For searchers caught between doubt and belief and for believers struggling to reconcile faith with contemporary assumptions about science and progress, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat shows how religious faith makes better sense of reality than skepticism or disbelief.

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics is pleased to present a public event, which will begin with Douthat’s discussion of his new book. The Center’s Mark Oppenheimer will then moderate a debate between Douthat and Pitzer College professor and well-known atheist author Philip Zuckerman. There will also be time for questions from the audience before a lively reception.

About the speakers

Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Opinion columnist in April 2009, and he writes about politics, religion, moral values, and higher education. His column appears every Tuesday and Sunday. He is also the host of the podcast “Interesting Times.” Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic and a blogger on its website. He is the author of Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, which was published in 2025. His other books include The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery (2021), To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism (2018), Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012), Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (2005), The Decadent Society (2020), and with Reihan Salam Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream (2008). He is the film critic for National Review.

Phil Zuckerman is a Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He has also been a guest professor for two years at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He is the author of numerous books, including Sociology, Unplugged (Routledge, 2025), Beyond Doubt (NYU, 2023), What It Means to be Moral (Counterpoint, 2019), The Nonreligious (Oxford, 2016), Living the Secular Life (Penguin, 2014), Faith No More (Oxford, 2012), and Society Without God (NYU, 2008) and the editor of several volumes, including the Oxford Handbook of Secularism (2017), Atheism and Secularity (Praeger, 2010), and The Social Theory of W.E.B. Du Bois (Pine Forge, 2004). His research has also been published in various scholarly journals, such as Sociology Compass, Sociology of Religion, Secularism and Nonreligion, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Deviant Behavior, and Religion, Brain, and Behavior.  His editorials have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Washington Post, Salon, and The Conversation. In 2011, Phil founded the first Secular Studies department in the nation. Secular Studies is an interdisciplinary program focusing on manifestations of the secular in societies and cultures, past and present. Secular Studies entails the study of non-religious people, groups, thought, and cultural expressions. Emphasis is placed upon the meanings, forms, relevance, and impact of political/constitutional secularism, philosophical skepticism, and personal and public secularity. He is also the Executive Director of Humanist Mutual Aid Network.

The discussion’s moderator, Mark Oppenheimer, is Professor of Practice and Executive Editor of the Center’s online journal Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.

Emerson Auditorium offers open seating and doors will open at 6:00 p.m. for this event. Tickets are not required and seating will be “first come, first served.” All attendees are welcome to join us for a reception with the speakers immediately following the talk.

Books will be available for sale from local, independent bookseller Subterranean Books.

We appreciate your RSVP to rap@wustl.edu so that we can send updates and parking information.

Visitor parking is available on the fourth level of Millbrook Garage or in the Danforth University Center (DUC) underground garage. Pull a ticket at the gate when you enter. Parking is free in yellow spaces (you will be ticketed if in a red space) weekdays overnight between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m. and on weekends. For more information on parking, visit parking.wustl.edu/parking/visitor.

Please call us at (314) 935-9345 or email us at rap@wustl.edu with any questions or accommodation requests.