Why Is It So Hard to Talk About God?
Most Americans don't discuss religion with others very frequently, a Pew study from 2019 found. Many Americans also say they avoid conversations with people who disagree with their religious views, another Pew study found last year. That number has risen in the last few years, which suggests growing discomfort with the topic.
This is a problem, according to some scholars: Understanding how religion is shaping our country and our culture 'requires careful and thoughtful public debate and it requires attention,' Grace Davie, a sociologist of religion, said. 'We've lost the language. We're having an ill-mannered, ill-informed conversation.'
This topic is personal to me. I was raised a devout Mormon in Arkansas. Although I am no longer a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I remain curious about people's experiences with religion and spirituality. So I spent the past year reporting on the landscape of contemporary belief. I heard from people around the country that they long to talk about their personal experiences with religion and spirituality — but struggle to start the conversation. I decided to speak with someone who is an expert at doing so.
Krista Tippett, the longtime host of the radio show and podcast 'On Being,' made a career out of having conversations about belief and meaning. She speaks to people of different faiths, disciplines and politics about life's hardest questions. Her conversations illuminate corners of the human experience that aren't often spoken about publicly.
I talked with her recently about what she has learned from her work — and what she can tell us all about how to have conversations about belief now.
Believing
The New York Times is exploring how people believe now. We look at Americans' relationship to religion, moments that shape faith and why God can be hard to talk about.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
2 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Stanford Daily sues Trump administration over deportation threats
Stanford's student newspaper sued the Trump administration on Wednesday for threatening to deport any noncitizen who criticizes Israel or U.S. foreign policy, saying the government is violating freedom of speech and intimidating campus journalists into censoring their own articles. 'In the United States of America, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,' lawyers for the Stanford Daily, the university's independent 133-year-old publication, wrote in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose. They said staff writers holding legal U.S. visas 'are declining assignments related to the conflict in the Middle East, worried that even reporting on the conflict will endanger their immigration status.' One editor resigned from the newspaper, another editor and present and former reporters have asked to have their articles removed from the website and 'international students have also largely stopped talking to Stanford Daily journalists,' the suit said. It was filed a day after Stanford officials announced that they might lay off 363 non-teaching employees this fall because of a $750 million tax increase imposed by President Donald Trump's budget bill. The lawsuit is among multiple legal challenges to the Trump administration's attacks on pro-Palestinian protesters and their universities. A central issue, cited by the newspaper's lawyers, is Secretary of State Marco Rubio's claim that he can order deportation of any noncitizen for statements he considers 'anti-American' or 'anti-Israel.' Rubio cited a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that allows the secretary of state to revoke a noncitizen's legal status if the secretary decides the person's 'beliefs, statements or associations … compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.' He invoked that provision against Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University who was arrested in March and held in a Louisiana jail for 104 days before a federal judge ordered his release. Other campus activists have also been jailed, and Stanford reported that the visas of six students were revoked less than two weeks after Rubio's announcement in March. The lawsuit said Rubio's claim that a student's criticism of Israel harms a 'compelling United States foreign policy interest' is questionable — but regardless, his actions violate the Constitution's First Amendment, which protects noncitizens under a 1945 Supreme Court ruling. 'The First Amendment cements America's promise that the government may not subject a speaker to disfavored treatment because those in power do not like his or her message,' wrote the attorneys, Marc Van Der Hout of San Francisco and Conor Fitzpatrick of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. They asked a federal judge for an injunction that would halt the threats of deportation against critics of Israel or U.S. foreign policy. Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, called the suit 'baseless.' 'DHS takes its role in removing threats to the public and our communities seriously, and the idea that enforcing federal law in that regard constitutes some kind of prior restraint on speech is laughable,' McLaughlin said in a statement. She said the United States has 'no room' for 'the rest of the world's terrorist sympathizers.'
New York Post
2 minutes ago
- New York Post
Voting rights protected by the historic Voting Rights Act threatened as law has its 60th anniversary
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of the day President Lyndon Johnson made his way to the U.S. Capitol and, with Martin Luther King Jr. standing behind him, signed the Voting Rights Act into law. The act protected the right to vote and ensured the government would fight efforts to suppress it, especially those aimed at Black voters. For many Americans, it was the day U.S. democracy fully began. That was then. 7 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 60 years ago. AP The law has been slowly eroding for more than a decade, starting with the 2013 Supreme Court decision ending the requirement that all or parts of 15 states with a history of discrimination in voting get federal approval before changing the way they hold elections. Within hours of the ruling, some states that had been under the preclearance provision began announcing plans for stricter voting laws. Those changes have continued, especially since the 2020 presidential election and President Donald Trump's false claims that widespread fraud cost him reelection. The Supreme Court upheld a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2023, but in its upcoming term it's scheduled to hear a case that could roll back that decision and another that would effectively neuter the law. Voting rights experts say those cases will largely determine whether a landmark law passed during a turbulent era decades ago will have future anniversaries to mark. 'We're at a critical juncture right now,' said Demetria McCain, director of policy at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 'And, let's be clear, our democracy is only about to turn 60 when the Voting Rights Act anniversary gets here. I say that because there are so many attacks on voting rights, particularly as it relates to Black communities and communities of color.' Native Americans celebrate a win that could be temporary The reservation of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Canadian border, a region of forests, small lakes and vast prairie land. Its main highway is a mix of small houses, mobile homes and businesses. A gleaming casino and hotel stand out, not far from grazing bison. In 2024, the tribe and another in North Dakota, the Spirit Lake Tribe, formed a joint political district for the first time. They had filed a lawsuit arguing that the way lines were drawn for state legislative seats denied them the right to elect candidates of their choice. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Peter Welte agreed and put a new map in place. 7 The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and another tribe in North Dakota, the Spirit Lake Tribe, formed a joint political district for the first time in 2024. AP State Rep. Collette Brown ran for the legislature because she wanted to see more Native American representation, and she won under the new map. 