The Exchanges

Q How did that hustle tie to your faith? And how did the American enterprise tie to your faith? I'm curious. How do those relate to each other?

A Yeah. So, so, you know, the prophet Muhammad made the peace and blessings of God be upon him. He was a merchant. He was a merchant. And so he, he's unlike, for example, Jesus, who is a revered prophet in Islam, but, uh, uh, the, the prophet is he, he, before he actually is, uh, receives revelation, he is known as Al-Amin or the reliable and his first wife, Was a businesswoman who actually selected him as the person who would, um, who would guide her caravans across the deserts, and was so impressed by the manner that, in which Muhammad did his work, that she proposed marriage. And so there's, there's this notion, I think it's kind of deep in my identity, that the manner in which you do your work really matters. Uh, in Islam, there's this beautiful concept called Ihsan, I-H-S-A-N, which means Excellence. And, and, and excellence is beloved of God. Um, and, and so that's just, that's how my parents approach their work. That's how I approach my work, whether as a writer of books like We Need to Build, or in my work at Interfaith America, which is an organization that believes that the best of our diverse faith traditions shape us into virtuous people, and we ought to be coming together On those shared values of, you know, you know, Joe, you write about Tikkun Olam on your website, for example, right? There are similar concepts in Islam, like Sadaka. Uh, well, we ought to be guided…

AI assessment note: “there's this beautiful concept called Ihsan, I-H-S-A-N, which means Excellence.”

Q That's awesome. So, so you attended University of Illinois, and you got your doctorate in sociology of religion from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. What sparked your interest in, in, in, you know, studying religion in Oxford?

A Uh, so, you know, I grew up, um, in an environment where my, my parents were involved in, in the faith in a variety of ways. My mother is, is a much more kind of ritualistic, uh, Ismaili Muslim. But, you know, on a, on a typical Saturday morning, my dad would, would leave at nine in the morning and say, I'm, I'm going to help somebody in our Jamaat, in our Ismaili The community, uh, get their, get their driver's license. You know, I'm, I'm giving them driving lessons, and that was just kind of, service was just a part of the faith, right? So I get to college, and there's all of this talk about identity and diversity. This is the early, mid-nineteen nineties. It's an era that's, that's, I think of as very similar to our own. Talk about race and gender and sexuality, and, and you know, I, I found it, it kind of, it changed my world, and there are dimensions of it that I think are really important. I imagine we'll get into that, Joe. But it's interesting, there was no talk of religion at all. None. And I was doing all of this service and social justice work, and it was kind of an anger-based work, right? Like, the people I was running with, they hated the system more than they loved people. And at some point, like, I run into somebody who says to me, have you ever heard of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement? And I hadn't, but there happened to be a Catholic Worker Organi…

AI assessment note: “it was just a totally different experience of service and social justice. It was based on love.”

Q You know, I want to observe that's really fascinating because right now we're at a low point, I think. And also there was a recent poll Only 16% of Gen Z adults said they're proud to live in America. It seems like people being unhappy with America and religious affiliation being low, for whatever reason, seem to be correlated culturally. Is that, is that a real thing?

A I, I, I do find that interesting. I do find that interesting. You know, you know, um, if you listen to Robert Putnam and Robbie Jones from the Public Religion Research Institute, and they're both friends of mine, people I admire a lot, they'll say that part of this was like the, the kind of, the manner in which the The religious right was kind of hateful in the 19 eighties and early 19 nineties. You know, by the way, no, I said religious right and not American evangelicalism, because there's a lot of American evangelicalism. That's really positive. Even parts that I disagree with, I think has a net positive impact on the culture. Right. So I think a Rick Warren, uh, and a Joel Hunter are very different figures. They're central to American evangelicalism, but they're not religious right figures, you know? So part of what, part of what What these folks think is, is there was a backlash against the religious right, um, uh, you know, from, from the eighties and nineties, and there's been a decline ever since. There's probably a lot of truth to that. My hope is that, um, I think it's going to get a little worse before it gets better, because at this point, religious leaders, pastors are just burned out. They're just burned out. Like, like the, the storm at the intersection of Trumpist racism and leftist resistance, it's, it like rocks churches.

