Love Rinse Repeat

Ep107. Just Revolution, Anna Floerke Scheid

I sat down with Anna Scheid to discuss her Christian ethic of political resistance and social transformation. We discuss her critique and inversion of Just War Theory to consider how it might be shaped to consider resistance and revolutions from below. Buy the BookAnna Floerke Scheid is Associate Professor of theology at Duquesne University. Dr. Scheid's research interests are in the area of Christian social ethics. In particular she is concerned with ethical issues surrounding human rights, conflict, and post-conflict reconciliation. She explores Christian perspectives on war and peace-especially just war theory and just peacemaking theory-and studies how restorative justice has been enacted in truth and reconciliation commissions around the world. Find more episodesFollow the show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87

Ep106. Religion and the History of the CIA, Michael Graziano

I sat down with Michael Graziano to talk about his book Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors which investigates the dangers and delusions that ensued from the religious world-views of the early moulders of the CIA. We discuss how the religious studies of the time (both in the academy and in popular culture) shaped the CIA's view of and approach to religion - particularly the developing World Religions Paradigm. Along the way we discuss American exceptionalism, shifting attitudes to Catholicism, and the strongly held belief within the CIA that a religious person would always, ultimately, side with the good ol' USofA. Buy the bookMichael Graziano is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Northern Iowa. His research focuses on the relationship between religion, law, and government in the United States. In particular, how the U.S. government decides what counts as “religious,” and how it chooses to engage religious people, ideas, and institutions. Visit his websiteFind more episodesFollow the show: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87

Ep105. The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America, Aaron Griffith

I interviewed Aaron Griffith about his book God's Law and Order, which argues that we cannot understand the US criminal justice system without accounting for evangelicalism's impact on its historical development. We discuss why crime and punishment 'mattered' for white evangelicals in the post-war period, how they made an expansive mass incarceration system seem neutral and appealing to the broader public, and how the focus on soul saving shaped the current justice system and evangelicals involvement therein. Buy the BookAaron Griffith is Assistant Professor of Modern American History at Whitworth University. He previously taught American history and the history of Christianity as an Assistant Professor at Sattler College. He is a former postdoctoral fellow at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and instructor at Washington University's Prison Education Program, he has written for the Washington Post and Religion News Service. Find more episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87

Ep104 (Live). Indigenous Theology and Decolonising Theological Edu, Naomi Wolfe

Naomi Wolfe sat down with Rev. Tau’alofa Anga’aelangi, Rev Dr Katalina Tahaafe-Williams, Emma Jackson, and myself to talk about Indigenous theology and spirituality, theological education, decolonising liturgy and language for God, and much more.This episode is a re-post of most recent of the monthly Black Lives Matter and the Church in Australia panels hosted by the Uniting Church Chaplaincy at Charles Sturt University in Port Macquarie and the Social Justice Pilgrim Presbytery NT. This episode is a re-post of most recent of the monthly Black Lives Matter and the Church in Australia panels hosted by the Uniting Church Chaplaincy at Charles Sturt University in Port Macquarie and the Social Justice Pilgrim Presbytery NT. These panels happen on the final Sunday of the month at 3pm EST. To find out more contact Rev. Tau’alofa Anga’aelangi at ucc.csu[@]gmail.com Naomi Wolfe is a trawloolway woman, and Academic Dean of the University of Divinity’s Indigenous Studies program with Whitley College and NAIITS: an Indigenous learning community. Naomi is the First Peoples’ Co-ordinator at the School of Indigenous Studies, University of Divinity. She holds a Bachelor Arts and Bachelor of Teaching and is finalising a Masters of Philosophy (Research) degree at Australian Catholic University, writing about the lives of the Hasmonean and Herodian women of the Late Second Temple Period. She is a graduate of the University of Divinity, having received a Graduate Certificate in Divinity in 2019. Naomi will also remain an academic within the ACU Faculty of Education and Arts. Naomi encourages a collaborative learning between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal staff and students at the University to break down barriers destroy stereotypes and to cultivate new relationships based on respect. She has a professional and personal interest in Indigenous cross-cultural training and awareness as well as Indigenous pedagogies and theology.Find more episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the Show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87

Ep103. Postcolonialism and the Book of Revelation, U-Wen Low

I sat down with U-Wen Low to talk about the Book of Revelation as drama, resistance literature, and message of hope. We also discuss postcolonialism in biblical studies, and how he found himself in the middle of all this fascinating (if not highly controversial) research. Dr U-Wen Low is Senior Lecturer In Biblical Studies and Program Director - Master Of Theology at Alphacrucis College. U-Wen began theological studies at the University of Divinity in 2007, progressing through to an Honours year in 2013 and subsequently beginning his PhD in 2014, completing it in 2017 and graduating in 2018. His PhD is titled, Revelation as Drama: Reading and Interpreting Revelation through the lens of Greco-Roman Performance. Find more episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87 Love Rinse Repeat is supported by the Vital Leadership team of the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW/ACT.

