I wrote Justice of the Rupture after our attempt to elect Bernie Sanders to the presidency. Shortly afterward, Nina Turner, the national co-chair of Sanders’ 2020 campaign, identified the nature of our grief when she said “Progressives are in the wilderness“. Nina was raised in the church. She was talking about the wilderness that Jesus experienced after his baptism. Sadly, the entire country is here with us today. The important thing at this time is to recognize it for what it is.… Read the rest
Series: The American Disconnect
It’s becoming clear that the American version of reality only makes sense if one doesn’t look at history. Not the history invented by empires, but the history of their victims. Once we solve that problem, the task of analysis begins. Unfortunately, the modern world doesn’t have a religious foundation to inform this analysis. We have certain religious talking points that are convenient to the empires in question, but not a solid foundation. This has left us with a very one-sided variety of wisdom and led to an American disconnect from reality. This series aims to address that disconnect.
-
The Blameless Center Line
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe morning after a devastating political defeat, the silence can feel heavier than the loudest campaign noise. You watch the maps change, feeling a suffocating mixture of disappointment and deep, exhausting discouragement. It feels as though a massive, impersonal machine has rolled over everything you value. You did the work, you held the line—and the system failed you anyway.
If you are standing in that quiet, anxious modern wilderness today, I want to take you out of our current media echo chamber and place you onto a marshy moor in Scotland on April 16, 1746.… Read the rest
-
The American Paradox
Reading Time: 4 minutesThere is a distinct spiritual vertigo that comes when a society realizes its foundations are fracturing. As we look out at a landscape shifting under multi-directional threats—hyper-polarization, macroeconomic instability, and geopolitical chaos—the world suddenly feels like a barren, trackless wilderness.
On paper, America rejected the idealism of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau believed a state could force its citizens to conform to a singular, collective “General Will.” Instead, the American Founders built a mechanical fortress designed to prevent tyranny.… Read the rest