The Rise of the Nuns, the Fastest Growing Religious Cohort

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The fastest growing religious cohort is the no religious affiliation. If you're poaching other religious congregations, then that's going to feel the pinch a little bit. I'll tell you a couple of stories. In 1996, my best friend Michael Coles was running against Newt Gingrich for Congress in the district where Newt is in Jordan, outside of Atlanta. On Sunday we went to Martin Luther King, Jr's church in Atlanta and it was, I'd never been to a black church. Oh my God, it was something else. It reminds me a little bit of Pentecostalism.

Shermer and Hardy discuss: Hardy’s religious journey (raised Catholic, now agnostic) • origin of Pentecostalism and its biblical basis Pentecostalism in Korea North and South, and Israel • the structure of the Pentecostal church and how it differs from other churches • Seven Mountain Mandate • how religions grow • pentecostalism and politics • the psychology of the believer • dispensationalism and the Rapture • prophecy • glossolalia • snake handling • eschatology and end-times theology • sin and redemption • prostitution • Jordan Peterson and secular religion.

Elle Hardy is a journalist and foreign correspondent who has reported from the United States, the former USSR and North Korea, among a long list of places. Her work has appeared in GQ, Lonely Planet, Foreign Policy and Business Insider, and on ABC Australia. Her new book is Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity is Taking Over the World.