acceptance speech. speeches and in atlanta mayor, which live coverage of the democratic national convention tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, live streaming on demand at cspan.org/d&c. listen on the free c-span radio app. >> good evening everyone and welcome. we are so happy to have everyone here. before we launch into discussion of this new book strange rights. i would like to share his misery. and ended in 1927 by benjamin over and fourth avenue rated stretching from union square, from an original 48 floors over 93 years, the sole survivor. now run by third-generation owner. we want to thank all of you for your support.

community of authors book lovers and friends. we would not be here today. tonight we are excited to have with this, the developer, celebrating the release of our new book strange rights. tara is a contributing editor at the american interests, and columnist. in the former staff recorder. she's written on religion and secular is him, to national geographic, washington post . new york times more and holds a doctorate in theology from oxford. she's also the author of the novel social creature. joining tar, roth is a columnist for the new york times. is the author of to change the church. that religion and privilege.

before joining the new york times leaves a senior editor for the atlantic pretty is a critic for national review and kisses new york times weekly podcast argument. he lives in new haven with his wife intent and three children. so without further i do, please welcomwelcome tar and was prett. >> thank you so much for joining us here in this exciting virtual experience . it is slightly disembodied way about talking about a book but maybe appropriate matter . tara thank you for letting me talk about the future of religion and beyond pretty. >> will thank you so much for being here . >> just another thursday night in the market pretty so just want to make two comments before we start. the first is that in our era of covid-19, have now been enough

zoom events to know the sometimes people are more hesitant to ask questions. they're typing in questions and they would bit be at a really meant when you can stand up until the author why she is wrong about everything in the world. you'll just have to listen to me as questions for the entire hour. and hopefully will get 15 or 20 minutes of your questions at the end. i swear reiterate that this is a challenging time for everybody. and authors are obviously among the least a challenge in many ways. but putting out a book in a moment like this is a difficult thing. at about come out i was lucky enough to squeeze in a couple of weeks of promotion for all of the bookstores closed. but i just want to encourage you that if you're listening, watching, don't just buy the book. it don't just buy the book from the strand obviously. encourage your friends to buy

the book. and make it the best read that it deserves to be. without further ado, but starting with the big question. this is a book about new religions for a godless world. that's a subtitle. is our world really godless. and if not or if so, what religions are filling that void. >> spoiler alert. no we don't live in a godless world. this the argument to make. so i want to draw a distinction sort of when we talk about secular age the world without religion. what are we really talking about predict in a couple of background statistics. about 24 percent of americans said there are unrelated to religion. in about 36 percent of the born

in american after 1985, so huge increase for religions . 72 percent say they believe in some sort of a higher power. 20 percent say they believe in the god of the bible. so were not necessarily talking about people who are atheist although about 60 percent, for whatever reason these people are alienated by institutional religion, organized religion who feel that has nothing to offer them. you may indicate to the people who believe in the tradition christian god, actually still have some form pharma for good or am willing to identify with the participate as a unit of

itself. so we are talking about spiritual but not religious. but a broader character. it includes not just the spirituals but not religious which i think is the most visible. but also people who kick the boxes that were the particular tradition but his personal practices play systems are more expected. in a statistic that i like to bring up is to give you but about 30 percent of identified christians say they believe in reincarnation which is not to say, something one would associate with christian orkin orthodoxy. so were living in an age where i would argue where religious life, components meeting purpose, community ritual, were relating to them in a different

way. were mixing and matching . there's a sense in which where all sort of it these employee, they're all making up their own religion. these can include not just moments of the traditional religion but some things like cultures. political activism. a vast array of cultism. wicca is one of the fastest growing in america. and so on and so forth. taraross: i think one sort of initial response of the your description of your thesis, someone well-versed in history, i know is this. because after all, certainly nothing more american than being entrepreneurial and setting up a church of one. start of every kid in high

school english class, leaseback when i wouldn't die school was assigned the collective works of ralph brady get a certain kind of individualized religion there. and then the largest history of spirituality. it's what you call intuition or tuition religion. what is the theme and what is the difference. what is the same and what is different. what we have been common with 19th century mark and what has changed in the last 30 or 40 years . tara: i call intuitional is him in the book is sort of a catchall term for religious practices and we expect to focus inward on them. god, feelings versus institutionalism. the church. your external forces. we've seen quite a history going

