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What Matters Most

What Matters Most

Di: John W. Martens
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A proposito di questo titolo

 What Matters Most is focused on listening to people and what is on their minds, particularly dealing with the big questions of religion and spirituality. It emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement, a Centre at St. Mark's College, the Catholic college at UBC, but our programming is intended for all interested parties, Catholic or not. In the What Matters Most podcast, we talk to people, some well-known, some not so well-known, some Catholic, some Christian, some not affiliated with any religion, some affiliated with other faiths (Muslims, Sikhs) to find out what matters to them. It is a podcast focused on spirituality and faith, but truly focused on listening to others, to learning from those connected to the Church and to those who are not. It is grounded in personal conversations that ask guests to talk about what has motivated their vocations or their work and what gives their lives meaning and purpose. The format can best be described as a conversation that allows us to get to know our guests.2024 Catechesi ed evangelismo Cristianesimo Spiritualità
Episodi
  • "Religion is Not Going Away:" Shinnyo-En and NRMs in Japan: A Conversation with Dr. Casey Collins

    "Religion is Not Going Away:" Shinnyo-En and NRMs in Japan: A Conversation with Dr. Casey Collins
    Jan 14 2026
    Welcome to Episode 14 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Casey Collins. This episode focuses on religion in Japan, particularly Buddhism, and, we can break that down even further, a new religious movement known as Shinnyo-En which is related to an esoteric school of Japanese Buddhism known as Shingon founded by the Japanese monk Kukai in the 8th century. This is not an episode in the Christian nationalism project! Casey Collins earned his PhD at the University of British Columbia, defending a dissertation entitled "Walking in the Founders' Footsteps: Hagiography and Devotion in Shinnyo-en, a Japanese New Religion," in April 2023 at the University of British Columbia. His work examines sociological and phenomenological approaches to religious studies, charismatic religious leaders, sacred narratives, new religions, and the material culture of religion. Prior to his doctoral work, Casey earned his BA and MA in Asian Studies from UBC also. He is now Director of Inter-Religious Studies and Professor of Asian Religions at VST. Today's podcast is a fascinating exploration of new religious movements, focusing, it is true, on a particular movement, Shinnyo-En, but it raises questions as Casey says, about religious practice in general, what is religion itself, especially when we look at it in contexts other than the western world, and what is it that attracts people to religion in general. Casey also gifted to us a new word, contra-modern, and it has set me wondering, how might this term apply to various religious movements across the world. What do you think about this contra-modern movement Shinnyo-En? As I said in the episode, when I think of charismatic religious leaders, I get a little nervous, it's an immediate reaction when I think about groups I know of who have been led astray by leaders who have taken advantage of or harmed their followers. There is no evidence of that with this group, however, and Casey does not suggest such abuses do not take place in Japan too, as with the Aum Shinrikyo group who perpetrated a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that killed at least 13 people and injured thousands more. But not every new religious group behaves this way at all and the reality of new religious groups or NRMs is that people continue to be attracted to them, even in countries such as Japan where we are told the people there are not very religious and they themselves might tell you that too. Some of this has to do with the definition of religion and western conceptions of what a religion is do not map easily onto Asian conceptions of religion. Indeed, I was surprised to learn that Japan is the locus of the study of new religious movements in the academic world because it has the most NRMs in the world. I did not know that. Casey referred us to Rush Hour of the Gods: A Study of New Religious Movements in Japan by H. Neill McFarland, a classic in the field from 1967. And as Casey Collins says, NRMs are worth our attention because they ask us to think, what is it that people want from life? Why are they attracted to NRMs? Why are they attracted to religion? In the context of all the talk about religion fading away, it seems that it continues to attract people: "religion is not going away" as Casey said. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark's College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark's College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark's College that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, members of other religious traditions, and from those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. Our goal, then, is to talk to a lot of people, to learn from them, to listen to them, and to find out what motivates them, what gives them hope, what gives them peace, and what allows them to go out into the world to love their neighbors. A few thanks are in order. To Martin Strong, to Kevin Eng, and to Fang Fang Chandra, the team who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let ...
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    1 ora e 21 min
  • A Short History of MAGA Catholics: A Conversation with Matthew J. Cressler

