What Matters Most

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

A 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

Welcome 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, speaking in ways no rhetoric can. The Word who once spoke ‘Let there be’, is absent, yet a seed sleeps; the seed of an answering voice that will not be raised by brute force but by a different gravity, the pull of love that gathers  what violence scatters. When the stone rolls away, it is not an escape, but revolution, and revelation that silence was pregnant with speech.   The Word speaks again, enwrapped in the love that would not let abandonment have the last note.   No idea was raised,                   but a person. The same hands that made infant fists, smoothed rough carpenter's wood, felt the nails, are the hands taking and eating fish, for all to see. Without the night of manger there is no morning. And he is the second Adam, for he reenacts humanity from the bottom up. The second Adam comes not to erase but to recapitulate, to take the story again, to bear the weight of temptation. Fully human, not an actor wearing the mask of flesh, but humanity perfected, deepened, sharpened into the image of God, ‘in the beginning’.   The incarnation: so bright it hurts.  It illumines ourselves, finite and glorious, sinful and beloved. The true human does not deny limits, but lets them be the raw material for grace. Where we break, the second Adam   places his hands and heals. Where we hide, he dares to enter. We are apprenticed to a life that begins at the manger and climbs to heights and depths of Golgotha. And beyond. Every glimpse of him a threshold to the mystery that remakes us, a painful light we must look upon, in a Universe reverberating with his cry. Dare we live such an incarnate life?   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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome 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

Welcome to Episode 13 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Matthew J. Cressler.  This episode is a distinct episode in the project, following that of Steven Tyra, which covers Christian nationalism in the reformed Protestant tradition, and Ruth Braunstein, who discussed Christian nationalism in US evangelicalism; today’s episode is on Christian nationalism in Catholicism, particularly in the USA, as seen throughout the 20th century up until today. Matthew J. Cressler, Ph.D. is a rogue scholar, comics creator, and teacher whose work focuses on religion, race, and justice. He is also chief of staff for the Corporation for Public Interest Technology. He is the author of Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migrations and creator of Bad Catholics, Good Trouble, the educational webcomic series. He’s written for America, The Atlantic, National Catholic Reporter, The Revealer, Slate, U.S. Catholic, and numerous academic journals, including Religion & American Culture for which he wrote "Real, Good, and Sincere Catholics."  He also co-reported the Religion News Service series “Beyond the Most Segregated Hour,” which won a Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council. He has two forthcoming books currently under contract: Catholics and the Making of MAGA: How an Immigrant Church Became America’s Law and Order Faith (Harper Collins, 2027), and the co-authored Body & Blood: Catholic Horror in America. Today’s podcast is on Catholicism and Christian nationalism in the USA, although Matthew nuances whether this particular phrase is the best description of what is happening in some factions of the Catholic church. I also introduced the phrase integralism and asked whether this is a better descriptor of a particular form of Catholic Christian nationalism. Matthew again, as you will hear, demurred, as you will hear. Not because he rejected the language outright, but because he wanted to make a broader point about Catholics in general. What Cressler does is put this current MAGA Catholicism in the context of deeper American history and indeed a deeper international history, taking the French Revolution as an important starting point, though without question the whole reality of Christendom in late antiquity and the medieval period gives us a broad and general context. This is why Matthew was reticent to make a simple equivalency with Christian nationalism in evangelical USA or even with Catholic integralism because apart from its elite proponents, it reflects the Catholicism of a lot of ordinary Catholics. Matthew asked the question, why is our tradition a welcome home for right-wing and fascist movements in the past and today? How embedded is racism and intolerance embedded in what it means to be a “good catholic”? Matthew described Tom Homan, the man in charge of Trump’s border policy, as the son and grandson of law enforcement officers, and a Catholic. He’s such a good catholic, this is what he said in response to the US Catholic bishops denouncing of Trump’s treatment of migrants: “The Catholic Church is wrong,” Homan told reporters. “I’m a lifelong Catholic, but I’m saying it not only as a border czar, but I’m also saying this as a Catholic.” Surely, he too feels he is a good Catholic. It’s something to consider: in some cases Christian nationalists hear a message of nationalism from the pulpit, but in this case the Church has said, this is not in keeping with the Gospel, and it goes to the highest levels of the Church, directly from Francis and Leo and the bishops. But instead of the Gospel and teaching authority of the Church, one chooses the nation state and oneself. What does it mean to be a good catholic? I think sometimes you need to make good trouble, and perhaps just listening to the perennial message of the Gospel and following it is troubling today to the powers that be. Two last things: The Flannery O’Connor short story I referenced, poorly, is “A Temple of the Holy Spirit.” If you have not read Flannery O’Connor before, it is worth doing, though she herself reflected some of the racism of Georgia in the mid-twentieth century, she is a terrific writer who offers spiritually powerful insights into the human condition.  Good and bad. And the book that Matthew referenced on Catholicism in the southern USA is The South's Tolerable Aliens: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970, by Andrew S. Moore.  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

Welcome to the eighth episode of Pop Culture Matters, a conversation with my good friend and a great friend of the podcast, Martin Strong.  We returned to a discussion of Christmas movies for this episode, but not our favorite Christmas movies, which we have already discussed; so please check out that first episode to hear about The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life, Elf, A Christmas Story, and Alistair Sim playing  Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Instead, we are discussing movies that we have not seen before, even though they are considered Christmas classics. The list is smaller this time around, including Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Holiday Inn (1942), White Christmas (1954), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Martin discussed the AFI Top Holiday Movies and the films we discussed today are quite high on that list, which I found at IMDB which had a top 20 list, with Holiday Inn ranked as number two, behind It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas at number three, Miracle on 34th Street  at number six, and Meet Me in St. Louis at number eight. So, we are discussing four of the top eight films on that list. But lists are meant to be debated and discussed, right?  We also returned to the question of what we think makes for a good Christmas movie, and what ChatGPT thinks makes for a good Christmas movie.  ChatGPT offers six characteristics of what makes for a good Christmas movie. Interestingly, last year we offered six characteristics: transformation of a character; warmth; earnestness; a level of comfort and peace; lovingkindness; and care for each other. Listen and see how closely what we determined made a good Christmas movie is mimicked by Chat GPT. And listen to our discussion of our four films, all older and highly rated, and think about the extent to which they capture the characteristics of a classic Christmas movie. As I said last year, get comfortable and cozy with your loved ones and settle in with a cup of hot cocoa and a Christmas cookie. If this podcast hits some of the right Christmas notes, you’re going to change your selfish ways and be transformed by the warmth of Christmas. Or, given the films we’re discussing, maybe you’re going to put together a song and dance team, write a classic Christmas song, and buy a house in the suburbs. Merry Christmas from all of us at the Centre for Christian Engagement  and St. Mark’s College. Merry Christmas to Martin Strong for joining me in this venture! Merry Christmas to Kevin Eng for editing and engineering this episode and integrating all the wonderful music in the podcast. Merry Christmas to Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. Merry Christmas to Kenton McDonald-Lin for the interviews on the UBC campus that spiced up this Christmas episode.  Merry Christmas to all of 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 and give the gift of What Matters Most by also rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform.  Thanks again for listening and remember Merry Christmas.    Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. John W. Martens

Welcome to Episode 11 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Ruth Braunstein, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute. A cultural sociologist interested in the role of religion and morality in American political life, Ruth's award-winning research has been published in the top peer-reviewed journals in her field, and has been covered in major news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time Magazine. She also writes frequently for public audiences, including at The Guardian, Religion News Service, and The Conversation, and in her weekly Substack Democracy Is Hard. Ruth is also the creator of the podcast series When the Wolves Came, which we will be discussing in this episode and which I recommend highly that you go and listen to after you finish this episode.  Ruth‘s research, writing and teaching have been recognized by numerous awards and fellowships. She received the inaugural Distinguished Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association’s Religion Section, and her former department’s 2021 Faculty Mentor Award.  She is currently President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University, and Chair of the Board of Directors of PRRI. I relied on PRRI research in my introduction to the CCE Christian nationalism Project. She earned her doctoral degree in sociology from New York University and her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University. She is originally from Atlanta, GA. Today’s podcast is on Christian nationalism in the USA and I found it bracing, a wakeup call.  As a scholar of early Christianity, the earliest stages of Christianity, it still shocks me as to how we got from there to here. I’m not arguing that the people who adhere to Christian nationalism are not real Christians, or challenging their devotion, but I will read a passage that Ruth cited from Matthew 7, giving it a bit more context from the chapter in Matthew: 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits. Keep this in mind as you listen to the episode. Are Christian nationalists bearing the fruit of love of neighbour? Are they bearing the fruit of the Spirit that the Apostle Paul delineates? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Who is? Ask yourself this question as, as I ask myself this question: am I bearing this fruit? For me, this was an important introduction to Christian nationalism. We could not have had a better or more nuanced guide than Ruth Braunstein.  It was my honour to speak with her. 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

Welcome to the first What Matters Most podcast that is also offered in video form on YouTube. This episode introduces our Christian Nationalism project and our plans for the next few years in terms of podcasts, webinars, and lectures, culminating with an international and ecumenical conference in 2028. You will also find links here to the podcast episodes that have already started to examine Christian Nationalism. We hope to offer forthcoming episodes on our YouTube channel also.  What Matters Most is a podcast 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. In this episode I begin to define what I mean by the term “Christian Nationalism”? For me, it reflects the desire by some Christians in Europe, the USA, and in Canada, and perhaps elsewhere, to have the roles of the state and Church connected in some fundamental way so that the desires of the state and the Church are formally acknowledged and pursued by each. One of the ways we can think about the relationship is a return to some form of Christendom or a type of theocracy.  I take Christian nationalism as a particular, specific threat, separate from nationalism, which presents its own threats, and to my mind Christian nationalism needs to be defined on its own terms. A previous guest on the podcast, Bill Cavanaugh, sees nationalism itself as the threat and I cite from a recent article of his Nationalism as Idolatry: Why We Must Choose Between Elevating Religion or Country  as an important consideration. Please do check out the podcast episode he was a guest on cited below.  I also cite data from the Public Religion Research Institute, particularly “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture,” as important to understanding the nature of Christian Nationalism. This data comes from the USA, though, and there is little Canadian data to consult. One book worth consulting, though, is Lydia Bean’s 2010 book The Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada, in which she shows similarities in Canadian and American churches with respect to theology, but great differences in terms of their political identities.  Our goal here is to understand the phenomenon and to understand how to stand against it, both from a political point of view and from a religious point of view. It does not offer the authentic face of Christianity, although it is definitely a face of Christianity that cannot be ignored or wished away.  Part of our task too is to understand its attraction: what does it point to? What are the positives that people who desire Christian nationalism want? What does it offer them that they are missing? Why did it emerge now? Also, how does this impact people of other faiths? How is their place in a democracy understood by Christian nationalists? What do Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, indigenous peoples, and those with no particular faith, inclusive of all others, feel about Christian nationalism?  So, where are we at right now in terms of our project? Right now, there are podcasts that introduce a variety of ideas and the history of Christian nationalism in North America on the podcast.  Let me give you a list of episodes that touch on or discuss the topic in depth.  The Rise of Christian Nationalism in the 1930s and Today in the USA: A Conversation with Charles Gallagher, S.J. on October 31, 2023 Listen here (Apple Podcasts) The Uses of Idolatry, or Many Old Gods: A Conversation with Bill Cavanaugh on October 22, 2024 on Christianity and nationalism, particularly the idolatry of nationalism. Listen here (Apple Podcasts) Reconsidering John Calvin: A Conversation with Ruben Rosario Rodriguez, January 16, 2025 examines Calvin’s view of the proper relationship between church and state and the authority due each of them.  Listen here (Apple Podcasts) Becoming a Catholic Peace Church: A Conversation with Gerald Schlabach January 30, 2025 In which Gerald reflects on the anabaptist understanding of the role of the church in the world and how the Catholic church can become a peace church. Listen here (Apple Podcasts) Reading the Bible in the Kingdom of Love: A Conversation with Tom Bolin June 25, 2025 In which Tom reflects on his new book, An Inspired Word in Season: Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized World, which seeks to reduce polarization in a divisive political world by seeking out ways in which the Bible can reduce tension by interpreting responsibly together.  Listen here (Apple Podcasts) “The Way We Exercise Dominion is Through Justice:” A Conversation with Dr. Steven W. Tyra on Christian Nationalism, October 22, 2025 Listen here (Apple Podcasts) Finally, I think Elizabeth Castelli’s fits in the context of our discussion of Charlie Kirk and his murder and how that fits in martyrdom narratives. Who is a Martyr? A Conversation with Dr. Elizabeth A. Castelli, November 19, 2025 Listen here (Apple Podcasts) Coming up is Ruth Braunstein, who will discuss evangelical Christian nationalism. And following that Matthew Cressler who will discuss Catholic integralism, a specifically Catholic form of Christian nationalism. There is more to come including an in person lecture with Pavlo Smytsnyuk on March 17, 2025.  More to come, so stay tuned! And please follow us on your favourite podcasting platform, rate and review the podcast, follow us on Instagram at @stmarkscce, or drop us an email at [email protected] or @[email protected]. Thanks for listening and remember what matters most. John W. Martens

