religion Archives - Good News!

Dr. David Weill, author of TELL ME I BELONG: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations (Union Square & Co.; December 9, 2025)

Austin Tang — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 14:29:38 +0000

Listen to “Dr. David Weill, author of TELL ME I BELONG: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations” on Spreaker.

“In this fascinating and personal book, Dr. David Weill takes us on a journey to understand his Jewish identity and heritage. It can be a guide for anyone who is searching for an elusive sense of belonging.”

—Walter Isaacson

A heartfelt memoir about the search for religion and identity

“I’m not Jewish.” For years, that’s what David Weill told anyone who asked about his religious background. Yes, his father was a Jew who had left Nazi Germany as a boy. But his mother was a Southern Baptist. Growing up in New Orleans, religion wasn’t something his family discussed, let alone practiced. As an adult, he developed a fervent zeal and profound devotion to his work as a specialist in organ transplants. Transplantation was all he needed to define and fulfill him—until a crisis shook him to the core.

As a boy, Weill’s only experience with religion was when he accompanied Deborah, the family’s domestic help and his second mother figure, to her all-Black Baptist church. As a young doctor, he fell in love with Jackie, a nurse from rural Iowa and a devout Catholic. Much to the chagrin of her parents, they were married in a Dallas hotel rather than a church. After settling in Palo Alto, close to Stanford University Medical Center where Weill headed the heart and lung transplant program, their two daughters were baptized and confirmed at a local Catholic church. When his oldest daughter, Hannah, was around ten and asked him why he never joined them at mass on Sundays, he told her, “I’m not Catholic.” She looked at him, brow furrowed, and raised a question that would prove to haunt him, “What are you then?”

TELL ME I BELONG follows David Weill’s search for the answer. In 2015, after the simultaneous unraveling of his carefully crafted career and the death of his father, Weill began to doubt everything, including his purpose in life. While grappling with emotional pain and sinking deeper into despair, he began to suffer perplexing physical symptoms. In his moment of crisis, he was seized by a strong desire to practice a formal religion. But for Weill, the real question was, Which religion? Eventually, he chose Catholicism and was baptized at age fifty. He found solace in heart-to-heart talks with a priest and his daughters’ happiness at having the whole family at church together. Everything was fine—until 2020, when he learned that his mother had converted to Judaism right before marrying his father. He was born a Jew. And in the eyes of the Jewish faith, he would always be Jewish. That realization sparked his second quest. In an interview, David can talk about:

· What drew his mother, a native of Selma, Alabama, to Judaism—partly because, to quote her, Jews “always seemed like such practical people,” and largely as a rejection of Baptists who preached love for all God’s children and practiced racism.

· His father’s complicated sense of being Jewish, which he viewed as a source of pride for its association with smart and successful people while remaining wary of being ostracized or stigmatized for the religion he was born into.

· His determination, with the help of investigators, to learn more about his grandfather’s time imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the role of his famous relative, the composer Kurt Weill, in orchestrating his family’s escape to the United States.

· His heart-wrenching trip to Berlin, accompanied by his daughter Hannah, to find his father’s first home, and the inner work of defining himself.

Ultimately, David Weill made peace with who he is and where he belongs. “I am not turning away from Catholicism as much as I am embracing Judaism, because it is mine, always was,” he reflects. “It just took me a while to get there.”

DAVID WEILL, MD, is theformer Director of the Center for Advanced Lung Diseases and the Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center. A sought-after advisor to various transplant programs across the country, he also serves on the Board of TransMedics, a company focused on improving availability of donor organs. Dr. Weill has also served on several non-profit boards including the Tulane Medical School, Xavier University of Louisiana, SFJAZZ, the Isidore Newman School, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) Foundation, NextGen Personal Finance, and the Bellevue Literary Review. Dr. Weill’s writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Salon, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, STAT, the Washington Post, The Hill, LitHub, Tablet, The Times of Israel, TODAY.com, and the Los Angeles Times. His previous books include the memoir Exhale: Hope, Healing, and Life in Transplant (2021) and a novel, All That Really Matters (2024). He lives in New Orleans. For more information, please visit davidweill.com.

Social Media:

https://www.instagram.com/davidweillmd/

https://www.facebook.com/david.weill/about/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidweillmd/

TELL ME I BELONG

A Journey Across Faiths and Generations

By David Weill

Publication date: December 9, 2025

ISBN: 978-1454961833; $24.99 Hardcover

Union Square & Co.

The post Dr. David Weill, author of TELL ME I BELONG: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations (Union Square & Co.; December 9, 2025) appeared first on Good News!.

