Podcast · Devotional & Spiritual
by Gregory Soden · English · Devotional & Spiritual
Simply stated, religion matters. Religion matters not only for personal reasons, but also for social, economic, political, and military purposes. Unfortunately, studies suggest that religious knowledge and cultural literacy for any religious tradition is either in decline or is non-existent in the U
25 Sep 2026 · 40 min
Dr. Matthew Keller is Public Scholar of Buddhism within the Curatorial Department at the Detroit Institute of Arts! He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California in Asian Religions. This episode supported by Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/ Matthew Keller at American Council of Learned Societies: https://www.acls.org/fellow-grantees/matthew-keller/
S1 · E359 · 3 Sep 2026 · 26 min
Renée Ford, Ph.D. is a Lab Coordinator at the Contemplative Sciences Center, providing support for contemplative research at the CIRCL Lab . Renée's keen interest in understanding lived experiences in various contexts is a key motivation to her engagement here. She is trained in microphenomenology interviews, a type of interview that focuses on a short moment of experience and interested to apply this method in ongoing research studies. Renée completed her Ph.D. at Rice University in religious studies, and her dissertation focused on how affective states such as devotion and confidence…
S1 · E358 · 17 Aug 2026 · 28 min
Jonathan Feuer earned his Ph.D in Asian Languages and Cultures from UCLA in 2023. His current book project is entitled Buddhist Militarism, Violence, and Religious Freedom: The South Korean Buddhist Military Chaplaincy and his research interests include Buddhist modernity, South Korean history, and religion and violence. On this episode, we discuss Buddhist military chaplaincy in detail and preview what readers can expect with his forthcoming book! You can find his work at https://jonathancfeuer.com/ . Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/
S1 · E357 · 10 Aug 2026 · 37 min
MK Long is a historian and ethnographer of Buddhism and gender. Her current project highlights vernacular auto/biographical writings of Buddhist women in Myanmar, examining their rhetorical strategies of self-presentation and how they theorize Buddhist authority, temporality, and belonging. Long's study of vernacular literature of the 1980s-90s foregrounds its conditions of production, not only its relationship to Buddhist biographical and narrative traditions, but also authoritarian censorship, state-driven reorganization of monastic institutions, and shifting citizenship regimes. This work…
S1 · E356 · 3 Aug 2026 · 56 min
Julian Butterfield is a scholar of medieval Chinese Buddhist literature with a special interest in how Mahāyāna Buddhist narratives depict and solicit feeling. His current monograph project recovers the aesthetic and affective dimensions of Lotus Sūtra devotion in fifth-to-eighth-century China, arguing that the transmission of this pivotal Buddhist scripture relied heavily on the cultivation of strong emotions among practitioners. A secondary, public-facing research project investigates the interactions of Buddhist media and musical experimentation from the nineteenth century to the present.…
S1 · E355 · 28 Jul 2026 · 33 min
Sara Swenson works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College. Her current research explores how grassroots charity volunteers in Vietnam adapt Buddhist values and practices to navigate ethical struggles amid rapid urbanization and she is the author of "Near Light We Shine: Buddhist Charities in Urban Vietnam" from Oxford University Press! Visit Sara Swenson online: https://saswenson.com/about/ Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/
S1 · E354 · 7 Jul 2026 · 40 min
Nalika Gajaweera (Research Affiliate, Walter H. Capps Center, University of California, Santa Barbara; PhD, Anthropology, University of California, Irvine, 2013) is an anthropologist of Buddhism, race, and ethics, with a focus on community well-being and resilience. Her current book manuscript, Transforming the American Sangha, funded by the Kataly Foundation, is an ethnography of the Insight Meditation movement in North America, focused on the efforts of practitioners of color to raise awareness of oppressive racial conditions in these communities. Her doctoral research examined how…
S1 · E353 · 30 Jun 2026 · 33 min
Tara Isabella Burton (DPhil, University of Oxford; Visiting Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Visiting Research Fellow, Institutional Flourishing Lab, Catholic University of America) is a theologian and culture critic, and the author of Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians (Public Affairs, 2022) and Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World (Public Affairs, 2020). She is a regular contributor on religion and culture to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and has lectured and taught seminars at Yale…
S1 · E352 · 23 Jun 2026 · 46 min
A moving study of how religion shapes Western climate discourse. Our ecological system is disturbed, and with it, every other system we've built to inhabit it. We do not face inevitable destruction, yet many of us cannot conceive of climate change as anything but the end of the world, an apocalypse with all its biblical trappings. Why? In A Perturbed System , anthropologist Susannah Crockford argues that we must understand the climate emergency as a spiritual crisis, a result of Christian colonialism that we (religious or not) still struggle to describe without religious language. Climate…
S1 · E351 · 14 Jun 2026 · 38 min
Ira Helderman PhD, LPC (Adjunct Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture, Vanderbilt University; PhD, Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University, 2016) studies how psychotherapists' definitions of what is and is not religious shape their understandings of caregiving, health, and illness. His first book, Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion (University of North Carolina Press 2019), is the first comprehensive examination of the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have approached Buddhist traditions. Helderman publishes in…
S1 · E350 · 1 Jun 2026 · 38 min
