Dekila Chungyalpa is the founder and director of the Loka Initiative. She is an accomplished environmental program director, with 20+ years of experience in designing and implementing global conservation and climate strategies and projects. On this episode of the Interfaith Voices Podcast, we discuss the new documentary from the Loka Initiative, Sacred Wisdom Sacred Earth which is about the indigenous community of Wisconsin and their connection to the land.

For more information on Sacred Wisdom, Sacred Earth go to www.sacredwisdomsacredearth.org
For More information on the Loka Initiative go to www.lokainitiative.org
More more information on Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice go to www.wifaithvoices.org

What is Christian Nationalism, how does it affect us, and what can we do to fight against it?

Rev. Dr. Kerri Parker (she/her) has served as the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches since 2017. During her tenure, the Council has become known nationwide for its leadership in faith-based COVID response, fresh ecumenical vision, and collaborations for racial equity. In 2023 she was honored with the United Church of Christ’s Avery D. Post Ecumenical Award. She has served as a local church pastor and YWCA executive. Her wider church work includes the Christian Unity & Interfaith Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Wisconsin Conference UCC Board, and UCC General Synod Delegate. Rev. Parker preaches and teaches widely around Wisconsin and has co-authored study-action guides on Faith & Gun Violence and Jesus & Justice in Public. She contributed to the book “There’s a Woman in the Pulpit”

(Skylight Paths, 2015). Rev. Parker earned her D. Min. from Iliff School of Theology and an M.Div. from Chicago Theological Seminary. Beyond church and family, Rev. Parker’s passions are stories, show tunes, and justice.

For more on WI Council of Churches go to www.wichurches.org

For more on WI Faith Voices for Justice go to www.wifaithvoices.org

Open Doors began in the spring of 2016 as an offshoot of an event to raise awareness about the Syrian refugee crisis. At the end of the event, half the people stayed to talk about what we could do. Through a series of meetings and events that followed, we eventually morphed into Open Doors for Refugees with our current mission and focus.

Since then, almost two thousand people have reached out to Open Doors, and several hundred have signed up to be on one or more of our teams. We invite you to become involved!

Jason Mack began as the Executive Director of Open Doors for Refugees in October of 2024.

Before that, he was the pastor of Underwood Memorial Baptist Church in Wauwatosa, WI, and previously served as the associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Madison and as the founding pastor of New Leaf Church in College Park, MD. Jason received a Master’s Degree from Wesley Seminary and a Doctorate from Central Seminary, where he studied organizational leadership and innovation.

Open Doors for Refugees can be found at https://opendoorsforrefugees.org/
Church world services: https://cwsglobal.org/

For more information on WI Faith Voices go to https://www.wifaithvoices.org/

Katherine Stewart has been covering the rise of the anti-democratic movement for over 16 years. Her latest book, Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (Bloomsbury 2025), is an instant New York Times bestseller. Her previous book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (Bloomsbury 2020), won First Place in the Nonfiction Books category from the Religion News Association, as well as a Morris B. Forkosch Best Book award. The Power Worshippers formed the basis of the documentary feature God & Country, produced by Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner; Stewart served as executive producer. Her 2012 book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, focused on the religious right’s efforts to undermine public education. Stewart’s writing appears in The New York Times op ed, New Republic, Religion News Service and others. Her substack is at katherinestewartbooks, and she is on Bluesky at katherinestewart.bsky.social.

Find Katherine at her website www.katherinestewart.me

For more on WI Faith Voices for Justice go to www.wifaithvoices.org

Author and journalist Susan Katz Miller is both an interfaith child and an interfaith parent. She is considered the top expert on interfaith families celebrating more than one religion, and has spoken across the country and abroad. In 2013, Beacon Press published her book Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family. Her 2019 workbook, The Interfaith Family Journal, is designed to help all families figure out their own best pathway.

Miller graduated from Brown University, and worked as a reporter at Newsweek in New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC. She then moved to Dakar, Senegal for three years. While there, she wrote travel pieces for the New York Times, and interviewed the President of Senegal for Newsweek International. She also wrote political pieces for the Christian Science Monitor from Benin, Togo, the Gambia, and Sierra Leone. She then became a US Correspondent for the British weekly magazine New Scientist. And later, she spent three years freelancing from northeastern Brazil. Back in Washington, DC, she served as Board Co-Chair of the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington DC. Miller also founded a national support group for families celebrating more than one religion, the Network of Interfaith Family Groups, on Facebook.

Miller founded the first blog devoted to interfaith family communities and interfaith identity, onbeingboth.com. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Time, Slate, Utne Reader, Discover, Science, National Wildlife, Moment, Jewcy.com, interfaithfamily.com, and many other publications. Miller studied photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and her photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and International Wildlife. Her work on interfaith families has been featured on The Today Show (NBC), CBS, NPR (All Things Considered, Here & Now, and The Diane Rehm Show), on the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, and in dozens of other media outlets. Miller also wrote regularly for The (Jewish Daily) Forward‘s interfaith relationship advice column, The Seesaw.

Susan Katz Miller is available for consulting, teaching, speaking, guest sermons, book group appearances, personal interfaith family and couples coaching, and facilitating workshops and seminars for interfaith couples, teens, grandparents, clergy, and educators. She has spoken at Harvard, Georgetown, University of Birmingham (UK), Al Akhawayn University (Morocco), the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (Sophia Fahs Keynote speaker), Parliament of Worlds Religions, The Guibord Center (LA), churches, synagogues, and many other venues.

For more information on Susan please go to www.susankatzmiller.com

For more information on WI Faith Voices for Justice please go to www.wifaithvoices.org

Today on the Interfaith Voices podcast, Sally Evans from the Center for Interfaith Relations joins the show to talk about the upcoming Festival of Faiths in Louisville, KY.

For more information of Festival of Faiths go to https://festivaloffaiths.org/

This week on The Faith Voices Podcast Active Hope with Chris Johnstone Part 2.

Chris Johnstone, co-author of the book Active Hope, is a medical doctor, author, trainer and coach who worked for nearly twenty years as an addictions specialist in the UK National Health Service. A former Senior Teaching Fellow at Bristol University Medical School, he trains health professionals in behavioral medicine and gives courses exploring the psychological dimensions of planetary crisis.

Chris is known for his work pioneering the role of resilience training in promoting positive mental health, developing self-help resources and setting up the Bristol Happiness Lectures. He is author of Seven Ways to Build Resilience (Robinson, UK, 2019), and runs online trainings for resilience, wellbeing and active hope at CollegeOfWellbeing.com

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www.wifaithvoices.org

Chris Johnstone, co-author of the book Active Hope, is a medical doctor, author, trainer and coach who worked for nearly twenty years as an addictions specialist in the UK National Health Service. A former Senior Teaching Fellow at Bristol University Medical School, he trains health professionals in behavioral medicine and gives courses exploring the psychological dimensions of planetary crisis.

Chris is known for his work pioneering the role of resilience training in promoting positive mental health, developing self-help resources and setting up the Bristol Happiness Lectures. He is author of Seven Ways to Build Resilience (Robinson, UK, 2019), and runs online trainings for resilience, wellbeing and active hope at CollegeOfWellbeing.com

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www.wifaithvoices.org