Welcome to the seventh episode of Pop Culture Matters, The Great Speckled Bird and Gospel Music with Martin Strong, the ninth episode of season four. Martin is on fire in this episode, maybe due to the Louvin Brothers’ plywood Satan burning in the background, and I lower the temperature with a complicated examination of Jeremiah 12:7-13, with a focus on verse 9, where it is possible your translation mentions a Great Speckled Bird or not. If not, I dig into the Hebrew and the Greek, the Septuagint, to explain why you might find a hyena instead of a Great Speckled Bird, or at least hawk, or birds of prey, which I will discuss below. Kevin Eng also offers his interpretation of the song the Great Speckled Bird, which he plays on the piano and sings in an old-timey Gospel manner, and which you will find interspersed throughout our discussion. Kevin recorded three verses of the song, but here is the link to the eight full verses of The Great Speckled Bird.  1.What a beautiful thought I am thinking Concerning a great speckled bird Remember her name is recorded On the pages of God's Holy Word.   2. All the other birds are flocking 'round her And she is despised by the squad But the great speckled bird in the Bible Is one with the great church of God.   3. All the other churches are against her They envy her glory and fame They hate her because she is chosen And has not denied Jesus' name.   4. Desiring to lower her standard They watch every move that she makes They long to find fault with her teachings But really they find no mistake.   5. She is spreading her wings for a journey She's going to leave by and by When the trumpet shall sound in the morning She'll rise and go up in the sky.   6. In the presence of all her despisers With a song never uttered before She will rise and be gone in a moment Till the great tribulation is o'er.   7. I am glad I have learned of her meekness I am proud that my name is on her book For I want to be one never fearing The face of my Savior to look.   8. When He cometh descending from heaven On the cloud that He writes in His Word I'll be joyfully carried to meet Him On the wings of that great speckled bird. (Lyrics: Guy Martin Smith) I want to offer some of the biblical background to this song, so get ready for a complex discussion: The two Hebrew words that are the source of the translation trouble are ʿayiṭ ṣābûaʿ(tzbua): is this a speckled bird or birds of prey or a hawk or a hyena (or a hyena’s cave)? One thing I must mention is that the way the Great Speckled Bird is interpreted as the Church in this song is a common Christian way of adapting Jewish scriptures, but in the actual historical context of the prophet Jeremiah, who lived in the 600s BC, centuries before Jesus, the “heritage” that is destroyed refers to the kingdom of Judah. God has allowed all the wild animals to destroy Judah. My point here is that the song is based on particularly Christian readings that extract the passage from its historical Jewish context.  Below are few recent English versions: Jeremiah 12:9: New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE - most current and academically sound translation) Is the hawk hungry for my heritage?     Are the vultures all around her? Go, assemble all the wild animals;     bring them to devour her. Jeremiah 12:9: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV – up until a couple of years ago, the most up to date translation until NRSVUE, which is based on this translation) Is the hyena greedy for my heritage at my command?     Are the birds of prey all around her? Go, assemble all the wild animals;     bring them to devour her. Jeremiah 12:9: King James Version (KJV – old-timey translation from 16th century) Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour. Jeremiah is originally written in Hebrew. So, the Hebrew is the basis for all the translations. Translators clearly have been confused by how to translate the “ speckled bird,” but this might go back to ancient times, especially the word being translated as “speckled,” since it is a hapax legomenon, which means it only occurs once in the whole Bible, and the first translation of the Hebrew into Greek in the 3rd century BC (more on that in a bit) translates ʿayiṭ ṣābûaʿas hyena. That's how the hyena gets in there. The ancient Hebrew text (translating as literally as I can) is as follows: Is my heritage to me an ʿayiṭ ṣābûaʿ? Are the birds of prey circling round her? Go, assemble all the wild animals; bring them to devour her. The Septuagint (LXX) translates the phrase ʿayiṭ ṣābûaʿ as a hyena's cave: Surely my heritage is not a hyena's cave to me or a cave all around her? Go, assemble all the animals of the field, and let them come to eat her. Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 21A, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 654 offers key insights for those who want to dig deeper. I will offer a long paragraph from his commentary here: "Is my heritage to me a speckled bird of prey? Are the birds of prey circling round her? This bicolon is clear in the Hebrew except for one word, ṣābûaʿ, an OT hapax legomenon that is here translated “speckled.” The double rhetorical question plays on the collective noun, ʿayiṭ, meaning “bird(s) of prey” (like English “deer”). See Gen 15:11; Isa 18:6; 46:11; and Ezek 39:4. The first ʿayiṭ ̣is singular and is a metaphor for Judah; the second is a plural representing the nations round about. If ṣābûaʿ is left untranslated, the two questions would read: “Is my heritage to me a bird of prey? Are the birds of prey circling round her?” It is simply a matter then of finding an acceptable translation for ṣābûaʿ. Traditionally this term is taken to be the passive participle of ṣbʿ, meaning “to color” (Rudolph). Cognates are attested in Akkadian, Aramaic, and Arabic, and the verb means “to dye” in postbiblical Hebrew (Emerton 1969: 183). In Judg 5:30 the noun ṣebaʾ (plural ṣĕbāʿîm) translates as “dyed fabric(s)” (cf. BDB, 840). The expression ʿayiṭ ṣābûaʿ is then accordingly translated, “speckled bird of prey,” i.e., bird with variegated plumage. With support from Vg (discolor) and Rashi, this reading is adopted by Hitzig, Giesebrecht, Duhm, and numerous other commentators. The traditional interpretation then is basically sound, with the possible exception of the oft-repeated claim that birds of variegated plumage are commonly set upon by other birds—a variation of the “colored coat” episode involving Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37). Color does make a bird more visible to predators, but in and of itself color is not known to provoke hostility in other birds. Hitzig cited Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny in support of his view, but these writers say nothing about birds warring with other birds of colored plumage. The same idea is found in Rashi, who gave as another possibility a bird stained with blood, around which other birds would gather. Similarly Kimḥi. The LXX translates ṣābûaʿ with hyainēs (“hyena”). The Hebrew has this meaning in Sir 13:17 [Eng 13:18] (Lévi 1904: 20) and in the Talmud (Dict Talm, 1257: “checkered leopard or striped hyena?”). There are also cognates in Arabic and Syriac (Emerton 1969: 184). “Hyena” is the definition given in KB, although the OThas no cognate term with this meaning. The problem, actually, is not the meaning of “(striped) hyena” for ṣābûaʿ, but an entire bicolon in the LXX which no modern Version translates. It reads: “Is not my inheritance to me a hyena’s lair, or a lair round about her?” Both occurrences of ʿayiṭ have been translated spēlaion (“lair”), for which a satisfactory explanation has yet to be given. The hybrid readings of NEB, NAB, and NJV are all unacceptable." Bottom line: it could be a great speckled bird, but it's not certain! In terms of the Gospel music genre to which the song belongs, it is suffused as you can see with biblical passages, as are all of the Top 5 that Martin chose.  Here is a linked list of Martin's Top 5 Gospel songs, with his preferred versions, which he expanded to 7 and to which I added The Great Speckled Bird, which makes it 8: Great Speckled Bird - Roy Acuff I Saw the Light - Hank Williams I'll Fly Away - Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch Will the Circle Be Unbroken - The Staples Singers Angel Band - The Stanley Brothers The Christian Life - The Louvin Brothers Just a Closer Walk with Thee - Patsy Cline Milky White Way - Elvis Presley And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next, we will have the Ruth Braunstein episode on Christian nationalism and evangelicalism in the USA. Stay tuned. I found it a compelling and powerful episode.  Let us know what movies you want to discuss on our next Pop Culture Matters episode, Christmas Movies, part 2. Listen to the first episode so you know what we have already discussed. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce or on our website Centre for Christian Engagement and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].  Upcoming Events The synodality series has started. I gave my lecture on November 20, The NT Origins of Synodality at St. Matthew's, Surrey and it was a great event. After the series is completed, we will be taping our lectures and putting them on our website for the CCE and our YouTube channel. Coming up! -          December 13 - Dr. Fiona Li, Mary as a Model for a Synodal Church (St. Peter's, New Westminster); Fr. Nick Meisl, The OT Origins of Synodality (St. Peter's, New Westminster), 2:30 pm -          January - Dr Nick Olkovich - The Synodal Parish: A Sign of Hope for a Broken World (St. Paul's, Richmond) TBD. On February 20, 7 pm, Cathy Clifford from St. Paul’s University in Ottawa will wrap up the synodality series at St. Mark’s College. Her lecture is called, “Toward a Spirituality for a Synodal Church.” 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 pop culture matters.  John W. Martens

Welcome to Episode 8 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Elizabeth A. Castelli.  Elizabeth A. Castelli is Professor of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University She is a specialist in biblical studies, late ancient Christianity, and feminist/gender studies in religion. As you will hear in this episode, she is particularly interested in the reception history and "afterlives" of biblical and early Christian texts, that is, how the how the Bible and early Christian sources are used in contemporary social, political, and cultural expressions and debates. I found this conversation really enlightening for framing conversations about martyrs and martyrdom in our present times. It was helpful to get this deep background about ancient Christian martyrdom and narratives about martyrdom. In terms of the content, I mentioned I would link to a few texts and websites. Here is a link for the four El Salvadoran Church women (Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan) who died specifically for their Christian faith in 1980. Two places that identified Charlie Kirk as a martyr are linked here: The American Mind classified, Charlie Kirk as a martyr as did the Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo, Ontario. You can find the  letter of Severus that used a memory of martyrdom to inspire violence and forced conversion of the Jews many hundreds of years ago at the link here.  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

Welcome to Episode 7 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Sarah K. Johnson.  The Rev. Canon Dr. Sarah Kathleen Johnson is Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Pastoral Theology at Saint Paul University in Ottawa and the author of Occasional Religious Practice: Valuing a Very Ordinary Religious Experience (Oxford University Press, 2025). Sarah is also an ordained Mennonite minister and has been made an honorary canon by the Anglican Church. Her research at the intersection of liturgical studies and sociology of religion explores Christian worship in a changing religious landscape. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and served as president of the Canadian Theological Society. Today’s podcast is not specifically on the occasional religious practice that Sarah will be speaking about on November 12, 2025 for the CCE at St. Mark’s College, but new research with which she has been engaged on young people and worship. With scholars at Samford University in the USA, and others, Sarah is exploring how and why young people worship at a variety of Christian faith traditions. 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

Welcome to the sixth episode of Pop Culture Matters, the sixth episode of season four. In today's episode I discuss Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and Samhain (sow-in) too. Growing up, I was clear what Halloween was: a night to get candy and dress up. Halloween is All Hallows Eve, hallows referring to Saints, that is, Halloween was the day before All Saints Day on Nov. 1, and two days prior to All Souls Day on Nov. 2. These links seem strangely tenuous now. Halloween stands on its own. But then I also heard later that Halloween emerged from or was adopted from Samhain (sow-in), an ancient pagan Celtic festival that was celebrated on November 1 in Ireland and Scotland and preceded the arrival of Christianity. These connections, touted both by modern Wiccans and pagans and bemoaned by fundamentalist Christians, have led some Christians not to celebrate Halloween due to pagan or satanic connections. Fang Fang tells me Christians in Indonesia are encouraged not to celebrate the festival. Since I am no expert on Halloween, but do see its ubiquity all around me, I wanted to understand how we got from a Church festival that focused on purgatory, to a modern celebration of wirches, goblins, spooky movies, and a lot of candy. I relied specifically on an excellent book from 2003 by Nicholas Rogers, a historian now retired from York University. The book is Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford University Press, 2003), and one its best features is that history and practices from both Canada and the USA are discussed.   I have to say that one thing that I did not get into, as I think it needs its own episode, is Dia De Los Muertas (Day of the Dead). This festival, which is celebrated in Mexico and parts of the USA,  traditionally is celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31, are often included. Day of the Dead in some ways preserves more of the medieval traditions surrounding  All Hallows Eve than Halloween does. Nicholas Rogers covers it in depth, but not only does it need its own episode, I think it could benefit from a conversation with someone who knows the lived experience of Dia De Los Muertas. Next year! 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.  Upcoming Events We will be having some new in person and virtual events starting in this coming Fall and I can now give you some details.  Save the date of November 12, Sarah Johnson will be joining us from Ottawa to speak about her new book, Occasional Religious Practice: Valuing a Very Ordinary Religious Experience (Oxford University Press, 2025). You can come in person or virtually, so sign up at Eventbrite for Occasional Religious Practice and Grassroots Ecumenism, also featuring a panel discussion with Rev. Dr. Nick Meisl and Rev. Alisdair Smith.  On February 20, 7 pm, Cathy Clifford from St. Paul’s University in Ottawa will join us to speak about the synodal process at St. Mark’s College. Her lecture is called, “Toward a Spirituality for a Synodal Church,” but her lecture will be the end point of a number of lectures offered throughout the Lower Mainland: -          November 20 - Dr. John Martens, The NT Foundations of Synodality (St. Matthew's, Surrey), 7 pm. -          December 13 - Dr. Fiona Li, Mary as a Model for a Synodal Church (St. Peter's, New Westminster); Fr. Nick Meisl, The OT Origins of Synodality (St. Peter's, New Westminster), 2:30 pm -          January - Dr Nick Olkovich - The Synodal Parish: A Sign of Hope for a Broken World (St. Paul's, Richmond) TBD and on March 17, Pavlo Smytsnyuk will speak on Christianity and nationalism, a part of the Christian Nationalist project until we get a new title. Pavlo Smytsnyuk specializes in political theology and religious nationalism in modern Orthodoxy and neo-Hinduism. In particular, he is interested in how the dichotomy between the religious and political manifests itself outside of the Western context. His research explores how non-Western, especially Orthodox, traditions deal creatively with the category of religion (as separated from the political), and how holistic theological-political narratives make space for violence.   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 pop culture matters.  John W. Martens Intro music for this podcast from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/simon-folwar/ancient-caves License code: WGRTZGRDSALHU07U  

Welcome to Episode 5 of Season 4! This episode marks the formal beginning to the Christian Nationalism project, which might acquire a new name soon, that will run from 2025 to 2028, culminating in a conference in May or June 2028. In this episode I speak with Dr. Steven W. Tyra. Dr. Steven W. Tyra holds a PhD in Historical Theology from Baylor University, with expertise in both John Calvin and Martin Luther. He is currently a History and Theology Teacher in the Midway Independent SD, Waco, Texas. He is the author of Neither the Spirit without the Flesh: John Calvin's Doctrine of the Beatific Vision, published by T&T Clark in 2024. He is currently underway on his second book, which will be published by Bloomsbury Press. Steven has also written two significant articles that challenge the biblical and reformation roots of Christian nationalism which we will discuss today. The first, “’Christ is not the shepherd of wolves’: Reading John Calvin on Dominion in a Time of Christian Nationalism” will be published soon in Church History and Religious Culture. I was able to read a draft copy prior to speaking with Steven. The second, “Babeling Nationalism: Reading Genesis 11:1–9 with Luther and Calvin” is published in Principia: A Journal of Classical Education 3, no. 1 (2024) and is available for free download. Please do read it.  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

