Called to Be Multiple

The Queer, Christian, Spiritualist Elder We Never Had with James Admans (Marge Erin Johnson)

This episode's guest is James Admans (they/them) also known as Marge Erin Johnson (she/her), a minister, activist, and drag queen residing on the occupied homelands of the Wappinger and Paugusett Nations. They are a Member In Discernment and ordained pending call in the United Church of Christ. James is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (unceded homelands of the Lenape Nation) where they received their Master of Divinity degree in interdisciplinary Biblical studies, social ethics, and queer theology.
 
In their last year in seminary, James was the recipient of the prestigious Malcolm Boyd Veritas Award for their advocacy and social justice work on behalf of the queer and trans community. They are the editor of the recently published Beyond Worship: Meditations on Queer Worship, Liturgy, & Theology, a queer worship anthology featuring thirty-three contributions by LGBTQIA2S+ theologians, which was the recipient of a 2023 Independent Publishers Bronze Medal in the religion category. James leads a vibrant drag ministry, preaches, and leads worship as their drag alter-ego, Marge Erin Johnson (she/her).
 
In this episode, James shares with us their spiritual journey as a Christian and a practitioner of tarot and mediumship, explains why Christians should take spiritualist practices like mediumship seriously, and offers hope for trans and queer people amidst this moment in which anti-trans legislation and drag bans are weaponized for oppression by American empire. James inspires me to hold in tandem deep warmth for the queer community and all oppressed communities while remaining unwaveringly critical of empire, capitalism, and corruption. Their courageous ministry as a drag theologian is more important now than ever, and I'm grateful to James for taking time to sit with and to hold us in this fragile moment.
 
For a closer look at how James applies their tarot skills, head on over to Instagram @calledtobemultiplepodcast to watch their full tarot reading with me!
 
Guest's Links:
Instagram: @theology.queen
Website: theologyqueen.com
Book: Beyond Worship: Meditations on Queer Worship, Liturgy, & Theology
 
Resources Mentioned:
Wesleyan quadrilateral (sources for theology)
Witch Talk podcast
Rev. Irene Monroe
Real Good Church: How Our Church Came Back from the Dead, and Yours Can, Too by Molly Phinney Baskette
Additional information about spiritual traditions mentioned in this episode:
Episode with Nova Sturrup about divination (tarot)
Spiritualism & Mediumship
Tarot
New Age
 
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

The Joy of Being Both with Susan Katz Miller

This episode's guest is interfaith family expert Susan Katz Miller (she/her). Susan is the author of two books for interfaith families: Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family and The Interfaith Family Journal. She is a former Newsweek correspondent and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications.
Susan has spoken on interfaith families at Harvard Divinity School, Union Theological Seminary, Rabbis Without Borders, The Parliament of the World's Religions, and many other conferences, seminaries, universities and colleges, and religious communities, as well as on numerous podcasts. She is the founder of the Network of Interfaith Family Groups. She provides coaching and workshops supporting clergy, teachers, social workers, interfaith couples, and interfaith family members.
In this episode, Susan shares her story as the child of a Jewish-Christian interfaith home and as an interfaith parent herself, her research on Jewish-Christian interfaith families, and the beauty and benefits that interfaith people bring to the world. I’m especially excited for you to hear how Susan connects being interfaith to other marginalized identities and how being religiously “nonbinary” might help us transform the world.
I am also excited to share this episode with you because multiple guests on the podcast have mentioned Susan’s work as important resources in their journeys to understanding their identities as interfaith folks and members of interfaith families. Susan's work stands as some of the most enriching and thought-provoking perspective into the lived realities of people who grow up in and create interfaith homes, and it was truly my honor to have the opportunity to speak with her. This episode was recorded in August of 2022. I’m thrilled to finally share it with you.
 