Ep102. Texts After Terror, Rhiannon Graybill

I sat down with Rhiannon Graybill to talk about how we tell biblical rape stories and how we might tell rape stories differently (content warnings for discussions of rape and sexual violence). We discuss the twofold sense of "after": 1) after Phyllis Trible and related approaches of feminist biblical interpretation, and 2) after the event of terror (as in not letting the suffering or darkness of the texts consume all the interpretive space around them). We also discuss her framework of fuzzy, messy, and icky, as well as what it means to do unhappy readings. Along the way we explore the Graybill's use of millennial and Gen Z women's fiction, why predation might not be the best fit when talking about King David, and why we need more than more than consent as the arbiter of whether a story is a rape story. Buy Texts After Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible Rhiannon Graybill is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. She holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible whose work brings together biblical texts and contemporary critical and cultural theory. Her research interests include prophecy, gender and sexuality, horror theory, and psychoanalysis and ancient Near Eastern literature. She is the author of Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (Oxford, 2016). Her current projects include a study of sexual violence and rape in the Hebrew Bible (under contract with Oxford University Press), the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary on Jonah (with Steven L. McKenzie and John Kaltner), and an edited volume on Margaret Atwood and the Bible (with Peter Sabo). Find more episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87 Love Rinse Repeat is supported by the Vital Leadership team within the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW/ACT.

Ep101. Jesus and the Forces of Death, Matthew Thiessen

I sat down with Matthew Thiessen to discuss the Gospels’ portrayal of ritual impurity within First-Century Judaism. We discuss how purity concerns map out the reality of the gospel writer's worlds, and clarify the differences between categories of holy, profane, pure, impure. Matthew then demonstrates Jesus' acceptance of the reality of these categories and his desire to rid people of the conditions that create ritual impurity. All of this shapes how we read Jesus' interactions with the haemorrhaging woman, those with leprosy, and corpses, as well as his teachings on sabbath, exorcisms, and food. We end with a discussion on how attention to ritual impurity can help us not fall into anti-semitism in our reading and preaching.Buy the book Matthew Thiessen (PhD, Duke University) is associate professor of religious studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is the author of Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (awarded the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise), Paul and the Gentile Problem, and Jesus and the Forces of Death. He is also the coeditor of several volumes. Find more episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcastFollow the show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87Love Rinse Repeat is supported by the Vital Pathways team of the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW/ACT

Ep100. A Bible Bracket!

I'm joined by a wonderful group of friends to ring in episode 100 with a 64 team single-elimination tournament pitting books of the Bible against each other in one-on-one competition until just one remains and we declare the best book in the canon. It was a lot of fun to record and generated a lot of fascinating and passionate conversation about a host of different books and their importance, beauty, challenge, and place in our lives and scripture. If you want to play along you can download the bracket here.Enjoy, and thanks for joining us for 100 episodes of Love Rinse Repeat! Find more episodes: http://www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the Show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87 Today's guests: Steff Fenton (they/them) is Co-Pastor of New City Church, a church plant on Gadigal land/Sydney focused on justice, safety and inclusion. Steff is the Chair of Equal Voices Sydney, a network for LGBTIQA+ people and allies across the Church, and Treasurer-Director of a disability services organisation, Charis House. Through the week, you’ll find Steff writing a thesis on male entitlement, gender-expansiveness and eunuchs in the Gospel of Matthew for their Master of Divinity at the University of Divinity. They identify as queer, ENFJ, an imperfect vegan, competitive with board games and an Enneagram 2 wing 3. @steff_fentonRosie Clare Shorter is a PhD Candidate in the Religion and Society Research Cluster at Western Sydney University. She is currently studying Anglicanism as a lived religion, focusing on the social consequences of complementarianism in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. She has previously completed a Master of Research and Bachelor of Creative Arts at Macquarie University. Rosie Clare likes to procrastinate by making coffee, doom-scrolling social media and re-reading Sara Ahmed's books and other classic feminist texts. She blogs very occasionally at rosieclareshorter.com and enjoys spending too much money on statement earrings and gin. @Roie Brian Fiu Kolia is an Australian-born Samoan ordained minister of the Congregational Christian Church Samoa. As an emerging scholar, his interests lie in postcolonial and diasporic theory, as well as utilising native Samoan wisdom and indigenous knowledge to engage with the biblical text. He recently submitted his PhD dissertation where he engages a number of themes in the book of Ecclesiastes from a diasporic Samoan perspective. His recent publications are: "A Tautua Reading of Toil in Ecclesiastes 2:18-23." In Reading Ecclesiastes in Asis-Pacific, SBL Press, 2020. “Eve’s Serpent (Gen 3:1–9) Meets Sina’s Tuna at Fāgogo.” In Vulnerability and Resilience, 2020. “Lifting the Tapu of Sex: A Tulou Reading of the Song of Songs” In Sea of Readings: The Bible in the South Pacific, SBL Press, 2018. @BKoliaRev Amanda Hay is a Minister of the Uniting Church in Australia. Amanda is the Minister in placement at Berowra Uniting Church where she has served since October 2019. Amanda has extensive experience in youth and young adult ministry positions and is passionate about how the church can support new and emerging expressions of faith, be it in person or online. Amanda is passionate about building church communities that support each other and serve the wider community in creative ways. She enjoys boardgaming and rollerskating in her spare time. Rohan Salmond is a producer with the Religion and Ethics unit at ABC RN. In his spare time he also writes Modern Relics, a newsletter about religion, pop culture and the internet. He is acting chair of Leichhardt Uniting Church. @RJSalmond Love Rinse Repeat is supported by the Vital Leadership team within the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW/ACT.

