On Being with Krista Tippett

As a theoretical physicist, Janna Levin probes whether the universe is finite or infinite. As a novelist, she explored the separate but parallel lives of two influential 20th-century scientists: Kurt Godel and Alan Turing. Their work laid the foundations for computer intelligence while challenging fundamental notions about how we can know what is true.

The greatest threat in the post-Cold War world, says Douglas Johnston, is the prospective marriage of religious extremism with weapons of mass destruction. Yet the U.S. spends most of its time, resources, and weapons fighting the symptoms of this threat, not the cause. The diplomacy of the future, he is showing, must engage religion as part of the strategic solution to global conflicts.

Dr. Remen is a clinical professor at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine and a leader in the growing field of integrative medicine, bringing together the best of modern knowledge both scientific and spiritual. She speaks about the art of listening to patients and other physicians, the difference between curing and healing, and how our losses help us to live.

For the Christmas season and the New Year, a rare conversation with one of the wise men in our world today -- Jean Vanier. The philosopher and Catholic social innovator created a model of community, L'Arche, that embodies the ideal of power in smallness and light in the darkness of human existence.

The 13th-century Muslim mystic and poet Rumi has long shaped Muslims around the world and has now become popular in the West. Rumi created a new language of love within the Islamic mystical tradition of Sufism. We hear his poetry as we delve into his world and listen for its echoes in our own.

The second in a two-part series on influential leaders who are reshaping Evangelical Christianity from within progressive and conservative circles. The best-selling author of "The Purpose Driven Life," Rick Warren and his wife Kay lead one of the largest churches in the U.S. They are now partnering in global ventures to fight AIDS and poverty.

Auburn University's Rural Studio in western Alabama draws architectural students into the design and construction of homes and public spaces in some of the poorest counties in the United States. They're creating beautiful and economical structures that are unique in the world — and that nurture sustainability of the natural world as of human dignity. The iconographic structures of Mason's Bend have become synonymous with Sam Mockbee and the Rural Studio. We've put together a feast of images and voices from the people who live and work there.

Evangelical Christianity has no single, central authority, but it does have guiding figures in every generation. Progressive social activist Jim Wallis has become something of a national celebrity, proposing a new agenda for religion in politics in what he calls the "post-Religious Right era."

In this edition of SOF Unheard Cuts, Krista interviewed Andrew Freear, director of Auburn University's Rural Studio in western Alabama. Here's your chance to listen to their entire, unedited conversation and observe the editorial process. And let us know what you think.

A rich global dialogue is taking place between religious thinkers and scientists of many disciplines. The global dialogue between science and religion often is obscured by headlines of a science/religion clash. V.V. Raman, a Hindu physicist, shares the ideals of his spirituality and insights from his study of physics.

Krista says the globe should welcome the challenge of sustainability as an invitation -- a way to strengthen moral resources such as delight, dignity, elegance, and hope: Our emerging national conversation about sustainability has a decidedly "eat your spinach" tone. We're steeling ourselves to enter the realm of sacrifice, and penance. But as I've explored ethics and meaning in American life these past few years, I've been struck by the heightened sense of delight and beauty in lives and communities pursuing a new alignment with the natural world. Innovation in sustainability often begins, I've found, with people defining what they cherish as much as diagnosing what is wrong. I think of Majora Carter. The cutting-edge project she founded, Sustainable South Bronx, began when she and the people of that borough began to reclaim their riverfront for refreshment and play. I think also of the author Barbara Kingsolver, who found in a year of sustainable eating that when it comes to food, the ethical choice is also the pleasurable choice. And she says that as we face the grand ecological crises of our time, one of our most important renewable resources is hope. We simply have to put it on with our shoes every morning. Recently we visited the Rural Studio at Auburn University in Alabama. There, architectural students build elegant homes and public spaces in poor communities. Long before sustainability was fashionable, the Rural Studio was innovating "zero-maintenance" design. This architectural philosophy shelters the body while honoring the environment and human dignity. The writer Frederich Buechner has said that "vocation" happens when our deep gladness meets the world's deep need. I'd like to propose the work of sustainability as an unfolding vocation – not merely a response to problems, but an invitation to possibility and a way to strengthen moral resources such as delight, dignity, elegance, and hope.

We travel to western Alabama to the Rural Studio. Scattered across it are some 75 works of livable art — elegant, sustainable homes and public buildings in some of the poorest counties in the United States. They're the products of an architectural adventure. Here, architecture serves as a "social art" — and as a force for repairing the fabric of human community as well as the natural world.

Many of us are gearing up to spend more money than we actually have for the upcoming holiday season, which has deep roots in religion. We explore the turmoil many of us experience with money in our day-to-day lives — and how we might work towards a moral and practical balance for ourselves and the next generation.

As part of American Public Media's "Consumed" series, Krista spoke with financial educator Nathan Dungan. He says that the U.S. -- and churches in particular -- have been complicit in equating consumption with success and happiness at the peril of our own morality. Watch complete, behind-the-scenes footage of Krista's in-studio conversation with Dungan in Studio P at Minnesota Public Radio on November 6, 2006.

Former Burmese Buddhist nun and anthropologist Ingrid Jordt takes us inside the spiritual culture of Burma, exploring the meaning of monks taking to the streets there in September, the way in which religion and military rule are intertwined, and how Buddhism remains a force in and beyond the current crisis.