>> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. our next session is about to begin. thank you. welcome, again. i know many of you have been here with us at the miami book

fair since early this morning. some of you have been with us since last sunday. when the book fair began. and it is truly a pleasure to welcome you, to our 35th edition of miami book fair here at miami-dade college. for those of you that know miami-dade college very well, you know that miami-dade college has an open door. we are democracies college, serving some 165,000 students and we are truly proud of every single one of our students. each of whom has a story. that we are here to validate each and every day that they are with us. and following that, our students, faculty, staff are among the hundreds of volunteers at miami book fair every single year. along with members of the

community, along with many youngsters tomorrow school system. that i am sure you have seen in all of the cornice and nooks and crannies of miami book fair. helping support, directing, escorting. truly making this event miami book fair, special as it is. many thanks to all of our volunteers. i also -- [applause] yes, thank you. [applause] i also want to recognize truly, there is not enough thanks to give to our sponsors. the group foundation, the bachelor foundation, the knights foundation, ohl, so many other sponsors that again, come together and understand the value of miami book fair.

the value of reading and literacy. and then give themselves in the corporations and organizations to support this. again, to our friends, many many thanks to you. and just wonderful to see so many of you that have been with us here at miami book fair and miami-dade college throughout the year. please turn off your devices. so that we can enjoy the program as you know, there is a microphone in the middle aisle. that you can use during the q&a session. i ask that you post your questions and then please take a seat so that others may have the opportunity. welcome again. today at this time, we are honored to have elaine pagels in conversation with pbs, jeffrey brown. let's welcome them to the stage. [applause]

>> just a little bit about our honored guests here. as you know, elaine pagels is a preeminent academic. his impressive scholarship has earned her international regard. the harrington professor really -- in three consecutive years. she is -- [applause] yes, we can applause again. she is the author of gospels beyond belief, why religion a

personal story is her most recent book. why is religion still around in the 21st century? why do so many people still believe? we're going to hear from her, live and direct in a few moments. and she is in conversation with jeffrey brown. [applause] and jeffrey is a senior correspondent and chief arts correspondent for pbs news hour. he is also the author of a poetry collection. let's welcome again, our guests. [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. i helped a little bit of that applause means that there are some viewers here. [applause] i just had to that because we are on c-span you know. anyway, thank you for having me

here. >> i am very happy to be here. >> we will talk for about 20 minutes or so. and i know you have a lot of questions. so we will open it up. we are going to talk a little bit about why you did it, what you thinking about. start there, you are well known for the scholarly books. this is something very different. >> definitely different. something i thought i would never do. the books of course, our history. and i love to do that. i thought there are some people that say history is toast and i thought well, i love toast! [laughter] >> what kind of toast is your favorite though? >> but it wasn't just that. this book came out of some very personal experiences. and also, the awareness that the questions i have are, they're part of a spiritual

question away. can't help it, they just are. i finally wanted to write them in a different way. about how i connect with the work i do. answer how the work is a kind of yoga for all of the issues i have been in -- >> we would talk a little earlier, the word memoir, it is part memoir. but you don't -- you don't love the word or didn't want it -- no. >> i don't love the word. it's a little -- i did not want to write just about that. i wanted to write about why religion? that's a question that allowed people say, why do you do that? and that is a question that i've been asking myself since i started. and especially because i grew up in a family that was culturally protestant but not religious. my father had given it all up for darwin when he was in

college. soon as he found something that was better than presbyterianism. so i was told religion would die out. as soon as people were educated enough to know something about science. and of course, that hasn't happened. i wouldn't say that it's a matter of people believing things. but these traditions still engages in a way. whether we believe in them in sum, i don't know, dogmatic way or not. >> i mean i was surprised to learn. i think a lot of readers and clearly, your father was surprised when you first found religion through attending a talk by billy graham. by the billy graham crusade. born again at the age of 15. >> oh yes, it was great. i didn't expect that. i just happen to go to san francisco with a group of friends in high school who were going up. i mean anything in san

