Transcript of journalist and senior media executive Richard Sergay’s interview with Casper ter Kuile for the “Stories of Impact” series.

Watch the video version of the interview.

Find the transcript from the interview with Reverend Sue Phillips, who is also featured in this video, here.

Richard Sergay (interviewer)

Casper ter Kuile (interviewee)

Intro: I’m Casper ter Kuile, one of the co-founders of Sacred Design Lab.

Q. Why did you start the Sacred Design Lab, the genesis?

I’ve been really interested in exploring this theme of more and more people becoming less and less traditionally religious. And really our first question was where are young people going to find meaning and connection if they’re not going to traditional churches or synagogues. And we noticed that more and more people were engaging in communities that were extensively secular, whether fitness communities, justice groups, art and creative groups. But when you looked closely, it actually looked quite religious in terms of what was happening there, people were getting married. And having funerals in these spaces, they were looking after one another through the biggest transitions of their lives. And so we started to look at really a, much less a decline of religion and more transformation of religion. Sacred Design Lab exists to support that transformation, and to find, essentially new ways of building the spiritual infrastructure of the future that supports people to, to be in those communities of belonging, meaning and purpose.

Q. What compelled you to pursue religious work?

I grew up in England without any sort of religious background. I think it’s about 6% of people who go to church on a Sunday in England. So it’s a very secular country in terms of its culture — a much more secular culture really than America, certainly. And I didn’t grow up with any religious background myself. But as I became older, and I was a climate activist as a young man, very involved in in mobilizing young people to get involved to combat climate change, I realized more and more that to shape the world in the way that I hoped to, it wasn’t enough to think about just policies or even politics. And it was much more important to think about the paradigm, how we understand ourselves to be in relationship with each other, and the world around us. And so as I was thinking about, well, who thinks about trying to shift culture at that deep level, you know, of course, you think about religion. And so I found myself, you know, at the time describing myself as a gay atheist coming into divinity school to study religion. And ended up really reframing my own life experience to see that so much of the, the most important moments in my life, the rituals that I grew up with, the strong community that I had around me, that those were too, kinds of religious, if seen through this different lens.

Q. What is soul-centered design, what do souls need to flourish?

We use this language of soul-centered design as a way to stimulate the imagination of the partners that we work with. So rather than centering the immediate kind of obvious needs of food, and shelter, and warmth, or even the immediate desires, that human-centered design often centers, we like to ask the big questions, to put at the heart of our inquiry and our design, things like belonging, and meaning-making, and finding purpose in life. So we’re putting those kind of big existential questions and human needs at the very center of what we’re designing for. And the way we express that is really in our three B’s. So we talk about belonging, becoming, and beyond. So the experience of being connected to the people around us and through history, the place in which we live, that experience of belonging, the, the process of becoming the kind of person that we want to be in the world, that sense of becoming, and then finally being connected to something bigger than ourselves, something beyond our immediate experience, which some people might use theological language for. We use language that hopefully works in all sorts of different contexts. But that’s what we talk about in terms of what the soul longs for, belonging, becoming, and beyond.

Q. Is this only for non-religious secular spaces?

What’s really interesting is that that language definitely is designed to work primarily in secular spaces. But when we’re working with religious partners, they’re so quickly able to translate that into a theological language that works for them. And honestly, I think it’s good practice, you know, if you’re working with, let’s say, a Methodist Foundation, or, or a Jewish institution, for them to be able to find or recognize language that works in a secular context, and then translate it back into a religious one. Because so often, when religious institutions try to speak out into the secular world, the first breakdown happens in the use of language, because people who don’t know what mission means or discipling, you know, those words just kind of sail over their heads and, and give a license to ignore the, the person who’s communicating them.

Q. What is religion, and what has religion been historically good at?

What is religion? That is a good question. And it’s one that’s very contested, you know, by scholars and practitioners, particularly because in the West, so much of our imagination of what religion means is shaped by its Protestant history. And so when you ask someone in the United States, are you religious, very often that’s interpreted as, do you believe in God? That’s the central question. You know, do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? But when you look beyond Christianity, certainly even beyond Protestantism, religion is much more about what you do than what you believe. Do you venerate elders? Do you offer sacrifices? Do you keep the Sabbath? Do you eat kosher, right, there’s so much that’s focused on the practices, not just or not even, the beliefs. So when we think about what is religion, it depends who you ask. I’m always really interested in the practices, because I think it gives us a way in to religious life that, that doesn’t have to immediately bring up all the barriers that so many of the people that I care about in terms of this unaffiliated group, so many of the barriers that they would have. Traditionally, religion has been good, very good, at identity formation, or giving a rhythm of life, of creating norms and values. And of course, that has also come with, with real pain points, when you fall outside of those norms, and outside of those ascribed values. And so again, you know, as a gay man, I’m very grateful for the breakdown of some of those boundaries, because it has led to the liberation of many, many people. But I think we’ve kind of swung the pendulum perhaps all the way to the other end of the spectrum, where we’re now finding ourselves without a shared reference point of what is right and wrong of what is true and false, and looking maybe towards these religious traditions as having resources to help us build cultures of human flourishing.

Q. What are some elements of religious life that become iconic in your mind?

I’m really passionate about practice of Sabbath. I think one of the pain points in modern life, you know, for the average knowledge worker out there, is the sense that work never stops, right. Certainly, since the advent of email and smartphones, the physical boundaries of where work happens have been completely eradicated. And so if we look to religious tradition, there’s so much to say about how we structure time, that there is a time for work and a time for rest. A time for feasting and a time for fasting. And, and, you know, a world of work now where, you know, it never ends. The boss is not going to tell you when to take time off, right. It’s on us. And I think that kind of interruption of work is something that religious traditions can offer us.

I’m really passionate about time, and thinking about religious time is a resource to kind of interrupt the, the ongoing flow of work that never ends. You know, you’re not going to have the boss tell you when to put down the project, we need something else to help us know when it’s time to stop.

