Podcast
What Matters Most
Hosted by John W. Martens · EN
What Matters Most is focused on listening to people and what is on their minds, particularly dealing with the big questions of religion and spirituality. It emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement, a Centre at St. Mark's College, the Catholic college at UBC, but our programming is intended for all interested parties, Catholic or not. In the What Matters Most podcast, we talk to people, some well-known, some not so well-known, some Catholic, some Christian, some not affiliated with any religion, some affiliated with other faiths (Muslims, Sikhs) to find out what matters to them. It is a podcast focused on spirituality and faith, but truly focused on listening to others, to learning from those connected to the Church and to those who are not.
It is grounded in personal conversations that ask guests to talk about what has motivated their vocations or their work and what gives their lives meaning and purpose. The format can best be described as a conversation that allows us to get to know our guests.
26episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Rulers, Religion, and Riches: A Conversation with Dr. Jared Rubin
2w ago01:27:28Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 22 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with economist Dr. Jared Rubin. Jared Rubin is an economic historian interested in the political and religious economies of the Middle East and Western Europe. His research focuses on historical relationships between political and religious institutions and their role in economic development. This episode focuses on Rubin’s ground-breaking 2017 book Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (Cambridge University Press, 2017). His book explores the role that Islam and Christianity played in the long-run “reversal of fortunes” between the economies of the Middle East and Western Europe. It was awarded multiple book prizes. Rubin is the co-director of Chapman University’s Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics and Society (IRES) and the president of the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (ASREC). I have little knowledge of economics as a science and so I appreciated learning some of the background to economic realities that impact us all, worldwide. And I appreciated Jared speaking about what motivated him to study economics: a desire to learn in order to help respond to conditions of poverty in which many people live. It’s something that ought to concern us all, and I know it does for listeners to this podcast. How can we help to create economies that work for all and not, as it seems increasingly right now, the super rich, the super powerful, the super connected. Jared mentioned another of his books, too, if you want to delve a bit deeper into this topic, his more popular treatment in How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Growth with Mark Koyama. It seems to me that maybe we need to have Jared on again some time to talk about more of these issues and to find some more economists to talk about religion with us. And maybe we should think about getting an economist or two to join us at our 2028 conference: Cross Purposes: Christianity and Nationalism. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are interested in donating yourself to the CCE, please check out the CCE website where you can find the donate button on the top right corner. We are a nonprofit organization, and all donations over $20.00 are tax deductible. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →Was the Synod a Success? A Conversation with Michael W. Higgins
4w ago01:15:51Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 21 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Michael W. Higgins. Michael W. Higgins is a distinguished educator, media commentator, and author. He has been president of St. Jerome's University, St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and at St. Mark’s College in Vancouver, among numerous other academic positions. Currently he is Basilian Distinguished Fellow of Contemporary Catholic Thought at the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto. In addition to his academic career, Michael W. Higgins is the author or editor of over a dozen books and has been a regular columnist for the Toronto Star, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the Catholic Register and the Canadian Correspondent for The Tablet (London). This episode focuses on the recent Synod of the Catholic Church and what we might expect to emerge from this Synod and the future of synodality. At the heart of our discussion today will be his new book published by Paulist Press and Novalis Press, A Synod Diary: Sixty Days That Shook the Church. Michael wrote this diary while in Rome and in it he recounts each day of the Synod in October 2023 and 2024 and his concerns, worries, and joys. Will the Synod be a success? There is something fundamentally good about people listening and especially clerics listening to the laity. As Michael said, how the Synod is instituted will depend largely on how individual dioceses and individual parishes implement synodality and how they feel about the “s” word. Michael and I discussed that new priests and seminarians by every measure are more conservative. This is not just anecdotal. The Catholic Herald reports the research of sociologist Ryan Burge: “Newly ordained Catholic priests in the United States are now overwhelmingly theologically conservative, with progressive clergy virtually disappearing among the youngest cohorts, according to survey data recently released from the National Study of Catholic Priests and highlighted by sociologist of religion Ryan Burge. The data reveal a striking generational reversal in the theological profile of the Catholic priesthood. Among priests ordained in the most recent years, 84 per cent describe their theology as conservative, while just 2 per cent identify as progressive. By contrast, among priests ordained in the late 1960s, 68 per cent described their theology as progressive and only 16 per cent conservative, indicating a near-total inversion in the ideological composition of the clergy over the past six decades.” Does that mean synodality will not be implemented? I am not sure if it means that since the USA is not the Catholic Church. But I do think it means that the laity need to make their voices heard and heard again for the good of the Church. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →Faith, Reason, and the Unconscious: Psychoanalysis and Catholicism: A Conversation with Dr. Adam Schneider
Apr 1601:42:02Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 20 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Adam J. Schneider. This episode focuses on the history and relationship, often rocky, between psychoanalysis and Catholicism. This is Adam’s first appearance on What Matters Most. Adam J. Schneider, PhD, is a psychologist and supervisor in Washington State, USA, where he works for the Department of Corrections and is Adjunct Faculty at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. He has published in Integratus, Psychoanalytische Perspectieven, Psychosis, and the Journal of Medical Humanities. He is the author of the new book Psychoanalysis and Catholicism: From Freud to Francis published by Routledge Press (2026). Today’s podcast introduce us to Adam’s book on psychoanalysis and Catholicism, but also on the long, fraught history between the Church and modern forays into the unconscious, not just by Freud, but by many sons and daughters of the Church, some of whom, in Adam’s evocative language, were psychoanalytic martyrs for exploring ideas and processes that the Church was not ready to hear. So, let’s listen to Adam Schneider and I discuss why Faith and Reason are necessary for the Church, but also why a focus on the Unconscious, the uncertainty of the unconscious, which responds to the certainty of Faith and Reason, is essential too. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →Easter Reflections
Apr 200:15:30Tap to summarizeA bonus episode for Easter! As we are in the midst of Easter, Holy Week, I wanted to offer a few reflections on Easter season, in this case a reflection on Palm or Passion Sunday, which has just passed, and on Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of the Lord, which will soon be with us. These reflections are both based on columns I wrote for America Magazine, columns that appeared in April 2014 in America Magazine and are available online today at America Media. They also appeared in the first of my three books of columns published by Liturgical Press, The Word on the Street: Sunday Lectionary Reflections, Year A. The first reflection is Humble is He Palm Sunday (A), April 13, 2014 Readings: Mt 21:1-11; Is 50:4-7; Ps 22:8-24; Phil 2:6-11; Mt 26:14-27:66 “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:8) The second is Risen in History The Resurrection of the Lord Sunday (A), April 13, 2014 Readings: Acts 10:34-43; Ps 118:1-23; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9 “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem.” (Acts 10:39). A Happy Easter to all who celebrate! This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →Incarnation: A Poem by and a Conversation with Rev. Dr. Rob James
Mar 2601:17:22Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 19 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with (and listen to) the Rev. Dr. Rob James. This episode focuses on the Christian understanding of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and what that means theologically for Christianity, but what it means for followers of Jesus to reflect on this reality for our human lives. This is Rob’s third appearance on What Matters Most. Rob is currently priest in charge at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Vancouver. He has several degrees in Theology, including a PhD from SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London. His book The Spiral Gospel: Intratextuality in Luke’s Narrative was published in September 2022 by Cambridge-based publishers James Clarke. Rob has also written and published a book of stories from the Bible designed for storytellers to use with children in children’s homilies or Sunday School or church camps. The first book is on stories from the NT, but there is a second coming on stories from the OT. The illustrator for both is the Reverend Amanda Ruston. The book is called Fifty New Testament Stories for Storytellers. Today's podcast is about Incarnation, which begins with Rob's poem of the same name: Incarnation, by Rob James Incarnation – He came with a cry that awakened the Universe, not in the thunder of a coronation, but in the hush of a barn, where hands make straw into a cradle, and a name is given the Nameless. The Word, whose syllables shaped galaxies, now shapes hands in infant fists. Here is God in full circumference, the circle of glory that holds stars in their orbit; here too, a mother's sigh, a bed of straw, a lantern guttering against winter's teeth. Majesty has stooped, and in stooping is not lessened but made strange, veiled, a blazing sun learning to walk under the humble skin of ordinary things. Most eyes would not see. There is a carpenter and his wife, and a baby, cause enough for joy. But, they note the birthplace: insignificant, smelling of hay, of travellers’ boots; nothing more than a peculiar human birth, if peculiar at all. But the light that wove the cosmos is here. Some have worked on their sight. Others have been gifted it. The shepherds, startled by angels, are the first of the seeing; then some foreigners come to see and to give outlandish gifts; later, fishermen will fish in the dark, and land a glory that amazes their nets. A startling rule of incarnation: the fullness of God most easily concealed. For God does not clothe glory in gold so emperors will bow; but chooses a manger, where lice and lullaby mix, where a mother's breath keeps time with the stars the Word cast into space. He must learn the geography of our skin, and the dialect of our temptations. God risks being unknown. To teach us how to be human, God becomes human: not as an image of what we might dream to be, but as the figure who bears our clay, and our laughter. Look at his childhood. Physical learning of saw, plane, lathe, hammer, nails, sweat. Carpentry apprentice, he learns the fashioning of wood and of people, as they come and go, family, neighbours, customers. He grows in wisdom measured in days of doing. If Heaven had taught him by decree, thin would the lesson have been. God would not have learned it. Instead, the curriculum of human life, breaking bread with hands that would be pierced. Scandal and the consolation: God learns human craft the only way humans can learn it, by living. Perfection is not in being less tempted, less wounded. It is in being more human: more obedient to mercy than to appetite, more given to the poor than to prestige, more tender to broken things than to the pleasant, safe authorities of the world. Where the first Adam hardened his will into an instrument for taking, the second Adam bends his will into a conduit for living. First Adam learned to hide, to cover his shame. Second Adam walks toward shame as toward a kind of school, not for humiliation but for education in love. To be truly human is to be drawn into this life, to let the Word teach in our wounds, to let divine steadiness be the language we begin speaking, even in our unsteady hearts. And yet we are not invited to become copies of something unreachable, but forgiven forms of ourselves, the selves for which we were called into being. Ourselves, repaired, redirected. Incarnation is pedagogy: God showing with flesh and face what humanness looks like when fear bows to faith, when power is veiled by service, and the loudest voice is mercy. This peculiar birth lets Easter open. If the Word had never taken on the manger, if God remained an untouchable brightness beyond eyes and tongues, there could be no tomb turned inside out with new light. Resurrection is not rescue from distance; it is the vindication of the Word's risk of being bound in time and blood. Christmas and Easter are but a single movement: chords of one long song. Alleluiah, Alleluiah, Alleluiah, and even at the grave, shall we make our song, Alleluiah! Alleluiah! Alleluiah! The road from cradle to grave twists beyond imagining. Silence waits upon Golgotha, where the Word, who spoke galaxies, is muted by nails. The Logos enwrapped in the shroud of dust and derision. Pilate's questions, soldiers' jeers, the crowd's litany. The Word is measured not in syllables but in the heavy business of dying. ‘It is finished’. A last syllable. A hush, as the Word is swallowed. This is the horror and the heart. Speech that created worlds is silenced. Silent man, silent God, <p class="M...
Transcribe →The Language(s) of Christianity: A Conversation with Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu
Mar 1101:19:57Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 18 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu. This episode focuses on language, post-colonial biblical studies, and how colonialism turned the Bible into a weapon of power and oppression around the world. Ekaputra Tupamahu is an associate professor of New Testament and director of masters programs at Portland Seminary and George Fox University. He received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in 2019. Dr. Tupamahu has a broad range of academic interests, including the politics of language, race/ethnic theory, postcolonial studies, immigration studies, critical study of religion, and global Christianity (particularly Pentecostal/Charismatic movement). All these interests inform and influence the way he approaches the texts of the New Testament and the history of early Christian movement(s). His monograph, Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church, (Oxford University Press, 2022), explores the complex dynamics of language and power in the early Christian context. Apart from discussing Contesting Languages, we will discuss three articles by Ekaputra, starting with The Bible and the Wounds of Empire: Postcolonial Reflections on Interpretation, Genealogy of the “Great Commission”: Matthew 28:18–20 and Its Modern Afterlives, and Is Acts Really “The Most Overtly Missionary Book”? Challenging Whiteness in the Interpretation of Acts. Dr. Tupamahu’s scholarly writings have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals and academic publications, including the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, The Bible and Critical Theory, Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, the Indonesian Journal of Theology, and the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies. He has also contributed to significant academic volumes such as the Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, Global Renewal Christianity, Asian Introduction to the New Testament, and the T&T Clark Handbook to Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics. Today’s podcast will introduce us to Scripture, as Micah Kiel’s episode did, but in this context, we are confronting the ways in which the Bible can be used to support political and economic colonialism. What happens when the Bible speaks the language of oppression and not liberation? It's not easy to hear that the language of the Bible has been used to oppress people, the way, even today, that it has been used to take away colonized peoples’ ability to speak. As Eka asked, do we have a voice? Eka cited a book by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak? Do colonial peoples’ contribute to biblical studies or will we hear them even when they offer their contributions? The impacts of colonialism and the colonial projects that for hundreds of years have been used as tools of oppression for millions of people in the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and Africa still resonate today. This is why Eka says that post-colonialism reading does not mean a template or a method one applies but a critical response. The world is still shaped by the colonial era, the impact still continues, and one can argue colonialism is rising up again as powerful nations threaten takeovers of smaller countries by force so they can have what they want. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →Be Transformed: A Conversation with Dr. Micah Kiel
Feb 2501:20:03Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 17of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Micah Kiel. This episode focuses on being transformed and what it means to take seriously not only our spiritual lives, but the temporal lives and needs of others, particularly those who are struggling with poverty or have otherwise been marginalized. Micah Kiel holds a Ph.D. (New Testament) Princeton Theological Seminary, a M.Div. Princeton Theological Seminary, and a BA (music performance) St. John’s University. He and his family live in St. Joseph, MN. In this episode, we discussed his book Be Transformed: A Biblical Journey Toward a More Just World (Liturgical Press, 2024) which won the 2025 Association of Catholic Publishers First Place Award, Scripture: scholarly works and the 2025 Catholic Media Association Third Place Award, for Catholic Social Teaching. Today’s podcast will introduce us to Scripture, and its call for us to be transformed at both a personal and social level, and how Catholic Social Teaching (CST) can help us translate Scripture into practical demands for our lives. CST is traced back to Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum in 1891 and I thought Micah’s definition of Catholic social teaching helping us translate Scripture into practical demands for our lives is insightful. It takes, he said, the core principles of Scripture and makes it into something practical for our world today, dealing with issues like AI and worldwide environmental degradation that Scripture does not speak directly to, but that we must address for healthy and moral living today Micah alluded to or mentioned a number of CST encyclicals, like JP II’s Laborum exercens in 1981, which deals with the value of human work, Laudato Si’ and Laudato Deum, which deal with the environment, Gaudium et Spes, on the fate of humanity today and the common good, and Populorum progressio, on how the economy must serve all people. These are all available on line if you have not read them, and even if you have! This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →"Soulwork:"Decolonizing and Indigenizing the Curriculum: A Conversation with Dr. Judith Scholes and Dr. Nick Olkovich
