Ye Gods! with Scott Carter

Today a conversation of biblical proportions with actress, comedian, author, and producer, Yvonne Orji. Her book, Bamboozled by Jesus: How God tricked me into the life of my dreams is now out in paperback. Scott is someone who's read a lot of celebrity memoirs, some written by friends. This book is different. Yvonne doesn't just recount the peaks and valleys in the upward trajectory of her career. She compares her challenges with t...

ENCORE EPISODE: Journalist, co-author with Bob Woodward of “Peril”, and Chief Election & Campaign Correspondent for CBS News Robert Costa joins Scott to discuss his Catholic upbringing and how faith brings him a respite from dark times. He muses on his reluctance to talk about himself in his reporting and his dedication to facts and objectivity in every story. Scott and Robert also get into his reporting on the religious right ...

On each episode of YE GODS, Scott Carter starts with the same question: If life is a mystery, whodunit?  No one knows what happens when we die, neither the devout believer nor the fervent atheist. 

This special episode presents excerpts from past interviews in which guests have described experiences of forces connecting them to unexplainable energy – some say the work of God, some say maybe something else. But each has an unshakabl...

ENCORE - Actress and comic Susie Essman from HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm joins Scott to discuss praying to the humor gods, the connections between comedy and Judaism, why Larry David the creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm and co-creator of Seinfeld is a sort of Rabbi, plus remembrances of their mutual friend, the late comic genius Gilbert Gottfried.  

Guest: Susie Essman has played the sassy Susie Greene for all eleven seasons of the c...

ENCORE with Comedian-writer-producer Larry Wilmore who has one of the most impressive resumes in TV from In Living Color, to The Bernie Mac Show, The Daily Show to Blackish and HBO’s Insecure. He now hosts the Larry Wilmore: Black on Air Podcast with The Ringer. He stops by to talk about his epiphany as a door-to-door salesman, his Catholic upbringing and his comedic love of The Marx Brothers and their 1930 classic vaudeville film ...

ENCORE EPISODE: Is there a there-there? A place within the mind separate from our thoughts? This week Scott talks to neuroscientist and founder of the Waking Up meditation app, Sam Harris. They discuss how meditation helps us to be happy in the most ordinary of moments and make the most of each moment, vs. the need to extract the greatest pleasure from our greatest moments. 

And that there are things to discover about the nature of...

Author and poet Stephen Mitchell has spent a career pursuing life's meaning as taught by history's great spiritual practices. His is a hero's journey, which ends with the presenting of an elixir, a blessing to the world. His gift to the world are his works, which distill his long sought and gained wisdom.

Guest: Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through inten...

Today's encore conversation touches on topics that may be sensitive to some including attempted suicide. Life can be hard, but suicide is preventable and free and confidential support is available by dialing 988 or go to 988lifeline.org

Guest: Ana Marie Cox is a political columnist and culture critic whose writing has appeared in The New Republic, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, and NBC.com. Through 2022, she wrote a “Sober...

In the concluding episode of a two-part interview with Emmy and Golden Globe winning television writer-producer Michael Patrick King, we learn where he is today with the Catholic church and how he’s learned that faith, like art, is really about transitioning people out of where they are to someplace they need to be. He tells a moving story about visiting the Vatican with a friend and witnessing her being overcome while gazing at Mi...

In part one of this two-part interview with Emmy and Golden Globe winning television writer Michael Patrick King, we learn how to be the holiest altar boy. The “Sex and The City” and “2 Broke Girls”  showrunner sits down with Scott to discuss how attending Catholic Church made him love performance and influenced his own spiritual play Thorn & Bloom, how standup made him realize he wasn't telling his truth, and the spiritual gif...

ENCORE EPISODE Tim Gunn stars on the hit Amazon series, "Making The Cut," and served as co-host for 16 seasons of the revolutionary fashion competition series, "Project Runway," and he has written best sellers like Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible. But when people respond to his expertise and energy, they are reacting to – in an age of moral relativism – his affirmation of actual values: work hard, be decent. In this episode we learn more ...

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better watch Ken Burns films. His body of work is a moving picture portrait gallery of who we've been as a nation and who we are. No contemporary artist has ever succeeded more by trusting so much in the American public's curiosity and attention span. To paraphrase Ken from his conversation with Scott, history changes but human nature doesn’t necessarily change. Ken references...

Political commentator and founder of The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes joins Scott to discuss judgment, the hereafter, and the state of American democracy. Charlie talks about converting to catholicism in his teens, the influence of his father on his life, and his hopes for his legacy. Charlie recommends The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

In My Homily Opinion: 

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish-Austrian holocaust survivor and psychiatrist who w...

This week Michael Render, aka Killer Mike: rapper, activist, and host of the PBS talk show Love & Respect with Killer Mike (Executive Produced by Scott Carter) as well as half of the rap duo Run The Jewels. He joins Scott to talk about the influence of his grandmother on his faith, how blackness informed his experience of church and why the teachings of Jesus Christ made him a radical in his time and today. Mike’s latest album “Mic...

In part two of our interview with actor and Soul Boom author Rainn Wilson, we discuss his new show Rainn Wilson and The Geography of Bliss, now streaming on Peacock. Rainn shares some of his favorite memories from filming around the world, which places he thinks find happiness best, and where he’d like to go in season two. Rainn also talks about how our culture’s aversion to death hurts our ability to appreciate life.

Rainn recomme...

Known for his iconic roles on “The Office” and “Six Feet Under,” actor and author Rainn Wilson joins Scott to discuss his new book Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. In part one of this two-part interview, Rainn explores his upbringing in the Baha’i faith, his frustration with modern spirituality, and why he believes we need spiritual community now more than ever. Join us next week to hear about Rainn’s new show “Rainn ...

Scott Carter is joined by nationally syndicated conservative radio host Erick Erickson to set their political differences aside and talk about tests of faith, the usefulness of rituals in the passages and celebrations of life, plus the “welfare of your community” and service to its members.

In My Homily Opinion (IMHO): For this Memorial Day weekend, Scott remembers those who serve in our military forces and veterans living or dead,...

Julia Sweeney is a multi-hyphenate performer known for her hilarious characters on SNL and her comedy specials God Said Ha, Letting Go of God, and most recently Older and Wider. This week on Ye Gods!, Julia joins Scott to discuss her devout atheism as well as her feelings on religion, God, the saints and more! Julia explains cultural Catholicism sans a belief in God and how community is central to who we are as human beings.

In My ...

Two-time Emmy winner, and two-time Ye Gods guest Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle shares laughs and tears with Scott in a sort of movie review and personal revelation sparked by the HBO Academy Award nominated documentary God is the Bigger Elvis, a film that tells the true story of a rising Hollywood starlet who traded fame, fortune and fiance for God, and became a nun.

Watch the full movie God is the Bigge...