Online June Annual Meeting 2025 Program Book

In this study, I seek to elucidate the embodied and relational implications of 靈性 (Língxìng), rendered as spirituality, through an East Asian etymological approach that challenges Western-centric origins. Within Chinese ideographic structure, 靈性 is a compound of 靈, which signifies a “relational spirit,” and 性, which indicates “innate nature.” This term etymologically underscores not only the cosmotheandric spiritual nature inherent in humans but also the integration of body and spirit. 靈性 plays a central role in exploring the spirituality discipline of East Asian scholars, and it also complements the early Western dualistic meaning of spirituality rooted in a rigid ascetic Christian context. Such an East Asian etymological analysis would contribute to interdisciplinary studies of Christian spirituality transcending the barriers of any centralism. By doing so, this proposal aims to create an inclusive space for interplay between East Asian and Western spiritualities, suggesting an embodied understanding of all lived spiritual experiences.

This paper argues for the centrality of spirituality, especially in times of cultural crisis, outlining a methodology of spiritual companioning called Just Listening that works as a fulcrum of action between justice and freedom. The paper draws upon the work of Martin Buber and his concept of I and Thou, and Paul Ricouer’s hermeneutic of mimesis praxeos, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman and other voices in marginalized communities. These inform a methodology of spiritual practice rooted in the concept of belovedness that moves toward the notion of beloved community. This employs a circular, iterative process—present, proximate, grounded, unknow(n), and discovery—to cultivate transformative relationality. Through active steps of pause, notice, and encounter, persons and communities deepen their own self-understanding and just relationship with the other and wider creation.

This paper discusses the concept of "Spirit" in the music of Willie Nelson. Beginning with a Christological concept album in 1971, Yesterday's Wine, Willie Nelson used music as a medium to discern a theology of spirituality. This procedure reaches a climax in the 1996 album spirit. This record is a series of explorations into the meaning of “spirit” as an experienced reality. More than a claim that the concept affords numerous meanings, the album posits that this multivalence is the meaning of Spirit. This idea finds support from works such as Charles Taylor and Friedrich Schiller, who help to explain the potency of Nelson's exploration. For spirit, both its poetic and symbolic presence means that the album is not an attempt to explain Spirit. It is an event where the meaning of Spirit is discovered. Its meaning is lived-through in the lyrical poetry and fragile sonics of the album. 

In what ways can spirituality be a life-giving resource in our death-dealing age? What methodological resources can help to inform our study of spirituality?  In this paper, I argue that pragmatic and liberationist methodologies have much to offer. I approach philosophical pragmatism and liberation theology as non-reductive empirical discourses that foreground the role of human intelligence in promoting human flourishing.  Such an approach helps to expand our understanding of spirituality as a pervasive quality of human experience, and it sheds significant light on spirituality as an active function of human intelligence.  Within a pragmatic model of inquiry, knowing is an “adaptive activity” that involves a dynamic process of doubt, belief, inquiry, and judgment.  As I show, in both pragmatism and liberation theology, human intelligence, broadly understood, is a—if not the—primary means by which human beings transact with the world and through which spirituality is, in fact, “activated.” 

Foucault’s work History of Madness lays the groundwork to consider what it means to be marginalized. When Foucault considers the marginalized, he is considering those who have been discarded by their social structures. Foucault considers this group in terms of the Great Confinement in France, when many individuals were collected from around the country and placed in insane asylums whether they were truly mad or not. Foucault argues that it is so important to really understand who was being deemed as insane because it allows us to consider the power imbalances in this specific moment. During this historical moment the categorization of the mad here is the criminal, the poor, the unemployed, and then the insane. Using this categorization, we can apply this logic to our modern-day scapegoats. Who are the individuals who are a “problem” in the modern-day context and singled out to be removed from these societal structures.

This paper argues for the utility of a Foucauldian lens for Buddhist studies, while also drawing attention to how Buddhist histories complicate and expand Foucault's methods. While Foucault is often rightly criticized for focusing on western contexts, this paper suggests that some of the operations of power that he analyzed found parallels in central Asian contexts. If mechanisms of confession and surveillance apply, so too do creative practices of "self-fashioning. Examining resonance and rift across cultural contexts enables us to trace how Foucault's analysis of the history of sexuality allows us to think not only about Buddhist's ancient monastic codes and their incitements to discourse, but also how these codes were applied in Tibetan-specific configurations of emerging modernity.

