Maya (March 13, 2007)
Fantastic program. It inspired me to want to learn more and reminded me of how the Maya have absorbed Christianity and mixed it with their spiritual traditions. Thanx!

Bev Hoffman
Atlanta, GA (WABE, 90.1 FM)

Masowe Apostles (February 26, 2007)
This is one of the most moving and informative programs I've ever heard, certainly one of your finer ones, and one which spoke to and reinforced my faith. Now that I understand MP3s, I will be downloading your program as I am usually in choral rehearsal at the time it is broadcast.

Stephen Finner
Barre, VT (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Masowe Apostles (February 25, 2006)
I was intrigued by the story of Isabel Mukonyora. This dialogue of global Christianity is one I feel will only continue stronger and stronger in the next decades. Western Christians must face the reality that we are no longer the dominant center of the Christian faith.

Bryant Owens
Louisville, KY (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Fast Food Instruction (February 12, 2006)
I listened to your interview with Isabel with a sense of wonderment and thankfulness that my son had asked for a particular kind of fast food, which required a drive that allowed me to hear such a refreshing program. Having taken religion courses and graduating from Western Kentucky University (Isabel's current employer) over 25 years ago, I felt the same but yet a different kind of journey of which she spoke. Yes, there is a place in contemporary times for the kind of "trip to the wilderness" that the Masowe Apostles have practiced. Thank you for presenting this inspiring segment.

Joni Parrent
Evansville, IN (WNIN, 88.3 FM)

Corporate Suburbia and Colonial Africa (February 12, 2006)
Grace and peace to you both for the deep confirmation of the spirit within me. My father spent Sunday mornings worshiping God and so did my mother. My mother dragged the eight of us to Sunday school and church and praised God when we all made it. My dad went fly fishing against the bluffs and in the shallow rapids of the Vermillion River and praised God; none of us were there. Once in while, while my mother was loading the portions of the eight of us in the station wagon on Sunday morning my father would remind us, "I am going to the outdoor church, don't wait for me." He called the Vermillion his sanctuary. His "time with God." Or even his "holy place." I do not remember him ever being argumentative or a confrontational about this, since he himself had a conversion in the church, long before I was born. He was not against my mother's practice but wanted us to know that he was no pagan because he worshiped outdoors. He was a very happy, content, and friendly man. My father was very personal about his faith. Saying things like, "if you want someone to get closer to God, then don't get in the way of them and God." He also refused to argue about it. If that meant not talking about it, then so be it.

My mother's faith was about doing things for other people. She was a leader and an activist in her own right. She loved the missionaries and found her niche in promoting and helping them. She also did not fit in so well at the church, and this bothered her at times, but she just kept about her business of helping others in the community. She is in her 80s and amazingly still feels a bit left out of that church. The few times I visit there, she still tolerates my questions and comments about what they are doing there. My father died while I was in high school, and, at that time, the big question for me was: "Was Dad a Christian? Did he go to heaven?" I was not sure. He would not talk about it in the way I wanted him to. I was not sure. He almost never went to church. My older brothers and sisters seemed confident he was, so I went along with that, still wondering at the time.

Over the years I have found the sacredness of land and being alone with God outside. I have grown through the years to deeply appreciate my father's faith. Recently, in a rather spontaneous conversation, I asked my mother a question I never asked before. I said, "Mom, how much did Dad love God?" "Oh my," she said, "very much, very much so. I think he loved God very much." I had never heard her say that as we were growing up. As I cringe at the insane urban sprawl I live around, I find my most meaningful times in some odd field or sliver of woods in between new developments like the one I live in. I also have joined the Society for Barefoot Living and Worship in these muddy fields and woods. No one goes back there and no one can hear me there. These doomed places have become sacred to me. I secretly wish my progressive friends could join me out there. Singing, howling, and carrying on like banshee Indians in barefooted worship. Yet on the rare day, a friend will walk the land with me, but they talk too much or it is never as I wish it to be. Yet I have found my friends today. Yes, I may never meet them, but I know they exist and that confirms my meaning.

Maybe God will send us a missionary from the Masowe Apostles. I will no longer dismiss my dream for displaced suburbanites to join my spiritual escape from the savage corporate take over of our community and culture. I wish my church could sing out there. I wish the land around here meant more to our spirituality as Christians. I am tired of sacrilegious scenery and waterfalls behind my worship songs at church. Put pictures of freshly bulldozed trees behind those songs. Put pictures of scrapped fields littered with earth movers behind those lyrics. Show me a common local weed while I worship. Then these images will have meaning. Then maybe we can begin to sing in our context. Then perhaps being outdoors might mean more than a backyard barbeque on our new stainless steel grill. Then perhaps we can sing, "nobody knows, but me and the rose, how good mud feels between your toes. Glory Alleluia, Glory Alleluia." It is the briars, the burs, and the mud between here and Kroger that is our greatest suburban amenity. Off to church.

Tim Gapinski
Noblesville, IN (WFYI, 91.0 FM)

Instructor's Introduction (February 12, 2006)
I love your Speaking of Faith programs I am a Global Studies and AP History instructor and these eclectic stories and interviews help me understand world faiths and cultures. I pass them on to my colleagues and students. You are the best!

John Maunu
Grosse Ile, MI (WUOM, 91.7 FM)

Why is African Church so Conservative? (February 12, 2006)
I realize that Prof. Mukonyora is talking about one particular group, but what I read about the African church in general is much different. The loudest and most vociferous opposition to gay priests and bishops came from Africa. There seems to be an insistence that Jesus is the only way and non-Christians are all going to hell. I'm glad to see that there is another way, but I wonder how popular it will become. The entire Jewish people went into the desert, not just Moses, or at least former Jewish slaves went into the wilderness and came out as a people. There is the literal desert and the metaphorical desert that any spiritual seeker must go through.

Susan Stein
Philadelphia, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Depth (February 11, 2006)
I especially appreciated the depth of the conversation about the interaction between Christianity and African tribal religious traditions. This level of conversation about religion and faith is not found anywhere else on the radio. Thanks.

Stephen Voysey
Mount Kisco, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)