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/

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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/

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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

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*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/

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CONNECT:

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*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:

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CONNECT:

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*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:

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CONNECT:

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*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/⁠.

THEMES: - religion and horror movies - the feeling of horror –horror vs. terror – the importance of the body in horror films – sociophobics – Dark Transcendent and Divine Transcendent

BIO: Ryan G. Duns, SJ, is an associate professor of theologyat Marquette University. In addition to many articles and book chapters, he is the author of Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age: Desmond and the Quest for God (2020) and Theology of Horror: The Hidden Depths of Popular Films (2024).

PODCAST LINKS:

- Theology of Horror (book): https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268208554/theology-of-horror/

NEWSLETTER:

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CONNECT:

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*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/⁠.

THEMES: - charges brought against the early Christians – the apologists’ main lines of defense - the apologists and “apologetics” – the historicity and truthfulness of Christian faith – Greek philosophy and Christian faith – the apologists on the Roman Empire

BIO:

Alvyn Pettersen is Canon Theologian Emeritus of Worcester Cathedral, UK, and an Honorary Chaplain at The University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford. He has written widely in the field of patristics, being the author of Athanasius and the Human Body (1990); the volume on Athanasius (1995) in the series, Outstanding Christian Thinkers; and the Cascade Companion, The Second-Century Apologists (2020).

PODCAST LINKS:

- The Second-Century Apologists (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9781725265356/the-second-century-apologists/

NEWSLETTER:

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

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CONNECT:

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*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/⁠.

THEMES: - the blessed & the lost/damned - infernalism, annihilationism, & universalism - heavenly grief - moral sanctification

BIO:

Eric Reitan is professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University. He is the author of Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers (2009), The Triumph of Love: Same-Sex Marriage and the Christian Love Ethic (2017), and the novel So Eden Sank to Grief (2024). He is co-author (with John Kronen) of God’s Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism (2011).

PODCAST LINKS:

- Troubled Paradise (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9781666765335/troubled-paradise/

NEWSLETTER:

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

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CONNECT:

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*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/.

Ronald E. Heine is Professor Emeritus of Bible and Theology at Northwest Christian University in Eugene, Oregon. He is the author of several books on early Christian authors and subjects and translator of many of Origen’s exegetical and homiletical works.

PODCAST LINKS:

- Origen Cascade Companion (book): https://wipfandstock.com/9781498288958/origen/

- The Philocalia of Origen (annotated, hardcover book): https://tinyurl.com/34bh59cz

- The Philocalia of Origen (paperback version): https://tinyurl.com/3skassh8

NEWSLETTER:

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CONNECT:

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*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/.