Strand. The strand was founded in 1927 over on fourth avenues book row. Book row gradually dwindled from an original 48 stores until, after 93 years, the strand is the sole survivor and now run by a Third Generation owner. Without our Loyal Community of authors, book lovers and friends, we wouldnt be here today. Tonight we are excited to have with us Tara Isabella burton who is celebrating the release of her new book, strange rights new religions for a godless world. Tara is a columnist at Religion News service and the former staff religion reporter at fox. Com. She has written on religion and secularism for national geographic, the washington post, the New York Times and more and holds a doctorate in theology from of from oxford. Shes also the author of the novel social creature. Joining tara to discuss her new book is raz ross douthat, author of to change the church, bad religion and privilege and coauthor of grand new party. Before joining the New York Times, he was a Senior Editor for the atlantic. He is the film critic for national review, and he cohosts the New York Timeses weekly oped e podcast, the argument. He lives in new haven is his wife and three children. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming tara and ross. Thank you so much. Thanks to awe of you for joining all of you for joining us here in this, you know, exciting virtual experience, this slightly disembodied way of talking about a book thats maybe appropriate to the subject matter. And, tara, thanks for letting me interrogate you about the future of religion in the United States and beyond. Typical thursday night. Thank you so much for being here. Just another thursday night in america. So i just want to make two comments before we start. The first is that in our era of covid, ive now done enough zoom events to know that sometimes people are more hesitant to ask questions when theyre typing in questions than they would be at a real event when you can, you know, stand up and tell the author why shes wrong about everything in the world. [laughter] [audio difficulty] youll just have to listen to me ask questions for the entire hour and, hopefully, well get about 15 or 20 minutes of your questions in at the end. Thats the first point. The second one is that this is a challenging time for everybody, and authors are obviously, you know, among the least challenged in many ways. But putting out a book at a moment like this is a difficult thing. I had a book come out, and i was lucky enough to squeeze in a couple weeks of promotion before all the bookstores closed. But i just want to encourage you if you find, if youre listening, watching, enjoying this, dont just buy the book, dont just buy the book from the strand, obviously. Encourage your friends to buy the book and, you know, make it the bestseller that it deserves to be. So without further ado, lets start in with a big, dumb question. This is a book about new religions for a godless world, righting . Thats the subtitle. So is our world really godless, and if not or if so, what religions are filling that void . So, spoiler alert, no, we dont live in a godless world. Thats roughly the argument i make. So i want to draw a distinction sort of when we talk about a secular age as we are often wont to do or a world about religion, what are we really talking about. And just a couple of sort of background statistics, about 23, 24 of americans say theyre religiously unaffiliated, whats also referred to as the religious nones. About 36 of people worn in america after 1985 identify as religious nones, so a huge increase. Of these nones, these un affiliated, 72 say they believe in some sort of a higher power, and 20 actually say they believe in the god of the bible, as i believe of the [inaudible] so were not necessarily talking about people who are atheists, although about 6 of the population although theres true that atheists tend to underselfreport but were talking about people who, for whatever reason, are alienated by institutional religion, organized religion, who feel that it has nothing to offer them, who may as in the case of the people who believe in the traditional judeochristian god actually still have some form of faith, but who are unwilling to identify with, participate in it as a, as a religion in and of itself. So were talking about the spiritual but not religious, but were also talking about a broader category. And in my book, i call it the religiously mixed which in remixed which includes not just the spiritual, but the [inaudible] but also people who do identify, check the box, as it were, with a particular religious tradition but whose personal practices, Belief Systems are more eclectic. And a statistic that i like to bring up here to give a sense of how widespread this is is that about 30 of selfidentified christians say they believe in reincarnation which is not, shall we say, something one would associate with christian orthodoxy. So were living in an age, id argue, where religious life, the components of religious life meaning purpose, commitment, ritual are, were relating to them in a different way, were [inaudible] Angie Thurston used, in their words, and theres a sense in which we are all sort of the end point of this is we are all making our own religion culturally. These can include not just elements of traditional religion, but things like fandom, political activism, a vast array of neopaganism and wicca are among the Fastest Growing religions in america. So on and so forth. So