Religion Unplugged

What A Bahá'í Romance Can Tell Us About Iran

“If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure.”Those words were penned 200 years ago by Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í faith.It was for words like these and other beliefs deemed heretical that Bahá’u’lláh spent much of his life being tortured and imprisoned.The Bahá’í faith is known for being a religion of peace—teaching the oneness of all humanity, the truths found in all religions and equality of men and women. Today, the Bahá’í faith has over five million members worldwide, many of whom are persecuted, particularly in Islamic-ruled nations. Iran, currently in the midst of its own international conflict, holds 300,000 of these Bahá’ís. Much like their leader, Bahá’ís living in Iran face imprisonment for practicing their faith.A new film entitled “Cast Aside The Clouds” tells the story of a Bahá’í woman falling in love with a Muslim man—right in the middle of turbulent Iran. Religion Unplugged’s Culture Critic Joseph Holmes spoke with the director of “Cast Aside The Clouds,” Mary Darling about why she wanted to make the film, her own journey with the bahá’í faith and the unity and conversations she hopes will come about as a result of its release.The film is not yet available on streaming, but is being screened in New York City at the end of this week, after which it will be screened in many large cities across the U.S. For more information on how to see the film, visit castasidetheclouds.com.

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Why Murder Investigations Can Be Complicated By Ashkenazi Jewish DNA

1w ago00:23:33Tap to summarize

There are currently 15,000 open cases of unidentified persons in the United States.Bodies are unable to be identified for a variety of reasons including severe mutilation, significant decomposition, no history of medical care or a lack of resources. In the vast majority of situations, DNA testing can do a great deal of heavy lifting, but sometimes even this can be unsuccessfulOn November 24, 1989 in Mohave County, Arizona, a woman was found dead on the side of the interstate. Over 30 years later and the woman is yet to be identified. She is known only as the Mohave Jane Doe.Her DNA test results revealed that she was 96% Ashkenazi Jew. But, they told investigators little else.Mohave is not the only instance of Ashkenazi Jews struggling to understand their ancestry through genetic testing—nor is it the only time this unique genetic makeup has interfered with what appears to be a murder case. But why? Why does someone’s heritage make them harder to understand biologically? To find out, I spoke with Hannah Feuer, a reporter at Forward. Feuer recently covered the Mohave Jane Doe case and new efforts to find her identity once and for all in an article entitled: Her body has been unidentified for decades. Her Ashkenazi DNA may explain why.As our conversation continued, Feuer and I also discussed another recent piece of hers which explored the strange and solemn innovation of using Artificial Intelligence to keep the stories of Holocaust Survivors alive in the wake of their inevitable dying out.

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Are Big Churches As Healthy As Small Ones?

2w ago00:36:29Tap to summarize

In C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity he says: “the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time”This idea—that the point of the church is to make disciples is, at its core, not a highly contested one. But ideas about the way disciples are made and the context in which discipleship happens are much more varied.And, in these conversations, the question of a church’s size looms large.On the one hand you have the small church. It could be anywhere from just a handful of members to a few hundred, but, in any case, there is a much greater likelihood for congregants to build personal relationships with those leading the church, a greater sense of a tight-knit community where everybody knows one another and oftentimes a wide variety of ages in attendance, with some congregants having attended for the bulk of their lives.On the other hand you have the large church. Maybe its attendance is in the upper hundreds, the thousands or even the ten-thousands. This substantial attendance often means the ability to acquire a large chunk of land and employ a staff of seasoned professionals for everything from worship leaders who sound like pop-stars to trained baristas for their in-house cafes. And, with these resources and this influence, there is a greater ability to quickly raise money for disaster relief or needs in the congregation. There may be more comfort for new believers to not feel like they are standing out in the crowd. And the culture might be one which more naturally attracts non-christians.Criticism from one size of church to the other is not uncommon—the small churches will say congregants don’t know their pastors at large churches. The large churches will say the small churches aren’t going to reach unbelievers.But, what size is right for a church? Is there one at all? To find out, I spoke with Karl Vaters. Vaters was a pastor for decades, and now he creates resources dedicated to helping small churches thrive. Back in 2024, he wrote a book called “De-Sizing The Church” which investigates the way many churches pursued growth in attendance above all else, often to their detriment. Vaters’ book doesn’t demonize church growth, but instead asks pastors and congregants to consider what it means to be a healthy christian community, without anchoring that health to merely the number of people in the pews.