Guest's Links:
Website: susankatzmiller.com
Twitter: @susankatzmiller
Facebook: Author Page
 
Resources Mentioned:
Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family
The Interfaith Family Journal
Network of Interfaith Families Group (NIFG)
Muslim Christian Interfaith Families (MCIF)
 
Support Called to Be Multiple Podcast:
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski
 

Theology All Around & in Us with Stuart Getty

This episode's guest is Stuart Getty (they/them). Stuart is a writer and brand strategist with 15 years of experience leading teams and storytelling. With a love for strategic communication and branding, Stuart is also a filmmaker who leads with an emphasis on authentic storytelling and emotional connection. Their best work is centered in the heart, but also in the laugh. Stuart loves play, and believes freedom and imagination are the best fuels for the most innovative design and ideation. Stuart is also driven by the concept of access, and crafting work that everyone in the room can understand. Belonging, inclusion, and equity are at the heart of their design and leadership philosophy.
Stuart is also the author of the book How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity, with illustrations by Brooke Thyng. After reading their book and noticing that Stuart seems theologically engaged, I wanted to ask Stuart about how their spiritual journey as a witch connects to their gender story as a gender fluid person. I also wanted to know how we might think about Stuart’s work as theologically uplifting, even though it’s not what we’d call theology in a traditional sense.
Throughout this episode, I have interwoven Stuart’s story with the work of lesbian theologian Carter Heyward. An Episcopal priest, professor, theologian, activist, and writer, Heyward was an early leader of feminist liberation theology and the theology of sexuality. As a young feminist, Heyward supported racial and gender justice initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment and women’s ordination in the Episocopal Church. She went on to get her PhD in Systematic Theology from Union Theological Seminary and is the author of eleven books.
As the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network writes about Heyward, “She transformed consciousness, proclaimed the possibilities for women to be priests, for lesbians to be theological, and made way for new approaches to connecting the divine to the erotic, justice, and activism.” Heyward is one of the first theologians to move away from an apologetics framework to articulate a lesbian feminist theology of liberation.
Now, Heyward became an activist for gay and lesbian justice in the 1970s when mainstream terminology for the movement was not as inclusive as it is today, but I think her work absolutely applies to the experiences of queer and gender nonconforming folx like Stuart. And while Heyward writes from an explicitly Christian perspective, it’s possible to extend her work to folks of all spiritual/religious identities. This episode is an exploration of some of the possibilities of how Heyward’s work magnifies Stuart’s story.
Guest's Links:
Website
How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity by Stuart Getty, illustrations by Brooke Thyng
 
Resources Mentioned:
Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God by Carter Heyward
 
Support Called to Be Multiple Podcast:
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

Spiritual AND Religious with Neonu Jewell

This episode's guest is Neonu Jewell (she/her). Neonu is a PhD student at Union Theological Seminary whose research focuses on interreligious theology, race, and law. She studies the diverse ways people engage interfaith practices and examines the intersection of interreligious engagement, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in society.
Neonu’s mission is to engage, educate, and empower people through academic scholarship and practical approaches for interreligious engagement, justice, equity, and inclusion. She is a diversity, equity, and inclusion expert and former corporate attorney.
Neonu is the recipient of Union Theological Seminary’s Scholarly Excellence Award, Interreligious Engagement Prize, and Union Heritage Scholarship. She has worked with the African American Policy Forum as a Critical Race Theory Fellow. Neonu is also an interfaith minister and founder of Niyah Center, an interfaith, empowerment, and social justice community. She is also a board member of the Omega Institute.
Neonu also happens to be one of my dearest and earliest friends and colleagues from seminary.
In this episode, Neonu shares with us about her spiritual journey as a person who is both spiritual and religious, what life looks like for a spiritual seeker, and how her interdisciplinary background has shaped her academic work on spirituality.
This episode was recorded in August of 2022, and it is an honor to finally air this special episode.
 
Guest's Links:
Niyah Center
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn
 
Resources Mentioned:
Comprehensive Qualitative Orientation from Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity by John J. Thatamanil
When One Religion Isn't Enough: The Lives of Spiritually Fluid People by Duane R. Bidwell
 
