Jon and I go way back to the early days of the marriage movement. He’s currently a senior fellow at Brookings and a contributor editor at The Atlantic. He’s the author of many books, including Kindly Inquisitors, The Happiness Curve, and The Constitution of Knowledge — which we discussed on the Dishcast in 2021. His new book is Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy.

For two clips of our convo — on fear-based Christianity, and the growing tolerance of gays by the Mormon Church — see our YouTube page.

Other topics: how Jon tried to believe in God growing up; his Christian roommate in college, Rev. Mark McIntosh; how I kept my faith through AIDS crisis; the doubt within faith; Fr. James Alison; parallels between Christianity and liberal democracy; the Reformation; Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration; Christ’s aversion to property; church/state; the federal persecution of Mormons in the 19th century; American Primeval; Vatican II; Catholic toleration of divorce but not homosexuality; Anita Bryant; Prop 8; the gay wedding cake controversy; wokeness as a religion; Biden’s DEI as a kind of religious indoctrination; left-wing Christianity; Bishop Budde; her shrine to Matthew Shepard; the Benedict Option; the Utah Compromise; whether the LDS is truly Christian; the Respect For Marriage Act; Dobbs and Obergefell; authoritarianism abroad; the J6 pardons; Trump firing IGs; Don Jr against “turning the other cheek”; Pope Francis against proselytism; eternal truths vs. political compromise; declining church attendance; and the loss of enchantment in Christianity.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Chris Caldwell on the political revolution in Europe, Nick Denton on China and AI, Francis Collins on faith and science, Ian Buruma on Spinoza, Michael Joseph Gross on muscles, and the great and powerful Mike White, of White Lotus fame. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Ross is a writer and a dear old colleague, back when we were both bloggers at The Atlantic. Since then he’s been a columnist at the New York Times — and, in my mind, he’s the best columnist in the country. The author of many books, including Grand New Party and The Decadent Society, his new one is Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (which you can pre-order now). So in this podcast, I play — literally — Devil’s advocate. Forgive me for getting stuck on the meaning of the universe in the first 20 minutes or so. It picks up after that.

For two clips of our convo — on the difference between proselytizing and evangelizing, and the “hallucinations of the sane” — see our YouTube page.

Other topics: Creation; the improbable parameters of the Big Bang; the “fine-tuning” argument I cannot understand; extraterrestrial life; Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Hitch; the atheist/materialist view; the multiverse; quantum physics; consciousness; John von Neumann; Isaac Newton; human evolution; tribal survival; the exponential unity of global knowledge; Stephen Barr’s Modern Physics and Ancient Faith; the substack Bentham’s Bulldog; why humans wonder; miracles; Sebastian Junger and near-death experiences; the scientific method; William James; religious individualists; cults; Vatican II; Pope Francis; the sex-abuse crisis in the Church; suffering and theodicy; Lyme Disease; the AIDS crisis; Jesus and the Resurrection; Peter J Williams’ Can We Trust the Gospels?; and the natural selection of religions.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jon Rauch on the tribalism of white evangelicals; Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Chris Caldwell on the political shifts in Europe, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, Francis Collins on faith and science, and Mike White of White Lotus fame. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Sebastian is an author, journalist, and war correspondent. He’s been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a special correspondent at ABC News, and his debut documentary, Restrepo, was nominated for an Oscar. He’s the author of many bestsellers, including The Perfect Storm, War, Tribe, and Freedom. His latest: In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. It’s a fascinating account of his own brush with death — and how it changed his understanding of the universe and its mysteries.

A brilliant writer and indefatigable reporter, he’s also a Cape Cod neighbor. For two clips of our convo — the universal features of near-death experiences, and the mysteries of quantum physics — see our YouTube page.

Other topics: growing up near Boston; his New Age mom and physicist dad; becoming a war correspondent and witnessing death; losing his photojournalist friend Tim Hetherington; Sebastian’s atheism and rationalism; his vivid account of nearly dying from an aneurysm in the woods of Cape Cod; the novel way a doctor saved him at the last second; visions of his dead father beckoning him to the other side; his vivid dreams over the following months; the “derealization” of believing you’re dead; how NDEs defy natural selection; the telepathy of some NDEs; how centrifuges can reproduce NDEs; the disciples’ visions of Jesus after death; the book Proof of Heaven; the Big Bang; consciousness; panpsychism; stories vs. explanations — and why humans need both; Dostoevsky and his mock execution; how NDEs are similar to psychedelics; Michael Pollan; Pascal; Larkin’s “Aubade”; and the last trimester of life.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jon Rauch on the tribalism of white evangelicals, Ross Douthat on the supernatural, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Chris Caldwell on political upheaval in Europe, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and the great and powerful Mike White, of White Lotus fame. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.