Dealing with them is a privilege and a joy, but habitually dealing with the outside of them is inherently dangerous. The “outsides” of holy things, to me, describes the difference between speaking about divine or sacred things and encountering the divine or the sacred directly. To be sure, we need more and better religious discourse in America. In my very first newsletter for The Times, I wrote that “we need to start talking about God,” and I still believe that. Constant connectivity empties us out, as individuals and as a society, making us shallower thinkers and more impatient with others.

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Persons: Thomas Wingfold, George MacDonald, I’ve, Nikolai Berdyaev Organizations: Scottish, The Times, Social Locations: America, Russian