AI assessment note: “if you listen to Robert Putnam and Robbie Jones... they'll say that part of this was”

Q group imposing his power on another, and they're teaching, I think millions of our kids, this framework Right now. I think this is our cultural framework that a lot of people have. We're very angry. And it's almost like you're rejecting that. And I, I agree with that very strongly. I think millions of people don't at this point. Like, like, like how do we have that debate or discussion?

A So I think there's a couple of things here, Joe. So one is, um, Um, I, I absolutely agree, and lots of smart people, including you, like Ross Douthat has said this, and others have said, like, like, basically, there's always going to be the same amount of religion in a society, and, and, and if it's not going to be a historic world faith, it's going to be a political ideology, right? Or it's going to be, like, uh, kind of a cultural phenomenon. Like, I, I think that that, I think that, I think that, The manner in which, whatever you want to call it, wokeness or anti-racism intersectionality, the fervor in which it is believed in is religious in nature, right? Now, I, I want to continue to underscore that there are important truths, important dynamics in the world that these perspectives illuminate. They are useful perspectives. They are useful perspectives, right? The, the, the problem, you know, The, the way I put this in, uh, uh, in my book, we need to build is anti-racism is a useful critique of the world. It is dangerous as a paradigm, right? Because it just doesn't explain the, it doesn't, it doesn't explain enough of the world. And that's what a paradigm is supposed to do. And it's really terrible as a regime. It's really terrible when it has coercive power, when it has punitive power.

AI assessment note: “anti-racism is a useful critique of the world. It is dangerous as a paradigm”

Q so you, it sounds like you started to see the world through the lens of racism and oppression, and it became something that maybe dominated too much of your lens, is what you describe. Is there another way out of the negativity and the anger, or do you need this anger to change things? Like, how do you talk to people who are stuck in where you were, you know?

A Yeah, I mean, So, thank you for that. There's like four questions there. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to parse this a little bit. I'm gonna say, so, so, um, part of what happens to me in college is, is, uh, I mean, I'll just, I'll tell you a quick story. So, so, um, I go to the gym the first day to play basketball, play pickup basketball. And there's three games going on. There's three courts. Uh, there's a bunch of black guys playing a game. There's a bunch of white guys playing a game. And there's a bunch of Asian guys playing a game, literally like three games going on. And I start to walk towards the game with all the white guys in it. And just instinctively. And I, I, I kind of, and then I kind of stopped myself and I, I, I look at the Asian guys and I think to myself, you know, somebody ought to tell them like the white guys will let us play.

AI assessment note: “There's like four questions there. So I'm gonna... tell you a quick story.”

Q approach would you take to try to bring back the conversation and debate around these things? Because, I mean, for example, with anti-racism as, as interpreted by Ibram X. Kendi, you know, there's all these things you're just not allowed to debate. You're not allowed to discuss. Like, how do we get these discussions and debates happening again? How do we get people not canceled to talk about these things?

A Yeah. So, I mean, I think part of what is a little bit of my, my, uh, uh, My point earlier, and by the way, like I, you know, like I admire Barry Weiss, and, and I think she brings a useful perspective. I'd love to be in a conversation with her at some point. Uh, and I appreciate what, what the institution you're building is doing. Um, and I, I think of it as another perspective on the landscape, right? And, and as long as, in my view, The more perspectives, the better within lines of basic decency, right? So anti-Semitism and anti-Holocaust, uh, Holocaust denial is not a perspective, right? That's just hatred. And, and burn it down to nihilism is not a perspective that that's just hatred also, like within bounds of basic decency, which is pretty wide. I think we should, I think we should be talking about these. There's a, there's an insight I think you'll appreciate, uh, um, which is, uh, um, John Courtney Murray, the great Catholic philosopher says, A civilization is defined by people living and talking together. Yep. A civilization is defined by people living and talking. So the quality of our conversation, the manner in which we talk with one another, that's the quality of our civilization. And if we cannot explore topics in ways guided by evidence, reason, multiple perspectives, et cetera, et cetera, we, we have a problem, right? We have a problem. Um, and you know, some o…

AI assessment note: “A civilization is defined by people living and talking together.”