The Spiritual Life of the Microbiome (with Aminah Bradford and Jonathan Blake)

In 2014, the breakthrough Human Microbiome Project confirmed that – within our own bodies – we are outnumbered. For every human cell, there are three bacterial microbes residing in our gut and throughout what we long considered solid and singular self. This discovery severed the final remaining links in the Great Chain of Being, a persistent mythology from antiquity that cast humans as higher than and apart from the rest of creation. In this episode of Futurology, Aminah Bradford talks with Jonathan Blake about what she calls microbial theology. It’s a way of thinking about God, spirit, and community in light of the teeming life within us. This discovery forces Western religion to contend with the fact that we are never alone, that we are porous and dependent upon multitudes that we cannot see.