Ep99. The State of the Union, President Rev Sharon Hollis

I sat down with newly inducted President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Rev Sharon Hollis. We discuss her call into a role such as this, what it means for the UCA that we're entering an era when those taking roles like President, Moderator, etc. have no memory of union or experience with the uniting churches. We also discuss the issues and challenges facing the church, the state of ecumenism, and Sharon's hopes for her time in this position. Rev Sharon Hollis is a minister in the Uniting Church in Australia and its 16th President. You can find out more about the UCA here: https://uniting.church/ Find more episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the Show on twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87 Love Rinse Repeat is supported by the Vital Leadership team within the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW/ACT.

Ep98. The Shape of Sex, Leah DeVun

I sat down with Leah DeVun to discuss her book, The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance. We talk about how widespread thinking and writing about non-binary individuals was during the first centuries of the CE and again in the C12th-14th, and the way non-binary bodies actually shaped the way a host of categories and boundaries (not just gender) were demarcated. We talk in detail about the shift in the C12th/13th and the way non-binary sex shaped the project of establishing a non-human other, justifying violence towards Jews and Muslims, and determining who could live in a Christian territory. We also talk about the figures of "Adam androgyne" and the "Jesus hermaphrodite", and how they function as "anchors of eschatological time." Finally, Leah discusses how this study can inform our present, not only by showing that the consideration of non-binary, trans*, and intersex bodies are not novel to our period, but how this consideration cuts through claims of 'natural and immutable' in our own day. Buy the book.Leah DeVun is Associate Professor of History and Vice Chair for Undergraduate Education at Rutgers University. Leah DeVun focuses on the history of gender, sexuality, science, and medicine in pre-modern Europe, as well as on contemporary queer and transgender studies. DeVun’s new book, The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press (in spring 2021). DeVun is also the author of Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time, winner of the 2013 John Nicholas Brown Prize, and co-editor (with Zeb Tortorici) of Trans*historicities, a special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly (2018) devoted to transgender history before the advent of current categories and terminologies of gender. DeVun has also written articles for GLQ, WSQ, Osiris, Journal of the History of Ideas, postmedieval, and Radical History Review, among other publications. DeVun is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, Huntington Library, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, American Philosophical Society, and Stanford Humanities Center. DeVun is also a multi-media artist and curator whose work explores queer, feminist, and gender nonconforming history. DeVun’s artwork has been featured in Artforum, People, Huffington Post, Slate, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, and Modern Painters, and at venues including the ONE Archives Gallery and Museum at the University of Southern California, Houston Center for Photography, Blanton Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, and Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College. DeVun has curated exhibitions and programs at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, NYU’s Fales Library and Special Collections, and other venues. Find More episodes: www.loverinserepeat.com/podcast Follow the show on Twitter: @RinseRepeatPod // Follow me: @liammiller87 Love Rinse Repeat is supported by Uniting Mission and Education, part of the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW/ACT