Smartest Person in the Room

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Now displaying: November, 2016

Ep 12 Religion Series: The political door to Islam 0

Nov 30, 2016

Salah Abdul-Wahid was born Daniel Hewlitt. He converted to Islam as an adult, after growing up Catholic in a large Creole family living in Los Angeles.

In the 1960s when Salah was in his early twenties, he found himself caught up in the political unrest within the black communities of Los Angeles. At the time, many people were seeking new answers to old questions about the history of white dominance in the United States and the various systems of oppression that affected people of color in this country. In seeking answers to these questions, Salah found himself open to a radical conversion, leaving behind the Catholic faith of his family and his youth and converting to Islam.

Salah talks about his intrigue with the Muslim intellectuals he observed as a student at the University of Southern California, while at the same time he was drawn to the writings of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.

I was fascinated with Salah’s conversion story and why he changed his name and faith at such an important time in his personal life and in American history. I knew only vaguely about famous men who had taken a similar path - Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabar come to mind - but I was unsure of the meaning behind it. This was my chance to ask someone, and our conversation had my head spinning for weeks.

(It should be noted, based on several of the cultural references in this episode, that we recorded our conversation this summer, several months before the 2016 election results.)

Later in his life, Salah would travel the world and glean powerful wisdom about the role of religion in culture, and, as you’ll hear in my conversation with him, his comfort with asking hard questions and having tough conversations has been a consistent way in which he experiences the world.

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Ep. 11 Religion Series: Practicing religion without mentioning God 0

Nov 21, 2016

This episode is about Reformed Judaism as a cultural identity as opposed to a religion focused on worshipping God. The Reformed movement began in 19th century Germany, and today this is the dominant denomination of Jewish people in America.

My guest is Sarah Kate Levy, a writer here in Los Angeles. Her award-winning fiction and nonfiction essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and most recently she cowrote the screenplay No Way Jose with Adam Goldberg. She is also the voice behind ChecklistMommy.com, a blog about parenting, marriage, and her attempts at home organization, which draws from her own experiences as a mother of four young children, including twins. She is currently at work on a novel.

Sarah Kate's childhood led her to think her Judaism was just a small part of who she was, but attending college at Yale, surrounded by people who took their heritage seriously, Sarah Kate began to better understand her Jewish identity. In our conversation, she provides answers and insights into how a person can be part of a religion without professing a belief in God. Perhaps one key to understanding this can be found in a religious culture where debate and pushback against accepted beliefs are not only tolerated, but encouraged.

So much of what Sarah Kate said about her cultural and genetic Judaism mirrors other conversations I've had with Jewish friends over the years. Sarah Kate and I have lived in the same neighborhoods in Los Angles, but experience the world from different perspectives. I hope you enjoy listening in on our conversation!

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Ep 10 Religion Series: Mormons vs. mainstream Christianity 0

Nov 15, 2016

Welcome to the first episode in the RELIGION series of Smartest Person in the Room. For the next few weeks we’ll be hearing stories about people living within their religion, defined here as a “cultural system of behaviors and practices, often (but not always) in relation to something deemed sacred."

This episode is about the divide between modern day American Evangelical Christianity and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as LDS or Mormons. For purposes of clarity, in this conversation I refer to my guest Nish Weiseth as a “mainstream” Christian and to guest Emily Belle Freeman as a Mormon. Both living in Utah, Nish and Emily have partnered together to bridge the gaping divide between these two faiths that both follow Jesus.

With their combined influence in both the Evangelical and Latter-day Saint traditions, Emily & Nish have decided to take on the difficult task of getting Mormons and Christians to listen to one another and learn from each other. They work as a pair, speaking to both Mormon and Christian congregations, but they also spend a lot of time in their own camps, trying to dismantle some of the misinformation and stereotypes that each side has of the other. Their hope is that Mormons and Christians will eventually be able to put aside their differences in order to impact the world for good, together. Their online hub is called Multiply Goodness, which includes a blog, resources and more, on how people can start doing this inter-faith work in their own communities.

In this episode we talk about:

The main theological differences between the Mormon faith and modern American evangelical Christianity.
If each faith tradition believes the other one is going to hell.
How Nish & Emily met and formed an unlikely partnership.
Why it's WOMEN who are leading this charge.