Adam Gopnik — Practicing Doubt, Redrawing Faith

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Sociology, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Arts, Culture, On Being, Society, Society & Culture, Science, Social Sciences

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2017

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The wise and lyrical writer Adam Gopnik muses on the ironies of spiritual life in a secular age through the lens of his many fascinations — from parenting, to the arts, to Darwin. He touches on all these things in a conversation inspired by his foreword to “The Good Book,” in which novelists, essayists, and activists who are not known as religious thinkers write about their favorite biblical passages. Our ancestors acknowledged doubt while practicing faith, he says; we moderns are drawn to faith while practicing doubt.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Through December and into the turn of the year, the on-bearing blog is offering a lovely
0:05.2	series of seasonal reflections.
0:07.6	Check in often to enjoy a nuanced and eclectic range of wisdom from our contributing writers,
0:13.4	and we're collecting them all at onbearing.org slash seasonal reflections.
0:19.1	On-Being is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation.
0:22.6	The Templeton Foundation supports academic research and civil dialogue on the deepest,
0:27.3	misproplexing questions facing humankind.
0:30.2	Who are we?
0:31.2	Why are we here?
0:32.4	And where are we going?
0:33.9	To learn more, please visit Templeton.org, the Templeton Foundation.
0:38.4	Stay curious.
0:40.6	I've been reading Adam Gopnik with pleasure in the pages of The New Yorker for many years.
0:46.7	He might be most widely known for his reporting from France and his book, Paris to the Moon,
0:51.7	and he's also recently published a new memoir at the Stranger's Gate, Arrivals in New
0:56.5	York.
0:57.5	I enjoy his lyrical fascination with everything from Renaissance art to food, from parenting
1:03.6	to science and religion, and we touch on all these things in the conversation that follows.
1:08.9	I decided to finally interview Adam in 2015 when I read the forward he wrote to a book called
1:15.1	The Good Book in which an array of intellectual and literary figures reflect on the Bible.
1:21.3	Adam Gopnik sums up a core irony of our secular age in this way.
1:25.8	Our ancestors acknowledged doubt while practicing faith.
	...

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