Faith And The City: A Conversation with Mayor Eric Adams

Austin Tang — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 13:06:07 +0000

New York City mayor Eric Adams talks about his own faith journey and how it has informed his life of public service, especially as mayor of the largest, most religiously diverse city in the United States and how it inspires hope and healing for our city; and the relevant role faith-based partnerships plays in his administration.

Click Here to Listen to this Episode as a Podcast on Spreaker!

The post Faith And The City: A Conversation with Mayor Eric Adams appeared first on Good News!.

🧠💥 THE MATH NO LEADER EVER DID — FOR YOUR BABY’S SURVIVAL 💥🧠 submitted by Sunil Upadhye

Austin Tang — Wed, 28 May 2025 14:57:02 +0000

Every human being needs food. Without it, nothing else matters — not your religion, job, education, money, or award.

Let’s do the math of survival:

Minimum Food Cost in the USA:

$30/day × 365 days = $10,950/year

Lifespan: 98 years →

$10,950 × 98 = $1,073,100 per person JUST FOR FOOD.

Now multiply this by:

8 Billion people = $8.5 Quadrillion needed

JUST to feed the world from birth to death.

Not for luxury. Not for travel.

Just for the right to live — to eat.

And yet… leaders spent trillions on:

Bombs

Space races

Nuclear weapons

Golden statues

Religious buildings

Personal jets

Award ceremonies

But NOT on the only thing that keeps a human being alive — FOOD.

Two words — God and Freedom — caused more war, greed, division, and destruction than any other.

And still, there’s no food security. No soil protection. No dignity in daily survival.

If you’re a leader, parent, teacher, or spiritual guide and you haven’t done this math —

You’re leading people into darkness.

This is not about politics.

This is about your own children. Your own plate. Your own future.

STOP worshipping titles.

START honoring truth.

Let’s build a world where no one begs to eat — and where God and Freedom are not sold like commodities while humanity starves.

— Shared by one who sees the system from inside-out.

#TruthBillionCode #NeurologicalReset #FoodIsTheFirstRight #GodVsGreed #FreedomWithoutFoodIsFraud

The post 🧠💥 THE MATH NO LEADER EVER DID — FOR YOUR BABY’S SURVIVAL 💥🧠 submitted by Sunil Upadhye appeared first on Good News!.

Professor Azza Karam, Ph.D

Austin Tang — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:21:09 +0000

Listen to “Professor Azza Karam, Ph.D” on Spreaker.
Launching LEAD INTEGRITY

www.lead-integrity.com

#LeadIntegrity

BUILDING ORGANISATIONAL CULTURES WHICH ARE POSITIVE, EQUITABLE AND RESILIENT, WITH WOMEN PROFESSIONALS INSPIRED BY MANY FAITHS, AND EXPERIENCED IN MANY PROFESSIONAL SPACES

Professor Azza Karam, PhD.
Founding President and CEO
Lead Integrity

Leadership. Integrity. Competence

https://lnkd.in/eRi4a94W

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:8f80ef47-5fe0-4c00-ba9d-a16cc8644197

#LeadIntegrity #AzzaKaram #Leadership #Integrity #Competence #DrAzzaKaram

The post Professor Azza Karam, Ph.D appeared first on Good News!.

Weekend Service Video From Mayor Eric Adams

Austin Tang — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 18:11:10 +0000

https://goodnewsplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/20231113_Church-DTC_v2.mp4

The post Weekend Service Video From Mayor Eric Adams appeared first on Good News!.

The Common Good, or Transactional Religion?

Austin Tang — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:03:11 +0000

An Interfaith Moment of Prayer for Peace at UN Headquarters. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the gathering was taking place at a unique moment: on the last Friday of Ramadan, as Christians celebrate Easter, Jews mark the end of Passover, and Sikhs enjoy the festival of Vaisakhi. “Even the calendar is sending a message of unity,” he remarked. “Today, at this blessed moment of renewal across faiths, let us lift our hearts and voices for peace – our guiding star and our most precious goal.” April 2023

NEW YORK, Jun 28 2023 (IPS) – For the last 30 odd years, I have maintained that religions matter. I noted the reasons for why they matter, and always listed how they matter —as social service providers, as first responders in humanitarian crisis; as mediators in tensions and conflicts, as upholders of common good and the values of humanity; as protectors of children and of the most vulnerable; and even as political actors.

All to name but a few. I still feel amused when some of those I trained among the UN staff and the faith-based NGO community, quote something I said, in public – albeit without even being aware they are quoting (I am trying to be kind here) – such as: “we should not be talking about whether religions matter, but how they matter”.