back and forth in american religious life. the outcroppings of intuitional protest of faith. the various beliefs. your bibles created but also the birds of movements which was huge from about the 1860s onward prayed it was like the secret help movement so basically if you think about it hard enough, it will happen. which became hugely influential. it led to a whole public things about self-help books. spiritualism's. ouija boards and contacting the dead. really on the east coast. but also i would argue, within the christian tradition where the narrative was often something like the church has become one christianity has become dedicated nobody believes that anymore. they just go through the motions

. you just go to church on sunday and it doesn't really matter. we need to look for a personal relationship with god. something more intense and intimate end of course various countercultural religions. so that is absolutely not new. i would argue that it's a pendulum going back and forth how many of her hundreds of years. but where i think something is distinct and new about this great awakening is the internet. given that we are trying to gather at this time. i like to say that but the printing press brother, the reformation, the creation of a model of information that was in many ways intimate in inward pretty you have your direct connection to the text. you can internalize it in such a way that one may well draw that connection to the protestant

overall. i'm overseeing these new religions of the internet age four were all not just consumers of content rating not just to be there but we are also inclined to culturally think of ourselves as creators than think of ourselves as people who have or want to have ownership over stories. in some ways, it goes back to older traditions as well. the dizzying disembodiment of the internet itself. i think that they creating and to be involved, to have ownership in her stories have made us all the more to perhaps orthodox ways. of experiencing and receiving doctrine. i think as well, are particular moment, to be the personal era

of personal branding made us cognizant of a model of our identity center choices. what papers we read. but music we listen to, what movies we watch prayed they all create the sort of audit public-private synthesis of identity. i think what is in the culture, this odd strain of what happened might using. what purchase them making. i think wallace cultures perhaps the biggest most obvious example of this. i think the way in which our conspicuous and less conspicuous consumption, is seen to define is especially in the age of algorithms. brought recommendations for getting out, narrower prayed have contributed to this hyper inability station in the village

individualization. ross: the courier sort of talking about practices and sort of experiments that fit some kind of definition of religious or spiritual) i think the core of the book is about revival of pagan, cultist practices in various forms in american life. your definition of the new religion spreads outwards and encompasses as you were just saying, sort of a consumer culture, personalized aspect of consumer culture. everything sort of holistic and personalized, wellness culture and someone. so convince me as someone who is inclined to skepticism. and make sense to strip the world of brands and that kind of

self cultivation under the umbrella of religion or religious practices. >> i would argue there's a theology that is shared by so many of these particularly something sort of consumer based. and that's the theology i will call best self as him. moral spiritual demand, to be your best self. to improve in a certain way that i would argue, kind of the collapse of this distinction between the effort you put in the purity that you given having the right ranges with a minimal amount of toxins. sort of way that your skin looks after you attend that beauty routine. the way these things are sold and talks about is so loaded with this language of self-care, not just kind of is a nice thing to do although historically, the

word self-care does come from a much more political place but in sort of this wellness paradigm in which it has now found itself, 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 rooted. and maybe it happens to make us prettier or sensibly have a dewy complexion or what have you. that there is a kind of sharing in in so doing. there's elements of bad for example and elements of bad promote prosperity gospel tradition. in the adjacent that but i think that the idea that more broadly your job is human being on this earth is to be your truest self . your best self and also be

your most authentic self to release yourself from repression, ways of society has acted upon you and kind of figure out who you really are. it is i would argue, coded as a moral virtual good. the language of energy is really popular. it's popular in wellness circles and then certainly in various cults. i think their versions of that . much more political and outward looking. and much more in solidarity. there's a branded version of it. that tends to equate personal fulfillment with the kind of vibration on the right frequency of the right energy in a way that i find incredibly interesting. quite revealing. ross: and the church. tara: i would think so.

