Is religion oppressive?

Transcript

Transcribed by machine from the recording.

Scott Chris, how are you, my friend? Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah, right. That does not help me. That's not incredibly descriptive. But isn't it? Didn't you get an emotional sense? I did. You seem exuberant and enthusiastic.

Chris Okay, so I communicated. We're on a wavelength. I don't need words to convey meaning to you anymore. We've been doing this for a while. I can just shrug my shoulder and you get a paragraph of thought out of my head.

Scott Absolutely, absolutely. It's pretty neat, actually. Yeah, absolutely. Most of human communication is nonverbal, as communication experts tell us. This is true. I got a text message today from a listener in California, and they were saying, I'm listening to the latest episode of the Atlas Project, really good stuff, and it sounds like you found a home on Clubhouse, Scott. Right? Because I guess we did talk a little bit about Clubhouse last week, which is... This is partly why we're a great collaboration, or at least I really appreciate it.

Chris I don't know what free time is. It sounds great. I'm glad you have a place to put it. But also, you know, there's a kind of, in some ways, my brain is a bit more linear and in some ways yours is more gregarious. And I think that that complements it well. What I have enjoyed, and we've started to do this week, and I think we're going to keep doing it, is... This is an opportunity to debrief from the conversation that we've had and that we've posted, but then also to workshop with our listeners what we're thinking about exploring in the next episode. And, you know, the kind of complex And really challenging questions we're trying to get under. I mean, it takes many minds to map this terrain. God knows the two of us can only make an attempt ourselves. And having more minds from more places coming together To signpost, where are the important directions to dig deeper?

I found really helpful and really enriching. So if you're listening and you're on Clubhouse, Monday nights at 9 p.m. London time, I have no idea what time that'll be for wherever you are, but GMT 9 p.m., that's when we're doing it. And I think we're going to keep doing it. What do you think? Well, you're there anyway.

Scott Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to keep doing it. We had a session Monday, two days ago, playing for this podcast. I found it incredibly... I just said that. Right. Yeah. I know you said that, but I was just wanting to affirm that it was very helpful to me as well. Okay. So people, yeah. Nice save. Go jump on Clubhouse, follow us, and yeah. And also, if you ever just want to, like, if you see me on there and you're a listener and you ever want to talk...

Chris Some of their insights into this episode, I know. We have a club on Clubhouse as well, Brave New Thinking. So if you don't see Scott when you're there, find the club and follow it, and that'll be a reliable way to find us whenever we convene a conversation.

Scott So here we go. Let's begin our question of the day for this episode, which is, is religion oppressive? This one was not hard to find.

Chris I mean, this one found us.

Scott Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is... I said to Chris, I think this would be a good topic to do. Some of it was just watching and following what's going on in Israel right now. It probably sparked... I mean, it's a question I think about a lot because I trained in theology and stuff, but it's such a complicated... Seemingly intractable conflict, which religion is to some degree at the heart of it, right? I mean, I think it's, I mean, there are practical political and land considerations and things, but, you know, part of the enmity is some age-old religious conflict. And yeah, I mean, I wonder... What sort of force is religion in the world today? And as you're seeing, like, I mean, just like looking at the news coverage, seeing these rockets going back and forth, right? Like, it's just arresting. I mean, I can't imagine how traumatizing it would be to live there, right? Where, you know, if you're in Israeli, you've got these...

Rocket attacks coming at you just in the middle of modern urban life. If you're Palestinian, you have responses to that, which are these kind of military incursions into your everyday life. I mean, it's just a very traumatizing reality. I wonder what role religion plays in human flourishing. And does it even play that role anymore?

Chris And I guess, I mean, it is moments of flare-up of human misery where religion is, you know, very clearly a part of the story and a part of the What is the question that religious violence It invites all of us to reflect on, even if we don't live in conditions of religious violence, religion is a universal It's a facet of human society and culture and in some ways has always been. There have been different institutions and different religions, but it has always been a ritualistic expression of a spiritual dimension to our being individually and collectively. So it's always been there. And I agree. Just before we get too deep into exploring the question, I totally relate to what you've been feeling this week and watching the violence. And you say you can't imagine. The thought experiment that I do is What if I couldn't take my security of person for granted? So, you know, it's now evening here in London. This afternoon I went for a run. In the park. Great. You know, wanted to get my workout in. That's all I thought about. Do I have time for it? Yeah, I do. Okay. You know, get on my running shoes, strap on. Is it raining outside? No. Perfect. Okay. That's all I had to go and consider to decide I'm going to go and exercise.

Because, you know, I completely take for granted that, well, yeah, I mean, what's going to happen? I don't, I don't need to, I don't need, there's no app to check of, you know, are the missiles actively falling upon my neighborhood right now? And the kind of entrapment that a lot of us have felt over the past 15 months because of the pandemic and social isolation or lockdown. Well, imagine if you're locked in your home and you can't rely upon the safety of your person in your home. Then there's no safety. There's no experience of safety in your life if you don't have it in your home. And so, yeah, I think it is worth just taking a moment and all of us identifying with how traumatic an experience that must be.

Scott Yeah, and you know, and religion plays kind of, you know, I know it's interesting because some of the people that are the most polarizing voices And both sides of that conflict are religious. And then some of the people that are really doing peacemaking and trying to deescalate the situation and promote understanding are doing it from a religious perspective as well, from lots of different faiths. So it's just so complex the way I think religion plays a role in conflicts like this.

