Kwok ’n’ Roll

Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins is a professor of evangelism and church growth at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. He discusses his forthcoming book, Inclusive Love: Seeing the Black Church in the Rainbow, and his journey of affirming and embracing LGBTQ brothers and sisters. As an acclaimed photographer, he shares his experience creating portraits while honoring each person as created in God...

The Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson is the former moderator of the Metropolitan Community Church and a longtime LGBTQ rights activist. She reflects on the political changes that have occurred a year into Trump’s second presidency, especially their impact on the LGBTQ community. She praises the efforts of clergy and faith leaders in Minneapolis for their protest against ICE and their witness to the Gospel. S...

Dr. Raimundo César Barreto from Brazil teaches World Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. He discusses the recent U.S. bombing of Venezuela and the Donroe Doctrine from the long history of American hegemony of the continent. His work focuses on the study of ecumenism in Latin America, not from the top, but from grassroots movements working together to address land disposse...

Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite is an emerita professor and president of Chicago Theological Seminary. She is a feminist theologian, political commentator, and author of mystery novels. As a long-time public intellectual, she reflects on one year into the second Trump administration and the protests against ICE brutality in Minneapolis. She discusses how clergy and faith leaders bear witness in their non...

Sr. Mary John Mananzan, a Missionary Benedictine nun, is a pioneer in Asian feminist theology. She was a keynote speaker at one of the first Asian theological conferences in Sukabumi, Indonesia, in 1981. An educator and activist, she co-founded GABRIELLA, a federation of women’s organizations in the Philippines, and served as its chairperson for 18 years. She discusses the early beginnings of Asia...

Yenny Delgado is a Peruvian psychologist and theologian. She is of Native descent and founded Publica Theology, an online public square where faith, ancestral memory, womanism, and politics converge. She also promotes women doing theology in Abya Yala, facilitates dialogues that elevate women’s visions, and encourages theological reflection from womanist and feminist decolonial perspectives. “Abya...

The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, an Episcopal priest, is Canon in Residence in St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York. At a time when church membership declines in America, Spellers points to the broader trends of disaffiliation from institutions. She interviewed dozens of the Nones, Dones, and Unchurched in San Francisco, Atlanta, the Twin Cities, and New York to find out why they are passing on...

Dr. Frank M. Yamada is Executive Director of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS). There are about 270 schools in the ATS belonging to evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox church families. Over the past several decades, theological education in North America has undergone significant changes. In this episode, Dr. Yamada describes the chal...

This episode celebrates the 20th anniversary of the publication of my book Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology. When I published it in 2005, I did not plan on writing a book on postcolonial theology. It was only from hindsight that I realized that I was using postcolonial theory to scrutinize some of the assumptions of feminist theology. After the book was published, I was glad to see t...

Dr. Deanna Ferree Womack is Associate Professor of history of religions and interfaith studies at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. In this episode, she discusses how missionary discourses and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims contributed to the rise of American Islamophobia in the late twentieth century. In addition to texts, she examines the portrayals of Muslims in postcards, ph...

Prof. Dr. Ulrike Ernst-Auga is a German Protestant theologian and a scholar of cultural and religious studies. She is also the President of the International Association for the Study of Religion and Gender. In this episode, she discusses how she uses postcolonial, postsecular, and queer perspectives to study religion and gender across different contexts. As Christian nationalism has grown, she ex...

Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock is a noted Asian American feminist theologian, activist, and world authority on moral injury. She was Senior Vice President for Moral Injury Recovery Programs at Volunteers of America. In this episode, she explains what moral injury is and the difference between moral injury and PTSD. She describes how moral injury affects her family, especially in her relationship with he...

Bishop Ian T. Douglas is the retired Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and the former Agnes Dun Professor of Mission and World Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School. With Kwok Pui-lan, he has coedited Beyond Colonial Anglicanism (2001) and Living Postcolonial Anglicanism (2025). In this episode, he discusses the historical backgrounds of these two books. In the past tw...

