His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso,the great spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is known worldwide simply as the Dalai Lama. He has written a grand summation of the most important things in life, which includes these words: “Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.” Buddhism generally understands love as compassion for all sentient beings and, paradoxically, detachment from desire itself. Christian love is about forgiveness and altruism; there is a self-sacrificial tone to the love of God in Jesus Christ. Yet there is much that Buddhists and Christians share in common. Compassion, kindness, and selflessness. This week Dr. Shepherd looks at what Christians can learn from their Buddhist counterparts as his panel of distinguished guests discusses 19 “Lenten Lessons From the Dalai Lama.”

Love isn’t the same as eternal romance, like Hollywood pretends. But another point is that love comes in more than one variety. The answer to “What is love?” depends on the context. We don’t love our children the same way we love our country. We certainly don’t love friends and neighbors the same way we love husbands and wives, unless we’re behaving like characters in a tawdry novel. What about that obnoxious so-and-so at work? How about friends and family who have been cruel? How can we “love” people who are prejudiced against us, or members of a group which stands against everything we cherish? When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” how far did he intend for that command to stretch? Some would say infinitely. Yet would Jesus insist that Jewish Holocaust survivors or freed slaves after the American Civil War were ethically required to love their persecutors? The question is not as clear as a first glimpse might suggest. This week Dr. Shepherd’s panel will consider the four types of love suggested by four biblical era words: hesed, philia, eros and agape. Tune in and be better equipped for Valentine’s Day!

Young people today have a saying when facing a problem: “It’s all good.” This Zen-like response to life’s exigencies can reflect either optimism or fatalism, depending on the theology of the speaker. But can we truly say “It’s all good” when an earthquake devastates the nation of Haiti or a person we love is diagnosed with a terminal disease? How do we square a belief in God as One Presence/One Power, Omnipotent Good, with a world in which suffering is the daily lot of millions? This week, Dr. Shepherd’s Let’s Talk About It panel will address this most ancient of all religious questions.

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” Those prophetic words were spoken almost five decades ago by a theologian, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although best known for his work in the civil rights and peace movements of mid-20th century America, which earned him the Nobel Prize and an assassin’s bullet, King was also a distinguished academic thinker who held a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University. Today, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is memorized by school children, invoked by preachers, and recited by politicians courting the African-American vote. Even though Americans have elected a black President of the United States, how far has Dr. King’s native land progressed toward achieving his lofty vision of a society which judges people by “the content of their character” and looks at the race and ethnicity as an asset rather than a liability? This week Dr. Shepherd’s distinguished guests—including former Kansas City Mayor Pro-Tem Alvin Brooks—will discuss “The Dream Revisited” and take a critical look at “Race Relations in the Age of Obama.”

Wondering what to do with all your spare time this holiday season? (Right. Neither are we.) Here’s something you can always stop and start up again—read a book! Remember books? … The place you went for information before the Internet? With a book you have

Psalm 137:4 asks "How can I sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?"  The spiritually mature person knows that life is under no obligation to be fair. But how, then, shall we respond when life's journey takes us down the valley of the shadow, away from joy to a "foreign land" of adversity? This week Rev. Rob Robinson, senior minister of Unity Village Chapel, joins Dr. Tom's panel of distinguished guests to discuss how it is possible, despite circumstances, to "Praise the Lord, anyway!"

In his book Prosperity, published during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore wrote: “We cannot be very happy if we are poor, and nobody needs to be poor. It is a sin to be poor.” Unity ministers have been defending that remark for more than seventy years. Today the “Prosperity Gospel” has gone mainstream. Televangelist Joel Osteen regularly assures his audiences that God wants them to be happy and prosperous. Yet, surprisingly, some of Rev. Osteen’s harshest critics are not members of the Religious Right but progressive theologians, liberal Christian thinkers who question the morality of asking for personal wealth in a world where so much hunger and economic oppression persists. This week the Rev. Dr. Robert Martin of Saint Paul School of Theology will join the Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd’s panel of distinguished guests to consider the controversial “Prosperity Gospel” in 21st century Christian thought.

October 31 provides more to celebrate than just Halloween. It also marks the anniversary of the day in 1517 when an obscure German priest and professor of theology named Martin Luther wrote a list of critical points about the doctrine of the Church and nailed it to the door (bulletin board) at the Castle Church of Wittenberg University. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses were written in Latin and meant for scholarly discussion, but friends soon translated his arguments into German and other modern languages, and with the aid of the newly invented printing press, the work quickly circulated throughout Europe. Almost overnight the monkish scholar had become unwilling leader of a massive uprising to reform the Church. The Protestant Reformation shook the Christian world, and it is probably fair to say that other reform movements, like Unity, would not be here without that innocent act of scholarly inquiry by Doctor Luther. In our time, retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has called for a “New Reformation” in Christian thought. Is he right? What needs to be reformed, and what will a new Christianity updated for the 21st century look like? Join Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd and his panel as they wrestle with questions about a New Reformation on Let’s talk About It.

Nature hiking on a golden autumn day or meditating in a candlelit cathedral; attending midnight mass or praying at dawn; vision questing, Sufi dancing, centering prayer, walking a labyrinth, lighting incense sticks, chanting psalms or resting in the Silence—there has been an explosion of knowledge about the array of spiritual practices available to 21st-century people. This week the Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd and a guest panel, representing several religious traditions, will discuss tips and techniques to discover peace and joy in a busy world.

Every generation since the ink first dried on the first copy of the Book of Revelation has believed they were living in the end times. Doomsday and/or the coming of the Kingdom of God has been predicted over 220 times just since the beginning of the Common Era. Now a new crop of end-is-near authors are making large claims—and large profits in book sales—about the new doomsday date in December 2012 when the Mayan calendar completes its cycle. Although New Age literature rhapsodizes about the coming transformation, legitimate scholars like Sandra Noble, executive director of a Mesoamerican research organization, have called the portrayal of December 2012 as a doomsday or cosmic-shift event “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.” This week Dr. Shepherd’s panel includes Mesoamerican and Unity biblical scholars as they consider the phenomenon of doomsday in the history and consciousness of humanity.

Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd recalls how he became interested in this topic: "Early in my career as a military chaplain and pastoral counselor, I noticed that the couples who came to see me were usually in troubled relationships already. So, instead of continuing to function strictly as a spiritual emergency room for traumatized partners, I joined the growing number of ministers who practice preventive ministry among healthy couples. Working with chaplains from all sorts of denominations, I sponsored marriage enrichment retreats, taught ‘fair fighting’ techniques, and put together couples’ support groups. I quickly discovered that people were eager to improve their interactions with significant others before the post-nuptial love boat headed for the rocks. That’s what this week’s program is about "making good relationships better."

Are you “spiritual, not religious”? Does this trendy new phrase really mean anything, other than a declaration that someone is not a participating member of a church, mosque or synagogue? How should people who are practicing members of a faith community respond to the challenge of the nonobservant among us? The Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd’s guests will ask [and answer] the hard question, “What good is the church in a postmodern world?”

With the recent flap over President Barack Obama’s comments in the aftermath of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, people are once again asking questions about racial equality in the United States. What are the religious, ethical and moral issues of race relations, and will we ever achieve true equality? The Rev. Dr. Thomas Shepherd’s guests will wrestle with the social, political and theological implications of America’s status as a multiracial, multicultural society.