Chris Jumping to it. So, you know, we had a wonderful time on Monday with some of our listeners just kind of, you know, admittedly sometimes stumbling in the dark and just pushing against doors and asking, what does this question help us to reflect on? But on that last point you had where, you know, there are some people who are using religion to amplify this conflict. There are some people who are trying to use religion And the kind of the practices that it invites us to embody in our own lives to deescalate the conflict. And you used this wonderful phrase on Monday that I wrote down because I knew I'd want to share it with the world. Where you talked about, you know, like religion is at its best when it's de-apocalyptizing things. Which, bravo, by the way, I don't even know how many syllables that is. I've lost count. But to de-apocalyptize something, which is to say that, you know, what religion can do is to put things in perspective, in a kind of grand perspective that makes a lot of stuff that we get really worked up about Properly mundane was the phrase, another phrase used that was so good that I had to write it down.

And so you see both sides in the conflict that is happening right now, like right now as we're recording to the south and east of me. Is religion about messianic cults and establishing kingdoms, or is it about neighbor love?

Scott Yeah, and I think that de-apocalypticizing happens when... You say that so easily. Yeah, it just rolls off my tongue. But it happens properly when... When idolatry is properly understood, of recent, of blessed memory, who recently died, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, wrote really eloquently about this in several of his books, about just the nature of idolatry. And in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Idolatry is just sort of putting any created thing in place of the creator. So instead of giving honor to the creator, oh yeah, Chris is holding up a book called The Dignity of Difference, which is a great book by Sacks, where it is instead of referencing the creator, you're referencing created reality, right? And so maybe politics becomes your god, or sex becomes your god, or consumerism becomes your god, or the state becomes your god. And so the de-apocalypticizing happens when you're like, oh no, this thing isn't divine. It's a creaturely good. It's something that probably we should take seriously, but we shouldn't take it with ultimate seriously. The great 20th century theologian Paul Tillich said, what religion is, is about our ultimate concern. And he would say God is sort of the ultimate concern of what we should be ultimately concerned. But then what happens is sometimes I think religion is used... To sort of prop up idols. And we were talking about this Monday, and my experience as an American right now is that the culture war is fueled by religion. I mean, it's really interesting. In 1950...

How often you went to church or synagogue was in no way a helpful tool for social scientists to discern whether or not you were going to vote for Eisenhower. It was just not a tool that would have been helpful. Now, it's one of the best determiners of how you're going to vote and what side of the culture you're on. Church attendance is such a reliable predictor of where you're at. And what we have here... In this country, especially if you look in cable news, it's really interesting, where you see people in the public eye that I know are religious and they feel awkward talking about it because maybe they're on MSNBC or something. And then you have atheist conservatives on Fox, who I know are atheists, who wind up defending religion because that's what you do on Fox. We're the religious party, right? So even if you're agnostic or an atheist, you have to defend religion.

So here it becomes this battle for are we going to be this... Sort of secular, you know, Anti-religion kind of culture, or are we going to be the sort of traditional family values? Americans, we often romanticize our past when we go back to the religious ideals and stuff.

Chris Right. The way I think about it is, every world religion has a book. And what you've described to me is, I think about it, are the people who are holding up the book, are they interested in the cover or are they interested in the content? And if you're an atheist and you're on Fox News and you're talking about religious values, you're holding up the cover. And you're saying, I know this is our book. I have a copy of it too. I haven't read it. But I have a copy of it. I want to get into that in a moment. But just before I lose it, you mentioned Jonathan Sacks and de-apocalypticizing things and putting things in perspective. So here is the subtitle of Sacks' book, The Dignity of Difference is, and again, think in the context in which we are recording this, how to avoid the clash of civilizations. And how to avoid the clash. And Jonathan Sacks was the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth since 1991. So for the last 30 or 40 years of his life. So just opening to a random page, this happens to be 86. This is how he talks about religion.

To think and act morally, to do what is right because it is right, influences others. It begins to create a climate of opinion. Good like evil is infectious. We do not have to accept the unacceptable. The only thing that makes social or economic trends inevitable is the belief that they are. The unfolding drama of the 21st century is one of which we are the co-writers of the script. It can be turned this way or that by collective consent. Our aim must be to settle for nothing else than an economic system that maximizes human dignity. We must hand on to future generations a more gracious, less capricious and inequitable world. That is religion trying to put things in perspective. Trying to make a lot of stuff properly mundane and say, like, this is the work. This is what we really need to kind of be about in our daily lives. And so, you know, it's...

I'm not sure where you want to take this exploration next, but it's such a strong contrast with... How religion is sort of rearing its ugly head right now in the headlines and talking about whose kingdom is the kingdom of God. And that question and my answer justifies, historically, this fantastic justification for pretty much any immoral act that you need to commit in order to establish that righteous kingdom.

Scott Yeah, and one of the things I really appreciate about Sacks was, you know, there's this great passage in the Bible in Jeremiah, the 29th chapter, where Israel is going into exile in Babylon.

Chris And the word... I forgot that I need to bring a Bible to these conversations.

Scott Exactly, exactly. It's right from memory, man. I know. But I think it's 29 verse 7 or something. I think it's verse 8. Verse 8, right. I mean, we'll have one of our listeners check that. 8B. There is no 8B. Well, that's when they divide verses in half. It'll be like 8B. They actually will refer to that. Oh, they do that? Okay, there is an 8B? Yeah, people in articles and stuff do.

Chris It's good to know.