Q. And you actually celebrate it in what’s called a technology Shabbat?

Yeah, I love the tech Sabbath. It is not my idea, I want to be very clear about that. But it’s, it’s one I’ve inherited and found great joy in. And so, not being Jewish myself, the way I practice the tech Shabbat, or the tech Sabbath is on, you know, Friday, as dusk comes, I turn off my phone, I turn off my laptop, actually hide them behind me in this bookshelf, so I don’t see them and get tempted. And then I light a little candle and sing a song that I grew up singing in summer camp. And it feels like kind of crossing the bridge into this time of rest, into this different type of time. And it’s been a practice now for about seven years for me and one that’s really given structure to the week. And I think you know, these digital detoxes or these summer camps where no technology is allowed, you’re seeing more and more of this theme of people trying to find the right relationship with the technology that they depend on and are grateful for, so much of the rest of the time, but also feel indentured to or controlled by if we don’t find some way to create that pause.

Q. The science, social rituals and exercises, but this would be a good example of one?

Absolutely. Yeah. I’m, I should hasten to add, I’m not an expert on the science of these things. But I’ll trust you to edit that as you, as you will, Richard. Yes, I think there’s a lot of evidence that’s growing around the value certainly of pausing. And I think the conversation around well-being is one that’s just growing. And this is a, this is a practice that absolutely came out of a religious context, but it’s being practiced now far beyond it. So this is a practice that although it came from a religious kind of origin point is now being practiced far beyond in a secular context.

Q. What value do you think religion and tradition bring to the 21st century? People in the contemporary world are hungry for things that they turn to religion and tradition to find?

I think there’s a lot that religion brings to the 21st century, even for people who are, you know, not traditionally religious, there’s so much in our culture that suggests that the only things that are worth doing are earning money or being famous, or, you know, having, having a major following on social media. And I think that religious wisdom centers a whole different set of principles about what matters most. And, you know, suggesting that the care for those least among us, committing to something and sticking with it, even though it’s challenging, being faithful and looking after our neighbors, that there’s so much I think that speaks to this moment, and also interrupts, you know, that the dominance of a capitalist paradigm that says there was never enough. I think a lot of religious traditions say, you know, pay attention to this moment, this, this experience is good enough. So that’s on the side of the, the kind of the wisdom and the principles, but the practices of religious traditions also, I think, transcend time. So even though you might not be practicing a particular ritual in the way that would be recognizable 500 years ago, the way that that tradition, the way that that tradition can live and change, and adapt, I think is really exciting. You know, a good tradition is not something that’s static, that always is the same, but it’s one that can actually travel through time, and adapt to different contexts and historical moments. And that’s what’s happening right now, too.

Q. How do religious traditions innovate? Or are they innovative?

Every religious tradition was once an innovation. So we need to kind of set the foundations that, that there was nothing that was eternal, at least not in my kind of theological outlook. Religious traditions don’t travel through time in pneumatic tubes, they are always encountering difference or regional variation. You know, if you look at the early Christian church, you had very, very different theologies, practices, ways of gathering. And that is true across the world too, now, in various different traditions, you’re gonna see that multiplicity, you’re gonna see that difference. And in a way, that’s a sign of a healthy religious tradition, I think. So the way that they innovate is by encountering new contexts. And one of those new contexts today is the rapidly changing pace of technology. So, you know, you and I are speaking not face-to-face in the same room, but using a technology that allows us to feel very close to one another from far away. Well, obviously, that’s going to mean that there’s going to be differences in how people connect religiously and spiritually too. So whether that’s the use of apps to help people meditate, whether it’s the use of virtual reality in which people maybe make sense of, of spiritual experiences or visions that they’ve had, you know, there’s an entire new language of downloading and uploading, you know, all of these kind of mechanistic or technological frames that we use to make sense of our experience. That’s how religious traditions innovate. Now, not every innovation is going to be good or is going to stay. But I think that’s that encounter between a different context and a way in which it was done before. That’s how new things develop.

Q. Talk about the trend of religion declining and perhaps transforming. It’s no longer place based. It’s no longer Sunday based?

Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen a really drastic decline in the traditional indicators of religious belonging. So when, you know, for example, Pew, a major polling institution asks people, look at these boxes and tell me which religion are you, there’s a

really rapidly growing number of people, especially young people who say, none of the above, you know, none of these labels apply to me. And we’re also seeing that in other metrics, like how many people attend a congregation. So in this last year, we saw for the first time the number of Americans who said that they attend a congregation regularly dip below 50%. So those kind of metrics are really telling a story about people stepping away from institutional religion. However, it is wrong to say that they are leaving behind religion and spirituality altogether. Because you still have incredibly high numbers of people saying, I still believe in God or a higher power, you know, one in five people who don’t identify as anything religious, still pray every day. So what you’re seeing is really a sort of changing, or transformation in how people understand what religion is, and who gets to define what it is, right. One of the central themes in this rapid decline of institutional affiliation, is the move from authority being set in an individual, whether it’s the Pope, or the bishop, or the local pastor or rabbi, towards a more internal kind of guided sense of what is religious, what is right and wrong, what, what counts as spiritual and what doesn’t. So I’m really hesitant to say that we’re in a classic decline, I really think of it as a changing or a transformation— I really think of it as a changing or transforming picture.

Q. Is there a geography around declining membership around the world, is a global issue?

So my work really focuses on the United States, but you can absolutely see similar patterns. In Western Europe, certainly, the decline is ahead of America, you know, the US is actually remarkably religious compared to other Western countries. In other places, you’re seeing a transformation of a different sort. So for example, in China, after the Cultural Revolution, there was a real stamping out of overt religiosity, and now you’re seeing an increase in Christian— we’re now seeing an increase in Christianity, for example. However, again, it define— again, it depends how you define religion. So if you’re looking at it from a very Christian lens, you’re going to see a pattern of increased religiosity in China. But if you’re coming from a different perspective, looking at the tradition of Confucianism, for example, you’re going to actually see a story of continuity. In Africa, the story is again, different. A move from various different folk religions as sociologists can call them, towards joining in Christian or Muslim identity, for example, so you can see an increase. In Latin America, it’s a move away from Catholicism towards Pentecostalism. So I guess the only thing you can say is that it’s changing everywhere.

