Religion in Praxis

Tornike Metreveli
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Religion in Praxis is a monthly podcast hosted by Dr. Tornike Metreveli, Associate Professor in Sociology of Religions and Associate Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University. The purpose of the podcast is to enhance knowledge and understanding about the fundamental historical, political and social processes affecting the relationship between religion, nationalism and theology. NB: In the spirit of taking new tools seriously rather than pretending they aren't there, some of our episode artwork is generated with Gemini and ChatGPT.

  1. 4d ago

    Ep. 52: Who Decided What Christianity Was?

    Professor Paula Fredriksen joins me to discuss her new book, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton University Press). We talk about a Roman world full of gods, where Jews and Christians argued less about whether other gods existed than about which one deserved worship. We ask when Christianity and Judaism became two separate things, how the surviving record was shaped by those who won, and what changed once emperors began settling theological disputes. We also ask whether Orthodox Christianity's account of this history as continuity can sit alongside a historian's account of contingency. Paula Fredriksen is Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University and Distinguished Visiting Professor emerita at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

    Ep. 52: Who Decided What Christianity Was?

  2. Aug 31

    Ep. 51: The Church Down the Road

    Anthropology spent two decades learning to take Amazonian and Melanesian ontologies seriously: worlds where persons are made rather than born, where objects act, where the self has porous edges. All the while there was a candle-lit church down the road doing the same thing, in Greek, on Sunday. Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz (Northeastern University) argues that the anthropology of Christianity has been shaped by Protestant assumptions it never examined, and that Eastern Orthodoxy keeps getting filed as the discipline's "Other" as a result. Her answer: treat theology as data rather than decoration, starting with theosis, the communal process of becoming divine through icons, liturgy, and the ordinary texture of church life. We get into what that actually changes. Whether ordinary believers can make theology or only receive it. Whether convert Orthodoxy in Appalachia is the most Protestant kind of Orthodoxy there is. What happens to the lone rights-bearing individual of liberal politics if salvation is something you can only become together. And the uncomfortable political history of communal ontologies, from sobornost' to organicist authoritarianism, and whether theosis can be taken seriously as an analytic without inheriting that shadow. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University and the author of Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia  (Fordham, 2022). Her paper is "Theological Possibilities and the Anthropology of Eastern Orthodox Christianity."

    Ep. 51: The Church Down the Road

  3. May 31

    Ep. 50: The Looking-Away: How Tolerance Really Works

    We like to believe the world divides cleanly: tolerant societies and intolerant ones, free and unfree, them and us. But what if tolerance rarely works that way? In this episode we sit with Professor Peter Ho and discuss his co-authored book that looks at how states actually treat religion, and finds something stranger than the headlines suggest. Sometimes the freedom to live your faith doesn't come from a right written into law, but from a quiet arrangement: an official who decides not to look, a grave that exists in the gap between the rules and the living. We ask where that leaves our confident rankings of who is tolerant and who is not, whether the "tolerant West" is as different from China as it likes to think, and what it means when social peace depends on everyone agreeing not to notice the contradiction. A conversation about law, belief, and the spaces in between. For more information about the book please visit the link https://www.recoland.eu/tolerance-of-informality/

    Ep. 50: The Looking-Away: How Tolerance Really Works

  4. Apr 30

    Ep. 49: When Politics Becomes Prophecy: Daniel DeHanas on Trump, Faith, and the New Apocalyptic

    What if the standard explanations of Trump's appeal - economic grievance, cultural backlash, status anxiety - are missing the most important part of the story? In this episode of Religion in Praxis, Tornike Metreveli sits down with Dr. Daniel Nilsson DeHanas (King's College London) to examine the spiritual architecture of contemporary populism. Dr. DeHanas argues that what we are witnessing in 2024 and 2025 is not simply politics dressed up in religious language - it is something qualitatively different, with its own theology, its own prophets, and its own apocalyptic horizon.

