Let's Stop Saying We Live in a Secular Age

Correcting a shallow reading of Charles Taylor's 2008 tome + life updates!

James Webb Telescope supernova. Image credit: NASA

Happy belated 2025, friends! Thank you for patiently waiting as I found my creative bearings during a season of major transition. Some of you know that I decided last fall to leave New York City and return to the Midwest to be closer to family and save money. I lived with my parents in November and December before landing on Columbus, Ohio, as my next home. The last couple months, I’ve been busy buying all the things that a move necessitates (shower curtain rings and a light for above the kitchen sink and a new toilet brush and countless other items that necessitated five trips to Target in January alone), exploring the neighborhood, and finding new daily rhythms in a world without a subway and a bodega and my NYC church and community.

Thankfully, the creative juices are flowing again. Saved by the City, the podcast I’ve cohosted with my friend Roxanne Stone since 2021, just launched its ninth season, with a spicy retort to the new biza…