Welcome to Awkward Asian Theologians, where Matt and Dan embark on their most swoon-worthy, heart-fluttering episode yet - a theological deep dive into love. They unpack why a band called Foreigner penned the immortal anthem “I Want to Know What Love Is” - because, spoiler alert, someone else might just have a better grip on love than we do. But beyond the catchy chorus and cheesy 80s power ballads, Matt and Dan plunge headfirst into the depths of Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est — his first encyclical, the love letter to love itself.They’ll swirl through the poetic Chinese brushstrokes ofecstasy, eros and agape, revealing how divine love is essentially ecstatic in structure, a dance that lifts us beyond ourselves like a kite caught in a sudden breeze over a lotus pond. This ecstatic love is not just heavenly fluff; it’s the blueprint for how Christians should love, in a way that embraces paradox and mystery. So, get ready for a journey that’s equal parts romance and theology, awkward confessions and ecstatic revelations. Because how we understand love — or fail to — shapes the very way we follow Jesus and live as disciples in this messy, beautiful world.ResourcesBenedict XVI: Deus Caritas EstJohn Paul II: Redemptor Hominis
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S2E4 Bubble Tea After Mass: Migrants
Matt and Dan sit down with a pot of oolong and a question: What happens when people move – and the Church moves with them? In this episode, they poke around the tangled roots between migration and the makeup of the global and local Church. Like a bamboo grove shaped by wind and soil, the Church grows along the fault lines of human movement, and it’s anything but static. They also untangle a very awkward knot: What does it mean to do things “Asianly” and do things “Christianly”? Are these two different tea leaves, or the same leaves steeped in different water? From shifting migration trends to the ache of nostalgia and the theology of loss (because Auntie’s dumplings are gone and so is the neighbourhood church), they reflect on how migrant Christians carry faith not just in their luggage, but in their longing. All this while trying to avoid getting trapped in the usual political hotpot. No easy soundbites here. Just some awkward theology with a side of rice.ResourcesPew Research Center: The Religious Composition of the World’s MigrantsCatholic Voice: It's All in the Numbers
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S2E3 There Is No Asian, Only Duty! Mission
Matt and Dan kick things off by casually showing off their wristwear, channelling peak Asian salaryman energy, before limping valiantly into the Church’s missionary posture (not that posture, you degenerate). Along the way, they acknowledge the burnout risk faced by missionaries, like it’s Lunar New Year and they’re the last firecracker still sparking. In a move bound to disappoint the ancestors, they float a spicy proposition: maybe mission isn’t just about divine task completion and unquestioning obedience. Maybe faith is more than duty. They even dare to talk about love and relationships, concepts completely foreign to the Asian, toasting the joy of divine filiation with a schooner of Yakult. ResourcesOpus Dei: What is Divine FiliationFor Watches: Lemonsha in Ginza
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S2E2 How Yellow Was My Mochi? Representation
Matt and Dan go meta, like two lost dumplings floating in a bowl of hot broth, trying to figure out what it means to do things “Asianly.” They untangle the knots of representation and the elusive “Asian standpoint”, confess to using a smorgasbord of labels - the made-up tags that others love to slap on them - and wonder: could we swap these out for something purely Asian? Maybe a porcelain teapot? Or a bamboo shoot? Somewhere in the chaos, they explore the theological weight of navigating these sticky, pre-packaged labels and how it all messes with Christian identity when divine revelation insists on being bigger than any box we try to squeeze it into.ResourcesPeter C Phan: Asian Christianities
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S2E1 Jesus Was What? Christology
Matt and Dan kick off the new season by going full ying-yang – back to the basics. And by basics, we mean Jesus. That’s right: before we talk Resurrection, redemption, or rewatching Wong Kar-wai films for spiritual insight, we’re starting at the source. Who is Jesus? What’s up with his name? And why does it matter that he’s both God and human, king and servant, fully divine and yet creating awkwardness at first century dinner parties? Related to this, the Asians grapple with the beautiful, frustrating paradox at the heart of Christian faith: the coexistence of objective truth with subjective experience and culture. Should the Gospel come with a side of hot pot? Along the way, Matt has a spiritual flashback to his younger, more foolish theology days where he found unexpected Christological wisdom in reruns of The Golden Girls. Dan, as always, keeps things grounded, wielding paradox like a wok and frying up some tasty insights on Jesus, the Asian Way. ResourcesJohn Paul II: Salvifici DolorisGraham Ward: Christ & CultureHenri de Lubac: The Church
Awkward Asian Theologians is the audio project of AwkwardAsianTheologian.com, and is a collaboration between Matthew Tan (Dean of Studies at Vianney College Seminary in the Diocese of Wagga Wagga) and Daniel Ang (Director of the Archdiocese of Sydney's Centre for Evangelisation).
Each fortnight, the podcast brings academic theology to lived life as seen through the eyes of two Australian Catholic laymen, and doing so asianly.
Listen to Awkward Asian Theologians, Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
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