Encore presentation.

With the new year, Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd has begun a new series about the old, great religions of the world. The program lineup parallels his Unity Institute online course in World Religions. This week's topic is ancient religions, and Dr. Tom's guests include the Rev. Dr. Paul Hasselbeck, dean of Spiritual Education and Enrichment at Unity Institute. The panel will look at animism, shamanism, earth-based and polytheistic religions of antiquity. You may be surprised how much has survived from the Stone Age to find its way into the festivals and celebrations of the 21st century.

Encore presentation.

Encore presentation.

Encore presentation.

In this episode, we'll peek inside Dr. Tom's online classroom. Guests include students currently enrolled in Metaphysical Theology I, who will discuss topics and techniques to be encountered in online graduate theological classes. If you've ever wondered what attending seminary might be like, listen in this week.

Dr. Shepherd’s guest for this episode is Andrew Cort, is an accomplished author, teacher, attorney and doctor of chiropractic. Dr. Cort has taught in a variety of schools and colleges, private and public. He hosts Spirit of the Berkshires, a weekly talk show on local TV in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

In this episode, Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd will discuss the fine art of creative writing with some up-and-coming authors. Guests include novelist W. David County and other members of the Unity Village writers group Profits and Scribes. Dr. Tom and Dave will read selections from their fiction works in progress.

Encore presentation.

First it was Tunisia, then Egypt, and now Libya. Country after country throws off its autocratic rulers and attempts to establish a democratic state. Dr. Shepherd's guests are from the Islamic community and will be discussing the continuing "Arab Spring" uprisings sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. Will the struggle, which has now become an "Arab Summer," continue into an “Arab Fall and Winter?” How does religion and politics outpicture as people's rebellion? Are the same anti-establishment forces at work in the USA, for example, in the Tea Party movement? A timely and provocative topic—don't miss this one! 

Dr. Tom's guest this week is Fredrick Zydek, Nebraska poet, educator and theologian. Fred has published 10 volumes of poetry, two novels and the celebrated biography of Charles Taze Russell, as well as numerous articles, essays and poems in more than 300 magazines and journals. He holds an MFA from the University of Washington and a masters of divinity from Seattle University. Until retirement he taught theology at the College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Nebraska, where he occupied the Archbishop Bergan Chair for Lectures. Zydek makes his home in Omaha, where he continues to write full time. His new collection of poetry, At the Edge of the Ancient Inland Sea: The Nebraska Poems, is forthcoming from Backwaters Press. He and his partner have been designated the 2012 Couple of the Year by the Governor of Nebraska. A year ago he left Unity for the United Methodist Church. This will be a wide-ranging, far-reaching discussion about poetry, politics and theological possibilities.

Encore presentation.

Dr. Tom's co-host this week is the Rev. Claudell County, chair of Leadership and Administrative Studies at Unity Institute and Seminary. Rev. Claudell and Dr. Tom will look at the many faces of diversity in a postmodern world. As the 21st century beckons humankind toward a global society, nations that have historically been homogenous—like the member-states of the European Union—are now becoming racially and ethnically diverse. However, the force that arguably should be leading the way, the Christian Church, remains the least diverse institution in the Western world. Why is the Sunday experience, by and large, the most segregated time of the week for people of faith? Or is there a positive social function for a church which provides safe space for people of similar backgrounds to gather? Let’s Talk About It will explore the sometimes uncomfortable reality of life on a truly diverse planet.       

Dr. Tom's guest this week is Gerald W. Jarsocrak, retired accreditation manager for the State of Pennsylvania and former deputy police chief of Reading, Pennsylvania. They will be discussing crime and punishment, the death penalty, and civilian attitudes toward police in general. Jerry Jarsocrak is also an articulate Lutheran layperson and lifelong friend of Dr. Tom. This session will be a combination of current issues, theologicial reflection and war stories from their youth in the late 1950s.