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

The True Spiritual Home with Rev. Steve Kanji Ruhl

This episode's guest is Reverend Steve Kanji Ruhl, MDiv, an innovative Zen Buddhist minister ordained in the Zen Peacemaker Order. He ministers to Zen students through spiritual counseling and instruction in his Touch the Earth cyber-sangha (online Buddhist community).
Reverend Kanji received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University and is a Buddhist chaplain at Deerfield Academy and a Buddhist Adviser at Yale University. He is the author of Enlightened Contemporaries: Francis, Dogen & Rumi--Three Great Mystics of the Thirteenth Century and Why They Matter Today, and his new book coming out December 13, Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma. He also has published two volumes of poems and is a contributing author to the book The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work. He currently resides in Leverett, Massachusetts.
In this episode, Kanji shares with us about how mysticism is an ordinary experience that is open to everyone, offers his very nuanced thoughts on the issue of cultural appropriation vs. assimilation, and teaches how each of us can find a true spiritual home.
Kanji’s new book Appalachian Zen is available available for preorder right now and will be released on December 13. Lastly, as a content disclaimer, this episode contains brief discussions of suicide. And now, please enjoy my interview with Rev. Steve Kanji Ruhl.
 
Content warning: this episode contains brief discussions of suicide.
 
Guest's Links:
Website: http://www.stevekanjiruhl.com/
Books:
Appalachian Zen: Journeys in Search of True Home, from the American Heartland to the Buddha Dharma
Enlightened Contemporaries: Francis, Dogen, and Rumi, Three Great Mystics of the Thirteenth Century and Why They Matter Today
Paintings of Rice Cakes Satisfy Hunger
The Constant Yes of Things
The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work
 
Resources Mentioned:
11:11 Talk Radio Interview with Rev. Kanji Ruhl
Various articles about the Harvard study of Tibetan monks using meditation to lower their body temperatures:
Harvard
NY Times
New Yorker
 
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

Season 2 Trailer

Welcome to Called to Be Multiple Podcast: a community-building and storytelling platform for spiritual misfits and spiritually divergent people. I’m your host Addie Pazzynski, and I’m a theologian-in-training who is passionate about magnifying the voices of people who embody creative and life-affirming spiritualities that resist the norm. These are stories of marginality and struggle, but they are also stories of joy and abundance. Join me and our guests as we accept the divine invitation to embrace and grow together as people who contain multitudes–as people who are called to be multiple.
 
Here are just a few of the extraordinary voices we'll be hearing from this season: Susan Katz Miller, Neonu Jewell, and Rev. Steve Kanji Ruhl.
 
Stay tuned for season 2, and thank you for being here. Remember–you have the wisdom within you. You have always had the wisdom within you. Until next time, take care. See you in Season 2!
 
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

We DO Exist, and We ARE Working (Pt. 2) with Fatima Shah and Alejandro Alvarez (Muslim-Catholic Interfaith Couple)

Listen to part one of this interview here.
On this episode of the podcast, we dialogue with our first interfaith family. In past episodes, we've examined how individuals embody multiple religious and spiritual traditions. Today, we wonder how people who love each other can coexist and even flourish when spiritual multiplicity exists between them.
Fatima Shah (she/her) and Alejandro Alvarez (he/him) are a Muslim-Catholic interfaith couple who live in Iowa. Fatima was born into a Muslim family, Alejandro into a Catholic one. In the second part of this interview, Fatima and Alejandro walk us through the marriage process as a Muslim-Catholic interfaith couple, how they set spiritual and religious boundaries as a couple, and the benefits of being in an interfaith relationship. 
Fatima is recent graduate from the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. She is currently working as a graduate pharmacy intern. During pharmacy school, Fatima was passionate about representation of diversity in the pharmacy profession and was treasurer for an organization called Cultural Awareness, Respect and Equity Rx (CARE RX) for 2 years, where she contributed to efforts to promote an academically enriching environment for pharmacy students from diverse backgrounds.
During college, she started her own Instagram page called Our Catholic Muslim Family (@ourcatholicmuslimfamily), where she advocates and shares her experience in an interfaith marriage. She identifies as a Muslim and enjoys advocating for Catholic-Muslim Interfaith families on Instagram. Her goal is to normalize interfaith families and help play a role in removing misconceptions about interfaith relationships one step at a time in both Muslim and Catholic communities.
Alejandro Alvarez is a Welding Engineering Alumnus from Ohio State University. He is a Catholic Apologist and Catechist. His topics of interest include theology, scripture, and writings from the early Church fathers. He enjoys readings from St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Justin Martyr, and many more. He leads a Catholic adult faith program where he teaches the foundations of the Catholic faith. He is also an active member of the Knights of Columbus. As a husband to a Muslim woman, Alejandro utilizes his involvement with the Catholic Church to strongly advocate for interfaith marriages. His goal is to help promote fraternity and interreligious dialogue through faith, love, and charity.
 