Welcome to Episode 4 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Paula Fredriksen. Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University, where she taught for 30 years, and, since 2009, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem. In addition, she is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was educated at at Wellesley College, Oxford University and Princeton University. She has written so many significant books that I will not mention them all here. But here are some of her books, which you can find links to by clicking on this link: Augustine on Romans (1982); From Jesus to Christ  (1988; 2000); Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (1999);  winner of the 1999 National Jewish Book Award; Augustine and the Jews  (2010); SIN: The Early History of an Idea (2012); Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (2017), winner of the 2018 Prose Award from the American Publishers’ Association; When Christians Were Jews (2018). You can find the link to the book we focus on in this episode, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years, by clicking on the title.  At the beginning of the podcast I called Paula Fredriksen “one of the premier scholars and historians of the New Testament and early Christianity.” If you have listened to the podcast, I rest my case. Her knowledge of Christianity and Christianities rests deeply not on facts, but on knowledge, even wisdom. It's this deep knowledge, wisdom, that gets you to phrases that roll off her tongue like “high frequency combat theology,” or that describes early Christianity as a “family of movements,”  and theologians as “policy wonks.”  These phrases come from a deep understanding of history, theology, doctrine, of Judaism, Christianity, and Roman pagan religions. We learn about martyrdom, politics, Origen, Augustine, Manichaeism, apocalyptic thought, celibacy, and more. I hope you learned a lot in this episode, and I hope you pass it on. The episode that is. And then go ahead and read one of her excellent books. 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

Welcome to Episode 3 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Paul Spilsbury, recently appointed President of Regent College in July 2025. Paul came to Canada from South Africa in 1984 to attend Prairie Bible College in Alberta. As you will hear, he also graduated from Regent College and then completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge (Queens’ College) before returning to Canada to teach.  Paul’s teaching is centered on the New Testament, with a particular focus on the Apostle Paul and the Book of Revelation, as seen in his book The Throne, the Lamb and the Dragon: A Reader’s Guide to the Book of Revelation (IVP, 2002),  but much of his research is on Second Temple or Hellenistic Judaism, such as  The Image of the Jew in Flavius Josephus’ Paraphrase of the Bible (Mohr Siebeck, 1998),  Flavius Josephus, Judean Antiquities 8–10: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2005—with C. Begg), and Flavius Josephus, Judean Antiquities 11: Translation and Commentary (Brill, 2017—with C. Seeman). He is modest about his painting, but he is a juried member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, working primarily in watercolours. Check out some of his paintings at https://www.schindellgallery.ca/artists/paul-spilsbury, or follow him on Instagram. I loved what Paul had to see about the physicality of painting. The life of the mind is a delight, but we are embodied people and we need to pick up a paintbrush, or a shovel, or a hammer, whatever it is, and connect to our bodies. You must have gotten a sense of Paul Spilsbury’s joy as he takes on a significant role in the life of a significant theological college, a joy that springs from his falling in love with the Bible many years ago. But he also expressed his happiness that Regent is a community in which there is genuine shared governance and his role is as a faithful steward, a shepherd.   He is not on his own in this work. He also spoke of Regent College as a community connected and dedicated to the arts, to literature, to the world around them, but that all emerges from its grounding in Scripture and the biblical world,  as Paul’s own research is 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

Welcome to Episode 2 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr.  Joan E. Taylor, Professor Emerita of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King's College, London and Honorary Professor at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia.  She is a remarkable scholar with wide-ranging expertise of the historical  Jesus, the Bible, early Christianity, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Second Temple Judaism, with special expertise in archaeology, and women's and gender studies.  I’m only going to give you a few of the titles of her many books: Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish Christian Origins (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993; rev. ed. 2003). The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997; also published as John the Baptist: A Historical Study (London: SPCK, 1997). Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria - Philo’s ‘Therapeutae’ Reconsidered (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; paperback edition 2006). The Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). What Did Jesus Look Like? (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018). with David Hay, Philo of Alexandria: On the Contemplative Life (Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series, Leiden: Brill, 2021). with Helen Bond, Women Remembered: Jesus' Female Disciples (Hodder & Stoughton, 2022). And most recently, and the book we will discuss today: Boy Jesus: Growing Up Judean in Turbulent Times (Zonderban Academic, 2025). I've utilized Dr. Taylor’s research on a regular basis, especially her material on the Dead Sea Scrolls and on Philo of Alexandria and the Therapeutae. Today however we are going to be focused on her new book Boy Jesus. I found the book fascinating and challenging and I think you'll hear that as we discuss it. It’s fascinating and challenging because it asks us to use our imaginations and to take seriously the infancy narratives as containing historical memory and to ask ourselves what if these events described in the infancy narratives were based in historical events.   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

Welcome to Episode 1of Season 4! It is amazing and wonderful to begin our 4th season! Today I speak with Dr. Fiona Li, an assistant professor and inaugural holder of the Archbishop J. Michael Miller Chair in Catholic Studies at Corpus Christi-St Mark's College. She is originally from Toronto and received her PhD in Theological Studies from Regis College and U of T. Her primary research interests lie at the intersection of feminist theology, Chinese Canadian Catholic women's experiences, and Mariology.  In today’s podcast, Dr. Li talks about her journey into the Catholic Church through RCIA and the Catholic school system in Ontario when she was a young teenager.  We discuss what does it mean to be a Catholic theologian today?  What does it mean to be a feminist Catholic theologian today?  What does it mean to be a Chinese Canadian feminist Catholic theologian today? My conversation with Fiona centred not just on these specific questions, but on the whole notion of contextual theology, such as liberation theology. Each of us has intersectional identities from which we share our experience of the universal church. As Fiona Li says, “we are here…this group of Chinese Canadian Catholic are here.” This sort of representation, done from a feminist perspective, is not intended to minimize other’s experiences, but to create representation for this particular group of women. For Dr. Li, this means using the person of Mary as Pontifex, Mary as bridge builder for Chinese women, but this does not mean Mary is simply a bridge builder for Chinese women, but that she serves as a bridge builder for all of us, as Catholics, as Mother of God, as a bridge also to Islam. It is exciting to think about Dr. Li’s further research and how she can help continue to bridge  gaps between cultures and groups and people within the Church and outside the Church. Mary, Bridging heaven and earth, and bridging in the Magnificat the word of God for us. One who, along with God, can help us bridge division and bridge relationships. And Fiona helps us see Mary as a bridge builder between Judaism, Islam, and even Buddhism in China with Kwan Yin or Guanyin Boddhisattva as Mary.  And Fiona Li, in Vancouver, the city of bridges, drawing our attention to this exciting new theological project, grounded in the long tradition of Mary, Mother of God. 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

Welcome to Episode 23 of Season 3 with the Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. Stan Chu Ilo is a Catholic priest from Awgu diocese, Nigeria; and Research Professor of World Christianity, African Studies and Global Health at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois (USA). He is also an Honorary Professor of Religion and Theology at Durham University, Durham, England, and Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Nigeria. He is the Coordinating Servant of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN). He is the winner of the 2017 Afro-Global Award for Global Leadership Impact in recognition of his work as the founder of the Canadian Samaritans for Africa that implemented more than 42 women empowerment and community support projects in 6 African countries. He is one of the editors and Board Member of Concilium, International Journal of Theology and serves on the editorial boards of numerous other journals including, the Journal of Global Catholicism, and the Journal of African Christian Biography and Journal Christian Ethics.  He currently serves on the senior advisory board of Templeton Religious Trust grant project on global spiritual formation for religious leaders. He is the principal convener of the Pan-African Catholic Congress, the third edition of which is taking place in Abidjan from August 4-10, 2025. He is the author or editor of 17 books including the forthcoming, Where is God in Africa? A Theology of Suffering and Smiling (with Orbis Books, 2025), Journeying Together in Hope for a Synodal Church in Africa (2024), Daily Walk with Jesus: African Biblical Reflections 365 for a Good Christian Life (2023) Someone Beautiful to God (2020), Wealth, Health and Hope in African Christian Religion (2018), Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and the Spirit in the World (2019)Handbook of African Catholicism (Orbis, 2022), Ecological Ethics for Cosmic Flourishing (Cascade, 2022); Under the Palaver Tree: Post-Vatican II African Ecclesiology (2023);  A Poor and Merciful Church (2019), Church and Development in Africa (2014); The Church as Salt and Light (2011). In today’s podcast, we are bringing you Stan Chu Ilo’s keynote lecture from May 3, 2025 at the CCE Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present, and Future conference in Vancouver. His lecture is called, The Promise and Praxis of Catholic Education: Hope for a Wounded and Divided World? Please enjoy Stan Chu Ilo's lecture!  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

Welcome to Episode 22 of Season 3 with Samuel Rocha on "Dilexit Mundum: A Christian Education and the Love of the World"  the keynote Lecture of Samuel Rocha given on May 2, 2025 in Vancouver, B.C. at the CCE Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present, and Future conference in Vancouver.  Dr. Sam Rocha is Professor of philosophy of education at UBC where he was awarded the Killam Teaching Prize at UBC in 2019.  Sam is the author of a number of books, including A Primer for Philosophy and Education with Cascade Books, which won the American Educational Studies Association Critics Choice Book Award in 2015. His newest book, The Syllabus as Curriculum: A Reconceptualist Approach, was published in 2020 and received the same year's Outstanding Book Award from AERA: Division B, Curriculum Studies. Please enjoy Sam's lecture!  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

Welcome to Episode 21 of Season 3 with Margaret MacDonald on "Educating the Children of God, Infants to Elders," a keynote Lecture of Margaret MacDonald from May 1, 2025 at the CCE Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present, and Future conference in Vancouver.  Margaret Y. MacDonald is Professor of Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. She was Dean of Arts at Saint Mary’s University from 2014 to 2020 and previously taught at St. Francis Xavier University (Nova Scotia) and the University of Ottawa. In the winter of 2018, she held the McCarthy Chair in Biblical Studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (the Biblicum) in Rome.She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford where she held a Commonwealth Scholarship. Please enjoy Margaret's lecture!  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

Welcome to Episode 20 of Season 3 with Thomas Bolin, who joined me to discuss his important new book An Inspired Word in Season: Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized World, and the always fascinating questions related to how we interpret texts, especially significant texts like those that make up the Bible.  Thomas Bolin is a professor of theology and religious studies. Most recently he was  a professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. Norbert College, a small, Catholic, Liberal Arts college sponsored by the Norbertine Order in the heart of  Green Bay, Wisconsin. He teaches courses in the languages, history and culture of the Hebrew Bible and related ancient cultures. He is the author of four books and numerous articles, including Ecclesiastes and The Riddle of Authorship (Routledge, 2017) and  Ezra-Nehemiah (Liturgical Press, 2012). Bolin researches the literary and religious histories of ancient Israel and early Judaism, and the history of Christian biblical interpretation. He is a recipient of the Leonard Ledvina Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Donald B. King Distinguished Scholar Award from SNC. I spoke with him on June 11, 2025, from his home in Wisconsin. I loved my conversation with my friend Tom Bolin. My only regret is not asking even more questions about the history of biblical interpretation and the process of biblical interpretation because I enjoy nerding out in that way and I loved both of those chapters in Tom’s book An Inspired Word in Season: Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized World. But this book is important not just for wrestling with the perennial problems of how we interpret texts and what counts as a valid or good interpretation, but for its relevance for our polarized world right now. Whether you think the Bible ought to influence the political world as it does today, the reality is that it does influence us in profound ways, and from my perspective in some highly negative ways. Reading the Bible well is important for a healthy society. Reading the Bible poorly has helped to create justification for some evil practices not just in the past but today. Join us as we discuss reading the Bible in a polarized time.  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

Welcome to Episode 19 of Season 3 with Michael W. Higgins, who joined me to discuss Pope Francis and our new Pope Leo XIV.  We discussed his newest book, a portrait of Pope Francis, titled the Jesuit Disruptor.  Michael W. Higgins is a distinguished educator, media commentator, and author, and he shows no sign of slowing down! In 1999 Dr. Higgins was appointed President and Vice-Chancellor of St. Jerome's University. He served as President until 2006 when he became President and Vice-Chancellor of St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. While at St. Thomas he also taught English and Religious Studies. He was also President at St. Mark’s College in Vancouver and hired me for my present position, for which I am grateful! 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). I spoke with him on May 9, 2025, from his home in Guelph, Ontario. I wanted to speak to Michael because of his great knowledge of the papacy and of ecclesial politics and I wanted to get some initial thoughts on what it means to have another Pope from the Americas, the US and Peruvian Pope Leo. Join us as we discuss Pope Francis, Pope Leo, and the nature of the modern papacy.  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

Welcome to Episode 18 of Season 3 with my colleagues from St. Mark's College: Dr. Fiona Li, inaugural Archbishop Michael Miller Chair in Catholic Studies, Fr. Nick Meisl, Profess at St. Mark's College, and Dr. Nick Olkovich, Marie Anne Blondin Chair in Catholic Theology.  In this episode we talk about a new Pope, Pope Leo XIV, a native of the United States and a naturalized citizen of Peru. It's an exciting time to see a new Pope no matter what, but as the immediate succcessor to Francis and as another Pope from the Americas, this papacy brings a lot of hope and many serious issues to confront within the Church. In the broader world, issues include the degradation of the environment, war in Gaza and Ukraine, rising poverty and wealth concentrated in fewer hands, and the emergence of autocratic nationalism that rejects immigrants. This is the beginning of the discussion, so join us as we muse, discuss, and speculate!  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

Welcome to Episode 17 of Season 3 with our friend Steve Millies, a Catholic political theorist and the director of the Bernardin Center at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and Professor of Public Theology. Steve has written numerous books, most recently A Consistent Ethic of Life: Navigating Catholic Engagement with U.S. Politics. I spoke with Steve on April 25, 2025 from London, England the day before the funeral and requiem Mass of Pope Francis in Rome.  I wanted to speak with Steve about the legacy of Pope Francis, a Pope whom you will soon hear was greatly admired by both of us. I also wanted to speak with Steve as a part of the process of mourning and remembering a Pope I really felt was “my” Pope as I say in the podcast. The legacy of Pope Francis includes his humility, his solidarity with the poor and those who are marginalized, and his focus on mercy. Here is a list of some elements of the Pope's theological and pastoral legacy as outlined by Matthew Furtado of the communications office at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vancouver: 1.      Integral Ecology: His encyclical Laudato Si’ calls for the protection of creation and an ecological conversion. 2.      Fraternity and Dialogue: Fratelli Tutti encourages peace, encounter, and solidarity between peoples and religions. 3.      Addressing Abuse: Commitment to protecting victims and establishing preventive measures. 4.      Synodality: Invitation to a more participatory Church with the Synod on Synodality. 5.      Pontifical Diplomacy: Mediation for peace and defense of the rights of migrants and refugees. 6.      Pastoral Support: Special attention to young people, families, and those distant from the Church. 7.      Importance for the Poor: Pope Francis places the marginalized and excluded at the heart of his ministry. 8.      Church Reform: He continues the transformation of the Curia and strengthens financial transparency. 9.      Interfaith Dialogue: Strengthening relations with Islam, Judaism, and other spiritual traditions. 10.  Commitment to Peace: Constant calls for peaceful conflict resolution, particularly in Ukraine, the Holy Land, and elsewhere. 11.  Role of Women in the Church: Appointment of women to leadership positions in the Vatican and encouragement for greater female participation in the Church’s life. 12.  Relationship with Canada: Commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, notably through his 2022 visit and his apology for abuses in residential schools. But Steve and I also touched on especially at the end of the podcast of the joy of the Gospel. Steve said, paraphrasing Francis, that"it’s always a shame when a Christian walks around like a sourpuss." That line emerged from a homily he gave on May 10, 2013, early in Francis's pontificate, when he said "that when Christians have more of a sourpuss than a face that communicates the joy of being loved by God, they harm the witness of the church." He went on to say that "the Christian is a man or woman of joy,” something deeper than happiness and something that ought to identity us as Christians.  We did not discuss all of these themes or aspects of his legacy, but I hope in the next week or so to have an episode that focuses more on the meaning of Pope Francis in Canada with an eminent Canadian guest. Please stay tuned for that. There is so much more to say, but I want to end by saying I miss Francis already, a moral authority promoting peace, love, and acceptance at a time when more and more voices are focused on division, polarization, hatred, and cruelty. Pope Francis was loved by most and hated by some for his very focus on mercy and love. Let’s continue to work for mercy and love. 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. Some upcoming events:  The conference is almost upon us! We will have over 40 presenters from Asia, Africa, and North America at The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and where you can register at the CCE website. The link is in the show notes to both the conference website and the registration page. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. 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.   

