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“Religion is what people do,” says Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, Ph.D. This is one way she and coauthor Megan Goodwin, Ph.D., describe such a hard-to-define, complex subject in the introduction to their new book from Beacon Press, .

In the book, Morgenstein Fuerst, associate professor of religion and director of the Humanities Center at �պ����� (�պ�����), and Goodwin, codirector and cofounder of the Bardo Institute for Religion and Public Policy, explore how people “do” religion and the many ways it permeates our world. The coauthors, who have been co-hosting the podcast, , for nearly two years, infuse the book with their trademark humor and talking-to-a-friend tone to open up the conversation on what can be a heavy and sprawling subject.

We sat down with Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst to join the conversation, find out more about the book, and discuss the impact of religion in our lives and on our world.

CAS: Why is it so important to talk about religion?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst: Like we say in the book, religion is one of those systems that hides in plain sight, because, especially as Americans, we’re taught that it’s just impolite to talk about it. I think Megan and I see it as dangerous to ignore, to never learn how to talk about in a way that isn’t aggressive or judgmental but is fact driven, or even “I” statement driven. That we don’t have those skills really gives us a disadvantage as a society when we’re trying to think about how to do well or do better or get rid of oppressive systems. If we can’t talk about a system, we don’t know if it’s oppressing us or not. We don’t know when it’s creating systems of inequity.

CAS: How did the book come about?

IMF: Both Megan and I teach hundreds of students a year at different universities, but we both wanted to reach out to more students. It didn’t just feel important—it felt dire. So, we made the podcast, Keeping It 101, which took off in ways we did not expect at all. Since the podcast was so successful, we felt like a book could do similar work for a different set of audiences. And it was just good fortune that Beacon Press heard us give a talk. They told us we had exactly the tone they wanted and asked to work with us to develop the book.

CAS: In what ways is religion not done with us?

IMF: I think religion is not done with us because it’s so embedded as a system but also in our systems. Our laws are encoded with Christian world views, and we don’t have to hate that, and we don’t have to like that, but we do have to know that to think about such questions as, “What does it mean, if our laws inherently privilege Christianity, to claim that we’re a multiethnic, multireligious nation? Are those in tension with each other? How do we solve those tensions? And should we?”

So, religion shows up in our laws, in our health-care systems, in our educational systems. It shows up in our interpersonal relationships. It obviously shows up in our politics. By pretending it’s not there, we’re not able to fully understand the world we live in.

I also think pretending it’s not there does not protect us. It doesn’t help me as a Jewish mom figure out what to say to my seven-year-old who missed a field trip because it was scheduled on Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest Jewish days, right? I can pretend religion is unimportant, we can say the calendar is secular, we can cite demography as to why we didn’t get Rosh Hashanah off. But that doesn’t help me explain to my child why his holiday wasn't important enough to plan the school field trip for a different day. Not paying attention to such things doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

CAS: What key roles does religion play in our lives?

IMF: I think for individuals religion plays a multitude of roles. For some of us, it’s a hard space. It’s a space of trauma or anger or of feeling like you never quite belonged. For example, why, if I’m not a conservative evangelical, are my medical choices being dictated by people who are conservative evangelicals?

So, we see it showing up in not only these hot-button issues but also in our day-to-day lives. For instance, what food is available to you at a market and is it only found in the ethnic aisle? Do you see your holidays reflected in your town’s board of education policies or on the town docket? Is your holiday something that anyone knows about at all or do you have to explain it every single year to your colleagues when you take a personal day off?

CAS: In what ways does religion shape the broader world?

IMF: I think religion shapes our world in profound and meaningful ways for better and for worse. We can’t escape how people create communities and value systems and then how those communities and value systems participate in our political systems. There’s actually very little that we don’t see people imbuing with religious meaning as they agitate for change, whether we think that change is positive or negative.

It also shapes our world in terms of how we even talk about certain issues. When we talk about the pro-life movement, for example, it is usually framed in religious modalities while the pro-choice movement is often framed in secular terms. But in my own religious tradition, birth control and abortion are not just accepted but, in some cases, mandated. So, for some, being pro-choice is framed in religious terms.

I like to tell students all the time that there are very few, if any, American social-justice movements that do not include youth and religion. The best of our movements have been religious movements and they’re often led by youth, which college students find inspiring.

CAS: How can people use religion to create positive change in the world?

IMF: I love that question, because I think sometimes when we talk about a system, we only see it for the negative. We talk in the book about identifying ourselves as killjoys—people who love something so much we want it to be better. And I think sometimes that makes it sound like I hate religion, but that is the opposite of true. I love religion. I think religious people are doing fantastic and interesting work in the world.

We see it in antiwar movements. We see it in movements to abolish things like the death penalty or prison sentences. We see religious communities really looking to prioritize a reduction in harm. I see religious activism in things like methadone clinics and having access to rehab facilities. I see religious people being really involved in things like the fight for fair and survivable wages. And in a lot of religious movement I see beautiful examples of people just doing kindnesses.

I personally have been strongly inspired by Jewish people in my own community who are setting up solidarity movements with Palestinians and Arabs in the United States to advocate for ceasefires. Standing within our religious tradition and saying, “Not in my name,” has been truly a buoying feature of my own religious community for the last year.

CAS: Any final thoughts?

IMF: All I really want from this book and our podcast is to give you the lens so that you can see a little bit more clearly what’s actually there in regard to religion. And with the right information—the clear information—we can move through our day in ways that are aligned with our values.