A freethinking chaplain who has become recently famous for counseling a nonbelieving death-row prisoner is interviewed on the Freedom From Religion Foundation show this Sunday.
Devin Moss is a Brooklyn-based humanist chaplain. He’s a podcast host and a podcast producer, a screenwriter and, as he puts it, a perpetual student. He has a podcast on spirituality and death called “The Adventures of Memento Mori.” Moss made headlines recently via a major front-page story in the New York Times describing how he came to support an atheist inmate who was put to death in Oklahoma. He discusses the inmate’s Christian-to-atheist jailhouse deconversion, as well as his own journey to freethought.
“A chaplain for a man on death row is really just during the deathwatch period, which is seven days prior to the execution,” Moss tells “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. “I don’t see how anybody could really wrestle with the hard questions about being killed in seven days. So, I felt it was important to hold up our relationship and be there for Phil [Hancock] as long as I possibly could.”
Alas, the number of stations broadcasting “Freethought Matters” has reduced this year due to budgetary constraints. If you don’t live in any of the marquee towns where the show broadcasts on Sunday, you can already catch the interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel. New shows go up every Thursday.
“Freethought Matters” now airs in:
- Chicago, WPWR-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Los Angeles, KCOP-MY (Ch. 13), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Madison, Wis., WISC-TV (Ch. 3), Sundays at 11 p.m.
- New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- San Francisco, KTVU/KICU-IND (on broadcast Ch. 36 and Cable 6), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- Washington, D.C., WDCW-CW (Ch. 50 or Ch. 23 or Ch. 3), Sundays at 8 a.m.
(To view details on channel variations depending on your provider, click here.)
Upcoming shows include a discussion with sociologist and “None” expert Ryan T. Cragun, an interview with former Americans United director Barry Lynn and an episode that spotlights a recent debate Dan Barker and Phil Zuckerman had with religionists at Oxford. You can catch interviews from previous seasons here, including with Gloria Steinem, Ron Reagan, “Daily Show” co-creator Lizz Winstead, author John Irving, actor John “Q” de Lancie and award-winning columnist Katha Pollitt. Past interviews also include Julia Sweeney and Reps. Jared Huffman, Jamie Raskin, Hank Johnson and Eleanor Holmes Norton, among many other notable authors, activists, musicians, actors and freethinkers.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters.
P.S. Please tune in or record according to the times given above regardless of what is listed in your TV guide (it may be listed simply as “paid programming” or even be misidentified). To set up an automatic weekly recording, try taping manually by time or channel. And spread the word to freethinking friends, family or colleagues about a TV show, finally, that is dedicated to providing programming for freethinkers — your antidote to religion on Sunday morning!
