Welcome to the Maxmole Institute podcast. I'm Joseph Stewart. If an 18th century cleric told you that the difference between civilization and heathenism is sky high and star far, the words would hardly come as a shot.

But that statement was written by an American missionary in 1971. In her book, Heathen, Religion and Race in American History, Professor Catherine Jinn Lum shows how the idea

of the heathen has been projected onto bodies, onto people, and onto landscapes, creating ideas

of us versus them, or the in and the out, those who are saved and those who are not.

Today in our conversation, we discuss the origins of the label heathen in

American religious discourse, as well as how those who have been called heathens have pushed

back against the meaning of the term, claimed it for themselves, and made it empowering in

religious and secular terms. Kevin Jen Lum is Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Department in collaboration with

the Center for Comparative Studies and Race and Ethnicity at Stanford.

She is also Associate Professor, by courtesy, of History and Affiliation with American Studies

and Asian American Studies at Stanford University.

She sat down with us at the Maxwell Institute to discuss her new book, Even, Religion and Race

and American History. Without any further ado, here's our conversation with Professor

Jim Lum. Catherine Gin Lum, welcome to the Maxwell Institute podcast. Thank you so much for

having me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to talk with you. Yeah, the pleasure is all ours. So we're

going to be talking about your new book, Even, Religion and Race in American History. In the introduction, you tell a story

about participating in a play at church. Could you tell us about this experience? Yeah, so as a child,

I sang in the church choir and we put on shows every year. It was one of the highlights of my

childhood, I would say,

actually. A lot of those plays were, you know, biblical stories. We did a play about Noah,

we did a play about Josiah, Jonah, etc. But one year, we did a play that really stuck with me.

And yeah, to this day, I remember it very vividly. It was a play called The Mission

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