The Classical Ideas Podcast

Gregory Soden

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 United States, despite being one of the most religiously diverse nation on earth. Today, religion is implicated in nearly every major national and international issue. The public arena is awash in religious explanations and arguments for nearly every issue. The goal of The Classical Ideas Podcast is to empower students with the core knowledge of major world religions to improve citizenship and agency in a diverse society. Welcome to the show!

  1. 1 day ago

    EP 354: Transforming the American Sangha w/Dr. Nalika Gajaweera

    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 Buddhist ethics and practices of giving shaped Sri Lankan local NGOs doing humanitarianism work in the context of two disasters: the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and ethnic conflict that ended in 2009. A former Fulbright fellow, Dr. Gajaweera has conducted fieldwork in North America and South Asia, managing and conducting complex multi-stakeholder research projects, exploring power building efforts among marginalized groups. Funders for these projects included Kataly Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Hilton Foundation and GHR. Nalika Gajawira will collaborate with Ann Gleig on a comparative ethnographic study of how Buddhist communities adopt and adapt popular spiritual exercises such as "secular" mindfulness and yoga classes within a wider Buddhist framework. Their work aims to illustrate the processes, frameworks and relationships that can enable more responsible relationships between specific religious communities and the word of spiritual wellness practices. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group Visit Nalika Gajaweera: https://nalikagajaweera.com/ https://dornsife.usc.edu/crcc/profile/nalika-gajaweera/

    40 min

  2. 30 June

    EP 353: Western Esoteric Tradition and "Scientific Progress" with Dr. Tara Isabella Burton

    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 University, Hobart and William Smith College, Radford University, and Covenant College. Her research has been supported by the Mercatus Center and the Robert Novak Foundation. Burton is currently at work on a book about the influence of the Western esoteric tradition, from alchemy to Freemasonry to 19th-century "occult" practices like Theosophy and spiritualism, in the development of what we think of today as "scientific progress." She argues that the category of the "magical" should be understood as part of a wider theological tradition of understanding what it means for human beings to have mastery over nature. Old Gods, to be published by Convergent (Penguin Random House) in 2026, will trace this influence to the resurgence of interest in "occult" practices in contemporary Silicon Valley culture.  Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group Visit Tara Isabella Burton: http://www.taraisabellaburton.com

    33 min

  3. 23 June

    EP 352: A Perturbed System Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World w/ Dr. Susannah Crockford

    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 discourse in the United States and northern Europe, Crockford shows, is framed by the same theological motifs that drove extraction, including ideas about prophecy, mediation, sacrifice, original sin, cult, messiah, and apocalypse. By listening to people on the edge of the crisis, A Perturbed System reveals a world in transition, what happens when worlds end—ecologically, socially, politically, and personally—and how we might live through these endings together.    Susannah Crockford is a lecturer at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, also published by the University of Chicago Press.   Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group   Buy the book: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/C/S/au86433807.html

    46 min

  4. 14 June

    EP 351: Dr. Ira Helderman on Adverse Meditation Effects

    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 peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Academy of Religion and, committed to public scholarship, writes regularly for popular publications such as Psychology Today, Religion Dispatches, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Dr. Helderman is also a practicing psychotherapist and clinical supervisor who has worked in the mental health field for over 20 years in a variety of clinical settings from in-patient addiction treatment centers and psychiatric hospitals to his current private practice. Helderman is currently studying the widespread psychotherapeutic use of Buddhist meditation. Though meditation is often described by patients as a way of easing spiritual yearning, it can also generate "adverse effects" like agitation, traumatic memories, and hallucinations. Dr. Helderman will examine how psychotherapists have conducted a "differential diagnosis" of such cases—distinguishing spiritual experience from psychopathology—and showing that how we define what is and is not "religious" shapes the fields of mental health, psychology, and religious studies. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group Visit Dr. Ira Helderman: https://irahelderman.com

    38 min

  5. 1 June

    EP 350: The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism w/Dr. Annie Selak

    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 College and M.Div at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Selak has over 15 years of experience in Catholic ministry, and her writing has appeared in Modern Theology, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and America. Her forthcoming book, The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism (Fordham University Press, 2026) puts forth a vision of the church in the shadow of wounds, guided by a feminist methodology. Selak argues that the Catholic Church must confront its own injuries in order to credibly be Church. Using a feminist framework, she develops a new ecclesiology around three wounds, racism, sexism, and clericalism, that actively harm the Body of Christ and distort its witness. Attentive to history, pastoral practice, and lived experience, Selak shows how each wound is both inflicted by the Church and borne within the Church. She offers the resurrected body of Jesus, scarred yet no longer bleeding, as a guiding metaphor for ecclesial renewal, a body that does not deny its wounds but is transformed through them. Drawing on Karl Rahner, she grounds hope in the reign of God while insisting on concrete institutional and spiritual conversion. Written for students and scholars, ministers and lay leaders, The Wounded Church uncovers overlooked histories tied to racism, sexism, and the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and proposes clear theological principles for reform. The result is a constructive, pastorally engaged vision that tells the truth about harm and imagines credible paths toward change, accountability, and justice. You can use the code "church2026" at the link below to receive a discounted book and free shipping.  https://fordhampress.com/the-wounded-church-hb-9781531513368.html

    38 min

  6. 22 May

    EP 349: The YouTube Prosperity Gospel w/Dr. Kaitlyn Ugoretz

    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 award-winning educational YouTube channel Eat Pray Anime, in podcast interviews, cultural consulting, and her writing for venues including Religion News Service and The Conversation. Ugoretz will conduct a digital ethnography of Japanese tidying guru Marie Kondo. She notes that while Western scholarship tends to consider Kondo to be "spiritual," the Japanese find her to be too "religious," reflecting aspects of Buddhist and Shinto traditions. This leads Ugoretz to argue that our understanding of spiritual yearning should expand---it is neither a new nor an American phenomenon. The boundary between what is "religious" and what is "spiritual" is historically and cultural constructed, and shaped by ideas of race, class, and globalization. She argues that spiritual yearning emerges from human existential needs and concerns, and should be distinguished from the capitalistic patterns of "spiritual consumption" that it often inspires. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group Visit Eat, Pray, Anime: https://www.youtube.com/c/eatprayanime

    34 min

  7. 13 May

    EP 348: Dr. Kira Ganga Kieffer on "Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America"

    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 consumption. Order "Unvaccinated Under God" here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691224664/unvaccinated-under-god Visit Sacred Writes here: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group

    41 min

  8. 28 Apr

    EP 347: Beyond Wellness with Liz Bucar

    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 wellness industry has sold us a promise that we can find it if we just buy the right products, attend the right retreats, and follow the right celebrity gurus. But is this true? Or are we picking and choosing from a self-care salad bar in ways that satisfy our hunger but don't truly nourish us? When we approach practices like yoga and ayahuasca as fitness routines and life hacks, we miss out on the sacred wisdom they have to offer us. But by digging into the real and often ancient religious traditions behind these practices, from Buddhism to Christianity and beyond, we can make them more meaningful, ethical, and effective—without the often unpleasant baggage of joining an organized religion. In this engaging and deeply personal book, award-winning scholar and writer Liz Bucar embarks on a quest to get to the heart of "spiritual but not religious" activities from detox diets to sound baths. As she tries out each practice for herself, she asks how we can get more out of it by tuning out the hype and taking the religious meaning behind it seriously—with emotionally profound and often surprising results. Whether it's as simple as setting an intention for a yoga asana or as complex as reevaluating what a "higher power" is, it's time to understand, experience, and simply get more out of our spiritual practices. It's time to dig deeper with Beyond Wellness. Order the Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774524/beyond-wellness-by-liz-bucar/ Visit: https://www.sacred-writes.org

    42 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

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 United States, despite being one of the most religiously diverse nation on earth. Today, religion is implicated in nearly every major national and international issue. The public arena is awash in religious explanations and arguments for nearly every issue. The goal of The Classical Ideas Podcast is to empower students with the core knowledge of major world religions to improve citizenship and agency in a diverse society. Welcome to the show!

Information

  • Creator
    Gregory Soden
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    357
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Classical Ideas Podcast 2017-2020
  • Show Website
    The Classical Ideas Podcast

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