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Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

The New Shape of American Religion with Ross Douthat and Molly Worthen

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Bowler invites two of her sharpest friends—Ross Douthat and Molly Worthen—to help her make sense of the current American religious landscape: why the long “decline” story may be shifting, why religious curiosity is popping up in unexpected places, and why the loudest forms of Christianity often feel more online, more political, and more embarrassing. Together they sort through what people mean by “Christian nationalism,” how much of it is symbolism versus policy, what weak institutions and internet incentives are doing to faith, and what still gives them hope for the church. SHOW NOTES Ross Douthat Bad Religion Believe The Deep Places Molly Worthen Apostles of Reason Spellbound Pre-order Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway Watch the live conversation on YouTube Join Kate Bowler on Substack for the season of Lent: katebowler.substack.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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1:10.4

Hey there, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus.

1:13.2

I'm back with a new season of Wiser Than Me, the show where I sit down with remarkable older women and soak up their stories, their humor, and their hard-earned wisdom.

1:25.3

Every conversation leaves me a little smarter and definitely more inspired.

1:30.3

And yes, I'm still calling my 91-year-old mom, Judy, to get her take on it all.

1:36.9

Wiser than me from Lemonada Media is out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

1:47.9

Thank you. wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, hello. I'm Kate Moeller, and this is Everything Happens.

1:55.8

So you might know that I'm a scholar of American religion in my day job at Duke University.

2:02.2

And what it really means is that I'm always interested in the state of like what is going on spiritually right now.

2:09.6

And I just have had some questions about where we're going, where we're going in North America in terms of belief and how this relates

2:20.7

to politics. And, well, I just thought maybe you might be interested too. So just so you know,

2:27.3

today I've asked two of my very smartest friends to come help me sort of reinterpret what is

2:33.3

going on in American religion right now.

2:36.3

And really, for the longest time, the story about Christianity in America was mostly about

...

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