I sat down with a good friend, Jonathan Foye, to discuss his book Ganbaru: How All Japan Pro Wrestling Survived the Year 2000 Roster Split. We discuss the all-too-human drama of this story of grief, conflict, separation, and a will to persevere, playing out in and out of the ring. 

In the year 2000, Mitsuharu Misawa left All Japan Pro Wrestling. He took all but two of the company’s contracted wrestlers with him. To keep the company alive, company owner Motoko Baba made two phone calls. One was to a man who had walked out on the company a decade ago. The other was to an age-old rival.

Buy the Book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Ganbaru-Japan-Wrestling-Survived-Roster-ebook/dp/B09PRN4NMG

Jonathan Foye is a journalist and academic. He is the current Editor of Insights Magazine for the Uniting Church in NSW and the ACT. He holds a PhD in Communications and tutors part time at the University of New South Wales. Jonathan enjoys running, watching pro wrestling, and playing videogames. He lives in the Blue Mountains with his wife, Sarah, their son James, and their Labrador, Walter. Ganbaru is his first book.

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In the latest panel on BLM in the church in Australia and Oceania, Tamsyn Kereopa joins Katalina Tahaafe-Williams, Tau’alofa Anga’aelangi, and myself in a discussion on Indigenous theology, the struggle for racial justice in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the shifting forms of colonisation, and her work towards a Wahine Maori Theology of Liberation.

Rev Tamsyn Kereopa is of Te Arawa & Tuwharetoa descent. She is a PhD candidate with the University of Otago on the topic “A Wahine Māori Theology of Liberation” and a researcher for Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa. She is an ordained deacon of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia, and a member of the WCC Ecumenical Indigenous Network & the Commission on Ecumenical Theological Education and Formation.

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To join the next panel live contact Rev. Tau’alofa Anga’aelangi at ucc.csu[@]gmail.com - the panels run on the last Sunday of the month at 3pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.

I sat down with Shannon Craigo-Snell to discuss turning to theatre to ask: Why Church? We discuss what led her to this conversation, how performance as event/interaction/doubleness illuminates the nature of the church, reading Delores Williams with Bertolt Brecht and much more.

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Shannon Craigo-Snell is a systematic and constructive Christian theologian. Since 2011, she has served as professor of theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where she teaches Masters and Doctor of Ministry students as they engage in multiple forms of ministry. Before arriving in Louisville, she was associate professor of Religious Studies at Yale University, where she taught undergraduates, masters students, and Ph.D. students.

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I sat down with Peter Kline to talk about the fun and flexibility of teaching theological anthropology, talking sex and gender in the classroom, differences in theological academies and institutions he encountered moving from the US to Australia, and what drew him to negative/apophatic theology.

Peter Kline is the academic dean and lecturer in systematic theology at St Francis Theological College in Brisbane (part of Charles Sturt University). His research focuses on negative/apophatic theology. Peter is also an artist, and his work can be found at: www.peterklineart.virb.com

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I sat down with Jione Havea to discuss his new book, Losing Ground. We discuss the book of Ruth, reading it amidst climate catastrophe, how Jione built this book through talanoa and bible studies with Pasifika people across Australia, Aotearoa, and the Pacific, opening up academic biblical studies, and how this book "seeks to make any notions of white supremacy absurd."

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Rev Dr Jione Havea is a native pastor (Methodist Church in Tonga) and research fellow with Trinity Methodist Theological College (Aotearoa) and the Public and Contextual Theology research centre (Charles Sturt University).

Jione’s work focuses on the intersections of cultures (with sympathies to the oral cultures of Pasifika), scriptures (trans-reading biblical texts and native wisdom), critical theories (accounting for bounded bodies, colonized minds, stolen lands, and othered planetary life and spirit forms) and religions (searching for solidarity, resistance, and protest).

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Grace Ji-Sun Kim returns to the podcast to talk about the racism and sexism encountered presently and historically by Asian American women, before exploring what it might look like to live into a Theology of Visibility.

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Grace Ji-Sun Kim was born in Korea, was educated in Canada, and now teaches in the United States. She is the author or editor of 20 books, most recently, Invisible, Hope in Disarray; Keeping Hope Alive; and Intersectional Theology. Grace writes for Sojourners, Faith and Leadership and Wabash Center and has published in TIME, The Huffington Post, Christian Century, US Catholic Magazine and The Nation. She hosts the Madang podcast which is hosted by the Christian Century and is an ordained Presbyterian Church (USA) minister. Read more about Grace

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Skyler Jay Keiter-Massefski returns to the pod to answer the question: why read a poem. We discuss our mixed histories with poetry, how they approach the craft, and poetry's embodiedness and relation to breath. We also discuss the "how" of reading poetry and then Skyler finishes the chat by talking about the connection for them, between going out dancing and reading/writing poetry.

Skyler Jay Keiter-Massefski is a theological anthropologist whose work focuses on the ghostliness of trans embodiment, grief as a facet of identity formation, and practices of experimental and poetic ethnography. They have a degree in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University. Skyler currently resides in Chapel Hill, NC with their spouse, dog, and cats. You can find them on Twitter at @SkylerJay_

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I sat down with German theologian, Florian Klug, to talk about the contingency and legitimacy of doctrine. We discuss the importance of God's initiative preceding human speech, that language is not something we possess but are born into and how this gives us a horizon of preconditioned knowledge that is expanded and shattered by God's intrusion. We also discuss how his book holds together an emphasis on God’s sovereignty and God’s grace in self-revelation so to not overwhelm the human in such a way that we can’t actually make a decision. We also discuss whether doctrine is fundamentally the product of past failure (and enter into a discussion on the early councils), and end with by exploring Flo's proposal that doctrines are “statements that lead into the mysterium of Christ; they are therefore not identical to it because the limits of language are constantly being transgressed by their overarching greatness and transcendence. Doctrines… are first and foremost statements of a hopeful faith… they can be true and correct without losing their human conditionality.”

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Klug is a lecturer in systematic theology at the University of Würzburg in Germany. He has been a guest researcher in the United States, England, Ireland, and is the author or editor of four books published in German. Follow him on Twitter

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I sat down with Hannah Bacon to talk about sin, salvation, and women's weight loss narratives. I ask Hannah what drew her to this project and why there are seemingly so few theological works concerning weight/weight loss. We also discuss her focus on the theological doctrinal loci of sin and salvation and how are these shaping/resurfacing contemporary weight-loss narratives. We end by discussing what it might look like for salvation to be performed and Hannah's particular rendering of 'sensible eating'.

Note: there's a weird moment in the video about 22 minutes in when I needed to talk to my kid and hit mute instead of pause and pause instead of mute but its all of three seconds so I couldn't be bothered editing around it :)

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Hannah Bacon is Professor of Feminist and Contextual Theology at the University of Chester, UK.

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I sat down with anthropologist Ellen Lewin to discuss her recent work, Filled with the Spirit: Sexuality, Gender, and Radical Inclusivity in a Black Pentecostal Church Coalition. The book (and our interview) focuses on Lewin’s time participating in and researching the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. Through our discussion Lewin shares about the emergence of the coalition, its values, how she became connected, and why spirituality and religion are still under-observed/under-researched in discussions of race, gender, and sexuality.

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Ellen Lewin is professor of anthropology and of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America.

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