My conversation with Jamie Smith was less of an interview and more of a therapy session.

But maybe I should have expected that after I read his new book, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts. Smith says the book is one last take at Christianity for someone tempted to leave the faith behind. All I know is that this book read me. Smith uses Augustine to help us answer our deepest questions and find satisfaction for our deepest longings. Augustine’s ancient experience feels strangely contemporary in these confusing times. Smith told me:

“Maybe people do have to go through the disappointment of realizing that those who claim to have the secret and know what everybody else doesn’t know, you do have to be actually curious enough to keep pressing those buttons and say, ‘Does this really work?’ And that requires some intellectual integrity that I’m not sure that comes naturally to us, especially in our cultural moment where I think association is more important than insight.”

Listen as we discuss conversion as compass, authenticity as loneliness, and ambition as bottomless.