You know someone is rooted in conviction when they garner significant criticism from both the right and the left. Matthew Vines is that person. In just the past few months, he engaged in a respectful debate with a celibate gay Christian over Vines’ affirming stance, and engaged in a (sometimes heated) debate in the comments section of The New York Times over his op-ed, “I’m Gay, Not Queer. That Matters.” The Southern Baptist Convention once published an entire book in direct response to his book in 2014. He’s also been denounced by numerous figures on the left for his criticisms of “queer theology” and, more recently, his NYTimes op-ed.

Just a few responses from across the board about the conversation he generated:

• “Queer, what art thou?” by Stephen Bradford Long

• “Loved before we are labeled,” by Dennis Sanders.

• “I’m a Christian. Here’s why I still call myself queer” in Sojourners.

• “The Living God and our own echo,” by Loren Richmond.

• Matthew Vines follow-up essay, “Why I wrote about ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ for the New York Times.”

Vines’ book, “God and the Gay Christian,” is one of the more influential books of the last decade on same-sex relationships and the church. It was certainly influential in my life as I came to an affirming position, and I know many others who feel the same. Last year, Vines came out with an updated 10-year anniversary edition with new research, insights, arguments and responses to his critics.

I spoke to Vines recently about the new edition, and some other topics including:

• What he was trying to achieve with his NYTimes op-ed, and the reactions to it generated online.

• How he engages in debate with the right and left.

• Why he still believes persuasion will win the day in garnering support for same-sex marriage.

• “Respectability Politics” and whether that accurately describes his approach.

• Why “love is love” isn’t enough to argue for same-sex marriage.

• How dogmatic approaches to activism hurt more than help.

• And so much more.

This is my first video interview (so bear with me), but I’m hoping to do more of these in the near future. If you like respectful conversations about faith and sexuality, author interviews, and book reviews and reflections, then be sure to subscribe!

At the very end of the interview, Matthew and I both mentioned attending the 2026 CenterPeace Conference October 15-17. This is a great event for LGBT Christians and those wanting to learn more about the intersection of faith and sexuality. Registration is still open and you can learn more about CenterPeace and the conference at centerpeace.net/more.

The Coddling Movie

Virtue Signaling as a Vice: How LGBTQ+ Activism is Slowly Killing Support for Gay Marriage

“Bad and Bigoted” reads a headline about the San Francisco Giants annual Pride Night…

Read more

2 months ago · 205 likes · 49 comments · Ryan Self

Laramie, Wyoming, has been a subject of fascination for me. It was where my grandparents met while my grandfather attended the University of Wyoming. It was where my mom and her siblings would visit in the summers to see relatives. It has also been a subject of macabre fascination as the site of the horrific killing of Matthew Shepard.

This past summer, I decided to visit Laramie for myself to get a sense of the town and pay respect to a place that held a special place in my personal history and the history of gay rights in America.

Part of my fascination with Laramie grew after reading journalist Stephen Jimenez’s deeply reported work, “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard.” Stephen is a gay man himself, but chose to look into the case to uncover what might have been hidden by the dominant narratives.

Part of this book was built on reporting Jimenez did for ABC News, along with interviews with more than a hundred individuals with first-hand knowledge of the people and events involved. He was even able to interview Matthew’s killers, Aaron McKinney and Russel Henderson, on multiple occasions. He interviewed members of law enforcement, Laramie residents, and family members of Matthew, Aaron and Russell to get at the truth of what happened that night nearly 30 years ago.

With the new knowledge provided by the book, and stories of my extended family’s history in the area, I chose to visit Laramie after a family reunion just an hour away in Fort Collins.

I.

To get to Laramie, I travelled northward, driving the same highway Matthew had driven up and down many times to visit friends in the Denver area. It was also the road the ambulance took while carrying Matthew from Laramie to Fort Collins, where he died in a hospital. It was also the drive Matthew took many times during his days in the area’s drug trade, trafficking meth and other hard substances.

But we’ll get to that.

I drove past the undulating sepia-toned hills that grew steeper, turning into rust-colored rocky cliffs rising on either side of the highway. The road wound through the valley until it opened to reveal an expanse of land stretching to the mountains. And in that stretch was Laramie.

