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Walking the Camino and Stealing My Religion | Liz Bucar · Follow the Leighder

• Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, howdy folks. Welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, joining me today, ooh, y'all are going to like this one. ⁓ is author and professor of religion, ⁓ Bukhar. Welcome to the studio. LIZ BUCAR: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation. So I think we have a lot in common. This is going to be fun. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ absolutely. Folks, just for those who are listening to this ⁓ audio, she's wearing some of the coolest glasses. It's a really nice cool blue. it's just if you in fact, when I was researching and going through her profile, I was like, ⁓ she's got the glasses game on lock. LIZ BUCAR: There's actually, if you see any of the ⁓ assets, like the branding that my ⁓ publisher did for my book, my book has no blue on it at all. It's like green and orange, but when they did the like social media thing, ⁓ my publicist is like, get some blue in there. So I have this like very bright royal blue glasses that are kind of, yeah, fun. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ yeah. So fun. Well, and it's fun and it's also a great segue into your authorship. ⁓ Liz Bucar has written two books. ⁓ We have Stealing My Religion and Beyond Wellness. Beyond Wellness is being released this year. Is it out now? It's ⁓ out. LIZ BUCAR: It's out, yeah. And actually, it's my first trade book, but it's actually my fifth book. have a bunch of books out before, but the ones that your listeners will be most interested in will probably be those last two. So Stealing My Religion and Beyond Wellness, which is out as of April. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Stealing My Religion and Beyond Wellness. ⁓ Both of these, ⁓ again, as I mentioned, she's a professor religion at Northeastern University and you can probably a religious ethicist might be an ⁓ way. ⁓ She's also certified Kripalu yoga instructor and has LIZ BUCAR: Thank Leigh/@followtheleighder: Now correct me on this. Not only have you walked the Camino de Santiago, but you also take folks on their own journey. You guide. LIZ BUCAR: Yeah, so that and that's actually a big part of my last book, actually, my religion is talking about the study abroad program I did for about five years at Northeastern. I stopped doing it at least temporarily because it's exhausting where I like march students, not the whole the whole whatever. There's no entire Camino, but not 500 miles, but like the last, you know, 100, 150 miles, 170 miles as part of a course on pilgrimage and comparative religion. Yeah. Pretty cool. Pretty great. Pretty great way to teach. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Wow. That's really powerful. LIZ BUCAR: really intense in all sorts of ways when you're 18. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. And I do have to note, because you said it's exhausting on that note, when the physical aspect is the thing. That's true. That's true. That's true. LIZ BUCAR: I don't even mean physically though. I don't even mean physically. mean, 18 year olds and I am mom, teacher, best friend, I'm everything, tour guide. It's emotionally exhausting. For me, the walking is like, oh, that makes it easy. Like, okay, I'm gonna spend this much time with 18 year olds, but I'm also gonna get to go on a lifelong walk through the countryside in Galicia. But yeah, no, it's exhausting in other ways as well. No, sorry, I interrupted you though. Yeah, the physicality is a lot of the way. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. ⁓ No, you didn't. Well, and ⁓ I do recognize the emotional toll that you're talking about. My professor at my seminary, she would take folks down to the border, Arizona, Mexico, ⁓ and she still does. she wants to bring students who have already done it back because that wisdom is so helpful. You know, the first time you do it, you can't take in everything and you know this. And so having people come back, but... But even on that note of doing things that are physical, because that's kind of the point of it, not as related, but I saw yesterday online that Olympic swimmer, Katie Ledeky got an honorary doctorate. And as part of her tour and PR with the university she got it from, she swam laps in their pool. And I understand that's her thing, but I just can imagine her getting that email. And she's like, kind of like, swim and do like, go. Like, we can just take a picture. LIZ BUCAR: Right, right, right. what's the equivalent for you getting a ministerial degree? I don't know, like with the M.Div equivalent of doing labs. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. No, it was just funny that when something athletic is the point, then you have to do it even when you don't want to. You're just like, okay, well, but you did. You have wanted and you want to share what the Camino is. You want to share ⁓ spirituality beyond what people have really traditionally understood, particularly in the American West. ⁓ LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And I'm from the South, so it's primarily evangelical, Bible about Southern Christianity. I've noticed how when you move around the country, Christianity does shift with the region. I'm currently in Montana, which I would consider Catholic libertarian at this point. Great Falls, so about two hours south of the border, about an hour a half north. But... ⁓ LIZ BUCAR: ⁓ yeah, where are you in Montana? ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: And that's an interesting thing to be Catholic libertarian versus Southern evangelical Protestant. So kind of talk to us about your faith journey, LIZ BUCAR: Yes. Yeah, so I first like wanna give like a shout out or a clap to you in your recent graduation for your degree, is, I think it's really fun because I think we come at this from different, even our academic training is really different, right? So like, and I don't know that everyone knows this, I thought it'd be kind of actually interesting probably to talk about it, cause not everyone kind of knows the like, what does religious studies look like? What does religious, what does it mean to go to school for religion? So I don't have, I, Well, I am born in the South. I am born North Carolina, but I mostly grew up in like what we call me. I'm a coastal elite. I grew up in New England mostly. Right. So I was raised a little bit in the congregationalist church, but like not really consider myself religious. My mom's Lutheran. My dad was baptized Catholic, but like not a religious family. So I don't comment the same religion as an insider. And I didn't take a single class in religious studies as an undergrad. And I really just kind of discovered religion. an interest in religion when I was doing social justice work in DC. And I was like, oh my God, like you've got to understand religion to see what's going on. Like it just had, I didn't need a higher level literacy to talk. mean, particularly because I was working in the area of reproductive health, like, like, oh, I need to know, I need to know these moral arguments really inside out. And so that's what sent me to graduate school was that advocacy interest, not sort of my, I wasn't deconstructing faith and I wasn't coming out of a, out of a, Leigh/@followtheleighder: us. Yeah. Yes. LIZ BUCAR: religious background. And then when you're in graduate school, you kind of have options of different degrees you can do. So I'm assuming your degree, was your degree like an M.Div? Is that what? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, sort of. was so an ⁓ Dave was a bit longer because it does focus on denominational pastoral things and I'm not I didn't want to go into congregational ministry. So. Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah, it's an MTS. Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: Okay, so it's more like an MTS or thing. there's different things you can do in graduate school, which I don't think I even wrote, right? So I started with a master's, but a master's in religious studies, which is not what you did, not an MTS or an MTIV. So not for folks who are thinking about or coming out of sort of pastoral interest, or even really theological interest. was kind of like history, anthropology, there was an ethic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right? LIZ BUCAR: Sure, right. But that's how I started. And then I did a PhD. And there were people, I did this all at the University Chicago, there are people doing MDivs, met power of degrees, people doing PhDs. But like, I was really doing a PhD to like become a teacher and a researcher. So again, it wasn't really part of my intention to be involved in religion, I was just going to like study as an outsider. And so that's how I come at it, which I think is really interesting in terms of like, you're coming out from a different direction. But like, that is not where I am right now. So doing that for decades, really, right? So I finished my degree in, I can't remember if it was 2006 or 2007, I finished the PhD. I think I studied religion as an anthropologist for a long time. And the more I did, and as an ethicist, my degree says religious ethics, that's what my diploma from the Chicago Center. So I'm always interested in normative arguments and stuff, but I did it kind of as an outsider. And then I just, I think I have to sort of realize in my books have evolved through this as well, that like it's changing. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ yeah. LIZ BUCAR: me and the way I interact with the world. So that last book that you mentioned that has the Camino chapter in it is about religious appropriation and me starting to feel like I'm doing all kinds of stuff that is getting involved in religion of other people. Have I thought about how that could be creating harm? And I'm a woman of privilege. Like, have I thought about how that might be having some unintended illiberal effects, right? I'm liberal. I don't want these illiberal effects, but like I might be doing some stuff that's a little bit icky. So that's what that last book is about. And then this book, Beyond Wellness, is like the most personal thing I've ever written, which is why it's a trade book. It's not written for the academy. It's not written for other professors. I mean, it'll be taught for sure in classrooms, I know, but that's not my primary audience. It's written for everybody. And it's me coming to the realization that, know, here I am midlife, here I am 52, religions when this thing I just study of other people, and it's actually shifted very much. who I am, what I think my obligations are to other people, how I think about what a human life is, what I think human flourishing is. And I keep getting, I keep seeing religion everywhere and places that my friends are assisting is not religious. And one of those places is a wellness industry. So if I think about my students who are like, I hate religion, like religion has a PR problem, why don't I like religion? And I get it, right? Some of them are deconstructing religion, they have religious trauma, some of them grew up without religion, they see it, they just see religion as like, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. LIZ BUCAR: white Christian nationalism right now, right? Like that's all they can see. So they don't want anything to do with religion. And yet they are so doing religion, right? Again, my antithesis head goes on, like, where do you think manifestation comes from? Where do you think this interest in like smudging your dorm room comes from? Where's, you know, interested in mindfulness and the ways you're thinking about yoga differently than Pilates or all these practices that you are collecting for yourself and you're using to work on yourself. Those all have, from my point of view, like a scholarly point of view, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. LIZ BUCAR: religious framework that you might not know about, but might be interesting to you, might make them work better for you. And when I say work better, I mean, make them more communal, make them more ethical. But I actually mean like also make some work better. These things are supposed to do things to us, remake us. And I think it's important to know how you're remaking yourself when you're trying on a technique. So that's what this book is. It's me marching through seven different very most and pretty popular wellness. practices that people often call spiritual, but a of people who engage don't consider to be religious or don't understand the religious containers that they sometimes happen in. And so trying to recuperate some of that and see how that, you know, that's partly me being like, that's what religious literacy looks like to me. It's not like, can you quote this biblical verse and can you name the five pillars of Islam? Religious literacy is like trying to understand some of these practices back in their context or communal context or historical. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. LIZ BUCAR: so that you know what you're kind of dealing with. So was really fun, well, hard, but fun research to do, but also kind of personal because I kind of had to admit more, ⁓ maybe I, I mean, people would probably call me spiritual, not religious. That's not a label I particularly like, but I'm interested in this stuff, not just as an outsider anymore, I think. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Right. And that's why I think I get so frustrated with narrow interpretations of any sort of the divine, because I'm like, it's a it's if the divine is supposed to be this like, omnipotent force, and you're trying to narrowly define it, then you're actually weakening it by when you like, but when you try to do it like, no, only the elected chosen. Archer and there is so much beauty. There's so much ritual. There's so much other ways of truth and looking and it does researching theology, religious arguments, history, even like that's gotten me through some dark times of being like, I don't, I don't even know what I believe, but I know that the practice is what's going to get me through like the meditation or the ritual and like acting like it. has gotten me through some things. And that was really kind of a growing moment for me too, when I just acted my way through some sort of spirituality that gave me that permission to be like, ⁓ it's okay. LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. And so one thing this book kind of secretly does is gives you a little bit of religious studies theory one-on-one. And what you kind of describe is a little bit William James. comes up in the chapter, I it comes up in my chapter about AA. So he was really much a religious pragmatist, which he was basically like, it's not like fake it till you make it, but kind of like you can do the thing and it can work on you. And you can kind of defer some of these like complicated metaphysical questions that you can't quite work out right now. and that religion can be pragmatic and still be powerful. And for someone like me, that's how, I mean, that chapter for me is really trying to figure out like, what the heck do I do with higher power as like a non-believer? Because like God is like hard for people without religious affiliation. And for people like me, don't like know what to do with God. like, but you know, there's ways in which I can still. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. LIZ BUCAR: play with that idea and learn something from it without having to work out what I think God is. And for me, that chapter is like, you know what's enough for me? Enough for me and the learning thing, the thing I come away from AA with, which, and again, AA chapter is very personal. It talks a lot about some family addiction and alcoholism and my own sort of grappling with that, as well as stories in this book. But the takeaway from that chapter is kind of like, I don't actually have to figure out what I think higher power is or God is to get the lesson here. I just have to understand that I'm not God. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. What? Yes. LIZ BUCAR: and asking me that I'm not God is a huge theological, it is a religious idea. And that like shifts everything for me. And I'm a hundred percent bored on that because I don't think I'm God. But I mean, I act like it, right? Like I try to control situations. But like that to me is the portable, interesting idea to have, conversation to have that even people who are not, know, AA feels pretty Christian and pretty Protestant, but even outside of that tradition, idea, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Yes. LIZ BUCAR: playing with the idea that you're not God, what would that mean? Like, what would it mean to de-separate yourself or even humanity? Let's think about indigenous worldviews. And that is so powerful. And some of that stuff that like, you if you think about like just what the wellness industry is talking to you about, like, no, they're just, the conversation's so thin and anemic. I want these bigger, deeper conversations right now. And I'm like not the only one, right? What I sort of have realized... Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. LIZ BUCAR: the reception to the book and then also the substack, which is basically me just continuing to write once the book is done, I started a substack and just kind of kept going. What I'm finding is that people were like, yeah, I have also been feeling like, you know, wellness was like too low of a bar and particularly right now when things are like politically uncertain and scary and environmentally, ecologically also. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. LIZ BUCAR: uncertain and scary, but and also technology, all these things, right? We're in this really hard time right now. I see it definitely with my students. I have a teenage daughter. Like I worry about it feel it for her that people are looking and are open to having these harder conversations because they're looking for some way of making sense of like what is happening and how do we respond and how do we. ⁓ So, yeah, that's that's that's what the book kind of does through. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: these kind of fun practices and you see me do all kinds of stuff that I'm doing. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ and that's exactly, is beyond wellness, because wellness wasn't enough taking care, because it was still tending to the earthly body in a way. It did strive for meditation and journal, and those things are critical. mean, God knows I've got, and that's, don't, my master's is in, theology, I went to a seminary. And it's been such a journey because I often laugh that disciples of Christ are like the most Christian light. Like they're just like, they have no creeds, no confession, like all are welcome to the communion table. I want to say no creeds. Oh, and that no person can have biblical authority over you. So it's like very laissez faire. LIZ BUCAR: Thanks. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And so it didn't require a lot of big hoops for me to jump into to just walk up and show up to a worship service. But I also have a lot of just like ways in which ⁓ the progressive church does need to evolve to be different than what it has been in order to meet people for these more meaningful conversations that are interfaith, ecumenical, cross-cultural, cross theology, not even interfaith, but like. having humanists at the table, like atheists even. And I know that many denominations, know listeners are like, but we do that, I know you'll do that. I'm just saying, these continued things probably need to happen more now than ever as we. LIZ BUCAR: Yeah, I feel that too. yeah. And I think people want that too. And I mean, think too, we can name what the Beyond Wellness is too. It's probably helpful to do that because I think that it's not only a sort of form of like individualized self-care, but then also if we think about all the like tech bro-y, all the focus. So I'm midlife woman, right? So I'm being told. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right? LIZ BUCAR: now that I should have worried about my bone density, but for most of my life, I was told that wellness was about doing cardio and being small and shrinking myself and BMI and all these like, you know, biological things of the body without, with, know, which was, it turns out to all be wrong, actually. It turns out that like all that cardio was not what I needed. What I needed to do was like lifting heavy things over my head. So that, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: So for women it's about perfection and thinness and then the sort of masculine version of that is like peak performance and optimization. And it's so like pro-capitalism and I get like why people are drawn to that. like, and not, I'm not against all those things. I do lift heavy. I do try to, you know, do all the self-care kind of things and take care of myself, but like, it's just not enough. And I, so it's partly wanting more and it's partly feeling like things are Like, we're starting, you're kind of naming things are breaking right now. And there's an opportunity to build something maybe different and better, but only if we kind of can marshal in every single resource and thought partner we can bring to the table. And for people who are very anti-religion, I kind of want them to be like, I just think that like, you need to give some of these religious ideas. You know, I don't, again, I don't need you to convert, but I just want you to see them as a thought partner because even. they're not part of your worldview, they are a part of a lot of people's worldview. And even that aside, I think that people will find personal insights if they can kind of kind of dive in a little bit and make someone's ideas their own to get past that sort of like very surface level of wellness. I mean, I've heard talk about it, it's like, what does real wellbeing look like or religions, we talk about it flourishing. And it's just not a conversation we've had enough. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: because we've been having the conversation about biomarkers, you know, and our weight and our PMIs instead. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ and you're raising a good point when you talk about it as worldviews, like, ⁓ not just like theologies, like I think about the military chaplain corps and ⁓ how many folks identify as either spiritual, but not religious or like none or humanist or agnostic atheists, like those worldviews still need care. Those are world, those are not immoral, but because folks fear what they don't know, they or just don't care or just don't tend to. that was like that represent like they're still and that's why it's so I talk so much about the Chaplin core on my platform just because if you don't if you're not recognizing that you've got a significant chunk of your population that has a worldview like it still needs to be cared for whether you agree or what in you need to know what you're going to be caring for too. And, ⁓ and, and that's like you said, you don't have to become religious. You don't have to agree with it. You just have to know the shape and structure of it so that you can work with it or, or, or, know, whatever that looks like. LIZ BUCAR: describing it as sort of a conversation partner. ⁓ A friend of my colleague, Amaya Elizabeth Palmer, who is one of the editors of Christian Century and did an interview with me, she's like, I think it's a friend for you, Liz. I think it's like more like a friend. Like it's not just a conversation partner because you're willing to have your mind changed. ⁓ So for me, I think it is more like a friend, right? Like a trusted friend. But remind me, Lee, if I remember correctly, you come from military chaplaincy background. that your background? So I find that I did a bunch of reading about ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Wow. LIZ BUCAR: military and sort of moral injury, which has really helped me understand why some of the risks I see with sort of taking on some of these spiritual practices without knowing what you're getting yourself into. So there's this whole body of literature, you probably know it, but it's really interesting for me to learn about, about sort of combat and being in combat and being asked to do things that go against your worldview and being trained to get ready to do something. And then this is like more than PTSD, right? So afterwards there being a... a form of moral injury, meaning like the self, the core sense of your core values and the core sense of yourself is messed up. ⁓ And I think that that's a really helpful metaphor for what can get. So like when worldviews clash, right? So I think that when we pick up some of these religious practices, there sometimes there can be a danger of that happening. I think we think, ⁓ indigenous worldviews, ⁓ Eastern worldviews, those are so wonderful. And there are nice antidotes to like modern life. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: The worldview can be radically different than your worldview. And so you could start doing a practice which is like remaking you and changing your beliefs and ideas in ways you didn't think about. And then you start end up feeling a little schizophrenic because you were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So I think that's the other thing too, just for your own sort of safety and risk mitigation to know what, I mean, I know why people are drawn to these spiritual sort of wellness practices, but kind of know what you're getting yourself into and making sure your core values Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ for sure. Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: Well, first of know what your core values are, which we don't talk enough about. Or understand your worldview and understanding how the practice that you are drawn to, there may be some tension there. So you don't end up with this of like ⁓ this form of moral injury where you've suddenly had your whole sense of self unraveled and now you're totally unmoored and confused and like. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: So yeah, think that's why, anyway, I was reading a bunch about sort of injury and like it was very, there's some really great emphasis working on that. And it was really instructive for me understanding some of the injury, like some of the risk and some of the injury I was seeing even in the spiritual wellness spaces. People think if it's spiritual, it can't be dangerous. No, no, religion's dangerous, spirituality is not. It's just, it's not quite that easy, right? Spiritual gurus can be abusive. spiritual practices can be harmful if you pick the wrong thing. I like to say that we're drawn to these things because we think of them as medicine and powerful and healing. But some people are allergic to different medicines, right? So I can't take penicillin. Penicillin is great for most people. It's not great for me. And for anybody, taking too much turmeric isn't a bad thing, right? So even something we think about is good, you got to think about dosage and stuff like that. So I think that's another way of thinking about these spiritual practices. It's not always like more is better. and not everything fits everybody. And that's another reason why just learning a little bit more about them helps you, I think, engage in that a little bit in ways that will work better for you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ and that's very poignant how the ideology of whatever spiritual faith practice that you picked up may be wildly different. And the whole societal structure may be different, particularly if you're jumping from Western Christianity to something probably a little bit more collectivist. Like just ⁓ it's a big jump. And that is kind of like what you were saying. You have to know who you are. ⁓ And I feel like that's what a lot of folks are actually rapidly trying to figure out right now as everyone is kind of fragmenting. It's like, who am I? Who can I trust? What am I not? ⁓ And there is so much of that. But at the same time, there's a really awesome opportunity to build a different future of what that looks like. And I know it looks grim now, but I have optimism for the future. I don't think we're going to be in this moment forever. think it's going to get. LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: tougher, likely darker. ⁓ But on the other side of that, we have an opportunity to build something from this rubble. I want to ask you, ⁓ when you start talking about religious ethics, and I know that you have separated religion from spirituality, ⁓ You mentioned William James and the way he sees things in AA. Can you talk a little bit more about not just William James and AA, but actually, yes. Is there a connection? Talk about the connection between William James and AA or how some of these pseudo, I wouldn't say AA is a pseudo church, a parachurch. I don't know what you would call it. I know it's a recovery, but in terms of belief groups, I don't know. LIZ BUCAR: Mm. Yeah. So, yeah, so I don't have a lot of stake in that. It's interesting. When I write my sub stack, always have men, it's always older men being like, so what counts as religion? And what is your definition of, and I don't, I guess I don't really have much stake in that. have a really, when you say I differentiate between religion, spirituality, for me, religion is the really big container. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Because it's faith-based, like, but it's... Right, right. Ugh. Thanks LIZ BUCAR: I think that my students differentiate between spirituality and religion more than I do. Like they would say, if I said, what's spirituality? They would get, and not just my students, think most people would say, oh, spirituality is this stuff. It's interior, it's self-growth, it's transcendence, it's mystical experiences. It's kind of like all the good stuff. And religion, what's religion? My students are like, oh, that's like institutions. We hate that. Oh, it's power or it's like clergy abuse, it's rules or whatever. But for me, that's, and actually for most religious studies scholars, that's just like a normative judgment. We just call it spirituality, parts of religion we like. I think it's all religion. And I know if I say to people like, your yoga is religious, they're like, well, so I try to like, okay, look, so for me, I see religion and I see devotion in forms of yoga. Not everyone is entering it. And for me, it doesn't have to be like a church or a religion by definition, like a legal definition, which. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. LIZ BUCAR: PS, or legal definition is based on the idea of what Protestantism looks like. So like, if it's a legal definition, it's gotta make itself look ⁓ like Christianity. So I don't think AA is a religion per se. I mean, I guess AA is what's technically, it's a 12 step program. It's like the 12 step program, right? AA itself would say, and AA is probably the OG, spiritual but not religious, therapeutic. Right? Like that's what they say. That's what they are. We are spiritual but not religious. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. ⁓ Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: in some ways, coined that phrase and they want to be very inclusive and open to everybody. ⁓ And yet it's so, it's very clear that their origins are Christian, right? If you think about the group, the fellowship, the witnessing, the sort of ⁓ the 12 steps, the Oxford group that gave rise to the early ⁓ fellowship, those sort of Christian ideas. are baked into the way that AA operates. Again, fellowship witness. The 12 steps have Christian-feeling language all through them. And it's not that, again, I there are Buddhist versions of AA, there are atheist versions of AA, but AA itself and its origins, its history, had Christian origins. And that is not, it doesn't. This doesn't matter. It's not a problem per se, unless you're someone who's like, just, know, Jesus is a deal breaker for me. Like, I don't want, like, I just, can't do a program. I can't work a program that feels Christian to me, which was kind of the case for my dad. He was like, I just, this is way too religious. There's way too much God in here. ⁓ And so having, so I think that that, for that, you know, for that chapter in particular, which there's so many great fun stories about how A itself deals with. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: its religion and atheists early on in the program and how it thinks about spiritual experience as being very important to recovery and how it kind of finds that, which are all things I kind of walk through in the book a little bit and march through and try to grapple with. But really for me, that is a chapter of thinking again about like, is there something here that's a takeaway? ⁓ Or what was my dad missing? What could he have gotten out of AA instead of him being like, I just can't work this program? And again, for me, it's that idea of not God. ⁓ I think AA is very clear in a William James sort of way. You don't have to get on board with our Christian metaphysics or whatever or our theology to work the program. ⁓ But I also think it's true that for some people, that history and the language and the liturgy, right? There's liturgy there. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. LIZ BUCAR: Sorry, I don't know if that's on my phone. It is off-putting. yeah, so it's a really, I mean, I could have written a whole book about AA for sure. I think my agent didn't want me to write about AA. He was like, oh, it's a secret cow. Don't write about AA. You'll upset everybody. If you're negative or positive with it, because it's very triggering to a lot of people both ways. Yeah. But I kind of go in like very, I think I went in thinking I was going to write a chapter about how AA. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's very, yeah. LIZ BUCAR: being required in institutional settings like ⁓ prisons is a problem. And that's not how I actually ended up coming out of that book at all. I'm coming out of that chapter at all. So I'm trying to be really even handed with everything actually. And like just like, you know, a beginner's mind, just curious. I'm like a student, I'm in the work with you, which I think is what makes the book kind of readable. I mean, there's not, there's not like a 10 point checklist. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: Like follow what I do and you'll be good, right? Like what works for me doesn't work for you. Maybe my journey with this maybe be with different. I'm just trying to model what I think an engagement could look like even for someone who's not religiously planning to convert or had doesn't have a religious affiliation themselves but really wants to take religion seriously. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. Well, and so years ago, after I got out the military, I helped start up this recovery nonprofit in outside Boulder, Colorado. And we offered different types of recovery. So it was a community center for people to go during the day because night shelters aren't open. Like there's just like, where do you go? You just got out of jail or rehab. Where do you go in this first like three weeks? So we had all these sort of therapeutic yoga, arts and crafts music. LIZ BUCAR: Okay. Leigh/@followtheleighder: meals, but then we offered these different types of recovery services. So we had AA meetings in there. We had a smart recovery, I want to say. And then I think we were talking about ⁓ an Indigenous recovery method. It starts, it's RED, but I can't remember what the name is with the actual program, but it's RED Feather, RED Nation. I don't know, but it's an Indigenous recovery method. And that's what really like expanded my mind to on way if like even like impacting theology was like from a spiritual side, I was like seeing like, ⁓ that's cool that it manifests in so many different ways and solutions that there's not just the one and like, and that creator healing whatever the thing is underneath the thing that makes it all happen isn't limited to just a that it does manifest and talk and continue to and I was just like, And not so much in like a super personal way. don't, I don't, don't know this is starting to get really tricky talking about the abstract, but my point being is even in recovery, I saw that there is no one way for someone to come back from their own private hell. And it doesn't have to look like language that I like the healing is the point in my eyes. And so whatever you've got to do to do that. And LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: We just show up to make it happen. That's kind of like almost like my approach. it was really like, there's so many great takeaways from so many things. Like you said, like I could go in and compare why something like smart recovery or something that is probably a bit more agnostic or not spiritual. It was just cool to see. like probably what I hear you is that you go in looking to compare and you're actually, you know what, they've got a point. or hey, they've got like that actually, that that's not a bad way to go. And that was really beautiful. LIZ BUCAR: that framework or they just like they frame this in a totally different way than I would have thought about it. Right. that's what people are hungry for right now. They want concepts and framework. They want. OK, that's not true. Most people want to be told, like, tell me yes or no. Black or white. Give me the answer. Right. But actually, there the ethicist in me is like there is no there there. There is no right or wrong answer. What you really want is some new concepts, some new frameworks, some new perspectives, maybe a little history, some ways of morally reason. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Right. LIZ BUCAR: I can give you all that stuff, right? And then you have to figure out what works for you because it's not gonna be one size fits all. And why would you want that? Again, the feeling of thinking about how you wanna think about your human life, making it as human as possible. So this is the thing I love about AI actually. So I don't love AI, no one loves AI I guess. But what I do, I'm really struggling with AI, right? So like I teach in the classroom, AI is like really, AI has made teaching humanities less fun, would have to say in some ways, because we're spending a lot of time policing AI and trying to figure out how to counter AI. But the one thing I like about AI is I think it's an opportunity for us to really think about, look, AI is smarter than us. It's more efficient than us. It's going to be able to do a lot of jobs better than us. So that stuff can't be what makes us really human. So what else is there? Right. And if it's art and music or theology or philosophy? Like, what's the other stuff that I can't do? Or maybe it's suffering and pain or its relationship or it's embodied or what is the stuff? And that's, that's kind of again, that's what I'm looking to religion as like our thought partner for. Because I don't, not trying to AI proof myself and my students, but like, I think that if I think about anything good being about AI, it's an opportunity to be like, oh, well, maybe we were trying to be efficient. and optimize and all the stuff that capitalism is telling us to do. And maybe we just forgot how to be human. Maybe we were trying to optimize our health and we forgot dying well is part of living well. And we don't talk about death. And I always end a book thinking about the next book. And this book ends with another personal chapter, which is a chapter about psychedelics. ⁓ personal stuff comes up in that chapter. But it ends with me being really interested in death in a new way and thinking that. ⁓ You know, so I started like hospice volunteer training. I'm thinking about doing hospice and tapas training. Maybe if I can figure out the time, I'm probably more likely to do death doula training because I have more time to do that. Because I just think that is a big part of being human. And we don't talk about it and we medicalize it and we're scared of it. And yeah, so I think that that's another way of thinking about this whole conversation is how are we. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. LIZ BUCAR: not AI proofing ourselves of what is AI for seeing us to reckon with and maybe recognize that we haven't been spending enough time cultivating and thinking, you know, living and doing and, being, yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. I think that's beautiful. And I think that's so apt of exactly like when you do study large systems as you have or anyone else in the anthro humanities kind of systems fields, like it, you do wind up seeing these areas that are glaring because you see all of it, right? You're studying and critiquing all of it. You're constantly going to lectures or hearing from people that are experts like you, you kind of have a finger on the pulse, but like there's always something that's just like Hold up, like that is, I wanna learn more about that and death dealership is, I mean, that is like you said, needed. ⁓ I'm a birth and death for that matter. I mean, just in the way particularly AI and patriarchal control over AI women in healthcare and like, what is that gonna, and it's just like, I want, like you said, the things that can't be replaced like. birth and death ministry, talking about advocacy, morals, rituals. And ⁓ it has been, I did a tech background for a while. I left ministry for a while and went into tech and software engineering. was, my boyfriend's in AI software engineering. So we've kind of been in this thing growing with this until. ⁓ AI laid me I was a I was on the front and creative side. Like so I was one of the first to go he was on the back end data and like, he's he's doing a lot. He's fine in the corporate space for now until AI late but but even just like you said, there's amazing things coming from it. I had an AI women's ⁓ med tech CEO ⁓ come and talk recently and she was like, because of the sexism in LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. Right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: women's healthcare research, it doesn't get researched and collected. Like it just hasn't. But what AI has allowed us to do is take whatever it ever has and what was lost or just not popular. And now, like in the past year, we're running around as a company being like, we didn't have this data. This is incredible. It's going to change our models. We're going to be able to diagnose women's breast cancer better because we just wasn't all compiled and communicated. And I was just like, There's so many awesome ways for us before this thing takes us out to like, ⁓ to really use it for good. Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: until we're living in a matrix or whatever or a terminator or whatever version of us we're living. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Whatever it is, yeah. Or we wipe out energy supply and we're back to sticks again. We've got to figure that out. But yeah, there's just so much beauty, so many things that are coming that we have access to because of it research-wise, but also the weird things that it's forcing us to be, which is more human. LIZ BUCAR: All those things are impossible. Yeah, I think that that could be the best thing about it. That's what it actually does to be like, what what is to have those conversations and to like, we meant to be the most, you know, I think the older you get, you're like, I just want to like, live the most that I can, I want that whatever that is. ⁓ So the earlier we had those conversations, the more we had them collectively. I hope we're having them collectively. I guess what's concerning to me have a piece I'm playing with that I have to write about the tech bros. ⁓ that, so they're like the opposite of beyond wellness, right? Like focused on millions of dollars spent on optimizing their own biomarkers, living very isolated, having bunkers, like expecting, you know, so it's not, I want something that's collective and engaged. I'm not afraid of combining religion, spirituality and politics. In fact, I get frustrated when people say that you can't do that because I just, I don't know how we can't. humans are critical, right? So like, how do we like not have those role, those things bleed into each other? And also, there's a lot going on politically. So, yeah, so I just, yeah, I have something I'm going to probably write at some point about the Tech Bros, or at least from my slap stack about that they are do, there's a version of religion and religious the, there's a version of theology, let's say theology, right? Because you're a theology master student that they have and Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. LIZ BUCAR: It's bad, just bad theology. It's not good for them, it's not good for anybody. Or eschatology, I guess. It's a form of eschatology. This is what I've been really playing with. You can learn a lot about this because you just missed your degree. But eschatology is not something I ever studied when I was in grad school. Because eschatology is what the biblical scholars study. And I was like, I don't know, if you study eschatology, what does that mean? You study revelations and the rapture? I never cared about eschatology. I only cared about right now, human life. I'm more of anthropologist. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. LIZ BUCAR: ⁓ and then someone, just did a post about one of my posts and she said, ⁓ this is like eschatology and ethics, combination of those two things. And I was like, ⁓ my God, yes, that's so helpful to me because part of what I'm having trouble with the tech bros is that they have an eschatology, which is that the human race is going extinct and that we're not important species anymore. And so of course they don't care about. what their actions do, how they affect other people, or building data centers that poison air or water, because they have this eschatology, which is, they just are assuming that this is what's coming, this sort of end game where AI is in control of the world. So anyway, I think that partly what also AI forced us to do is really talk about together out loud, what do we think this ultimate future looks like, and how can we act today in a way that... ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: Or how can we imagine an alternative reality to what they're talking about? Because I don't particularly like their ultimate reality. And then what do we do today to make it happen? think people who don't understand religion at all think that people who are religious just defer everything to like, oh, everything just happens after death. And they're just like trying to be good because they're like judgment day. And I was like, I mean, most people I know are religious are like really trying to like also implement that stuff. now, the kingdom of God, now please, let's like make it happen. Maybe not in our lifetime, but let's make it happen. ⁓ So all of that to me is like swirling, swirling, swirling together, but also happening much more, I think, in spaces that are not particularly, know, tricky or theological, people are having willing to host conversations. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. went to your point about studying eschatology so you could understand why these things are happening. And that's exactly what is the underlying theology of what is driving us to the ground. And I've kind of posted a few times before of like, because we're in a cannibalizing theology. That's who's leading us. we're like, it does not center women, children or trees. ⁓ And because of that, it's not life giving. No. LIZ BUCAR: Why would you care about trees? Computers are taking over the world, right? There's no reason to care about trees. Yeah. Yeah. Not life giving. The life giving is the birth, right? The tech bro seeing himself as birthing the AI that will win the AI war, like the arms race they're having between the different AI models. That's the only sort of form of birthing that they're seeing. yeah, that's a really helpful diagnosis of what's going on. So there you go. You want the religious to see like, ⁓ understanding of the concept of eschatology can help us understand why some people are behaving in this way, why really powerful actors are behaving in certain ways. Leigh/@followtheleighder: but also why the grassroots participants are fully on board too, because what was really, so this is fascinating too. And I'm sure you've read this or come across, but just in all my different conferences and different communities, I've been in either ministry or some sort of theological conversation with. There was, I was hearing about like the grassroots. American neighbor sort of worldview of like, no, it's all gonna burn anyway. Like, just save yourself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps spiritually, find Jesus, save yourself and family. And who cares what happens the world's on fire is because it's supposed to be when the end times are coming. Like there's like so much of like, and if like folks don't understand that's how the underlying thing works, then you're gonna look at them and be like, I thought you were Christian and you want to be good stewards of the earth. What are you doing? And it's like, no, it's a different framework. And it is very centered on the individual. It's very Western. It's very, ⁓ and a lot of the Jesus or the Christianity that you're taught, the religious folks are probably coming more from a non-Western, more collectivist, like just, just a different framework for it. And LIZ BUCAR: Right. Right. No, and that's so awful the way you just put it too, because I think that from the outside people are like, that's so illogical. I thought you were like Christian. And it's not illogical. You're not understanding the way that this is work, the religious logic is working. It is internally very logical. that's, yeah. But you have to be able to argue against it or help convince someone a different version of it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. and And for and I don't, I'm sure lots of religious folks, but I want us to talk about Christianity, American Christianity, because that's who I know. But I saw this woman at a conference I went to, she got up and she considered herself a Christian environmentalist, but she did not use the phrases sustainability or climate change. She kept it entirely scriptural. And I watched, we were in Appalachia, I watched farmers and miners and like laborers be like, huh, yeah. Okay, so we should care for the earth and it is unchristian what these corporate farmers are doing. And I was like, okay, so it's not, they don't not care. You just have to word it in the logic framework that it's in. And that's really tough unless it's someone like you or just other people who are exposed to it enough to see that people are literally thinking differently. Like it's, it's, I... LIZ BUCAR: Yeah, absolutely. We talked about worldview. That's one way of thinking about it. So I'm teaching a class right now. One of my classes I teach all the time is a class on sexual ethics and religion. If I'm teaching it during the summer, it's actually an online class because lot of my students are on co-op doing their internships. But the way I start that class, it's kind of like a wild class. walk our way through everything from plural marriage to genital cutting and all kinds of stuff that they're like, whoa, whoa, But we start the class talking about Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ yeah. LIZ BUCAR: our tendency to have a recoil reflex. And this is something that the Relative Studies professor at Northwestern, not where I am, but Northwestern in Chicago, Robert Orsi writes about, that when you see something who's like, this practice looks different and it doesn't look the way you want, it's not logical to you, kind of go, oh, and you're like, judge it, and you're just like, just recoil. These people are like wackadoodles, and they're so, and that's what I see a lot in the secular left too, right? Like, oh, these people are just fucking dumb. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. LIZ BUCAR: And that's not it. That's not what it is. And if you don't enter the conversation, try to understand what's happening on their own terms. You're just never going to understand ⁓ the internal logic there, why it's so sticky, what it's doing, what that work is doing, how it is maybe helping that community deal with some sort of violence or poverty or whatever. If you just have that recoil because you're your worldview and their worldview is not lined up. You'll never get to the point where you can change hearts and minds. So he talks about trying to kind of work the third, like a third way, like a third path. Like you don't have to be like buy into like what they're doing. You don't have to be like, I'm on board, whatever this practice is, but you can't walk in with that. I'm right, that's self-righteous. Cause you'll never, that's the scholarly, you'll never learn. And if you're an activist, you'll never change them or change, you know, the world if you don't enter and do that kind of hard work of like, realizing we all have our own bias. We all think that something, you know, that we're right in some ways. And you have to sort of like, name that bias and like try to ignore, try to push it down a long enough to sort of understand what's going on in terms. And that's hard. I I spend the whole, that's why I spend all my time, my students kind of teaching them to do, we start off with that. And then I give them things that are gonna, they're gonna recoil from the rest of the semester. And they, like, name it, that's fine. But like, then also, once you've named it, And they start thinking, ⁓ know, plural marriage, these plural marriage situations aren't bad. It kind of looks like hollering at Marie, I'm totally into that. Or like, you know, they start to see some sort of connections and ways to help them rethink what they thought was so they were so clear what was right and good and moral and progressive or whatever their worldview is. then they're like, ⁓ I just actually, when I understood what it was doing for those women, that community, I saw that there was something positive there that maybe I would want to have him. you know, my own sort of like dating life in some way, even if it's not like plural marriage, multiple partners, maybe I want that sort of like collective thing or whatever that is, or that community of women that sort of also pops up in these sort of situations or, yeah, that's hard to do though. It's hard to do. And people are very, very sensitive about religion too. So it's a lot easier for me to do, cause I'm not deconstructing any trauma myself. And I find that- Leigh/@followtheleighder: It is. Right. LIZ BUCAR: that it's hard for me to, had to speak both to people who are like anti-religious and people who are also, I think deconstructing or coming out of religious trauma, but are also in this sort of like searching. Like I'm basically talking to people who at that space of like searching, curious, but also a little skeptical, but they come out, people come out with different backgrounds too. And that's, those are, those are different tasks, right? If you're deconstructing religious trauma and trying to engage in religion or if you've just always been told that religion. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: or religious people are a bunch of dumb-dums and you're trying to engage religion. You come with different baggage and different bias that you have to sort of work on to get to the point where you can grow. Hard stuff. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ and I think also, and I was wrestling with this in my last chapter of my book about the secular paradox and kind of the recoil you're talking about. But in a secular society, in a multi, in a religious pluralistic, but like, no state sanction is what I mean. But like, ⁓ When you have like all these different options that can also like relativize the the faith in a way like when you're like, ⁓ there's so many like, which do I do they all because they're all presented at like, and when I was talking with someone else, I was like, that may be the case that you have a bunch of options because the state's not forcing one down your throat. And then because there's options, it's like, options of religion seems like there and that becomes old but that Because his point was like, ⁓ which are the gods? know, should I do this? Is Christian God just kind and I was like, I understand that I like, but it, it's still your journey. So whatever you choose, shouldn't be relativized for you. And like what that looks like, even if we want to make sure that all the face are legally, you know, on the same legal power, but like, that's, and it was like, whatever that looks like for, for, for you. And, ⁓ and I also do that, that space of institutional harm. Like, I have to be careful when I talk about even like evangelicals a lot, because I don't want to harm the ex evangelicals that I'm talking to because I'm not, I'm not coming all out. There's elements of the theology I do not find. And that's what I'm going for. But again, to your point, like, I've learned so much beauty in the evangelical way of doing things that I think the progressive or left spiritual community could absolutely adopt. have amazing recruitment hospitality practices and they do a lot of really coordinated follow-up calls and just things that you're like, okay. They're taking you out to coffee two days later. There are multiple hits of contact and that is overwhelming, but I'm not saying we should all do that that's super important, but I'm just saying that there are parts that... LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Or even I went to her lecture the other day of a progressive Christian pastor telling progressive Christians, like, don't analyze this faith so much and only be of social justice advocacy that you forget to have your own personal relationship or your own personal ritual. and whatever that and just kind of like let it go. It's like whatever that looks like for you. But like, this isn't it's not just about fighting and critiquing. LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And I thought that was really powerful too. And she said that. LIZ BUCAR: That is very powerful. Yeah, and I think I've had that recently sort of phrase to me as like there is, while spirituality can be engaged and might be political or religion could be engaged or political, that there is a difference between a spiritual life and advocacy or activism, I guess. ⁓ Right, and I do think that's an interesting point about like you don't... don't deconstruct so much that you forget to construct. And that's a problem that scholars do. I'm so good. I'm trained at finding all the hidden religion in the maha movement and deconstructing all the problematic religious logic that's shoved into American culture. ⁓ The harder thing is constructing something new. ⁓ And it's important to keep trying to do that. For me, that's been particularly hard in the religion and spiritual space personally. And so that's why this book is like feels very personal to me because I'm like trying to do it out loud. I'm actually trying to build something, not just the last book stealing my religion. I'm like, that's yuck and you're young. That's making you feel bad and guilty. I want you to see your privilege. I want you to see all the forms of structural injustice. I want to like lift the light current on the whatever the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. Like this book is like, where do we go now? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: Like, how do we build something new? And that's way harder to do. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And you know this too, as an academic, are driven. Like our academia is driven by where we are in life. So like where you were in stealing my religion versus like we're going to name this harm and we're going to be real clear on what it is. And then this next book, like it's also you. And like I've noticed this about my work as I'm coming back to a place as I'm working on this book about Christian nationalism and US military chaplaincy and just really more like priestly class and its relationship with power. is kind of the larger theme in this book. ⁓ But I'm already like right there with you. I'm like, cool, I'm naming the harm. I've named it very well. I've backed it up with sources. I'm ready to like collaboration on the uplifting. And because also naming the harm, it's exhausting. It's exhausting to live there, to do the research. And, you know, I don't want a fear based. world, so I don't want to continue contributing to it. LIZ BUCAR: Yeah. And I think that constructive work in some ways is encouraged by MDiv programs and MTS programs, and less so maybe than the kind of program that I was trained in, right? That my program was, even though I was in religious studies, I was technically in a division of U of Chicago called constructive studies, right? With theology and ethicists. ⁓ But I still feel like the academy, like the PhD professor sort of and in secular institutions like I've been, has encouraged the deconstruction part and not the construction part. So like, I'm a full professor, like there's no place to go anymore. So I can be bold and do this more ⁓ constructive work that maybe some of my colleagues would be like, well, it's kind of like, I don't know, Liz, that's not very serious. But I just, I don't care. That's like what I wanna do right now. And I think that, I think it's important. And one of my favorite, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: favorite academics, Mary Hunt, is like a very like OG, sort of feminist, Catholic, public, intellectual, ⁓ said that people go to study, well, she's talking about for PhDs. thinks people think you go to get a PhD in religion because you like want to teach or you want to do research, which is like, I think people go to be useful. Because I think she went to be useful. And I think later on my career, I was like, yeah, I want to be useful. And so, like, but that was like a sea change for me. Like that was like a wake up call for me. Like that was only like 10 years ago. I was like already a decade into my career. I was like, yeah, I don't really care about being a 10 year professor. I really want to be useful. That's why I had to pick religion. I could have picked anything else. I could have done anything else, made a lot more money, been more comfortable. No, I was trying to be useful. So I am really leaning into like, how can I be useful? That's what I'm trying to write about. That's why I write in public. That's why I do a sub stack. But like, I think we forgot that we could be useful. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Good for you. LIZ BUCAR: So yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, yes. that, what that looks like is different. When I went down for graduation, I had several different students make comments about my social media following. And I was like, listen, like, I'm trying to like build and be a platform, but we still need your voice, even if you're not interested in growing to scale. But because as someone who interviews people a lot, particularly clergy, those. 10, 15,000 follower pastors at a small town Indiana, their followership is deep. They're like very, like it's commenting all the time. They are very loyal to that pastor. And it's like their community. And I was thinking, and that's what I told him. I was like, you don't have to be massive. Right, right. LIZ BUCAR: very good. And how much is on the congregation? That's huge. 15,000 people, like a pastor or whatever. Like that's a huge amount of people to be reaching and engaging. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And all they're doing is getting on and doing probably probably likely ⁓ liberation theology or some sort of like ⁓ Not making up anything not getting too biblical just like kind of Jen and and but my my point being is like There are people that are hungry for it and they'll follow and they they want you Just to even talk about it I they did a lot of people don't like prescription. But that is ⁓ a complaint on the right, the religious right that I'm like, yeah, we the secular world and trying to be safe and equal for everyone has also done some damage here. So we need to look at that too. LIZ BUCAR: I made the conversation to Anima. I think you're right. When I went to graduate school, doing this public facing work was really looked down upon. No one did it. None of the faculty did it. No one was trained how to do it. ⁓ But it's a really big part of how it can be useful. The idea that somebody could reach 10,000 people on their social... You don't have to reinvent the wheel because what people forget is... I tell this, my stuff is... you my scholarship in academic journals and academic books. I mean, I can do the like, you want to hear technical jargony deep dive, I can do it. But that's not that's not who I am when I'm teaching public I'm teaching, like I'm teaching my undergrads, I'm teaching one on one stuff. It's not which any lot of people in my field could do right. It doesn't have to be reinventing the wheel every time because those conversations are only happening. The conversations I'm trying to have are usually just happening in the academy. How am I going get a religious studies degree? or take your religious studies class or have that opportunity. So it doesn't have to be that deep. can be deep, but it doesn't have to be, you don't have to the answers. A lot of what I write is like, here's what I'm thinking. Here are some people I called to try and me figure it out. Here's some stuff I read. I don't know, what do you think? Setting the table and inviting people to come, that's enough. It doesn't have to, you don't have to be. a guru or whatever have all the answers in that way. No one wants that anymore anyway, right? We're past the age of gurus, I feel like. Leigh/@followtheleighder: No. No, and to your point about AI forcing us to... People want messy TikToks or Instagram. Like, we're cool with that now because if it's too polished, it might be done by AI. And if you have too many cool effects, like, it's just like... It's fine. Like, it's fine. And in fact, I misspelled something recently and someone was like, I actually appreciated the misspelling because I knew it was an AI. And I was like, thank you. Thank you. LIZ BUCAR: ⁓ Yeah. Bye. But although the accusation against professors is like you're talking like AI. was like, well, actually, so AI was trained on three of my books and AI talks like professors. But that's not part of the problem. But no, we want messy. I love that. This is the content creation on TikTok is a really great example. Like, we don't want to see your ring light. just want you. We don't care if your phone is like moving around. We don't want the aesthetic perfect experience anymore. We just kind of want what's real. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes, yes, actually. Mm-hmm. Wow. LIZ BUCAR: I think the kids especially will, ⁓ you know, yeah, can spot it a million miles away and reacting, reacting to it. I they're using it, of course, but they don't like it and they're acting to it. They don't want other people to use it. And so that will, maybe there'll be a pushback against it being used in some of these creative spaces. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I hope you come back and we'll keep building on this. Maybe we can talk about, like maybe folks who are listening, please drop this in the comments. Let me know other topics that she and I can cover together. If have any questions for next time, I know this was kind of a high level introduction to her work. kind of her thought process on things. now that you're more familiar, what are some things that we could cover next time? ⁓ And also go, I didn't even ask you this. How can they follow you? How can they learn more? How can they buy your books? What do do? Yeah. LIZ BUCAR: Let me show my book. me show my book. My pay book. Well, the best way to find my book, so if you go to my website, I just have the links to where to buy it everywhere. I mean, you can buy it anywhere. You can buy a book. But my website is just my name, lisvucar.com, and I have links to buy the book everywhere. That's a good place to sort of connect with me. And then the other place to connect with me is I write a free sub stack, Nothing is Paywalled. So if you like to get articles ⁓ in your email inbox, and I'm just... those of you current subsector, subsector is called religion re-imagined. And I say it's for like believers and non-believers. The piece I just put up today is about how comedians are our new prophets and sort of thinking about Stephen Colbert's last show tonight and thinking about how he's been a truth sayer, a truth teller at sort of enormous personal risk and thinking about humor and how humor is a really powerful like sort of moral tool. So that's kind of stuff I write about pop culture and stuff, but yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. LIZ BUCAR: Delay if you buy the book, love to hear what you think about it. And again, my comments on my sub stack is very engaged. Like the people, I write great stuff, but then the comments are always lit. So come and join us, have the conversation there. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. All righty. And then I'm sorry, it's your handle is. LIZ BUCAR: Liz Bucar B as in boy, U-C-A-R. That's what I am on Instagram. That's what I am on. I don't post as much on TikTok anymore, but that's why I'm on TikTok and Instagram. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, let's be a car. And on Substack, folks, can go listen, go buy the book, preferably from your local bookstore. But I understand. got to buy them where you buy them. LIZ BUCAR: Thank Thank There's a link on there called bookshop.org and you can link to your local bookstore that way as well. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Really? That's ⁓ that's beautiful. Okay, I didn't know that. well, thank you so much, Professor, I didn't even okay. Professor Liz Bucar, author, Liz Bucar, ⁓ religious ethicist, Liz Bucar, thank you for what you've done showing up, doing the work being useful, and and sharing what you have studied and port forth your energy out with with so many of us. Thank you. LIZ BUCAR: Thanks for having this very wide ranging conversation. was fun. We went everywhere. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's some surface work. Well, and we laugh in theology because I go we'll have a theological conversation. I'm like, for me, it's all theological. It's all like it's all LIZ BUCAR: I can make anything about religion, that's right. I see it everywhere. I see it everywhere. That's what happens. see it everywhere. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So, well, thank you so much, folks. As mentioned, don't forget to drop your comments, like, follow, subscribe. You know the drill. This has been another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson. And until next time, see ya.