Dr. Shepherd’s panel will look at ideas that most likely will require deep discussion and serious consideration by progressive thinkers in the postmodern world. What is the nature of God; or shall the very word God be abandoned? What makes a person or a religious movement Christian; or shall that word be abandoned, too? What is the fundamental nature of human consciousness? Are we good, bad or something else? How can we live in the real world, acknowledging honestly that humanity is capable of horrific evil, while still holding to the ideal of the imago Dei, the image of God, within each person? Shall we pray to God, with God, or as God? The panel will attempt to come up with a working list of controversial topics which progressive-minded people will face in the decades ahead.

This week Let’s Talk About It features an animated discussion of Unity co-founder Myrtle Fillmore. While honoring her distinctively Unity point of view, Dr. Shepherd's panel takes a new look at the influence of Ms. Fillmore's Protestant heritage on her life and thought. What religio-cultural factors made her strongly anti-tobacco and protemperance? Did heart-based Wesleyan piety inspire her devotional life, and did an embedded Methodist theology shape Myrtle's views of God's Fatherhood and her beliefs about the centrality of Jesus? This week's guests include UI adjunct faculty member Manzel Berlin, who is researching an extensive book on Myrtle Fillmore. Co-hosted by UI Instructor Rev. Tom Thorpe.

We have been promising you a program on James Dillet Freeman for several weeks now and this time we're ready! Our panelists include Mr. Freeman's longtime associate and friend Rosemary Fillmore Rhea. Jim Freeman is the only human poet whose writings are currently on the moon. In fact, he has been called the “Poet Laureate of the Moon” because two Apollo astronauts—first, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. and later James Irwin—took Freeman’s work with them for inspiration and spiritual comfort on their historic journeys to another world. Irwin actually left a microfilm copy of “I Am There” on the moon. Here on Earth, Jim Freeman’s work continues to be a mainstay of spiritual enrichment in the Unity movement and beyond. Dr. Shepherd’s panel of distinguished guests will read and offer commentary and critical analysis on some of the works of this great Unity teacher. You won’t want to miss this one ... finally airing this week!

It is one of the strangest volumes in the biblical library, a totally bizarre, phantasmagoric, spiritual-acid-trip of a book. It is also one of the most popular parts of the Bible. Some people mistakenly called it the Book of Revelations or just Revelations, but in the earliest Greek manuscripts the book is actually titled The Revelation of John. Another title found in somewhat later manuscripts is The Revelation of the Theologian. There are too many interesting ideas inside to get hung up on the title. Even though it invokes a divine curse on anyone who adds to the text, The Book of Revelation wasn’t the last New Testament book to be written. To understand its message requires the skills of a historian, biblical theologian and allegorical interpreter. It’s a nifty book in which to create good metaphysical interpretations too. That’s our topic this week. And when we’re done, you’ll have everything you need to know to access the weirdly wonderful world of the Book of Revelation.

In the modern world, advocates of pacifism and those who support the "just war" concept have been slugging it out for almost a century. Pacifists often say, to paraphrase Gandhi, that there some are things for which they are willing to die but nothing for which they are willing to kill. Advocates of the "just war" philosophy say that some causes are worth fighting for, even if it requires lethal force; Hitler and the Nazi holocaust are often mentioned by "just war" philosophers. This week on Let's Talk About It, Dr. Thomas Shepherd's panel of distinguished guests will consider the ethical, theological and political dimensions of this ongoing debate.

March is Jesus month on Let's Talk About It. What about those guys and gals who hung out with the Man of Nazareth? Some were ordinary working people—fishermen, tradesmen, perhaps even house servants or working women. Others were apparently better educated, like Judas and Matthew. What do we know about them, and what insights do the snapshots of the disciples provided by the Gospel authors—who were not themselves first generation apostles—offer for the modern reader? For example, why are the disciples almost always painted as blithering incompetents? And is there any historical, theological or metaphysical validity to Charles Fillmore’s identification of the Twelve Powers of Man with the 12 shadowy figures from the ancient past? LTAI 's panel of scholars and students of the Bible will ask these and other questions as they consider "Jesus and His Disciples” on this week’s program.