Q. Can we call this a religious decline? And if so, what does society lose?

I think we can certainly say there’s an institutional religious decline. And so what you are definitely losing is, you know, basic things like the buildings across the United States. You know, on average, it’s been estimated that three and a half thousand churches close in the United States every year, so a lot of that physical infrastructure, the places where people gather and meet and find fellowship, those are declining. But on the other hand, you’re seeing, you know, certain mega churches that are growing, you’re seeing online communities that are growing, you’re seeing people engage with, with their faith, or with spirituality and religion in other ways. So yes, you’re seeing a decline in, in those buildings. I think the other thing that we’ve certainly started to lose is a common language or a common reference point about what is expected. You know, if you go back even 50 years in the United States, a common question, wherever you lived would be, well, you know, what church do you go to? And the assumption that that would mean something, that’s still true in certain places in the United States, but you certainly can’t assume that everyone has some sort of religion. So in some ways, the numbers where we saw that rapid increase of people saying that they’re unaffiliated, really lags behind the true behavior. At some point 20 years ago, it just became okay to say, actually, I’m not religious, without it meaning that you were immoral or somehow, somehow not worthy of standing in society.

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Q. This sense of religious decline, does that mean a loss of a belief or faith in God?

That’s more complicated. Um, I think suddenly there was a small decrease in the number of people who say they believe in God, certainly there is a decrease if you define that God in a very traditional sense of, you know, Father, Son, Holy Ghost in a Christian context. I think what, what is much more resistant to decline, certainly in the United States, is this sense of something larger than oneself. Now, people might use different language, they might talk about spirit, or they might talk about, you know, something, something beyond, something bigger, something more. But that sense of, of a spiritual element to life is remarkably resistant to the institutional religious decline.

Q. What is spirituality and how does it differ from religion? Or do they overlap?

I think if you ask the average person on the street, the answer they would give is that, religion belongs to the institution and spirituality belongs to me. I think that’s a gross simplification of what we actually mean. But that’s how people talk about it. The overlap is certainly present. You know, you might talk about religion as being anchored

in the communal practices, whether that’s tithing, whether that’s observing certain religious laws around diet or time, for example, about services that you attend. And spirituality can often point towards more of the personal experiences that people have, the meaning they make, from suffering, or the most joyful moments in their life, the sense of ever present connection between all living things. That’s why you see that word spirituality used more. I think the key thing is that people feel that they have agency when they’re talking about spirituality in a way that they don’t when they’re talking about religion.

Q. Does that mean, in this dichotomy between spirituality and religion, that the sense of community is changing too?

One of the big losses that we’re seeing, you know, as people step away from religious institutions, is, of course, the communal belonging, the membership of those congregations.

Definitely one of the things that we see changing is the interaction between community, and the experience of belonging to a congregation as these institutions decline. And as people move their spiritual life towards one that is more, a choose your own adventure, rather than something that’s a prescribed path, you are seeing, you know, certainly, a lack of social connections around that spirituality. So rather than being a member of a congregation, there’s a sense that I’m going to, you know, rely on going to see my tarot card reader or I listen to this kind of music, or I’m going to choose what to go to, what to participate in. And I’m the central figure in each of those places, right, I’m the prime, the mediator. And so as we’ve seen a decline in religious membership, we’ve seen an increase in loneliness and the experience of social isolation. Now those two are correlated, I can’t point to causation. But definitely, in my experience, and in our analysis, the two are connected. You know, as people find a way for themselves to make meaning out of their life, they have fewer and fewer relationships with people who share that, who share the language, who share the reference points. And so it feels sort of cosmically lonely in a way, because you don’t have that community of shared experience.

Q. Where are people going? What’s driving them to seek something else? Why do you think many in a younger generation steer away from religious institutions?

There’s a whole host of reasons why young people stay away from religious institutions, and I should say, many of them are about reputation rather than reality. So when I speak, you know, in terms of religion having a bad brand, it’s because religious leaders are seen as, you know, hypocrites, that they, that they advocate for one thing of helping the poor, but the Catholic Church has a $93.2 billion endowment. They, they look at the sexual abuse and the, you know, the stance against women and gays, for example. So that there’s all sorts of reasons why, certainly Christian institutions really struggle to share a message that resonates with younger people. Where they’re going instead is really interesting. Because when you ask people, you know, are you looking for a replacement to a religious congregation? They will absolutely say no, but when you look at what behaviors happening in fitness communities, you know, in places where people are expressing themselves creatively, or they’re working through major questions about life transitions and whether, you know, whether to have children or how do I navigate this career change, or, you know, fundamentally engaging in questions of justice around Black Lives Matter or climate change. When you spend time looking at what happens in those communities, what you start to see a very spiritual and religious activities. You know, the Black Lives Matter protests were primarily characterized as a political movement. But they were deeply spiritual, too. There were ancestral ceremonies, there were, of course, memorials for people who’ve been killed by the police. So there was a spiritual language, even in the way that activists leaders were talking about what they were doing and why it was important. If you look at fitness communities, that’s where you see a lot of the kind of practical congregational support relationships that you’re used to seeing in a congregation. If someone is sick, people are bringing food and making sure you know, their dog gets taken out for a walk. If someone’s going on vacation, they’ll, they’ll let the people in the gym know, because then they’re not going to show up on Thursday and Friday, as they usually do. So you start to see those small behaviors, but also big ones, when someone is diagnosed with breast cancer, they’re going to fundraise to support this person’s health and recovery journey. And, you know, we’ve even seen stories of people getting married and hosting funerals and Shivas, inside a CrossFit box, inside a gym, because that is the central place of meaning and belonging for folks who are really involved.