Dr. Annie Selak (she/her/hers) is an expert in feminist ecclesiology. She studies wounds in the church, or moments where the church fails to live into its mission and causes harm. Racism, sexism, and the clergy sex abuse crisis are examples of the church failing to credibly be church. Guided by a feminist methodology, Selak integrates the lived experience of women with a robust vision for the church. Selak serves as a Visiting Scholar in the Center on Faith and Justice while working as a campus minister at a local independent school. She earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston…
S1 · E349 · 22 May 2026 · 34 min
Kaitlyn Ugoretz (Lecturer, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nanzan University, Japan; PhD, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, in progress) is an anthropologist of religion focused on the globalization of Japanese Shinto practices through popular culture such as anime, video games, and Marie Kondo's decluttering. The Associate Editor of The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, and a member of the Sacred Writes 2021 public scholarship training cohort, Prof. Ugoretz also promotes public scholarship on Japanese religions through her…
S1 · E348 · 13 May 2026 · 41 min
Kira Ganga Kieffer is a scholar of American religions, history, culture, and politics with a PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University. She is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University. Kieffer's first book, Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America (Princeton University Press, May 19, 2026) examines the spiritual and religious roots of vaccine resistance in U.S. history. In general, her work examines contestations over authority through the interactions between religion, alternative health movements, politics, and…
S1 · E347 · 28 Apr 2026 · 42 min
Liz Bucar is a religious ethicist and professor of religion at Northeastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic , the Los Angeles Times , Teen Vogue , and The Wall Street Journal , and she is the author of four books, including the award-winning Stealing My Religion and Pious Fashion . She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. For more about how religion shapes us all, even if we don't believe, subscribe to Liz's newsletter at LizBucar.com. In the chaos of today's world, we're all searching for meaning. The…
S1 · E346 · 26 Apr 2026 · 49 min
Ann Gleig (Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies, University of Central Florida; PhD, Rice University, 2010) studies spirituality emerging from the encounter between Buddhism and American culture, particularly meditation and mindfulness. The author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity (Yale University Press, 2019); and co-editor with Scott A. Mitchell of The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism , she has published widely about how the incorporation of psychotherapeutic and social justice frameworks have transformed American Buddhist practices. A recipient of a Sacred Writes…
S1 · E345 · 24 Mar 2026 · 51 min
Natalie Avalos (Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies, University of Colorado Boulder; PhD, University of California Santa Barbara, 2015) is an ethnographer of religion whose research examines contemporary Indigenous religious life, healing historical trauma, and decolonization. A Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area, Dr. Avalos is currently working on her manuscript, titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusa l. She served as a co-PI for a Luce Foundation-funded research group at the UC…
S1 · E344 · 4 Mar 2026 · 30 min
Michiel van Elk (1980) is a researcher and writer in the field of psychology, philosophy and neuroscience. Having received his PhD at the Donders Institute, the Netherlands, he has worked at several international institutions including the University of California Santa Barbara the École Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne in Switzerland and Stanford University. He is currently affiliated as associate professor at Leiden University. He has conducted pioneering work on psychedelics, altered states of consciousness, feelings of awe, the evolution of religion and mystical experiences. His work,…
S1 · E343 · 25 Feb 2026 · 28 min
Laine Walters Young is the Assistant Director of the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions at Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD from Vanderbilt in Religion, Psychology and Culture, and considers herself a feminist care ethicist working at the intersection of psychology and ethics. She has experience in non-profit administration as well as a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School where she studied Religion in Public Life, storytelling, and the possibilities of pluralism. At the Cal Turner Program, she directs the interprofessional student…
S1 · E342 · 10 Feb 2026 · 52 min
Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi is the author of Unraveling Religious Leadership: Power, Authority, and Decoloniality (Fortress Press, 2024) and co-editor of Explore: Vocational Discovery in Ministry (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). In addition, she is the author of a number of articles and reports, including Latino Congregations: Trends from the Faith Communities Today (FACT) and Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations (EPIC) Studies. Read "Songs That Call Me Home to Puerto Rico": https://www.christiancentury.org/features/songs-call-me-home-puerto-rico Visit:…
S1 · E341 · 1 Feb 2026 · 30 min
Judith L. Bishop is Associate Professor of History and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Alice Andrews Quigley Chair in Women's Studies at Mills College at Northeastern University. She earned her BA from Baylor University, MA from Vanderbilt University, and her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union. Her research interests include: women in world religions; theoretical approaches to gender, body, and sexuality; and religion in public discourse. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-august
S1 · E340 · 22 Jan 2026 · 32 min
