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Tribes, Trolls, and the Power of Technology 0
- November/December 2023
- October 31, 2023
How the digital world is remaking our political order. Illustration by Mary Haasdyk Vooys For more than a decade I have worked at the intersection of the two things we are told not to bring up at holiday gatherings: religion and politics. These topics often elicit visceral reactions—especially conversations about politics, which at times take
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Christian Nationalism and the Art of Flossing 0
- September/October 2023
- September 1, 2023
An interview with sociologist and author Andrew Whitehead. For a book written by a social scientist, Andrew Whitehead’s American Idolatry has surprisingly few statistics in the opening pages (American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and the Church [Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2023]). Instead, Whitehead, a nationally known writer and speaker on religion in
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At the Altar of Patriotism 0
- September/October 2023
- September 1, 2023
The outsized influence of ‘civil religion’ and what it means for Americans today. In 1863, prominent Unitarian pastor Henry W. Bellows preached a rousing war sermon to his New York congregation. He called the sermon “Unconditional Loyalty,” and he meant every word of it. He warned his congregation against the treasonous implications of criticizing the
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Doing Unto Others and the Limits of Democracy 0
- September/October 2023
- September 1, 2023
In 2015, a few months before he died, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia spoke to law students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In the question-and-answer period a student asked Scalia whether courts have a responsibility to protect minorities that can’t win rights through the political process. Scalia’s response was typically blunt. No, he said.
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