francisco was more interesting than where i was in palo alto. so i didn't know what it was. what was getting into. 18,000 people packed into a sports stadium and this very intense passionate good looking preacher, talking about america in ways nobody had ever talked about it that i had heard. and then talking about being born again. you can have a new life. i mean if you are 14, that is irresistible! at least it was for me. a great age for conversion. but it was also the emotional power of that experience and the you know, thousands of people and the choir. it was like an opening to like the imagination opens up to the sky. and you live in a bigger world. that's what it felt like as long as i was in that group. >> you fell out of that group. >> i did. >> in many ways, and reading your story -- you are a child of those times. you are like many people,

trying a lot of different things. and by the way, one of the comet turns out, we will go to the story. one of elaine's friends in her early years happens to be a fellow named jerry garcia. from the grateful dead. he appears in the story. so you're trying a lot of different things, you have an immediate love for music and the arts. this sense of religion as something to learn about when you tell us in the book that when you apply to school, to graduate schools, what was it like, for five different subjects you had in mind? >> yes. i didn't expect to go to graduate school at that point. but when i decided, that was the next plan. i applied in five different fields. [laughter] >> five different fields! >> i think was english at columbia, her history at nyu, social thought as chicago and

philosophy at -- hardheaded program in the doctoral program in the study religion. you can do hinduism, buddhism, islam, judaism. that is what i opted for. it sounded fascinating. >> but why? i mean for someone who was so open to all of these other possibilities. >> well, because of the emotional power of that experience. i was curious about what hit me four years earlier when i had that, that encounter with a powerful religious group. was it christianity? would it have been any religion? what was it about that? and you know, israel is so much about the music, the poetry, the passion, the imagination. whatever drew me to painting and music and art and poetry, that was all part of it. >> this question of, the title of the book runs throughout the

book, why religion? it's there from the beginning, it's there once you're in school and is there especially when you reach the man that is a scientist.and he says why in the world religion? right? >> he said why religion, why not something that has a real impact in the world. [laughter] i thought, why physics? i mean we can't see them but anyway. i was just joking. [laughter] we liked each other very much. and but, it was a challenge. the question i was asking myself. because i am not so much an advocate for religion. i'm not saying that you should be that way or engage in it or not. so many people i know to find without any connection with any religious tradition per se. people who are artists and

poets and theater people and musicians and all kinds of people. scientists. people who work for the community. i mean they may or may not engage in those things but for me it was partly the emotional power of the language. like poetry, it's very powerful. i think about you know, marianne moore and a poet who says that poems are imaginary gardens with real -- in them. there are some human realities and all of those imaginary gardens. >> you know so much in our society is about, and i kept thinking about this in your book. so much of it is saying one -- we put religion over here and music over here. religion over here, science over here. they don't meet for many people. but clearly they do for you.

>> yes, they did. and i realized too grown up in a family of scientists and then having married one, who is unusual. that idea that they are antithetical to each other so out of date. you know, real 19th-century stuff. because they address completely different questions. for example, maybe you should name names but you know someone -- >> go ahead. >> steven weinberg at the university of texas is famous, he won a nobel prize in physics. when my husbands colleagues. says the more we know about the universe to, the more we know i useless. i mean visits doesn't say that. einstein says the more we know about that the more we know about intelligent energy. so they're very different paradigms and people who try to jump from one to another in some way like that, just miss

what science and religion are. and as i said, and not just an advocate for because there's plenty of liabilities in these religious traditions. the way they can limit people, the way they can harm people. i think we need to be aware of that too. >> these kinds of questions are running throughout the book. but the core of the book ends clearly the most personal part of it. about the double tragedies that you have suffered at a certain time. first the death of your son, followed by a year later i think, the death of your husband who we have been talking about. the death of your son, he was born with a rare illness. from the moment he was born in a sense, you had to deal with the possibility of his death. >> of losing him. he was there only biological child.

yeah, he was born with a heart problem but the people at the baby hospital in new york had learned how to repair parts like that and they did a great job. it was only two years later that we were told he had pulmonary hypertension. which is an extremely rare illness from which people die usually at the age of 6 to 7 or sometimes in their 20s. and they said it is just -- you know -- there is no treatment and no cure. >> and then he did die at the age of six. >> yeah, he was six years old. >> you write very powerfully and movingly about what that was like. i want to ask you, what was it like to go back and write it? how, was it hard? >> it was nearly impossible. and it would have been impossible for 25 years after it happened. this is more like 28 years.