Studies of The Body espousing a Foucauldian approach tend to engage the body as an abstract theoretical construct –as in social science; and/or a material artifact –as in history. However, incorporating Foucault’s work into ritual studies –a subfield within religious studies— brings forward that Foucault engaged the body –as Merleau Ponty before him— as the lived material substrate wherein culture and history play out. Indeed, centering of experience of bodily performances constituted the major continuity between Foucault’s earlier and later scholarship. This paper will present my interdisciplinary framework of ritual ecological analysis as a means of reframing how we view Foucault’s approach to the body as the reflexive expression of historically contingent cultural praxes. Further, I will argue that embodiment methodologies are similarly consistent with Foucault’s approach to the body and bodily experience. 

Being a friend in a liminal zone can require us to fully immerse ourselves in the religious worldview of the other. Living and working as a resident assistant in a refugee resettlement home in Surrey, Canada has allowed me to explore both the academic and pastoral aspects of friendship, mutuality, and neighbouring in an intercultural and interreligious context. During the chaotic height of COVID, compounded by intercultural confusion, a comedy of errors results in a small fire, building evacuation, meetings in secret, panic about Djinn, and an invitation across religious divides (Jewish, Muslim, and syncretistic Christianity) to perform two separate exorcisms to cleanse the building of unwanted evil. My paper tells this hilarious story while drawing meaningful lessons about living in intercultural and interreligious contexts, and how we can find commonalities, humour, and meaning in traditions outside of our own to forge friendship and find healing in traumatized communities.

Pursuing peace across deep lines of societal division is as salient as ever. Growing a social imagination for civic friendship—extending the willing good of personal friendship to the broader community—is an important part of this work. But are we building the necessary relational skills through how we navigate relational difficulties in our personal friendships? If we do not have a vision for interpersonal friendships that can endure trials, can we hope to see lasting communal transformation? 

Such a vision can be developed, along with a social imagination that builds resilience for navigating conflict in interpersonal friendships. Towards this end, I bring an examination of friendship in the Hebrew Scriptures into conversation with Conflict Transformation theory. Ultimately, I argue that the ways we work through conflict with our closest friends, or neglect to do so, influence our imagination and preparation for overcoming division and seeking wholeness in the broader community. 

Civic friendship, rooted in a relational ethic of reciprocity and restoration, can contribute to the pursuit of treaty-honouring in settler-colonized countries. We argue this through engagement with Te-Tiriti-o-Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between Māori leaders and the British Crown in Aotearoa New Zealand, encouraged by Anglicans in diverse positions of influence. As a sacred covenant, Te Tiriti joined two traditions in a kin-like relationship. Thus, Māori expected an ongoing relationship grounded in mutual respect. However, the rapidly expanding settler population pursued policies of colonization and assimilation. 

Convinced that Te Tiriti remains a sacred foundation on which to build a shared future, we argue for the revitalization of civic forms of friendship that promote the flourishing of all. While authentic friendship can be challenging to maintain in contexts marked by power imbalances, paternalism, and injustice, the intertwining of personal and civic forms of friendship has proven to be invaluable in counter-assimilation struggles for self-determination, justice, healing, and restoration.

Cinema has been a significant narrative art form throughout history, deeply influencing people through myths and legends. Horror cinema, particularly horror, deals with fear and devil themes, reflecting various cultural and religious beliefs. South Korean cinema has produced unique horror films with syncretic religious discourses and societal lifestyles. This study examines how and demonic representations are shaped in South Korean cinema and presented within the framework of social and cultural dynamics. Specifically, the film "Saja: The Divine Fury" (2019) analyzes exorcism rituals and their impact on creating a syncretic perception, highlighting the influence of social and cultural dynamics on the genre.

“Hotarubi no Mori e” is a cinematic tragedy exploring Shinto and human connection to nature. The story is of a young girl named Hotaru and a kami named Gin, whom she met. “Hotarubi no Mori e” mostly takes place in a deep forest that is seemingly almost too perfect for the world and full of other Kamis. The anime’s narrative not only expresses a personal experience but also comments on the coexistence of environmentalism and religion. The story builds on the idea of hiding religion in plain sight. “Hotarubi no Mori e” is filled with rich visual aesthetics and thematic storytelling, which seems to hide the deeply spiritual side of the story involving Shinto right in front of the audience. In the faith of Shinto, there lies a deep reverence for kami and nature. This anime was able to highlight those beliefs, which can resonate with people globally.     

This study examines the origin of the three hares motif, first documented in the Dunhuang Mogao caves during the Sui dynasty (581-618), by proposing a novel connection to Qin palace architectural designs. Through a comparative analysis of motifs from Qin palace ruins and Mogao caves, significant similarities are identified, especially between the Dunhuang three hares and a three-deer pattern on Qin eave tiles. Additional evidence includes shared decorative elements such as the sunflower pattern and cloud-leaf motifs, suggest that architectural motifs from Qin palaces substantially influenced Dunhuang's iconographic development, offering new perspectives on the three hares' origins.

