The Long Game

In his new book Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain With Democracy argues that American Christianity has secularized and become less distinctly Christian, to the detriment of American democracy. He applies that criticism to mainline denominations that skew left and to evangelical churches that skew right. Get full access to Border-Stalkers at jonward.substack.com/subscribe

Eliza Griswold's new book Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church is about a church in Philadelphia that was started by a couple who became dramatic converts to Christianity in the 1970's. They became Jesus people. And unlike many others in that movement, they stayed pretty radical. Griswold's book tells the story of this couple's attempt to hand the church...

Major Garrett is chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, and as he told me in our conversation, he is an "accidental television journalist" who "never imagined" working in TV and "never wanted it." He was a print reporter for 17 years before entering the world of television. Since then, he's proven to be one of the most formidable, best prepared interviewers in journalism. This dude is rigoro...

Aurelian Craiutu is the author of Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals. Craiutu is the chair of Indiana University's political science department. He is reclaiming a word and idea — moderation — that is typically despised and criticized as weak and cowardly. This is a misunderstanding of what moderation is, he insists. Moderation is not for the weak or the indecisive, Craiutu says. Instea...

A new book is about the tectonic plates underneath our politics. " American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation -- And Could Again ,” by Yuval Levin. It's about how better understanding this substrata of our politics can help us shape a better future, to act together even if, and especially when, we don't agree on many things. This is Yuval’s fifth book. This one will be read by the...

John Inazu's new book is Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect. John teaches on criminal law, law and religion and the First Amendment at Washington University in St. Louis. He is an expert on religious freedom. And he is a senior fellow with Interfaith America. John's book is structured around the rhythm of a law school year. The reason, he s...

We keep looking at the politicians who show up on our TV's and our phones, at the lawmakers who end up in Congress, and the general lack of solutions to our biggest problems, and we shake our head. We promise to vote the bums out. We vow to drain the swamp. We pledge to overturn the plutocracy. But we don't think about our assembly line, the system that gives us the choices we are presented with....

Michael Wear is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life, which was released Jan. 23. "Many see the strident antics of religious provocateurs, the callous disregard displayed in the public square by some who identify as Christian, and diagnose the problem as Christian entitlement or Christian arrogance," Michael writes. "But these frantic perf...

David Leonhardt's new book is called "Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream." It was recently named one of the year's top 10 books by The Atlantic magazine. "The economy has grown more slowly than it did in the postwar decades," Leonhardt writes, "producing less bounty for the population to share." And, he adds, "the economy has become more unequal, with a declining share of...

Tim Alberta's new book: The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals In An Age of Extremism, is a sobering look at the results in history when a religious movement morphs into a political movement, and allows its identity to be taken over by political imperatives and goals. Alberta's book documents the spread of Christian Trumpism, aided and abetted by conflict profiteers who have...

This is a Builders conversation. I'm doing these about once a month to highlight people who are not cursing the darkness but are also building up their local community — and the country — through making something beautiful, through problem-solving, and by stitching together places of belonging and meaning. (Thank you Joy Moore for the inspiration!) I wanted to interview Matt Murphy for my Builders...

This week's podcast interview (audio above) is with Ruy Teixeira, about his new book with John Judis, Where Have All the Democrats Gone?: The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes . It’s a fascinating conversation. Get full access to Border-Stalkers at jonward.substack.com/subscribe

Janet Kellogg Ray is a biology professor at the University of North Texas. She was raised a creationist, and has written two books now about the issue of evolution and evangelicals. The first, Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? The Bible and Modern Science and the Trouble of Making It All Fit , came out in 2021. The second came out this month. It's called The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Mo...

I cannot think of a better week to launch my new Builder Interview Series . While our national leaders are failing to lead, I'm talking today with a man who is trying to build something new. Many people are desperate for a new kind of politics, and Joel Searby has dedicated the last several years of his life to that cause. Joel worked on the Evan McMullin presidential campaign in 2016, and since t...

I've interviewed Yascha Mounk about his book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time , which was released this week. "Mounk has told the story of the Great Awokening better than any other writer who has attempted to make sense of it," The Washington Post wrote in a review . Yascha's book says that we can reach across our differences and understand one another, and that we need to...

As promised, my conversation with Shannon Harris is on the podcast this week. We talk about her new book The Woman they Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife I have a particular interest in this book because it's a behind the scenes look at the culture of the church I grew up in: Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. There is national relevance for Shannon's story, h...

Andrew Whitehead is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (theARDA.com) at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Here’s Andrew’s Substack His first book in 2020, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States , with Samuel Perry, was a data-...

Large numbers of Americans are unhappy with the idea of a Biden vs Trump rematch,  polls show , but both the Democratic and Republican parties appear to be paralyzed, unable to do anything about it. There’s a reason why. Both parties are  shells of their former selves , and strong political parties are the foundation of a healthy democracy, many  political experts agree . For too long Americans ha...

Hello friends, Summer is winding down, sadly. But life goes on, and carries meaning and purpose with it. I hope that you have had at least a few moments this summer of rest and restoration, of healing, of reenergizing, of quiet solitude, of laughter with friends, of uninterrupted peacefulness. And if not, I hope you (and I) can steal a few moments of early morning quiet yet, for we have many good...

Karen Swallow Prior is the author of multiple books, including On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books . Her new book is called The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis . It is publishing next Tuesday, August 8! Karen really does come from inside evangelicalism. She's taught at Liberty University. She's tried extremely hard to be p...

"Apocalypse literally means unveiling and revelation,” Moore told me. “And I think that's what happened in the post 2015 era. A a lot of things were revealed," Moore said of the last eight years. "We could see patterns of behavior that were preexisting but weren't really all that clear.” "Losing Our Religion" is available for sale on July 25. Get full access to Border-Stalkers at jonward.substack....

John Blake is a senior writer at CNN. In this conversation, John and I talk about his book More Than I Imagined : What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew . We discuss: * his very difficult childhood growing up in West Baltimore in the 60's and 70's * how he grew up disliking white people even though his mother was white, in part because he was told after his mom disappeare...

A new book, " The Big Break " by Washington Post feature writer Ben Terris, is a story of how many institutions in Washington are failing those within them. But it's also a cautionary tale of how the idealism and passion of youth is being squandered in today's politics by our focus on individualism and our deemphasis on institutions. Ben's book traces the story of several characters over the perio...

You would think that most people would agree that we should try to make voting secure and accessible, that we should have confidence in the results and that we should make it possible for as many people as possible to cast a ballot. But Republicans increasingly are seeking to make it harder to vote. There has been a rush in state legislatures to crack down on mail-in voting, to restrict early voti...

David Blankenhorn is co-founder of Braver Angels, which now has 70 chapters around the country, and has hosted more than 1,400 meetings, Blankenhorn said. The mission of Braver Angels is to get Americans to talk to one another, and to have honest conversations about their views on politics. The practice they preach is to get their members to listen to one another, rather than try to persuade each...