This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Moa, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky.

Joseph Bottum is one of the most important public intellectuals in the United States, a graduate of Georgetown University,

he holds a doctorate in medieval studies from Boston College.

He's a former editor-in-chief of the important journal First Things.

He is currently professor of cyber ethics and director of the Classical Studies Program at Dakota State University.

Back in 2015, he released a book entitled The Anxious Age, and I enjoyed a thinking in public conversation

with him about that topic and that book then, also expanded to an important essay he wrote about the religious shape of political

ideas about the same time. As I say in this program, those works turned out to be nearly

prophetic. But our conversation today is going to pick up on many of those same issues, but move to the year 2020. We really do have an opportunity to update that conversation in a way I think you'll find as I did quite fascinating.

Joseph Potum is also the author of a new an important book entitled The Death of the Novel.

But today we're going to be talking about a range of issues that are very much tied to ongoing conversations about the shape of our culture, how it got here and why it matters.

Joseph Boddham, thank you for joining me for thinking in public.

Thank you for having me.

You know, we're kind of picking up on a conversation of about five years ago.

In 2014, you wrote a book that I still recommend

very widely an anxious age, the post-Protestant

ethic and the spirit of America.

But in some ways, our conversation back then was also prompted by a

very significant article that you had published in 2014 entitled the spiritual

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