what they don't have, and i think this as that of a brand which we or does not have the community aspect. ross: i go to google. so - two. ross: sorry gone. tara: i just said, i think that third cycles even better example because it combines a lot of this metaphysic and the kind of sense of purpose with the community and a ritual that you experience in the moment. i remember i went to a couple of classes. but you go and in the community where a soul or a tribe or past. we were occult. this there. and sign say things like energy. it affects your neighbors energy

. in a way that is again using this kind of spiritual language to talk about or to lend to what could just be an uncomfortable fitness class pretty to burn some calories into something with an aura of spiritual attainment. what you're doing is good for you, good for the universe. ... ... it's an absence of institutionalization. that the united states has a lot of the same kind of spiritual entrepreneurs that

we have from the victorian era for the 19th century. but they don't really say don't seem as likely to sound what we called churches. we just had marianne williamson in the presidential campaign. in marianne williamson, she's a pre-internet feature originally. she was prominent in the 1980s. but has updated new thought kind of figure. i feel like in the 19th century there will be a church founded by marianne williamson. it wouldn't be huge. but you have like 200,000 peopl people. there'd be sort of chapels around the country. and that doesn't seem to happen to anything like that especially of the last couple of generations. you have a little stuff in the 70s and 80s. but especially lately. and i think how much of that is the internet, how much of

that is an ambient skepticism of institutions. why doesn't gwyneth paltrow have -- i guess connie west has sunday services right, a jet wasn't there a sundays service? >> host: i am not sure it be successful lease initially. i think the label of church or making something a church as you would say would be met with a degree of suspicion. i think as well the fact that there is such a willingness to mix and match, that we, we will let the broader we hear, that me personally. >> host: you. >> guest: so much of the contemporary religious is about that precise individualization. so in the end we can't necessarily get away from the end point being that we are all the our own church.

that we don't have -- and i think it's broadly, trust in her religious institution, or civic ones, are journalistic and media institutions as well, fortunate or unfortunately i don't know. but i think there is -- i think that suspicion doesn't lend itself to such a focus on self right i want to be careful here. i think there is an easy narrative that we could go to that says oh kids these days with their selfies are so narcissistic. i think that is a tempting way one could go about reading the situation. but i actually think what we're seeing isn't necessarily a story of false is him or narcissism but of an institutional failure. i think it is perfectly reasonable in fact completely understandable that if you are institutions have failed you. if you don't 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 gut instinct. in desires and affinities as authoritative. at least you know you might be lying to yourself but the broader theological way. you might have slightly more trust you're aware of yourself than other people. >> gas to push on that tiny bit is is it sustainable right? this is a book about our whole culture but it's obviously focused on a guess could say people younger than me. i just turned 40. so millennial's in generations the. these are people conducting experiments in religion at the time they're conducting experiments in relationships and professional experiments and so on.

and, i think you can tell a plausible story where these are the children of baby boomers who had their own rebellion and often sort of hung onto a affiliation pretty talk about this. [inaudible] the generational turnover where you took one step out the door of your institution had 1 foot in the door. their kid is taken the other step. but their kids haven't, for the most part, gone through the 50 to 60 years of life that awaits after your 20s, right? which the forms not necessarily the dogmatic doctrine of religion but the communal forms of religion. the solidarity of a religious institution or community that's not clear the role that a bar mitzvah or first communion plays and so on.

so obviously, this is more in the prophecy line. what does this look like in 25 years for the people conducting these experiments now? >> guest: i think you're absolutely right. the more, let's say inward looking of the cycle this not just self focus but present. those are the things i think are at the table. i think we will see a hunger for collectivity, hunger for solidarity. that did kind of pure self-interested version of these new religions for the wellness culture of the world cannot offer. i think that what we will see. i am interested for example of social justice as a movement. because in part what it does offer is an ideology of community. an ideology of solidarity or real hunger for.

