In this powerful discussion, hosts George Schmidt and Gabriella Lisi speak with John and Samuel Munayer about their new book, The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology Amid Gaza.

The conversation delves into the indigeneity of Palestinian Christianity, the metaphor of the olive tree as a framework for theology, and the importance of staying in the "long silence" of Holy Saturday during times of genocide and suffering.

Key Discussion Points:

• Theology as Resistance: Defining Palestinian theology as a form of resistance that affirms the reality of suffering while celebrating beauty, resilience, and joy.
• The Indigeneity of the Olive Tree: Using the olive tree—a symbol of land and family history—as a metaphor for an indigenous theology that resists colonial frameworks.
• St. George: Patron Saint of Palestine: Exploring St. George not as a colonial "dragon slayer," but as an indigenous martyr and liberative figure for both Christians and Muslims.
• The Three Spheres of "Olive Oil" Theology: * Church Oil: Theology for blessing and anointing.
  • Olive Oil Soap: Academic work used to "cleanse" toxic colonial theologies.
  • Lamp Oil: The "lived theology" of everyday people—farmers and grandmothers—providing light in darkness.
• The Silence of Holy Saturday: A reflection on the theological necessity of sitting with trauma and lament rather than rushing too quickly to the hope of Easter Sunday.
• Internal Critique and Pruning: The need for decolonizing the self and critiquing internal power structures to build a more fruitful movement.

Featured Book:

The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology Amid Gaza

https://orbisbooks.com/products/the-cross-and-the-olive-tree?srsltid=AfmBOooMNHj-iUV44Po5h7tBwYOqbJbpkkusCLBOVRiefn7bksgDu70B 

Notable Contributors Mentioned:

• Foreword: Reverend Naim Atik and Auntie Sidr Da'abes.
• Yusuf Khoury: On "Teta" (grandmother) theology and the history of Gaza.
• Mara Sargi: Connecting the genocides in Guatemala and Palestine.
• Azemera Amori: Dialogue between Palestinian and Womanist/Black liberation theologies.
• Lama Mansoor: On the importance of divine imagination.
• Daniel Munayer: On the practicalities of reconciliation and liberation.
• Shadiah Kupty: Comparing Palestinian and indigenous theologies in Turtle Island.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
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Deep solidarity is not a warm sentiment or a “let’s all get along” slogan. It’s the kind of collective connection that makes the powerful nervous because it turns everyday shared pressure into organized power.

We sit down with Professor Joerg Rieger to unpack what he means by deep solidarity and why it emerged for him out of Occupy Wall Street and the claim “we are the 99%.” Along the way, we draw a bright line between solidarity that liberates and solidarity that traps. We talk about conservative identity solidarity like nationalism and white supremacy, not just as prejudice but as a political technology that can “unite and conquer” by recruiting working people into projects that ultimately sacrifice them.

We also dig into the limits of liberal moral solidarity. When solidarity is framed as charity or guilt, it often runs on outrage and burns out fast. Deep solidarity goes deeper than moral appeals by asking what is already tying our lives together under capitalism, extraction, and exploitation. We explore why worker organizing and the solidarity of the masses is what elites fear most, and why the best solidarity never erases difference.

Finally, we take on the worry that the “99%” flattens race, gender, sexuality, ability, and other lived realities. We argue that deep solidarity only works when it treats difference as strength, learns from where suffering is greatest, and builds collective liberation without the Olympics of oppression. If you care about social justice, labor unions, community organizing, and real change, this conversation gives you language and clarity for what comes next.

Subscribe, share this with a friend, leave a review, and tell us: what would deep solidarity change in your workplace or community?

