Research On Religion

It is said that Jesus hits like the atom bomb.  If so, then Buddha, or at least this episode on Buddhism and near-future technology, might be the daisy cutter of philosophy.  Whereas most of the episodes on Research on Religion have focused on Christianity, the dominant faith tradition in the English-speaking world and the topic most in my wheelhouse, I tried to venture outside of the box on a regular basis to learn about other religions.  Relative to Christianity, there isn't as much social...Keep on reading: #1 Matthew Moore on Buddhism, Meditating Machines, and the Robopocalypse.

One of the greatest joys of doing this podcast for the past eight years has been to meet some pretty incredible people who are just "ordinary" citizens going about their daily life.  My goal from the beginning of this project was to highlight "practitioners" who "learn by doing" and to bring forth the knowledge they possess.  Such practitioners often have more valuable insights into human behavior than the scholars who study these folks.  Without doubt, my favorite category of interviews have...Keep on reading: #2 Daniel Stiles on Cowboy Churches

Academia is a world that can be filled with intense jealousies and envy, wherein one professor is always concerned why the work of another professor is more cited than their own.  We all suffer from that sin, whether we admit it or not.  However, Dr. Ron Hassner (UC-Berkeley) is probably the one scholar in my field of religion and politics whose work I have the highest respect for and think his writing should be getting as much attention as possible.  We featured Prof. Hassner on our show...Keep on reading: #3 Ron Hassner on Sacred Spaces and Holy Conflict

During 2017, we undertook a series of episodes dedicated to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.  A number of superb interviews came from that series, including the Catholic response to Protestantism with James Felak.  However, my favorite episode of this bunch was with Dr. Emily Fisher Gray of Norwich University, who (like Colleen Haight last week) had incredible enthusiasm for the topic.  I found this to be a very accessible introduction to the thinking of Luther and his life and...Keep on reading: #4 Emily Fisher Gray on Luther’s 95 Theses

As noted in my farewell monologue, the characteristics that I look for in an interview are topics that are a little off the beaten path and the enthusiasm of the scholar for his/her topic.  Dr. Colleen Haight, a professor of economics at San Jose State University, is the perfect embodiment of both these characteristics.  Not only has Colleen studied the economics of fair trade coffee, and the historical importance of Jewish peddlers on the American frontier, she also undertook a project (with...Keep on reading: #5 Colleen Haight on the Oracle of Delphi

Organized religion and religious believers often get painted with a bad reputation, and sometimes it is justly due, but most of the time it is not.  Prof. Rod Stark, a co-founder of Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion, explains the benefits of religion on a wide range of social behavior.  Rod has long been my most favorite sociologist of religion and has had a profound impact on the way I write.  While Prof. Stark can write research papers in academic jargon with the best of them, the...Keep on reading: #6 Rod Stark on How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists

Modern social media is a wondrous thing.  Without it, this podcast would have never come into being, and it is unlikely that I would have been able to find half of my guests.  Many of my ideas for shows were culled from posts I saw on Facebook, Twitter, or  internet news and scholarly feeds I receive (not to mention emails from listeners suggesting potential guests).  One such guest came to me via Facebook as I was linking to some old high school friends.   Jim Papandrea was two years my...Keep on reading: #7 Jim Papandrea on Christology, Superheroes, and Science Fiction Films

I owe a great deal professionally to the work of Larry Iannaccone, a professor of economics at Chapman University as he played a pivotal role in my intellectual development, putting me on a research course that landed me where I am today.  We recount some of our adventures in this podcast, including how I first found one of his many outstanding articles, as well as his surprise to find that somebody was citing his research.  Prof. Iannaccone is one of the founding fathers of the new "economics...Keep on reading: #8 Larry Iannaccone on Sacrifice, Stigma, and the Economics of Religion

Prof. Carmel Chiswick (George Washington University) is a scholar's scholar.  Dr. Chiswick is an economist to be reckoned with when it comes to what we usually think about when we talk economics (e.g., labor policy), but she also has the intellectual breadth to be able to address topics outside of the narrow confines of academically-defined fields.   Add to this that Carmel has an incredible ability to teach people through stories, and often overlooked skill in our academic profession.  This...Keep on reading: #9 Carmel Chiswick on the Economics of Being Jewish in America

This was the very first podcast episode we aired and the second interview that I conducted.  I learned of Prof. Karrie Koesel (of the University of Oregon at the time, now at Notre Dame) when I was asked to review grant proposals for a Templeton Fund Initiative.  To discover that there was a young scholar just down the road from me who was doing fascinating research (and actually citing me) was a wonderful discovery.  I drove down to Oregon and interviewed Karrie in person.  I was further...Keep on reading: #10 Karrie Koesel on Religion and Politics in China