and then it became kind of necessary. which i didn't expect. and if i were to write about it, why publish it? that was something i wasn't sure i would ever do. >> you mean that you wrote without being sure whether you would put this out to the world? >> absolutely. it was too personal. but then you know, sometimes as we get older, some things that you live through and put behind you because they are too painful to engage, you have to go back to and that's what happened. i have to go back to it. it was very very hard. hardest thing i've ever written. but it you know, doing that places a certain perspective on things that we think we can't survive. >> the death of a child is not something we talk about much. >> what you discover is, if people know about it, is that they will tell you that it happened to them. and i learned how many people that have had that experience

don't talk about it. or you know, they say yes, my child died and people back away and say, i am so sorry. and i would say what happened? because i can talk about it now. and i think that's very helpful. so one of the things i was thinking about this book when i decided, why not? why not write about it? and publish it. because i do think that there are many people who have had that experience for whom this could be useful. i hope. >> so a year later, your husband died in a rock climbing accident. you, by that time, had adopted two young children. so you had to go on yourself. but you had to figure out how to do that. not only as a person, as anyone

would but you are someone who had looked at the teachings of grief and life and mortality. how people have dealt with that through the centuries. >> yes, after our son died, we thought, i did not want to go the rest of my life think your children are going to high school, getting married and my child died when he was six. adopted two children because we needed children as much as those children needed parents. and that was very important part of my life. this book is dedicated to them. and now they are in their late 20s. i lost that -- >> where did you look to for coming to -- what is the term? is it coming to terms, coping with grief? >> is not even come to terms. it is allowing the experience to come out of the black hole that trauma can inflict.

i mean, it is part of the way the brain protects itself. it was like a place i could never look into. it was too dark. but then i had to. and you know, i do find that has helped a lot. yeah. >> but you went back to religious text. each in question of, what kind of god allows us to happen? >> other than god allowed or didn't allow it. i mean people -- i just don't think about god that way. but i did wonder how people can go on and survive. and these traditions are partly designed to move us toward hope. it is what they do. they do that often very well. they have poetry, rituals, practices. and so, my work -- by the way,

at the time these things happen, when our son died and even more the terrible loss of my husband. we had been 22 years inseparable. i wasn't sitting around thinking about god. i was devastated. absolutely devastated. it is only much later that i began thinking. i thought about satan. i thought satan, i can get met satan, i am not angry at god. that doesn't make any sense. then i start to write a book about satan and turned into a book about the origins of christian anti-semitism. i wasn't looking for that. it just came right out. and that was real surprised. so i found that the work became a kind of yoga. kind of what keeps you going. and you know, both being critical of it and being deeply engaged by it. >> what else did you learn

about grief? does one get past it? you know, i do have this idea of closure in our society. i can see your response but tell me, tell us. >> you know, somebody said to me not too long ago, how did you ever get over it? and i said, what makes you think i'm over it? you get through it. and you can go on. you go to other relationships. you can go on to love other children and love other men and lovers and so forth. it is not that you can't move beyond it. and this book is part of that. and it is part of speaking about that process of moving on. but you know, i think you can get through it. it is not ever over. and i'm sure anyone that has the experience knows that. >> you just said to us that took you 25 plus years to write about it. in the writing, did that -- did

that help in the end? did it change the way you think about those, that experience and grief? -- it took seven years. this is a really short book. but it took seven years to write it. yes, it helped more how i feel about it. i didn't think much about it because you can't think much about those things. >> we talked about division with science and religion. you think about the culture today politically, in many ways so divided. sometimes around religion people believe and follow certain traditions and it affects how they look at politics.