This episode of Religion and Justice was produced by Peterson Toscano Studios. Learn more about their other podcasts and projects. Visit petersontoscano.com.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
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Blaming “humanity” for climate collapse feels intuitive, but it hides the real drivers. We sit down with Prof. Joerg Rieger to unpack why Anthropocene flattens responsibility and how Capitalocene offers a sharper, more useful map—one that follows power, money, and relationships across extraction, production, and belief. From oil fields to boardrooms to pews, we trace how decisions at the top cascade into carbon, culture, and daily life.

We start with the familiar story: humans shape the planet. Then we pull the thread—who, exactly, is shaping what? Joerg walks us through the links between petroleum, minerals, finance, and law, showing how extraction and exploitation move together. We interrogate terms like Eurocene and Petrocene, and explain why focusing on identities or single resources misses the system organizing them. Along the way, we tackle a live debate in geology about timescales, arguing that the rapid acceleration of capital-driven warming justifies a vocabulary that centers agency where it operates.

The conversation turns to theology and culture, where modern metaphors drift from kings to CEOs. If God begins to mirror a chief executive bound to shareholder value, what happens to care for the common good? Jorg offers a theologically grounded critique and points to alternative traditions—jubilee, stewardship, solidarity—that resist extractive defaults. We also explore AI’s near future: not a savior or a curse, but a force that will amplify whatever incentives it serves. Under current structures, it risks deepening inequality and environmental strain; under new governance and ownership, it can help build resilience.

By the end, we trade guilt for clarity. Instead of shaming consumers, we focus on production standards, energy systems, ownership, and policy that shift outcomes at scale. If you’re ready to move past vague blame toward concrete levers for change—across climate, economy, and faith—this conversation maps the terrain and points to the work ahead. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves big ideas, and leave a review with one system you think we should unpack next.

This episode of Religion and Justice was produced by Peterson Toscano Studios. Learn more about their other podcasts and projects. Visit petersontoscano.com.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/religionandjustice

Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/ReligionandJ

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/religionandjustice/

George and I took a break this holiday season and gave the mic to another organization doing great work: BTS Center's Climate Changed 

Climate Changed is The BTS Center’s podcast. Well-crafted, warm, and invitational, Climate Changed explores some of the most pressing questions about faith, life, and climate change.

The hosts of Climate Changed explores honest climate grief, then move toward the work that remains: creating small, connected refuges of courage, kindness, and action. Meg Wheatley’s “islands of sanity” meets Debra Rienstra’s “refugia” to offer practical steps for leaders, neighbors, and faith communities.

• naming the limits of large-scale change
• choosing contribution without attachment to outcomes
• asking what’s needed here and am I the one
• building islands of sanity through dialogue and shared work
• refugia as ecological metaphor for local resilience
• balancing mitigation, adaptation, doom, and hopium
• reconnecting theology, hope, and climate action
• practical next steps for small congregations
• linking local projects across boundaries for strength
• learning from communities long practiced in survival

We would love to hear your thoughts and responses to our conversation. We would also welcome any suggestions you have for this show. 

Feel free to email Climate Changed at [email protected]. Learn about the many resources we share in our regular online programs by visiting theBTScenter.org.

The BTS Center offers theologically grounded programs of spiritual and vocational formation — workshops and retreats, learning communities, book studies, spiritual accompaniment circles, public conversations and rituals, and projects of applied research — all with an intention to cultivate and nurture spiritual leadership for a climate-changed world. The BTS Center believes there is a divine urgency, a sacred calling, to this work, and we invite you to join us.

This episode of Religion and Justice was produced by Peterson Toscano Studios. Learn more about their other podcasts and projects. Visit petersontoscano.com.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/religionandjustice

Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/ReligionandJ

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/religionandjustice/

In this episode, pastoral theologian and psychotherapist Dr. Bruce Rogers-Vaughn—pastoral theologian, clinician, and author of Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age—exposes how today’s mental-health system locates suffering in individual pathology while ignoring the social and economic forces producing widespread distress.

He explains how research funding, psychotherapy models, and the biomedical frame all shift attention away from the societal roots of depression, anxiety, and addiction. Instead of understanding suffering as a meaningful response to harmful conditions, the neoliberal model blames the individual and demands “resilience” and compliance.