In 2007, while at UNDP, I was told, more than once, “we do not do religion”. By the time I left the UN in 2020, after building two bodies – an Interagency Task Force on Religion and its Multi Faith Advisory Council – it was clear that almost all UN entities were competing to ‘do religion’. In fact, some UN entities are competing for religious funding.

While I have not lost that faith in faith itself, over the last years, I have grown increasingly incredulous of those who would speak in the name of ‘religion’. It is hard not to feel distinctly bemused, when versions of ‘if religious actors/leaders are not at the [policy] table, they will be on the menu]’, are being told in one gathering after another.

Often by the same kinds of speakers, among the same kinds of audiences, albeit meeting more and more frequently – and often more lavishly — in different cities around the world.

The reason for bemusement, is not disillusion with the unparalleled roles that various religious institutions and communities of faith play. Far from it. These roles are, in short, vast. In fact, they are as impossible to quantify, as they are implausible to assume full comprehension of.

After all, how do you accurately measure the pulse of our individual spiritualities – let alone our collective sense thereof? Religious leaders, religious institutions, faith-based and faith-inspired NGOs (FBOs) – let alone faith communities – are massive in number, and permeate all the world’s edifices, peoples and even languages. Faiths, and expressions of religiosity, are likely as numerous as the hairs on an average head (not counting those who may be lacking vigour in that department).

No, the reason for bemusement is disillusionment with the trend of commercialisation of religion, the business of ‘doing religion’. The emerging marketplace of “religion and [fill in the blanks – and anything is possible]” is reminiscent of not too many decades ago, when so many academics, consultants, think tanks, NGOs, worked on the business of democracy and/or good governance and/or human rights. Then, as now, projects, programmes, initiatives, meetings, and more meetings, were hosted.

A global emerging elite of ‘experts’ in the above (or variations thereof) permeated the four and five-star hotel meeting rooms, gave business to caterers and conference centres as they traipsed the ‘conference circuits’ from north to south, populated proposals to governments, philanthropists and various donor entities.

They defined the missions of for-profit consultancies claiming to enable the strategic capabilities, to inform the media presences, to refine the narratives, to provide the leadership coaching, to jointly express the common values, to uphold the good in public service… And so on.

We are not living in better democracies now, in spite of all that business. Will we have more faithful societies? Will people pray more, for one another and serve more selflessly now that ‘religion’ is in? Somehow, I doubt it.

By the time we realised the extent of the commercialisation of democracy and human rights, the commercial nature had corrupted much of the sagacity – and the necessary courage – there was. Even autocrats bought into the business of doing democracy and human rights, and used the narratives to enhance their respective agendas.

Few democratic actors worked together, and even fewer collaborated to serve – and save – the whole of humanity. As with any business venture, the motive of profit – and power – of some, dominated.

And rather than a consolidated civil society effort holding decision makers accountable for the sake of the most vulnerable, and collectively and successfully eliminating the tools of harm, we are living in the era where money, weapons – including nuclear ones – control over resources, and war (including war on this earth), dominate.

Today, some of the most authoritarian and self-serving regimes, and some of the most power-seeking individuals, and their retinues, are vested in the business of ‘religion’. And why not? It is among the most lucrative domains of financial, political and social influence.

Decades of study, however, point to some simple questions to ask, to distinguish the transactional nature of ‘religious affairs’ claiming to be for the good of all, from those actually serving the common good.

The questions include the following:

How many of those engaged in the work of religion (whether as religious or secular actors) actually give of or share, their varied resources, to/with one another (including those from other/different religions, entities, age groups, countries, races, etc.)?

How many different religious organisations plan and deliver, jointly, the same set of services to the same set of needs, in the same neighborhoods or in the same countries?

How many ‘religious actors’ actually partner with ‘secular’ civil society organisations to hold institutions of political and financial power equally accountable – if need be, at cost to their own welfare. In other words, how many stand on principle, irrespective of the cost?

And, my personal favourite: what are these religious actors’ respective positions on women’s rights, on gender equality and/or on women’s leadership?

The more diplomatic way to frame that is also one of the most powerful litmus tests: which human rights do these actors working on/with/for religion, value more? You see, those who are engaged in transactional practices wearing a religious garb, will invariably prioritise some rights, or some privileges, over others.

The answer to this question therefore, will indicate the difference between a coalition of religious fundamentalists (including secular power seekers and some religious and political leaders), and a multilateral alliance dedicated to serving the common good – for each and all, barring none, especially in the most challenging of times.

Azza Karam is a Professor of Religion and Development at the Vrij Universiteit of Amsterdam and served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

IPS UN Bureau

The post The Common Good, or Transactional Religion? appeared first on Good News!.

