Below you'll find more information on some of the topics touched on in Bill Moyers' conversation with Mary Gordon. You can also find more information on religion in the news in our main Resources section. Plus you can explore women and religion and belief and doubt and other matters in our Perspectives section.
Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism. Involved in plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was arrested in March 1943, imprisoned and eventually hanged.
Aurelius Augustinus, Augustine of Hippo, or Saint Augustine (354–430) was one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE is a classic tale of conversion.
George Herbert, "The Pulley" and "Prayer"
Herbert was a 17th century English metaphysical poet, orator and a priest in the Church of England.
Gordon refers to HEART OF DARKESS: "Joseph Conrad, who was just disgusted by a kind of behavior that they found incomprehensible and so gross, that it made them want-- it's as if you were in a swamp."
Cain and Abel
Read the story of Cain and Abel from the Book of Genesis. Mary Gordon appeared Bill Moyers' program GENESIS.
Joan of Arc
Mary Gordon has written a biography of Joan of Arc for the Penguin Lives series.
The Brothers Karamazov
Bill Moyers and Mary Gordon discuss the episode in the novel when Jesus comes back to Earth and into conflict with the "Grand Inquisitor."
The Jefferson Bible
Mary Gordon refers to Thomas Jefferson trying to "clean up the New Testament." You can read Jefferson's version, THE LIFE AND MORALS OF JESUS OF NAZARETH
EXTRACTED TEXTUALLY FROM THE GOSPELS, online.