Laramie is home to 30,000 people, barely more than the number that lived here during Matthew’s time, and about double the population in the 1950s when my grandparents lived here. It is not a growing city.

Despite having never visited before, Laramie felt familiar to me. It’s a place I’ve heard spoken of at many family gatherings. I had been coming to this region of the country since I was born; I had just never ventured that far north.

Wyoming is part of my DNA. My grandfather had a deep history with the state. He grew up on a farm near Worland, a town of barely 4,000. My family still has deep roots in Wyoming—literally. The mineral rights to the land that was once the family farm are divvied among the descendants of my great-grandfather.

My great-grandfather fought in WWI and returned to his country with scars that would not heal. He would disappear into the Wyoming hills for weeks at a time, leaving his wife and 11 children to fend for themselves.

I recently came across a picture of him. He is dressed in his war uniform and is probably in his late 20s or early 30s. He has blue eyes, like my mother. His stare is toward something off in the distance. His expression is remote, with an upper lip slightly raised. His brow has the faintest furrow.

There is something underneath the surface that seems to trouble him.

It’s hard not to read into the expression knowing what happened. When my grandfather was a child, he found his father dead in the barn. His father had shot himself. My grandfather was 10. He didn’t share some significant details with any of his children until after COVID, when he was in his mid 80s.

Trauma begets trauma. It echoes across time and generations. Matthew Shepard, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson all had their own unresolved traumas. Jimenez learned Matthew had been sexually victimized multiple times in his younger years, including when Matthew was in high school and traveling with classmates in Marrakech, Morocco. He had left his hotel in the early morning hours alone. A gang of young men cornered him and brutally raped him six times. As Jimenez reports:

Both family and friends said the attack had left him traumatized and that he’d never really recovered. Some speculated that the incident might have created a “counterphobia,” or a subsequent tendency for Matthew to counteract his fears by courting danger.

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II.

My first stop on my tour of Laramie was the University of Wyoming, where my grandfather studied engineering. He was able to get a full ride due to his grades, which was fortunate since he was a poor boy from the farm. When he first arrived in Laramie by train, a group of well-dressed young men offered to carry his luggage. They were also students at the University of Wyoming and part of a fraternity. Once they learned my grandfather had no money and would unlikely be joining their brotherhood, they stopped carrying his luggage.

The mascot of the University of Wyoming is the cowboy, fitting given the deep ties the region has to cowboy culture. One of the few paintings that traveled with my grandfather over the decades was a painting of a cowboy. The family nicknamed him “Hank.” The painting remained with my grandfather from his days caring for his young family up until the days his adult children cared for him.

I asked my mom what the significance of “Hank” was, and she said it likely reminded my grandfather of his dad, a cowboy.

I am very familiar with cowboy culture. I have friends and family members who have worked on ranches. West Texas, where I grew up, was also once part of the frontier. The aesthetics of cowboy culture were also prevalent in Lubbock. The mascot of Lubbock High School is the Westerner, and the illustration is nearly identical to that of the UW Cowboy.

The University of Wyoming is obviously an integral part of Laramie. This was where Matthew Shepard was a first-year student when he died. Naturally, many residents in Laramie, including those involved in Matthew’s life and death, were graduates of the university.

Matthew didn’t survive even one semester.

III.

Raised in the Episcopal Church, Matthew was involved in the University of Wyoming’s Canterbury Club, the Episcopal student group on campus. His Christian faith became a notable part of the story surrounding him after his death, as he took on almost a saintlike aura in much of the coverage.

There are churches everywhere in Laramie. Old historic buildings line the streets, alongside newer places of worship built in the last decade or so. There appear to be several LGBT-affirming churches, based on the Pride flags that adorn some of the windows.

Even though I am gay myself, I sometimes chafe at demonstrative Pride displays outside churches. They can feel performative, or even signalling an overfocus on identity rather than the Gospel. But a simple Pride flag in a window or on a door can be a welcoming sign, especially in places that have a history of being hostile to gay people.

These flags were likely not as prominent in front of businesses, churches and homes in 1998, when Matthew walked the streets of Laramie.

When I arrived, I looked up the Laramie Church of Christ. I am third-generation Church of Christ, and this was where the family lineage began. The church was where my grandparents met and eventually married. But the building I arrived at was clearly not the one my grandparents had attended nearly 70 years ago. This was a newer building. It was nearly 5 p.m. on a Sunday, which meant, as any good Church of Christ person knows, church would be starting.