i think one sort of initial response to a description of your thesis that someone well versed in American History might have is how new is all this, right . Because, after all, there is, in certain ways, nothing more american than being entrepreneurial and sort of setting up a church of one thats a sort of, you know, every, every kid in High School English class at least back when i went to high school was assigned the collective works of ralph waldo emerson, and you get a certain kind of, a certain kind of individualized religion there. And then, you know, the larger history of 19th century american spirituality is rife with what you call in the book sort of intuitional religion. So can you talk about what is the same and what is different. Like, what is, what do we have in common with 19th century america, and whats changed in the 30 or 40 years . Sure. So what i call intuitionalism, a sort of catchall term for religious practices and beliefs that sort of focus inwards on the gut, the individual, the feelings versus institutionalism, again, kind of productive terms, but your church, your dog [inaudible] exeternal forces. Weve seen quite ally of the pendulum speaking back and forth in american religious life and these sort of outcroppings of intuitional faith, your tent revivals but also theres the birth of movements like [inaudible] which was huge from about the 1860s onward which was this sort of proto, the secret selfhelp movement where, basically, if you think about it hard enough, it will happen. Which became hugely influential and sort of led to a whole industry of various selfhelp books of that ilk. Theres spiritualism and the rise of obsessions with ouija boards and [inaudible] that became really ubiquitous on the east coast. But theres also, id argue, various evangelical revivals well within the christian tradition where the narrative was often something like, you know, the church has become or christianity has become sophisticated, nobody really believes anymore, people just go true the motions, you just go to church on sunday, and it doesnt really matter. We need to look for a personal relationship with god. We need to look for something more intense, more intimate. And, of course, the various countercultural religions of the 1960s. Is so that is absolutely not new. If anything, id argue its just a pendulum swing back and forth forever. But where i think something is dise at this point and new distinct and knew about this great awakening is the internet. Given that we are trying to gather in this way at this time. I like to say that what the protestant the reformation what the printing press, rather, was the reformation for the creation of a model of consuming information that was in many ways intimate and inward. You were reading a book, you had your direct connection to the text, to sort of internalize in such a way. And one may well sort of draw that connection to the protestant ethos overall. Id argue were seeing kind of these new religions being the religions of the internet age where we are all not just consumers of content, we are not just readers, but we are also inclined to culturally think of ourselves as creators, to think of ourselves as people who have or want to have ownership over stories to in some ways, of course, it hearkens back to various oral traditions as well. But with the added sort of dizzying disembodiment of the internet itself. Where i think that the hunger to create, to be involved, to, to have ownership in our stories has made us all the more to, perhaps, orthodox or traditionally orthodox ways of experiencing, receiving dogma and doctrine. I think as well our particular capitalist moment so in the era of personal branding made us cognizant of a model of our identities based so heavily on our choices. What we, what news we could consume, what papers we read, what music we listen to, what movies we watch, what we post, what we tweet all create just kind of odd Public Private synthesis of identity. And i think within that culture theres a sort of odd consumerist strain of, you know, what app am i using to med said, what purchase meditate, am i getting a sweet clean salad. I think wellness culture is perhaps the biggest, most obvious example of this. But i think that the way in which our conspicuous and less conspicuous consumption is seen to define us especially in the age of the algorithm where our recommendations are getting narrower and narrower contributes to the kind of hyperatomized individualization. So i want to press you a little bit on the point you made at the end, right . Because i think this is one of the interesting things about the book, is that it sort of at the core youre talking about practices and sort of experiments that are [audio difficulty] fit some kind of definition of religious or spiritual right. I mean, i think the core of the book is about certainly, its a revival of pagan, pantheist, occult practices in various forms in american life. But then your testify in addition of sort of new religion spreads outwards, and it encompasses sort of consumer culture, sort of personalized aspects of consumer culture. Everything sort of holistic and personalized, wellness culture and so on. So convince mentioner as someone who may me, as someone who may be inclined to skepticism of that, that it makes sense to fit the world of brands and sort of that kind of selfcultivation under the umbrella of religion or religious practice. Sure. So id argue that theres a sort of implicit