i talk about this in a chapter on polyamory free love from human perfectionism in the 19th century. but ways in which the term sort of long been used in the queer community. it shows the family. and people who are marginalized or experienced marginalization from traditional religious institutions. who, people from whatever reason are alienated whose family of origin might not be in touch with in the same way. might be able to find one another. i think there is a hopefulness to find like-minded people, recombine communities, there are options for solidarity for

coming together of the creation of ritual in a way that may not look like organized religion as traditionally practiced. but never the less offer that sense of community. i always are member there is a woman i interviewed before starting the book, my last peace who lost her husband unexpectedly quite young. and wanted his friends to celebrate and commemorate his life in a way that was specific to him. so the friends got together. and they played music from his favorite videogame. there was a service that was very much designed not around religious lines are traditional lines but rather along who this person was. what his life was like. he'd wanted to play a videogame that they played together pretty was not able to do that. and so she, with some people

she met online through this game played this game sorted in his memory. and as she reported usually important to her. i think that is such a timing example, desires for these can survive a sort of reshaping. even as i think perhaps, i'm bill being really mean about this on the call hope they don't hate me. the inwardness of a certain kind of wellness culture always say. >> so let's drill down and on belief. but the core of what we think of as religion has been belief. the actual statements and don't people really take the religious identity from

community other than the creeds. major world religions will be structured around actual metaphysical claims of the universe. and one question, we've had these conversations before. i will ask it again. i think it sort of radiates through a lot of the more supernaturally oriented experiments that you are writing about. which is how much do people really believe in what they are doing? specifically when you're trying met neopaganism, these people who are reaching back or reinventing pre-christian or non-christian traditions invoking gods, their invoking demons, doing witchcraft. some of it seems like play some of it seems like experiments. some seems to have real belief. how do you see the question of belief playing out there? >> i think as you say, very

difficult to quantify. certainly difficult to disentangle from any of these other practices. i think as we say and as i argue in the book. as many different religion definitions as scholars and some say it doesn't matter dealt about community, they are the medical physical truth yes or no. but i think the truth is something little bit more complicated which is if you affirm something to be true and you act as if it were true or you act in accordance with these sort of values that you create and espouse you kind of reaffirm the truth of that in the community such that there is a sort of social reality that is something a little more complex than i would argue inward for a model or everyone's doing something in everyone believes that they are pretending to get along. which is i think is the sort of strongman version of what a

community model would look like. [inaudible] practice g acceptation the faithful come. i think that will ritual and community can indeed the a precursor to faith or to a spiritual awareness. rather than simply being an either or, or sync up philippe has to precede a ritual community. >> so, to sort of take that, there is also than the ways these things sort of feedback into political life, right? i think one of the more interesting aspects of the sort of neopagan thing that happened in american cultures seems to have left ring and white wing manifestation. to this chapters in the book that sort of followed what we might call pagan threads two

very different cultural destinations, doing talk little bit about that? >> guest: sure. probably the most prominent example of neo- paganism is broadly again the terms are bit fluid here. there is the religion of wiccan, there's people identifies wiccan that might not belong to a covid et cetera. kind of a rough umbrella of progressive which culture is i think a hugely significant phenomenon. so in 2014 when alex wrote a book which is of america identified about a million self identified which is in the community and said it was the fastest growing religion. before 2016, which i argue where it all changed. so, i think in the wake of donald trump selection, in the wake of the women's march in particular in a sort of

feminist movement around that, there is a real interest on the part of virtually interested progressives, young progressive particular young women. also queer people who found within the imagery of which graphic conscious transgression of a nasty woman. he sort of difficult woman, the woman who wasn't in charge of her own sexuality, found these images kind of liberating in part because they were so coded is it an opposition to the white evangelical trump gop alliance. she would have sort of which is hexane trauma or which is taxing to have an awesome math gymnasts cathartic spiritually real outpouring of anger, of grief. when i say spiritually real, i think it would be fair to say it was a language that people

were not able to used to process their anger. but their hope for different world rather than it being a convenient symbol. then you say going completely across the political spectrum, there's also the rise of what i call a certain kind of reactionary desire. i know we find this in fans of jordan peterson. on the one hand generally this quasi, neo watered down high of let's return to the good old days when sort of a hybrid of ancient greece as seen through hercules legendary journeys in the 1850s are seen through pleasantville. the good old days when men

