Krista Tippet's book Speaking of Faith, covers the faith journey of the public radio host. She describes her journey to have conversations with people of different religions around the world.
I was particularly interested in her differentiation between thin and deep faith. An example of thin faith would be that practiced in Rwanda where church goers attacked and killed their neighbors because they were of different height. Deep faith or religion provides a more fuller understanding of the nuances of the whole religious experience and does not focus on only a small slice.
She describes a conversation between a Jewish scholar and a Muslim holy man. They attempted to differentiate acts of faith from those that were done for other reasons. When an act increases the beauty in the world through music, caring, improving life, reducing misery then people are following the practices of their religion. When an act destroys or makes things ugly then it comes not from the long history of religious practice but from a flawed interpretation. For me a simpler dichotomy is compassion vs. hatred. It's a good check on understanding motivation. The compassion does need to be effective as pious good intentions without organization or follow through can be a source of frustration and a waste of time.
Krista describes her time in West and East Germany in the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. At this point in her life she put aside religion and looked for relevance in the political sphere. She contrasted the maturity of her East German friends attempting to live life under oppression and the rich, powerful and often immature people she met while working at the West German Embassy.
Reconnecting with Compassion- Ted Talk - Krista Tippet
The book, Speaking of Faith is available from Amazon.com
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