Faith in the inevitability of betterment is the driving force of modern knowledge. What happens to our scholarship and teaching when trust in our institutions begins to falter? With increased scrutiny and pressure on our campuses and from the broader public, studying and teaching religion can start to feel unbearable. In this episode of Religion &, our panelists will examine the implications of this tension on teachers, thinkers, and scholars of religion. Join us for a conversation exploring how the state of today's campuses and classrooms impact the work of religion scholars and how we might help our students, readers, and the broader public respond to our current moment through our teaching and scholarship.

Robert Orsi is Grace Craddock Nagle Chair of Catholic Studies at Northwestern University, where he is also Professor of Religious Studies, History, and American Studies. He studies modern and contemporary religion, with a special focus on Catholic practices and ideas, from both historical and ethnographic perspectives. He also researches and writes on theory and method in the study of religion. His most recent book is History and Presence. He is currently at work on a book called Give Us Boys about the formation of young men at a Jesuit high school in the Bronx in 1967-1971. A native New Yorker, Orsi is married to the theologian and Luther scholar Christine Helmer and has two sons (Clarence and Anthony) and two dogs (Rocco and Gemma).

Matthew J. Cressler is a writer, independent scholar, and chief of staff of the Corporation for Public Interest Technology. He's the author of Authentically Black and Truly Catholic: The Rise of Black Catholicism in the Great Migrations and creator of Bad Catholics, Good Trouble, an educational webcomic series. He's published numerous articles in public-facing magazines and academic journals. His co-reported Religion News Service series "Beyond the Most Segregated Hour" won a Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council. He has two forthcoming books: the co-authored Body & Blood: Catholic Horror in America (NYU Press, 2026) and Catholics and the Making of MAGA (HarperCollins, 2027).

Atalia Omer earned her PhD at Harvard University in 2008. She is a Professor at the University of Notre Dame. Until recently, she served as a senior fellow at Harvard University's Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative. Omer authored Decolonizing Religion and Peacebuilding (Oxford University Press, 2023), When Peace is Not Enough: How the Israeli Peace Camp Thinks about Religion, Nationalism, and Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2015), and Days of Awe: Reimagining Jewishness in Solidarity with Palestinians (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Omer is a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Palestine/Israel Review, centering analysis of power.

Thelathia "Nikki" Young is Vice President for Institutional Equity and Access, Professor of Religion, and Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Haverford College. She received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University, M.Div. and Th.M. from Candler School of Theology at Emory, and B.A. in biology from UNC-Asheville. Her research focuses on the intersection of ethics, race, gender, and sexuality, and she is interested in the impact of black queerness on moral reasoning. Nikki has published three books: Black Queer Ethics, 2016; (with Barreto and Myers) In Tongues of Mortals and Angels, 2018; and (with Schneider) Queer Soul and Queer Theology, 2021. She is currently working on a book about freedom.

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In the U.S., religion remains by far the largest recipient of individuals' charitable giving, though that proportion has been declining for years—reflecting major shifts in American religiosity and religious practice. In light of the shift of lessened giving coupled with a growing need for philanthropic efforts, we will explore the emerging patterns of everyday giving and volunteering as well as major trends in big philanthropy, asking how they impact and reflect shifts in religious life, civil society, and public discourse. Finally, we will address the overlapping themes of religion and philanthropy in a time of political uncertainty when it comes to funding sources, the nature and role of community, individual obligation, and the changing shape of moral imagination.

David P. King is the Karen Lake Buttrey Director of the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving and Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies within the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Having served congregations and national faith-based organizations, he is fueled by facilitating conversations with faith leaders, donors, and fundraisers (of all generations) around the intersections of faith, giving, and the public good. In 2022, he served as the Fulbright Scotland Distinguished Scholar at the University of Edinburgh. His first book, God's Internationalists: World Vision and the Age of Evangelical Humanitarianism (UPenn Press, 2019) won the Peter Dobkin Hall Prize for the best book in the history of philanthropy.

Jason Garrett has been working for over 20 years to bridge, organize, and fund member-based communities, faith groups, and more to bring about justice. As the Senior Vice President of Faith, Bridging and Belonging, Jason supports Freedom Together Foundation's mission to build the power of people who have been denied it by expanding the number and diversity of people who are rooted in a shared vision and community, and who activate their collective power to challenge oppressive systems and build a more democratic society.

Catherine Orsborn, Ph.D., is Senior Director of Programs and Public Policy at the El-Hibri Foundation, leading initiatives that strengthen leadership, resilience, and cross-sector collaboration to advance a just and pluralistic society. Formerly Executive Director of Shoulder to Shoulder, she trained faith leaders and led advocacy addressing anti-Muslim bias. An academic and teacher, Catherine has taught at multiple universities and holds a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion. She lives in Nashville with her husband and three children.

Benjamin Soskis, a historian of philanthropy and civil society, is a senior research associate at the Urban Institute's Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, the co-editor of the web publication HistPhil, and in 2025, a Visiting Scholar at Independent Sector. A frequent contributor to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, his writing on philanthropy and civil society has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the Guardian. Soskis is coauthor of The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song that Marches On (Oxford, 2013) and co-editor of Giving in Time: Temporal Considerations in Philanthropy (Rowman & Littlefield/Urban Institute, 2023). He received his PhD in American History from Columbia University.

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This episode of Religion & delves into how contemporary religious movements address urgent political, cultural, and environmental crises, from technological transformation to ecological collapse. Looking across a wide array of new religious movements, participants will investigate how these movements reimagine ancient practices for modern concerns while creating new frameworks for living. Join us for a lively discussion at the intersection of modern-day crises and the ways religion shapes and is shaped by these shifts in religious tradition.

Kelly E. Hayes is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis. An ethnographer who conducts long-term fieldwork projects, she is an expert on alternative and new religious movements, Brazilian religions, religion and healing, religions of the African diaspora, and religion, gender and sexuality. She studies forms of human cultural production that outsiders label as "cults" or "black magic"—that is, ways of engaging the supernatural that are deemed illegitimate — and the communities that form around them. Her body of work centers these communities and the lived experiences of their members. It argues not only for the significance of these groups, but that taking them seriously yields important theoretical insights for the field of religious studies and the humanities more broadly.

Knut Graw (PhD) is a social and cultural anthropologist and a permanent research fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies for the Humanities and Social Sciences – Erlangen "Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices in Global Perspective" (CAS-E) at the Friedrich Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg. His research focuses on divination, migration, and religious practices in Senegal and the Gambia. His theoretical interests include phenomenological theory, ritual studies, and questions of anthropological methodology. He is the co-editor of "The Global Horizon: Migratory Expectations in Africa and the Middle East" (Leuven University Press).

Daria Hartmann is a PhD candidate at the University of Münster, where she also teaches in the Department of Religious Studies. She holds a BA in Religious Studies and Anthropology from the University of Münster and an M.Sc. in Conflict Resolution and Governance from the University of Amsterdam. Following training in non-violent conflict transformation, her research now examines the intersection of religion, politics, and digital culture, with particular attention to conspiracy theories. Her dissertation investigates QAnon as a case study for understanding how digital platforms reshape religious meaning-making and truth production.

Benjamin E. Zeller is the Irvin L. & Fern D. Young Presidential Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College (Chicago, USA). He studies North American religion, focusing on such topics as new religions, the religious engagement with science, and the quasi-religious relationship people have with food and other forms of culture. He is the author or editor of six books, and co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions.

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