Feb 1101:19:06Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 16 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Judith Scholes and Dr. Nick Olkovich. This episode focuses on decolonizing curriculum and indigenizing curriculum, and what that means particularly at Catholic colleges on Musqueam land at a large public university, UBC. Today’s podcast introduces us to a Wabash grant that Judith and Nick are directing, Exploring Pedagogies of Social Justice, Decolonization, and Indigenization in a Canadian Catholic Context, that has been active at Corpus Christi College and St. Mark's College since 2024 and will be completed in 2026. This grant is from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. There are three overarching questions the grant seeks to engage: How can religion and theology faculty take a leadership role in articulating the pedagogical implications of the priorities in our Strategic Plan, especially the commitments to dialogue, social justice and civic engagement? How can we create opportunities for diverse voices across disciplines to come together, listen, and learn from one another? How might our unique context in Vancouver, British Columbia and on Coast Salish territory teach us how to listen and learn more openly, more reflexively, and more often? Dr. Judith Scholes and Dr. Nick Olkovich introduce us to the complexity of these questions and why it is essential for all of us to engage these questions. How do we understand decolonization, indigenization, and reconciliation? “We’re not trying to include the other on our own terms,” as Nick said. We want to move away from, indeed reject, ways of knowledge that in practice consider some people as inferior to others, as Pope Francis discussed in Laudato Si' and Querida Amazonia, and that consider there to be one, true culture in the world. We all need to be listening to and learning from others, especially in our context indigenous peoples. This is a process that is constantly unfolding, undoing colonial practices and determining what we do in their place. Some of the things we can do is center indigenous voices, and learn from them on their land. And as Judith wisely said, schools are the place where we ought to indigenize, as schools were the primary though not the only place where this process of di-indigenization took place. She also referred to Daniel Heath Justice, professor in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at UBC, and his questioning as to what comprises knowledge in the academy. I will link to his webpage. I will also link to the article Judith mentioned, which is available for free online, by Adam Gaudry and Danielle Lorenz, Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian Academy. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →Confronting Colonial Theologies through Acts of the Apostles: A Conversation with Dr. Jordan J. Cruz Ryan
Jan 2801:17:09Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 15 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Jordan Ryan. This episode focuses on decolonizing theology, particularly biblical theology, using as an example Jordan’s new commentary on Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament in Color, a new one volume commentary. Today’s podcast introduces us to biblical hermeneutics and exegesis, which we all do from a place of positionality: who we are influences how we read and interpret texts. Dr. Ryan writes from his position as a Filipino- Canadian Christian, who now lives and works in the USA. This was a difficult episode to title because its about decolonizing biblical theology, its about Filipino and Filipino-Canadian and American positionality in reading biblical texts, and its about Acts of the Apostles. It's also about the Canadian hermeneutical school of Bernard Lonergan and Ben F. Meyer. Jordan Ryan introduces us to the world of Acts through the lens of a Filipino-Canadian biblical scholar in debt to Lonergan and Meyer. Meyer was a biblical scholar at McMaster who had died in 1995, but his legacy of biblical interpretation lived on and lives on at McMaster even for scholars like Jordan and Jonathan Bernier who came after Meyer’s death. Jordan’s book title The Role of the Synagogue in the Aims of Jesus is a conscious nod to Meyer’s famous book on the historical Jesus, The Aims of Jesus. Meyer was my teacher and I was greatly influenced by his thought and recently edited a book with my friend Paul Niskanen in tribute to Meyer called The Transcendent Mystery of God's Word. Meyer in turn had been a student of and carried on the legacy of the great Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan and his theory of interpretation known as critical realism. I was so happy to hear Jordan call this the Canadian school of biblical interpretation. At the heart of it is what Jordan noted: that true objectivity emerges from authentic subjectivity. I will not go into a lot more depth on this tonight, though there is much more to say, a podcast series worth I would say, except that it means that Meyer following Lonergan believed that we interpret from our position, whatever that is, though we always need to be aware of our blind spots and oversights and be open to correction. But Jordan’s interpretation of Acts of the Apostles and the Bible in general from his position as a Filipino-Canadian is true objectivity because