Welcome to the Onscript podcast, your home for world-class conversations on scripture and theology,

where you get to meet some of the best in the field.

Visit us at OnScript. Study.

Say hello on Twitter at OnScript Podcast and stop by our Facebook page at facebook.com slash unscript.

Hello, friends. Welcome to OnScript. This is Amy Brown Hughes, a co-host for the podcast with

Matt Lynch, Matt Bates, Erinheim, Drew Johnson, and Chris Tilling. Today I have the pleasure of

speaking with Samir Yadav, assistant professor of religious studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

I first came across Samir because he wrote a really interesting section on Gregory of Nissa in his now

published dissertation, The Problem of Perception and the Experience of God, toward a theological empiricism,

published by Fortress Press in 2015. I so appreciated his read of Gregory as a helpful theological companion for reframing

religious experience that I looked into his more recent material on race and religion.

At that point, I knew I wanted to talk to him.

Samir is a systematic theologian who works on the philosophy and theology of religious

experience in the Christian mystical tradition, as well as theology and race. Samir is a systematic theologian who works on the philosophy and theology of religious experience

in the Christian mystical tradition, as well as theology and race and the theology and ethics

of Christian scripture.

I am delighted that he took time off of his research leave to talk with me today.

We're going to have a wide-ranging conversation, so buckle in on script listeners.

Like some symphonies, this podcast will come to you in four movements.

We'll begin by discussing the discipline of systematic theology and the theological nature of religious experience, referencing his book, the problem of perception and the experience of God toward a theological

empiricism, then we'll move toward his hot off the presses or not yet on the presses work

on a retrieval of apophaticism in the Christian mystical tradition, the intersection of theology,

...