Q. If you’re an instructor, does that translate to essentially being a clerk or a chaplain or clergyman or Rabbi?

Well, this is where it gets really interesting. No one signed up to be a pastoral leader, when they went through that gym, you know, training process. And in fact, looking at CrossFit, which is a case study we’ve spent a lot of time with, you know, there’s a real emphasis on being good at functional fitness and some, you know, basic business owner skills. But there’s very, very little training on how to befriend and accompany people in the way that a lot of these trainers end up doing. And so one of our big challenges to these new secular communities is to say, Hey, you know, you think you’re doing this job, but you’re also doing this job. And sometimes for those leaders, that can feel like a real challenge, like, I didn’t realize I also had to navigate these boundaries, you know, you have plenty of stories of coaches who sleep with that clients, that’s never good practice. But in a postural relationship, it’s really bad news. But in other cases, when people have that frame of reference of, actually, I’m more than just a small business owner, I’m more than a nonprofit leader, it feels like a relief, because finally they have, finally they have— (NOISE) finally, they have a frame of reference that makes sense to the enormity of the situations that they find themselves in. When someone commits suicide, they’re the ones who were speaking with their family, and organizing the memorial, right, that that’s not something that they were trained for when they went through their accounting program. And so to have this resource of kind of pastoral or rabbinic skills, it’s enormously affirming for the experience that they’re having, that they’re being much more than just a fitness coach, or, or a creative leader in the community.

Q. So are we looking at the secularization of religion in Western society?

Well, I think the boundaries between secular and sacred are becoming increasingly meaningless. I think you’re seeing secular culture travel into religious places, and you’re seeing religious and spirituality. And you’re seeing religion and spirituality travel into these secular places. And so, you know, the workplace is a good example, very traditional secular space, that now for many people, offers meditation and yoga classes. It offers opportunities to reflect on who do I want to become and how is this job part of that lifelong exploration of who I am. Those are big, I think, at least theological questions in some way. But you now have life coaches who help people explore that in the workplace. So it’s more about the fuzziness of the boundaries rather than the decline or the increase of the other.

Q. Some critics have said workplaces are essentially trying to exploit individual labor by keeping them on campus and giving them yoga and meditation, and trying to meet their spiritual needs, because they want them to work harder?

There’s certainly a multitude of reasons why we’re seeing things like meditation and yoga show up in the workplace. I think it’s not wrong to point to the benefit for the corporation that people can hang around more and feel more connected to the company, that’s certainly one. But I think you also see genuine care from people within these larger companies, for their employees, or at least trying to resource them to make it through a challenging moment. You know, we spoke recently with a senior head of wellbeing at a financial firm, who was trying to find resources from different religious traditions that were responding to the experience of racial trauma. Now, there was someone who genuinely was trying to find something that would help people make it through the experience of suffering. So I think as ever, in these situations, it isn’t an easy yes or no, it’s a more complicated both-and, but from our perspective, you know, looking at this trend at a meta level, what’s interesting is that the workplace is becoming a sort of distribution center for religious wisdom and practice, in a way that you would never have expected to see in a more congregational era.

Q. And that’s because?

And it’s because that’s where people are, you know, that they’re at work. We’re spending, certainly in the kind of white collar jobs, spending more and more hours at work, or involved with work. And certainly for my generation, the kind of millennials, that was a real sense that work was the place in which you found meaning, purpose, and community. And so younger people are showing up at the office with the expectation that that’s going to be part of their work experience. And so, you’re finding more senior leaders, often who are older, struggle to kind of catch up and figure out well, what actually do we want to offer, and what do we not. Because it comes, you know, more offerings come with more responsibilities then, to hold what you’re inviting from people. If you’re going to ask people to share what’s really going on for them, you have to be ready to deal with what they tell you.

Q. So these spiritual needs are being met in a very different way today than yesterday? I think that the spiritual needs, especially the way that we talk about them of belonging, becoming and beyond, you know, those are being met far beyond traditional religious structures. In communities that are self-created, but also other institutions like the workplace.

Q. Talk about spiritual exercises and rituals for well-being and human flourishing?

So the way that we think about rituals and spiritual exercises are really the practices that religious traditions have given us. So whether it’s about eating a certain food and not eating another, whether it’s about keeping certain patterns of time in our lives, whether it’s about traveling to certain places, at certain times, like a pilgrimage, each of these practices, often embody both theological beliefs, and also bring people together in certain types of relationships, so that the practices themselves make up the kind of landscape of religious life. What’s happening in this moment, more and more, is that people are unbundling particular practices out of the rest of the context of religion. So a really obvious example that we’re all familiar with at this point is meditation, which, you know, gained the kind of secular language by being used in healthcare settings, as a way to help people experiencing stress, for example. So now, it’s really quite normal to see even in a reality TV show, after someone’s had an argument, they’re sitting there doing some meditation, because that’s the way that they’ve learned to cope with anxiety or stress, even if they could never tell you, you know, what are the noble truths of Buddhism or what is the Eightfold Path. And so that practice has really been taken out of its original context. I think we’re seeing more and more of that, that there’s looking at individual practices that have immediate benefits for the practitioner without really looking at the broader context of the religious tradition that it comes from.

Q. Other examples; yoga, Pilates, CrossFit?

Yeah, there’s many examples, yoga would be another really good one, of course, coming out of a Hindu context. I mean, even things like Shabbat, Sabbath, coming from a Jewish context. Or, you know, there might even be points in which the travel industry is talking to— Or you might point to the travel industry, talking about pilgrimage as a way of creating a sort of meaningful journey. So people choosing their own point of pilgrimage for example, rather than a traditional religious site, and making a journey that is around maybe exploring their own ancestral lineage or visiting a place that was important to them as a young person. So I think you’re going to see more and more of these practices kind of be unbundled and offered to practitioners. Or you could even say consumers in a way that definitely brings up a lot of ethical questions.

Q. Millennials, in particular, are picking and choosing what would have been a complete religious experience, but are singling out things that are meaningful to them?

