Politics & Society
Devil in the algorithm
Social media platforms are damaging democracy, and it’s not primarily about what speech they do or don’t moderate.
Reading The Irony of American History 70 years later
What do Reinhold Niebuhr's blind spots tell us about our own?
Why books get banned
People fear the impact of difficult books. They aren’t entirely wrong.
We need to stop talking about “good” and “bad” neighborhoods
Both Sheryll Cashin and Yelena Bailey investigate the scandalous inequalities between city neighborhoods.
Lawrence Jackson’s memoir tells a story of location shaped by race
Baltimore—from Frederick Douglass to Freddie Gray—informs his whole journey.
Under Elon Musk’s authority
Doing church on social media is not like standing in the public square. It’s more like putting ourselves under a form of sovereignty.
Lisa Sharon Harper’s memoir of the legacy of slavery
Fortune gives a wrenching account of intergenerational trauma and its costs.
How should Asian American Christians respond to anti-Asian racism?
Be like water: clear, humble, persistent, and restorative.
The end of endless wars?
Andrew Bacevich and Samuel Moyn each seek a reckoning on how the United States uses its military abroad.
QAnon moms
The infiltration of online parenting spaces began as a slow burn. During the pandemic, it’s picked up speed.
Three reasons gerrymandering is bad for democracy (no matter who does it)
It’s not just about an overall partisan advantage.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the monster of Whiteness
Unmasking and slaying our Promethean desire for mastery
Myanmar’s civil war has continued unabated for 60 years
How could a Buddhist country have one of the worst human rights records in the world?
How harm reduction is winning the war against drug overdoses
Maia Szalavitz tells the story of a strategy that replaces criminalization with empathy.
I went to the first McDonald’s in Russia for the bathroom
As the Soviet Union crumbled, the West sent French fries.
What kind of faith should Ketanji Brown Jackson have?
We seem to want public figures with inconsequential beliefs.
Common threads among five prophetic voices of the 20th century
“We turn to Thurman, Bonhoeffer, Day, Heschel, and Niebuhr because they never let us forget the important questions.”
