After 42 years as a beloved professor of religion at Princeton University, this film follows Dr. Elaine Pagels as she sunsets her career and releases her much anticipated book, Miracles and Wonder, The Historical Mystery of Jesus. In 1979, Elaine’s groundbreaking book, The Gnostic Gospels, established her as one of the most important scholars of early Christianity of our time. This book brought the findings of the ancient secret gospels (52 texts found buried in Egypt In 1945) to a global audience in a story of miraculous discovery that read like a page-turning thriller. 

In response to her critics claiming “she’s trying to destroy the church,” Elaine explains, “I'm not trying to destroy anything. I'm trying to understand it. The point is the way these ancient stories speak about the life we know—with suffering, death, political oppression and cruelty—and yet they become a story of hope.” Elaine’s newest work —one that examines the historical basis for what we know about Jesus—invites people to ask questions during a time of political division and uncertainty. 

Elaine’s personal story of profound loss, grief, and love has prepared her for this very moment. Her own spiritual journey models a unique, individual relationship and reckoning with God—one that was first tested by the loss of her 6-year-old son to an incurable disease, then tested again just one year later by the loss of her first husband to a tragic mountain climbing accident. In her autobiographical work, also titled, Why Religion? Elaine lays bare her anger, rage, guilt, and loss of faith, later restored through her long meditation on Jesus’ teachings from the secret Gospels: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Elaine approaches life with a kind of curiosity, tenderness, and spiritual wonder that inspires us all. She seeks the divine in art, nature, and music every day. She has found love again in this last chapter of her life, marrying again at the age of 79. Why Religion? is a parable of how a student of religion becomes a master of her own spiritual practice—dare we say, shares her own “Gospel of Elaine” with us.