Scott So basically the word from the Lord that Jeremiah hears is to say, because you've got some people that are basically going to give up their religious identity in exile, right? They're just going to go, hey, look, God abandoned us. We're in Babylon. We'll just become Babylonians. And you've got other people that want to sort of just not assimilate at all and kind of just throw rocks at the city and say, screw Babylon. And the word Jeremiah gives these exiles is like... Take wives, plant gardens, basically seek the shalom of the city of Babylon, because in its shalom, you'll find your shalom. In its peace, you'll find your peace. And so this word to these exiles is be a benefactor of Babylon, even though you're an exile, that throw yourself into being a blessing in this place. And through blessing this, even this city that's imperial and has been... Adversarial, it's still in blessing them, you're going to find your own blessing. And really invest in the peace of Babylon. And I think Sachs did that so well as a public figure. The whole tenure of his rabbinate was this deeply religious figure who had a deep public responsibility and was able to Talk across religious traditions and talk to people who weren't religious for the purpose of human flourishing in the West. And I think that is so, again, we need more. And Pope Francis is another great example of someone, I think, who is doing that and taking that role seriously.

But in contrast, like what you're saying, the thing that is a struggle is we see so many people for whom religion just becomes another form of reductionistic ideology. And instead of de-apocalypticizing and de-tribalizing things, makes things more tribal and more adversarial, which is where I think people like Christopher Hitchens... Had a point when he talks about some of the shortcomings, so many of the evils that have come about, not just... In spite of religion, but because of it. Those are not unfair charges, I think.

Chris Christopher Hitchens being a famous... I mean, he didn't describe himself as an atheist. He described himself as like an anti-theist.

Scott Yeah, yeah.

Chris I think. And I think the distinction there was sort of like to be stronger than the... An atheist being like, I don't believe in God. And an anti-theist saying, I believe God is a dangerous idea. Yeah. I think was his position, which is... Which is interesting. And I think, you know, if Christopher Hitchens were alive today, he would be doing a lot of commentary right now on, see, I'm right, you know, pointing to what is happening in Israel and Palestine, you know, see what we do in the name of religion. I suppose for me, you know, to contrast that with what Jonathan Sachs is saying is to say, There's the cover and there's the concept and there is the power of a system of ideas and beliefs, like any system, like any ideology, to marshal strength and support around an agenda. And enable you to do things against one another. You know, do you remember this film, The Book of Eli?

Scott Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great film with Denzel Washington.

Chris With Denzel Washington, right? So sort of post-apocalyptic United States. And there are these different, you know, for want of a better word, sort of regional warlords. We're all after this book, which happens to be like a remaining copy of the King James Version of the Bible. And I don't think it's revealed until the end that that's what the book is. But I think it's really interesting. Post-apocalyptic scenario to say that in this world where like all of these structures and institutions have just been blown off the face of the earth, that there are people who recognize how powerful it would be if you had a book, if you could distribute a book that talks about how to behave, that justifies a certain system of morality as an organizing tool. To give power to the agenda of whoever holds up that book. So I'm saying that what is happening right now in Israel and Palestine, what Christopher Hitchens was on about was that power and feeling that power is really dangerous and historically, you know, argue has it been used more for good or for evil. I suppose not the counter argument, but the thought would be like that power exists in the world and in culture, whether or not there is religion. There is that power to organize people around story. And that is just sort of a function of our reality as social beings.

And so given that that power does exist, What is the best form of that power? The fact that it is steeped within a moral program that tries to do a lot of good. Maybe it tempers what otherwise could be an absolutely terrifying power. I can't believe that I've actually now made a segue to a point I wanted to make. Um, which is the, the original, um, kind of Latin root of religion, which I don't know how to, I never, I didn't take Latin, but you did, I think it's, it's, it's religere, religere, religere, which means to be careful. And I think that's profoundly insightful to say that the religious experience is an exceedingly dangerous human experience. This kind of stuff that Jonathan Sachs talks about You know, where we have the power to co-create the economic and social patterns of our world, these transcendent experiences, all of it is kind of radical. And what a lot of religious tradition does is says, let's manage this experience carefully. And I think that is part of the, you know, is it oppressive? I think it can be part of the good work that religion can do. You know, not just the book and the creed and the cover and the power, but the practice of it. I feel like it's maybe underappreciated in modern society that if religion plays a good role, part of it is that it becomes...

And how you are. And God knows, you can't spend all your time in that space. That's just not how life works. I need to work, I need to eat, I need to sleep, I need to take care of all these other distractions in my world. I couldn't possibly function if I spent all my time inside a religious experience. But if you can manufacture, maybe that's the wrong word, but if you can establish for yourself a habit of going into that experience, On a recurring basis, then just like mindfulness meditation today is something that everybody kind of talks about, that it can be that meditation for you. And that is, if you will, the baby that gets thrown out of the bathwater when we say like, yeah, look at how much bad religion has done in the world. It's time to get rid of the whole thing. Anyway, long rant, a lot of threads there. Pick up what you want.

Scott Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think what's interesting too is that And we got into this a little bit on Monday, and this is something that I think about a lot, is the difference between... Pre-modern religion, which is illiberal, right? And just by nature, because there's no enlightenment, there's no liberal democratic norms and stuff. I knew when you said, this is something I think about a lot, that it was going to be something that most people don't think about at all.

Chris Don't think about, right.