were men and women were women. we all had our place. we had this kind of obsession with physical stress with prior immortal truth of the blood. there is an implicit blood and soil here i'll just let hang in the air. but i think this kind of reactionary is itself a response, codes itself as a response to the modern world and the civilization feminism and pc culture have destroyed. as a kind of desire to reclaim an imagined primal path. is often a very strong interest on what nature says goes. i would kind of call it a kind of nature worship. that's a very different form of paganism that takes very different things from our

pagan past job acacia. >> host: just in listening to you describe it in the figures you reference. it seems to be in part that you can see that as late and gender polarization, right? and religion prover obviously their mail which is and mail pagans on the pagan left. on their are, you know fault right neopagan women. but there does seem to be a sense in which that sort of larger polarization of the culture and other areas seems to play out a little bit in this religious landscape. and you could come closer to the center and say well it's oprah winfrey and joel ocr the gang and yang of the american religious center. and then the gang and yang of the religious extremes are the which is hexane kavanaugh.

and. [inaudible] supporting donald trump right? in certain ways reflect the kind of religious failure in the sense that you would expect a successful religious community to sort of socializing men and women together in certain ways which maybe is not happening? >> i think it's a much broader failure than religion i look at these groups, i don't think they are exactly comparable i think there's condemnation for the. [inaudible] than the which is. i think what i'm seeing them i find so fascinating so many of these subjects other than one another are the same. there are certain newspapers for example, the horrible of

the book age that the white supremacist patriarchal i'm not naming names, that should be struck down because they failed them that way these are both charges leveled against institutions more broadly. clinic whatever else you want to say it's our civic institutions have failed us more broadly. not any particular but speaking more broadly i think there is a sense in which, not the center but are institutions that make up our lives have lost our trust. however we may understand or give voice to those feelings. i would argue something interesting to me and how kind

of institutional target. >> so i would like to thank everyone who's followed my instructions and asked some questions. got about 15 or 20 minutes now. i'm going to take some questions out of the queue. may be adapted them using the moderator's prerogative. but we will start with a question. he cites catholics philosopher charles taylor, the canadian author of a secular age, the largest book you can possibly buy and maybe possibly read. and he says taylor suggests some version of what you are describing is inevitable and get the last five years right because religion has been decoupled from the state and society it but humans are still on a quest to find fullness and meaning. which can only be understood in religious terms. taylor called it a nova effect.

an explosion of religious options for it and he defends his pluralism against charges that it's too individualistic, or too narcissistic and so on. and i think that does dovetail some of what you have been saying. i want to take it and link it the social justice movements in the black lives matter in protest politics that are sort of dominating discussion right now. one thing that struck me about those protests is, it seems like there is there's the nova effect and the desire for individualism. there's also still a desire for religious unity. it is kind of striking to see, some of it is corporate will ship. but the sense that we want to live in a society corporate

and low is on board with this cause. that seems against the nova affects britons all going to be individualism. but there you have a giant unified church of social justice. >> absolutely. i think that is one of the reasons that again speaking productively as we have to is the social justice movement that works so well and is so powerful it is so effective is in part because insofar as its current version, it's a version of our times. attended degree of institutionalism and that is also the vision of solidarity of a better world. and i think there is something

vital. there is a hunger something more broadly that our institution should just work in a sort of functional way. they should be for something, for something good. i think it's often the case that social justice culture as religion there's a version of that that i read a lot. and saying oh it's a culture or zealots or so on and so forth. i think a better way is it works because it is a religion. it harnesses a real sense of meaning, of purpose, of community and ritual that actually points beyond the self. it gives that sort of other iteration of self purely institutionalist. both institutionalists, that's

hard to say. and self focused religious phenomena's don't. and i do want to draw a distinction here between the social justice movement as an organic phenomenon as it sort of corporatization is it indeed pretty much everything that one could think of gets assumed by corporations to sell products. eight sort of want to draw the distinction between the movement in and of itself gets tested to the shredder of certain brands that are going to say the right thing at the right time. push the right instagram like kyndell jenner's pepsi, black lives matter pepsi had in 2017. matt is its own thing. >> host: but isn't that sort of how a religion wins?