March is Jesus month on Let's Talk About It. During the month of March, Dr. Shepherd will introduce new ideas about Christology from his upcoming (Unity) book as his distinguished  panel searches for ideas about Jesus that make sense to a postmodern world. This week's topic is the Parables. Why did Luke alone tell the stories of the Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son? What sense can anyone make of the bizarre parable, told by Matthew and Luke, about the demon that leaves a man's consciousness but returns later with seven devils worse than himself? And why did Jesus speak in parables rather than long ethical discourses in the manner of the Greeks or thundering sermons like the Hebrew prophets? LTAI 's panel of scholars and students of the Bible will ask these and other questions as they consider "The Parables for Postmodern Skeptics.” 

His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso,the great spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is known worldwide simply as the Dalai Lama. He has written a grand summation of the most important things in life, which includes these words: “Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.” Buddhism generally understands love as compassion for all sentient beings and, paradoxically, detachment from desire itself. Christian love is about forgiveness and altruism; there is a self-sacrificial tone to the love of God in Jesus Christ. Yet there is much that Buddhists and Christians share in common. Compassion, kindness, and selflessness. This week Dr. Shepherd looks at what Christians can learn from their Buddhist counterparts as his panel of distinguished guests discusses 19 “Lenten Lessons From the Dalai Lama.”

Love isn’t the same as eternal romance, like Hollywood pretends. But another point is that love comes in more than one variety. The answer to “What is love?” depends on the context. We don’t love our children the same way we love our country. We certainly don’t love friends and neighbors the same way we love husbands and wives, unless we’re behaving like characters in a tawdry novel. What about that obnoxious so-and-so at work? How about friends and family who have been cruel? How can we “love” people who are prejudiced against us, or members of a group which stands against everything we cherish? When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” how far did he intend for that command to stretch? Some would say infinitely. Yet would Jesus insist that Jewish Holocaust survivors or freed slaves after the American Civil War were ethically required to love their persecutors? The question is not as clear as a first glimpse might suggest. This week Dr. Shepherd’s panel will consider the four types of love suggested by four biblical era words: hesed, philia, eros and agape. Tune in and be better equipped for Valentine’s Day!

Young people today have a saying when facing a problem: “It’s all good.” This Zen-like response to life’s exigencies can reflect either optimism or fatalism, depending on the theology of the speaker. But can we truly say “It’s all good” when an earthquake devastates the nation of Haiti or a person we love is diagnosed with a terminal disease? How do we square a belief in God as One Presence/One Power, Omnipotent Good, with a world in which suffering is the daily lot of millions? This week, Dr. Shepherd’s Let’s Talk About It panel will address this most ancient of all religious questions.

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” Those prophetic words were spoken almost five decades ago by a theologian, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although best known for his work in the civil rights and peace movements of mid-20th century America, which earned him the Nobel Prize and an assassin’s bullet, King was also a distinguished academic thinker who held a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. Today, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is memorized by school children, invoked by preachers, and recited by politicians courting the African-American vote. Even though Americans have elected a black President of the United States, how far has Dr. King’s native land progressed toward achieving his lofty vision of a society which judges people by “the content of their character” and looks at the race and ethnicity as an asset rather than a liability? This week Dr. Shepherd’s distinguished guests—including former Kansas City Mayor Pro-Tem Alvin Brooks—will discuss “The Dream Revisited” and take a critical look at “Race Relations in the Age of Obama.”

Wondering what to do with all your spare time this holiday season? (Right. Neither are we.) Here’s something you can always stop and start up again—read a book! Remember books? … The place you went for information before the Internet? With a book you have

Psalm 137:4 asks "How can I sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?"  The spiritually mature person knows that life is under no obligation to be fair. But how, then, shall we respond when life's journey takes us down the valley of the shadow, away from joy to a "foreign land" of adversity? This week Rev. Rob Robinson, senior minister of Unity Village Chapel, joins Dr. Tom's panel of distinguished guests to discuss how it is possible, despite circumstances, to "Praise the Lord, anyway!"

