to the Hebrew bible, the shofar has framed some of the most important moments in Jewish history: it’s been there to announce revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, to bring down the walls of Jericho and to celebrate the Arc of the Covenant. As we head into the Rosh Hashanah, when the shofar is blown during prayer services, we find out why this instrument has endured for so long.
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World Religions 101: Yoruba
The Yoruba religion a is a tapestry of myths, magic, spirits, and secrets. Stephen Prothero calls it “a tradition about hanging onto tradition,” a way for people scattered by the African diaspora to connect to their common origins. In the Yoruba religion, the human problem is disconnection. The solution is to reconnect ourselves to a larger divine power, through fortune telling, sacrifice, and body posession.