This paper seeks to argue that the 1950 movie Harvey, which focuses on the friendly but rather idiosyncratic Elwood P. Elwood and his best friend, an invisible white rabbit named Harvey, provides an insightful example that can be applied to the philosophy of religion. This paper will argue that the challenge that arises from trying to make sense of Harvey’s existence is analogous to one of the central methodological problems within the philosophy of religion; namely how to interpret private, inner religious experiences. In this respect Harvey prevents us with a ‘conflict of interpretations’ of the sort discussed by Paul Ricoeur in Freud and Philosophy. As such, this paper seeks to show that an analysis of these interpretations and their conflict can provide an insight into Ricoeur’s philosophy of religion and some of the wider issues discussed in the philosophy of religion.  

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The digital revolution has dramatically expanded available forms of and opportunities for religious praxis, offering people significantly more freedom to practice their faith where and how they choose. As this trend continues, religious leaders will increasingly be called upon to provide leadership across diverse digital media. If the theological academy is to adequately equip future leaders, it must find ways to incorporate digital praxis into the curriculum. This need is greatest in practical theology and its subdisciplines, because these are the areas where students develop the knowledge and skills to guide praxis. Taking Mainline Protestant Christianity as the primary context for analysis, this paper presents a rationale and framework for incorporating theology and skills for digital religious leadership into practical theology classrooms. The presentation will illustrate pedagogical recommendations using digital tools developed by the author. Principles presented are generalizable across a variety of traditions.

This research presents the author’s firsthand experience teaching a mandatory Christian general education course at Yonsei University—a Christian-founded institution in Korea with a highly diverse student body. The study focuses on three key elements: the challenges encountered, the pedagogical approaches employed, and reflections on student feedback. The author examines how he navigated the ambiguities and tensions inherent in this educational setting through pedagogies centered on “teaching Christianity as it is” and fostering critical thinking. In doing so, he identifies the potential for this type of education to address the challenges at hand and to advance toward a model of (religious) literacy that seeks understanding.

This paper offers a theological engagement with psychoanalytic communist Xandra Metcalfe’s concept of ‘primordial transsexuality’, in conversation with Gregory of Nyssa. It explores Metcalfe’s picture of an original non-binary state of all humans prior to the violence of heterosexuality and cisnormativity, a narrative she compares to the Fall. I compare this with Gregory’s belief in humanity’s primordial creation in a gender-transcendent divine image, prior to the ‘male and female’ divisions given in anticipation of the Fall. Within this, I consider on Metcalfe’s employment of the Lacanian Real—as that which resists symbolisation—alongside Gregory’s view of the Divine Essence as unnameable and unspeakable, suggesting that both Metcalfe’s primordial transsexuality and Gregory’s imago dei evade gendered subjectivity by their proximity to an extradiscursive origin. This paper thus also contributes to ongoing dialogue between theology and Lacanian thought, suggesting Gregory as a promising interlocuter for Lacan.

Although Thomas Berry proclaimed the universe to be “a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects,” a robust case for pan-animal communion has yet to be made. While we can recognize a natural basis for communion in animals’ subjective interactivity, a merely transactional logic governs the temporal milieu. We can incorporate the existential freedom which underlies communion, however, by reference to the medieval theological voluntarism of John Duns Scotus. Scotus’s Triune God is a self-organizing—and so free—circulation of love. Correspondingly, God founds each creature on its own existential freedom. In this way, God accords it the possibility of gifting its own self in a friendship relation which cultivates some other’s own agency. In light of Scotus, then, a pan-animal subjective interactivity does indeed hold the potential to progress toward communion: A community of unique individuals pursuing, in freedom, an emancipatory love for self and other.

This paper examines The Epic of Arya, a work by Aryan supremacist, Sorbonne-trained philosopher, and esoteric Nietzschean ideologue Abir Taha, as a case study in the fascist appropriation of continental philosophy’s critique of logic and metaphysics. Drawing on her idiosyncratic reading of Nietzsche, Taha advances a mythic vision of eternal sacred Truth underpinning Aryan identity, paradoxically invoking Nietzschean themes of becoming while reinstating the very metaphysical fixity Nietzsche resists. Situating The Epic of Arya alongside scholarly accounts of Nietzsche’s rejection of logic and metaphysics, and broader concerns about the co-option of post-structuralist thought by reactionary movements, this paper argues that Taha’s work exemplifies how anti-rationalist philosophical currents can be weaponized to support discourses of hierarchy, discrimination, and exclusion. By extension, it contributes to ongoing academic dialogue about whether continental philosophy’s critique of logic inadvertently creates conceptual space for the resurgence of authoritarian political theologies under the guise of postmodern flux.