Yeah. So if you think about how we, how we really imagine religious traditions working, there’s sort of a river. And in that river, you’re getting all sorts of different offerings that come as a bundle. So you might expect to go to Sunday school, if you grow up Catholic, and you go to Mass, and that’s where you get married, and you meet with the priest. And, you know, if you, if you feel like you need to be absolved of something, you go to confession, and all of that comes within the Catholic tradition. The certain feast days that you celebrate, you’re home for Christmas. Now, what happens if you grew up Catholic, but your partner grew up Jewish, for example, grew up Hindu. Your household is going to have both traditions and festivals from the Catholic context, and from the Hindu one. And maybe at this point, as you’ve grown older, you’ve lost your traditional faith a little bit, and you still enjoy Christmas and you enjoy, you know, celebrating other things. But actually, the place where you really feel connected to something bigger than yourself, is birdwatching. And so what you start to see as that kind of picture emerges, is people putting together the things that mean the most to them in their own bundle, so that they’re drawing maybe something from Hinduism, they’re drawing something from Catholicism, and then they’re adding a practice that’s particularly important to them and their family. Now, imagine you’re growing up in that family, and suddenly, you’re growing up with these multiple references. But now you’re, you know, your best friend is Jewish, and you end up going to their house for Shabbat every weekend. Well, you’re ending up with this wonderfully mixed and interesting picture where any one belonging is insufficient to describe the fullness of who you are. And that’s one of the real experiences or a real pain point that a lot of individuals feel is that, okay, well, maybe I’d like to join this church. But I can’t be my weirdly mixed Hindu Jewish Christian self in this space, or I don’t accept all of the precepts of this tradition, and so I can’t really participate in it, even if I like elements of it. So that’s what, why we use this image of an iPhone because you’re, you’re downloading the apps that are relevant for you. That’s not to say that everyone’s kind of going shopping and buying the best of what’s out there, so much of this comes from your own experience, what you were raised with where you grew up, maybe the year abroad that you spent somewhere, or that the movie that you love inspired you to do something. So people are finding from within a limited set of sources, the things that make sense for them. What I want to be really clear about is that often that doesn’t actually meet all of their needs. Because the more that you personalize, the less that you share. And so one of the real challenges is, as people are creating their own personal, remixed and unbundled set of apps, as it were, you know, where are you finding community in that. Or are you just ending up in a pretty isolated experience, because no one else has exactly the same mix as you do.

Q. How do you square the circle of people picking all these on bundled apps, so to speak, but loneliness at the same time is going on?

Well, as we’re seeing that, as we’re seeing the increase in social isolation and loneliness, and this decrease of affiliation, as people, you know, mix their own lives more and more spiritually, that’s the big design question for us, is how do you then build for relationships, if people don’t share the same practices, the same identity or even the same language, let alone the same geography. What are going to be the things that

hold us together in some form of spiritual community if it’s not going to be the same foundations that religious traditions have depended on in the past. There’s different answers to that question. I think people are experimenting with that. But that is one of the major questions for our time.

Q. Is there a science of spiritual exercises and rituals? And if so, is it looking at things like health? The science of spiritual exercises and talk a little bit about that? The domain it would fall in?

There’s a growing interest from scientists to understand what is human flourishing, and how do we get there. So you’re seeing more and more studies looking at well-being, at the impacts of spiritual practices on health, for example, a sense of meaning, sense of connection, as well as a whole bunch of physical indicators that point to yet a more flourishing life. And so it’s exciting to see this, this new interest, and a whole new set of data that oftentimes I don’t want to over characterize, but oftentimes points to the wisdom of why these traditions have endured. So you know, if there’s a practice, that’s a couple of hundred, if not thousand years old, now we have the science to prove about why it’s effective.

Q. So examples would be?

Well, I don’t want to speak too much beyond, I’m really not that close to the science, but I can speak in general generalities. So, for example, there’s a whole bunch of work looking at why rituals are effective at helping people feel a sense of control in their life or a sense of rhythm. So if you come back to a practice time and time and again, it helps relieve anxiety and stress, for example. Or if you’re looking at—

Q. Ritual-like meditation or yoga, things like that, and trying to understand the science behind it?

Yes, that’s right. That’s right.

Q. Explain that to me?

So individual practices, and that can be everything from meditation or mindfulness practice, but even things that you know, like communal singing or dancing, you know, these, these practices have helped people feel an experience of calm, of belonging, or a sense of being at home in the world. And scientists are increasingly interested in why is that the case. Now, that’s not always easy. It’s much easier to look at, you know, a set of indicators for one person as they meditate rather than 30 people as they dance and sing around a fire. But those are the kind of questions that scientists are asking. And I’m very excited about that as a new resource to point to how these practices can be most effective.

Q. So understanding science and spirituality, spiritual experiences, spiritual rituals, impact on the brain, health, attitude, the human experience?

Absolutely, yes, you’re seeing, do you want me to essentially say back what you just said, Richard?

Q. If it’s accurate…

Well, I really don’t work closely with the science. So that that’s, that’s why you’re seeing me hesitate. But I’m glad, that I can definitely stand behind. So we’re seeing a whole new set of data emerge that point to the impact of the spiritual practices on our brains, on our health, as well as on the quality of our relationships with one another. So what will be interesting is to see, do we see an increased kind of sense of scientific language to describe the value of these spiritual practices, not just in the scientific realm, but also amongst practitioners themselves.

Q. Define what community means, why it’s important, and how do you make sure that it’s just not about me, the individual, there’s more at stake here in terms of building community?

There’s a danger when we’re asking these questions about the science of spiritual exercises to look only at the Individual. One of the things I’m really passionate about is that we’re always looking at the sociality of these practices. Even if I’m practicing meditation alone, I’m probably part of a community of practice. So I know that there are others who share that practice with me. And we need to look closely at those community relationships. Community can be defined many ways, I mean, most simply, perhaps it's being part of a group of people who know who I am and care about my well-being. And if you’re, if you’re not looking at how community shows up in these practices, I think we’re probably missing a large part of what they’re about. So many of the best practices in religious traditions are actually social practices, again, singing, dancing, but even the passing of the peace or the sharing of communion, they’re sitting around a table celebrating Shabbat, in some traditions, there are even, you know, principles that demand community, if you think about the Jewish minion, where you have to have at least 10 others to perform certain prayers or rituals, you know that, that element of being together is built into why these religious traditions work and how they’ve been passed down. And so we have to take that into account, even if it’s really, really difficult to do so in the scientific study of these practices.

Q. What role do you think, both on the spiritual side and on the religious side that these exercises play in current life? And are they changing?