theology thats shared by so many of these, marley something sort of very particularly something sort of consumerbased, and thats the implicit theology of what ill call best selfism. The idea that it could be a moral, a spiritual demand to fear that self, to improve in a certain way or, if youd rather, kind of the collapse of the distinction between the effort you put on a soul cycle bike, the purity you get from having the right green juice with the minimum amount of toxins, the sort of way that your skin looks like after your 10step beauty routine. The way in which these things are sold and talked about is so loaded with this language of selfcare not just as a kind of a nice thing to do although, of course, historically the word selfcare does rather come from a much more political place. Its in this sort of wellness paradigm in which its now found itself. We want to, theres a sense of which if we are not taking care of ourselves, if we are not putting in the effort to be the best in a certain way which is, of course, also quite rooted in, you know, happens to make us prettier ostensibly prettier and ostensibly more fit and os ostensibly have, you know, a duy complexion or what have you, that there is a kind of [inaudible] in so doing. And id argue that theres sort of elements of that that are taken, for example, from the prosperity gospel tradition which is sort of adjacent to that. But i think that the idea that more broadly your job as a human being on this earth is to be your truest self, to be your best self, also to be your most authentic self to release yourself from repression, from ways that society has act upon you and kind of figure out who you really are. It is, id argue, coded as a moral, spiritualing good. There is the language of energy is really popular in wellness circles, its popular certainly in various occult circles, and i think that there are versions that, of course, are much more political and much more outward looking and focus much more on solidarity. But the sort of capitalist version of it, the branded version of it does tend to equate personal pull filament with fulfillment with a kind of vibration on the right frequency of the right energy in a way that i find incredibly interesting and quite, quite revealing. [inaudible] yes, i would say so. That said, i think this is as because it is a brand that doesnt have the Community Aspect i do all my shopping at goop, i should emphasize. [laughter] well [inaudible] right here. Sorry. Go on. [laughter] no, just that i think soul cycle is an even better example because with it combines, i think, a lot of the goopesque metaphysic and the aesthetic and the kind of sense of purpose with a community and a ritual that let you experience that in the moment. I remember i went to a few soul cycle classes. I wish i could say they were all for research. They were not. But you go in and theres this community where a soul or a tribe or a pack, we are a cult. It says it right there. And then all of the signs say things like your energy affects your neighbors energy. So please dont do this, that or the other thing in a way that is, again, using this kind of vague, somewhat nebulous spiritualized language to talk about or to, it lends to what could just be, like, an uncomfortable fitness class to burn some calories into something with an aura of spiritual what youre doing isnt just good for you, its good for the universe and your role in it. So one thing that has struck me that i think fits with your argument about the difference between the early 21st century and its gurus and the 19th century and its gurus is just its an absence of institutionalization, right . That, you know, that the United States has a lot of the same kind of purr chul entrepreneurs spiritual entrepreneurs and wouldbe gurus that we had in the Victorian Era or the early 19th century, but they dont, or at least they dont seem as likely to found things that we call churches. We just had Marianne Williamson in the president ial campaign. Shes a preinternet figure originally. She rises to prominence in the 1980s, but shes sort of a paradigmatic, update new thought kind of figure. And i feel like in the 19th century there would be a Church Founded by Marianne Williamson, right . It wouldnt be huge, but it would have, like, 200,000 people, and like the [inaudible] theres be sort of chapels around the country. And that doesnt seem to happen to anything like the same extent especially over the last couple of generations. You have a little bit, you know, a little stuff in the 70s and 80s, but especially lately. And do you think thats how much of that is the internet, how much of that is just sort of an ambient skepticism of institutions . You know, why isnt, why doesnt gwen earth paltrow have i mean, i guess kanye west has sunday services. Isnt there a sunday service for goop . Im not sure that it would not be successful at least initially. I think that the label of church or the label of kind of making something a church is, i think, as you say, would be met with a degree of suspicion. I think as well the sort of fact that there is such a willingness to mix and match something that we millennials, the broader we here you with. Me personally, yes. Im so much of contemporary religious landscape, id argue, is about that kind of precise individualization. So that in the end we cant necessarily get away from the end point being that we are all the high priests of our own church. That we dont have, and i think this is