We are still on a break.  In the meantime, enjoy one of Tony's favorite interviews from the past.

Why have many women in the Middle East resorted to increasingly conservative modes of dress in recent decades?  And what happens after a political regime rapidly collapses leaving society in near total chaos as happened in Iraq in 2003?  Dr. David Patel, a junior research fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, answers these questions and accounts for the ris...

Keep on reading: David Patel on Religion & Social Order in Iraq (Encore Presentation)

While we are on a sabbatical, trying to get our format updated and finding more outlets on which you can enjoy this podcast, please enjoy this encore presentation from five years ago.

Most astute social observers today agree that the United States is in the throes of a “culture war,” with issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and drug legalization taking center stage in many political debates.  But what if I told you that such “culture wars” are not uncommon in US history?  In...

Keep on reading: Barry Hankins on Jesus, Gin, and the Culture Wars (Encore Presentation)

We remain on sabbatical to catch up on a number of non-podcast related things.  Please stay tuned for new episodes coming in the near future.

Max Weber is famous for linking religion to economic outcomes in his monumental book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.  Since that time we have seen social scientific interest in linking religion to economic growth wane and then be resurrected.  Charles North, associate professor of economics at Baylor University, discusses his own w...

Keep on reading: Charles North on Religion, Economic Development, and Rule of Law (Encore Presentation)

Why would anybody ever want to become a prison chaplain?   And what do those folks involved in prison ministry do?  Jeff Henig, who recently was hired as a prison chaplain in Arkansas, discusses his background, the journey he took to become a prison minister, and the various challenges he faces in this line of work.  This is part of our ongoing series to talk with practitioners, people who work in the spiritual trenches day-t0-day and often have insights into human behavior that scholars...

Keep on reading: Jeff Henig on Prison Ministry (Encore Presentation)

Major cultural movements have to begin and evolve somewhere, and what better place than in a coffee house?  Prof. Shachar Pinsker, an associate professor of Hebrew Literature and Culture at the University of Michigan, joins us today to talk about the importance these cafés played in shaping Jewish modernity in the era from 1848 to 1939 (and a bit beyond).  His new book - A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture -- is about to be released from NYU Press and provides us with a...

Keep on reading: Shachar Pinsker on Jewish Coffee House Culture

Location, location, location.  That is the eternal cry of every real estate agent, and it proved prophetic for this week's guest, Prof. David Deavel, an assistant professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas -- as he grew up an evangelical Christian in the shadow of Notre Dame, which gave him the foundation for later converting to Catholicism.  And along the way, he became an expert on a number of Catholic saints, theologians, and writers, which is where our discussion winds...

Keep on reading: David Deavel on De Sales, Newman, Chesterton, and Hitchcock

What is it like to be a stranger in a strange land on the move, and how does that affect one's ability to preserve their religious identity?  This is a central question take up by Prof. Shari Rabin, an assistant professor of Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston and director of the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture, in her new book Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America.  We begin, as usual, with a little background on our guest,...

Keep on reading: Shari Rabin on Jews on the American Frontier

Missionaries can often convert people to another faith, but do their efforts have other effects?  Prof. Anselm Rink, a junior professor of political economy at the University of Konstanz (Germany), joins us to discuss an interesting survey and field experiment conducted in Peru to understand the effects missionizing may have on citizen attitudes towards political authority.  We begin the conversation with a bit of Prof. Rink's background and how he ended up studying Protestants in the Peruvian...

Keep on reading: Anselm Rink on Missionaries and Political Authority

Can a country comprised of Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Druze, and Maronite Christians hold itself together politically and avoid conflict?  Lebanon, a country with this confessional mixture, has had its problems with religious conflict in the past but has seemed to maintain a reasonably stable polity (relative to other countries in the region) via the institutional design of political consociationalism.  Kenneth Vaughan, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Baylor University, explains how this...

Keep on reading: Kenneth Vaughan on Consociationalism, Religion, and Lebanon (and more)

Judaism is certainly good for the soul, but can it also be good for what else ails ya?  Dr. Jeff Levin, the University Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health at Baylor University and a Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Institute for Studies of Religion, brings his recent edited volume on Judaism and health to life in this interesting interview.

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Keep on reading: Jeff Levin on Judaism and Health (Encore Presentation)