Third Q&A of The Future of Religion. Ilia is back from Germany, the questions came in long and dense, and we ended up doing the thing the lecture had set up. We tracked how the natural-supernatural binary got constructed — Hume locks God out, German biblical critics build the distinction to argue about miracle stories, Huxley grabs the distinction and weaponizes it against the whole of nature. We asked what happens to faith when you realize Jesus would have been perplexed by supernaturalism as a concept. We asked what two million people in the streets of New York celebrating a Knicks playoff win has to do with religion. And we asked what worship would feel like if the people in the pews actually knew what the liturgy was doing. Spoiler — most of them think it is holding the building together until the sermon arrives.

⁠Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD⁠ is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and American theologian specializing in science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these for theology.

Previous Episodes with Ilia Delio

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This summer, Diana Butler Bass and I are launching Faith at 250 — ⁠⁠⁠an online summit⁠⁠⁠ featuring scholars like Randall Balmer, Juan Floyd-Thomas, Elesha Coffman, and more, each offering their own take on religion and America at 250 years. We built it so faith communities have something honest and substantive to turn to when the nationalist narratives start flying. Sign up at ⁠⁠⁠www.TheologySummit.com⁠⁠⁠ to get access to every lecture, livestream, and discussion guide. The summit is donation-based, including 0.

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