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Pope Leo XIV Before The Papacy

3w ago00:30:49Tap to summarize

This week marks one year since Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV.The late Cardinal Francis George who once presided over Leo’s hometown of Chicago famously said that there would never be an American Pope until the United States went into political decline.Whether Leo’s election to the papacy confirms this decline or proves Cardinal George incorrect, the reality of an American pope came as a surprise to most of us.Following the controversial papacy of Pope Francis, efforts to predict and understand the cardinals who were most likely to take his place were plentiful.Every major news outlet submitted its predictions for who would succeed Francis. Maybe another Italian with Cardinal Pizzaballa or Zuppi? Maybe the pontiff would be an African like Cardinal Sarah or Cardinal Turkson? Or Maybe the conclave would make history in electing Cardinal Tagle as the first Asian pope? But, on most of these lists, Robert Prevost, the American who ministered in Chiclayo, Peru, was absent.So, almost immediately after Prevost entered the central balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica, there was a scramble to find out who he was, and what his priorities would be during his papacy.And while several books have been published about Leo, it seems the definitive biography of Prevost’s life is finally here.Elise Ann Allen’s “Pope Leo XIV: The Biography” was published last week. Allen is a Vatican reporter who currently works as a Senior Correspondent at The Crux. She knew Prevost before he was pope and was the first to interview him after his election to the papacy.On this week’s episode, I spoke to Allen to find out who Pope Leo XIV is, what has shaped his ministry and what he might hope to accomplish in his years as pope.

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Can Virtue Save American Conservatism?

Apr 2800:37:35Tap to summarize

This July, the United States will celebrate its 250th year as an independent nation.The Founding Fathers established the U.S. on the foundation of the ideals they believed in. The Declaration of Independence famously says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”Here we see equality, justice and the knowledge of a creator being upheld and dignified.We see similar themes in the constitution. Its preamble reads: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.Again, justice appears, as does peace, perfection and blessings.All of these ideas are deeply intertwined with religious principles. And, this remains true despite the great variety of belief present among the founding fathers. While some were certainly Christians, many were very skeptical of Christianity and several others were deists.But for the Founding Fathers, these were not principles that only religious people could respect, they were common virtues—ideas that all Americans ought to see as essential to a flourishing society.But, while this virtue is baked into the very founding documents of our nation, what does its role look like in politics today?To find out, I spoke with Stephanie Slade. Slade is a senior editor at Reason magazine and the author of an upcoming book called “Fusionism.” In her book, Slade argues that the pursuit of virtue and liberty ought to be at the center of American policymaking. She argues that there was a time when conservative politicians in particular exhibited this balance well, but that, today, politicians who openly fight for legislation that upholds both virtue and liberty are largely absent from the most powerful rooms on American soil.

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How Both Fantasy and History are balanced in House of David

Apr 2100:19:02Tap to summarize

At Religion Unplugged, we talk a lot about how faith shows up in modern movies and tv shows. And, more and more, we are noticing a positive shift. Movies about religion are getting better funding, booking high profile actors and holding their own at the box office.One of the projects, that fits this category is Amazon’s House of David. “House of David” follows the Biblical epic that is the life of King David, which has, so far, traced his journey from a nobody shepherd boy to a great warrior who slays the giant Goliath. All while the Errant King Saul rules the Israelites. The Show stars Michael Iskander as David, Ali Suliman as King Saul, and Stephan Lang as Samuel the Prophet.When the series came out last year, Religion Unplugged’s Culture Critic, Joseph Holmes, said he believed it had potential to be even better than The Chosen, which has across the board, turned heads for its radical commitment to both Biblical accuracy and excellent artistry. With the release of House of David’s second season, Joseph called it “one of the best things the faith-based film space has ever made.”One of Joseph’s most consistent praises for the show has been its ability to balance history and fantasy in a way that treats the story both as an epic Bronze Age myth and as the carefully told story of a man whose life is deeply important to millions of people all around the world.On this week’s show, Holmes interviewed Jon Gunn, Executive Producer. The two talk through this balance of myth and reverence, the evolution of faith in film, the complications of portraying romance in a time where arranged marriage was the norm, and more.

