'Faith Will Play Huge Role in Elections:' Paula Faris' Podcast Focuses on Presidential Candidates Using Faith to Guide Them
Paula Faris with ABC News has a powerful podcast called "Journeys of Faith."
Prior to launching the podcast, Faris experienced a series of personal challenges during what she called a "season of hell."
Faris told CBN News' Faith Nation that she had overextended herself through work while living her dream in TV news.
"I was anchoring Good Morning America weekends and The View and working long stretches. I was leaning into the wrong things. I got to a point where I started losing sight of everything and everyone around me. I was addicted to my job. I went through a season where I knew God was trying to get my attention to slow down but I didn't want to," she said.
"God wanted me to slow down and get my priorities straight so I ended up going through a season of hell for seven months where I had five major events. It started with a miscarriage that lead to an emergency surgery, then a concussion after someone threw an object at my head while I was doing a live shot which knocked me out of work for three weeks. The day I got cleared to go back to work, I was involved in a head-on car crash, then I got influenza which turned into pneumonia. God had to get my attention to get me to slow down."
Faris broke down and told ABC News management that she could no longer endure her current workload, proposing a more ideal schedule where she would work Monday through Friday instead.
She took a leap of faith and pitched the idea of launching a podcast – one in which she would interview newsmakers and influencers about their religious beliefs.
The move paid off and Faris was promoted to senior national correspondent at ABC News.
The podcast is in its third season and Faris wants to focus on the political climate by talking to politicians and candidates about how their faith dictates their person and policies.
"It's a chance to get some of these politicians off of the stump and hear more about their personal faith journey and how it's influencing your policies," she said.
Faris believes that faith will play a major part in the 2020 presidential election.
"I think it's playing a huge role. For so long, the conservative community and the Republicans really had a hold on more of the Evangelicals but you see Democrats starting to talk about faith more. They know how important it is to a large part of the country. Senator Cory Booker called out his Democrats for not talking about faith as much as they should. You see Buttigieg talking about his faith and how personal it is," Faris said.
"Almost every candidate is bringing up their faith in some form or fashion because they know it is so important to so many of us. That's really the reason why I launched the podcast...I can't separate myself from my faith. It's so important to me and so many people. I wanted as a mainstream outlet to give these news makers and influencers a platform to talk about what they believe and why."
She recently spoke with Nikki Haley about her personal faith and how she became a Christian.
Haley was raised in the Sikh faith, which she described as "very kind and peaceful, that is all accepting." She grew up in a small South Carolina town and was the only Indian family there.
"My parents made us go to different churches - Methodist, Baptist, Catholic. My mom would say, 'I want you to respect everyone and how they do their prayers but understand there is one God but everyone has their own pathway. As long as you have your relationship with God, you'll be okay.' They wanted us to respect other religions and see the other relationships that people had with God," Haley said.
Haley explained that she wanted to deepen her relationship with God and converted from the Sikh religion to Christianity.
"When I went to temples, I would feel God in the room but I couldn't understand it. I didn't know the language and so I started dating my husband and going to his Methodist church, I immediately could relate. There was not just the feeling, but the words I could relate to that really meant something to me. That was really when I knew that if I wanted to grow deeper in my faith and have a stronger relationship, I needed to have something that spoke to me and that was how it happened."
"When you grow your faith, you have to be able to talk to God and go to a service and feel it. If you don't understand the language, you're not hearing it and it's harder to feel it," Haley added.
She revealed that the Charleston, SC church shooting in 2015 was a huge turning point. The incident resulted in the deaths of nine black parishioners during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
"It was so painful and hard. No one was going to get me through that but God. That's when I started to recite , Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."
"Journeys of Faith" offers an intimate look at how the world's most influential people lean on their personal faith to guide them through the ups and downs of life.
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