some perhaps not. what do you see? what role does religion play in our divided culture today? >> that's a good question. i don't think of it primarily is what you believe because belief is particularly important to christians.more than muslims or people from other traditions. judaism is more a matter of to what degree do you practice? i don't think about what i believe very much but i do think that these stories, stories of adam and eve which most of us don't believe. onna asked for a vote but, i don't believe that literally at all. but those stories carry the values of a culture. that's when i realized my husband and i went to southern sudan and we are looking at the stories from a friend of mine that had written a book about creation stories. and realize that, these are ways cultures transmit attitudes about sexuality,

gender, death, work. about you know, what is worth living for and how people die. and those values are so deep in the way we think about sexuality and in terms of laws, the way we think about politics, the way we think about the relationship with human beings and nature. are we separate from it? are we part of it? those creation stories have all those messages encoded. so i think we need to know what they are. those messages. and so of them we met except still in some we would say no. i don't accept that anymore. and it is a matter of cultural self-knowledge.>> if i push you further and say, so what do you believe? >> i believe a lot of things. >> yeah? [laughter] >> i believe my car will start but that's because it usually does. i think we believe on the basis of experience. never say we believe that people can get through things they cannot imagine it could

survive. at least that is what happened for me. and i think that is worth knowing. i'm glad that i know it now. i do not mean that i can get through anything. who knows. but that was a surprise. and the way that people have. much worse things. i was never dealing with violence with his son or daughter killed by guns or drunk drivers or war or any of the terrible things that happened to so many people. and yet, you know, there are ways that people, i will not say find meaning because we didn't just find it there on the ground. i think people do create meaning by taking actions that matter to change circumstance. >> but then i mean this is almost like going back to basics. given your title. but how do you define religion?

>> i try not to because it is so hard. what is religion? i think i am thinking about kind of empirically. about collections of writings, stories, agent creation stories, poems, rituals, prayers, chants, music. that's what i think you want to think of christian tradition, buddhist tradition, muslim tradition. the huge collections. and that is why you can't just say, are you a christian, do you believe? so messed up and asked me, i was talking about the other gospels. do you believe jesus is the son of god? and i said, i wasn't sure what he was getting at. so i said, what you mean by that? and he looked totally puzzled. saying are you a member of

trump of the secret handshake? i mean it's -- [laughter] >> so people do define themselves as i'm a christian or a jew or muslim. >> right! >> enemies something very specific to them in terms of what they believe in. do they believe in god, do they believe in certain practices. >> yes and i'm not claiming to be neutral on that at all. a rep in christian tradition and i find it very familiar. i participate in it. there are many things i love about and some things i don't love about it. so i feel rooted in that. and that matters. particularly the values of it. after our son died, in the book, beyond belief, i said, i don't think i believe in anything at that point. but there were deep values about the connectedness of human beings. the way that we need to treat each other as a human species.

that are part of the traditions i feel very deeply about. >> i'm going to ask you a question and then open it up so start thinking of your own questions please. part of the story is this intellectual voyage. and when you were first known, became known to the world, it was for looking at these what became known as the agnostic gospels. which changed the story. right? and made the whole history of religion, really christian religion, messier in some ways. much messier. you also write about how hard the reception was at the time. the stain is someways among your peers. i'm wondering, where does that stand now? in terms of in the academy or among historians. is that story more accepted

now? >> yes, and there are many stories. that is a great question. i don't think it is a matter of just believing or not believing in something but when you suddenly find a bunch of secret gospels that the bishops censored 1600 years ago and burned and they are wonderful. some of them. then you can think about it. a lot of people do not know you can think about religion. as well as feel about it. to me it is mostly language of emotion but it is also as you say, it contains value it contains perceptions. it contains conviction. and this enabled us to really think about it very differently. yes, there are people today who will say there secret gospels are part of a much wider story. now we know so much more about christianity. the way they were they expanded our sense of jewish traditions. jewish tradition is not just

what rabbis think. it is weird apocalyptic traditions that jesus and john the baptist and others preached thousands of years ago. and so, i think most scholars i know are very open to a much wider range of those. and there are some, mostly in department of theology like cambridge university who will say, these are basically still garbage.their garbage in the first century and are still garbage. we just stick to the ones that the church endorses and we stand under -- i don't stand there anymore. >> okay, what we open things up. i will ask if you have questions. there is a microphone here. please keep it to one actual question. if you could. thank you. >> there are lots of actual questions. >> i wish you would talk about the power of community from