Scott But you just don't, you know, like you don't have, you know, it's interesting because you don't have... You know, in premodernity, you don't have widespread arguments for things like religious pluralism the way you do in the West. That's kind of assumed. If you're going to behave well in the West, you can be religious or irreligious, but you have to be a liberal, right? In the sense of, you have to be a classical liberal, I'm saying. Like, you have to realize that everybody's got the right to their own individual beliefs and expressions. And to be part of faith communities that are, you know, diverse and different or part of no faith community, right? And I think that is a big change. And, you know, because you look at the conflicts today in the world. How often do you see two liberal states go to war with each other? It doesn't really happen, right? All the conflicts we have in the world are conflicts between a liberal and an illiberal state, right? Or two illiberal states. You're not worried in Western Europe that there's going to be another massive world war because liberal democracies just tend to not go to war with each other. We're never going to have a military conflict in Canada and the United States.

That's just not going to happen. I think also there's kind of liberal and illiberal religion. And I think by nature, all world religious traditions start as illiberal because they're all pre-modern. They all come and give an animating principle and spirit to society that wants unity and doesn't place a big emphasis on pluralism generally. Now again, I'm not saying you don't have exceptions. I mean, the Roman Empire had some kinds of religious pluralism, but even there, Everything had to kind of be under the state Caesar religion, right? Like that had to get a kind of deference. Right.

Chris And that's why part of why we call the time we live in modernity is that we say we don't have to take these things. We don't have to take religion for granted. We can create a separate sphere called secular and choose what relationship do we want to have with that religion. So there's a few threats to pick up there. Maybe to bring it back for a moment to kind of the timeliness of this conversation and the conflict in Israel and Palestine. And you mentioned, you know, sort of liberal societies that don't go to war together. And I think my poli sci professor would call it democratic peace theory. And, you know, and it's kind of interesting nowadays that, you know, it depends what you mean by war is, you know, always the big debate that we would have kind of, you know, in the politics seminar. It also depends what you mean by liberal and democratic and with each other.

But it also raises this question about the case of Israel as a liberal democracy that is also a, and apologies to everyone if I get my language wrong, but like a religious ethno-state. Absolutely. And so the liberal democracy aspect of Israel is modern. The ethno-state and the religious aspect is pre-modern.

Scott And I don't know if there's another case like that. There's no other liberal democracy in the world that says our state, by nature of its constitution, has to remain like 70% Christian or has to remain 70% Roman Catholic. Are you sure? We'll get the listeners to let us know. Yeah, right. But I don't think there's... No, there is in England what's interesting. You do have an established church in England. But what's interesting is you have France with no established church, right? But you have more freedom as a Muslim in England for religious expression that has a state church than you do in France that's completely secular.

Chris Interesting. Just as an interesting aside, on Monday, one of the women in our workshop, Melanie, I think, dialed in from Glasgow. And I mean, there's definitely a state religion. Actually, there's a conflict. There's Protestants and there's Catholics. And it's very important that you choose which football team you support on the basis of your religion, because your whole life is going to be defined by that conflict when you live in Glasgow. Obviously, there's some really interesting history there of Scotland, like England, being a Protestant society until there's then sort of mass migration out of Ireland, because of a conflict famine there. Ireland is bringing Catholicism to Scotland and to Northern Ireland. And the conflict continues today. But I think the special case of Israel is a... I don't know if we had someone from Israel in our workshop and I would have loved to have wrestled about that with him or her. How does that kind of the modern and the pre-modern mesh, if you're living in Tel Aviv, say?

Scott Yeah, and what Judaism does, I mean, by nature, is being Jewish a religion or an ethnicity? And the answer is kind of yes, right? But it's unique in modernity because in other religious traditions, we don't do that. Right, we bracket out what your ethnicity is and your religion, right? So you could be an African American in the United States, which, I mean, you could be Muslim, you could be Roman Catholic, you could be Baptist, you could be, you know, in a mainline Protestant denomination, you could be, or you could be no religion at all, right? Whereas, you know, what we're saying in the case of Judaism, and it's interesting though, because most Jews would say, that I know would say, even if you don't believe in God, you're still Jewish. You know, because it is kind of, it's a religion that's an ethnicity, right?

Chris That is kind of, so, and I think you raise a good... It's a religion that is an ethnicity that, you know, throughout basically the history of Western civilization has been under threat. Yeah, yeah. And so it does, it totally makes sense. Like the rational brain, it makes sense of how you say, okay, like, you know, after World War II, we've got a chance to kind of Let's fix some things about the world. Let's give the Jews a homeland and let's enable the protection and the end of that persecution. I remember, this is years back now, And being in Montreal and kind of like living in community on a scholarship program. And one of the other recipients of the program, this Israeli woman, Liran, and we were talking about I was just fascinated. I had never been to Israel and just, you know, the whole conflict. And I was, you know, pushing her and questioning some things. And at one point she said, and it was, I still remember it because it was maybe the most deadly serious or convicted that I had ever heard someone speak to me. And I'll probably get it, my memory is not perfect now after all this time, but something along the lines of, Chris, if history has taught us anything, it is that the Jews need a homeland. And when she spoke that sentence, there's something very close to it. For me, it was a kind of... I mean, the content was arresting, but the delivery was like, oh my God, now I know what conviction sounds like. I had never heard something spoken that I, without any hyperbole, just knew that came... Those words are... You just shared what your soul knows with me. It was profoundly felt.

And I think it is that kind of, you know, quite special circumstance of, as you say, you know, religion, ethnicity, and this awful story of, well, where we began, the denial of personal security. Just never living under it, never living with it, with a sense of personal security, with a sense of the inviolability of my home. Can we relate to that and what it drives us to need to do to create a solution that is kind of stricken with contradiction?