Dr. Traci C. West is Professor Emerite of Christian Ethics and African American Studies at Drew University Theological School. She is known for her scholarship and activism around gender-based violence, particularly against Black women. In this episode, she uses the lens of gender-based violence to examine the moral compass of the U.S. society. She shows how public morality has shifted when sexual...

Dr. Cody J. Sanders is a queer Baptist minister, pastoral theologian, and Associate Professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Previously, he served as pastor of Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this episode, he responds to the taking away of trans rights and the Supreme Court decision not to reconsider the leg...

Julian Davis Reid is the founder of the ministry Notes of Rest®, which invites the weary into the rest of God practiced in the Bible and Black music. He is a musician, speaker, writer, and a Black artist-theologian of Chicago, who graduated from Candler School of Theology. In this episode, he discusses his upbringing in the church, immersed in both Black and classical music. He has studied and app...

Dr. Sharon A. Suh is a professor of Religious Studies at Seattle University, a practicing Buddhist, and a yoga teacher. In this episode, she shares why she edited the book Emergent Dharma, inviting Asian American Buddhist scholar-practitioners to share their practices. American Buddhist scholarship has focused on white Buddhist communities. This book intervenes by introducing the lives and practic...

The Right Revd Humberto Maiztegue Goncalves is the bishop of the Meridional Diocese of  in the southern region of Brazil and a professor of the Bible. The Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil is a progressive church that ordains women to the priesthood and welcomes LGBTQ+ people. In this episode, the bishop introduces the history and mission of the church, the influences of liberation theology and...

Dr. Lisa Isherwood teaches at the University of Wales Trinity and Saint David, and she is a prolific writer and leader on queer theology, feminist theology, and body theology. She and Hugo Córdova Quero coedited the pioneering book The Dare Primer on Global Queer Theologies, with 21 contributors from around the world. In this episode, she shares how this volume came about and her forthcoming book...

Dr. Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez, a street theologian in Mexico City, has taught theology in the U.S., Brazil, and Mexico. He discusses how his decolonial theology is informed by the marginalized and the survivors of violence and oppression. As a novice of the Dominican Order, he visited  Chiapas in southern Mexico and learned about the indigenous peoples’ struggles, wisdom, and hope. His decolonial the...

Dr. Sharon D. Welch is a scholar and activist and a former Provost of the Unitarian Universalist’s Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago. A seasoned activist, she was involved in the women’s movement, peace movement, and direct activism for decades. She has worked with the Chicago League of Women Voters, the Social Enterprise Alliance, and the Community-Based Learning Collaborative, amon...

Dr. Vincent Lloyd is a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University. He researches and teaches about the philosophy of religion, religion and politics, and race. In this episode, he discusses his two forthcoming books: Political Theology Reimagined and What Is Political Theology? While political theology in the past has engaged with the works of Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben...

Dr. Tina Pippin teaches the Bible and Religion at Agnes Scott College, a women’s college in Decatur, Georgia, USA, and she will be the president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2026. In this episode, she discusses her new book The Actual Jesus, which investigates the portrayals of Jesus in films, novels, popular media, and AI. She recalls her training in biblical studies as a graduate stu...

Dr. Antonio Alonso is the Director of Catholic Studies at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He composed the responsorial psalm for the first Mass Pope Francis celebrated in the U.S. in 2015. A Latin Grammy-nominated composer, he discusses the difference between composing liturgical music versus secular music. He began writing music as a teenager and is the author of over 200 published...

Dr. Keun-joo Christine Pae teaches religion and ethics, and women and gender studies at Denison University in Ohio. In this episode, she discusses transpacific imagination in theology and ethics, and her field research on spiritual activism in Korea. As a coeditor of Searching for the Future in the Past: Reclaiming Feminist Theological Visions, she explains why feminist theology continues to be a...