GoodNewsLetter: A Holy Time To Thank GOD, or Whatever YOUR BELIEF…

Austin Tang — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 20:57:34 +0000

Thoughts For The Day

At sunrise each day, this bird, known as Canary da Mata, opens its wings as though giving thanks to God for another day.

http://goodnewsplanet.com/thank-you-god/

Dear Friends and Members,

This is a very Holy Time of the Year. Every Day is a Blessed Day for ALL, including the animal and plant kingdom. The Canary da Mata shows us if we open our wings to give thanks the beauty of life will surround us.

Aamir shares these religious thoughts: What a coincidence. Only every hundred years or so do these major religions celebrate a Festival Weekend together. God bless all.

Lailat Al Bara ah. (Night of forgiving and forgiveness) to our Muslim Friends.

Palm Sunday for our Christian Friends.

Passover to our Jewish friends and

Holi to Hindu friends.

SPECIAL GOOD NEWS BROADCAST: LOVE 2 THE WORLD CELEBRATION ON APRIL 22, 2021. EARTH DAY. Please go to our Press Release to learn more: http://goodnewsplanet.com/milestone-broadcast-corporation-is-producing-a-2-hour-earth-day-special-april-22-2021-to-be-part-of-the-24-hour/

Two of our wonderful performers are Patrick Bergin and Chloe Temtchine: They perform original songs of LOVE, CHECK THEM OUT:

Patrick Bergin, http://goodnewsplanet.com/multitalented-award-winning-patrick-bergin-shares-his-good-newslucky-uslike-a-4-leaf-clover/

Chloe Temtchine: http://goodnewsplanet.com/what-does-peace-mean-to-chloe-temtchine/

Please support our nonprofit, 501 C 3, Good News Corporation at http://goodnewsplanet.com/peacedayparty/peace-day-donations/

LET’S GROW TOGETHER. GOOD NEWS MOTTO: ALL WE ARE IS WHAT WE ARE WITH EACH OTHER. ZEAL. Enjoy Every Moment.

For more information contact:

Reverend Paul Sladkus, All Faiths & Spiritual 212 647 1212

New York, NY & Montauk, NY

PS – Looking for a vacation rental, SHORT TERM, in Montauk, for our friends, here is our listing on Craig’s List: newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/vac/d/montauk-montauk-manor-resort-2br-2bath/7300875690.html

#god #belief #holy #time #sunrise #bird #canary #mata #another #day #animal #kingdom #plant #blessed #bless #life #surround #us #shares #religious #thoughts #religion #festival #forgiveness #muslim #christian #passover #jewish #easter #earth #patrick #bergin #chloe #temtchine #zeal #faith #spiritual

The post GoodNewsLetter: A Holy Time To Thank GOD, or Whatever YOUR BELIEF… appeared first on Good News!.

Reverend Paul Sladkus Is here to serve YOU:)

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 17:00:55 +0000

Reverend Paul Sladkus was ordained by the State of New York in 2009. He attend the New Seminary, the oldest Interfaith and Spiritual Seminary in the world, headquartered in New York, New York. The program was conceived by all faith leaders to build harmony among the religions and those who wanted to live the life they desired with religion and spirituality.

Reverend Paul states, “I am a practicing born Jew, who also practices and believes in all religions and spirituality and the good they have to share. It’s the people who make up religion and I love people, as well our plant and animal kingdom. We are all one.”

I have conducted wonderful weddings, births, deaths, special events and more. I am here for you, it’s you special occasions and however I can be of service I’m in. I can travel anywhere.

PRODUCTION – We are able to create the entire event for you and your animal/plant, Do live or taped video, music, photography, location, food, travel arrangements, every minute detail we have experience doing. We have done thousands of events, CBS and PBS TV 150 Network trained, over 5,000 shows on www.goodnewsbroadcast.com and www.goodnewsplanet.TV, we have the awards and the LOVE.

With Appreciation,

For information call me direct:

Reverend Paul Sladkus 917 687 1790

The post Reverend Paul Sladkus Is here to serve YOU:) appeared first on Good News!.

Covid-19 Thoughts About Vaccination. We Pray that there is a solution for ALL.

Austin Tang — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:59:21 +0000

WE pray for vaccination for ALL the World.

The post Covid-19 Thoughts About Vaccination. We Pray that there is a solution for ALL. appeared first on Good News!.

Look what C. S. Lewis said in 1942…

Austin Tang — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:41:42 +0000

The post Look what C. S. Lewis said in 1942… appeared first on Good News!.