Religion Roundtable: Religion and Society

In this episode, Hamish hosts a diverse group of religious and non-religious guests. The episode centers around exploring how religion guides ethics, whether people should be religious, and a discussion of how religion exists in our current American society. To ground this discussion we have a diverse set of guests: a conservative Christian, a progressive Christian, and an atheist. This episode was recorded earlier in the year, before the pandemic.

Garry Crites is a well known-Durhamite. He is best known as the Executive Director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Garry is a graduate of Duke's religious history Ph.D. studies program. He has experience teaching conservative perspectives on Christianity from his time as a Professor at Duke. *Not to be confused with our notorious campus Gary the Pit Preacher*. For more information on Garry, see https://naminc.org/nami-north-carolina-announces-new-executive-director/

Reverend Mary Elizabeth Hanchey is a graduate of UNC Law School, Duke Divinity, and now serves at the United Church of Chapel Hill. She is known for her commitment to combining social justice in her mission to spread the gospel. Mary Elizabeth brings a dearth of experiential knowledge about our southern community, particularly the North Carolina community.

Pavel Nitchovski is a self-proclaimed atheist, best known around UNC for teaching existentialism being the soul of the philosophy department. He is a graduate student in Philosophy and a High School Ethics Bowl Judge legend for asking questions to students about kicking puppies. He is passionate about film. Pavel hosts Philosophy at the Movies, a fun experience for UNC students to come and watch and discuss movies and their themes. We hope that it resumes after coronavirus passes. Pavel has the best humor and anecdotes in the Philosophy Department, according to the Chapel Phil team.

This is the first of two episodes that will come from this extended dialogue.