true much more broadly trust not only in our religious institutions, but in our civic once, in our political ones, in our journalistic and media institutions unfortunately. Or fortunately, dont know. But i think [inaudible] i think that that suspicion does just lend itself to focus on the self. And i want to be careful here, because i think theres an easy narrative that we could go to that says, oh, kids these days with their selfies and so narcissistic. And i think thats a tempting way that one could go about reading the situation. But i actually think that what were seeing isnt necessarily a story of narcissism, but of institutional failure. I think that it is perfectly reasonable and, in fact, completely understandable that the if [inaudible] if you dont think you can trust the media, the scientific establishment, the political system, the academic system, so on and so forth, it makes perfect sense to turn inward, to rely on yourself, to rely on your own gut instincts and desires and affinities and feelings as authoritative because at least you know that youre not, well, you might be lying to yourself in a broader theological way, but at least you have slightly more trust that youre awe awe ware of yourself more than other people. So i guess to push on that point a tiny bit, is it sustainable, right . Because, you know, this is a book about our whole culture, but it is, obviously, focused on i guess you could say people younger than me. I just turned 40, so millennials and generation z. And these are people who are sort of conducting experiments in religion at a time that theyre conducting experiments in, you know, relationships and professional experiments and so on. And i think you can tell a plausible story where, you know, these are the children of baby boomers who have their own rebellion and often sort of hung onto an constitutional affiliation. And, obviously, you talk a little bit about this kind of person [audio difficulty] generational turnover where [audio difficulty] took one step out the door of their institution to get one foot in the door, and then their kids are taking the other steps. But their kids havent, for the most part, gone new the, you know, 50 to 60 years of life that awaits after your 20s, right in which the form is not necessarily the dogma or doctrine of religion, but the sort of communal forms of religion, the, you know, sort of solidarity of a religious institution or community thats not clear that goop or even soul cycle provides, the role that a bar mitzvah or first communion plays and so on. So, obviously, this is more in like the prophesy line. What does this look like in 25 years for the people conducting these experiments now . So i think youre absolutely right that sort of the more, id say, inwardlooking, the sort of nihilism of soul cycle, not just selffocused, but present. Those are the things that i think are unstable. I think that we will see a hunger for collectivity, a hunger for solidarity, that the selfinterest [inaudible] of these institutions. I think what that that what we will see social justice as a movement in part because what it does offer is an ideology of community, an ideology of solidarity which i think there is a real hunger for. And the way that i sort of im interested, too, more broadly and i talk about this in a chapter on kind of the free love as a continuation of ideas of human perfectionism in the 19th century, but ways in which and this is the term sort of that has long been used in the que e er community queer family. People who experience marginalization from traditional religious institutions, people who for whatever reason are alienated from traditional religious institutions or civic institutions whose family of origin might not, they might not be in touch with in the same way might be able to find one another. I think that theres a hopefulness in the idea that as a result, you know, as a result of the kind of triballization you find on the internet where people can find likeminded people, where people can find communities, there are options for solidarity for coming together, for the creation of ritual in a way that may not look like organized religion as traditionally practiced. But nevertheless, offer that sense of community. I always remember theres a woman i interviewed before starting the book, it was my [inaudible] who lost her husband unexpectedly quite young and didnt wanted his friends to celebrate, commemorate his life in a way that was specific to him. And so the friends got together and they played music from his favorite video game, there was a sort of service that was very much designed not around religious lines, but rather among who this person was, what his life was like, and she ended up hed wanted to play a video game they played together. He wasnt able to do that, and she kind of people that she met online through this game sort of played this game in his memory. And this was, she reported, hugely important to her. And i think thats such a fine example of how these communal bonds and our desires for these communallal bonds can survive the sort of reshaping even as i think the sort of perhaps pure selfish inwardness ive been really mean about soul cycle on this. I hope they dont hate me. But the inwardness of a certain kind of wellness culture, shall we say, i think is an example. Then lets drill down then on the question of belief, right . Were talking about community, but, you know, the, the core of what we think of as religion has