being a member of a religious organization. when i went through breast cancer, my temple in greater miami was so supportive it was amazing. i don't think i could have done so well without them. >> that is a very, i'm glad you brought that up because i don't mean to think you know, i look in the abstract of this at all. the religious communities tend to be enormous and powerful. and some of them saved my life. the community up in colorado, though i am not a roman catholic, i go to a wonderful church now with an extraordinary man that's a priest to is remarkable.and other groups of many kind. i think, i'm so glad you brought that up. thank you. >> reincarnation is very commonly taught and my understanding is that it was

originally -- at least in some point in history, the christian tradition was part of tradition. my question is, when did it start and when did it end and why? >> great question! i don't think we know the answer to all of it. i wrote my doctoral dissertation on origin. who is a egyptian christian in the third century. died in the year 250 and he speaks about being born in many galaxies and uses the language of reincarnation. extraordinary powerful christian thinker. but that teaching was declared heresy in the fifth century. after his death and as far as i know, most christian traditions just have you know, rejected it. i am not sure why. >> thank you. >> i wonder, wanted to know if you have any ideas on church

membership or even the relationship of religion to churches. we see many traditional christians denominations and religions like unitary universalism shrinking in numbers. and we see kind of prosperity churches, growing in numbers. if you have any ideas on them. >> that's a question. i just -- you know, one thing about my religion i'm not thinking about how many people go to churches because so many people who are exploring different ways of coming to terms with their lives, are not involved with churches at all. or other religious groups either. so i'm probably not the best person to ask. i have colleagues that are sociologists for religion but i would need to get that more

thought. thank you. >> i would like to hear a comment you have about books by two academics. -- >> the houston smith? why religion matters? in the other one is? >> religion and human relation. >> robert bella? >> yes. >> he was at university of california a sociologist as well. houston smith was so and i learned a lot from. i don't know what else to say. but i appreciate the words. thank you. >> hello. would you say based on your training as a historian that there will be any of the belief systems, any of the religions

that you see is most plausible? >> i'm sorry can you speak a little louder? >> sure.would you say based on your training as a historian that they will be any of the faith systems or any narratives that you come across religious speaking that would seem to be the most plausible based on historical inquiry and if not, what would you say is ideal, if any? >> an ideal affinity? >> if any, as far as a narrative for humanity. course i don't know if there is one. because cultures have very different religion. i can speak specifically when i read but i'm not sure there is one. when i look at the way certain people and body and articulate traditions, they make complete sense to me. one of them is james cohen, a

christian theologian. i'm reading a book now by a buddhist who talks about his tradition in a way that is very powerful. but i don't think we have one narrative for the human race. maybe when we get more unified as a global community, that might emerge. do you think so? >> that's a good question. [laughter] >> is a question i think worth asking. yeah. >> just to sum it up i would say looking at it from an objective standpoint or as best as possible considering the fact that went on a mission we didn't exist outside of the town we were born into so that's what i was pointing back to the historical method and see if there's any validity based on the records. especially with regards to what you have studied, the new testament and any others in comparison to validity of

others. >> you know, i think they are so rooted in particular traditions. take jewish tradition per the story about the exodus. the story about passover, you know, those traditions are so rooted in that history. and others are in a very different history. so anna see how history as if it were abstract and not specific to this culture and that culture. can do the work that you are asking about. >> thank you. >> if i could just before we continue. just because i have to be the timekeeper. we will go through the line here. and then no more questions, okay? >> i was wondering after reading the gospel, i thought that a lot of the description in it had the kingdom of heaven described very much like a buddhism as what they call

nirvana. i cannot name the passages right now but i was wondering if you can speak to that. it also being -- being a religion of experience rather than faith. >> yes. that is a really interesting point that you raise. the gospel of thomas claims to be the secret teaching of jesus. and when i read it first, half of it is very much like what you find in the new testament. and half of it is very different.it sounded to me a lot like buddhism. i thought, it could be influenced by buddhism. i don't think a village rabbi like jesus went to india but the tradition did. and it came back influenced by that. then they also deeply connected with jewish -- northing maybe it is connected with jewish mystical thought. it could be the teaching of a person there rabbi like jesus. i don't know. but it's a really interesting question that you raise.>>