if you go back to the fourth century roman world, right, he sort of have the zealots of christianity. many had the roman aristocrats who would be a brand today, who really didn't care one way or other on the doctrine of trinity. [inaudible] i'm going to endow a church over here. i'm going to actually christian part. it seems to me that sort of corporate virtue signaling is inseparable in the ascent and triumphs of new world being. >> guest: that certainly one path to victory is through this kind of corporatization. i can't help but wonder though, whether another path

might be through politics? i, like many others was rather excited about the bernie sanders campaign. this is probably something i might have wondered about was slightly more hope a few months ago than now. but i do wonder whether these religious nuns and these particularly religious nuns do vote. i think it they are in 20 states they are the single biggest religious demographic. think about example the only sort of block that was turned out specifically for trump, everyone knows that the statistic now there are 13, 14% of the population prayed they vote and the turnout is always great. the theft declining when you talk about the religious nuns in the group with social justice progressives there's a lot of crossover. wartime at 23% of americans for advertisement 36% of young americans. and so i do wonder if one way

in which i can wake and trim make its way into the culture through the ballot box prayed we might at some point see a political experiment that takes these values and puts them into practice. and sees how they work prayed i would certainly be curious. spin that this is actually one of our questions, asking how you think these new religions will sort and affect her current two-party spirit sort of suggested the darker scenario rights, which to the extent that one of our political coalitions become sorted defined by and dominated by some version of these new religions. and our other political coalition is defined by and dominated by whatever remains of institutional christianity. that creates a much bigger religious divide that america has had in the past. even our civil war was

essentially inter- christian theological conflict with people having huge arguments. but they were still arguing about the interpretation of the same bible, right? so the vision you have just set up, sets 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 is slowly retreated. >> guest: i think that's right. some could say certainly a danger but one way to look at it as we are kind of in a vacuum moment. something you brought up earlie earlier, and i sort of want to reiterate it is, this is not a purely new phenomenon is much as the tail end of a multigenerational phenomenon. we talked about as you said with 1 foot out the door in terms of a kind of disillusionment in this case religious sort of more broadly waive doing things.

i think, just a sidebar here, most people who leave the traditions actually do so, one of the biggest predictors and indicators is how much religion is spoken of in the home. yet your tail end of nuns who are leaving the faith are doing so in part, kinda having witnessed a certain apathy in their own parents. so yes i think there is a bleakness or potential bleakness to this coming vacuum. but it's a long time coming. >> host: we have a question from maxine that drove down to what you're just talking about which is did you find there is anything, any really specific patterns in the religious background of people who were involved in these new movements beyond just their religion in the home tended to be more attenuated.

were they more likely to be lapsed evangelical, lapsed catholics, and so on? >> guest: the mainlines churches have emptied faster than evangelical churches. white evangelical churches. just as a side note historically black churches and white evangelical churches are polling data prayed that's why making the distinction. so 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. one actual very big predictor. and that is that 46% of queer people, rather than the 24% of the national average is

religiously affiliated. that's the only kind of really big notable unexpected given how queer people have been marginalized. with institutions. but that's kind of the big one. >> host: is there any big gender breakdown? >> slightly more women are unaffiliated overall, slightly more men are likely to say they are full on atheists or agnostics. but it's pretty slight. >> host: and they wear fedoras. [laughter] we got about six minutes left so let me squeeze in a couple more questions. one question someone brings up when i mention the religious coming-of-age ceremonies, the idea that colleges in sort of college admissions and graduation sort of fill that role. one thing we haven't talked about is the harry potter phenomenon.