'It felt surreal. I felt accomplished, I felt recognized,' said Brown, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and the Spirit Lake Tribe's Gaming Commission executive director. 'I felt, OK, it's time for us to really start making change and really start educating from within so that we're not silenced.' Brown, a Democrat, co-sponsored several bills on Native American issues that became law, including aid for repatriation of remains and artifacts and alerts for missing Indigenous people. 7 The future of the tribes' district is in the hands of the Supreme Court. AP This year's anniversary of the Voting Rights Act 'forces you to look at how far we've come,' from Native Americans to women, said Jamie Azure, chairman of the Turtle Mountain tribe. Now the future of their district is in the hands of the Supreme Court. Will individuals be allowed to file voting rights challenges? The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers North Dakota and six other states, overturned Welte's decision 2-1, saying the tribes and entities such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU do not have a right to sue over potential violations of voters' constitutional rights. That ruling expanded on an earlier 8th Circuit opinion out of Arkansas that rejected a different challenge on the same grounds. Late last month, a 3rd Circuit court panel ruled in a separate case out of Arkansas that only the U.S. attorney general can file such cases — not private individuals or groups. 7 The University of Michigan Law School Voting Rights Initiative found that since 1982 nearly 87% of claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act were from private individuals and organizations. AP Those decisions upended decades of precedent. The Supreme Court has stayed the ruling for the tribes while it decides whether it will take the North Dakota case. The University of Michigan Law School Voting Rights Initiative found that since 1982 nearly 87% of claims under that part of the Voting Rights Act, known as Section 2, were from private individuals and organizations. Leaving individuals without the ability to file challenges is especially troublesome now because the Justice Department under Trump, a Republican, seems focused on other priorities, said Sophia Lin Lakin, who heads the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! 7 Voters waiting in line to cast their ballots in Fort Defiance, Ariz., on Election Day in 2024. AP The government's voting rights unit has been dismantled and given new priorities that, she said, have turned enforcement 'against the very people it was created to protect.' The Justice Department declined to answer questions about its voting rights priorities, cases it is pursuing or whether it would be involved in the voting rights cases coming before the nation's highest court. Supreme Court weighs another case on race and congressional districts Two years ago, voting rights activists celebrated when the Supreme Court preserved Section 2 in a case out of Alabama that required the state to draw an addition congressional district to benefit Black voters. Now it's poised to rehear a similar case out of Louisiana that could modify or undo that decision. 7 The Justice Department declined to answer questions about its voting rights priorities, cases it is pursuing or whether it would be involved in the voting rights cases coming before the nation's highest court. AP The court heard the case in March but did not make a decision during the term. In an order on Friday, the court asked the lawyers to supply briefs explaining 'whether the State's intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.' Robert Weiner, the director of voting rights for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said while it is a 'matter of concern' that the court is asking the question, the fact the nine justices did not reach a decision during the last term suggests there weren't five votes already. 'They wouldn't need re-argument if the sides had already been chosen,' he said. Trump's Justice Department shifts focus on voting issues At a time when the remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act are under threat, the Justice Department has shifted its election-related priorities. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, it has dropped or withdrawn from several election- and voting-related cases. The department instead has focused on concerns of voter fraud raised by conservative activists following years of false claims surrounding elections. 7 Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department has dropped or withdrawn from several election- and voting-related cases. AP The department also has sent requests for voter registration information as well as data on election fraud and warnings of election violations to at least 19 states. In addition to the shift in focus at the Justice Department, federal legislation to protect voting rights has gone nowhere. Democrats have reintroduced the John Lewis voting rights bill, but it's legislation they failed to pass in 2022 when they held both houses of Congress and the White House and needed some Republican support in the Senate. Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order seeking to overhaul voting in the states, which includes a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal voting form, though much of it has been blocked in the courts. The GOP-controlled House passed a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. And gerrymandering state legislative and congressional districts remains prevalent. The slow chipping away at the 60-year-old law has created a nation with an unequal distribution of voting rights, said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights center at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Some states have been active in expanding access to voting while others have been focused on restricting the vote. 'The last five to 10 years,' he said, 'the experiences of voters increasingly depend on where they live.'
Chicago Tribune
2 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Stanford paper sues Trump administration over deportation fears
Stanford University's independent student newspaper sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, citing fears of deportation for noncitizen reporters at the Stanford Daily. Two of the Stanford Daily's writers, who are international students, say that they have refrained from reporting on campus protests, vigils and other events related to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza out of fears that their visas would be revoked. The students, who are not identified, say that creates a chilling effect on their free speech rights. 'Writers present on student visas are declining assignments related to the conflict in the Middle East, worried that even reporting on the conflict will endanger their lawful immigration status,' according to the lawsuit, filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in federal court in San Jose, California. The Departments of State and Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to requests to comment. The lawsuit challenges a section of immigration law that the government has said allows it to deport noncitizens if the Secretary of State determines them to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy. That's the same law that the government is using as it attempts to deport several students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, including Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. 'Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration are trying to turn the inalienable human right of free speech into a privilege contingent upon the whims of a federal bureaucrat, triggering deportation proceedings against noncitizens residing lawfully in this country for their protected political speech regarding American and Israeli foreign policy,' the complaint argues. The case is Stanford Daily v. Rubio, Case No. 25-cv-06618, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose). More stories like this are available on