    A Short History of MAGA Catholics: A Conversation with Matthew J. Cressler
    Dec 31 2025
    Welcome to Episode 13 of Season 4! In this episode I speak with Dr. Matthew J. Cressler. This episode is a distinct episode in the project, following that of Steven Tyra, which covers Christian nationalism in the reformed Protestant tradition, and Ruth Braunstein, who discussed Christian nationalism in US evangelicalism; today's episode is on Christian nationalism in Catholicism, particularly in the USA, as seen throughout the 20th century up until today. Matthew J. Cressler, Ph.D. is a rogue scholar, comics creator, and teacher whose work focuses on religion, race, and justice. He is also chief of staff for the Corporation for Public Interest Technology. He is the author of Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migrations and creator of Bad Catholics, Good Trouble, the educational webcomic series. He's written for America, The Atlantic, National Catholic Reporter, The Revealer, Slate, U.S. Catholic, and numerous academic journals, including Religion & American Culture for which he wrote "Real, Good, and Sincere Catholics." He also co-reported the Religion News Service series "Beyond the Most Segregated Hour," which won a Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council. He has two forthcoming books currently under contract: Catholics and the Making of MAGA: How an Immigrant Church Became America's Law and Order Faith (Harper Collins, 2027), and the co-authored Body & Blood: Catholic Horror in America. Today's podcast is on Catholicism and Christian nationalism in the USA, although Matthew nuances whether this particular phrase is the best description of what is happening in some factions of the Catholic church. I also introduced the phrase integralism and asked whether this is a better descriptor of a particular form of Catholic Christian nationalism. Matthew again, as you will hear, demurred, as you will hear. Not because he rejected the language outright, but because he wanted to make a broader point about Catholics in general. What Cressler does is put this current MAGA Catholicism in the context of deeper American history and indeed a deeper international history, taking the French Revolution as an important starting point, though without question the whole reality of Christendom in late antiquity and the medieval period gives us a broad and general context. This is why Matthew was reticent to make a simple equivalency with Christian nationalism in evangelical USA or even with Catholic integralism because apart from its elite proponents, it reflects the Catholicism of a lot of ordinary Catholics. Matthew asked the question, why is our tradition a welcome home for right-wing and fascist movements in the past and today? How embedded is racism and intolerance embedded in what it means to be a "good catholic"? Matthew described Tom Homan, the man in charge of Trump's border policy, as the son and grandson of law enforcement officers, and a Catholic. He's such a good catholic, this is what he said in response to the US Catholic bishops denouncing of Trump's treatment of migrants: "The Catholic Church is wrong," Homan told reporters. "I'm a lifelong Catholic, but I'm saying it not only as a border czar, but I'm also saying this as a Catholic." Surely, he too feels he is a good Catholic. It's something to consider: in some cases Christian nationalists hear a message of nationalism from the pulpit, but in this case the Church has said, this is not in keeping with the Gospel, and it goes to the highest levels of the Church, directly from Francis and Leo and the bishops. But instead of the Gospel and teaching authority of the Church, one chooses the nation state and oneself. What does it mean to be a good catholic? I think sometimes you need to make good trouble, and perhaps just listening to the perennial message of the Gospel and following it is troubling today to the powers that be. Two last things: The Flannery O'Connor short story I referenced, poorly, is "A Temple of the Holy Spirit." If you have not read Flannery O'Connor before, it is worth doing, though she herself reflected some of the racism of Georgia in the mid-twentieth century, she is a terrific writer who offers spiritually powerful insights into the human condition. Good and bad. And the book that Matthew referenced on Catholicism in the southern USA is The South's Tolerable Aliens: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970, by Andrew S. Moore. This podcast emerges from the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark's College, the Catholic college at UBC, a centre that explores the Christian and Catholic intellectual tradition and seek to learn from others, other Christians, other religious traditions, and those who do not claim any particular or formal religious affiliation. What Matters Most is produced by the Centre for Christian Engagement at St Mark's College, the Catholic college at UBC. The CCE is a centre at St. Mark's College that explores the Christian and ...
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    1 ora e 16 min
  • Pop Culture Matters: Christmas Movies (Part Two) with Martin Strong

    Pop Culture Matters: Christmas Movies (Part Two) with Martin Strong
    Dec 16 2025
    Welcome to the eighth episode of Pop Culture Matters, a conversation with my good friend and a great friend of the podcast, Martin Strong. We returned to a discussion of Christmas movies for this episode, but not our favorite Christmas movies, which we have already discussed; so please check out that first episode to hear about The Bishop's Wife, It's a Wonderful Life, Elf, A Christmas Story, and Alistair Sim playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Instead, we are discussing movies that we have not seen before, even though they are considered Christmas classics. The list is smaller this time around, including Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Holiday Inn (1942), White Christmas (1954), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Martin discussed the AFI Top Holiday Movies and the films we discussed today are quite high on that list, which I found at IMDB which had a top 20 list, with Holiday Inn ranked as number two, behind It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas at number three, Miracle on 34th Street at number six, and Meet Me in St. Louis at number eight. So, we are discussing four of the top eight films on that list. But lists are meant to be debated and discussed, right? We also returned to the question of what we think makes for a good Christmas movie, and what ChatGPT thinks makes for a good Christmas movie. ChatGPT offers six characteristics of what makes for a good Christmas movie. Interestingly, last year we offered six characteristics: transformation of a character; warmth; earnestness; a level of comfort and peace; lovingkindness; and care for each other. Listen and see how closely what we determined made a good Christmas movie is mimicked by Chat GPT. And listen to our discussion of our four films, all older and highly rated, and think about the extent to which they capture the characteristics of a classic Christmas movie. As I said last year, get comfortable and cozy with your loved ones and settle in with a cup of hot cocoa and a Christmas cookie. If this podcast hits some of the right Christmas notes, you're going to change your selfish ways and be transformed by the warmth of Christmas. Or, given the films we're discussing, maybe you're going to put together a song and dance team, write a classic Christmas song, and buy a house in the suburbs. Merry Christmas from all of us at the Centre for Christian Engagement and St. Mark's College. Merry Christmas to Martin Strong for joining me in this venture! Merry Christmas to Kevin Eng for editing and engineering this episode and integrating all the wonderful music in the podcast. Merry Christmas to Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly. Merry Christmas to Kenton McDonald-Lin for the interviews on the UBC campus that spiced up this Christmas episode. Merry Christmas to all of our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas. If you are enjoying the podcast, please let your friends know and give the gift of What Matters Most by also rating and reviewing What Matters Most on your favourite podcasting platform. Thanks again for listening and remember Merry Christmas. Since St. Mark's Centre for Christian Engagement seeks to enable the creation of a culture of encounter and dialogue, let me invite you into that discussion. Follow us at our Instagram page, @stmarkscce, newly revived, and drop us a line as to what you want to see or hear. We'll post there with a question as to what you are most interested in. Or email us with your suggestions to jmartens@stmarkscollege.ca or cceconferences@stmarkscollege.ca. John W. Martens
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    1 ora e 9 min
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