Welcome to epsiode sixteen of season three, an episode recorded on April 21, 2025, the day on which Pope Francis died.  I talk about Pope Francis in this episode and the first major interview he gave to Jesuit journals around the world including America Magazine in the USA. I have linked to the interview here: A Big Heart Open to God interview.  I responded to that interview with a piece I wrote for America called The Pope's Interview and the Bible. In this episode I read my analysis of the biblical foundations of that interview as I think the passages he referenced remained a guiding light for his papacy and for his encyclicals.    On the CCE Facebook page, I wrote: The CCE mourns the passing of Pope Francis (1936-2025). Our Centre was established to further his outreach to and engagement with the world. Our website says this about his work: “More than fifty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis is leading a renewal of the Church that is deeply embedded within the Catholic Intellectual tradition, which emphasizes that learning means discovering and growing in the truth. It builds on his formation in the Argentinian “Theology of the People”, which understands “the honest and sincere love of God practiced by people at the local level might inform the theological understanding and religious behaviour of the global church.” Released shortly after his election, Francis’ first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (2013) represents his blueprint for this renewal. It calls for the creation of a “culture of encounter”, and for the Church to become “a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcome, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.” In 2023 we held our first international conference to reflect upon the theology of Pope Francis. In that same year we offered our first Laudato Si' lecture, a lecture which is offered annually in honour of his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si'. We are thankful for his life dedicated to sharing the Gospel of love with all people. His life challenges us to answer, what matters most to us, the love of power or the power of love? May he rest in peace and may we continue to witness to God’s love, here in Vancouver and throughout the world. Peace to you all.  There will be further remembrances and reflections on Pope Francis and his papacy to come in the coming week.  John W. Martens, Director, Centre for Christian Engagement    

Welcome to the fifth episode of Pop Culture Matters, a conversation with my good friend and veteran of radio and television in Vancouver and beyond Martin Strong. In this episode we discussed White Lotus season three. It would not have been on my radar for a Pop Culture Matters episode prior to this season, but then again it had never dealt so overtly with Christian and Buddhist spirituality before. It had in the first two seasons focused on the foibles of the rich and materialistic, but this season it took what I think was a welcome turn to explore the themes of materialism and suffering and loss in the context of religious values. That’s right, it turned to what matters most. Martin and I had been watching the show throughout the season but had not talked about it until a couple of weeks ago and we realized this is peak pop culture for our podcast. I hope you enjoy our discussion, but keep in mind as you begin to listen, there are spoilers galore.  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.  Apart from our deep dive into White Lotus, we discussed Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, and he did indeed live in the late 2nd century A.D. (121-180 AD).  Martin also mentioned Ron Sexsmith, a Canadian singer-sonwriter and his song If Only Avenue, which I have linked to here. It's a beautiful song. If you have not heard him before, check out his discography, including the lovely and gentle God Loves Everyone.  We both had also read the article by James Martin, S.J. on the White Lotus finale. We both highly recommended it.  On Theravada Buddhism in general, please check out this introductory page.   Upcoming Events The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and the program on the CCE website. Click here to register. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. Past Events: Father Andrew Laguna S.J.'s annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment is available on You Tube now. Dr Ray Aldred's third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, is available on You Tube. Dr. Michael Higgins lecture on The Monk and the Pope is now on You Tube. The webinar with Fr. Jim Martin on April 7, Building Bridges: Reaching Out to Those on the Margins, is now available on You Tube.  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 pop culture matters.  John W. Martens    

  Welcome to the fourth episode of Pop Culture Matters, different in all sorts of ways, mostly because it’s just me John Martens and also because Easter, our topic today, is not exactly a pop culture matter, but one thing that does seem to be a pop culture matter are memes telling us that Easter is a pagan holiday. These memes and claims sprout like spring flowers around, ah, Easter! Every year as Easter approaches I begin to see a number of Ishtar equals Easter memes roll across my Facebook feed, or other social media, as friends or acquaintances of mine decide to spill the hidden truth on the origins of Easter. Or, Christian friends say, this is nonsense and respond with their own memes, showing how silly these claims are. Ishtar is not Easter. But there are still some good questions to ask, such as , where does the name easter comes from? Is there a little modicum of truth to these claims that easter is a pagan goddess or derived from a pagan celebration? What about Anglo-Saxon “Eostre,” or Babylonian “Ishtar,” Hebrew “Ashtaroth,” and Greek “Astarte"?  As we begin, I want to acknowledge that the land on which St. Mark’s is located is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) People. I record this podcast from the land of the Tsawwassen people. We are thankful for their welcome to us so that we can live, work, and pray on their land and learn from first nations people themselves. 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.  Here are some of the sources I used for the podcast: Bede, De Temporum Ratione: "quondam a Dea illorum quæ Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant nomen habuit." "Easter and its Cycle,” 10-13 in the New Catholic Encyclopedia  (E. Johnson, T. Krosnicki, eds.; 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 Apr. 2013) A. R. C. Leaney, "Easter” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Bruce M. Metzger, Michael D. Coogan, Oxford Biblical Studies Online. 02-Apr-2013).  John F. Baldovin, “Easter” in Encyclopedia of Religion, 2579 (Lindsay Jones, ed.. Vol. 4. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005).   Manfred Lurker, "Ostara" in The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons. (Routledge, 2004. Routledge Religion Online. Taylor & Francis.02 April 2013)  Allen J. Frantzen, Easter" in Anglo-Saxon Keywords (Blackwell Publishing, 2012. Blackwell Reference Online. 02 April 2013), “ Gregory D. Alles and Robert S. Ellwood, "Canaanite religion" in World Religions Online. (Infobase Learning. Web. 2 Apr. 2013).  Upcoming Podcast Epsiodes Coming up next in some order still to be determined are Dr. Fiona Li, the first Archbishop Ireland Chair in catholic studies at St. Mark’s College, and then Dr. Minelle Mahtani of UBC on growing up in Canada with a Muslim and a Hindu parent, and then Dr Paula Fredriksen, one of the great scholars on early Christianity and Judaism, and Dr. Joan Taylor, another great scholar of early Christianity and Judaism. Coming out next on Pop Culture Matters will be Martin Strong and me discussing the Season 3 finale and the whole season of White Lotus. Spirituality was a key theme is this season of the television show. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear, or at our new Facebook page Centre for Christian Engagement. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Upcoming Events The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and the program on the CCE website. Click here to register. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo.   Past Events: Father Andrew Laguna S.J.'s annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment is available on You Tube now. Dr Ray Aldred's third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, is available on You Tube. Dr. Michael Higgins lecture on The Monk and the Pope is now on You Tube. The webinar with Fr. Jim Martin on April 7, Building Bridges: Reaching Out to Those on the Margins, is now available on You Tube.  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 pop culture matters.  John W. Martens      

This is not as late as the last episode, only a day behind this time, but this might be the new normal until the conference is over. Nevertheless, it is worth the wait as Tim and I talk about the stable disposition necessary to create the habits needed to create virtue.  This is episode fifteen of season three with Dr. Tim Pawl, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tim received his MA and PhD from Saint Louis University and his BA in Philosophy and Theology, BA, magna cum laude from Valparaiso University in Philosophy and Theology. Tim works on metaphysics, philosophical theology, and moral psychology. He says, “In metaphysics I work on truthmaker theory, modality, and free will. In philosophical theology, I have published on transubstantiation, Christology, and divine immutability. In moral psychology I have worked with psychologists on questions concerning how best to grow in virtue, and whether the traditional wisdom of the Christian moral tradition is conducive to growth in virtue.” Tim’s best-known works are linked here and include his books on the Christology of the early church councils, The Incarnation. Cambridge Elements Series. Cambridge University Press (2020); In Defense of Extended Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay. Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology. Oxford University Press, 2019; and In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay. Oxford Studies in Analytic Theology. Oxford University Press, 2016. When Tim and I discussed this podcast, though, Tim was interested in discussing his work on virtue and especially a series of articles on virtue in light of both ancient Christian moral teachings and modern psychology. There were three articles in particular that Tim sent to me on The Psychology of Habit Formation and Christian Moral Widom on Virtue Formation, Christian Moral Wisdom, Character Formation, and Contemporary Psychology, and  What is Virtue? The link above will take you to all of these articles. Tim is a significant philosopher on matters that for many of us, myself included, are complex and technical, especially his work on the early councils and their Christological definitions.  What we discussed is also significant and, in many ways, complex too, but there is something about virtue, habit, and personal psychology that is direct and knowable because most of us struggle to live it out our virtues, and wrestle with habits both good and bad. It’s philosophy and psychology that we confront on a regular if not daily basis. How to be good people. Tim mentioned the litany of humility, which I link to here, as a practice that can be of benefit for, indeed, gaining humility.  Tim Pawl is such a careful thinker and I appreciate the care he brought to discussing virtue, virtue formation, and how we can create the habits that allow virtue to flourish both from ancient Christian and contemporary psychological sources. Virtue formation is always important and I suspect always a struggle in every age and for every, or the vast majority, of people. Most of us desire to do better, to live out what matters most to us, and to seek the good whenever we can. But it’s tough sometimes to do it. What can aid us in this? What can help us? But if it is a perennial issue, from a Christian perspective a primal struggle with sin, there are conditions that allow human flourishing more than others. In our own age, one of the major issues that creates the near occasion for sin is social media. One of the bedrock elements of the Christian tradition, emerging from the Jewish tradition, is to tell the truth: Proverbs 12:22: “The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.” Colossians 3:9 says, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices.” We all have to reckon with our own weaknesses. The Rabbis posited that we had a yetzer ha-ra, an evil impulse, and a yetzer ha-tov, a good impulse, something like a light and shadow side. But when disinformation or misinformation have become the mode of communicating it is difficult to determine what is true. Indeed, lies are even in the words. In what way are misinformation disinformation not simply lying? This is where the ancient Christian tradition and contemporary psychology encourage us to maintain the habit formation that create virtue. We tell the truth. We insist that others tell the truth. We seek the truth and not the lies. We do not promote lies. This is what has troubled me in terms of our shared social world. But virtue is a constant process of growth and it is something that matters not just for individuals but for our shared life in community. Let’s tell the truth. I thank Tim for his conversation and know that there might be other virtues that you are growing in and working on. It’s a worthwhile task. It might not seem it in the craziness of our political climate, but virtue is its own reward. 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. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next in some order still to be determined are Dr. Fiona Li, the first Archbishop Ireland Chair in catholic studies at St. Mark’s College, and then Dr. Minelle Mahtani of UBC on growing up in Canada with a Muslim and a Hindu parent, and then Dr Paula Fredriksen, one of the great scholars on early Christianity and Judaism, and Dr. Joan taylor, another great scholar of early Christianity and Judaism. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear, or at our new Facebook page Centre for Christian Engagement. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and the program on the CCE website. Click here to register. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. Some other upcoming events: A webinar with Fr. Jim Martin on April 7 at 5 pm PCT. Building Bridges: Reaching Out to Those on the Margins Is there a place for all people in the Catholic Church? How can everyone feel welcomed and experience God's love in their lives?  Register on Eventbrite now! Past events: Father Andrew Laguna S.J.'s annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment is available on You Tube now. Dr Ray Aldred's third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, is available on You Tube. Dr. Michael Higgins lecture on The Monk and the Pope is now on You Tube. 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.     Dr. John W. Martens  

