Krista Tippett on Being Pursues the Big Questions

This successful public media program, Krista Tippett on Being (formerly Speaking of Faith) has articulated core issues pertaining to Philosophy and Theology, and Science In Dialogue through its radio broadcast and its distinct online content, as well as the New York Times best-seller, 'Einstein's God, Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit.' The program requests funding for three hour-long episodes of this Peabody and Webby award-winning program per year over a 3 year period. During the life of this project, a total of 9 programs and 9 accompanying web sites will be produced. The mass media, and the culture at large--even the highly-educated demographics served by public media--cling to the facile supposition that religion, philosophy and science do not mix and that scientists and religious thinkers exist in essential opposition. Krista Tippett on Being proposes, to the contrary, that a rich and important religion-science dialogue exists, and it is a core editorial goal of this project to increase the cultural fluency in that dialogue and to create spacious conversations that increase knowledge, allow audiences to make new intellectual and moral connections, and increase the civility and generosity of public life and discourse. The enduring impacts are represented in how the audience is changed by exposure to these ideas in this format. New research conducted on behalf of the program indicates audience impact is meaningful for religious communities as well as in civic life. We attach a copy of this study, conducted by Wilder Research, to this proposal. The proposed outcomes of this activity will be 9 hour-long episodes of Krista Tippett on Being, which garners a weekly audience of over 600,000 listeners on over 240 public radio stations in the United States. This program offers one of the few remaining in-depth public media programs to provide a full hour of exploration for meaty and complex topics, and to address them with intellectual vigor.