I decided to go in.

I was greeted by two welcoming, burly men at the entrance. I ventured inside and was greeted by more friendly people. Even the oldest members were not around when my grandparents attended.

When I asked where the old building was, I was told it was still around and was given the address. Now a dance studio, the small building occupies a place on E Custer Street in another part of town.

When I drove up to the small, white building that once housed the Laramie Church of Christ, it was not hard to imagine its previous life as a church.

This building is where my grandmother, fresh out of high school and resigned to taking care of her siblings rather than pursue college, longed to find someone to build a life with. This is where my grandfather became a Christian after a classmate at the University of Wyoming invited him to church.

What happened at this church set off a series of events—moving to Chicago, then Denver, having children, job loss and job changes, more moves, new families sprouting up, and more—that eventually culminated in my birth in Lubbock, nearly 700 miles away.

My grandfather died last year in Lubbock, far from where he was born. On the wall of his room in the assisted living center was “Hank.” Near his bed was a black rocking chair with the University of Wyoming seal on it. The arms are worn down, and the seat has been worn as well. But it travelled all that distance, all those decades.

After my grandfather died, his family and community gathered at Sunset Church of Christ for his funeral and I spoke on behalf of his six grandchildren.

Learning about the hardships my grandfather faced surprised me, not just because they gave new insights into a man who could be…enigmatic. But also because of how joyful my grandpa was. He was not bitter. He was never cynical. He had faced more than most, but took much of it in stride.

A few days after Christmas, we gathered in my grandpa’s room. He was resting, quiet. He had been under hospice care for several weeks. As I did the math in my head about when the next time I would be visiting my hometown, I realized this was likely goodbye.

Before we left, I was able to grab his hand and tell him how much I loved him. How grateful I was for my mom. How he had given me so many good memories over the years. How thankful I was for him.

After giving him a kiss on his head, I said goodbye.

IV.

Down E Custer Street is the Library Sports Grille and Brewery. In Matthew’s day, it was the site of the Fireside Bar and Lounge. It was the last public place Matthew was seen before getting into a truck with Aaron and Russell, who drove him to an empty field and butchered him.

The building is incredibly nondescript. I took a few minutes in the truck. The gravity of this place had become real. What happened that night nearly 30 years ago was somewhat of an abstraction, a news event. This building was my first real encounter with a physical space occupied by the real human beings, Matthew Shepard, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson.

“Don’t get in that truck,” I want to say to Matthew nearly 30 years ago.

The building has been completely renovated since the events of October 6, 1998. The karaoke stage is gone. The hole-in-the-wall ambience that Matthew would have known has been replaced by a “library” vibe, with bookshelves along the walls.

As I’m in the bathroom, I’m reminded that Matthew and Aaron went into the restroom for a few minutes that night, and the contents of that conversation remain a mystery. Some believed this was when Aaron tried to lure Matthew into leaving with him and Russel. Others believe this is where Aaron and Matthew discussed a drug deal that was supposed to occur that night. Only two people know for sure: one is dead and the other is locked away in federal prison.

Here is what is known about the night Matthew Shephard was brutalized:

• Matthew arrived at the bar sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m., and Aaron and Russell arrived sometime between 11 and 11:45 p.m.

• Before arriving at the bar, Aaron and Russell had visited some homes in the area as part of a drug deal. Russell was more of a chauffeur to Aaron.

• At one point, Matthew went to the restroom, and Aaron followed him in there.

• Sometime between 12:20 and 12:45 a.m., Matthew left with Aaron and Russell, and all three appeared to be cordial.

After my meal, I wandered from the restaurant area into the bar. The World Cup was playing, and patrons were following the game with rapt attention. Whenever the preferred team scored a goal, the crowd would cheer. The atmosphere was energetic and filled with joy and camaraderie. And I stood in the corner, taking it all in, thinking about how this very spot had been the key moment in the night of Matthew Shephard’s horrific murder.

