Welcome to a special weekend feature of the world and everything in it.

Today, our regular Culture Friday team of Nick Iker and Merna Brown

join up with regular guests, John Stone Street and Katie McCoy.

The four of them will conduct a panel interview on a recently released book

making a rational case for religious belief. We hope you enjoy this full-length interview,

and after you listen, please let us know what you think. I'm Nick Eicher. It's my privilege to get

to talk with Ross Douthit, author and New York Times opinion writer.

His book is titled Believe Why Everyone Should Be Religious.

It released last month, and I'm happy to say I was able to get our Culture Friday band together, not just Merna Brown and me, but John Stone Street of the Colson Center and author Katie

McCoy. We all four will have a chance to ask questions and join in the discussion. But before we get

into it, let me mention another writer for World, Francis Beckwith, he's a professor at Baylor,

and he reviewed Ross's book in World Magazine,

calling it truly a mere Christianity for the 21st century. Beckwith, in his review,

said he thought the book was a response to a particular set of reasons for unbelief

that find their salience among those who dominate the elite culture of this

present age. And for my part, again, I love the ambition here, even in that subtitle, the book

Making the Case for Why Everyone Should Be Religious. Everyone, I love that, Ross. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for

humoring my ambitions. I appreciate it. Well, now, you've written quite a lot as a newspaper columnist

on religion and public life. But as I say, this ambitious title, I'd like to kick off by having

you talk about what drove you to the project and with reference to Beckwith's observation,

what specifically convinced you that the assumptions of secularism have become insecure?

...