thank you. >> i lost my 26-year-old daughter last year. and as an atheist myself, i'm wondering how you feel about the afterlife and how you feel about communicating with your son and your husband. >> that is an interesting question and a necessary one i think in those circumstances. i feel mixed about it. i had experiences i would say, i will come experiences i can explain. i assumed one my son died i was brought up as a rationalist to think it is what steve jobs called lights out, right? that is not the way it felt when he died. other things happened that surprised me. i write about them because i thought hey, i cannot explain them. but they happen and they happen to a lot of people. so i find myself open to that

question. i do not know how to answer it. but i'm still sort of hoping that there is something wonderful and that we can see them again. but i don't know. i hope so. thank you. >> hi, thanks for coming. my question is more personal. he talked about the increment of time before you were able to write this book. and also that you needed to. i think it was a necessity you said. but i want to know what was the thing that happened at the time you left it made you stay with that organically came about. if you know, what was it that did that? >> me to read at that point? >> yet. >> i think both of my children were out of the house, for one thing. and i was teaching. but there was finally time to reflect, you know? and sometimes when you have had events in the past that you just blotted out of your mind, because they are too painful to

encounter at the time, they come back. and they did. and so, without a lot of hard emotional work, couldn't keep shoving it down. so when i had more time to explore them, and enough distance, i would say from it, more than 20 years. it was possible to engage it without as much terror. >> thank you. >> hello. thank you so much for being here. i have a million questions i could ask you. but i'm going to do my best to bring it down to one. i have always been and was raised in a church. i lost my religion after college. then i found it again if years ago peter literally went to a moment of grief that brought me back on a spiritual journey.

along the way founder buck and mr. lonely but you work through another friend of mine. and it completely changed my perspective. and so my question to you, i think about early christians, the multiplicity diversity, the mysteries that were part of that experience, and how over time, doctrine institutionalization, a religion has stamped out like the -- i think just when they talk about the larger mysteries or mythologies or the stories and how they impact our lives. i am a millennial and i'm finding others like myself. we are looking for meaning and answers. the religion as we know in terms of institutional structures but whether it is through people doing more yoga or these type of experiences, what is your perspective about the shifts that are happening

right now in this moment in history as we think about how do we do spirituality and religion in a way that makes sense for our reality right now? >> that's a great question.a big one! you know, what strikes me is when i look at the history of christianity, you know, i write in this book a lot about the gospel. and the one that i came down really liking best in the new testament was mark. because it has no easy answers. and it sounds like the world that we live in, much more than the others. sometimes do. there was a christian movement for 300 years before there was a creed. i think the stories you talk about are much more important than the doctrine. when christianity does a set of doctrines, it is useful to construct a church that claims

to have a monopoly on divine power. but it doesn't speak to what, to the issues you are raising. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> you talked about being in that place where you couldn't look out of the blackhole and then you got to the place we could. he described how he couldn't push it down any longer. you think it is the same for everyone? like part of a spiritual process or is it only just the, i can't push it on any longer. i know plenty of people assume that they can push it down forever. >> yes, absolutely! i don't think anything is for all people. that's why there are so many different traditions and variations. i think some of us can push it down our whole lives. after these losses, i saw my husbands mother was a wonderful

woman. just painted the spear and i didn't want to go that way. i think that is another way to go. but it is not a way i wanted to go so i thought, is there an alternative to that? how do we maintain hope? >> one more. >> i just have a simple question. why religion? [laughter] >> a great question! i don't know. >> i mean, yeah! the answer is, read the book, right? >> if i can answer that in 10 words, i would not have written this book. [laughter] because i think when we talk about religion is not one thing of course. it is huge range of tradition and belief and experiences. so yeah, that is why i can't answer. in a simple way. >> thank you for all those questions and for your attention.

elaine pagels, why religion? [applause] >> i'm just going to mention that elaine pagels will be signing her book across the hall. if you want to pick up a copy. [inaudible conversations]