By Claudia Shoemaker, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty intern

For the past year, NPR has been using religion as a prism through which to view America, thanks to the work of Religion and Belief Correspondent Tom Gjelten. The DC members of the Religion Communicators Council spent time in discussion with Gjelten during their February meeting. A self-proclaimed “lapsed” Lutheran, Gjelten framed his conversation around the need for respectful and impartial faith journalism.

Prior to his work with Religion, Gjelten began his time with NPR in 1982 as a labor and education reporter, later becoming one of their first foreign correspondents in 1986. Much of his time was spent covering international news, worldwide social and political conflict, and U.S. military affairs from the Pentagon and State Department to South America and Eastern Europe.