Rabia Chaudry, Catalyst for the Serial Podcast

Rabia Chaudry is an attorney who specializes in immigration law, a National Security Fellow at the New America Foundation, and President of the Safe Nation Collaborative, an organization that, among other things, consults with federal agencies about how to counter violent extremism. She writes at SplitTheMoon.com.

But you may know her best because she’s the person who brought the story of Adnan Syed to reporter Sarah Koenig, resulting in the Serial podcast phenomenon. Rabia’s little brother was Adnan’s best friend and their families were also close.

(I should point out that we taped this episode the day before the final episode aired. Rabia reflected on the final episode and entire series in this article for TIME.)

We spoke with Rabia about what she learned from Serial that she didn’t know before, her relationship with Sarah Koenig, and whether she was compelled to respond to the misinformation about Adnan online.

December 20, 2014 by

Fred Clark, Progressive Christian Blogger

Fred Clark is a progressive evangelical Christian blogger better known as Slacktivist. He’s one of those Christians who defies all the stereotypes atheists tend to have of Christians. He’s for gay marriage, critical of church leaders, and constantly frustrated with what his “tribe” does in the name of Jesus.

We spoke with Fred about why he’s still working on the longest-running book review ever, what will happen to the Christian church after gay marriage becomes legal everywhere, and how Christians can change church culture from the inside.

Full disclosure: Fred writes for Patheos, the same network on which you can find the Friendly Atheist blog.

December 15, 2014 by

Lucien Greaves, Spokesperson for The Satanic Temple

Lucien Greaves is the spokesperson for The Satanic Temple. You know his organization because they’ve been very active recently regarding church/state separation issues. In Oklahoma, where there was a Ten Commandments monument near the Capitol building, Greaves’ group requested putting up a statue of Baphomet… leading to all sorts of chaos. They’ve also tried to put up a Satanic display in the Florida Capitol building. And, my favorite, after a Florida school district allowed an outside group to do a Bible giveaway for students, they requested to distribute a Satanic coloring book… which may lead to an end to outside book distributions for good in that district.

We spoke with Lucien about how he doesn’t actually believe in Satan, what his group’s relationship is like with other Satanic groups, and why they conducted a Pink Mass over the grave of Fred Phelps’ mother.

December 13, 2014 by