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In God’s Name: Stories Of Faith and Vigilante Justice

Apr 1401:02:26Tap to summarize

Categorizing those who do violence is a messy business.What one writer might call the actions of a terrorist, another might refer to as the work of a freedom fighter.The very individuals who are called heroes, warriors and revolutionaries by some, can be categorized as villains, murderers, and radicals by another.But when the morality of a violent person is highly controversial or just ambiguous, we have a separate, more fuzzy term–we call them a vigilante.The earliest uses of vigilante seem to be taken from the Spanish word for watchmen, vigilante.Various dictionaries state that a vigilante is somebody who seeks to act outside of the law to enact justice.For religious people, the idea that what is right and wrong is bigger than just was is legal or illegal, is extremely familiar.While much of the legal system may coincide with a religious person’s worldview, it is virtually unthinkable that the two would be fully aligned outside of a theocracy.And, most religious people are content to keep away from legal, but spiritually impermissible wrongdoing by means of their own community and self control.But for some, this hasn’t been enough. The wrongdoing of fellow citizens and governors is so egregious to them, that they have no choice but to act out–in sometimes violent ways.In order to understand what kind of person is willing to take the law into their own hands for the sake of their God, I explored religious vigilantism in recent history, very recent history and ancient history.These stories cover Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in three separate acts with violence ranging from verbal harassment to mass suicide.#vigilante #vigilantes #abolition #abolitionism #johnbrown #johnbrownsbody #muslimpatrol #zealots #zealot #simonthezealot #christianity #islam #judaism

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Can Conservative Christians Take Back Mainline Churches?

Apr 701:05:48Tap to summarize

When you picture an American church building, what do you think of? Is it a gothic, palatial cathedral that dwarfs its neighboring buildings and carries with it an air of ancient mystery? Is it a small, white chapel with a sharp steeple and a quiet humility about its presence? Or does an American church conjure up a visual that isn’t all that glorious and isn’t all that quaint—something like a strip mall or a sprawling campus of boxy structures reminiscent of a convention center?While many Americans might picture the latter, equating all American Christianity with the sort of no-bells-and-whistles aesthetic approach of evangelicalism, American christianity is no stranger to beautiful architecture.In nearly every American city, beautiful, complex church buildings can be found—spires, stained glass, clock towers, and vaulted ceilings are not only present in American protestant churches, they are downright common.In fact, some of the most historically American church traditions such as the PCUSA and the Episcopal Church are in possession of many of these houses of worship. But for many conservative protestants, the beauty of the church building stands in sharp contrast to the theological departure many of the mainline traditions have from orthodoxy. With many mainline traditions affirming LGBTQ lifestyles and, more importantly, calling into question core Christian doctrines such as the bodily resurrection of Christ or the authority of scripture, it has been generally accepted that theologically conservative believers ought to steer clear of the mainline and join more orthodox congregations—even if they meet in an old bank or a local elementary school.But, that position may be changing. In 2023, Christian Gen-Z YouTuber Richard Ackerman, known online as Redeemed Zoomer, began Operation Reconquista. Operation Reconquista, which now appears to have changed its name to Operation Reformation, is a movement of American Christians who believe that restoring orthodoxy in mainline churches is possible and deeply important. And they don’t discriminate by denomination. Operation Reformation seeks to reform the Episcopal Church, The United Methodist Church, The Presbyterian Church USA, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and others. Their strategy is to have Christians join the few, but findable mainline congregations who hold to more traditional Christian views, thus strengthening the conservative minority as the progressive majority, in their view, inevitably dies out.And, though it certainly is a motivation, the movement isn’t merely about reclaiming the physical church buildings. It is about reclaiming the cultural influence that many of these denominations hold in the American public. These churches often already have robust networks of service and outreach organizations, they are located conveniently in the center of American towns and they are generally well connected to many facets of American life, from local government to community events.To better understand why conservative Christians are beginning to consider joining a mainline church and why their presence just might be effective, Culture Critic Joseph Holmes interviewed Joe Colletti, who is known online as Young Anglican. Colletti was previously a member of the Anglican Church in North America, but has recently left the ACNA to join The Episcopal Church. Though he has been vocally cautious and even resistant of Operation Reconquista since its founding, he has now embraced the mainline, but with a key difference from the rest of the movement: Colletti is interested only in the reclaiming of the Church which sits at the center of historical American social influence: the Episcopal Church.