After leaving the bar, I got into my truck, just as the three ill-fated men had done decades ago. I took the same route Russell had driven Matthew and Aaron. I drove past the Wal-Mart where the night allegedly took its dark turn. In his opening statement at the murder trial for Aaron, Lead Prosecutor Cal Rerucha framed the events of the night this way:

Matthew Shepard sits between Mr. Henderson, who is driving the vehicle, and Mr. McKinney. At the approximate location of the Wal-Mart, Mr. McKinney says these words, “We are not gay, and you’re getting jacked.”

No matter your starting point, the edges of Laramie approach quickly. Within minutes of leaving the bar, after passing the Wal-Mart, I was near the limits of town. I drove along the road to get as close to the site as seemed respectful and responsible. The place where Matthew was tortured is on private land and rests beyond a small neighborhood. I ventured only a few hundred yards into the neighborhood before turning around and heading back to town.

V.

Laramie is a tight-knit community. The morning before my departure, I visited a local coffee shop across from the university. There I saw my waitress from the Library Sports Grille. The young adults minister from the Laramie Church of Christ stopped in. Every resident I met was extremely nice. My waitress at lunch confirmed the town is a place where you seem to know everyone.

That was true in Matthew’s day, too.

Years before he would lead the prosecution against them, Cal Rerucha had known Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney since they were young boys. He had advocated for Russell in family court when he was a boy after being neglected by his mother and abused by the men who came in and out of Russell’s mother’s life. Cal also knew Russell’s grandmother who “raised half the kids in this town,” according to Rerucha.

Aaron was also well known to Cal, but for different reasons. He had been flagged early as a troublemaker, and as he grew up, his propensity for criminal behavior grew as well.

This was a small community, smaller than most people wanted to admit.

News reports after the murder of Matthew Shepard portrayed Aaron and Russell as strangers to Matthew. But a part of the story that was buried was that Aaron and Matthew were not strangers; they knew each other intimately.

Near the beginning of his investigation, journalist Stephen Jimenez came across a letter in the sheriff’s files. A letter that tipped Stephen off that there was much more to this story:

Dear Mr. Rerucha,

I was shocked to hear that Aaron McKinney’s attorneys claim gay panic in their defense ... Aaron and Russ were quite familiar with gay guys and have frequented gay bars. They became aware of the fact that they had a valuable asset in their pants and that gay guys would give them shelter, food and money in return for a few minutes pleasure ... Even though [Aaron] was acting the part of “straight trade,” he was appalled that he really did like doing it with other guys.

VI.

As I was winding down my trip, I took one last walk around Laramie and ended up at the church my grandparents were married in. Earlier that day, I had come upon the owner who told me it would be open that afternoon if I wanted to stop by. I entered the small foyer, which was probably still there in my grandparents’ day. I peeked inside the large main room. Any furniture that once existed had been removed to make space for the dance floor. But I could still imagine the days when it was filled with pews, the day it was filled with my distant relatives who gathered to observe the wedding of two very young people about to embark on a journey together.

My grandparents’ last day in Laramie was the day they got married. It was also the day of my grandfather’s graduation. He graduated in the morning, got married that afternoon at the Laramie Church of Christ and the next day drove across the country to start his career in Texas.

I walked out of the building and down the steps my grandparents likely walked down as newly pronounced husband and wife. I took a moment to imagine the friends and family gathered around them as they made their way out of the church building.

After a few moments, I got back in my truck and started the drive to the Denver Airport.

Matthew Shepard didn’t get to leave Laramie this way. He didn’t get to graduate from the University of Wyoming. He didn’t get to see the day when same-sex marriage became the law of the land. He didn’t get to start a family of his own.

Matthew left Laramie in an ambulance, barely alive and covered in cuts and bruises. The person who found him thought he was a scarecrow. Hunched over and covered in blood and dirt, he didn’t look human. But upon closer inspection, the bloodied body was still breathing. Barely.

Matthew was taken to a hospital in Fort Collins, where he was on life support for days before finally succumbing to his devastating injuries.

While Matthew was still in the hospital, his brutalization became national news. President Clinton spoke about the event, labeling it a hate crime, and put renewed pressure on Congress to expand hate crimes legislation.

Overnight, the sleepy college town turned into a media circus.

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VII.

Few elements have helped shape the national narrative about Matthew Shepard and Laramie more than the play, “The Laramie Project.” The playwrights descended on the small town shortly after the event happened to interview roughly 200 of the townsfolk.