Sorry for the lateness on this incredible episode! The busy-ness of preparing for the conference and working on a few academic papers led to a two day delay. But this is a long episode and Paul and I had a terrific conversation, so I hope that makes up for some of my tardiness!   This is episode fourteen of season three with Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk, Professor and Aquinas Chair in Theology and Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He has been published in nine languages, and his books include The Suffering of the Impassible God (Oxford, 2004), Histoire du catéchuménat dans l’église ancienne(Cerf, 2007), The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity (co-edited with Sarah Coakley, Cambridge, 2012) and Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford, 2014).  Paul is also a founder of IOTA, the International Orthodox Theological Association, and of Rebuild Ukraine, a humanitarian organization that raises money for Ukraine’s defenders, civilians, and refugees.  Paul is a notable theologian, but as you will hear in this episode he was born in Kiev and educated in the Soviet Union, which was not in the habit of producing a lot of theologians in the 20th century. Paul talks about his conversion experience, his move to the US to study theology, and the realities of authoritarian governments, that he grew up under and which are expanding today. We also discuss his remarkable new Oxford Handbook of Deification, of which he is one of three editors.    Paul Gavrilyuk is an incredible theologian, prolific and learned, and a dear friend. We traveled together through Greece and Turkey teaching early Christianity to 25 undergraduate students many years ago and have shared so many hours at conferences, in classrooms, learning together and simply being together. What a delight to spend this time together again. For me, the most impressive part of Paul’s story, though, is his incredible journey from the Soviet Union to the Church and to an internationally renowned theologian. His story of conversion and the acts of bravery necessary by him and by others to bring his vocation to fruition are humbling. We are in a time of creeping, perhaps moving faster than that now, authoritarianism, and acts of bravery might be essential for us to continue to build a world of concern for all, but especially for those in the most need of support. Paul’s work with Rebuild Ukraine does just that – it cares for those impacted by the senseless war of Putin against the people of Ukraine. This is not a distant war to Paul and his family, it is a war against his home.  Why talk about theology during a time of rising autocracy and oligarchy around the world? While it can be misused for bitter an cruel ends, theology is what sustains so many during times of crisis, war, and persecution. It keeps our minds on what matters most. It reminds us that war is a failure brought on by men who seek power, money, and fame. It is not what sustains us, it is what creates hate and begets cruelty. Paul’s research on theosis or deification points us to our true goal: love of neighbour, love of God, and the hope of life in the presence of God, becoming more and more like God. And what it is to become more and more like God says the Apostle Paul is love. And what love creates on earth are the fruits of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-23 defines the person who is living in accordance with the Holy Spirit as showing these fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When you are lost in a sea of disinformation and people trying to create hatred against one another, ask yourself this? Where do I see the fruits of the spirit? 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. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Tim Pawl, a philosopher, on virtue, and then Dr. Minelle Mahtani of UBC on growing up in Canada with a Muslim and a Hindu parent, and then Dr Paula Fredriksen, one of the great scholars on early Christianity and Judaism. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: We have a webinar with Fr. Jim Martin on April 7 at 5 pm PCT. Building Bridges: Reaching Out to Those on the Margins. Is there a place for all people in the Catholic Church? How can everyone feel welcomed and experience God's love in their lives? Register on Eventbrite now! The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and the program on the CCE website. Click here to register. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. Past events: Father Andrew Laguna S.J.'s annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment is available on You Tube now. Dr Ray Aldred's third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, is available on You Tube. Dr. Michael Higgins lecture on The Monk and the Pope is now on You Tube. 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.     Dr. John W. Martens  

This is episode 13 of season 3 of What Matters Most, featuring the Venerable Rev. Dr. Robert James, Associate Professor, Anglican Formation and Studies at VST.  Apart from his work in Anglican studies, Rob is a biblical scholar and has 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. It was terrific to have on the podcast again my good friend Rob James, a Great Friend of the Podcast, a GFOP as they call it on the Men in Blazers podcast. He is a master storyteller and you might even be able to find some examples of him teaching, singing, and playing his stories on YouTube from his days as a priest in England if you poke around.  Here's a few to get you started! One, Two, Three! I can tell you that his presentation of the story of Jesus teaching how should we pray at the SBL meetings in the Children in the Biblical World session in November 2024 in San Diego had 68 biblical scholars up on their feet doing all of the motions and uttering all of the words as he led us through that story. It was a highlight of the whole conference. But Rob’s work on telling biblical stories for children allows us to think about what we want children to learn from the Bible, and not just children, but adults. Why are we telling these stories for children? Knowledge of these stories and persons is essential for understanding art, music, culture and their influence on English speaking and other cultures. But there are other more important issues also. Some of it certainly is just to let children know about what the Bible teaches, but is this just an issue of teaching morality? Here’s how you need to behave, or practice your faith, here are good things to do unto others, and here are good things to believe. Certainly, all of these things are worthy. But I wonder if simply letting children know about the people in the Bible and what it teaches goes beyond cultural considerations and even moral considerations and simply allows children to encounter God and the nature of God and to reflect on, think about, and even wrestle with questions of purpose and meaning. This sort of wrestling is not beyond children, they do it naturally and have insights about God that transcend their age and simplicity. Rob’s work lets this happen naturally and gently, allowing the stories to teach the children and to teach us. Because thinking about Rob’s work in writing a children’s Bible also made me reflect on and work to understand the purpose of the Bible for adults. What do we hope to get from the Bible? What do we expect from it? Whom do we encounter there? Why are we reading the Bible? 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. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes:  Coming up next is Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk on the Oxford Handbook of Deification and Orthodox theology, IOTA, and his organization Rebuild Ukraine. After that will be Dr. Tim Pawl, a philosopher, on virtue, and then Dr. Minelle Mahtani of UBC on growing up in Canada with a Muslim and a Hindu parent. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: We will have over 40 presenters from Asia, Africa, and North America at The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and where you can register at the CCE website. The link is in the show notes to both the conference website and the registration page. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. On March 3, 2025, Father Andrew Laguna S.J. will be offering our annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment. Past events: On January 27, 2025, Dr Ray Aldred offered the third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, our common home. It is available on You Tube. Dr. Michael Higgins will have already spoken to us on February 10, 2025 on The Monk and the Pope. This lecture is now on You Tube, and you can find all of the links on the CCE website or on St. Mark’s YouTube channel. 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.     Dr. John W. Martens  

This is episode 12 of season 3 of What Matters Most, featuring Dr. Don Baker, Professor of Korean Civilization at UBC in Asian Studies since 1987. The story you will hear him tell about Catholicism in Korea and about the Gwangju democratization movement or resistance in 1980, some of which he was present for, is powerful and moving. It is also a story of the power of moral resistance and the cost of such resistance to many individuals, a cost paid by many with their lives. But the fight for democracy in Korea against military dictatorship is also a story of the worth of such a resistance that included many religious people and many ordinary Koreans.     Don also traces the history of Catholicism in Korea, which arrived with some elite neo-Confucian scholars only in 1784, with the Protestant church arriving a full century later in 1884. It is a story of persecution and martyrdom and Don has written about this in a number of books, including Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Choson Korea and Persecution and Martyrdoms: Korea. It is a story of suffering, but also of resilience and faithfulness. This is a powerful episode and it was moving to me to hear it, I suspect it might be for you too, and more significantly it was moving for Don who witnessed the events of the democratization resistance at Gwangju in 1980 to recount the story of suffering. Dictatorship is never the pathway forward and it took great moral courage, resilience, and many lives to cast off the Korean dictatorship. This is the kind of moral courage needed today to defend democracy all over the world. The nuns and priests, other religious figures, and the ordinary people of Korea showed this great resistance and as a result the Catholic church in Korea is the most respected religion there to this day, a Church without scandal. But it is a Church that emerged from great suffering too starting soon after its arrival in Korea by Koreans themselves, neo-Confucian scholars who found writings about Catholicism by Matte Ricci in China and brought it back themselves in 1784. There were no priests in Korea when the persecutions against Korean Catholics began. They had brought the religion themselves and made it their own and persevered. This is truly an episode about what matters most, about the choices people made to accept suffering to remain faithful to their beliefs, and about people in the 1980s, nuns and priests included, who were willing to stand up for democracy against dictatorship. This is something all of us need to keep asking, what matters most to us, what is more important to us than more money or more power? Because these things do not satisfy at the deepest level. Every day one sees political leaders, billionaires, striving for more, and more, more money, more countries, more power, while the many go without enough to eat or a place to live. The Korean Catholic church demonstrates that better than that is a life lived in tune with the truth and in tune with the deepest hopes of human beings, freedom, integrity, and truth. Strongman come and go, but the truth cannot ultimately be buried or persecuted out of existence.    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. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Reverend Dr. Rob James on children's Bibles, Dr. Tim Pawl, a philosopher, on virtue, Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk on orthodox theology, growing up in the Soviet Union, and the new Oxford Handbook on Deification that he co-edited,  and Dr. Minelle Mahtahni on her memoir “May It Have a Happy Ending." Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: We will have over 40 presenters from Asia, Africa, and North America at The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. You can find all the information on the speakers and where you can register at the CCE website. The link is in the show notes to both the conference website and the registration page. The cost for the whole conference is minimal and the three keynote speakers are free, but you do need to register for Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. Other events: On January 27, 2025, Dr Ray Aldred offered the third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, our common home. It is already available on You Tube. By the time you hear this podcast, Dr. Michael Higgins will have already spoken to us on February 10, 2025 on The Monk and the Pope. This lecture is now on You Tube, and you can find all of the links on the CCE website or on St. Mark’s YouTube channel. On March 3, 2025, Father Andrew Laguna S.J. will be offering our annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment. 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.     Dr. John W. Martens  

This is Episode Eleven of Season Three, featuring Dr. Gerald Schlabach, an emeritus professor in the Department of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught for twenty years and also served for six years as chair of the Department of Justice and Peace Studies. Previously he taught history at Bluffton College, a Mennonite liberal arts college in Ohio. Gerald received his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied ethics in the Department of Theology. During much of the 1980s, he worked in Central America with Mennonite Central Committee, an organization dedicated to peace, justice, Christ-like service and global education. A Roman Catholic as of Pentecost 2004, Gerald is a Benedictine oblate, is deeply involved in the Bridgefolk movement for grassroots dialogue and unity between Mennonites and Catholics, and continues to call himself a “Mennonite Catholic.” He is the author of numerous books. Check them all out at his website. I will mention here a few of them, Sharing Peace: Mennonites and Catholics in Conversation, Unlearning Protestantism: Sustaining Christian Community in an Unstable Age, and the book we will focus on here A Pilgrim People: Becoming A Catholic Peace Church Gerald and I were colleagues for twenty years and you can hear in our conversation what those who have worked alongside him know: he is thoughtful about his faith and he takes seriously the need to live out his faith in community, with care and support for those who have been marginalized, and in tune with the Gospel. His work in Guatemala continues to this day. With author Juan Ajtzip, Gerald is helping to bring to English readers A Mayan Witness to Blessed Stanley Rother. Juan Ajtzip was the first Mayan director of La Voz de Atitlán, a radio station founded by the missionary team from Oklahoma that included Father Stanley Rother, a missionary priest from Oklahoma, who has been declared a martyr for the faith (December 2016) and was beatified by Pope Francis (September 2017). He served and lived with the Tz’utujil Maya people of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, from 1968 until his assassination on July 28, 1981. I really appreciated his book A Pilgrim People: Becoming a Catholic Peace Church, and what it means to be a peace church, Catholic or otherwise, and how to live out non-violence. I asked Gerald about the accusations that non-violence is simply naïve, not attuned to the harsh realities of life, too idealistic, and Gerald movingly spoke of how one has to deal with feelings of anger created by war and conflict, drawing on Bruce Cockburn’s searing song “If I Had a Rocket Launcher.” But Gerald challenged the assumption that war works, that war is the best way to solve problems, and argued that non-violence works better than we might expect. Does violence really work? It might be more realistic, less naïve, to invest in strategies of non-violence. He cited Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan by Columbia University Press. Non-violence they argue from the data is 4x as likely to succeed, 10x as likely to result in a durable, sustainable democracy 10 years later than violence and war. For Christians in general, Catholics in particular, we need to recognize that national identity should not trump the Sermon on the Mount. If you want to make an argument for Just War, going back to Augustine, then this requires taking seriously the demands of this late antique theory, which is serious and limited. But we ought to ask ourselves first: how can we avoid violence? How can we work for pacifism instead of Just War? How can we have a proper patriotism but love all of our neighbors? How does violence create and relate to immigration? Gerald recommended Jonathan Blitzer’s book, Everyone Who Has Gone is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis to understand how violence brought about so many of the issues related to immigration in the USA today.   So, we need to ask, what can we do to build a civilization of love? The pilgrimage we need to take is one of love, which does not avoid or evade hard questions, and takes seriously the fears and worries of others, and our own sinfulness and anger, but the biblical visions of love need to be our end goal on our journeys, our attempt to help create a new earth. This might seem particularly difficult now in an age when politics seems to be getting uglier and uglier and crueler and crueler. But now is the time to put it into practice. If Christian nationalism is wrong what is right? If Constantinianism is wrong, what is right? For Christians, it has to be love across borders. 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. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Don Baker of UBC on Catholicism in Korea and why Catholicism is such a respected religion there and Dr. Tim Pawl, a philosopher, on virtue and maybe we can get him to talk about the Trinity too. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Upcoming Conference:  You can now register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA.  Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, only $60 and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. The link is in the show notes to both the conference website and the registration page. Three confirmed keynote speakers are Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. These keynote or plenary sessions are free for all, so look for the registration information on our website now. Other Events: On January 27, 2025, Dr Ray Aldred offered the third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, our common home. It is already available on YouTube.  On February 10, 2025, Dr. Michael Higgins will be speaking about his new biography of Pope Francis called the Jesuit Disruptor. You can register online at Eventbrite now! On March 3, 2025, Father Andrew Laguna S.J. will be offering our annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment. A few thanks are in order. First of all, I am grateful to Martin Strong, who guides me in the podcasting world. Second, the episodes are edited, engineered, and produced by Kevin Eng who is the first listener to all the episodes and helps me pick out those opening snippets which do so much to set the tone for each episode. Thank you, Kevin, for all of your expertise and support. Finally, to the Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, 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, St. Mark's College at UBC

