Years now run by thirdgeneration and thank you all for your support authors and book lovers and tonight we are excited to have with us in new religions for those world. And as in the former staff writing on religion with National Geographic and the Washington Post the New York Times and a doctorate in theology from oxford also author social creature. The author to change a church bad religion in privilege and the for joining the New York Times the Senior Editor for the atlantic for National Review and the New York Times weekly oped podcast. Living in new haven with his wife and three children. Please join me to welcome our gas. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us at this exciting virtual experience in this way of talking about a book with the subject matter. Thank you for letting me interrogate you. A typical thursday night. I just want to make two comments. First in the era of coalbed i have done enough zoom events to know sometimes people are more hesitant to ask questions and when you can stand up and tell the author why she is wrong about everything. I have to listen to me asking questions thats the first point this is a challenging time for everybody but to put out a book at a moment like this is difficult i had a book come out i was lucky to squeeze in promotion but i want to encourage you if you are enjoying this dont just buy the book from the strand that make it the best seller that it deserves to be. So lets start with the big question this is a bird on a book about new religions. Is our world really the godless . What religion fills that avoid . No we dont. As the argument that i make. So when we talk about what we want to do with the World Without religion and with those background statistics those that say they are religiously unaffiliated. And 36 percent of people born in america identify of religions but 72 percent say they believe in a higher power and 20 percent say they believe in the god of the bible. So we arent necessarily talking about people who are atheists all they tend to under selfreport that they are alienated by organized religion who may believe in the traditional judeochristian god still have a form of faith but unwilling to participate as a religion in and of itself. This isnt just spiritual but not religious but also people who do identify with a religious tradition and whose personal practices was more eclectic and what i like to bring up 30 percent of self identified christians that one word associate with christian orthodoxy. We are living in an age where religious life and then to mixandmatch and the sense of the end play of the steelmaker on religion not just elements of the traditional religion fan down and political activism witchcraft and those that are among the fastestgrowing religions in america. So one initial response to the description of your thesis that somebody might have is that after all there is nothing more american than to be entrepreneurial to set off a church of one every the kid in English High School was assigned to the collective works of Ralph Waldo Emerson with a certain kind of individualized religion in the larger history of spirituality with the intuitional religion so what is the same and what is different what we have in common with 19th Century America and what has changed . What i call institutionalism those institutionalism your church and your forces we have seen quiet history of the pendulum swinging back and forth and those outcroppings of that approach to faith with your tent revival those from the 18 sixties on word. With the selfhelp movement you think about it hard enough it will happen and spiritualism with the ouija board and contacting the dead but also evangelical revivals where the church early christianity has become that nobody believes anymore. They go to church and it doesnt matter. We need to look for a personal relationship with god and more intense and intimate with countercultural religions. That is not new with that pendulum swinging back and forth. But where it is distinct and new is the internet so with the protestant or the Printing Press was the creation of a model in many ways intimate with a direct connection to the text to internalize in such a way to draw that connection to the protestant eat those overall said to be the religions of the internet age not just consumers and readers but inclined to think of ourselves as creators and people who want to have ownership to harken back to traditions as well so that hunger makes it all the more resistant with the orthodox ways of experiencing the doctrine so with that capitalist moment in the personal branding made us cognizant of our choices what papers we read what movies we watch, they all create that odd identity. Within the culture there is a strain of what after my using to meditate . Think wellness culture is the biggest and with that conspicuous consumption. Especially in the age of the algorithm. So at the core talk about the practices and experiments fitting that definition in the core is the revival of the practices in various forms in american life. But then the definition of new religion encompasses consumer culture and then everything is holistic and personalized. So convince me and with that religious practice. And that implicit theology shared by so many that is consumer based the idea a moral and spiritual demand for the collapse of the distinction and where you get with the minimum amount of toxins and with attendance to beauty routines this is so loaded with the language of dont care and it does come from a more political