You know, a lot of these practices that existed in communities, although they might have been practiced, because of the experience of them felt good, a lot of it was about obligation, you know, it was the risk of not performing these rituals, that was too big. And so the participation in them was a means to remain in belonging in the in group, I think that paradigm is really shifting, certainly in more progressive spheres. And what you’re seeing instead is an orientation towards these practices as tools, or practices that help individual flourishing, that help your sense of well-being. And so it becomes a very different set of criteria of why is this valuable. That it’s less about maintaining membership of a community, and it’s more about do I feel better. Now, that’s fine. I think in some ways, where I get a little worried about it, is if you’re looking for the immediate high after practicing something. Because a lot of these spiritual practices, you know, are not there for you to feel good straightaway, right. Going to confession or admitting your shortcomings in the moment feels pretty awful, because you’re confronted with the limitations of who you are, and how you live. But over time, there can be a great sense of release or forgiveness, for example. But even something as simple and widespread as mindfulness meditation, you know, sometimes you come up really close to that horrible thing you said to your partner, or, or the way that you’re actually really sad at the moment. And paying attention to the present moment isn’t some sort of fast track to happiness all of the time. But it is about a discipline of cultivating the virtues that over a lifetime, end up being meaningful and full of integrity.

Q. Talking about those virtues for a moment that one would find in a traditional religious setting, grace or love, or friendship. How does that translate into the more secular spiritual space?

It’s really interesting to see which traditional religious virtues find an easy home in our contemporary culture and which ones are really challenging. So for example, you might think about gratitude as one that really does travel well, you know, there’s uncounting, there’s an uncountable number of gratitude journals out there, there are apps that prompt reflection and gratitude, you have more and more families integrating, you know, what is what is something that you’re grateful for at the end of every family meal. But then there are other values, you know, maybe something like humility, or something like chastity, which find a much, much harder kind of secular contemporary equivalent. Where we live in a culture that’s so much focused on public success and, and the number of followers that you have on social media. And so I think some of those values and virtues from religious tradition, struggle to find a home even linguistically in, in our dominant culture. That’s not to say that they’re any less worthy but it certainly means that they’re less visible.

Q. We’re living in an increasingly polarized and political world. Talk to me for a moment about how spirituality and ritual and exercise could help bridge some of this, or maybe it doesn’t at all.

Well, it’s often said that politics is religion without the transcendence. And I think some of what you used to maybe be able to find in religious identity in the kind of the strong, total way in which religious identity gave people a sense of place in the world, you’re now seeing that more and more with, with politics. And without a shared religious narrative, or a common set of, kind of, and without a common set of principles or ideals to point to, you really lack a common foundation underneath political difference. And so if you’re living in a secular world without any sense of transcendence, or something bigger than ourselves, or bigger than this moment, those political differences don’t just become disagreements on policy, but they become, you know, foundational differences that make me right and you wrong. And it’s very difficult to find a way back from that if there isn’t something that still holds that political identity within something else. So I think it’s a real, you know, civic question now if what is something bigger than our political differences that can hold us together. Because at the moment, there is not something that’s doing that job.

Q. Polarization, at least in the US, if not the West, seems to grow exponentially. Is there a way of bridging this gap or divide?

I mean I, one thing that I would make sure to do is to point to the way in which religious institutions contributed to that polarization. One of the major points in which people who are maybe not actively participating in a congregation decided to say, I don’t want to be recognized as Christian, was during the 1990s, when you had the kind of the nasty 90s of the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family, these evangelical organizations that polarized religion and weaponized faith in a way that made people feel not welcome in the very institutions that could have played a role…

(CUT) … role in bringing people together. So I don’t want to be naive about the ways in which religious institutions have to own some of the culpability for the situation that we’re in. But on the other hand, of course, there are moments of incredible accompaniment, even despite differences that you see in religious institutions. You know, I remember visiting a Presbyterian congregation where one woman stood up and said, you know, I’m leaving— I’m leading this campaign around public housing, you know, please join me after the service and sign this petition. And the woman sitting right next to her said, and I stood up afterwards and said, I’m leading the campaign to oppose this, come see me after the congregation, a congregational meeting. And so you know, that there are those moments where, where people can, can be siblings in faith, even despite those political differences. We’re certainly seeing fewer and fewer of those institutions where people can encounter one another across those differences, right, the— the, the filter bubble effect is true, both in our physical geography, but also in our online activity, where, whether it’s through the way in which we receive news, the way in which the algorithms of social media work, we’re fed, the things that we already agree with, and that kind of personal spiritual journey is much less able to confront us with difference than, than a traditional congregation might.

Q. Confront us and perhaps take us to acceptance or difference?

Yes, I mean, yes. Yes.

Q. Religious traditions have built up a ritual repository of teaching text, images, that are full of meaning that can add ritually to people’s religious and spiritual practice. When people leave that behind and take just spiritual practices, where do they find that content that’s rich in meaning? Do they have to start from scratch?

So one of the things that’s definitely true is that for someone who grew up with something, and even if they don’t participate in that religious tradition, today, a lot of the symbols and stories are still full of meaning for them. Now, that meaning may not all

be positive, but it’s not as if that suddenly comes to an end, you know, when someone says, Okay, I’m no longer Christian, for example, I’m secular, I’m nothing of the above in terms of a list of identities. Um, you know, many people will still say, Well, you know, I don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God, but he was clearly a good man, had a lot of good things to say, you know, that’s, that’s kind of a classic example of what someone might think. So it’s not that these stories disappear, or, or that these practices disappear, it’s just that they don’t fall under the same kind of category of activity as they did when that person was part of a religious community. So that’s why I’m so interested in how things transform, because you’re not left with nothing, you’re actually being given a whole set of resources to work with and to reinterpret, and to, to redesign as it were, into ways in which people do feel a connection. So it might be that people take up a new ritual. And so you know, they go out and go fly fishing alone for a weekend, over Easter every year or that you know, that they find some new creative way to do it. Certainly, that doesn’t happen. I think just as often as people find something new. It’s just this kind of absence that sits there. And there’s a sense of absence, there’s a sense of well I, I miss parts of church. But it’s, it’s, it’s going to cost me too much to go back. Right. There’s too much that I don’t want to accept the things that I do want. And so we’ve talked about this experience of nearly sort of spiritual homelessness, that it’s not that people don’t want something. Let me say that differently. It’s not that people don’t have longing, they do. It’s just that what they’re longing for doesn’t quite exist yet.