always been belief. And that, you know, theres a lot of sociological debate about how important are actual statements and dont people take their ideas from community rather than creed. I think theres truth to that, but its also true that the major World Religions have been structured around actual physical claims about the universe. Weve had this conversation before and i always ask you this question, but ill ask it again because i think it sort of radiates through a lot of the more sort of supernational supernationallyoriented experiments youre writing about which is how much do people really believe in what theyre doing. And specifically when youre talking about sort of neopay begannism, the paganism. The occult, people that are invocking gods, theyre invoking demons, theyre doing witchcraft. Some of it seems like playing, some of it seems like experiment, some of it seems to have real belief. How do you see the question of belief playing out this . I think that, as you say, belief is very difficult to quantify. Its certainly difficult to disentangle from any of these other practices. I think as you say and as i argue in the book, theres many definitions of religion as there are scholars of religion, and certainly there are definitions i would say it doesnt matter at all, its about the community, part of the [inaudible] yes or no. But i think the truth is something a little bit more complicated which is that if you have found something to be true and you act as if it were true or you act in accordance with sort of the values that you create and espouse, you kind of reaffirm the truth of that within a community such that theres a sort of a social reality that is something a little bit more complex. And i would argue inward than a model where, like, everyones doing something and no one believes it, but theyre all just sort of pretending to get along. Which i think is the sort of strawman version of what a Community Model would look like. So, to sort of take that, theres also then the way these things sort of feedback into political life, right . One of the more interesting aspects of the thing thats happening in American Culture is has left wing and right wing manifestations. There are chapters in the book what we might call pagan threads two very different political, cultural destinations you want to talk little bit about that . Guest so perhaps the most prominent example of neopaganism is broadly, again the terms are bit fluid here. There are people who identify as wiccan but dont blunt to a covid et cetera. But a rough umbrella of progressive which culture is i think a hugely significant phenomenon. So arrive ready in 2014 theres which is of america, she identified about a million selfidentity witnesses in the country and saves the fact is growing religion. That is when it all changed. So i think in the wake of the donald trump election, the wake of the womens march in particular as a feminist movement around that, there was a real interest on the part of interested progressive, young progressives, young women also queer people who found within the imagery of witchcraft a conscious transgression of the nasty woman, the difficult woman, the wimps woman who is in charge of her own sexuality, found these images liberating in part because they were so coded in opposition to the whites, evangelical, drum. To make you have which is taxing from or later kavanaugh as these mass cathartic symbolic spiritually real outpourings of anger, grief, i think it would be fair to say that its a language people were able to used to process their anger also their hope for a different world but then, if you say going completely across the political spectrum, there is also the rise of a reactionary desire. You find this and fans of Jordan Peterson on one hand more generally the quasi or neo watered down hyped up of lets return to the good old days when sort of the hybrid of ancient greece as seen through hercules in the 1950s have seen through pleasantville for the good old days were men were men and women were women, we all had our place in this obsession with physical strength, the truth of the blood, and the implicit blood that i will just let hang in the air. I think this kind of reactionary image cozy itself as a response to the modern world and the corrupt modern world and the civilization which feminism and pc culture have destroyed is a kind of desire to reclaim an imagined primal past with a very strong interest dubious evil site and what new interest goes its kind of a nature worship. That is a very different form of paganism that takes very Different Things from our pagan path shall we say. So and just listening to describe it in the figures you reference, it seems to me imparts you can see that as a and gender polarization and religion right . Obviously their mail which is, mail pagans there are neopagan women. There does seem to be made tense in which a larger polarization in our culture which manifests in politics and other areas plays out a little bit in this religious landscape. You could sort of come closer to the center and say its Oprah Winfrey and joel osteen are the yang and yang of the American Religious Center and the yang and yang of the extremes are the which is hexane kavanaugh and people supporting donald trump right . But in certain way reflects the religious failure in the sense that you would expect a successful religious community sort of socializing men and women together in certain ways which maybe is not happening . What