After receiving her M.Div. from Yale in 1994, Krista Tippett observed the difficulty of traditional journalism — which is necessarily objective and critical in tone — to penetrate the intellectual and spiritual content of perspectives of faith. Deeply religious ideas often sound extreme or trivial when presented in an objective news format. And the stridency of religious language in headline news in recent decades only made educated people of faith more hesitant to speak in openly religious ways — even when religious belief and practice were their best resources for moral commentary and civic engagement.

In the fall of 1998, Krista Tippett approached Minnesota Public Radio's vice president for news and information, Bill Buzenberg, with an idea for a new public radio show, something to complement and move beyond strictly reporting about religion.