| Please welcome guest host Michelle Boorstein, who covers religion for The Washington Post. We all know that religion — whatever it means to you — plays a big role in the United States. But how do we see its power, and does that mean something different when big institutions and denominations and powerful clergy have lost influence and adherents in the past few decades? One way to measure its power is through the courts, and the United States is really in a new place in terms of figuring out what role religion will play in our shared public lives, especially Christianity, the faith of America's founders and still by far the biggest U.S. religious group. For around 80 years, a consensus built that it was best for protecting religion itself, and religious diversity, to have what framer Thomas Jefferson called a "wall of separation between church and state." But in more recent decades, religious conservatives have begun to push back after feeling that the "separation" Jefferson codified in our history had gone too far. They feel squeezed out of public life and government's massive financial resources. They have had win after win in a conservative-majority Supreme Court recently. New rulings — including this term — have expanded religion's place and could mean a real shift. But America in 2022 is very, very different from the Founders' America and religion looks very different. Will more power for religion mean more pluralism — or more strife?  As America becomes more religiously diverse and secular, the Supreme Court has handed victory after victory to religious petitioners seeking more voice, money and access in the public square. By Michelle Boorstein ● Read more » | | |  Heather McGhee's best-selling book, "The Sum of Us," argues that racism is at the core of society's most vexing issues and hurts all communities. On Thursday, July 21 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time, join Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart for a conversation with McGhee about her upcoming podcast series that continues her cross-country examination of the economic and social costs of racism. By Washington Post Live ● Read more » | | | |
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