    Ep. 49: When Politics Becomes Prophecy: Daniel DeHanas on Trump, Faith, and the New Apocalyptic

  5. Feb 28

    Ep. 48: The 700-Year-Old Idea Behind ISIS and al-Qāʿida

    To most people, democracy is a neutral political arrangement. To radical salafīs — the ideologues of al-Qāʿida and the Islamic State — it is polytheism, deserving violent eradication. The reason lies in one medieval theologian: Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), who argued that Islam is defined not by believing in one God, but by worshipping one God — exclusively. The consequences are radical: obedience is worship; obeying human law is worshipping humans; every parliament and constitution is therefore idolatry. In this episode, Daniel Lav traces this doctrine — theonomy — from its 14th-century origins, through the Wahhābī movement, to the manifesto that justified assassinating President Sādāt, and on to ISIS. Episode cover Jabhat al-Nusra/al-Manara al-Bayda.

    Ep. 48: The 700-Year-Old Idea Behind ISIS and al-Qāʿida

  6. Jan 31

    Ep. 47: When Constitutions Exclude: The Politics of Constitutional Intolerance

    In this episode of Religion in Praxis, we sit down with Dr. Marietta van der Toll, author of Constitutional Intolerance: Making and Breaking Citizenship in the Age of Diversity (Cambridge University Press). Marietta takes us beyond familiar debates about rights and multiculturalism to explore a provocative question: Can constitutional systems themselves become intolerant? Drawing on rich comparative research, she explains how constitutions—often assumed to be inclusive frameworks—can instead marginalize or exclude certain citizens in the name of liberal order. We discuss why this matters for contemporary democracies, how legal texts can reflect deeper social and political tensions, and what this means for debates about citizenship, belonging, and the rule of law.

    Ep. 47: When Constitutions Exclude: The Politics of Constitutional Intolerance

  7. 11/29/2025

    Ep. 46: Literary Corner: "Silence" by Shusaku Endo

    In this episode of Religion in Praxis: Literary Corner, we examine Shusaku Endo’s Silence—a haunting novel about faith, doubt, and God’s silence in the face of suffering. Set in 17th-century Japan, the story follows Jesuit priest Sebastião Rodrigues, who embarks on a dangerous mission to find his missing mentor and minister to persecuted Christians. But as he witnesses unspeakable cruelty and hears nothing from God, Rodrigues faces an agonizing question: Is faith still faith when God remains silent? We discuss: 🔹 The problem of divine silence—why doesn’t God intervene? 🔹 Rodrigues’ Christ-like self-image and his crisis of faith 🔹 The moral dilemma of apostasy—can denying faith be an act of mercy? 🔹 Connections between Endo and Dostoevsky on suffering and belief This is a story of betrayal, resilience, and the painful complexity of faith. Listen now and join us in unpacking one of the most thought-provoking religious novels of the 20th century.

    Ep. 46: Literary Corner: "Silence" by Shusaku Endo

  8. 07/31/2025

    Ep. 45: Beneath the Blessing: Gilead and the Weight of Grace

    In this episode, we delve into Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Gilead, uncovering how its epistolary form becomes a vessel for theological reflection, intergenerational reckoning, and luminous grace. Through the voice of Reverend John Ames, Gilead invites us to ponder the sacred in the everyday, the moral weight of history, and the redemptive potential of love, even in a world marred by injustice. A tender, searching conversation about religion not as dogma, but as a lived, breathing ethic.

    Ep. 45: Beneath the Blessing: Gilead and the Weight of Grace
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About

Religion in Praxis is a monthly podcast hosted by Dr. Tornike Metreveli, Associate Professor in Sociology of Religions and Associate Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Lund University. The purpose of the podcast is to enhance knowledge and understanding about the fundamental historical, political and social processes affecting the relationship between religion, nationalism and theology. NB: In the spirit of taking new tools seriously rather than pretending they aren't there, some of our episode artwork is generated with Gemini and ChatGPT.

Information

  • Creator
    Tornike Metreveli
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    51
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Tornike Metreveli
  • Show Website
    Religion in Praxis