place. But if we are not taking care of ourselves its also to make us prettier and with that complexion. There is that purity that there are elements of that taken from the gospel tradition that the idea that more broadly, your job as a human being on this earth to be your truest self and most authentic self to release yourself from oppression the way society has acted upon you to figure out who you really are. The language of energy is popular in wellness circles. And there are versions much more political focusing on solidarity. But the branded version does have personal fulfillment with the right vibration and energy i find interesting and revealing. The church . Because it is a brand and doesnt have that community aspect. It is a better example because it combines metaphysics and a sense of purpose with a community that lets you experience that in the moment want to quite a few classes like Core Community the soul or a tribe and they all say your energy affects your neighbors energy in a way that has a spiritualized language to talk about or land and uncomfortable fitness class to burn some calories with spiritual awareness. What has struck me with your argument the early 21st century and the 19th century the absence of the institutionalization. The United States has a lot of the same kind of spiritual entrepreneurs that we have in the Victorian Era but not what we have churches. Marianne williamson was a president ial campaign. But updated new thought type of figure. In the 19th century a thought there would be a Church Founded by her. Not huge but 200,000 people and be chapels around the country. But that doesnt happen the last couple of generations. A little bit in the seventies and eighties but how much of that is the internet the ambient skepticism i guess kanye west has sunday services. Im not sure it wouldnt be successful the label the church would be met with a degree of suspicion the fact there is such a willingness so much of that contemporary religious landscape so that any and we cant get away from the endpoint and that we dont have much more broadly trusting in a religious and Political Institutions and media institutions as well. But i think that suspicion lends itself to such a focus on the self and to be careful of an easy narrative they are so narcissistic and thats a tempting way one could go about reading the situation but what were seeing isnt just institutional failure it is perfectly reasonable institutions have failed and you cant trust the scientific establishment and the academic system, it makes perfect sense to rely on your instinct and desires and affinities because you could be lying to yourself that our trust you are aware of yourself love other people. Is this sustainable . It is focused on people younger than me. I just turned 40. These are people conducting experiments in religion and at a time in relationships and professional experiments and you can tell a plausible story for these are the children of baby boomers who have their own rebellion and hung onto an institutional affiliation. And you talk about this with generational turnover. And the kids take the other step but for the most part they have not gone through the 50 or 60 years of life in which is not necessarily the dogma but the solidarity of a religious institution or community the role that the bar mitzvah our first communion plays. So this is more like the prophecy line. What does this look like 25 years . You are right. The more inward looking, those are the things on the table. We will see a hunger for solidarity with the self interested versions that we cant offer. And what we will see with social justice as a movement because the ideology of community there is a real hunger for. I talk about polyamory and the love as a continuation that has long been used but in those to experience marginalization and those for whatever reason with the Civic Institution and family of origin might not be in touch with the same way. As a results of what to find likeminded people there are options but the creation of ritual in a way that doesnt look like organized religion that offers that sense of community. There is a woman i interviewed who lost her husband unexpectedly quite young wanted to celebrate and commemorate his life in a way specific to him and playing music and that was designed along food this person was. He wanted to play a video game and played the game in his memory and this was hugely important to her and eyes and example of how the bonds can survive with appears selfish. But that inwardness of that culture is unsustainable i thin think. Lets drill down on the question of police talking about community but the core of what we think of as religion theres a lot of sociological debate of our actual statements people take religious identity from community. And there is truth to that but one question that i always ask this question because it radiates through the more supernatural oriented experiments that you write about how much to people believe in what they are doing . Specifically neopaganism and those who are reaching back non christian traditions invoking gods and demons and witchcraft. Some seems like pla play, experiment, real belief, how do you see the question of belief . Its very difficult to quantify. It is to disentangle. There as many definitions and certainly is just about the community. But the truth is something more complicated. If you find something to be true and act in accordance with the values that you create and espouse you reaffirm that truth with that social reality