In his book Prosperity, published during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore wrote: “We cannot be very happy if we are poor, and nobody needs to be poor. It is a sin to be poor.” Unity ministers have been defending that remark for more than seventy years. Today the “Prosperity Gospel” has gone mainstream. Televangelist Joel Osteen regularly assures his audiences that God wants them to be happy and prosperous. Yet, surprisingly, some of Rev. Osteen’s harshest critics are not members of the Religious Right but progressive theologians, liberal Christian thinkers who question the morality of asking for personal wealth in a world where so much hunger and economic oppression persists. This week the Rev. Dr. Robert Martin of Saint Paul School of Theology will join the Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd’s panel of distinguished guests to consider the controversial “Prosperity Gospel” in 21st century Christian thought.

October 31 provides more to celebrate than just Halloween. It also marks the anniversary of the day in 1517 when an obscure German priest and professor of theology named Martin Luther wrote a list of critical points about the doctrine of the Church and nailed it to the door (bulletin board) at the Castle Church of Wittenberg University. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses were written in Latin and meant for scholarly discussion, but friends soon translated his arguments into German and other modern languages, and with the aid of the newly invented printing press, the work quickly circulated throughout Europe. Almost overnight the monkish scholar had become unwilling leader of a massive uprising to reform the Church. The Protestant Reformation shook the Christian world, and it is probably fair to say that other reform movements, like Unity, would not be here without that innocent act of scholarly inquiry by Doctor Luther. In our time, retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has called for a “New Reformation” in Christian thought. Is he right? What needs to be reformed, and what will a new Christianity updated for the 21st century look like? Join Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd and his panel as they wrestle with questions about a New Reformation on Let’s talk About It.

Nature hiking on a golden autumn day or meditating in a candlelit cathedral; attending midnight mass or praying at dawn; vision questing, Sufi dancing, centering prayer, walking a labyrinth, lighting incense sticks, chanting psalms or resting in the Silence—there has been an explosion of knowledge about the array of spiritual practices available to 21st-century people. This week the Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd and a guest panel, representing several religious traditions, will discuss tips and techniques to discover peace and joy in a busy world.

Every generation since the ink first dried on the first copy of the Book of Revelation has believed they were living in the end times. Doomsday and/or the coming of the Kingdom of God has been predicted over 220 times just since the beginning of the Common Era. Now a new crop of end-is-near authors are making large claims—and large profits in book sales—about the new doomsday date in December 2012 when the Mayan calendar completes its cycle. Although New Age literature rhapsodizes about the coming transformation, legitimate scholars like Sandra Noble, executive director of a Mesoamerican research organization, have called the portrayal of December 2012 as a doomsday or cosmic-shift event “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.” This week Dr. Shepherd’s panel includes Mesoamerican and Unity biblical scholars as they consider the phenomenon of doomsday in the history and consciousness of humanity.

Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd recalls how he became interested in this topic: "Early in my career as a military chaplain and pastoral counselor, I noticed that the couples who came to see me were usually in troubled relationships already. So, instead of continuing to function strictly as a spiritual emergency room for traumatized partners, I joined the growing number of ministers who practice preventive ministry among healthy couples. Working with chaplains from all sorts of denominations, I sponsored marriage enrichment retreats, taught ‘fair fighting’ techniques, and put together couples’ support groups. I quickly discovered that people were eager to improve their interactions with significant others before the post-nuptial love boat headed for the rocks. That’s what this week’s program is about "making good relationships better."

Are you “spiritual, not religious”? Does this trendy new phrase really mean anything, other than a declaration that someone is not a participating member of a church, mosque or synagogue? How should people who are practicing members of a faith community respond to the challenge of the nonobservant among us? The Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd’s guests will ask [and answer] the hard question, “What good is the church in a postmodern world?”

With the recent flap over President Barack Obama’s comments in the aftermath of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, people are once again asking questions about racial equality in the United States. What are the religious, ethical and moral issues of race relations, and will we ever achieve true equality? The Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd’s guests will wrestle with the social, political and theological implications of America’s status as a multiracial, multicultural society.