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Iranians Are Ready To Be Free

Mar 2400:30:05Tap to summarize

It’s been 3 weeks since the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.And, for 3 weeks, rockets have flown across the Middle East in all directions. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iraq have kept their guard up as different assets are targeted.As these oil-rich nations are thrown into turmoil, gas prices in the U.S. have gone up by nearly a dollar in the last month, with many Americans wondering when the increase will slow down.More crucially, two different water desalination plants have been hit. These facilities are essential for the hydration of millions of Middle Easterners—and neither the U.S., Israel or Iran have taken responsibility for these destabilizing attacks.Over 20,000 people are suffering injuries from the war, and over 2,500 people have been killed, with the majority being in Iran and Lebanon.Babies, not even a year old, have been among the casualties, as have 168 other children at an Iranian elementary school.And even after Khamenei’s death, it is clear that Iran has pockets brimming with replacement leaders who support the continuance of his extremist regime.So, in a conflict where death is abundant and instability is crashing in from all sides, it is worth asking: “what do the Iranian people stand to gain from all this chaos?”To answer this question, I sat down with Erica Kasraie. Kasraie is an Iran-born American, Middle East expert, human rights activist and producer of a short documentary called “Occupied Homeland,” which details the January 2026 massacre of Iranian protesters and the history of the Iranian people. Kasraie was also formerly the Middle East Advisor to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.In this week’s podcast, Kasraie speaks on how the Islamic revolution came to be, the difference between Iranian culture and Islamic culture, the possibility of democracy in Iran and her hopes and fears for the future.Tags:#iran #khamenei #humanrights #islam #women #war #muslim #christian #jew #jewish #minorities #us #israel #middleast #persian #iranian

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Why You Should Seek Beauty In Ancient Places

Mar 1700:23:35Tap to summarize

Many of the most enduring displays of human artistic greatness have been, in some way, religious.The Egyptian pyramids were constructed to accommodate the needs of a king’s soul after his death.The oldest architectural structures still standing today are almost exclusively temples, and archaeologists hypothesize that many ancient cave paintings depict religious scenes and images.As history progressed, towering cathedrals, opulent mosques, and brilliantly ornate Hindu temples were erected and maintained for centuries. Worshipful hymns and poems abound in nearly all religious communities. Sacred texts are transcribed with careful calligraphy and detailed illustrations. Elaborate dances celebrate the supernatural, and massive marble statues are carefully carved to depict the holiest beingsThe beautiful things that humans have made throughout time, have most often been made for a deity.But, in a secularized world, the purpose of art is much more varied. Today, art is most often defined as creative self-expression—there has been a clear shift from creating for a higher power to creating for the rest of humanity. But, has the absence of spiritual motivation made art worse, or has the decision to tell human stories for a human audience made excellence more attainable?Actor, director, and producer David Henrie is interested in this question. It’s one of the reasons he recently took a trip to Italy. This trip was filmed and is now available as a 6 episode documentary series called “Seeking Beauty” in which Henrie engages with some of the most sacred Italian churches and artwork to understand the motivations and beliefs of the artists who created them. Religion Unplugged’s Culture Critic Joseph Holmes interviewed Henrie to understand his own faith journey and what he learned from centuries of Italian Catholicism.Seeking Beauty: https://www.ewtn.com/programs/9875-seeking-beauty#davidhenrie #henrie #christianity #catholicism #seekingbeauty #art #expresssion #artist #architecture #cathedral #church #wizardsofwaverlyplace #howimetyourmother

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All episodes

What A Bahá'í Romance Can Tell Us About Iran

Why Murder Investigations Can Be Complicated By Ashkenazi Jewish DNA

Are Big Churches As Healthy As Small Ones?

Pope Leo XIV Before The Papacy

Can Virtue Save American Conservatism?

How Both Fantasy and History are balanced in House of David

In God’s Name: Stories Of Faith and Vigilante Justice

Can Conservative Christians Take Back Mainline Churches?

Iranians Are Ready To Be Free

Why You Should Seek Beauty In Ancient Places