Current Course Offering

The Spring 2025 Messinger-Williams Family Community Education Initiative at Hood Theological Seminary

A free educational opportunity, open to all.

Believe

Why Everyone Should Be Religious

Do you ever wish you had more faith? The newly released book Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious by Ross Douthat offers a blueprint for thinking your way from doubt to belief.

As a columnist for the New York Times who writes often about spiritual topics for a skeptical audience, Douthat understands that many of us want to have more faith than we do. Douthat argues that in light of what we know today it should be harder to not have faith than to have it.

With empathy, clarity, and rigor, Douthat explores:

• Why nonbelief requires ignoring what our reasoning faculties tell us about the world.
• How modern scientific developments make a religious worldview more credible, not less.
• Why it's entirely reasonable to believe in mystical and supernatural realities.
• How an open-minded religious quest should proceed amid the diversity of religious faiths.
• How Douthat's own Christianity is informed by his blueprint for belief.

With clear and straightforward arguments, Believe shows how religious belief makes sense of the order of the cosmos and our place within it, illuminates the mystery of consciousness, and explains the persistent reality of encounters with the supernatural. Highly relevant for our current moment, Believe offers a pathway for thinking your way from doubt into belief, from uncertainty about our place in the universe into a confidence that we are here for a reason.

Facilitated by Trevor Eppehimer, Academic Dean at Hood Theological Seminary, the Spring 2025 Messinger-Williams Community Education Initiative will be devoted to a five-week study of Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, beginning March 17.

Participation Options

Read independently
Use distributed reading guides to work through Believe on your own.

Organize your own discussion group
Use distributed reading guides to explore Believe with co-workers, neighbors, family, and friends.

Join a discussion group
Join an in-person or Zoom discussion group, led by Dr. Trevor Eppehimer of Hood Theological Seminary, that meets one hour per week during the course of the study. Discussion groups are now being formed at the following places and times:

• Mondays 10:30-11:30am EST on Zoom (3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7, and 4/14)

• Mondays 12:00-1:00pm EST on Zoom (3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7, and 4/14) (Currently Full)

• Wednesdays 9:30-10:30am at First United Methodist Church (Salisbury NC) (3/19, 3/26, 4/2, 4/9, and 4/16)

• Wednesdays 11:00-12:00pm at First Presbyterian Church (Salisbury NC) (3/19, 3/26, 4/2, 4/9, and 4/16)

• Thursdays 3:00-4:00pm at Trinity Oaks Retirement Community (Salisbury NC) (3/20, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, and 4/17) (Currently Full)

Five-Week Reading Schedule

Questions? Want more details? Send email to teppehimer@hoodseminary.edu

Ready to register?
You can click here to register now.

The Messinger-Williams Community Education Initiative at Hood Theological Seminary is an extension of the Hood Theological Seminary’s Messinger and Williams Family Chair in Theology and Ethics. Its mission is to facilitate explorations of topics related to ethics, community, faith, and meaning-in-life for the general public. Courses are free and open to all.

Suggested donation for course: $25. Click here to make donation.