he think of that . Guest i think its a much broader failure than just religious. When i look at the wide range, i dont think they are there exactly comparable. I have quite more condemnation than i do for the which is that says i think what we are seeing whats so fascinating is so many of these subjects of their fire, other than one another are the same. There are certain newspapers, for example theres a feminist of the horrible. [inaudible] are they white supremacist patriarch papers that should be struck down because they failed them that way . These are often charges brought against institutions more broadly and whatever else they want to say, those institutions have failed us more broadly. Its not any paper letter in particular but speaking more broadly there is a sense in which not the center, but the institutions make up our lives have lost our trust. However we may understand or give voice to those feelings, there is, i would argue, Something Interesting to me and how widespread the distrust is a kind of institutional targets. So i would like to thank everyone who is followed my instructions and actually asked some questions we have 15 or 20 minutes now im going to take some questions out of the queue. Maybe adapt them slightly using the moderators prerogative. Well start with a question, he cites the canadian author of secular age of the largest book you can possibly by a may be possibly read. Obviously taylor suggests that some version of what youre describing is inevitable if we get the history of the last five years right since read lujan has been decoupled from the state as humans are still on a quest to find fullness in meeting which can only be understood in religious terms. Taylor called it a nova x affect an explosion of religious options. He defends is pluralism against charges its too individualistic or too narcissistic and so on. And so, i think that dovetails the obvious point dovetails with what youve been saying pretty wanted take it and link into what we briefly mentioned about the social justice movements, black lives matter, protest politics that are dominating discussion right now. One thing that struck me about those protests is it seems like the nova effect in the desire for individualism. Theres also still a desire for religious unity. It is striking to see some of the corporate bs. But the sense we want to live in a society where every institution, high low, is on board with this cause. That seems to almost push against the nova effect and its all going to be individualism. There is some desire to have a unified church of social justice. You see that . Guest absolutely. If anything i think thats one of the reasons, id be happy to have this conversation but the social justice is it works so well and it is so powerful, is powerful and effective is impart insofar as its current version is a version of our times. Course its a degree of inwardness. It also offers that vision of solidarity of unity and a common good that can be shared of a better world. I think there is something vital there is a hunger for something vital i see which is in a sense yet our institution should not work in a sort of functional way they should be for something good. I think it is the case that what i have read was social justice culture and religion there is a version of that to basically using that saying its a culture and so on and so forth. I think of better way framing that is yes it works because its a religion it works because it can harness a real sense of meaning, of purpose, of community and rituals that point beyond the self. That gives us what other iterations of more self purely into individualists thats hard to say. And self focused religious phenomena dont. I do want to draw a distinction here between the social justice is kind of an organic phenomenon and the corporatization has pretty much everything one could think of yet sort of assumed by corporations to sell products. Want to have the distinction between a movement and of itself in the way in which it kinda gets fed to the shredder and now certain brands are going to say the right thing at the right time and post the right instagram whether kyndell jenners black lives matter pepsi added 2017 and thats its own thing. But isnt that how a religion wins . If you go back to the fourth century roman world, right, you had developed christianity. Then you have the roman aristocrats who sorted the equivalent of brands today, who did not really care one way or the other about the doctrine of the trinity but decided. [inaudible] im going to endow a church over here, im going to act to the christian part. Seems to me that sort of corporate virtual signaling is itself separable in certain ways from the ascension and triumph of the new world being pursued that is certainly one path to victory is through this kind of corporatization. I cant help but wonder though whether a nether path might be through politics. I was rather excited about the Bernie Sanders Campaign Like many others. Something i might have wondered about was slightly more hope a few months ago than now. I do wonder whether these religious and these progressive nuns do vote. I think they are in 20 states they are the single biggest religious demographic. If we think about for example, the only sort of block that turned out significant for trump the statistic now, the earth 13 or 14 of the population their turnout is always a great 13 of the population. We talk about religious nuns, that is a social justice