Focus
WILL - Focus - March 07, 2013
It’s been 65 years since the US Supreme Court Case McCollum v Board of Education made Vashti McCollum of Champaign one of the most notorious atheists in the country. During this hour, host Jim Meadows talks with filmmaker Jay Rosenstein about his awarding winning documentary “The Lord Is Not On Trial Here Today” and Ken Paulson of the First Amendment Center about the case, it’s continuing implications and the now famous phrase “separation of church and state.”
Jim Meadows talks with Professor of Journalism at the UIUC and filmmaker Jay Rosenstein about his Peabody and Emmy-Award winning documentary “The Lord is Not On Trial Here Today.” The film takes a never-before-seen look at a landmark First Amendment case that has become famous for the phrase “separation of church and state.” We’ll talk with Rosenstein about the case and how he went about researching and producing the film. Ken Paulson, former editor and Senior Vice President of News for USA Today and President and CEO of the First Amendment Center also joins the conversation.
WILL - Focus - February 28, 2013
Will the Pope get a retirement package? With all politics considered, who is his most likely replacement? This hour on Focus, we talked about what’s ahead for the Roman Catholic Church. Host Jim Meadows spoke with Kevin Schultz of the University of Illinois in Chicago and Tom Roberts of the National Catholic Reporter.
Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI is the first pope to resign in more than 600 years and cites health reasons for his decision to do so. This hour on Focus, we talk about how that will affect the Roman Catholic Church and the process and politics involved with conclave. Host Jim Meadows talks with Associate Professor of History and Catholic Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago Kevin Schultz about what the Pope’s resignation means for members of the Roman Catholic Church and for the rest of us. We also talk about the church’s declining membership and what leaders are trying to do to reverse the trend and how the Pope plays a role in that. Tom Roberts, Editor at Large for the National Catholic Reporter, also joins the program. During this hour we also discussed contraception, same sex marriage and child sex abuse scandals and how the Roman Catholic Church will more forward.
WILL - Focus - January 28, 2013
This hour on Focus, we’ll consider the notion of America as a Christian nation, as we talk with Dr. Richard Hughes, a Professor of Religion at Messiah College. He explores this concept in his book Christian America and the Kingdom of God. In it, Hughes considers how religious and political leaders have historically used this belief to reinforce a sort of messianic nationalism, characterizing the United States as God’s “chosen nation” – a view Hughes holds has led to an increase in power and influence among fundamentalist Christians, but has ironically led to unchristian behavior.
WILL - Focus - December 12, 2012
Born in 1948, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tamim Ansary is a writer, lecturer, editor, and teacher based in San Francisco. He directs the San Francisco Writer’s Workshop, teaches through the Osher Institute, and writes fiction and nonfiction about Afghanistan, Islam-and-the-West, democracy, current events, social issues, and as he says, "my cat, and other topics as they come up."
WILL - Focus - November 13, 2012
It’s hard to pass up any book that promotes itself as an “existential detective story.” That’s the subtitle of author Jim Holt’s new book “Why Does the World Exist?” In it, Holt traces efforts to grasp the origins of the universe, and suggests along the way that many discussions revolving around the classic question “why are we here?” are simply too narrow – that there are many more possible answers than the old God versus the Big Bang debate would suggest. Holt talks with philosophers, physicists, and a Buddhist monk, among others, as he seeks big answers to the biggest of questions.
This is a repeat broadcast from Friday, September 07, 2012, 10 am.
WILL - Focus - September 19, 2012
Eboo Patel, Founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core and member of President Obama’s inaugural Faith Council
Host: Craig Cohen
Eboo Patel
Following the attacks last week on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya, which led to the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, we’ll talk about how there’s a tendency among some to lump violent Muslim extremists in with the Muslim community at large, in a way that we perhaps don’t do with other radicals who pervert other religions. We’ll consider how violent acts like this make it more challenging to bring peaceful people of various faiths together, as we talk with Eboo Patel, the founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core and a member of President Obama’s inaugural Faith Council. He’s the author of the book Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America.
WILL - Focus - September 03, 2012
A radio documentary special by Urbana University Laboratory High School students.
Growing up in Champaign as one of a handful of Jewish children in town, Ruth Kuhn Youngerman enjoyed friendships with people from a variety of faiths. The Jewish community was small and close-knit, led by Jewish storeowners such as the Sterns, Lowensterns and Kuhns who helped develop commerce in downtown Champaign and Urbana.
Yet Jewish residents were integrated and accepted in the community, said Youngerman, who was born in 1914, the same year that the first Jewish temple was built at State and Clark streets. When her grandfather, Kuhn’s Department Store founder Joseph Kuhn, died, they called him the best “Christian” in the community, Youngerman said. “In other words, they were saying he was like them, that they (Jews) were good people.”
Urbana University High School students interviewed Youngerman and 13 other leaders of the Champaign-Urbana Jewish community for a new radio documentary, The 20th Century Exodus: The Triumphant Life and Journey of the Jewish in Our Community.
WILL - Focus - August 15, 2012
Jonathan Haidt, Ph.D., the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, Stern School of Business, New York University
Host: David Inge
As we pass through life, we make snap judgments about other people and the things they do. To us, these judgments feel like self-evident truths, making us certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Jonathan Hite calls this moral intuition. He says it varies across cultures, including the cultures of the right and left. We’ll explore the ideas in Jonathan Hite’s new book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion."
This is a repeat broadcast from Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 10 am
WILL - Focus - June 26, 2012
Jonathan Haidt, Ph.D., the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, Stern School of Business, New York University
Host: David Inge
As we pass through life, we make snap judgments about other people and the things they do. To us, these judgments feel like self-evident truths, making us certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Jonathan Hite calls this moral intuition. He says it varies across cultures, including the cultures of the right and left. We’ll explore the ideas in Jonathan Hite’s new book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion."
WILL - Focus - June 13, 2012
Ananda Rose, Ph.D., Poet; Journalist
Host: David Inge
Every day, people from Mexico risk their lives to enter the United States. Many become lost in the desert. A few Americans have taken steps to help these undocumented people who would otherwise die of exposure, but that puts them in direct conflict with their fellow citizens and with the U.S. government. Poet and journalist Ananda Rose traveled to the Southwest to talk with people on both sides of the issue, those motivated by compassion and those by law. She’ll tell us what she learned. It’s all in her book "Showdown in the Sonoran Desert."
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