Ep96: Religion is not a dirty word with Liz Bucar

I've been thinking a lot about religion lately — not in the way I was taught to as a kid, where there was one truth and you either had it or you didn't. More like... what if religion is actually one of the most human things we do? What if it's been a resource hiding in plain sight, and we've been too burned, too skeptical, or too cool to look at it clearly?That's exactly what I got to dig into with my guest, Liz Bucar — professor, prize-winning author, and one of the most genuinely interesting people I've talked to about this stuff. Liz has spent her career studying how religion actually works in real human lives, and she does it without the dogma or the defensiveness. She's not trying to convert you. She's trying to help you see clearly.We covered a lot of ground. We talked about what religion even is — and why that question is harder (and more interesting) than it sounds. We talked about religious literacy, and why not understanding the traditions around us leaves us less equipped to navigate the world. We talked about storytelling as one of the most powerful tools religion has ever had, and how the best stories are the ones that hold complexity without collapsing it into a tidy moral.And then we zoomed out. We talked about what's happening right now — this urgent, liminal, kind of terrifying moment in society — and why religion, for all its baggage, might actually be one of our best tools for collective change. Not because it has all the answers, but because it's been practicing community, ritual, and meaning-making longer than any other institution we have.Here's what I keep coming back to: individualism is exhausting. The antidote — the actual, research-backed, spiritually-ancient antidote — is community. Belonging to something bigger than yourself. Religion, whatever form that takes for you, has always known that.This one is worth a slow listen.Where you can find Liz:https://www.lizbucar.com/Preorder Liz's new book Beyond Wellness: https://www.lizbucar.com/booksFollow Liz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizbucarLiz's substack: https://lizbucar.substack.com/Where you can find Morgan:https://www.morganmotsinger.com/Follow Morgan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morgan_motsinger/Morgan's substack: https://morganmotsinger.substack.com/LIZ BUCAR is a religious ethicist and professor of religion atNortheastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, and The Wall Street Journal, and she is the author of four books, including the award-winning Stealing My Religion and Pious Fashion. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.