Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm your host, Matthew Petrusic. Thank you for joining us.

Today we bring you the second half of a conversation between Bishop Barron and the biblical scholar,

N.T. Wright, from Word on Fire's recent evangelization and culture conference in London.

In this half, we'll conclude the conversation as well as dive into some of the listeners' questions,

which range from questions on artificial intelligence and also motivations for reading the Bible

to the two men's opinion of the chosen series. Enjoy.

One of the things I've been really interested in,

and you've both contributed in your own ways to this,

is this idea, I've spelled it out in my own book and podcast series,

The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God,

that we're living in a meaning crisis.

A lot of psychologists using this phrase.

And one of the ways I think that it's helpful to think about that

is the idea that we've lost a common story

that unites us, a narrative.

And arguably, for much of the history of the Western world, that was the biblical narrative.

It was even whether people knew it well or not, they subconsciously, I think, they saw themselves

as part of a bigger story.

Now, as we've lost that story in the West, as it's been sidelined, it's not that we've

entered, as you say, this period of rational science and reason.

It's been replaced by all kinds of other competing stories

because we still need a story to live by.

...