Yearning For Meaning with Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren and Dr. David McPherson (Part 1 of 2)

Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures. This search is at the heart of religions all around the world. Over the past century or so, however, religion, especially in the West, has been in decline, and many commentators have marked the rise of the “nones” and “dones”--those who have no religious affiliation and those who have abandoned religion with no intention to return. What factors are behind these shifts? What does the search for meaning in the absence of religion look like? What is spirituality and what is its relevance in our contemporary context? In this episode, I interview a psychologist and philosopher who are trying to make sense of these trends.

Daryl Van Tongeren, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Hope College and the director of the Frost Center for Social Science Research. A social psychologist, he has published more than 200 scholarly articles and chapters, and four books, on topics such as religion, meaning in life, and virtues. Most recently, his work has focused on the psychological and social processes of leaving religion and undergoing religious change, culminating in his newest book, Done: How to Flourish After Leaving Religion. His research has been covered by numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, BBC, Hidden Brain, Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR-affiliated radio stations, Scientific American, and Men’s Health. His work has been supported by numerous grants from the John Templeton Foundation, and he has won national and international awards for his research. He is also an associate editor for The Journal of Positive Psychology. He enjoys running, biking, and hiking near where he lives with his wife, Sara, in Holland, MI. 

David McPherson is Professor of Philosophy in the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida as well as Affiliate Professor in the Department of Philosophy. McPherson works in the areas of ethics (especially virtue ethics), political philosophy, meaning in life, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of The Virtues of Limits (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Virtue and Meaning: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2020), as well as the editor of Spirituality and the Good Life: Philosophical Approaches (Cambridge University Press, 2017). McPherson is currently the project leader for a three-year Templeton-funded grant project on “Spiritual Yearning and the Problem of Spiritual Alienation,” which will result in his third book monograph titled Spiritual Alienation and the Quest for God as well as an edited volume titled Spiritual Yearning in an Age of Secularization: Philosophical, Psychological, and Sociological Perspectives.

In this first part of our conversation, we talk about:

• The four main reasons people leave religion
• Navigating cognitive dissonance and existential anxiety
• Virtue ethics and the good life
• What is spirituality and do we need it?
• Spiritual alienation

To learn more about Daryl and his work, you can find him at:
Website: http://darylvantongeren.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/darylvantongeren/
X: https://x.com/drvantongeren
Done: How to Flourish After Leaving Religion: https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/done

To learn more about David and his work, you can find him at:
Website: https://davidmcpherson.weebly.com/
X: https://x.com/davidlmcpherson 
Virtue and Meaning: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective: