#50 - Heather Miller Rubens Daily Theology Podcast

For the first Daily Theology Podcast episode of 2024, we welcome Heather Miller Rubens of the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies. We talk about how her early interest in Hebrew scriptures led to the study of Jewish Catholic relations, the work of the ICJS, and about how to do interreligious dialogue well. We focus especially on her forthcoming project, In Good Faith: An Argument for an Interreligious Society, and her argument that the public sphere actually needs more talk about religion, not less, if we want to live in a healthy and functioning society.
Dr. Heather Miller Rubens is the Executive Director and Roman Catholic Scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies (ICJS). She has a BA from Georgetown University, and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her research focuses on theological, ethical, and political issues relating to the roles of religion and interreligious dialogue in the public square.
You can also see the full transcript for this episode below.
Thanks as always to Matt Hines of the band Eastern Sea for providing the music for the Daily Theology Podcast.
Transcript of Episode #50 - Heather Miller Rubens
#50 – Heather Miller Rubens
[Opening Music]
Stephen Okey: Welcome to the Daily Theology Podcast, a podcast on the craft and vocation of theology. I'm your host, Stephen Okey.
In today's episode, I talk with Heather Miller Rubens, who is the Executive Director and Roman Catholic scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies. We talk about how her early interest in Hebrew scriptures led to the study of Jewish Catholic relations, the work of the ICJS, and about how to do inter-religious dialogue well. We focus especially on her forthcoming project "In Good Faith: An Argument for an Interreligious Society," and her argument that the public sphere actually needs more talk about religion, not less, if we want to live in a healthy and functioning society.
Thanks to everyone who has subscribed through Substack, where this podcast is joined to my Okeydoxy newsletter. New episodes of the podcast will come out each month while newsletters will come out every two weeks or so. The next one of those will be on Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" as part of my "Celluloid Christ" series.
I hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening.
[Music Transition]
Stephen Okey: Today for the Daily Theology Podcast, I'm talking to my friend, Heather Miller Rubens. Heather, thank you for being here.
Heather Miller Rubens: Thank you for inviting me.
Stephen Okey: You are the executive director, and Roman Catholic scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, which sounds like a lot of heavy double duty. So I like to, I like to open by asking people, how did you get into doing theology?
Heather Miller Rubens: Yeah, so I went to Catholic school my whole life, from elementary school through college, at Georgetown University, where we met as undergrads so many, many years ago. And I was a double major in theology and creative writing. And towards the end of my time there, I actually took a Hebrew Bible class with Father Jim Walsh and started learning Biblical Hebrew with him, and he sort of encouraged me to keep going with religion, the study of religion, as did a lot of my other undergraduate mentors as well.
And I knew I wanted to, to, to study a religion that I didn't identify with. It wasn't mine and really very much enjoyed Hebrew, and so went to the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for a 1 year masters and sort of immerse myself in the study of Judaism and the study of the Hebrew language, and then went to the University of Chicago to pursue a doctoral degree and an additional masters.
And at the University of Chicago I was able to combine my doctoral studies with Judaism and Christianity, and do that under the history of Judaism section. So, I actually trained as a historian at the Unive