Scott Yeah, and Israel is such a great example because it has all these tensions and wonderful paradoxes that make for interesting questions. Because, I mean, I think like 24% or 25% of Israel's... Let me just make sure I'm getting this right. I think it's... You don't need data. Don't look it up in a book. Look it up in your gut. Exactly. I don't need books. 24% of Israel's population... Most of them are, most of that 24% are Arabs. A lot of them are actually Christians. And then certainly there's a good chunk of Muslims. But what's interesting is if you are a Christian or a Muslim in Israel, you have more civil liberty, really, and religious freedom than any other place in the Middle East. Inside an ethnostate. A religious ethnostate. These paradoxes. This is where Israel is such an interesting question, because on one level, is it illiberal to say, look, you can never...

I mean, basically, we have to have a Jewish state, so the majority always has to be Jews, right? That seems illiberal, but they don't... Oppressed minorities, religious minorities. I mean, it's not, you have a lot of, you know, the same kind of freedoms you'd have in the United States or England.

Chris But it is this contradiction, because we're a liberal democracy. That's why it has to be majority Jewish. Because the power isn't vested in an elite, say in the UAE, where, you know, we've got many million people. There's only about a million of us who actually have rights. We're a local Emirati. Everybody else is imported with a different kind of class of residency, basically. But that's okay because they don't have a vote. So so we can live with that imbalance. But Israel, we can't we can't possibly do that because that would be undemocratic. And so because we are committed to being a liberal democracy, we must maintain a majority. Yeah.

Scott Yeah. Which is interesting. It's just an interesting thing. What do you do with that? Right. Because what how do you it's one of these interesting case study questions where how do you what do we call a state like that? And how do we categorize it? And then how do you look at conflicts? And also, you think about just the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I mean, part of this is also the legacy of colonialism. I read something the other day that at the height of the British Empire, I think Great Britain controlled 25% of all the land mass on the globe. And then when they de-imperialize, you've got to figure out who's in charge, right? And so you get these kind of conflicts, right? Oh, no, they did it perfectly. But yeah, now, I mean, so this is... And again, these are instances where I think where religion can be, at its best, a universalizing force, right? That sees beyond tribalism and things like that.

Chris But in this instance, it seems like it's feeling... I mean, it is, you know, so returning to our timeless question, like, is religion oppressive? It really does depend upon... It's role in society. So, you know, on Monday night, one of the people who was in our workshop was from Iran, Michael. And, you know, him strongly being informed from his perspective as an Iranian, secularism is definitely the answer. Yeah, maybe he had this great line that any idealistic regime, as he called it, any idealistic regime is not the answer, whether it's Iran or wherever. Because once your job as the authority is the pursuit of an ideal, that is very oppressive. That is very oppressive. So what is the status of religion in society is a question that there is a wide variety of answers as you kind of scan around the world. If you think of my native Canada, religion is personal choice. And I think that is a very strong... A very strong aspect of Canadian culture. So Canadian political culture, this is one area where it varies. It contrasts very sharply, I think, from US culture. You don't need to demonstrate your devotion bona fides to be a Canadian politician. You don't win over the votes, at least in the public debates that I see, by... Israel, religion is in some ways the raison d'etre.

Yeah. Of the state. There was a chart, which I think I posted on my Instagram last week, and it was a graph that showed the relationship between per capita income, so how rich is the society, and how often do people go to church. And for most countries on Earth, there's a strong negative relationship. So the richer you are, the less religious practice is a thing for you. And Canada was bang on that line. A lot of countries bang on that line. Two really interesting outliers. One was China, where despite, you know, improving income, still, like, nobody goes to church. Because there, the role of religion in society is as the enemy. Right? Religion is the enemy. And then the other outlier was the U.S. That even though very wealthy, a high degree of people say we still pray. I think it wasn't go to church, it was pray. It was pray every day. And in the US, religion is an industry.

But in a lot of other countries, like in the liberal democracies, in modern countries, it's a matter of personal choice. And the importance, the value of that choice seems to diminish as you find other things to... And I think that's a very familiar role for religion. But then anything off that line, it gets really weird.

Scott I think that one of the things why the U.S. is so different too is because of our constitutional tradition where there's not an established church, it has made it a much friendlier place for religious entrepreneurs. So if all the authorities were the state church, it gets a lot harder. I mean, this is why part of the reason people emigrated from Great Britain. The Puritans and other people wanted a place where they could differ from the normative Church of England practice. And the United States became a place where it was great for religious entrepreneurs. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's a much more religious state than its Western liberal counterparts. People here, religious leaders here are always thinking of new ways to, you know, we've got like these whole traditions of mega churches and all these things that, and you know, it's funny, I think I told this story Monday.

I have a friend who, he lives in Birmingham, Alabama, which is, he said, I'm sure, this was true 10 years ago or so when he told me this story. But he's saying that basically Birmingham is the most churched zip code in the country. More people are churched, but he's still getting flyers all the time for new mega church startups. The market is saturated.

Chris This is a bit off our big topic, but on this specific topic, I'm curious. Can you help me understand about the phenomenon of religious innovation in the United States? And I feel like one of the, so why is it that, you know, I mean, here in the UK or in my native Canada, I think a lot of countries, if I said I'm starting a new religion, the reason, the fundamental reason it wouldn't work is nobody would say, oh yeah, and Chris has the legitimacy to do that. You don't get to start a religion. You can join a seminary or whatever it is those people do. And I guess eventually, you know, most people don't even know how it works. You know, get yourself a parish, but you can't, you don't get to create your own religion. So why is it in the US that, yeah, sure, that's cool. That's an interesting job choice. A lot of money in religion.

