Pod Only Knows Kelly J. Baker and John Brooks

For many, Labor Day is not much more than the end of summer movie season, a reason to have a cookout, or the symbolic beginning of the school year. It's the holiday we talk least about, in large part because the labor movement is one of the most underexamined areas of American history.
So in honor of Labor Day, Kelly and John talked to Dr. Heath Carter, who has written extensively about the sometimes helpful, sometimes hostile role religion has played in driving the labor movement.
Heath is an associate professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned a BA in English and Theology from Georgetown University in 2003, an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2005, and a PhD in history from the University of Notre Dame in 2012.
And he is the author of Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago, which was the runner up for the American Society of Church History’s 2015 Brewer Prize, as well as the co-editor of three books: The Pew and the Picket Line: Christianity and the American Working Class, Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism, and A Documentary History of Religion in America, 4th Ed.
He is currently working on a new book entitled On Earth as it is in Heaven: Social Christians and the Fight to End American Inequality, which retells the story of the American social gospel.
You can find more about him at his website: https://heathwcarter.com/

Did you know A.I is not just the title of one of the best movies of the 21st century - it's a also a thing that's making a lot of news??
Well, we did, because we're very young and hip and with it.
In this episode, we consider the implication of some of the emerging areas of A.I. - like ChatGPT - on religion.
First, Kelly spent some time chatting with Jesus on two different platforms - a text based interface where users can ask Jesus questions and get text message responses (and can also ask the Devil questions...for a price!! *cue ominous music*)
Second, John takes a look at the now defunct Way of the Future upstart religion, which had the goal of forming a benevolent relationship with our omniscient cyber overlords before they decide to go all SkyNet on us.
We consider whether A.I. Jesus may replace tradition religious experiences, like prayer, and what religious movements that emerge around emerging technology, like Scientology and Heaven's Gate, tell us about religion itself.

It's Kelly's birthday (John's was yesterday...) and so we decided to talk to one of her favorites - Solomon Missouri, known to those in the know as Twitter's Pastor.
In his own words, Rev. Solomon Missouri's ministry focuses on sexuality and spirituality outside and beyond church walls. We talk about how he stumbled into his role as Twitter's favorite spiritual leader, where Christianity is going, how he ministers to atheists who are still looking for community and support.
You can find out more about his on his website here: https://www.solomonmissouri.com/
Rev. Missouri is also on all the social medias of note, including, of course (we still call it) Twitter @solomonmissouri

Dr. Bradley Onishi is the author of the recent Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism and What Comes Next as well as the co-host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus, which focuses on the the state of Christian Nationalism from a variety of angles.
He joined John and Kelly to talk about his book, his experience growing up in California and converting to evangelical Christianity (which he would later go on to leave), and where exactly we are in the fight for a secular democracy in America.
You can find out more about Brad, his books, and the podcast at his website: https://www.bradonishi.com/

On this chit-chat, we try to define what we mean when we say "authentic", what is "the true self", and we are all so prone to dividing religion into "real" and "fake".
Also - fitness cults, the console wars, Coke and Pepsi, and Haruki Murakami.
For this episode, we looked at work by Chrissy Stroop (https://religiondispatches.org/christian-nationalism-is-authentically-christian-and-according-to-a-new-poll-most-white-evangelicals-are-supporters/), Jessica Grose (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/opinion/religion-fitness.html), and David Chidester (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242807/authentic-fakes)

Shreena Gandhi is a part of the Religious Studies Department at Michigan State University, where is primarily teaches classes on religion and race in the Americas.
She is currently finishing up edits on a manuscript, A Cultural History of Yoga in the United States, which looks at the impacts of race, gender and class on how yoga is practiced and commodified in religious and secular spaces.
And she is working on two other projects: one on religious seeking in the colonial and post-colonial global south, which uses her grandfather’s writings and books as primary evidence, as well as the writings of other colonial and post-colonial religious seekers.
And the other is a collaborative project on how to transform U.S. religious history into an anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-sexist discipline which helps move forward the goals of decolonization.
She joined Kelly and John to talk about the history of yoga in the United States, how the story of colonialism and white supremacy cannot be separated from the popularity of yoga in the west, and what can and should be done about it. She also shared her thoughts on the past and future of the caste system.