Q. Fly fishing, you just used as an example. Can I say that could be a religious experience or spiritual exercise?

I certainly don’t have a view that everyone will agree with. But I absolutely think it could be a spiritual practice. You know, for me, what makes something a practice is the intention that you bring to it, the quality of, the quality of attention that you have while you’re practicing it, and then a sense of repetition over time, that you’re coming back to this practice time and a— my goodness. And the repetition over time, a sense that you’re coming back to this practice again and again. You know, whether it’s how you eat something or how you spend your time or a physical activity or the way in which you engage in a conversation, you know, each of, each of those things can be… that was very, very bad. Let me say that again.

So whether it’s fly fishing or rewatching your favorite movie, or taking a walk with your partner at the end of every day, snuggling the kids before bedtime, you know, the way that I think about this, each of those things can be spiritual practices if we bring that kind of intentionality to it.

(MOTOR NOISE)

So whether it’s fly fishing, or rewatching your favorite movie, or listening to your favorite piece of music, or you know, going for an evening walk with your partner at the end of the day, each of those things, I think, with the right intentionality can become a spiritual practice.

Q. The spiritual infrastructure of the future?

We think about the spiritual infrastructure of the future as the distribution mechanisms that help people find meaning, connection and purpose. Yes, I was just, I said those three words differently than I usually do. Meaning, connection and purpose. And one of the things that we know is that currently that the distribution model that we have, which is mostly in the United States congregations, is in decline. So then, the question is, what will replace it? We know that the new technologies that we have at our disposal are absolutely going to be one of those. And it’s not just a live streaming of a service that’s filmed in a church, it’s an entirely different way in which people are going to experience transcendence, right. It’s going to be the apps that we use to learn how to meditate, it’s going to be, maybe the place based service, or volunteer projects that people are connected to, that maybe don’t identify within a religious tradition, but feel part of a set of spiritual commitments and the integrity that we want to have about serving our neighbors. It might look like the workplace being the, the center where we encounter how to practice good communication, and to seek forgiveness and to find ways of repairing relationships in a way that maybe again, you used to find in a congregation. So kind of zooming out of those specifics, what we’re really interested in is how are people going to find that experience of community, meaning making and connecting with something bigger than themselves, that you use to find in a congregation.

Q. Has the pandemic accelerated this move away from traditional institutions like religion, or spirituality?

The impact of the pandemic has been remarkable. It has absolutely sped up some of these trends. Notably, of course, congregational attendance. And what was most interesting to us was that in those early months of the pandemic, you saw enormous numbers of people flocked to virtual services. People were hungry to make meaning of this massive interruption of everyday life. They were looking for guidance, they were looking for wisdom. But as the pandemic dragged on, you know, those numbers went back to where they were, and I’m afraid to say have, have gone even further down. Even though the numbers of people who are showing up at online kind of congregational meetings have become much more dispersed geographically. So a congregation in Cincinnati might now have three people calling in from Thailand every Sunday because they found themselves to be connecting in a really interesting way. So again, we’re seeing the impact of the pandemic speed up some of the patterns that we were seeing before, but also complicate those patterns by bringing new people in who didn’t fit into the model that existed before.

Q. And what’s the impact on spirituality?

On the other side of things, when we’re thinking about people’s own kind of spiritual experience, I think it’s been a mixed bag. You know, I think one of the things that people definitely experienced is a radical shifting of relationships, a focus on the people who were most important, you know, the advent of the weekly Zoom family call is something that we now have because of the pandemic. But also the noticing of the absence of those kind of peripheral relationships. And that sense of belonging that we experienced when we see the same people at the cafe or at the train station, or on the bus, that sense of belonging to a place because you can recognize some of the faces. Even if you’re not actually in a close relationship. So I think relationships were really impacted, but also our rhythm of life. That sense of how we feel at home in time was really disrupted, certainly earlier on, when, you know, one day felt very much like the other. And so people needing to find new rituals that gave them a sense of, okay, the workday is over, because I go on this little walk around my neighborhood, or the weekend is different, because I wear a different pair of sweat pants. So trying to find ways in which to, to mark difference in time as well.

Q. How has the internet changed the sense of religious tradition and spirituality?

The, the arrival of the internet is, I think, the most important factor in why we’re seeing these major changes. The internet, I think, is maybe the most important factor in why we’re seeing these drastic changes, not because people are using necessarily the internet to access an app, for example, but it’s really more about how we assume that authority works, how do we understand the world. So you know, someone my age is much more likely to look at the peer reviews of a product on Amazon, for example, then an experts review, because they’re going to trust the wisdom of the crowd. And so, if you’re working in an institution, which puts, you know, the ultimate decision in one person who’s at top of a triangular hierarchy, that is entirely opposed to the way in which, you know, someone my age is expecting to engage the world, because you’re looking for the wisdom of the crowd. So what has authority has totally changed because of the internet.

Q. Are you worried about the loss of religious traditions, people seeking spirituality in other places? Or not?

Because I didn’t grow up with a religious identity and a religious community, I’m very confident that people can live good lives outside of them. So I am, I think, probably more optimistic than others about the, about the situation that we’re in, partly because I trust the innate human longing for connection, meaning and purpose. And, and I trust people to find ways to create communities that, that will help them find that. And also, because religion is always changing, you know, it’s such a mistake to look either at the 1950s or 2000 years ago, as this kind of moment, which defined what religion is and how it should forever be. You know, religion is, is always mutating and growing and shrinking and, and finding new ways to live. And I have full trust that it will continue to do so. And there’s also a lot about religious institutions that were profoundly disturbing, and morally incoherent. And so, perhaps this is a moment of reckoning, which can lead to not just renewal within existing institutions, but also can make space for new ways in which people gather and build those kind of commitments around trying to be good people trying to live good lives.

Q. What does a flourishing future look like to you?

One of the things I think is most important as part of a flourishing future is the quality of our relationships. I think, in the advent of climate change, and certainly a climate changed world, we are going to be able to rely much less on some of the, the ease of life, the convenience of the infrastructure that we live with in terms of, you know, easy access, easily accessible food, heat, cool, you know, transportation systems, all of the things that certainly growing up I’ve been used to. And so, I think a lot about the way in which we build cultures of relationality, how will we help one another when things get difficult. How will we trust one another across lines of difference when we have to in the midst of stress. And that’s, that’s why I’m in this work is to build those communities and strengthen them in which we practice that kind of relationality.

