On Religion

New Books Network
  • 5.0 (1)
  • RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY

Discussions about religion with Greg Soden.

  1. 5D AGO

    Kira Ganga Kieffer, "Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America" (Princeton UP, 2026)

    Kira Ganga Kieffer (Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Wesleyan University; PhD, Boston University, 2023) studies contemporary American spiritualities, health, gender, and marketing. Her first book, a history of religion and vaccine skepticism, Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America (Princeton UP, 2026), is  forthcoming from Princeton University Press. She is the author of “Smelling Things: Essential Oils and Essentialism in Contemporary American Spirituality,” in Religion & American Culture (2021) and “Manifesting Millions: How Women’s Spiritual Entrepreneurship Genders Capitalism,” in Nova Religio (2020), which received the Thomas Robbins Award for Article of the Year. She has written for Religion & Politics, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Religion for Breakfast. Kieffer uses textual analysis of spiritual marketing materials to discover how consumer culture creates religious concepts within a secular context. Focused on spiritual items and practices that are marketed to women, Kieffer compares the usage of essential oils by three very different groups of spiritual practitioners: contemporary yogis, evangelical Christians, and witches. Although the usage of essential oils is consumerized, Kieffer argues, the beliefs and practices created by “oilers” are nonetheless meaningful responses to the spiritual yearning. Essential oil practices blur the lines between religious traditions, sharpen individual spirituality, and work to create new collective identities. Order "Unvaccinated Under God" here: here Visit Sacred Writes here: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    43 min

  2. APR 23

    Liz Bucar, "Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us" (Penguin, 2026)

    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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    45 min

  3. FEB 9

    Charles Alistair McCrary, "Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

    "Sincerely held religious belief" is now a common phrase in discussions of American religious freedom, from opinions handed down by the US Supreme Court to local controversies. The "sincerity test" of religious belief has become a cornerstone of US jurisprudence, framing what counts as legitimate grounds for First Amendment claims in the eyes of the law. In Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers (U Chicago Press, 2022), Charles McCrary provides an original account of how sincerely held religious belief became the primary standard for determining what legally counts as authentic religion. McCrary skillfully traces the interlocking histories of American sincerity, religion, and secularism starting in the mid-nineteenth century. He analyzes a diverse archive, including Herman Melville's novel The Confidence-Man, vice-suppressing police, Spiritualist women accused of being fortune-tellers, eclectic conscientious objectors, secularization theorists, Black revolutionaries, and anti-LGBTQ litigants. Across this history, McCrary reveals how sincerity and sincerely held religious belief developed as technologies of secular governance, determining what does and doesn't entitle a person to receive protections from the state. This fresh analysis of secularism in the United States invites further reflection on the role of sincerity in public life and religious studies scholarship, asking why sincerity has come to matter so much in a supposedly "post-truth" era. Dr. Charles McCrary is a scholar of American religion, focusing on secularism, religious freedom, race, and science. His work has been published in academic journals including the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Religion & American Culture, and Religion. He also has written for popular outlets such as Religion & Politics, The Revealer, and The New Republic, many of which are linked in the show notes of this episode. Before coming to ASU, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Read more by Charles McCrary: "The Supreme Court and the Strange Politics of the 'Sincere Believer,'" Religion & Politics, Apr. 2022 "The Antisocial Strain of Sincere Religious Beliefs Is on the Rise," The New Republic, Apr. 2022 "The Baffling Legal Standard Fueling Religious Objections to Vaccine Mandates," The New Republic, Sept. 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    55 min

  4. 04/11/2024

    Elyse Ambrose, "A Blackqueer Sexual Ethics: Embodiment, Possibility, and Living Archive" (T&T Clark, 2024)

    In A Blackqueer Sexual Ethics: Embodiment, Possibility, and Living Archive (T&T Clark, 2024), Elyse Ambrose looks to an archive of blackqueerness as an authoritative source for religious ethical reflection. This approach counters the disintegrative norms of anti-black and anti-body traditionalism in Christian sexual ethics, even those that strive to be liberative. It builds upon a tradition of black queer and LGBTQ+-centered critique at the intersections of race, sexuality, gender, and religion through exploring the moral imagination of sexual and gender non-conformist communities in 1920's Harlem (their rent parties, blues environments, and Hamilton Lodge Ball); ethics and theology blackqueering the disciplines; and contemporary oral histories (including photographs of the subjects by the scholar-artist) of those doing ethics in their blackqueerness. These serve as integrative sites that signal blackqueer ethical counter-patterns of communal belonging, individual and collective becoming, goodness, embodied spirit/inspirited bodies, and shared thriving. Emphases on both personal and social right-relatedness mark a shift from Christian sexual ethics based on rules, toward a communal relations-based transreligious ethics of sexuality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    35 min

  5. 03/11/2024

    Aizaiah G. Yong, "Multiracial Cosmotheandrism: A Practical Theology of Multiracial Experiences" (Orbis, 2023)