Click here for this episode's resource page.
 
Guest's Links
Instagram: @ourcatholicmuslimfamily
 
Support Called to Be Multiple Podcast:
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

We DO Exist, and We ARE Working (Pt. 1) with Fatima Shah and Alejandro Alvarez (Muslim-Catholic Interfaith Couple)

On this episode of the podcast, we dialogue with our first interfaith family. In past episodes, we've examined how individuals embody multiple religious and spiritual traditions. Today, we wonder how people who love each other can coexist and even flourish when spiritual multiplicity exists between them.
Fatima Shah (she/her) and Alejandro Alvarez (he/him) are a Muslim-Catholic interfaith couple who live in Iowa. Fatima was born into a Muslim family, Alejandro into a Catholic one. Join us for the first half of my interview with Fatima and Alejandro, where we learn about who they are, how they met, and some of the struggles they’ve faced in their interfaith relationship. Then, Fatima and I sit down alone to discuss some of the discourse around Islam and interfaith marriage and establish why the stakes have been so high for her in her interfaith marriage. This is part one of a two part series, so please subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss part two of the conversation.
Fatima is recent graduate from the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. She is currently working as a graduate pharmacy intern. During pharmacy school, Fatima was passionate about representation of diversity in the pharmacy profession and was treasurer for an organization called Cultural Awareness, Respect and Equity Rx (CARE RX) for 2 years, where she contributed to efforts to promote an academically enriching environment for pharmacy students from diverse backgrounds.
During college, she started her own Instagram page called Our Catholic Muslim Family (@ourcatholicmuslimfamily), where she advocates and shares her experience in an interfaith marriage. She identifies as a Muslim and enjoys advocating for Catholic-Muslim Interfaith families on Instagram. Her goal is to normalize interfaith families and help play a role in removing misconceptions about interfaith relationships one step at a time in both Muslim and Catholic communities.
Alejandro Alvarez is a Welding Engineering Alumnus from Ohio State University. He is a Catholic Apologist and Catechist. His topics of interest include theology, scripture, and writings from the early Church fathers. He enjoys readings from St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Justin Martyr, and many more. He leads a Catholic adult faith program where he teaches the foundations of the Catholic faith. He is also an active member of the Knights of Columbus. As a husband to a Muslim woman, Alejandro utilizes his involvement with the Catholic Church to strongly advocate for interfaith marriages. His goal is to help promote fraternity and interreligious dialogue through faith, love, and charity.
 
Click here for this episode's resource page.
 
Guest's Links
Instagram: @ourcatholicmuslimfamily
 
Support Called to Be Multiple Podcast:
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Patreon
 
We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

I Don’t Have to Be a Secret Witch–I’m Just Going To Be a Witch with Nova Sturrup (Quaker Witch)

Nova Sturrup (they/them) is a black, gender-full, queer, disabled poet and tarot reader. They have a deep interest in sacred texts ranging from the prophetic works in the Bible to family recipe cards passed down through generations. You can find Nova on their patio listening to birdsongs every morning, daydreaming of the world they’d like to co-create with you! Join us for a joyful chat about holding Christianity and witchcraft in tandem, defining witchcraft as intuition, and elevating black queer voices as sacred texts. Oh, and don't forget to stick around to the end of the episode for a special tarot reading by Nova!
 
Click here for this episode's resource page.
 
Guest's Links
Instagram: @suntrineascendant
Calendly: https://calendly.com/novas/30min
 
Support Called to Be Multiple Podcast:
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski

Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going (Podcast Update)

Join host Addie Pazzynski for a quick reflection on where Called to Be Multiple Podcast has been so far and where we're headed in the future. Get excited for the final episodes of Season 1 next month (June 2022) as well as Season 2 coming this autumn!
 
Don't forget to send in your feedback on what you've liked about the podcast so far and what you'd like to see improved in the future by completing this brief survey:
FEEDBACK SURVEY
 
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We honor the Adena and Monongahela peoples on whose ancestral lands this podcast is produced.
 
Music: Changing Tides by Brent Wood
 
Written & produced by Addie Pazzynski