This conversation doesn’t stop at critique. Bruce reframes depression as a meaningful signal, not a malfunction; argues for therapy as deep transformation instead of symptom deletion; and offers a concrete starting point for care that resists adaptation: make friends, build comradeship, recover solidarity. We connect the dots between research policy since 1980, the rise of resilience talk and positive psychology, and why mindfulness without tradition can become just another corporate tool. 

Key Points

• The biomedical model serves neoliberalism by hiding systemic causes of suffering.
   “It’s a way neoliberalism covers its own ass… so nobody can trace back their suffering to the system.”
• Research funding was redirected in the 1980s to brain-based explanations, shutting down community-level studies.
• Modern therapy focuses on symptom removal, not transformation.
   “Psychotherapy today has become a sophisticated exercise in blaming the victim.”
• Competitive individualism isolates people, fragments identity, and undermines community life.
• Rising mental-health treatment and worsening mental-health outcomes reflect a disconnect between what’s treated and what’s causing harm.
• Debt, workplace performativity, and isolation create what Rogers-Vaughn calls “third-order suffering”—distress whose source is invisible but pervasive.

Dr. Bruce Rogers-Vaughn is a pastoral theologian, licensed psychotherapist, and longtime faculty member at Vanderbilt Divinity School. With four decades of clinical experience, he is known for his groundbreaking book Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age, which critiques how contemporary mental-health systems adapt individuals to unjust social conditions. His work brings together psychoanalysis, political economy, and pastoral care to reveal the deep links between suffering and the structures of neoliberal capitalism.

This episode of Religion and Justice was produced by Peterson Toscano Studios. Learn more about their other podcasts and projects. Visit petersontoscano.com.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/religionandjustice

Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/ReligionandJ

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/religionandjustice/

What if “reconciliation” lets the powerful off the hook? We sit with theologian and former United Church of Canada moderator Carmen Lansdowne to rethink repair from the ground up—centering Indigenous wisdom, circular time, and mission reimagined as solidarity. Carmen opens a candid window into her story of sobriety, Advent, and returning to a faith that saved her life, then presses the church to pair grace with real accountability: stop harm, welcome transformation, and measure change by relationships healed, not just programs launched.

Together we trace how the language of reconciliation often hides one‑way harms and ongoing power imbalances. Carmen introduces a community vision that asks those who broke trust to turn and make things right—repentance that shows up in policy, resources, and consent, not only words. We unpack why “mission” doesn’t have to mean empire, how indigenizing decision-making widens what counts as knowledge, and why justice must replace charity when congregations hold wealth while marginalized communities carry the costs. From land back to long-term funding without strings, from dialogue-first processes to resisting extractive economics, Carmen offers a roadmap for churches that want courage without arrogance and humility without silence.

We also talk about identity and self-determination, the pitfalls of gatekeeping “authenticity,” and the futures tools that keep hope practical: envision best and worst outcomes, then act today in ways you’d be proud of in either future. Bold humility and humble boldness become a daily practice—naming harm, sharing power, and taking faithful risks. If you’re ready to move from statements to solidarity and from nostalgia to repair, this conversation will meet you where you are and invite you further.

If this moved you, share it with someone in your congregation or organizing network, then subscribe, leave a review, and help more listeners find these conversations.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/religionandjustice

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Benny Overton and Rosemarie Henkel-Rieger share their journey building the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development and explain how cooperative businesses create a democratic alternative to traditional capitalism.