Amar D. Peterman is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the founder of Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC and the former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America. Peterman holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. His writing and research have been featured in Sojourners , Christianity Today , The Christian Century, The Fetzer Institute, The Berkley Forum , and The Anxious Bench . He also publishes regularly on his Substack, This…
S1 · E339 · 14 Jan 2026 · 34 min
Mac Loftin is a lecturer on theology at Harvard Divinity School. This essay was adapted from his forthcoming book, " In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance " and was produced in partnership with The Narrative Project, an initiative of The Christian Century. Read: How immigrants, student protesters and Muslims became the lepers of our time View: In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance Visit: Sacred Writes
S1 · E338 · 5 Jan 2026 · 30 min
LJ Williams (they/she) is a queer African and Jewish ritualist and writer, pursuing an MDiv from Starr King School for The Ministry with a certificate in Entheogenic Justice Companioning. They are a longtime Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism community member, and served as a coordinator of a Chicago BLUUHaven. They were a Worship Learning Fellow at the Church of Larger Fellowship (2021-2023) and she received a B.A. from University of Illinois in Global Studies and Environmental Sustainability. She currently serves as board president of Young Adult Revival Network. She is interested in…
S1 · E337 · 11 Dec 2025 · 34 min
Azna Parveen is a PhD scholar in Architecture at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research explores the socio-cultural translations of Islam in the built environment through the perspective of oceanic trade along the Indian Ocean littorals, focussing on Malabar Coast of Kerala, India. Trained in architecture with a specialisation in Urban Design, she has previously worked as an architect and an academician. She was also part of a multidisciplinary team awarded a grant by India Foundation for Art to study the spatial and sensorial landscape of Kayalpattinam. Beyond academia, she is a…
S1 · E336 · 18 Nov 2025 · 31 min
Deirdre Jonese Austin (she/her) is a writer, womanist minister, and Black feminist anthropologist and ethnographer raised in the South and in the Protestant Church. Her work, ministry, and research develop out of her own experience and explore topics at the intersection of faith, race, gender and sexuality, and justice. Jonese has a Master of Divinity degree from Emory University's Candler School of Theology. She is currently a PhD candidate at Duke University in Cultural Anthropology, pursuing certificates in Feminist and African and African American Studies. Her doctoral project explores…
S1 · E335 · 27 Oct 2025 · 36 min
Jimmy Hoke is a freelance scholar whose uses their research, writing, and teaching to enact genuine change. Their work engages and creates queer, trans, and feminist approaches to the New Testament and Early Christianity. They are the author of Feminism, Queerness, Affect, and Romans: Under God?, which reconstructs how queer wo/men engaged with impulses in Paul's letters. They are the Treasurer of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. and teach courses at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Their current research and writing projects include exploring asexuality in first-century…
S1 · E334 · 10 Sep 2025 · 32 min
Samantha Carwyn is a graduate of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, where she earned a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Social Transformation and Church Leadership. Her thesis, Finding Sacred Inherent Worth Despite Adultification & Misogynoir, explores the intersections of gender, race, and the societal expectations placed on Black women. She is currently in care for ordination with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. In her community, Samantha engages in transformative resistance through education, storytelling, and artivism. As a public…
S1 · E333 · 3 Sep 2025 · 37 min
Dr. Amy Fallas is a PhD in History at UC Santa Barbara. She holds an MA in History from Yale and her research examines religious difference, charitable networks, and historical memory in the Middle East. Her work has been supported by the American Research Center in Egypt, the American Society for Church History, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center among others. She is the Associate Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and serves on the steering committees of the History of Christianity and Middle Eastern Christianity units of the American Academy of Religion. Her scholarship appears in…
S1 · E332 · 21 Aug 2025 · 35 min
Esther Brownsmith (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Dayton. Her first monograph, Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor (Routledge, 2024), was awarded the AJS Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award. She is also editor-in-chief of Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts (Bloomsbury, 2025), and her recent publications examine the book of Esther in the light of fan fiction studies, queer theory, and affect theory. Her research focuses on the stories of the Hebrew Bible and the cultural and…
S1 · E331 · 12 Aug 2025 · 39 min
Christopher B. Zeichmann (he/they) is a contract lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University, who specializes in the study of the New Testament. His research focuses on a variety of questions related to sexuality, the Roman military, and the early Jesus tradition. His books include Radical Antiquity: Free Love Zoroastrians, Farming Pirates, and Ancient Uprisings (Pluto, 2025), Queer Readings of the Centurion at Capernaum: Their History and Politics (SBL Press, 2022), and The Roman Army and the New Testament (Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2018). Visit Sacred Writes:…
Simply stated, religion matters. Religion matters not only for personal reasons, but also for social, economic, political, and military purposes. Unfortunately, studies suggest that religious knowledge and cultural literacy for any religious tradition is either in decline or is non-existent in the U
The Classical Ideas Podcast is a English devotional & spiritual podcast from Gregory Soden. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
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