Scott Yeah, I mean, I think it's our free church Protestant nature. I mean, most of the churches that are growing, Our megachurch kind of startups, right? Where people that are there and the people are very entrepreneurial. They, you know, they've got multiple services. They've got coffee shops and lattes and the thing. And you get like, it's a very, you know, there's this tradition, especially in the second half of the 20th century in the United States. But again, look at Joseph Smith with Mormonism. I mean, basically Joseph Smith in the 19th century, his mother was a United Methodist. His father was into kind of Native American spiritism and stuff. And so he's like, I'm just going to fuse these two traditions. And he said, I'm going to do what for religion in America, what Muhammad did in Arabia. And he kind of, he became the father of the founder of this It's a minority religion here, but it's big.

I mean, it's not an unsubstantial minority. And so, yeah, I think there's something about religious pluralism and liberty in this country that has exactly allowed entrepreneurs to challenge, like, we don't have the Church of England or the established state Lutheran churches like you do in Scandinavia or in Germany and stuff. So that just makes space for religious innovators.

Chris Yeah, any religion you've seen was just started by someone here. And so I'm going to start it too. It's interesting to think about like, what do you get if I'm going to join a startup church? Like, what do I get? I mean, the latte sounds good, but I feel like, how do I know? Like, you didn't die for my sins. So like, how do I know that And I suppose we just don't ask that question. It's do we personally get value out of the practice or out of being a part of this community?

Scott Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think what it is, and most of the startup churches in America tend to be conservative and evangelical, right? They tend to be more traditionalist in their preaching. But what they get is like, okay, you like to play basketball? We got a men's basketball, we got a church basketball league. Oh, we got a single... There's this group in American churches called... Mops, moms of preschoolers. And there are mops groups all over the country where these moms come together and they often have childcare. They hire babysitters so young moms can go and just have a couple hours of social time with their peers and get a little break from childcare and stuff. So those churches, megachurches tend to be so good at meeting consumer needs, like having all these sort of affinity groups and stuff. So you wind up, and there's been studies and they say basically Because people are always like, the argument against them is, well, you don't build as much community because you're like basically anonymous in this big sea of people. But the sociologists have found, no, actually people are more networked in these churches because of these affinity groups and stuff. That actually these people find more religious community because there's so many ways to plug in that are particular for your needs.

And so that's where I think these things become innovative. But then the argument against it, as we were talking about value propositions, when you have a tradition, when you have religious communities that thrive on consumer needs, do they make better people? Do they produce the kind of morally imaginative people that could lead the civil rights movement? Or does some of the consumer catering just by nature demystify and make religion a less serious thing in its public role for being a sort of visionary guide and moral center for society? You don't see a lot of megachurch ministers as big public moral leaders, and it just doesn't happen very often. So that's interesting.

Chris So if you think about, you know, the established world religions, the question that we find ourselves asking is, is religion oppressive? Is the weight too great? You know, kind of Christopher Hitchens, what was his famous line? I think I wrote it down here. Yeah. The main source of hatred in the world. For startup religions, the question is almost the opposite. Like, is it corrosive? Is it too much like candy on your teeth, where I'm eating it because I'm liking it, But it's not necessarily strengthening me. It's not challenging me to conform in a helpfully shaping way my moral person. And I just, I don't know where to take that, but I find that fascinating that that's the contrast that, you know, we can look at the world religions and say like, you know, on balance, is it the main source of hatred or the main source of love? Because the stakes seem so high.

And for the startup, it's more like, hmm, which, you know, to bring this full circle again, you know, I think maybe strengthens this point of view that I'm sorry, Christopher Hitchens, when you say religion is bad. Religion exists. It is a facet of human social existence. And it's going to be there. It's going to be there. And the reality is in China, it's there. It's not called religion, but it's a cult of Mao or whatever it is. There is a need to Not necessarily deify, but I think the technical word would be to reify, like to exalt to a higher status of existence than my mundane life. Some aspect of the past or the present so that I have a kind of a hierarchical relationship with something that feels spiritual. And that's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. And so the project isn't, do we throw that out or do we keep it? It's what do we do with it?

Scott How do we work with it? Yeah, and it's interesting in America, the United States is an interesting case study because there's this term that I think is invented from this reflection on American religious life. We have what's called in this country, the tradition of civil religion. Right, so we start with religious pluralism, right? So there's no, so the state church isn't, the state religious, you know, spirit isn't Catholic or Protestant. It's not Methodist, it's not Episcopalian. But what it is is that we have this, there's a great book about this, I think it's Will Herberg, written in the 50s and 60s, called Protestant Catholic Jew. But it's kind of a study of American civil religion. And this is what King appealed to in the civil rights movement, right? It's this combination of a belief in God that's non-sectarian, right? So you can speak to Christians and Jews

and Muslims, and it blends in the God of the founding fathers, right? Natural rights and other things like this. So America, our state religion is civil religion, right? So it's... It's not atheistic. It's a theistic kind of thing. But it's plural. It reflects our religiously plural kind of context.

Chris And I think, you know, actually, I think that's a nice segue to, you know, so what do we take from all of this? I like the metaphor of, you know, we've been stumbling bravely on sort of unsafe and unfamiliar terrain for the last hour or so. And, you know, and now we can kind of come back to the warmth of the campfire and reflect On the territory that we've uncovered. Oh, shit, now I forgot what I was going to say. Because I fell in love with my own metaphors, which, God, that must happen a lot. I apologize to listeners how often I'm like, Jesus Christ, you go on your metaphorical rants again and again and again. What were you saying? Say it again. Say it again.

