Decline in US religion shows a ‘leadership problem’: Pastor Andy Stanley
North Point Community Church’s Pastor Andy Stanley responds to a poll showing a decline in religious values.
Rainn Wilson, who rose to fame playing Dwight Schrute on "The Office," talked on a recent podcast about the need for a spiritual revolution.
The actor spoke about his religious journey and trying to navigate Hollywood and modern culture as a person of faith on the "No Small Endeavor" podcast, hosted by theologian and professor Lee C. Camp.
Wilson also noted how he has been discussing faith for a "good 12 years," noting, "Frankly, I think it freaks people out. I think that most of Hollywood, especially comedians in Hollywood, talking about God is the uncoolest thing you can ever possibly do."
Rainn Wilson attends his "Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution" book signing during the 2023 Atlanta Film Festival at Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University in Atlanta on April 28, 2023. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
He further added that "comedians will call themselves nerds and say, ‘Oh, I'm so uncool, I'm so uncool.’ But it's this weird thing. It's like, Hollywood is about who's sitting at the cool kids' lunch table."
Regarding Hollywood and talking about faith, the actor explained, "So do I, do I have any smoking guns? Do I have any kind of like, emails…? No, not really. I can just kind of sense a collective eye roll about it. It certainly doesn't help my career. I'm not doing any, any of this for any self-promotion or, or career."
Wilson recently published a book called "Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution," which warns that "existing political and economic systems" are not sufficient to address the "societal tensions that threaten to overwhelm us." The actor is an adherent of the Baha'i faith, a deistic religion founded in 19th century Iraq.
He noted that as society has increasingly abandoned religion, it seeks other means of filling that void.
"Again, we've thrown the spiritual baby out with the religious bathwater, collectively rejecting religion and getting our spirituality sometimes in quite superficial ways, like from a yoga class or just a meditation app or an Instagram that has Rumi quotes on it," Wilson noted. "And I don't mean to, I don't mean to denigrate, you know, New Age folk or people that are looking outside of a religious system for spiritual inspiration, but there are universals in art and there are universals in spirituality that humanity desperately needs right now."
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Wilson went on to claim, "We're in the midst of a number of crippling pandemics that I outline in the book. We have a pandemic of climate change — that's a pandemic, besides COVID. We have many other pandemics. Racism is one. Income inequality is really a pandemic."
In March, the actor made headlines when he called out "anti-Christian bias" in the entertainment industry.
Vandalism appears on the Sacred Heart of Mary Church in Boulder, Colorado, in May. Many have spoken about the role of religion in society amid social strife that divides Americans along political lines. (Mark Haas)
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"I do think there is an anti-Christian bias in Hollywood. As soon as the David character in ‘The Last of Us’ started reading from the Bible I knew that he was going to be a horrific villain," he tweeted. "Could there be a Bible-reading preacher on a show who is actually loving and kind?"