In Search Of

Latest Episodes:

A Refugee’s Feast: the story of Maria Skobtsova with Amy Frykholm Apr 03, 2024

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Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. In this episode, Amy introduces us to St. Maria Skobtsova, who studied theology and practiced hospitality from St. Petersburg in 1917, to Paris in the 1930s, until her death in a Nazi concentration camp in the 1940s. Learn which aspects of her life make her a personal saint for Amy on the season finale of In Search Of.

Love and desolation: The story of Matushka Olga Michael with Meagan Saliashvili Mar 27, 2024

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“Blessed Olga said, ‘God can create great beauty out of complete desolation.” – Meagan Saliashvili

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. In this episode, journalist Meaghan Saliashvili tells the story of the recently glorified Orthodox saint, Matushka Olga Michael, an indigenous healer in Alaska long venerated in local communities for her ability to heal victims of sexual abuse. What does Matushka Olga have to teach us about humility, gender, and healing? Find out on this episode of In Search Of.

The story never meant to be told: The suppressed history of African American religious women with Shannen Dee Williams Mar 20, 2024

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“When confronted with the silenced past, the greatest responsibility of the historian–and the most radical thing any person can do–is to tell the story that was never meant to be told.” – Shannen Dee Williams

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. In this episode, we learn about the missing history of Black Catholic sisters in the United States with Dr. Shannen Dee Williams–and why that history has been erased. Get to know the Venerable Mother Mary Lange, the Oblate Sisters of Providence, Venerable Henriette Delille, the Sisters of the Holy Family, Sister Mary Antona Ebo and more on this episode of In Search Of.

Who wrote the Bible?: Enslaved people and the New Testament with Candida Moss Mar 13, 2024

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“Once we accept biblical collaboration as fact and recognize its participants as oppressed human beings who nevertheless had agency, we are forced to confront a truth that can be unsettling to some readers of scripture: that the meaning of the Bible is fluid.” – Candida Moss

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. In this episode, scholar of early Christianity, Candida Moss, discusses the most recent publication of ancient papyri and what they say about women’s history in Christianity. We also learn about her new book on the role played by enslaved workers in the creation of the New Testament. All this and more on this episode of In Search Of.

Intelligence moved by love: Thecla as philosopher with Dawn LaValle Norman Mar 06, 2024

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“Thecla shows us how women could be important models, not only insofar as they overcame their femininity, but in their femininity, as models for men and women.” – Dawn LaValle Norman

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. This week, we hear the story of Thecla, an early Christian philosopher. Dawn LaValle Norman tells us about Thecla’s adventures–including carnivorous seals, and an all-female symposium–and the world of women philosophers in the first few centuries. Find out how Thecla flipped philosophy on its head on this episode of In Search Of.

The women around Augustine with Kate Cooper Feb 28, 2024

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“This is an enslaved girl in Africa in the fourth century. Just talk about lost voices. And yet this child is literally creating the theological groundwork for the greatest of Latin theologians” – Kate Cooper

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. This week, we learn more about the many women who influenced St. Augustine, as a man and as a theologian. Whether it’s a name we know–like Monica or the Empress Justina–or a name lost to history–like Monica’s enslaved childhood companion or Augustine’s concubine–historian of gender and family, Kate Cooper, offers informed speculation on what their lives could have been like as women in the fourth century. All this and more on this episode of In Search Of.

The Samaritan Woman’s Well of Interpretation with Caryn Reeder Feb 21, 2024

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“Sin is not part of the story.” – Caryn Reeder

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. We continue rediscovering lost Biblical women in this episode with Caryn Reeder about the Samaritan woman. Caryn offers us an interpretation that goes beyond scholarship’s tendency to hyper-sexualize and denigrate the Samaritan woman by offering critical, often lost context about marriage and the role of women in the world behind the story. What if this is an example not of a fallen woman, but of an early female leader in the church? All this and more on this episode of In Search Of.

There’s Something about Mary Magdalene with with Elizabeth Schrader Polczer and Diana Butler Bass Feb 14, 2024

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“If Mary Magdalene gets the Christological confession, that changes everything. It changes everything about the Gospel of John. It changes everything for women in leadership. It changes everything.” – Diana Butler Bass

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. Mary Magdalene is one of the most central women in the Christian tradition and yet, we are gradually discovering that we may never have known her at all. In this episode Elizabeth Schrader Polczer and Diana Butler Bass talk about the implications of Polczer’s research on Mary Magdalene and what it means for our own moment in Christianity, as well as how these two scholars from radically different fields combined powers to get Mary’s story out there. All this and more on this episode of In Search Of.

Back to the Desert: Mary of Egypt with Amy Frykholm Feb 07, 2024

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“As Christianity moved to an empire-based movement, women lost a lot of power. So it makes sense that they would have gone into the desert, looking for ways to pursue their path in Christianity in ways that allowed them greater freedom.” – Amy Frykholm

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. This special bonus episode is a lecture from host Amy Frykholm on Desert Women and, in particular, Mary of Egypt–the patron saint of this podcast. Amy tells us Mary’s story and gives some context as to what it was like being a desert mother amongst the desert fathers. How were women’s experiences similar to or different from men? What motifs and archetypes shape our understanding of them? All this and more on this episode of In Search Of.

In Search of Interspiritual Truth: An Interview with John Thatamanil Apr 12, 2023

Show notes

“If I'm truly, as a Christian, to affirm that core affirmation that God did, in fact, so love the world, then divine disclosure must be happening far beyond the boundaries of the Christian tradition. If that's true, then how God engages in self-disclosure under different vocabularies, under different practices, under different modes of being must matter.” – John Thatamanil

Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. In this episode, John Thatamanil tells Amy about his interfaith work and identity in a conversation that covers everything from capitalism to philosophy to the definition of religion. Why is “syncretism” a bad word? Why is it okay to be a capitalist Christian, but not a Buddhist Christian? How can we embrace religious diversity instead of fearing it? Explore these questions and more on this episode of In Search Of.

John Thatamanil is a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he teaches classes in comparative theology, religious diversity, Hindu-Christian dialogue, the theology of Paul Tillich, theory of religion, process theology, and ecotheology. He’s the author of Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity and is working on a book provisionally entitled, Desiring Truth: Comparative Theology and the Quest for Interreligious Wisdom.

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