On Religion

Anthony Kaldellis is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at The Ohio State University. He is the author of many books, including The Christian Parthenon, Hellenism in Byzantium, and The Byzantine Republic. The focus of today’s conversation is his latest book, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium, out now from Harvard University Press.     Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...

Ever wonder about the Roman catacombs? Look no further. Today I talked to William "Chip" Gruen of Muhlenberg College about his article "Roman Catacombs" from the collection The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries (2019) from Bloomsbury. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Connelly is a Minneapolis-based Soto Zen teacher in the Katagiri-lineage. He offers a wide variety of secular mindfulness trainings, including for police departments, corporate settings, correctional facilities, and addiction recovery groups. He teaches at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center and is the author of Inside the Grass Hut, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara, and most recently Mindfulness...

Monk Yun Rou was ordained in China as a Taoist monk in 2012. His writings and teachings propagate Taoist ideas and focus on environmental conservation, and political and social justice. Yun Rou began his formal martial arts training in 1980 and practiced a wide range of Chinese kung fu styles before settling on tai chi. A student of some of China’s top tai chi grandmasters, he was named Tai Chi Ma...

Philippa J. Meek is a doctoral fellow at the University of Exeter. Meek researches public perceptions versus the realities of plural marriage within Fundamentalist Mormon communities. This episode gives a detailed overview of the court cases Loving V. Virginia, Obergefell vs. Hodges, Lawrence vs. Texas, and then discusses what possible path forward there is for legalization of plural marriage in t...

Dr. Duane Bidwell works to reduce suffering and promote abundant life in all of his teaching, writing, and research. Experiences as chaplain, pastor, spiritual director, pastoral counselor, HIV/AIDS professional, and non-profit director inform his work as teacher-scholar-clinician. CST students have given him teaching and mentoring awards three times since 2014. He is an ordained minister of the P...

In the West, Zen Buddhism has a reputation for paradoxes that defy logic. In particular, the Buddhist concept of nonduality -- the realization that everything in the universe forms a single, integrated whole -- is especially difficult to grasp. In The Other Side of Nothing: The Zen Ethics of Time, Space, and Being (New World Library, 2022), Zen teacher Brad Warner untangles the mystery and explain...

Mitch Horowitz is a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library, a lecturer-in-residence at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, and the PEN Award-winning author of books including Occult America; One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life; Mind as Builder; and the The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality. Mitch has written on everything from the wa...

Dr. Jolyon Thomas is the author of Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan, out now from the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Thomas is assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Nora Rubel is the Jane and Alan Batkin Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair of the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester in New York. Dr. Ben Zeller is associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College in Illinois. They are co-editors of the book Religion, Food, and Eating in North America from Columbia University Press (2014).  Learn more about your ad choic...

Eric Ripert is chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin on 7th Avenue in Manhattan’s Theater District, author of the autobiography 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line from Random House, numerous cookbooks, and host of the television series AVEC Eric. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philip Deslippe is a historian of American religion with a background in American Studies and literature. His research focuses on Asian, metaphysical, and marginal religions in modern America. Philip is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and writing a dissertation on the early history of yoga in the United States from the mid-...

Dr. Kate Kingsbury obtained her doctorate in Anthropology from Oxford University. She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta where she teaches anthropology courses such as Introduction to Anthropology, Anthropology of Religion and Ethnographic Field Methods. Dr. Andrew Chesnut earned his Ph. D degree in Latin American History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and...

Dr. Ann Gleig is associate professor of religious studies at the University of Central Florida. She is co-editor of Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American Hinduism and has published widely on contemporary Buddhism. She is the author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity, from Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Corey Ichigen Hess is an ordained Zen monk and body therapist. He lived a monastic life for many years at Sogenji Zen Monastery in Okayama, Japan. He teaches meditation classes and works with individual clients doing private embodiment process coaching sessions, Sourcepoint Therapy, Structural Integration, and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy at his home on Whidbey Island in Langley, Washington. Le...

Dr. Rachel Lindsey is Assistant Professor in Saint Louis University’s Department of Theological Studies. She has a Ph. D. and M.A. in American Religion from Princeton University, and a B.A. in Religious Studies from Missouri State University. She is the author of Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth Century America from University of North Carolina Press. We discussed Commu...

Dr. Chris Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts from Oklahoma Baptist University, a Master of Theology from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the sole religious studies professor at Washburn University.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Michael Coogan is lecturer on Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Harvard Divinity School and the director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum. He is the author of God and Sex, The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, and numerous textbooks on the Old Testament. He joined me on the phone t...

Dr. Nicole Kirk is a historian of American religious history, associate professor, and the Frank and Alice Schulman Chair of Unitarian Universalist History at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, Illinois. She joined the faculty at Meadville Lombard in 2012 after earning her Ph. D. in American Religious History at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is the author of Wanamaker's Temple:...

Dr. Andrew Chesnut earned his Ph. D degree in Latin American History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and joined the History Department faculty at the University of Houston in 1997. He quickly became an internationally recognized expert on Latin American religious history. Professor Chesnut was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Bishop Walter Sullivan Chair in Catholi...

Jonathan Homrighausen is an Episcopal writer and scholar on Scripture, art, and interreligious dialogue. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Duke University, after earning his MA in Biblical Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. His latest book, Illuminating Justice: The Ethical Imagination of The Saint John’s Bible (out from Liturgical Press in 201...

Alicia Batten received her BA in Humanistic Studies from McGill University, and completed an MA and PhD in Theology, with a focus on the New Testament, at the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses upon the origins and development of early Christianity, with particular emphasis upon the ancient Mediterranean cultural context (s), including material c...

Rima Fujita was born in Tokyo and now resides in Southern California. She graduated from Parsons School of Design with her B.F.A. and has exhibited her work internationally to much acclaim. As a descendant of the Last Samurai her creative aesthetics is strongly influenced by the philosophy of Bushido and Buddhism. Known for her distinctive style with vivid colors on black surface, Rima’s works are...

Dr. Barbato researches the mechanisms and strategies of interreligious communication with a focus on high-level actors and cultural diplomacy, such as the Pope. She is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Münster in Germany and is in partnership with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in the UK. She is currently developing a project on Hindu-Christian dialogue. She’s also a scholar of...

Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson is the elected Allsherjargoði (high priest) of the Icelandic pagan group, Ásatrúarfélagið, or Ásatrú Association. He is also a musician and composer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices