IOTG Podcast It's Okay To Go

Leaving a Fundamentalist Ultra Orthodox community is difficult, leaving that community when it has strong ideological beliefs tied to a political group is near impossible. Born into this type of ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, artist Sara Erenthal left home at 17 to avoid an arranged marriage and has spent the next two decades creating art and rebuilding her world. Sara has gone from being a member of the Israeli Military, to an art model, to a now acclaimed and rising artist in New York. Join host Hayley Karl as she speaks with Sara about her life before and after ultra orthodox religion and how her art is helping with this personal evolution.

One of the most difficult aspects of leaving organized religion is maneuvering the relationships that have been built within that community; family and friends, and for many a marriage. For those who met their spouse inside a religious community, made marital commitment and begin to have kids, it can be impossible to question the religious structure that brought them together. Today I speak with Ben and Becca Bauman about how they - and their young daughter - navigated leaving their strict Jewish community together, the challenges they faced and how they are building a new life, a new community and making new traditions.

The United States election has finally come to an end and we are now preparing for a new administration with our new President Elect, Donald J. Trump. Today we take a moment to speak with previous guests, author Frank Schaeffer and human rights activist Faisal Al Mutar about their reactions to the election and how and why we should have conversations about spirituality and humanity that honor the concept of civil disagreement.

"Science is the best means humans have to learn facts about reality. What my beliefs about God do for me is allow me to function in the crushing weight of all those facts." Mike McHargue is the host of Ask Science Mike and The Liturgists podcasts and more recently, the best selling author. Mike gave his life to Jesus when he was just seven years old, and was an ardent follower of Christ for many years, until a series of events in his adult life began to unravel his faith. He began to doubt the existence of God, and slowly became an atheist, a journey that for the most part he kept to himself. His process of coming to terms with his doubt, his loss of faith, his love and understanding of science and how the human brain works and his curiosity and ultimately acceptance of his own mystical experiences is documented in his new book "Finding God In the Waves." Mike is a husband and father, a theologian and a self proclaimed nerd, and I've found Mike is best summed up by his friend, speaker and author Rob Bell: "I was once at a party with Mike and I began asking him questions about science or the brain or God or some similar topic and when he responded something fascinating happened. It was a fairly large party, with people in the living room where Mike and I were, spilling out into the dining room and the kitchen, but when Mike started casually answering my questions people stopped talking to each other and started listening to Mike. And moving closer, and hanging on every word. I don't mean to make this sound overly dramatic, but I've seen Mike talk, both casually and more formally over the past few years, and this always happens: people lean and hang on his every word. It isn't just the content of what he says, which blows people's minds, and it isn't just his clarity-he is an outstanding communicator, it's something else. Something deeper, richer, more profound-something involving his soul, his life, his integrity, his heart. This is someone filled with wonder and awe, who looks at the world and in the facts and pain and science and poetry and heartbreak sees something beautiful at work, and he has the uncanny ability-maybe the better word would be power-to explain and describe and articulate that something beautiful like few people I've ever heard. Mike is a rare talent, a rare voice, a rare soul." Join host Hayley Karl as she speaks with Mike about his journey into the Christian/Atheist paradox, kicking certainty addiction, the Zombie Apocalypse, and how he heartily embraces being wrong.

The Christian church is currently undergoing an incredible transformation. The pews are emptying, fewer say they believe in God, and while some become atheist or agnostic, there are many who gravitate towards a new type of Christianity: the Emergent (or Emerging) Church. Known for it's open approach to questions surrounding the faith, it's accepting theology on the LGBT community, and the star power of it's community (Rob Bell, Peter Rollins, Brian McLaren,) the Emergent Church is still the number one choice for Christians who seek to leave organized religion behind, but believe there are enough redeemable qualities in Christianity to stay. But, is Christianity worth saving? Is Christianity worth a second look through another lens? Today's guest, author Brian McLaren, believes that it might be. Brian McLaren one of the founding leaders of the Emerging Church and through his desire to evolve the Christian Faith, he has gone through his own remarkable journey away from organized religion and embracing what he has identified as the main reason why Christianity is under such a dynamic shift now: the death of the Patriarchy. Join us today as we speak with Brian McLaren about his new book, "The Great Spiritual Migration" the great consciousness shift changing American politics, culture and religion and whether or not Christianity is at the beginning of it's end, or at a new beginning.

This month marks 15 years since the events of September 11th, 2001. Nearly every American who was alive during that time remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on that day. Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar remembers as well - he was 10 and growing up in Baghdad, Iraq. His parents were Muslim and Faisal's father encouraged him to read, research and make up his own mind what he believed. When the Iraq War started, Faisal and his family were in the middle of the war zone. Faisal walked to school past dead bodies and went to bed with the sounds of fighting surrounding him. It was hell, and Faisal saw first hand not only the failings of US Diplomacy, but the intense problems with Islamic ideology. After the first Iraqi elections Faisal began speaking out against Al Qaeda, both publicly and online and received a number of death threats and close calls. But Faisal had an idea, "to unite humanists all over the world in order to bring positive change." He formed this idea into the Global Secular Humanist Movement in 2010 which is only one of Faisal's many beautiful humanitarian accomplishments, including receiving the President's Volunteer Service Award from the United States, from President Obama this past August. I sat down with Faisal a couple of weeks ago to discuss his time growing up in Iraq during the Saddam Regime, his choice to leave Islam and speak out against Al Qaeda, why the definition Islamophobia needs to change and his love for humanity, science and the universe.