Scott I was just saying that our religion, our state church, our state religion, basically in the United States, is what we call civil religion. It's this combination of a kind of general reverence for God and the founding fathers. Right. Right. And so it's there. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Yeah. Yeah. So now I remember. Bring it back to you. So why is this question? Is religion oppressive important? Why is it important with a violence that is animated by religious conflict happening right now in Israel and Palestine that we kind of think about what does this mean for us? That religion is everywhere. I mean, you just described like it's in our politics in the US. You cannot understand what animates the US political animal without understanding the role of religion in it. And not always an explicit role, but that same kind of energy, that same kind of Reach for sacred ideals is strong in that religion.

Scott And maybe this is the... And we've had a black president in the U.S., and I'm sure we'll have a... We've almost had a female president. I mean, we're coming close. I'm sure we'll have one soon. I don't know that we'll ever have an atheist president. I don't know that, at least in my lifetime, if that would be possible.

Chris And I think, right, because it's just part of the fabric. And maybe this is part of the blind spot for why, you know, over the last five years, like the election of Donald Trump was for so many people, oh my God, shocking, or in this country, Brexit was, oh my God, shocking, is that we've... A lot of us, and I count myself among it, have kind of become so wrapped up in this kind of secular project of what moves the needle, of what is influential, of what What drives public choice and decision making? We got so caught up in our secular We've kind of lost track of these pre-modern impulses and more than impulses in institutions and just aspects of ourselves that are there, are part of our consciousness, are ready to respond To the messages when the messengers speak them. And so it really does serve us all well to kind of look around and look for religion. In our institutions, in our organizations, in our beliefs, in our lives, so that we can be more aware of it.

Scott Yeah, and you bring up Trump. Trump's a great example. There is a guy who is completely religiously illiterate. Right? I mean, you know, when they asked him about, like, one of his favorite Bible verses, he said, well, I like it all. Were you more of an Old Testament or New Testament guy? Eh, 50-50. You know, like, but he knew how to use religion, right? And my evangelical friends who are Trump supporters, I mean, a lot of them will just be quite explicit about it. They like that he takes up for their side in the culture war. And he lashed out against secular elites and things like this very explicitly. It was not dog whistle stuff. And he mobilized a lot of religious voters because, again, here, the conflict in the United States is between the godly and the godless, or the religious and the secular. And Trump weighed in clearly that I'm on team religion. And if you make me your president, we're gonna... Established rights for you.

Your religion's not going to be kicked out of the public square and things like that. And people responded in droves to that. And it was really effective. Even though most of my evangelical friends will admit Donald Trump's not any kind of... It doesn't resemble anything anyone would call a Christian. They know that. And it's so supportive.

Chris Because it's... And I think that is... And it's hard to see, but maybe it just helps to believe that it's there until we develop our own evidence base to see it for ourselves that, you know, Trump was able to do that because The response in the consciousness of the people speaking to you was there, ready to respond. Maybe a way to think about it is, if you've ever been in nature and it's that kind of jaw-dropping beauty, like a sunrise or a sunset or a mountaintop. And you experience that moment of awe. You know what I mean? Like that, oh my God, it's just, it's a religious experience. It's a different state of consciousness. And that sense of awe was, you know, basically the same sense of awe that ancient shamans would draw upon to guide Prehistoric humanity and tribes into ritual. And my point is,

it's still there in us. We still respond to it. The fact that it's been millennia doesn't mean that it's not there in us anymore. And so all of these ways of being with the world that are pre-modern, they're still there.

Scott It's funny, I have a friend, David Zoll, he's an American kind of writer and thinker and runs this religious organization. But he wrote a book called Seculosity, which is a really interesting book. But basically, it's his take on sort of secular religion, like how... People replace religion in a secular age with like sports or romance or food culture or these sort of things that people are looking for transcendence. And so he just kind of maps out kind of these modern, and he's working a little off people like Charles Taylor and that kind of work, but he's, you know, kind of maps out the way that people find, engage in religious quests, right? But without some of the depth and resources of traditional religion. Because we hunger for transcendence.

Chris I like that phrase. So that would be, and I would love for our listener community, we can crowdsource this, be a wonderful project together. Just where is all the evidence of religion? In our lives, in our daily lives now, just to become more conscious and aware of that dimension of how the world works, of how we think, of how we interact, of how we judge one another. Because in In a secular context, in a lot of contexts, you know, is religion oppressive? I think is really a question of, well, how much do you notice what it's doing? The more you're aware of, the more you can choose the role that it plays in your life. And this is, I think, this is, you know, maybe part of the next The next step of modernity, if we think broadly about the modern experience, about gaining more and more choices over things that used to be fated, over things that we didn't have choices over. And now we do. I think we talked about this last week as well.

And we think that now we've so dramatically expanded our realm of choice. And in some ways, we absolutely have. And in other ways, we are still completely unaware of the choices that we are making. And understanding the role of religion, I think, is a part of understanding more of those choices and just becoming more fully free to choose who we are.

Scott Yeah, no, and I think that it goes both ways too, right? I think because some of what we're teasing out here is for people in, you know, on our listenership that are non-religious, like, hey, pay attention to the way religion is manifesting itself. And I would say to the religious observant kind of People listening, I think it's on the onus of religious communities to be deliberate in thinking through their role in liberal societies. And again, this is what Sachs was so good at. Thinking out loud about these kind of roles. And again, I think Pope Francis does a great job at this. And I wish more... Religious leaders and thinkers would be more deliberate about thinking how things change in a late modern sort of liberal society. Because the temptation for a lot of people, right, is to be a refuge from modernity, right? This is your safe space kind of thing. Right, right.