theres a lot of crossover. Were talking about 23 your time 36 of young americans. And so i do wonder one way in which this might make its way into the culture is in the ballot box. While we might at some point see a political experiment that takes these values and puts them into practice and see how they work. I would certainly be curious. This is actually one of our questions asking how you think these new religions will sort with our two parties and you kind of suggest a darker scenario, right . To the extent that one of the Political Coalitions becomes defined by and dominated by some version of these new religions and our other Political Coalition is defined and dominated by institutional christianity. That creates a much bigger religious divide in america has had in the past. Even our civil war was essentially entered christian theological conflicts that people having huge arguments but they are still arguing about the interpretation of the same bible, right . The vision you just set up does seem to set up a version of the culture war that in certain ways could be more profound and divisive than the one we have had for the last 30 or 40 years as christianity slowly is retreated. I think thats right. One could say a danger but another way to look at it is we are in a vacuum moment. Something you brought up earlier though i want to reiterate as this is not a purely new phenomenon for detail end of a multigenerational phenomenon. You talked about you said the boomers with 1 foot out the door in terms of that kind of disillusionment in this case religious but also moved broadly certainly of doing things. As justice sidebar here, i think most people who leave religious traditions actually do so, one of the biggest predictors and indicators is how much religion is spoken of in the home. He of your tail and have nuns who are doing so imparts having witnessed a certain apathy in their own parents. And so yes i think there is sort of a weakness or a potential weakness to this coming vacuum. And dont argue its been a long time coming. We have a question from maxine that drills down with what youre just talking about which is did you find there is any really specific patterns in the religious background of people who were involved in the new movement beyond the religion in their home where they more likely to be lapsed evangelical evangelicals, main liners and so on . So the main line in terms of churches has been a factor than evangelical churches just as a side note, historically black churches are pulling data down differently which is why making that distinction. And at the same time at this point, the nuns come from everywhere at this point. They are relatively reflective of the United States as a whole. A little whiter but not by much. Only one actual very big predictor and that is 40 of the queer people rather than 24 of the National Average are religiously affiliated. That is one of the only big notable and perhaps expected, even how many queer people its marginalized in traditional institutions. That is kind of the big one. So is there any gender . Is there gender breakdown . Guest slightly more women are unaffiliated overall, slightly more men are likely to be full on atheist or agnostic. These are pregeneral points to make and they wear for doris. [laughter] are right we got about six minutes left. To squeeze in a couple more questions. One question someone brings up on a mentioned religious coming ceremonies, the idea that colleges and College Admissions and graduations fill that role. One thing we havent talked about is the harry potter phenomenon. Maybe this a be a chance of talk about the peculiar role that the school, playing in a certain kind of quasi religious idea anyway talk for three minutes about harry potter. You are right go. There is a remnant of civil institutions that we still have kind of a cultural about harry potter specifically especially over the past week is jk rowling has part of her fan base. The harry potter has been so much of the cultural shifts of this publication since 1997 when the first book was published in 2000 and the fourth book was published, internet at Home Internet and 19 million households went to 100 million so its more than a 5 increase. That dovetailed the version of fandom in the weight and culture developed around it dovetailed so completely with the rise of a very particular internet culture whether its the fanfiction, creation, memes, the idea you could have ownership of your text. You could have ownership of the things you loved. This is not a model where someone came down from on high the powers that be the show runners have the final word on what a property was. You generally see that in the media now this shows that fan service are designed for the fans that have a much bigger back and forth between consumer bits of information and creators of information. The idea that jk rowling from her creation not seen as her its everyone can be the response to rally is not harry potter. Its well how is bigger than she is weak and so write fiction in this community we consult love these characters they belong to us. I think that tendency written large can tell us so much about the questions of institutionalism and the individualization mayor seeing at large in the book. The last question. Lets do a post covered world question. One person says do you think in imposed covid world or people are looking to find meaning and purpose and community the newer, stranger faith will be fasttrack . And do you think there is a place where they could form actual communities or even colts is a word we have not use that much. This is one way to put it is we are seeing in 1968 moment in politics right now. While the 1970s were the high tide of we are communal experiments, strange religious cults. What do you foresee after covid . It may be after donald trump . I think the combination of our increased ability and the awareness of the ability to gather remotely, increase the awareness of alliance on one another, the need for social bonds and the loneliness of pure itemization. We track each other online yet we are in her own houses, if we are privileged enough to be able to be, that kind of loneliness is in itself i think i think absolutely we will see people gathering digitally and perhaps not to me are able to not. I think People Living much more interested in forming Intentional Community. Especially the get to the point of thinking about our pods, our bubbles, are safe. I wonder if that tendency will lend itself out toward a form of Intentional Community and may be disembodied form of Intentional Community. Say mech to think its also possible look this has been fantastic but its really not the same as doing a panel in the flesh, right . That goes double and triple for a lot of religious practices. Could there be sort of an anti internet religion backlash that sort of manifests itself in a desire for in flesh communities or communes with large and vegetable gardens and large living arrangements. Some of those things do sound tempting i personally would like a vegetable garden right now. I think that is certainly possible. I think however it may be that even if the communities do come about in the flesh ultimately that could be we would use the internet to get there. Find one another online the same 40 of americans find a partner online. It doesnt mean they will meet and realize that maybe it will enter covered, so i think the Digital Space and the promise of that will be sort of a launching pad for people to find seek out and find communities that may manifest themselves. Alright, it is 8 00 oclock so its apologize for everyone who asked questions that we did not get to. You were terrific and there are many even more wonderful questions on the queue. Thank you all for joining us, again, to repeat what he said at the outset if you found this illuminating an interesting experience, you will buy taras book, support the strand support your local bookstore in my final word since i did not say anything in my capacity as a practitioner of one of the ancient institutional frames as a Roman Catholic what you are dabbling in the strange new rights stay safe out there. With that, thank you all for joining us. Thank you. Heres a look at Publishing Industry news. New York Supreme Court ruled for the release of president trumps niece mary trumps a book. In the book too much and never enough the dawdle of the president s late brother has engaged in cheating as a way of life. The books publisher, Simon Schuster plans to make the book available next week. Simon schuster also announced dana kennedy will be the new publisher, ms. Kennedy is a former New York Times journalist and administrator of the Pulitzer Prize she replaces jonathan carpet was recently named the chief executive Simon Schuster following the death. In other news marylands republican Governor Hogan will release his memoir the month Still Standing part he is the current chair of the National Governors association and is reportedly weighing a president ial run 2024 part also in the news according to mpd bookscan book sales rose 18 with the week ending june 27. There is a 28 uptick led by former john boltons memoir of his time in the white house it has sold nearly 800,000 copies. As the coronavirus continues to affect the nations several of the fall book festivals are going virtual including the atlanta vertical, the library of congress had National Book festival and the texas book festival. We could also watch all the archive programs any time booktv. Org. During this years of bay area book festival congresswoman barbara lee discussed Voter Suppression with Emory University professor Carol Anderson has a portion of that talk. The victory all that rain down on obama the obstruction the hatred was intense. You see this policy wise. I see with the legislators and governors is them going after those folks in this community. Just like the mississippi plan at this one doesnt get in this one will pacific that is right the way purges work, the way that jeremy and her and works. The way that as you describe black and brown precincts will they will have fewer Operational Missions Voting Machines and fewer poll workers. You will get winds that will stretch for hours. Where as basically in White Communities you get in get out. What we know from working class communities, demographically black voters often are. Brown voters most often are. But we dont have the combination of time and money which so when you have to stand in line for five to seven hours to vote you have lost a day of pay. To watch the rest of this Program Visit our website booktv. Org. Next at cspans book tv Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, mary jordan discusses the life and influence of first lady melania trump. She is interviewed by usa today Washington Bureau chief susan page. After words theres a host interviewing top nonfiction authors about their
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