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