Exploring the Depths of Religious Life

What would drive someone to renounce all their possessions, relationships, and ambitions to join a religious community? Sean talks with Zena Hitz, whose new book A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life explores this question — drawing from her own experience. They discuss the occasionally perplexing relationship between faith and reason, why Hitz thinks the act of renunciation is the pinnacle of Christian belief, and why the radicalism at the heart of Christianity seems so absent from mainstream practice.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Zena Hitz, (@zenahitz) author; tutor, St. John's College

References: 

• A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life by Zena Hitz (Cambridge; 2023)
• Lost In Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz (Princeton; 2020)
• The Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, Canada
• Confessions by St. Augustine (401 AD)
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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