The Paths To Understanding Podcast

Challenge 2.0 In Shopping We Trust

When we celebrate holidays such as Christmas or Hanukkah, seasons marked less by personal or collective celebrations of faith and more by gatherings at stores-online or brick and mortar. Is this so much a trend related to a decline in religious faith or a larger question of what our society has come to value? That’s the subject of this weeks’ Challenge 2.0-“In Shopping We Trust”. 

Challenge 2.0 Merry Christmas or Merry Consume Us

Like it or not, Christmas has become the most commercialized holiday in the U.S. Americans spend over 600 billion dollars on the holiday, compared to 6 billion dollars for Halloween-the second most commercialized holiday. One in five Americans go into debt to finance their gift and decoration purchases. What is lost by the focus on consumer spending? What are alternatives? That’s the focus of this week’s Challenge 2.0.  

Challenge 2.0 The Unequal Pandemic

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Health impacts have been the most recognized cost of the COVID epidemic. But perhaps a longer lived impact will be on the learning and future of today’s children. The damage depends upon where the children live and attend school. In this edition of Challenge 2.0, we’ll discuss the problems educators and their students face, and what needs to be done for a recovery of possibilities as well as health.

Challenge 2.0 A State of Denial

Chief Seattle is among the best known of Native American leaders. A tribe he led, the Duwamish, were the first to sign the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855.  Yet the Duwamish people have been denied federal recognition. This episode will examine the struggle of the Duwamish and the prospects to achieve the recognition promised more than a century ago. 

Challenge 2.0: Rediscovering Creation’s Heartbeat

The environmental crisis has been called, at its core, a crisis of values and a crisis of faith. Organized religions have been criticized for contributing to if not even causing the disconnect between people, our planet and those we share it with. But in this episode of Challenge 2.0, we explore whether the ancient roots of faith may also offer solutions. 

Challenge 2.0 What Happens on the Farm Part One

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The mega-heatwave of this past June drove temperatures in the Pacific Northwest past the one hundred degree mark for days. Among the hundreds of deaths caused by that heat was a migrant farm worker in Oregon. In this episode of Challenge 2.0, we’ll examine the risks farm workers face to bring produce to our tables, needed protections and the hard questions we need to ask ourselves and our grocers.

Challenge 2.0 Afghans and Americans-Allies or Friends of Convenience?

The speed was shocking. The fall of Afghanistan came not in months or weeks, but in just days…and it came after two decades of war, and the deaths of 100,000 Afghans and 6,000 Americans. There are many questions to be answered, but the most pressing now include what is needed by Afghans seeking refuge and how can each of us help. 

 

The Meaning of Salvation

Terry is joined by Rabbi Alana Suskin and Steve Martin to discuss The Meaning of Salvation in their faith traditions.

 

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Challenge 2.0 When The Oppressed Become The Oppressors

The United Nations calls it a textbook example of ethnic cleansing, and the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. Nearly 700,000 Rohingya people have fled Myanmar, also known as Burma, in the last 18 months. But it’s a problem that first arose in the 1970’s when a military dictatorship seized power. In this episode of Challenge 2.0, we talk with an American who visited the refugee camps in Bangladesh, see his video, and hear from a Rohingya leader seeking help for his people.

Challenge 2.0 The Nones Part 2

The Rise of the Nones: Spiritual but Not Religious-Part Two. In last weeks’ episode of Challenge 2.0, we examined the rising number of people who no longer identify with any formal faith. Such people often refer to themselves as spiritual, but not religious, and are sometimes called ‘the Nones’, for the category listed on surveys. This week, we return to our conversation with a faith leader who is working to bridge the gap between ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious with a response to disengagement from faith and from each other.

Air Date: August 4th 2019 at 7:30 AM on MeTV, carried through cable providers as well as DirectTV and Dish Network.

Host:  Jeff Renner

Panelists: Father Carl Arico

Challenge 2.0 Overview