ReligiosiTea
ReligiosiTea is where sacred storytelling meets critical inquiry—an exploration of how religion, spirituality, and health collide, converge, and co-heal.
Hosted by Adren, a doctoral student in Health Equity Sciences with a Master of Public Health and a background in anthropology, this podcast bridges the gap between lived experience and academic insight. With deep roots in qualitative research and a passion for testimony, Adren invites listeners into the spaces where belief systems meet bodies, where healing is both clinical and cosmic, and where the divine shows up in diagnosis, doubt, and deliverance.
The name ReligiosiTea is a portmanteau of religiosity—a measure of religious participation—and tea, a term from queer and AAVE dialects meaning truth, gossip, and revelation. This isn’t just a show about religion or health—it’s about the stories we whisper, the rituals we survive, and the questions we dare to ask when the stakes are spiritual and embodied.
Episodes vary in format—from interviews with people of diverse faiths and spiritual identities, to solo reflections, to commentary on the politics of faith and wellness. Whether you’re devout, deconstructing, or somewhere in between, ReligiosiTea offers a grounded, generous space for complexity, clarity, and connection.
Episodes
14 episodes
Long Steep: Saint-Healers and the Canonization of Public Health
Someone survives the unsurvivable, the scans look clean, the symptoms vanish, and the doctors can’t give a satisfying reason. That single gap in explanation is where faith often rushes in and where the Vatican builds a case for sainthood. We ta...
A Tall Boy and a Pack of Smokes
Content Note:This episode touches on mental health, religious disaffiliation, family stress, and folk healing practices, including a brief discussion of an attempted exorcism.Ever wonder what happens when a devout Catholic upbring...
Long Steep: It's Giving Thanks - An Episode on Gratitude
In this Long Steep, we brew gratitude slowly and intentionally—through theology, psychology, and lived experience. No buzzwords, no toxic positivity, no “be grateful for your trauma” energy. Just real tea.We start with what gratitude act...
Ghosts, Gods, and Gratitude
Content Warning: This episode includes discussion of parental death, grief, childhood emotional hardship, spiritual disappointment/anger toward God, anxiety, depression, and references to ghosts/hauntings and spirit work. Please listen w...
Long Steep: Psycho - Sacred Delusions and Holy Madness
Content Warning: This episode discusses symptoms and impacts of psychosis, including hallucinations, delusions, cult dynamics, moral panics, religious trauma, and references to mass suicides and violence. It also touches on stress, traum...
My Neighbor, the Philosopher
What happens when traditional religious spaces no longer feel authentic? Marie's spiritual journey takes us from Catholic pews and saint cards to a deeply personal practice centered on finding the divine within herself.The tension betwe...
Long Steep: Hellfire and Salt - Reflections on Holy War
This episode discusses heavy themes related to war and religion, including:Graphic descriptions of mental health impacts such as PTSD, depression, moral injury, and substance useMentions of death, grief, and suic...
Long Steep: White Smoke, Red Flags, the Papacy
In this Long Steep episode, Adren Warling unpacks the legacy of Francis, the chaos of Trump’s papal cosplay, the rise of Pope Leo XIV, and what it all means for public health, queer dignity, climate collapse, and the politics of salvat...
The Preacher's Daughter, A Witch
Content Warnings:This episode contains discussions of:Mental health struggles, including depression and anxietyReligious trauma and themes of spiritual disconnectionParanormal experiences
Quick Spill: The Science of Prayer
In this episode of ReligiosiTea, host Adren dives into the complex relationship between prayer, cognitive processes, and health outcomes. From its mental benefits to the potential for stress reduction, prayer can shape how we process e...
What the Flock?
Lucy's faith journey unfolds like many roads less traveled—winding, marked with detours, yet always finding its way back to a divine center. As a Christian attending a Baptist church, she describes herself as "more spiritual than anything," emb...
A non-Holy Trinity
(Content Warnings)This episode touches on themes of homosexuality, brief mention of sexual assault, and religious trauma. These themes might be difficult for some listeners to hear. Please be advised. (Description)This...