it is his authentic subjectivity. He reads the Bible with a Filipino-Canadian biblical hermeneutic. Please check out Jordan's commentary on Acts in The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary. His ability to read from that position opens his readers up to seeing new things in the biblical texts, to understand the role of Roman imperialism, colonizing, ethnicity, race, and antisemitism that they might not have seen before either in the text or in their own interpretations. These might be blind spots that we had not reckoned with before because we did not see them. For instance, walking away from the community of goods which Acts discusses in chapters 2 and 4 because that’s communism, as if 20th century political movements negate the meaning of 1st century texts. It allows Jordan to ask questions that others might miss about coloniality, power and imperialism in Acts from his Filipino diaspora position. And the collectivist culture of the Filipino people allows them perhaps to grasp the goodness of these passages in Acts 2 and 4 more readily. We need as he said to be aware of our horizons, a term Meyer and Lonergan use extensively to indicate the limits of our view, but also to indicate what we can see. From the horizon of a 500-year history of colonization, Filipino biblical scholars like Jordan can help us understand decolonial readings of the Bible. He pointed us to authors like Reta Halteman Finger and Justo Gonzalez and Federico Villanueva and Danielle Hyeonah Lambert, who can also serve as guides to help us along with Dr Ryan, to see new ways of reading Acts and the Bible in general, to broaden our horizons and to help us overcome blind spots. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →"Religion is Not Going Away:" Shinnyo-En and NRMs in Japan: A Conversation with Dr. Casey Collins
Jan 1401:20:49Tap to summarizeWelcome to Episode 14 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Casey Collins. This episode focuses on religion in Japan, particularly Buddhism, and, we can break that down even further, a new religious movement known as Shinnyo-En which is related to an esoteric school of Japanese Buddhism known as Shingon founded by the Japanese monk Kukai in the 8th century. This is not an episode in the Christian nationalism project! Casey Collins earned his PhD at the University of British Columbia, defending a dissertation entitled "Walking in the Founders' Footsteps: Hagiography and Devotion in Shinnyo-en, a Japanese New Religion," in April 2023 at the University of British Columbia. His work examines sociological and phenomenological approaches to religious studies, charismatic religious leaders, sacred narratives, new religions, and the material culture of religion. Prior to his doctoral work, Casey earned his BA and MA in Asian Studies from UBC also. He is now Director of Inter-Religious Studies and Professor of Asian Religions at VST. Today’s podcast is a fascinating exploration of new religious movements, focusing, it is true, on a particular movement, Shinnyo-En, but it raises questions as Casey says, about religious practice in general, what is religion itself, especially when we look at it in contexts other than the western world, and what is it that attracts people to religion in general. Casey also gifted to us a new word, contra-modern, and it has set me wondering, how might this term apply to various religious movements across the world. What do you think about this contra-modern movement Shinnyo-En? As I said in the episode, when I think of charismatic religious leaders, I get a little nervous, it’s an immediate reaction when I think about groups I know of who have been led astray by leaders who have taken advantage of or harmed their followers. There is no evidence of that with this group, however, and Casey does not suggest such abuses do not take place in Japan too, as with the Aum Shinrikyo group who perpetrated a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that killed at least 13 people and injured thousands more. But not every new religious group behaves this way at all and the reality of new religious groups or NRMs is that people continue to be attracted to them, even in countries such as Japan where we are told the people there are not very religious and they themselves might tell you that too. Some of this has to do with the definition of religion and western conceptions of what a religion is do not map easily onto Asian conceptions of religion. Indeed, I was surprised to learn that Japan is the locus of the study of new religious movements in the academic world because it has the most NRMs in the world. I did not know that. Casey referred us to Rush Hour of the Gods: A Study of New Religious Movements in Japan by H. Neill McFarland, a classic in the field from 1967. And as Casey Collins says, NRMs are worth our attention because they ask us to think, what is it that people want from life? Why are they attracted to NRMs? Why are they attracted to religion? In the context of all the talk about religion fading away, it seems that it continues to attract people: “religion is not going away” as Casey said. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark’s College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark’s College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know. It’s the free gift that you can give to all of your friends! And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. And subscribe to the podcast. If you are listening, please subscribe. It’s free! Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement
Transcribe →