What does it mean to be a Christian and a person of faith in today’s challenging world? How can we have meaningful dialogue across racial, cultural, religious, and political differences to address the urgent needs of our time? Join Kwok Pui Lan, a pioneering postcolonial theologian, in her conversation with leading intellectuals, courageous religious leaders, fearless activists, and inspiring artists and roll along.
Episodes
Jun 11, 2025
Jun 11, 2025
25 min
SueAnn Shiah, a Taiwanese American podcast producer and filmmaker, discusses the challenges of growing up as a queer person searching for a spiritual home. She is a seminarian preparing for ordination in the Presbyterian Church USA. She shares her vision of combining her career in music and ministry. She has produced the album “A Liturgy for the Perseverance of the Saints” to help people who struggle with the church to find new meaning in faith. To learn more about Taiwan, she bicycled around the island after college, capturing the people she met and producing the documentary “HuanDao,” which was screened at the Ithaca Pan Asian American Film Festival.
Website of SueAnn Shiah
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Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025
26 min
Dr. Gina A. Zurlo teaches at Harvard Divinity School and has published the pioneering book Women in World Christianity using interdisciplinary, sociological, and historical approaches. She is also the author of Global Christianity and coauthor of World Christian Encyclopedia. In this episode, she talks about how she started doing quantitative analyses of world Christianity, a male-dominated field. She explains how AI can enable us to ask questions about world Christianity that have not been broached before. Dr. Zurlo also shares her current research projects: women's history in the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, and power, violence, and resistance in world Christianity.
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May 28, 2025
May 28, 2025
23 min
Dr. Roger Nam teaches the Hebrew Bible at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He teaches a course on The Bible and Asia America for college and master students. He points out that biblical figures such as Adam and Eve, Abraham, Issac, Joseph, Esther, and Ruth have to migrate to foreign lands. The Bible addresses issues such as identity, community, trauma, and justice, issues that Asian Americans care about. He highlights his latest book, The Theology of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the implications of reverse migration in the Bible and today.
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May 21, 2025
May 21, 2025
31 min
Jiwan Dhaliwal graduated with an MDiv degree and is a global business and career coach. As a child of immigrants to Canada, she shares how she uses what she learned at a divinity school to create her own business. Jiwan coaches immigrants from racial minority communities to use their skills and talents to help others and change the world. She reveals tips for becoming an entrepreneur, managing social media platforms, improving public speaking, and developing self-confidence. She explains value exchange and why we should charge people for our service.
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May 14, 2025
May 14, 2025
27 min
Dr. Yii-Jan Lin became the first person of Asian descent to receive tenure at Yale Divinity School in 2024. She discussed gender, race, and biblical studies in this episode. She has used innovative approaches to studying the Bible. Her first book, The Erotic Life of Manuscripts, discusses New Testament criticism and the biological sciences, while her second monograph, Immigration and Apocalypse, explores how the image of the new Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation shaped American immigration. Dr. Lin offers advice to students who want to pursue biblical studies and shares her observations of the changing climate in American higher education.
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May 7, 2025
May 7, 2025
26 min
Dr. Jonathan Tran, a Vietnamese American Christian ethicist at Baylor University, argues that race and racism must be understood in the larger political economy that gives rise to it. He draws on Augustine and Aquinas and contemporary scholars such as Michel Foucault, Stanley Hauerwas, Vincent Lloyd, and Kwok Pui Lan to develop his theological ethics. The changing U.S. political landscape requires new thinking about politics on the left and the organization of social life. Asian Americans have particular contributions because of their adaptability to change and their increasing participation in politics.
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Apr 30, 2025
Apr 30, 2025
41 min
Dr. Catherine Keller recently published No Matter What: Crisis and the Spirit of Planetary Possibility. She discusses her theological trajectory from focusing on gender to making the connections with race, class, species, and the whole planet. Influenced by John Cobb’s process theology, Keller has written groundbreaking theology on the apocalypse, creation, intercarnation, and our last chances to save ourselves and the planet. She explains how her upbringing influences her theology and why the Bible provides her with inspiration and root metaphors for her creative thinking.
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Apr 26, 2025
Apr 26, 2025
27 min
Since he started learning from the environment, Dr. Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York, has changed his teaching, research, and preaching. In one class, he asked students to wait till they heard a bird sing before the class started. He wrote the play, When Wajcha Meets Pachamama, which won the most creative production award from the New York Theater Festival. Dr. Carvalhaes works at the intersection of art, ritual, and religion and performs a song about the bees at the end of the episode.
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