maybe this would be a chance to talk about the peculiar role that the school played in a certain kind of quasi- religious, like the idea anyway, talk for three minutes about harry potter. >> guest: okay harry potter, go. i think that assertively remnant of civil institutions that we still have a cultural -- about harry potter specifically, especially over the past week is jk rowling as a related quite a big fan base bernie find it so fastening that harry potter has been a canary in the coal mine for so much of the cultural shift since the publication buried between 1997 when the first book was her pub attempt published in 2000 and the fourth book was published. at home internet in america went from 19 million to 100 million more than 5% increase. and that dovetailed -- that version of fandom and the way

in which fan culture kind of developed around it, dovetailed so completely with the rise of the very particular internet culture. one weathers span fiction or memes, but the idea you could have ownership of your text. you could have ownership of the things you loved. this is not a model or someone came out from on high the powers that be, show one runners want to be called in fandom. had the final word of what a property was. and you certainly see that in the amount of shows that are fan serviced or designed for the fans are being a much bigger back and forth between consumer information creators of information. i think it's the stopping that the idea that jk rowling's exile from her creation because it's not seen as hers. it is seen as everyone's. it's often the response has

not been let's never read harry potter again. it's well, hogwarts is bigger than she is. we can still write fiction in this community. we can still love these characters, they belong to us. i think that tendency at large can tell us so much about the wider questions of intuitional -ism, institutionalism. inwardness, and individualization we are seeing at large in the book. >> the last question. let's do a post covid world question, right? one person says do you think in a post covid world where people will be looking to find meaning and purpose and community the sort of newer stranger faiths will be fast tracked? when do you think there is a sense in which they can be more likely to form actual communities? or cults is a word we have not use that much.

one way to put it is we are seeing this is a 1968 moment in politics right now. while the 1970s were kind of the high tide of a weird communal experiments, strange religious cults. what do you foresee after covid? and maybe after donald trump? >> guest: i think the combination of her increased ability, and awareness of gathering remotely with an increased awareness of our reliance on one another, the need for social bonds and the of loneliness of pure idolization, think the experience to simultaneously both you can interact with each other online and yet we are in our own houses if we are privileged enough to be able to be. and that kind of loneliness is, itself i think an increased. so absolutely i think we will see people gathering digitally. and perhaps not.

we are able to not. i think people will be much more interested in forming intentional community. special to get to the point we think about our pods. who are bubbles? who is our faith-based family? i think that will lend itself out toward a form of intentional community. and maybe a distant light with the potential community. i'm curious to what that might look like. >> do you think it's possible i mean look, this has been fantastic. but it's really not the same as doing a panel in the flesh, right? now those double and triple for a lot of religious practices. to the could be an anti- internet religion backlash that talks more about them flesh communities are communes with large vegetable gardens and polyamorous living arrangements.

>> guest: some of those things sound very tempting. i very much like a vegetable garden right now. i think that is certainly possible. however, think may be even if these committees do come about in the flesh ultimately, we will use the internet to get their print will find one other online. the same way 40% of americans find a partner online. doesn't mean they never meet in real life, that maybe it will under covid. thus far is not ended up that way. the digital space in the promise of that will be a sort of launching pad for people to find, seek out and find communities that may manifest themselves. sibilant alright it 8:00 p.m. pretty went to apologize for those we didn't get to. you are terrific and there even more wonderful questions further down the queue. thank you all for joining us again to repeat what i said at

the outset you found this illuminating experience that you will buy tara as a book. by many other books. support the strand, a simple didn't say anything but as a roman catholic liu are dabbling in this strange new rights that tara describes, stay safe out there. with that, thank you all so much for joining us. scenic thank you. >> weeknights this month on cspan2. tonight come starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern, former defense secretary robert gates and jame mattis take a look at the use of u.s. power around the world since the end of world war ii. then christian rose former staff director of the senate armed services committee, he talks about the future of

high-tech warfare. and later former defense secretary william perry and director of policy talk about the nuclear arms recency end of world war ii and the threat of nuclear war today. enjoy book tv on cspan2 >> top nonfiction books and authors every weekend coming up at 4:55 p.m. eastern in the lead up to next week's republican coverage were featuring authors who featured president trump for including former speaker of the house newt gingrich in his book trump in the american future. ralph reed and his book for god and country. and david horwich. and then 9:00 p.m. eastern inter- book covid-19, science journalist deborah mackenzie on how this is a global pandemic.

way to prevent future outbreaks. watch book tv, this weekend on cspan2. >> and 2004 author tom wolfe spent a day in washington d.c. his novel i am charlotte simmons about higher education paid cspan2 accompanied him and was a guest on the radio show. >> [background noises] [background noises] [inaudible] [background noises]