• Origins in labor organizing and union work with UAW and AFL-CIO
• Different types of cooperatives including worker-owned, consumer, and producer co-ops
• Cooperatives address power imbalances structurally rather than just contractually
• Co-op Academy provides training through 10 modules and 6 specialized deep dives
• Biggest challenge is overcoming hierarchical mindsets conditioned by traditional business
• Faith and cooperative values align around interconnectedness and community care
• Innovative housing cooperative model creates permanent affordability through community land trusts
• Cooperative principle of "care for community" naturally extends to environmental sustainability
• Residents democratically control housing decisions unlike traditional public housing
• Worker cooperatives demonstrate viable alternatives to extractive economic systems

Reach out to the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development at www.co-ops-now.org to learn more about starting or supporting cooperatives in your community.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/religionandjustice

Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/ReligionandJ

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/religionandjustice/

This episode was recorded in May 2025. We'll have Fr. Bruce back on the pod to discuss our new pope in the coming months! 

What makes a pope "Marxist"? Is challenging capitalism equivalent to embracing communism? Father Bruce Morrill, Jesuit priest and theological scholar, joins us for a fascinating exploration of Pope Francis's complex legacy and the radical vision that defined his papacy.

We begin with the surprising history of the Jesuits—known as the "Pope's Marines" and sometimes even associated with the devil in certain regions—and how this religious order's commitment to serving at the margins shaped Francis's worldview. Father Morrill illuminates Vatican II's transformative impact, explaining how this pivotal church council set the stage for liberation theology's emergence in Latin America amid military dictatorships and economic exploitation.

At the heart of our conversation is Pope Francis's critique of modern economics. While critics like Rush Limbaugh labeled him the "Marxist Pope," Francis's actual teachings reveal a more nuanced perspective. Rather than condemning capitalism by name, Francis focused on the consequences of what he called "an economy that kills"—a system that treats both people and the planet as disposable. His groundbreaking encyclicals Laudato Si' and Fratelli Tutti connected environmental degradation with social injustice and challenged fundamental assumptions about private property and the common good.

Father Morrill shares personal stories that illustrate how Pope Francis's teachings were received (and sometimes rejected) by American Catholics, revealing the tensions between papal teaching and cultural politics. For those seeking to understand how faith can inform responses to today's most pressing challenges—from climate change to economic inequality—this episode offers profound insights into a spiritual leader whose vision transcended traditional political categories.

What might it mean to hear "both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor"? Join us as we explore the enduring legacy of a pope who challenged us to reimagine our relationship with each other and with creation itself.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
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What happens when theology meets revolution?

In this episode of Religion and Justice, we sit down with Joshua Bartholomew, author of Black Theology and the Black Panthers, to explore the rich, radical relationship between Black Christian theology and one of the most influential political movements of the 20th century.

Bartholomew walks us through the theological foundations of the Black Panther Party, the spiritual imagination of figures like James Cone and Huey Newton, and how Black theology challenged both white supremacy in the Church and liberal respectability in politics. We also discuss the modern relevance of these traditions in today’s movements for racial and economic justice.

This conversation is for anyone interested in:

• Black liberation theology
• The revolutionary spirituality of the Panthers
• Christianity as a force of resistance
• The intersection of race, faith, and political power

Whether you're in the church, in the streets, or somewhere in between — this episode asks what kind of God we believe in when we’re fighting for freedom.

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
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What if justice — as we commonly understand it — isn’t enough? In this episode, theologians David True and Tom James, co-authors of The Transcendence of Desire: A Theology of Political Agency, join us to explore the limitations of liberal justice frameworks and the radical potential of love-as-desire.

We talk about the co-optation of justice under capitalism and how eros — not sacrifice — might be the generative ground of prophetic politics.

From Antigone’s defiant love to James Cone’s revolutionary longing, this conversation weaves together theology, political imagination, and the enduring question: what kind of power does desire hold in the struggle for liberation?

About Religion and Justice
Religion and Justice is a podcast from the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering how these forces shape the work of justice and solidarity. Each episode offers space for investigation, education, and organizing through conversations with scholars, organizers, and practitioners.

Learn more at religionandjustice.org

Follow us:
 Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/religionandjustice

Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/ReligionandJ

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