"God and the Pandemic"
b'News just out of the CDC has created fresh opportunities for normal, communal time together, indoors \\u2014 just like we did pre-Corona. One of the rituals I have missed over the past year has been attending synagogue. But long before the Covid-19 pandemic, participation in organized religion - across all walks of religious life - was on the decline. Americans had become less engaged in religious institutions, whether it was regular attendance or membership and donations to their local congregation. \\n\\nDid the pandemic arrest these trends? Did virtual platforms provide new opportunities for religious and communal engagement?\\n \\nJoel Kotkin is a professor and bestselling author. He has been described by The New York Times as \\u201cAmerica\\u2019s uber-geographer.\\u201d He has authored numerous books, including The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, and also The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us. He is also a regular contributor to the Manhattan Institute\\u2019s City Journal. \\n \\nJoel recently authored an essay for Quillette that got me thinking more about all of this. It\\u2019s titled \\u201cGod and the Pandemic\\u201d and it\\u2019s what I wanted to unpack with him today. \\n\\nWill coronavirus have further isolated Americans from organized religion, or drawn them closer to religion in a durable way?'