what kind of religion do you think makes sense in a secular age well it depends where I mean we have to but let's say uh if we're talking about the West really which I was you know interested in my book of sec I really was not trying to talk about it in India and China I was trying to talk about it here and that's a really complex question but I think it's worth really worth going into I think we we've all moved we we in the way have all moved out of an Epoch in which our understanding of what it was to be Christian was a understanding of whole societies whole civilizations whole political structures being Christian that really is the sense of the word Christendom is against Christianity that is that you have a whole civilization which is just got impregnated and as it were drenched with the Christian outl and you know there's some great things that happened in this civilization in the Sha Cathedral and The Divine Comedy I mean you can't I'm not trying to knock it but I think it is no longer possible for us Christendom has died on us now it's interesting to see why I mean it is something to do with the rise of for people now read Bal Alternatives non-faith Alternatives it's more than that it's also that for are a lot of Christians themselves living their faith in this form in which it's also a political stance it's also a civilizational stance it's also Etc has come to seene not really in keeping with the faith partly because if you're living in a Christian Society in that sense where the political structure is Christian then you're all go into in some degree coercion right you're not being you're not you're a heretic you're not doing exactly the right way you're not the right kind of Christian so we're going to have to get rid of you or for Force you or give you second class citizenship or something of that kind and that has come more and more to seem to lots of people something which doesn't really fit with the gospel compared to what you the Christ you see in the gospel doesn't make a great deal of sense right now we used to be able Christ in the gospel says give to Caesar you know belongs to Caesar and give to go belongs to God but that was we kind of in chrisom we sort of rationalize that way I mean the two are working handing glove and so so I think what really pushed this development out of Christendom well a lot of things of course it was the revulsion a certain modes of coercion it was the wars not only just the wars of religion but something like the the first world war where both sides were saying got M Inman God is on our side uh all those things contributed but I think what contributed feel like positively is again simply negatively repelling was the development of the ethic of authenticity the idea that each human being has their own way of Being Human they have to find that they have to find their Journey was very much the rediscovery of the notion of Life as a journey as a general View view just about faith but it's a general view which made it more and more difficult to believe in the highly organized top- down Authority group of the church which is also built into a state yeah and at the same time you know at the same time we had in the west the sexual revolution in the 1960s and70s where the idea that a certain very clearly defined SE ual ethic was the Christian one there was no other one that was possible also seemed to be able to be more and more unbelievable so some people reacted to this new uh understanding of things by just checking out altoe from the church but other people reacted to it by saying well maybe this is not the way to be Christian so I think we are moving into a situation which is interesting because it has preceden in in history and an analoges outside I mean the precedent in history of course is the early church where it wasn't established for Constantine it was one one Faith among many the president or the analogy outside is whole lot of Asian countries where there are this great religious pluralism in one way or another China Korea but also India oh many countries in Africa and the evolution in even a lot of um Christian countries in the South like Brazil to precisely a more open pluralist world in which you understand Faith as not just your personal journey of course you Journey with others because many in the case of Christian faith it's always a church it's always a community right but this is no longer the official Faith this is no longer something was just commanded from on top so I think that for a lot of people today and even more for our children the way it was back let's say in the 18th century or 19th century where everywhere was a confessional State I mean you had to the United States wasn't a confessional state but it was the idea was where it got to be Christians from different kind of proant Christians can coexist but you know they're going to be Christian so that idea is going to seem more and more strange weird not something desirable now over against that you have people I understand them who feel that that was wonderful and we're losing it and why can't we get it back and how can we get it back I mean the fact is that even if we sat here and all of a sudden yeah we got to get it back how would we get it back I the the way people understand themselves has changed so much that you can't just turn the clock back you just we're in a new era there was an era of Christendom and now there an era and but let's look at this I mean my response to this let's look at this in a real really broad perspective the Christian faith was poured into the world right sometime around 30 ad whatever it was right and then it moved a lot of it moved East in their churches that no longer exist anymore like noorian church in China a lot of it moov West South north and it's always been different even there have been other Christendom like the Orthodox world are very much unlike the Latin one it's always been different it's always been at any moment different in different societies it's been over time very different as you go through history maybe there's a lesson here I me maybe what we you got to do is live it through all the different situations and none is really you know closer to God or the right way but we have to be what how to be Christian how to be closer to God how to be living the gospel in our situation speak to that and so in a sense is it is it a loss in some ways maybe is it a Liberation yes in some ways it is but the most important thing is that's what we have to do you know it's not uh would be great to be in third Century Alexandria and sometimes you might feel that yeah but that's a a nice feeling but you can't live your life that way so we have to live our lives in this new situation