    In Multiracial Cosmotheandrism: A Practical Theology of Multiracial Experiences (Orbis, 2023), Aizaiah G. Yong critically considers how the lives and spiritual experiences of mixed-race people can transform efforts for racial justice across the planet. Yong is inspired by the life and philosophy of Raimon Panikkar, a twentieth-century interreligious spiritual leader whose own experiences of the world were foundationally shaped by his life as a mixed-race person. This book focuses on the experiences of mixed-race people and challenges practical theology to broaden its own attention to practices of spirituality beyond mono-racial paradigms. Mixed-race people have profound resources for confronting and healing from racism and racial oppression within their lives and their stories, and this book demonstrates calls for strengthened collective efforts to tend to the beautiful depths of spiritual formation for mixed-race people. Rev. Aizaiah G. Yong (Ph.D., Practical Theology, Claremont School of Theology) serves as Assistant Professor of Spirituality at the Claremont School of Theology in Southern California, USA. He is an ordained Pentecostal Christian minister within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a recognized facilitator in the Compassion Practice and an Internal Family Systems Practitioner. Growing up in a multiracial and immigrant family, he is committed to sustaining transformational and collective efforts that address ongoing realities of social oppression with presence, passion, and peace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    39 min

  6. 02/04/2024

    Danielle Dulsky, "Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book" (New World Library, 2023)

    Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book (New World Library, 2023)l is a collection of nature-inspired prayers, mythic incantations, stories, and pagan poetry that can be enjoyed slowly or all at once. It will resonate with anyone looking to soothe the wounds of modernity with eco-devotional language, spellwork, and daily spiritual nourishment. Danielle Dulsky speaks to the expanding movement of those returning to slow, simple living and cultivating an Earth-inspired, sustainable existence. Organized around thirteen archetypes and their themes, ranging from the Mountain Mage (solitude) and Bone-Witch (grievers) to the Heathen Queen (empowerment) and Shepherd (nurturing), Bones & Honey will carry you to the “third road,” the unforeseen way that arises from the tension of opposites. Danielle Dulsky is an Aquarian mischief maker, painter, and word-witch. Author of The Holy Wild Grimoire (New World Library, 2022), Sacred Hags Oracle (New World Library, 2021), Seasons of Moon and Flame (New World Library, 2020), The Holy Wild (New World Library, 2018), and Woman Most Wild (New World Library, 2017), Danielle is the founder of The Hag School and believes in the power of wild collectives and sudden circles of curious dreamers, cunning Witches, and rebellious artists in tending to the world’s healing. Mother to two wildlings and partner to a potter, Danielle fills her world with nature, family, old stories, and intentional awe. Find her in the haunted wilds of central New York or the whiskey-soaked streets of a Pennsylvania steel town; she calls both places home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    45 min

  7. 01/11/2024

    Darnise C. Martin, "Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church" (NYU Press, 2005)

    Darnise C. Martin's Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (NYU Press, 2005) draws on rich ethnographic work in a Religious Science church in Oakland, California, to illuminate the ways a group of African Americans has adapted a religion typically thought of as white to fit their needs and circumstances. This predominantly African American congregation is an anomalous phenomenon for both Religious Science and African American religious studies. It stands at the intersection of New Thought doctrine, characterized by personal empowerment teachings,and a culturally familiar liturgical style reminiscent of Black Pentecostals and Black Spiritualists. This group challenges oversimplified concepts of the Black church experience and broadens the concept of Black religion outside the boundaries of Christianity—raising questions about what it means to be an African American congregation, and about the nature of blackness itself. Beyond Christianity adds a new dimension to the scholarship on Black religion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    48 min

  8. 10/08/2023

    Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein, "The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice" (U Notre Dame Press, 2023)

    Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein's book The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice (U Notre Dame Press, 2023) explores African theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye’s constructive initiative to include African women’s experiences and voices within Christian theological discourse. Mercy Amba Oduyoye, a renowned Ghanaian Methodist theologian, has worked for decades to address issues of poverty, women’s rights, and global unrest. She is one of the founders of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, a pan-African ecumenical organization that mentors the next generation of African women theologians to counter the dearth of academic theological literature written by African women. This book offers an in-depth analysis of Oduyoye’s life and work, providing a much-needed corrective to Eurocentric, colonial, and patriarchal theologies by centering the experiences of African women as a starting point from which theological reflection might begin. Oluwatomisin Olayinka Oredein’s study begins by narrating the story of Mercy Oduyoye’s life, focusing on her early years, which led to her eventual interest in women’s equality and African women’s theology. At the heart of the book is a close analysis of Oduyoye’s theological thought, exploring her unique approach to four issues: the doctrine of God, Christology, theological anthropology, and ecclesiology. Through the course of these examinations, Oredein shows how Oduyoye’s life story and theological output are intimately intertwined. Stories of gender formation, racial ideas, and cultural foundations teem throughout Oduyoye’s construction of a Christian theological story. Oduyoye shows that one’s theology does not leave particularity behind but rather becomes the locus in which the fullness of divinity might be known. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    41 min
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About

Discussions about religion with Greg Soden.

Information

  • Creator
    New Books Network
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    219
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Greg Soden
  • Show Website
    On Religion