Q. Do you think there are cultural and linguistic contexts that you think shape how people think about human flourishing?

One of the major, major challenges and all of this work is you have to be multilingual. So human flourishing is a very secular kind of scientific standpoint in which to speak to this promise of what life is all about, and what makes a good life. You know, in a Christian context, you might use a phrase like abundant life. In a Jewish context, it’s different, again, in a Muslim context. And even in different, you know, secular spaces, maybe a technologically focused community or a team that works in a tech firm is going to use different language from an organization that serves the, the most needy people in society, for example. So one of the things I definitely had to learn very quickly in my work was to find ways to be multilingual and find the reference points that, you know, are meaningful to different groups of people in different contexts.

Q. What gives you hope for the future of spirituality and spiritual exercises?

One of the things that gives me great hope in terms of the future— flourishing of spiritual exercises— One of the things that gives me great hope about the future of spiritual practice and, and this interest in spiritual exercises is the continuous creativity of people who might have inherited the tradition by growing up within it, or learning about it, and then finding a new application for it. So one of the patterns that we saw anecdotally over and over again, were that some of the innovators of the new communities that we studied early on in our work, were often the children of preachers, or that they grew up going to Jewish summer camp, or that they had experienced in one way or another, the best of religious tradition, but we’re finding new contexts in which to express it. And as long as that continues, I’m going to be very hopeful.

Q. What spiritual innovation means, what’s it look like?

For me, spiritual innovation is really about applying the wisdom of tradition, or the practices of tradition, in a new context. So one example that I’ve been closely involved with was taking some of the traditional reading practices from Christianity and Judaism, and instead of doing text study with the Bible, doing it with Harry Potter, for example, and building a community of podcast listeners, and people who practice that kind of, you know, whether it’s lectio Divina or (INAUDIBLE), but doing it with the Harry Potter books, rather, rather than a traditional sacred text. What’s beautiful about that example, for me is that it had the integrity of those practices, even though it looked very different. And so that kind of innovation, I think, is what I get most excited about.

Q. Spiritual hopelessness, are you hopeful for the future that we see less and less of that, or do you see this sense of spiritual homelessness growing?

I certainly think we’re still in a real moment of change. If we’re thinking about what that future kind of spiritual infrastructure is, it doesn’t exist yet, maybe a little parts of it, but certainly not at the scale that we need it to. So we might just be in this moment of in between, where the, the existing systems are failing, and the new ones are not quite ready to scale. But what I do trust to continue is that sense of longing, that people want to be connected in some way, they want to make meaning of their life, to feel that they matter, to be part of something bigger than themselves. And as long as that continues, I think people will find a way to express it and to build the communities or the, the tools that they need to make the best of life.

Q. What’s gonna happen 25 years from now?

I think one of the big things that we can expect to see in the coming decades is that the unit of religious belonging is going to massively decrease. So we’re very used to thinking about a congregation as you know, 150, 300 people, certainly in a mega church context, you can grow that number to thousands. I think we’re going to really see the primacy of the small group, the group of about four to 12 people, which is extremely locally adaptable, right, in a more climate stressed world. It allows for mutual aid and direct kind of support of one another through times of difficulty. And it also doesn’t require paid leadership in the way that a congregation does. So as a lot of the kind of access, I guess, of religious wisdom is democratized. The role of religious leadership, I think is also changing. Right, why are you going to listen to a mediocre sermon when you can have the best sermon preached this week for free online. So I think a lot of the work of religious leadership is going to be about organizing people into, into units of mutual support. And that’s, I think, what, what one of the big trends will be down the line.

Q. Templeton World Charity Foundation, the science of spiritual exercises, what are they looking for and what are you hoping to learn?

The question that the Templeton World Charity Foundation brought to us was, how can we make sure that the research that’s going to happen, you know, by scientists into these spiritual exercises, is one that is both appropriate and sensitive to the experience of religious practitioners. And so our work has really been to bring insights from religious leaders, congregational leaders, theologians, into the RFP, the kind of invitation for application. Let me say that differently. So our work is really bringing to— so our work has really been to bring the insights from religious leaders, congregational leaders, and theologians, into the process by which scientists are going to apply for money and do their research. So really, one of the things we want to avoid, for example, is questions that that scientists ask that don’t take in the full context of a religious community, or kind of take something without understanding the fullness of the practitioners experience and the language that they would use. So a lot of it is, is really— so a lot of it is really about crossing paradigms and bringing different ways of knowing into relationship. And one of the great joys of the work so far has been to, to find a lot of common ground, and a lot of empathy and willingness from both sides to learn from one another.

Q. Any details you can reveal at this point, where your work is taking you?

Over and over again, one of the key things that that shows up is how important relationship is, right, that scientists and faith leaders are much more able to navigate challenges in a partnership, that they’re more open to learning about one another’s context, and what they need if there’s a pre-existing relationship. So I think one of the things that we’ll be really enthusiastic about is how can we bring in strong relationships into the process of research, so that the quality of science ultimately becomes much better, but also that that final science is then re kind of translated into a practitioner paradigm, so that it’s also useful to these congregational and religious leaders.

Q. Is there a science of trying to understand religion?

(LAUGHS) Yes, the science of religion. I mean, yes, well, that question is tricky. Because it— again, it’s in the scientific paradigm, which is not my world. But do you mean like, like, implement— implementation science, or do you mean…

I think there is an art to the science of religion, let me put it that way. It’s, it’s certainly full of complexity and full of interesting potential findings. But I think if we keep the science of religion only in the framework of science, we’re actually missing some of the biggest impact that this research can have on both how traditional religious institutions sharpen what they offer, because of the scientific evidence that they have, but also the potential for a whole new bunch of spiritual innovations that are built on this scientific evidence that we’re hopefully going to find over the coming years.

(THANK YOU - INTERVIEW WRAP)

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