Chris Where we reestablish the forms and the familiarities that you feel are kind of dissolving all around you.

Scott Yeah, and that's how traditions die. Like, when they're not able to be malleable. I mean, there's a reason why people are at churches and synagogues and mosques and they're not at temples worshiping Zeus or Odin very often. Right? Because those traditions... That would be awesome. I know. It would be cool. You should totally bring it back. It'd be a retro thing. You could start. You're in the U.S. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All the Marvel superheroes. First Church of Thor.

Chris Oh, my goodness. That's got to be a moneymaker. I mean, not that that's what we're here for. Yeah, I mean, hey, it wouldn't be a bad sign. It would be all about, you know, salvation and weather management.

Scott Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris You have a lot of believers. I really like that point. Yeah, exactly. For religious communities, there is a real responsibility and opportunity to name your project. And make it a visible project that others can see and can choose to join and help co-create with you. Because maybe religion is at its most oppressive when it is a silent influence, shaping without saying that it's shaping things.

Scott Yeah, and like Jonathan Haidt talks about this, right, in The Righteous Mind, and the great moral psychologist says, you know, that what morality does for us in human evolution is it binds and it blinds, right? So it binds you together. And also blinds you, because if we look at relationships or sex or food or other things this way, then by necessity, we don't look at it that way. But in a modern pluralistic culture, how does a community that's traditional responsibility has been binding and blinding evolve? To being able to... To bind a group of people together and give meaning, but also give them ways to behave in a pluralistic context with shared investment and responsibility. I mean, that to me is the challenge, right? That to me is where religion could move away from some of its worst oppressive past. To a more liberative future where it becomes a democratic asset, where it becomes something that helps people play a role in a democratic society. It doesn't hinder them.

Chris I mean, that's the aha moment for me right there of this whole conversation is, you know, here we are in this moment and, you know, is religion oppressive? Such a timely question because of the conflict that is underway right now in Israel and Palestine. And, you know, there are so many people around the world who were kind of you know and we we began in the beginning we really empathizing with you know what can we imagine what it must be like to be in this conflict but you know so many of us who are sort of watching it from the outside and and a lot of a lot of people i think are are blaming religion if you will like aha here's Christopher Hitchens was right religion is the main source of hatred in the world I don't know the value of participating in that pile on, but how amazing would it be if we all took this event as an impetus, as a catalyst to say to one another in our community, hey, we should have a conversation about what is religion for in our community? What is the role of religion in our community? This is the time when we need to be asking ourselves, challenging ourselves that question here. And in some ways, you know, it feels like, oh, that's kind of like...

That's pre-modern. But no, it would be the most radically post-modern thing to do. Absolutely. To recognize that we're not doing that work. We need to do that work. Because if we're not doing that work, then that work is being done to us. Do you watch The Crown? I do. I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I live in the UK.

Scott I mean, it's forced upon me. Yeah, it's like taxation. One of the most meaningful episodes that brought me to tears was when Philip is going through this kind of midlife crisis and he's trying to find all his meaning in the moon landing and all this stuff.

Chris He talks like Buzz Aldrin and it's like, what were you thinking?

Scott Right. And the astronauts are like, you know, I don't know. And then finally he reconnects with these Anglican priests who I think set up some kind of retreat center. And you see this guy find meaning again. And there's this beautiful scene. Where he's just walking and his arrogance kind of goes away and he's walking, dialoguing with this Anglican group of priests and the Queen just looks at him and she's just moved that he's been humbled and it changed his public life. And he really, it's funny because I just had Rowan Williams on my interview podcast and he said... Which is amazing. Yeah, he was great. He said when he would go visit, he said, yeah, I visited the Queen a few times, and he said Philip would want to argue with him about the Greek New Testament, like Philip read the New Testament in Greek. Well, native language for him. I mean, I'm not that impressed.

That's true. It's a different kind of Greek. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. But yeah, no, but that was a great example of this, I think, of this picture of a religious tradition giving a guy a sense of meaning in public life and how to participate in a more soulful whole way. And to me, that would be, that's the question that's interesting to me. Let's leave it there. Yeah, this was a great conversation as usual. Thank you, my friend.

Chris Yeah, thank you, Scott. And thank you to everyone on Clubhouse who helped us. I mean, Ross, Michael, Melanie, I'm going to forget everybody, but just to help us to explore some of these questions together as well. So we're going to be getting together again on Monday, 9 p.m. London time, for those of you who are Londoners. I think we'll do maybe a reflection on sort of listener thoughts and comments and mailbag from this conversation and think about next week's topic, which is going to be, is China right? I think that'll be a lot of fun. I've got a lot of interesting stories already I want to share about that. And I think that'll be another really challenging and interesting. Interesting reflection. And maybe World Events will supersede it and we'll talk about something else, but I'm really excited to have that conversation with you two. And I'm really taking away a lot from this one.

Somehow the headlines that we have been reading again and again and again for the past week, there's a whole new depth for me of what it means for the conversations that I want to have with the people around me.

Scott Yeah.

Chris So I really appreciate you for that. And as usual, showing off your unassailable knowledge of the Bible.

Scott I'm not that, mine's quite as troubled.

Chris Trust me. Dude, it's always a special privilege. So have a good one and I'll see you soon.