This is Episode Ten of Season Three, featuring Dr. Ruben Rosario Rodriguez, the Clarence Louis and Helen Steber Professor in Theological Studies at St. Louis University. He holds a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary (2004). Dr. Rodriguez is also a Presbyterian minister.  Ruben is also an expert in the work of John Calvin, the divisive 16th century reformer from France who became a major figure in Geneva during the Reformation of the 16th century. Today we are discussing his book Calvin for the World: The Enduring Relevance of His Political, Social, and Economic Theology.  As I mentioned, Calvin is divisive, for some people a hated figure, often based upon his view of double predestination, that is, God's absolute sovereignty in the salvation or damnation of the human soul and his role in the death of Michael Servetus. Ruben’s book is an attempt to give a fuller representation of who Calvin is and what he actually says. I invited Ruben on not just because we share a great love for 70s punk rock, the Ramones, Tom Verlaine, and many others, but because I heard he had taped a podcast with a Calvinist leaning podcast that then reneged on posting the podcast, perhaps because of certain theological disagreements. That did sit right with me: this podcast is about asking questions and getting to know people and what matters most to them. We do not have to share all of our beliefs in common to befriend each other or to listen to each other. I enjoyed our conversation and I really enjoy Dr. Rodriguez’s honesty and integrity as a person and as a theologian. I knew little about John Calvin prior to my conversation with Ruben, but I know a lot more now, even if I am only scratching the surface and though I am no Calvinist. But it is good to get to know people better, especially historical figures who have shaped our world and our thought in ways perhaps even unknown to us, and especially figures who often just function as stereotypes in our thoughts. For me his book fulfilled its major stated goal: “to correct many of the misconceptions about Calvin perpetuated by an inadequate knowledge of his work.” Others more expert in Calvinism than me will know more about many of the issues Ruben and I discussed, but I appreciated his book and its consideration Calvin’s Theology of Public Life and how his analysis of Psalm 82:3-4 “fits” with a preferential option for the poor and liberation theology; though I’m still not sure why Calvin does not think it proper to topple tyrannical governments, Ruben presented Calvin’s view of “two kingdoms” as an argument for seeing Calvin as a proto-liberationist with respect to illegitimate governments that act contrary to the word of God. I appreciated the connections between liberation theology, Archbishop Romero, and Calvin’s theology of civil governance. I was also intrigued by Calvin’s desired “egalitarian communal structure” and his rejection of “authoritarian absolutism in either the Church or the State” and Ruben’s argument that Calvin could be seen in favor of religious toleration. Ruben also offered an interesting comparison between Bartolomeo de Las Casas and Calvin with respect to treatment of indigenous people and others. It’s an interesting point, as later in South Africa Calvinism played a role in the building of the apartheid state of South Africa. Yet, Ruben argues and shows the ways in which Calvin’s thought also inspired resistance to white Christian nationalism. The events in Sharpeville and especially Soweto emerged from African Christians in the movement to take down apartheid. Alan Boesak, the African Calvinist church leader, enlisted Calvin theologically to argue white supremacy in Christianity and the apartheid state. This resulted in the Belhar Confession, linked here, which stood resolutely against apartheid.  And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Gerald Schlabach on his new book, A Pilgrim People: Becoming a Catholic Peace Church, Dr. Don Baker, and Dr. Tim Pawl. Three episodes of Pop Culture Matters are out. I hope you enjoyed the conversation Martin and I had on Christmas films.  What’s up next for Pop Culture Matters? We are considering the wonderful and recently ended HBO series Somebody Somewhere, a show which perhaps surprisingly has church as an integral part of its world. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: You can now register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. We will have over 40 presenters from Asia, Africa, and North America. The webpage for the conference is now available at the CCE website, where you can find information on the speakers and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, only $60 and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. The link takes you to the conference website and you can find a registration link there.  Three confirmed keynote speakers are Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. These keynote or plenary sessions are free for all, so look for the registration information on our website now.  Some other upcoming events: On January 27, 2025, we will have an in person and virtual event with Dr Ray Aldred, who will offer the third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, our common home. Register here. On February 10, 2025, Dr. Michael Higgins will be speaking about his new biography of Pope Francis called the Jesuit Disruptor. Register here. On March 3, 2025, Father Andrew Laguna S.J. will be offering our annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment. A few thanks are in order. First of all, I am grateful to Martin Strong, who guides me in the podcasting world. Second, the episodes are edited, engineered, and produced by Kevin Eng who is the first listener to all the episodes and helps me pick out those opening snippets which do so much to set the tone for each episode. Thank you, Kevin, for all of your expertise and support. Finally, to the Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, 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, St. Mark's College at UBC

This is Episode Nine of Season Three, featuring Dr. Megan Fritts. Megan Fritts joined the UA Little Rock philosophy faculty in the School of Human Inquiry in 2022. She received her Ph.D. in 2020 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work intersects with several subdisciplines, including technology ethics, medical ethics, action theory, 19th century philosophy, and philosophy of religion. Her current projects focus on ways in which emerging technologies threaten to undermine essential conditions for human flourishing. Dr. Fritts teaches several courses at UA Little Rock, including Ethics and Society, Technology Ethics, Philosophy of Science, and 19th Century Philosophy. She is also the co-host of Philosophy on the Fringes, a podcast that applies rigorous philosophical thinking to unexpected topics. In this podcast, we discuss the problem of evil, or theodicy. I was led to invite Megan onto the podcast after reading her recent article in Religious Studies called Creation as divine absence: A metaphysical reframing of the problem of evil,  an open access article to which I have linked here. This is an ancient and perennial problem in theology and philosophy, dating back to the ancient Greeks and ancient Christianity. The problem is simply stated: why would, in the Christian understanding, an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God – omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent – allow evil and suffering to flourish in the world? Megan Fritts looks to Simone Weil, the French Catholic philosopher to help us understand the presence of evil and the absence of God. There is, however, no easy solution to the problem of theodicy for anyone. It is difficult to make sense of profound evil and suffering regardless of one’s theism or atheism or non-theism. In this vein, I also want to offer a link to Yujin Nagasawa’s new book The Problem of Evil for Atheists, which is also available as open access online. Although framed as the problem the problem of evil for atheists, Nagasawa also considers the problem of evil for traditional theists, pantheists and axiarchists, as well as atheists and non-theists in both the east and west. Finally, Megan recommended Simone Weil's works Waiting for God and Gravity and Grace.  And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Ruben Rosario on Calvin for the World, his new book, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, Dr. Don Baker, and Dr. Tim Pawl. Three episodes of Pop Culture Matters are out. I hope you enjoyed the conversation Martin and I had on Christmas films.  What’s up next for Pop Culture Matters? We are considering the wonderful and recently ended HBO series Somebody Somewhere, a show which perhaps surprisingly has church as an integral part of its world. Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: You can now register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. We will have over 40 presenters from Asia, Africa, and North America. The webpage for the conference is now available at the CCE website, where you can find information on the speakers and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, only $60 and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. The link is in the show notes to both the conference website and the registration page. Three confirmed keynote speakers are Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. These keynote or plenary sessions are free for all, so look for the registration information on our website now.   Some other upcoming events: On January 27, 2025, we will have an in person and virtual event with Dr Ray Aldred, who will offer the third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, our common home. On February 10, 2025, Dr. Michael Higgins will be speaking about his new biography of Pope Francis called the Jesuit Disruptor. On March 3, 2025, Father Andrew Laguna S.J. will be offering our annual Jesuit Lecture on Immigration and Ignatian Spiritual Discernment. A few thanks are in order. First of all, I am grateful to Martin Strong, who guides me in the podcasting world. Second, the episodes are edited, engineered, and produced by Kevin Eng who is the first listener to all the episodes and helps me pick out those opening snippets which do so much to set the tone for each episode. Thank you, Kevin, for all of your expertise and support. Finally, to the Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, 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, St. Mark's College at UBC

Welcome to the third episode of Pop Culture Matters, a conversation with my good friend and yours Martin Strong. Today we’re talking about Christmas movies, our favorite Christmas movies, and what we think makes for a good Christmas movie.  We asked a lot of people on campus at UBC and St. Mark’s and on social media, what their favorite Christmas movies are. Here’s a list of a bunch of them, in no particular order that people mentioned to us:  Love, Actually; White Christmas; It’s a Wonderful Life; Elf; While You Were Sleeping;-Miracle on 34th Street; Muppets Christmas Carol; The Shop Around the Corner; Christmas with the Kranks; Rudolph; A Christmas Story; The Ref; Home Alone; The original Grinch; The Bishop’s Wife, Christmas in Connecticut, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Holiday Inn, Alistair Sim’s Scrooge;  Fred Claus, The Holdovers, Tokyo Godfathers, Batman Returns, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas, About a Boy, Scrooged, Die Hard, The Santa Clause, The Nativity Story, and Bad Santa. Why are these are favorites and what do we think is need to be a Christmas favorite? Get comfortable and cozy with your loved ones and settle in with a cup of hot cocoa and a Christmas cookie. If this podcast hits some of the right Christmas notes, you’re going to change your selfish ways and be transformed by the warmth of Christmas.   Christmas movies are fun, but I think Martin hit it on the head when he said the best ones are also earnest. Not saccharine, not too sweet, but warm, uplifting, and hopeful. They encourage us to be better. They point us away from commercialization to what really matters in life.  They often call us to transformation, often through the use of angels or spirits, who show us the better path and how to embrace the joy of the life through Christmas time. And sometimes they do indeed move into the Christmas story, the nativity of Jesus, as with Linus reciting the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke as he explains the true meaning of Christmas to Charlie Brown and the whole Peanuts gang. Or in the Bishop’s Wife, when David Niven’s Bishop says the gifts to give Jesus are lovingkindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance.    Merry Christmas from all of us at the Centre for Christian Engagement  and St. Mark’s College. Merry Christmas to Martin Strong for joining me in this venture! Merry Christmas to Kevin Eng for editing and engineering this episode and integrating all the wonderful music in the podcast. Merry Christmas to Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. Merry Christmas to Kenton McDonald-Lin for the interviews on the UBC campus that spiced up this Christmas episode.  Merry Christmas to all of 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 and give the gift of What Matters Most by also rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform.  Thanks again for listening and remember Merry Christmas.    Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. I will also post the question on Facebook @biblejunkies. We will be moving to a CCE Facebook page, but in the meantime, feel free to check us out @biblejunkies. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. John W. Martens

This is Episode Eight of Season Three, featuring Fr. Ryan Duns, S.J., Department Chair and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology in the Theology Department at Marquette University. He received his Ph.D. from Boston College in 2018. Reading from his Marquette web page, I can tell you that “Ryan Duns, SJ works at the intersection of philosophy and systematic theology. He has published on Karl Rahner, Jean-Luc Marion, René Girard, and his most recent work has involved a sustained engagement with William Desmond’s metaphysics. His dissertation, “Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age? William Desmond’s Theological Achievement” argued that, when read as a form of spiritual exercise (Pierre Hadot), Desmond’s philosophy can re-awaken a sense of the Transcendent.” Today we will discuss his new book Theology of Horror: The Hidden Depths of Popular Films. We discuss what horror is, how it makes us feel, what it can teach us, and what is the dark transcendent. Is Advent and Christmas the time to discuss horror and its meaning? I suspect Halloween might be more traditional, but Ryan Duns argues that in the incarnation the divine breaks through to show us our world is shot through with sin. Jesus is the light that reveals the dark transcendent. To get a taste of it, please watch the short film Lights Out on YouTube. It’s less than 3 minutes long, then come back.  And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Christine Evans on Pop Culture Matters and the movie The Night of the Hunter, Fr. Ryan Duns on the theology of horror, Dr. Megan Fritts Cabrera, Dr. Ruben Rosario, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, and Dr. Tim Pawl. Dr. Christine Evans and I have already recorded the next Pop Culture Matters episode, inspired by a recent viewing of The Night of the Hunter and and excellent lecture by Christine at VIFF. We discuss Robert Mitchum's creepy and dreadful film. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Megan Fritts Cabrera, Dr. Ruben Rosario, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, Dr. Don Baker, and Dr. Tim Pawl. What a lineup! Two episodes of Pop Culture Matters are out. I hope you have listened to them. Martin and I are ready for more and we are going to talk about Christmas films. What makes a film a Christmas film? What is your favorite Christmas film? Why is it your favorite? Let us know what you want to discuss next on Pop Culture Matters. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. I will also post the question on Facebook @biblejunkies. We will be moving to a CCE Facebook page, but in the meantime, feel free to check us out @biblejunkies. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: You can now register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. We will have over 40 presenters from Asia, Africa, and North America. The webpage for the conference is now available at the CCE website, where you can find information on the speakers and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, only $60 and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. Details are now on the website.  Three confirmed keynote speakers are Dr. Margaret MacDonald, Dr. Samuel Rocha, and Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo. These keynote or plenary sessions are free for all, so look for the registration information on our website now.  Some other upcoming events: On January 27, 2025 we will have an in person and virtual event with Dr Ray Aldred, who will offer the third annual Laudato Si’ lecture, bringing together Indigenous and Christian thought on how to care for creation, our common home. A few thanks are in order. First of all, I am grateful to Martin Strong, who guides me in the podcasting world. Second, the episodes are edited, engineered, and produced by Kevin Eng who is the first listener to all the episodes and helps me pick out those opening snippets which do so much to set the tone for each episode. Thank you, Kevin, for all of your expertise and support. Finally, to the Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, 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. And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform.  Thanks again for listening and remember what matters most.    John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC

Welcome to the second episode of Pop Culture Matters, a discussion with Dr. Christine Evans of UBC on the 1955 movie, The Night of the Hunter. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC.    Christine Evans brings a wealth of knowledge about film and is a captivating speaker. How did we come to speak about The Night of the Hunter and not a more recent film? Martin Strong invited me to see the film in the VIFF Pantheon series and I went along with him one Sunday to watch it. Prior to the film, there was a short lecture scheduled, and I groaned a little inside. A lecture before the film? But it was Christine Evans and she is a master teacher. I was enthralled by how she placed the film in its historical context, explained its use of cameras and light and shadow, and how she prepared us to watch the film. This is the only film directed by Charles Laughton, and it stars the great Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish, and while it did not do well at the box office, it is now seen as a great American films, one of the Pantheon. Martin and I will soon discuss more recent films, but it was essential I thought that we discussed this film in all of its fogginess, vulnerability, and tension. Once the film started that day, I was surprised to find that it began with passages from the Sermon on the Mount and that the biblical themes and passages ran throughout the film. Not only that, but the biblical themes were related to my own area of research: children in the Bible. We talk about these biblical passages in our conversation, but I also return to some of these passages at the end of the podcast as not all of them fit in the context of our conversation.   If you haven’t watched the film yet, track it down. I watched the film two more times on the streamer Kanopy after viewing it at VIFF, a free streaming service which I have through my local library, but I am sure it is available in other places too.  You can listen to the podcast before watching the film, just as I heard Christine speak about it before I saw it, and you will gain a lot from listening. 70 years on, as Christine said at VIFF, there are no real spoilers, but if you can see it before you hear this discussion that could help you understand our conversation more fully. On the other hand, even after watching the film three times, you will hear Christine explain elements of the film that I completely missed – she is the expert – as well as hear me mispronounce Zizek, which might lead me to hand in my academic card.  So, thanks to Martin for making this conversation happen and to Christine Evans for helping us make sense of the movie The Night of the Hunter.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. I will also post the question on Facebook @biblejunkies. We will be moving to a CCE Facebook page, but in the meantime, feel free to check us out @biblejunkies. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Thanks to Kevin Eng for editing and engineering this episode. Thanks to Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, 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. And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform.  John W. Martens

