The Theology Mill

What if we reimagined Christian spirituality as something fundamentally communal, and religious conversion as something that extends beyond altar calls and private devotion? Spirituality scholar Michael Ceragioli joins the show to share his provocative proposal for a renewed Christian spirituality in America, drawing on the American pragmatists, Thomas Merton, and the emerging field of spirituality studies.

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML. (Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

LINKS:

• Revisioning Spirituality (Michael’s book): https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/5774-7/revisioning-spirituality.aspx?srsltid=AU7gw4XFvELXP6enAdUVn-lW4ZffJqh2p_9_-LMdpPNdYVFWDjavQZiE

• Heaven Human Earth Institute: website coming soon

• Re-Visioning Spirituality (Michael’s Substack):  https://michaelceragioli.substack.com/
  

Zech chats with Dr. Miller-McLemore about her work on the practices involved in parenthood (and why we can call these practices spiritual), why parenthood is also a confrontation with one’s own finitude and inevitable failures, and the role of sacrifice and *transitional* family hierarchy in the parental vocation.

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML. (Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

LINKS:

• In the Midst of Chaos (Bonnie’s book): https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781506454597/In-the-Midst-of-Chaos

• Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies about Calling (Bonnie’s newest book): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/follow-your-bliss-and-other-lies-about-calling-9780190084042?cc=us&lang=en&

John Andrew Bryant on the experience of OCD, Christian readings of “mental illness,” and why it might be important to think about mental health challenges without leaning overmuch on psychiatric and diagnostic labels.

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML.

(Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

LINKS:

• A Quiet Mind to Suffer With (John’s book): https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781683597049_a-quiet-mind-to-suffer-with

• The Table at the End of the World (John’s forthcoming book): https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9781540906151_the-table-at-the-end-of-the-world
  

A crossover episode in which Zech swaps seats and appears as a guest on Martin Robb’s care ethics podcast, Careful Thinking. Zech shares about his book, The Unthinkable Sacrifice: An Essay on Fatherhood, and discusses his own experience as a father and the ways French phenomenology has helped him think through his practice of parenthood. 

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML. (Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

LINKS:

• The Unthinkable Sacrifice (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9798385219070/the-unthinkable-sacrifice/

• Careful Thinking podcast: https://careful-thinking.captivate.fm/

• Martin Robb’s Substack: https://carefulthinking.substack.com/

• Martin’s Substack article on this episode: https://carefulthinking.substack.com/p/fatherhood-faith-and-phenomenology

• Martin’s review of Zech’s book: https://carefulthinking.substack.com/p/fatherhood-and-philosophy
  

In this episode, Zech talks with Colby Dickinson about his many pilgrim journeys in the city of Rome. Together they ask: how does religious identity—or lack thereof—shape one’s experience of places with historically thick spiritual meaning? What might it look like to encounter something beyond ourselves when our faith wanes more than it waxes? Finally, can pilgrimage still be meaningful when so often it seems caught up in the snares of  a consumer mentality?

Book link: https://wipfandstock.com/9798385221042/sacred-pilgrim-secular-pilgrim/

Newsletter: Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML. (Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

Dr. Meek on the mother’s smile as a form of philosophical formation and a form of epistemic access to reality, why it’s important to see oneself being seen (as beloved), and how modernity operates as a barrier to such interpersoned philosophy.

BIO:

Esther Lightcap Meek is Professor of Philosophy emerita at Geneva College. Meek’s books include Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (2003); Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology (2011); A Little Manual for Knowing (2014); and Contact With Reality: Michael Polanyi’s Realism and Why It Matters (2017). Recent books are Doorway to Artistry: Attuning Your Philosophy to Enhance Your Creativity (2023), and with Lisa Cadora, Knowing as Loving: Philosophical Grounding for Charlotte Mason’s Expert Educational Insights (2023). Her newest book is The Mother’s Smile: Philosophical Formation in the Welcome of Mothers and Friends (2025).

PODCAST LINKS:

- The Mother’s Smile (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9798385236473/the-mothers-smile/

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: ⁠http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML⁠.

(Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

CONNECT:

Website: ⁠https://wipfandstock.com/blog/category/podcast/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Wipfandstockpublishers⁠

*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast’s transition music. Link to license: ⁠https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/⁠.

TOPICS:

– Sally Gross – intersex embodiment – religious belonging – Foucault – the “medical gaze” – activism  

BIO:

M. Wolff is Associate Professor of Religion at Augustana College and author of Body Problems: What Intersex Priest Sally Gross Teaches Us About Embodiment, Justice, and Belonging (2025).

PODCAST LINKS:

- Body Problems (book): https://www.dukeupress.edu/body-problems

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: ⁠http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML⁠.

(Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

CONNECT:

Website: ⁠https://wipfandstock.com/blog/category/podcast/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Wipfandstockpublishers⁠

*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast’s transition music. Link to license: ⁠https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/⁠.

KEYWORDS:

– Reformation – confessionalization – law-gospel dialectic – doctrine of justification – sacramental theology – preaching – Reformation myths

BIO:

Corneliu Simuț is Professor of Theology at Aurel Vlaicu University in Arad, Romania. He is the author of numerous books, including Reading Doctrines as Theological Images in Reformed Protestantism (2016), Richard Hooker and his Early Doctrine ofJustification (2018), and A Very Brief Introduction to Reformation Doctrine (2024).

PODCAST LINKS:

- A Very Brief Introduction to Reformation Doctrine (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9798385200542/a-very-brief-introduction-to-reformation-doctrine/

- Dr. Simuț’s webpage: https://corneliusimut.wordpress.com/

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: ⁠http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML⁠.

(Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

CONNECT:

Website: ⁠https://wipfandstock.com/blog/category/podcast/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Wipfandstockpublishers⁠

*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast’s transition music. Link to license: ⁠https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/⁠.

KEYWORDS:

– presence – communion – personhood – cosmos – communitas – politics – eucharist

BIO:

James Greenaway is the San José-Lonergan Chair in Catholic Philosophy at St. Mary’s University. He is the author of The Differentiation of Authority: The Medieval Turn Toward Existence (2012) and A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos (2023).

PODCAST LINKS:

- A Philosophy of Belonging (book): https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268206024/a-philosophy-of-belonging/

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: ⁠http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML⁠.

(Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

CONNECT:

Website: ⁠https://wipfandstock.com/blog/category/podcast/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Wipfandstockpublishers⁠

*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast’s transition music. Link to license: ⁠https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/⁠.

KEYWORDS:

- new natural law – moral philosophy – ethics – Aquinas – Aristotle – subsidiarity – political philosophy

BIO:

Melissa Moschella is a professor of the practice in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life. She is the author of To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education, and Children’s Autonomy (2017) and Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law: Principles for Human Flourishing (2025).

PODCAST LINKS:

- Ethics, Politics, and Natural Law (book): https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268209261/ethics-politics-and-natural-law/

NEWSLETTER:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter and get ***40% OFF*** any Wipf and Stock book: ⁠http://eepurl.com/cMB8ML⁠.

(Be sure to check the box next to “Podcast Updates: The Theology Mill” before hitting Subscribe.)

CONNECT:

Website: ⁠https://wipfandstock.com/blog/category/podcast/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Wipfandstockpublishers⁠

X/Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/TheologyMill⁠

*The Theology Mill and Wipf and Stock Publishers would like to thank Luca Di Alessandro for making their song “A Celestial Keyboard” available for use as the podcast’s transition music. Link to license: ⁠https://pixabay.com/service/license-summary/⁠.