Krista Tippet interviews Robert Millet on Speaking on Faith

On January 24, 2008, Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet, a public radio program focusing on religion through first-person conversations, interviewed Dr. Robert Millet.  Tippet, who holds a M.Div from Yale, is well qualified to fill the usual gap in traditional journalism’s understanding of things religious.

This interview was a breath of fresh air as Tippet’s well formulated questions allowed listeners to hear, possibly for the first time, the way that Latter-day Saint doctrine actually influences life.  As readers of my blog are aware, so often discussions of Mormonism are based merely on textual inquiry, without ever examining the role that the faith tradition plays in the actual life of the believer.  Such issues are examined through this Tippet-Millet conversation.  Audio files are available in mp3 and podcast format (total time: 53:00).  In addition, the complete unedited interview has been made available (total time: 1:36:34).  Download it and listen to it while you drive to work or run errands.   If you prefer reading, the transcript is also available.

Tippet:

And I mean, you do have lots of dialogue going on with other kinds of Christians and with Evangelicals.  I wonder, are there any Jewish Mormon dialogues?  Because, I could imagine this would be…

Millet:

Oh I think it…We’ve had some, but not too much.  I’m having more and more people say-I was with Richard [John] Neuhaus, not too long ago, and he made this statement to me that we really do-he commended me for doing work with Rich[ard Mouw] and with Evangelicals, and said how excited he was.  He said: ”Now, when you do plan to start doing this with Roman Catholics?”  I said, “It has to be done, I just need to raise up a few successors right now.”  I said, “I’m pretty busy trying to keep up with Evangelicals.”  But it has to be done, and of course, we want to do it with our Jewish friends and for that matter with our Muslim friends.  I think there is a greater openness in the church now than ever before to this kind of thing.  I’ve been doing it for ten years and I’ve received, just keep at it, it’s good, we need more friendships.  (1:14:47 – 1:16:04 unedited cut).

Towards the end of the program, Millet remarked:

As I’ve said in this whole business of outreach and interfaith relations, I’ve learned a ton about, in my case, Christian history, Christian theology in the last decade, but Krista, I’ve learned half a ton about Mormonism.  Because you cannot help but better understand your faith when you engage others who either disagree with you or take a different slant. (marker 1:28:34 – 1:28:57 unedited cut).