This is Episode Seven of Season Three, featuring Dr. Ross Lockhart, who is Professor of Mission Studies at Vancouver School of Theology and Dean of St. Andrew’s Hall. Ross is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. His main areas of research are in Missiology and Homiletics. He is the author of numerous books, including Lessons from Laodicea: Missional Leadership in a Culture of Affluence; Beyond Snakes and Shamrocks: St. Patrick’s Missional Leadership Lessons for Today; co-author of Better Than Brunch: Missional Churches in Cascadia as well as Christianity: An Asian Religion in Vancouver and editor of Christian Witness in Cascadian Soil.  His newest book is West Coast Mission: The Changing Nature of Christianity in Vancouver and it formed the basis of our conversation.  We discuss what it means to be a Christian in Vancouver, a place where, honestly, there’s not a lot of hostility to Christianity, but maybe more a bit of disinterest or bemused curiosity for this minority religion. Ross also gave us numerous excellent resources for understanding religion in post-Christendom Vancouver, which really, as Ross explains, was never a part of broader Christendom as in the rest of Canada. Ross mentioned the work of Lynn Marx, whose book Infidels and the Damn Churches Irreligion and Religion in Settler British Columbia examines the religious history of the Canadian European wild west. Tina Block continues that work in her book The Secular Northwest Religion and Irreligion in Everyday Postwar Life that "debunks the myth of a godless frontier, revealing a Pacific Northwest that was serious about its secularity, consciously rejecting the trappings of organized religion but not necessarily spirituality – and not necessarily God." He mentioned many other scholars, but I will highlight here the work of Paul Bramadat, also from Winnipeg, who among other writings co-edited Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest, which examines religion in all of its varieties in Cascadia.  And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Christine Evans on Pop Culture Matters and the movie The Night of the Hunter, Fr. Ryan Duns on the theology of horror, Dr. Megan Fritts Cabrera, Dr. Ruben Rosario, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, and Dr. Tim Pawl. Dr. Christine Evans and I have already recorded the next Pop Culture Matters episode, inspired by a recent viewing of The Night of the Hunter and and excellent lecture by Christine at VIFF. We discuss Robert Mitchum's creepy and dreadful film. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: We are now setting the program for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. We will update the website soon with information on the program and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, around $50-60  and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. Details are coming soon. Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers:  Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago On December 5, we will have Matt Hoven presenting in-person on his new book on Fr. David Bauer, Hockey Priest. Matt will be interviewed by Clay Imoo, Canuck Clay!  You can now register for the event on Eventbrite.  The CCE website is now up and running. I am so excited that we now have one stop for all of our events, the podcast, our YouTube videos, and everything else, including upcoming events. Check it out as it continues to be updated by Fang Fang and Kevin on a regular basis! 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. Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. 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. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series and support of our conferences, and now in their donation of money for the purchase of new podcast equipment.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter, Threads, or BlueSky @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. It really does help people find these inspiring conversations! John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC

This is Season Three, Episode Six is here, featuring Dr. Adele Reinhartz,Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, in Canada. Her main areas of research are New Testament, early Jewish-Christian relations, the Bible and Film, and feminist biblical criticism. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John (2001), Scripture on the Silver Screen (Westminster John Knox, 2003), Jesus of Hollywood (Oxford, 2007), Caiaphas the High Priest (2011), and Bible and Cinema: An Introduction (Routledge, 2013). In this episode we spent a lot of time discussing her timely new book Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John. The title of this epsiode, however, is taken from her forthcoming book, Jousting with John. Adele has been a Member of the Institutes of Advanced Studies in Princeton and in Jerusalem and has been a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School (1999), Yale Divinity School (2010), and Boston College (2015-17). She was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada in 2005 and into the Academy for Jewish Research in 2014.  Adele has been the General Editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature, and President of the Society of Biblical Literature. She is a significant figure in NT studies and in my own life as I studied with Adele both as an undergrad and a grad student at University of St. Michael's College and McMaster University respectively. Adele tells me that I should not think about her as my teacher, as it was many decades ago, but as colleagues. I know we are colleagues and she is a wonderful and supportive colleague, but it is hard not to think about the person who introduced me to Judaism in the Second Temple period, the love of my academic life and vocation, as my teacher. With her I read books for the first time by Victor Tcherikover, Ellis Rivkin, Jacob Neusner, Elias Bickerman, and Saul Lieberman. If you do not know those names, you are a part of the 99.9%. if you know those names, you too are a Second Temple Judaism nerd and might have studied Judaism in its Hellenistic environment. Another reason it sticks with me is that I went to study in Toronto due to Fr. Jim Roberts, with whom I studied at Vancouver Community College Langara and took a course on the history of Christianity. It was here as a naïve 19- or 20-year-old I learned about antisemitism in Christianity. I was shocked and I asked Fr. Roberts, where should I go study to learn more about this? He directed me to St Michael’s College at U of T and Gregory Baum, whom I would find out later had a significant role in drafting Nostra Aetate, the Vatican II document that categorically separated the Church from earlier teachings and practices regarding the Jews. Adele too studied with Baum earlier. So here we are in 2024 and it is essential for us as Christians to continue to combat antisemitic readings of the Bible, which have too often in the past and even today led to antisemitic language and behaviours. This can be tough going for Christians to repudiate beloved passages or books of the Bible such as the Gospel of John. But it can and it must be done. There is no option but to stand against it, whether intentional or unintentional. Biblical scholars, teachers of the Bible in churches and schools, must carefully explain the historical settings and origins of these texts, but also simply say no to passages that lead to hatred and cruelty of Jews. Even simple things like the God of the OT is cruel and vindictive, but the God of the NT is loving and kind. I encourage everyone to read the Bible and see that the presentation of God in both the Hebrew Bible and the NT encompasses elements of judgment and mercy. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Ross Lockhart on Christianity in Vancouver, Dr. Christine Evans on Pop Culture Matters and the movie The Night of the Hunter, Fr. Ryan Duns, Dr. Ruben Rosario, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, and Dr. Tim Pawl. The first episode of Pop Culture Matters is out. I hope you have listened to it. As mentioned above, inspired by a recent viewing of The Night of the Hunter and and excellent lecture by UBC film prof Christine Evans, we are going to discuss Robert Mitchum's creepy and dreadful film. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: We are now setting the program for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. We will update the website soon with information on the program and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, around $50-60  and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. Details are coming soon. Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers:  Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago On December 5, we will have Matt Hoven presenting in-person on his new book on Fr. David Bauer, Hockey Priest. Matt will be interviewed by Clay Imoo, Canuck Clay!  You can now register for the event on Eventbrite.  The CCE website is now up and running. I am so excited that we now have one stop for all of our events, the podcast, our YouTube videos, and everything else, including upcoming events. Check it out as it continues to be updated by Fang Fang and Kevin on a regular basis! 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. Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. 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. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series and support of our conferences, and now in their donation of money for the purchase of new podcast equipment.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter, Threads, or BlueSky @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. It really does help people find these inspiring conversations! John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC

This is Season Three, Episode Five is here, featuring Dr. Bill Cavanaugh, professor of Catholic studies at De Paul University in Chicago and director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, a research center housed in the Department of Catholic Studies and focusing on the Catholic Church in the global South—Africa, Asia, and Latin America.    Bill is one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the 21st century, having written numerous important books in the past 25 years, such as Torture and the Eucharist, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, and The Myth of Religious Violence. Today we are focusing on his new book from Oxford University Press, The Uses of Idolatry, where the gods of consumerism and nationalism are discussed. It was a delight to speak with an old friend, but it’s even more delightful when an old friend happens to be a great theologian, who is funny and warm. Lucky me to have this conversation with Bill and lucky us to be able to listen to this conversation. Bill says early on in the podcast, “I mean, in some ways, the thesis of the book is really simple. And it's not terribly original, right? It's the idea that we don't live in a secular world where worship has waned. We live in an enchanted world, you know, an idolatrous world where people still worship lots of things but not God.” It might not be original, but it is provocative, and I know not everyone agrees with it, such as perhaps Charles Taylor. One of the things I love about Bill’s work is that he takes on big questions and is not afraid to offer big answers. I loved talking about and subsequently thinking about disenchantment and enchantment, especially regarding the claim that modernity is disenchanted. I think Bill is right to push back on that and part of it emerges for me and my understanding of the world as an historian of antiquity. I think there is a portrayal of the ancient world as fundamentally more enchanted than people of the ancient world described it. That is, the portrayal of ancient people tends to romanticize them in comparison to modern people. Bill wrote in the The Uses of Idolatry, “there is no “race” of humans who experience the world entirely as immanent; there is rather a set of people in the West who have learned— for various reasons having to do with how power is distributed in Western societies— to describe their world as immanent and disenchanted, while they are still involved in all sorts of worship.” (9) In the same way, the ancients were not all walking around enchanted while their children died and while they tried to afford food or the rent.   I loved talking about and thinking about what constitutes religion, and the difference between magic and religion, if there is one, and how nationalism and consumerism might fill the God gap for us. These ultimately Bill says are simply idols, splendid or unsplendid. Bill spoke about and wrote about how the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ as an antidote to idolatry. I wondered whether there are such antidotes in other religious traditions. Among indigenous peoples for instance?  How do people who are not Christian counter idolatries like nationalism and consumerism? Must one be a Christian/catholic to worship a/the true God? That’s not Bill’s argument and we discussed how this is the book as a Christian theologian he can write, but I raised the possibility of bringing together scholars of other religions to discuss the questions of idolatry, especially of nationalism and consumerism, which seem like universal gods, from the point of view of other religion standpoints and traditions. Bill has a clear audience in mind of course, “The first audience is those who claim to believe in God, primarily but not exclusively the Christian community. To claim to believe in God is not necessarily to worship God in reality. I hope that this book will help Christians and others to think more deeply about our own practical idolatries and to seek God’s help in remedying them and healing a broken world. The second audience is those who claim not to believe in God. I hope that the theoretical and empirical work of this book might demonstrate that the supposed divide between “believers” and “nonbelievers” is perhaps not so wide as is often assumed" (6). I think he’s right, but I see that third audience, those who follow other religious traditions and how they might respond and do in practice respond to realities of nationalism and consumerism. 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. And now some news on upcoming podcast episodes: Coming up next is Dr. Adele Reinhartz of U of Ottawa on the Gospel of John and antisemitism in the NT and in Christianity, and on the horizon are Dr. Ross Lockhart, Fr. Ryan Duns, S.J., Dr. Ruben Rosario, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, and Dr. Tim Pawl. The first episode of Pop Culture Matters is out. I hope you have listened to it. Martin and I are ready for more and we are definitely thinking about a movie: the Matrix? The Big Lebowski? Philomena? The Meaning of Life? Let us know what you want to discuss. At this point, inspired by a recent viewing of The Night of the Hunter and and excellent lecture by UBC film prof Christine Evans, we are thinking of a discussion of Robert Mitchum's creepy and dreadful film. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. I will also post the question on Facebook @biblejunkies. We will be moving to a CCE Facebook page, but in the meantime, feel free to check us out @biblejunkies. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Some upcoming events: We are now setting the program for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. We will update the website soon with information on the program and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal to attend the concurrent sessions of the conference itself, around $50-60  and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. Details are coming soon. Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers:  Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago On October 29, we will have a webinar on the American election featuring Steve Millies and his new book, A Consistent Ethic of Life: Navigating Catholic Engagement with U.S. Politics. We will also have a Canadian respondent Dr. Jane Barter, professor of religion and culture at the U of Winnipeg. She teaches and does research on Christianity, Religion and Gender, and Religion and Political Theory.  You can register for the webinar now at Eventbrite. On December 5, we will have Matt Hoven presenting in-person on his new book on Fr. David Bauer, Hockey Priest. Matt will be interviewed by Clay Imoo, Canuck Clay! The CCE website is now up and running. I am so excited that we now have one stop for all of our events, the podcast, our YouTube videos, and everything else, including upcoming events. Check it out as it continues to be updated by Fang Fang and Kevin on a regular basis! 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. Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. 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. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series and support of our conferences, and now in their donation of money for the purchase of new podcast equipment.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter, Threads, or BlueSky @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. It really does help people find these inspiring conversations! John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC

Season Three, Episode Four is here, featuring Dr. Daisy Vargas, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the U of Arizona (Ph.D. in History, University of California, Riverside; M.A. in Religious Studies, University of Denver), who specializes in Catholicism in the Americas, especially in the borderlands of the American Southwest. She examines race, ethnicity, and religion in the United States, Latina/o religion, and material religion. Please go to her web page to check out her publications, including some that are available online.  She describes her current project as tracing the history of Mexican religion, race, and the law from the nineteenth century into the contemporary moment, positioning current legal debates about Mexican religion within a larger history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic attitudes in the United States. In that context we talked about “crimmigration” and how US law enforcement sometimes determines who is a good or bad Catholic on the basis of material artifacts like prayer cards and rosaries. I found this a challenging and stimulating conversation on a topic I knew little about, but the major question - who decides on whether one's religion is good or bad? - is a perennial one. And the addition of race and ethnicity in the calculation of who is a good or bad Catholic, for instance, especially in the USA, points to the ongoing power of white supremacy at the American borderlands.  Some news on upcoming podcast episodes:  In the coming weeks we will be hearing from Dr. Bill Cavanaugh of DePaul University on his new book The Uses of Idolatry, Dr. Adele Reinhartz of University of Ottawa on hher work on the Gospel of John, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, Dr. Tim Pawl, and many more excellent scholars and thinkers. The first episode of Pop Culture Matters is out. I hope you have listened to it. Martin and I are ready for more and we are definitely thinking about a movie: the Matrix? The Big Lebowski? Philomena? The Meaning of Life? Let us know what you want to discuss. Follow us at our social media pages, linked below, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post on our socials with a question as to what you are most interested in seeing. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Upcoming Events: On October 29, we will have a webinar on the American election featuring Steve Millies and his new book, A Consistent Ethic of Life: Navigating Catholic Engagement with U.S. Politics. We will also have a Canadian respondent Dr. Jane Barter, professor of religion and culture at the U of Winnipeg. She teaches and does research on Christianity, Religion and Gender, and Religion and Political Theory.  You can register for the webinar now at Eventbrite. On December 5, we will have Matt Hoven presenting in-person on his new book on Fr. David Bauer, Hockey Priest. Matt will be interviewed by Clay Imoo, Canuck Clay! Finally, the CCE is presenting a conference in 2025, The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Paper proposals for the upcoming conference are closed and we are going through amazing abstracts right now from Asia, Africa, and North America. We will update the website soon with information on the program and where you can register for The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future, MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025 for the conference. The cost will be minimal for the conference itself and I think you will find it stimulating and challenging. It will be exciting. Details are coming soon. Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers:  Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago The CCE website is now up and running. I am so excited that we now have one stop for all of our events, the podcast, our YouTube videos, and everything else, including upcoming events. Check it out! 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. Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. 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. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series and support of our conferences, and now in their donation of money for the purchase of new podcast equipment.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter, Threads, or BlueSky @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. It really does help people find these inspiring conversations! John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC

Season Three, Episode Three is a banger! Do the kids still say that? Dr. Jennifer Newsome Martin, the director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and the John J. Cavanaugh Associate Professor of the Program of Liberal Studies and Associate Professor, Department of Theology, brings incredible joy to theology and that joy is infectious. She will make you fall in love with ideas, of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Listen to her talk about theology, soil, seeds, gardening, John Henry Newman, Josef Pieper, and why it is wonderful that you exist.     You can find the full range of her publications at her website, linked above, but here are a few pieces that might interest you: On liberal education; On Jenny's conversion to Catholicism. Some news on upcoming podcast episodes:  In the coming weeks we will be hearing from Dr. Daisy Vargas of the University of Arizona, speaking on Latinx theology and "crimmigration," Dr. Adele Reinhartz of University of Ottawa, Dr. Bill Cavanaugh of De Paul University, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, and many more excellent scholars and thinkers. The first episode of Pop Culture Matters is out. I hope you have listened to it. Martin and I are ready for more and we are definitely thinking about a movie: the Matrix? The Big Lebowski? Philomena? The Meaning of Life? Let us know what you want to discuss. Follow us at our social media pages, linked below, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post on our socials with a question as to what you are most interested in seeing. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Upcoming Events: On October 29, we will have a webinar on the American election featuring Steve Millies and his new book, A Consistent Ethic of Life: Navigating Catholic Engagement with U.S. Politics. We will also have a Canadian respondent Dr. Jane Barter, professor of religion and culture at the U of Winnipeg. She teaches and does research on Christianity, Religion and Gender, and Religion and Political Theory.  You can register for the webinar now at Eventbrite. On December 5, we will have Matt Hoven presenting in-person on his new book on Fr. David Bauer, Hockey Priest. Matt will be interviewed by Clay Imoo, Canuck Clay! Finally, the CCE is presenting a conference in 2025, The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Please consider sending in a proposal for a paper. If you are a graduate student and we accept your proposal to present a paper, we will cover your conference registration fees and the cost of the conference banquet. You do not have to present a paper to come. You can purchase a conference pass and simply attend all of the sessions. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025. You should also know that the plenary or keynote addresses are free and open to the public. Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers:  Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago If you are interested in presenting a paper at the conference please go to the link above. The deadline for proposals is fast approaching, October 1, 2024. All the information for how to propose a paper is on the website linked above.  The CCE website is now up and running. I am so excited that we now have one stop for all of our events, the podcast, our YouTube videos, and everything else, including upcoming events. Check it out! 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. Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. 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. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series and support of our conferences, and now in their donation of money for the purchase of new podcast equipment.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter, Threads, or BlueSky @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. It really does help people find these inspiring conversations! John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC

Welcome to the first episode of Pop Culture Matters, a discussion with Martin Strong and me regarding Gospel music and the song "Straight Street," written by J.W. Alexander and Jesse Whitaker in the 1950s and first recorded by The Pilgrim Travelers in 1955. Today we are especially looking at Ry Cooder’s version of the song "Straight Street" and the biblical and other spiritual themes that suffuse this song, Cooder’s 2018 album Prodigal Son from this song is taken, and Gospel music in general. We also spend a little time discussing "Wade in the Water" by the Staples Singers. We have links to both songs on You Tube below, and also the lyrics. So, please, if you have not already, listen to the songs, read the lyrics, and then come back and join us for our conversation.  We also discussed why What Matters Most is introducing this new podcast format, what we are getting at, and why we think pop culture matters as a spiritual force. Honestly, it was about a lot more than "Straight Street," it was also about why we think these conversations are important and the spirituality that underlies how we share our cultural touchstones as well as the spirituality within the songs, movies, books, and other forms of art that we love. And we managed to touch on a lot more pop culture, like Fargo, No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers, Bruce Springsteen, Ricky Gervais, Jim Carrey, The Verdict, and much more.  Martin and I will be back, and we have a lot of ideas for things to discuss, but we hope that you will make some suggestions for us too. What should we talk about next? We’re thinking of Godland, or Life of Brian, or the last season of Fargo, or some other movie or tv show, but why not let us know what you want to discuss. Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We’ll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. I will also post the question on Facebook @biblejunkies. We will be moving to a CCE Facebook page, but in the meantime, feel free to check us out @biblejunkies. When we decide what’s next, we’ll let you know and then we can all make sure to watch it or listen to it or read it before the next episode of Pop Culture Matters. Or email us with your suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected]. Thanks to Martin Strong for joining me in this venture! Thanks to Kevin Eng for editing and engineering this episode. Thanks to Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, 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. And also let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform.  The Songs:   The Pilgrim Travelers, Straight Street Staple Singers, Wade in the Water Ry Cooder, Straight Street The Lyrics: Straight Street [Verse 1] Well I used to live on Broadway, right next to the liar's house My number was self-righteousness and a very little guide of mouth [Chorus] So I moved, I moved and I'm living on Straight Street now I moved, I had to move, I'm living on Straight Street now [Verse 2] Before I moved over, let me tell you how it was with me Old Satan had me bound in chains and I had no liberty One day my heart got troubled all about my dwelling place I heard the Lord when He spoke to me, and he told me to leave that place [Chorus] So I moved, I moved and I'm living on Straight Street now Yes I moved, I move, well I'm living on Straight Street now [Bridge] Since I moved, I'm really living, I've got peace within I thank the Lord for everything, so glad I found new friends [Chorus] So I moved, I moved and I'm living on Straight Street now I moved, I had to move, and I'm living on Straight Street now [Outro] I'm living on Straight Street now Yes I moved, I had to move, I'm living on Straight Street now Yes I moved, I had to move, yes I'm living on Straight Street now Well I moved, yes had to move, and I'm living on Straight Street now (Move, move, living on Straight Street now) (Move, move, living on Straight Street now) (Move, move, living on Straight Street now) Written by J.W. Alexander and Jesse Whitaker Wade in the Water: [Chorus:] Wade in the water Wade in the water children Wade in the water Don't you know that God's gonna trouble the water Don't you know that God's gonna trouble the water I stepped in water and the water is cold Don't you know that God's gonna trouble the water Said it chilled my body but not my soul Don't you know that God's gonna trouble the water [Chorus] Well I went to the water one day to pray Don't you know that God's gonna trouble the water And my soul got happy and I stayed all day Don't you know that God's gonna trouble the water [Chorus] There is love (In the water) In the water (In the water) There is joy yeah (In the water) In your water yeah (In the water) Your peace (In the water) Is in the water (In the water) Your deliverance (In the water) Is in the water yeah (In the water) Oh step in, step in (In the water) Joy is in the water In the water yeah (In the water) Oh step in, step in (In the water) Love is in the water (In the water) Oh step in yeah (In the water) For deliverance (In the water) Everything (In the water) In the water yeah Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) Everything you need (In the water) God's gonna trouble the water God's gonna trouble the water (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) God's gonna trouble the water (Ooh) God's gonna trouble the water Oh wade in the water Written by Ramsey Lewis

Welcome to the second episode of the third season of What Matters Most, featuring Dr. Lynn Huber. Dr. Lynn Huber is Maude Sharpe Powell Professor, Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University in North Carolina and author of the new Wisdom Commentary on Revelation, published by Liturgical Press. Apart from her Wisdom Commentary, co-written with her late mentor Gail O’Day, Lynn has written: Thinking and Seeing with Women in Revelation.  London:  Bloomsbury T and T Clark, 2013; “Like a Bride Adorned”:  Reading Metaphor in John’s Apocalypse.  New York:  T and T Clark, 2007. She has also written numerous articles and encyclopedia entries which you can find on her website at Elon University. Lynn is a true expert on the text. She takes the polyvalent images and language of the text and reads it through a feminist and queer lens. This might challenge people, but it also opens up new horizons and new ways to understand Revelation. This episode is in many ways about reading gender in Revelation. Lynn refers to her work as idiosyncratic, in that she references and engages with reality TV, the Olympics, including the great Simone Biles, current music and concerts, as well as all the ancient context and history. We also discuss at the end of the podcast how much power Revelation has been assigned in our culture, but Lynn also turns that discussion of power upside down, as does Revelation itself: what does it mean to see victory based upon the lamb who was slain? Why are male virgins seen as the ideal in Revelation 14 when in Roman culture, as Christian Laes says, they were basically unknown and certainly not acclaimed. This positive role of male virgins though is coupled with a presentation of sex with women as inherently defiling. This sort of misogynistic portrayal renders women as separated from salvation. In addition, there is a lot of sexual violence portrayed in the text, such as with Jezebel and with the portrayal of the whore of Babylon, language which Lynn says is a correct translation but troubling too. But there is also the presentation of the woman in chapter 12 who is pursued by the Dragon and hides her child away. There is also the fascinating image that Lynn describes of girls as the victors, of the image of conquering basically being an image of female conquering. The lamb who was slain is both victim and victor. Finally, there is the image of the male virgins as the bride of Christ. Does this only include men? Or are these only those who are presented in revelation 14 as part of the redeemed and righteous community? Lynn finally discussed an image of inclusivity that she sees as a positive message of Revelation. What does full inclusivity in the people of God mean? When we are inclusive of some who have been marginalized does that inherently exclude others?   Some news on upcoming podcast episodes:  Coming up next is Dr. Jenny Martin of Notre Dame discussing theology and gardening. In the coming weeks we will be hearing from Dr. Adele Reinhartz of U of Ottawa, Dr. Daisy Vargas of the University of Arizona, and many more excellent scholars and thinkers. Also, and this is big news for us, we are expanding the sorts of podcasts we do under the umbrella of What Matters Most. We are not changing the bi-weekly format of what you have just heard here today with Margaret MacDonald, but we are adding more. We are adding a Pop Culture Matters podcast, in which music, movies, novels, etc. with religious themes are added to the mix. Martin Strong and I will start off the series by discussing Ry Cooder’s Straight Street – go out and listen to it now; I dare you to listen to it just once – and the Danish/Icelandic movie Godland. Please send in your suggestions for Pop Culture that Matters. Don’t be afraid, suggest away. Maybe you could join us as a co-host for an episode. The wonder of Zoom makes this is a possibility wherever you are! Martin also suggested a podcast on religious sites, local and international, which we call Places that Matter. What’s a place that matters to you? St. Peter’s in Rome? Some obscure shrine? Pacific Spirit forest?  Let us know. Finally, I am encouraging my colleagues at St. Mark’s to join me as guest hosts this year, so I hope you will soon hear from Kevin Eng, Fang Fang Chandra, Nick Olkovich, Fr. Nick Meisl and more. More What Matters Most. Upcoming Events: On September 13, CCE is presenting a film on AI with Regent College and VST in which we screen The End of Humanity followed by a panel discussion. This event is now sold out, but pay attention for news of a livestream and join the waitlist in case a ticket comes open. On October 29, we will have a webinar on the American election featuring Steve Millies and his new book, A Consistent Ethic of Life: Navigating Catholic Engagement with U.S. Politics. We will also have a Canadian respondent who I can now tell you is Dr. Jane Barter, professor of religion and culture at the U of Winnipeg. She teaches and does research on Christianity, Religion and Gender, and Religion and Political Theory.   On December 5, we will have Matt Hoven presenting in-person on his new book on Fr. David Bauer, Hockey Priest. Matt will be interviewed by Clay Imoo, Canuck Clay!  Finally, the CCE is presenting a conference in 2025, The Promise of Christian Education: Past, Present and Future,  MAY 1-3, 2025, at ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, VANCOUVER, CANADA. Please consider sending in a proposal for a paper. If you are a graduate student and we accept your proposal to present a paper, we will cover your conference registration fees and the cost of the conference banquet. You do not have to present a paper to come. You can purchase a conference pass and simply attend all of the sessions. Consider joining us in Vancouver in 2025. You should also know that the plenary or keynote addresses are free and open to the public. Three Confirmed Plenary Speakers:  Dr. Margaret MacDonald, St. Mary's University, Halifax Dr. Samuel Rocha, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Reverend Dr. Stan Chu Ilo, De Paul University, Chicago The CCE website is now up and running. I am so excited that we now have one stop for all of our events, the podcast, our YouTube videos, and everything else, including upcoming events. Check it out! 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. Thanks to Martin Strong, Kevin Eng, and Fang Fang Chandra for all of their help and support in crafting this and all the other episodes. 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. In addition, the Cullen Family, Mark and Barbara, continue to support the work and outreach of the CCE, particularly in our lecture series and support of our conferences.  Since St. Mark’s Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Send me questions, send me ideas for guests, send me comments. Please follow me on Twitter, Threads, or BlueSky @biblejunkies, or on Facebook, at Biblejunkies, or on Instagram @stmarkscce. Or email me or Ms. Fang Fang Chandra at [email protected]. Let us know what you think. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let people know by rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. It really does help people find these inspiring conversations! John W. Martens Director, Centre for Christian Engagement, St. Mark's College at UBC