By RAY WADDLE
      
In 1951, Charles Johnson, Fisk University’s first African American president, went on national radio and talked about life’s unending challenges and the need for empathy for others.
      
His conclusion: spiritual life is the greatest bulwark against the threatening tide of worldliness, greed and insensitivity.  
       
“Some people call that spiritual life ‘Nature,’ and some call it ‘God,’ ” he declared.
      
Johnson was one of scores of people who got a chance to summarize their personal credos in 400 words and share them with listeners.
      
The series, “This I Believe,” was a hit on CBS Radio during its five-year run in the early 50s, when Americans were distressed about war, cynicism and materialism.
      
Kind of like now.
      
In 2003, National Public Radio revived the series, sensing people were hungry to hear how others are putting their lives together in a nervous time.
      
Every week NPR invites citizens known and unknown -- taxi drivers, dramatists, farmers, dancers, politicians -- to share a three-minute “This I Believe” on the air.
      
A new book, This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, compiles 80 radio essays from recent broadcasts, with some luminaries (Albert Einstein, Helen Keller) from the program 50 years ago. The result is a town meeting of passionate ideas and simple eloquence, a reassuring public display of independent thinking and good will.
      
Not all essays are about religious faith. In fact, most are not. Chaplain Susan Cosio believes in a daily walk. Surgeon Benjamin Carson believes in his mother’s strength. Teenager Josh Rittenberg believes tomorrow will be better. Writer Colleen Shaddox believes in jazz. Food critic Jason Sheehan believes there’s no such thing as too much barbecue.
      
And filmmaker Errol Morris believes in truth: “Truth is not relative. It’s not subjective. It may be elusive or hidden. People may wish to disregard it. But there is such a thing as truth and the pursuit of truth: trying to figure out what has really happened, trying to figure out how things really are.”
      
I notice few Southerners represented, as if the region’s Christian fervor means too many people believing the same thing in the same way, with the same phrases. The editors nevertheless invite anyone to submit 300-500 words. They look for focused, personal, positive stories that avoid dogma, ranting and cliché.
      
(Charles Johnson’s essay is not in the book but is posted online on the NPR web site. I found only one other Nashvillian who has done an on-air “This I Believe” -- musician Bela Fleck.)
      
“This I Believe” is on to something. Many teachers now assign students to write one – an exercise in clarity and character. Reading others’ guiding principles, hearing them on the radio, you’re nudged to take up the challenge of spelling out what you really believe when the noise dies down.

Pass the BBQ.
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(Since this column ran in February , another Nashvillian was selected by NPR to air her essay -- Amy Lyles Wilson, who testified with grace and humor to her mother. Her radio essay, called The Guts to Keep Going, aired in March 2007.)