ReligionWise

Nikhil Bumb works for the nonprofit FSG, where he helps companies and foundations find strategies that are good for business and good for the world, without being shy about creating a direct link between the two. He is also a practicing Jain. In this conversation we talk about how his Jain identity informs his work and, in general, how values that are often associated with faith and spiritual traditions can be a part of the public and professional discourse of corporate strategy and purpose.

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Rev. Kevin Kitrell Ross believes that religious communities cannot stay on the sidelines of public life, and that staying neutral when people are treated unjustly is itself a choice with real consequences. A minister in the Unity tradition, Ross continues the work of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. in seeing political action as something his faith requires, not something optional. Our conversation looks at how his faith and community strengthen this conviction, the costs of staying quiet, and how he sees the responsibilities of religious people and communities today.

Show Notes:

• Unity of Sacramento (https://unityofsacramento.org/)

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Place is not only a backdrop to religious life but, as Thomas Tweed's work argues, a way of understanding religion itself. Our conversation with him considers how people make and inhabit places, the values that surface within community gatherings, and the loss of shared spaces in contemporary life. Tweed also discusses his recent history book, Religion in the Lands That Became America. 

Show Notes:

• Religion in the Lands That Became America, 2025
  (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300221480/religion-in-the-lands-that-became-america/)
• Religion: A Very Short Introduction, 2020 (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/religion-9780190064679?cc=us&lang=en&)
• Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion, 2008 (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674027640)
• Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami, 1997 (https://academic.oup.com/book/50115)

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This episode of ReligionWise features Dr. Lorenzo Servitje, Associate Professor Literature and the Director of the Health, Medicine and Society program at Lehigh University. Trained in both Victorian Literature and Public Health, he considers the way that culture influences and is influenced by questions of health, healthcare, and disease.

In this conversation we consider the broader field of Medical Humanities, where it came from and why it is important. We then dig into his particular area of interest, monsters of the Victorian era, from Dracula to Mr. Hyde, asking what can they tell us about both historic and contemporary understandings of health, sickness, and treatment.

Show Notes

• Medicine Is War: The Martial Metaphor in Victorian Literature and Culture
  (https://sunypress.edu/Books/M/Medicine-Is-War)
• The Not-So-Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in Antibiotic Research: An Interdisciplinary Opportunity 
  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33379290/)
• The Walking Med: Zombies and the Medical Image
  (https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-07711-6.html)

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David Hunsicker spent two decades at USAID building the institutional capacity for what came to be called Strategic Religious Engagement. That work culminated in the 2023 policy Building Bridges in Development, a framework for partnering with religious communities and faith-based organizations around shared goals. In this conversation, Hunsicker traces the path from a Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing, through conversion to Islam and graduate study in Central Asia, to an unexpected pull into US government work after September 11. We discuss the policy work that followed, what was lost when USAID was closed in 2025, and the new Strategic Religious Engagement Hub at Georgetown's Berkley Center. 

Show Notes:

• Building Bridges in Development: USAID's Strategic Religious Engagement Policy (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/publications/building-bridges-in-development-usaid-s-strategic-religious-engagement-policy/)

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As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a national initiative called faith250 is bringing faith communities together to study the nation's founding documents. In the Lehigh Valley, a cluster of congregations led by four co-conveners is holding a series of gatherings that combine textual study and community building. The conversation with them considers the gap between the founding documents' aspirations and the nation's realities, the complicated relationship between religious faith and democratic governance, and the challenge of genuine inclusivity when diverse communities try to speak together about shared values.

Guests: 

Rabbi Shoshanah Tornberg, Congregation Keneseth Israel
The Rev. Maria Tjeltveit, Retired Episcopal priest
Rev. Stephanie Anthony, First Presbyterian Church of Allentown
Laura Lawrence, Baháʼí community member

Show Notes:

• faith250 (https://faith250.org/)
• Lehigh Valley Cluster - [email protected]

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Maurice Bloem has spent nearly four decades in development work, from leading the Church World Service's humanitarian efforts in Indonesia to representing CWS at the United Nations. He now leads the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities (JLI), a network that encourages collaboration with local religious communities in development initiatives. Our conversation covers his path from cultural anthropology in the Netherlands, to a decade of work in Indonesia, to his current global initiative. We also discuss what Bloem calls his "resume of failures" and why inner development matters as much as policy frameworks.

Show Notes:

• Maurice Bloem website to learn more about Maurice and access his podcast, Walk Talk Listen (https://www.mauricebloem.com/)
• Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (https://jliflc.com/)

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Scholars keep predicting nationalism will fade, and it keeps surprising us. Slavica Jakelic argues we're asking the wrong questions. Drawing on her experience in Croatia during the Yugoslav wars and her research on religious-secular alliances in Poland and South Africa, she makes the case for 'ethical nationalism,' a form of belonging that serves pluralism rather than undermining it. We discuss why particular attachments matter, how religious and secular actors can work together, and what it might mean to reclaim symbols like the American flag for more expansive visions of national identity.

Show Notes:

• Collectivistic Religions: Religion, Choice, and Identity in Late Modernity (https://www.routledge.com/Collectivistic-Religions-Religion-Choice-and-Identity-in-Late-Modernity/Jakelic/p/book/9781138260399)
• Pluralizing Humanism: Religions and Secularisms Beyond Power (https://www.routledge.com/Pluralizing-Humanism-Religions-and-Secularisms-Beyond-Power/Jakelic/p/book/9781032151083)

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What if the center of Jesus' teaching isn't the cross but the Sermon on the Mount? Father John Dear, peace activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has spent four decades living out that claim and challenging the church to take nonviolence seriously. In this conversation, Dear shares his journey from witnessing jets drop bombs over the Sea of Galilee to facing 20 years of incarceration for hammering on an F-15 fighter jet. Now leading the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus and hosting "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," Dear continues to build a community around Gospel nonviolence. We talk about his book The Gospel of Peace, the cost of his convictions, and what ordinary people can do to follow the nonviolent Jesus.

Show Notes:

• The Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus (https://beatitudescenter.org)
• The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast (https://johndear.org/podcasts)
• Books (https://johndear.org/books)
  • Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace (February 2026)
  • The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark & Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence (October 2023)

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Artificial intelligence is forcing engineers to define concepts that philosophers and theologians have wrestled with for centuries: consciousness, personhood, and morality, to name a few. The technology may be new, but the questions it poses are ancient. In this conversation with Mark Graves, Research Director at AI and Faith,  we discuss what AI development reveals about humanity and what we can learn from the conversation between religion and technology.

Show Notes:

• AI and Faith (https://aiandfaith.org/)

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