Everyone thought I was crazy for majoring in religious studies. Here’s why it matters now more than ever.

Everyone thought I was crazy for majoring in religious studies. Here’s why it matters now more than ever.

One year, for Hanukkah, my grandmother gave me the Book of Mormon. She was not trying to convert me. She was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was Jewish, though a deeply secular Jew who found joy in trying to introduce her more observant friends to the pleasures of shrimp cocktail. Instead, what she was trying to do — either humorously or passive-aggressively, depending on whom you ask — was drive home a criti…