Temeko Ricardson grew up in the Protestant American tradition; she was a “GPK” (grand-pastor-kid) from a family of church leaders. She has been thinking about Christianity and social issues—failure to include God’s people into His Church, fract

Crawford Gribben, "J. N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)

2 days ago 43m 46s

J.N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism (Oxford University Press, 2024) describes the work of one of the most important and under-studied theologians in the history of Christianity. In the late 1820s, John Nelson Darby abandoned his caree

Michael Scott and Michael Collins, "Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context" (Vernon Press, 2022)

3 days ago 48m 31s

The enigma of William Shakespeare's religious beliefs has long tantalized scholars and enthusiasts alike. Vernon Press's latest publication, Christian Shakespeare?: A Collection of Essays on Shakespeare in His Christian Context (Vernon Press, 2

John Tolan, "England's Jews: Finance, Violence, and the Crown in the Thirteenth Century" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

4 days ago 58m 13s

In 1290, Jews were expelled from England and subsequently largely expunged from English historical memory. Yet for two centuries they occupied important roles in mediaeval English society. England’s Jews revisits this neglected chapter of Engli

James N. Neumann, "The Gospel of the Son of God: Psalm 2 and Mark's Narrative Christology" (T&T Clark, 2023)

6 days ago 23m 39s

What does it mean for the Gospel of Mark to portray Jesus as Son of God? Apparently far more than what past scholarship has recognized! James Neumann argues that Mark presents Jesus’ life from beginning to end as the actualization of Psalm 2, a

Charles E. Curran, "Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian" (Georgetown UP, 2006)

7 days ago 59m 35s

Over the course of our 60th anniversary in 2024, we'll be revisiting some classic Georgetown books. First up is Loyal Dissent by Charles E. Curran. Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian (Georgetown UP, 2006) is the candid and inspirin

Philip Freeman, "Two Lives of Saint Brigid" (Four Courts Press, 2024)

9 days ago 24m 9s

St. Brigid is the earliest and best-known of the female saints of Ireland. In the generation after St. Patrick, she established a monastery for men and women at Kildare which became one of the most powerful and influential centres of the Church

D. Clint Burnett, "Christ's Enthronement at God's Right Hand and Its Greco-Roman Cultural Context" (de Gruyter, 2020)

13 days ago 23m 50s

How did Psalm 110:1 become so widely used as a messianic prooftext in the New Testament and early Christianity? Part of the explanation may be related to the first century’s Greco-Roman political and religious context.Tune in as we speak with

Jae Hee Han, "Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

13 days ago 1h 13m

In Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities—Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers—discussed prophets and revelation, among themsel

Catholic in Palestine (with Fr Firas Abedrabbo)

15 days ago 44m 3s

There have been Christians in the Holy Land for two thousand years; “we are the first church,” says Father Firas Abedrabbo who is from Bethlehem and works in Ramallah. He studied law in France and speaks excellent English and spoke with me abou

Elizabeth Coggeshall, "On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

18 days ago 54m 39s

Although we often think of friendship today as an indisputable value of human social life, for thinkers and writers across late mediaeval Christian society friendship raised a number of social and ethical dilemmas that needed to be carefully ne

Claudio Ferlan, "The Jesuits: A Thematic History" (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023)

20 days ago 57m 8s

In The Jesuits: A Thematic History (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023), Claudio Ferlan provides an exploration of the tradition of the Society of Jesus. Instead of focusing solely on the Society’s historical milestones and changes, Ferlan trace

Georgia Frank, "Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

23 days ago 42m 18s

What can we know about the everyday experiences of Christians during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries? How did non-elite men and women, enslaved, freed, and free persons, who did not renounce sex or choose voluntary poverty become Christi

Greg Jarrell, "Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods" (Fortress Press, 2024)

23 days ago 49m 8s

Greg Jarrell's book Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods (Fortress Press, 2024) uncovers how race, geography, policy, and religion have created haunted landscapes in Charlotte, North Carolina, and throughout t

Erin L. Durban, "The Sexual Politics of Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

24 days ago 1h 3m

Evangelical Christians and members of the global LGBTQI human rights movement have vied for influence in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. Each side accuses the other of serving foreign interests. Yet each proposes future foreign interventions o

Paola Tartakoff, "Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2012)

24 days ago 53m 51s

In 1341 in Aragon, a Jewish convert to Christianity was sentenced to death, only to be pulled from the burning stake and into a formal religious interrogation. His confession was as astonishing to his inquisitors as his brush with mortality is

Diane Winston, "Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan's Evangelical Vision" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

25 days ago 1h 3m

After two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but in 1983 something changed. Reagan spoke of his embattled agenda as a spiritual rather than a political project and cast

Katie Barclay, "Caritas: Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self" (Oxford UP, 2021)

25 days ago 17m 35s

Caritas, a form of grace that turned our love for our neighbour into a spiritual practice, was expected of all early modern Christians, and corresponded with a set of ethical rules for living that displayed one's love in the everyday. Caritas w

The Wood Between the Worlds (with Brian Zahnd)

29 days ago 1h 5m

For Christians, the central event in history and in universe is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. This killing of God (or deicide) is so mysterious and terrible that it’s hard to even approach: what kind of a God

William Bain, "Political Theology of International Order" (Oxford UP, 2020)

1 month ago 1h 39m

Is contemporary international order truly a secular arrangement? Theorists of international relations typically adhere to a narrative that portrays the modern states system as the product of a gradual process of secularization that transcended

Brent M. Rogers, "Buffalo Bill and the Mormons" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

Mar 24th, 2024 30m 17s

In this never-before-told history of Buffalo Bill and the Mormons, Brent M. Rogers presents the intersections in the epic histories of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and the Latter-day Saints from 1846 through 1917. In Cody's autobiography he c

Emily Conroy-Krutz, "Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations" (Cornell UP, 2024)

Mar 24th, 2024 49m 48s

Missionary Diplomacy: Religion and Nineteenth-Century American Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2024) illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant m

Keith Bodner and Benjamin J.M. Johnson, "Characters and Characterization in the Book of Judges" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Mar 17th, 2024 24m 48s

Characters and characterization are a key ingredient for interpreting the Bible, and perhaps no other book in the Bible is so full of challenging and outlandish characters as the book of Judges. From Ehud, the left-handed assassin to the zany a

Janine Giordano Drake, "The Gospel of Church: How Mainline Protestants Vilified Christian Socialism and Fractured the Labor Movement" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Mar 13th, 2024 42m 42s

In 1908, Unitarian pastor Bertrand Thompson observed the momentous growth of the labor movement with alarm. "Socialism," he wrote, "has become a distinct substitute" for the church. He was not wrong.In the generation after the Civil War, few o

Emil Hilton Saggau, "Nationalisation of the Sacred: Orthodox Historiography, Memory, and Politics in Montenegro" (Peter Lang, 2023)

Mar 11th, 2024 37m 29s

The Eastern Orthodox Churches in post-communist Eastern Europe are embroiled in long-running conflicts over ownership of territory, saints, sites, nations, and history. These often violent conflicts reflect political and national rivalries, mos