What struck me, as the HBO version of The Laramie Project opens, with scenes from around the town, is how remarkably similar it looks to the place I visited. There are the tan-colored steeples of the churches that rise above the mostly single- and two-story buildings, the downtown with its storefronts that could look like any small town main street. There’s the University of Wyoming, with its sepia-toned bricks. The HBO version was released only a few years after the attack on Matthew, and the town likely would have looked similarly.

In an establishing shot in front of a church, I noticed a familiar-looking white building: the similar roofline, the glass-block windows in a grid pattern, the roof pitch. It looked very similar to the building that once housed the Laramie Church of Christ.

The play involves actors providing monologues taken directly from the interviews. And one character in the beginning of the play encapsulates the new dynamic for this once sleepy town tucked away in the mountains:

If you would have asked me before, I would have told you Laramie is a beautiful town, secluded. It’s secluded enough so you can have your own identity. Ya know, now, after Matthew, we’re a town defined by an accident or a crime. We’ve become Waco or Jasper. We’re a noun or definition or something.

One of the people they spoke with was a gay man still living in Laramie. He spoke about how he had met plenty of gay men in the Denver area and how many of them had hard feelings about growing up in Laramie. It reminded me of how, when I mention I’m from Lubbock, some people where I live in Austin will reply, “Ugh, I’m sure you were glad to get out of there.” But I actually do still have deep affection for my hometown, as this gay man in the Laramie Project did. He also mentioned he had come across a few who said they missed the place. I can relate to that, too.

There were many moving sections of the movie. There were discussions with gay residents of Laramie, many who were closeted and now lived in fear. There was the recollection of the parade in Matthew’s honor that swelled with residents.

The Laramie Project, like much of the narrative around Matthew Shepard’s killing, avoids any mention of drugs. But Stephen Jimenez’ reporting strongly suggests meth was a key driver of the heinous killing.

This is a sin of omission. As Jimenez reports:

Shannon Shingleton and Jenny Malmskog both reminisced without nostalgia about drug parties during which friends from their circle “used to be up for days and days,” Malmskog said, mostly on meth.

Aaron McKinney was often among them.

When asked whether Matthew had participated, Shingleton responded, “I can confirm that Matt was at these parties ... In Laramie you were either part of the drug crowd or you weren’t.”

Not long after Matthew’s murder, Shingleton and Malmskog were interviewed extensively by members of New York’s Tectonic Theater Project, creators of the docudrama The Laramie Project. Both Shingleton and Malmskog were later listed in the on-screen credits of HBO’s adaptation of the play.

“We talked to those guys for hours,” Malmskog recalled.

“I told people [from the Tectonic] everything I knew,” Shingleton added, including what he knew firsthand of Aaron’s and Matthew’s involvement with crystal meth.

Shingleton said he was “angry at how fake [The Laramie Project] is” and he couldn’t understand why its makers had betrayed the truth to make a political statement.

Jimenez is very thorough. As a result, he makes a compelling case that what happened to Matthew wasn’t a hate crime based on Matthew’s sexuality, but the result of warring drug dealers fighting for territory in Laramie:

I [Jimenez] learned from other sources that in the year leading up to Matthew’s murder the Denver family with whom he was associated was involved in trafficking methamphetamine between Colorado and Wyoming. Occasionally they handled other drugs, but meth was their main business.

A strategic distribution point along the route from Denver to Laramie was Fort Collins, Colorado, another scenic university town and the location of the Tornado dance club, which Matthew and several of his friends frequented.

Aaron was hoping to rob the receiver of six ounces of meth the night of the murder. Before visiting the Fireside Lounge, they had visited various spots to try and locate the dropoff. Matthew, becoming more and more enveloped in the seedy underbelly of Laramie’s drug scene, was suspected of having the six ounces.

A key detail is also the fact that Aaron had been on a meth bender for days. He was still in a meth-induced rage the night he brutally murdered Matthew.

In addition to avoiding any references to drugs, The Laramie Project also leans heavily on the gay panic theory of the crime. In one scene, the girlfriend of Aaron speaks to the camera about his motivations:

Aaron said that a guy walked up to him and said he was gay and wanted to get with him and Russ. And Aaron’s really bad about that, he doesn’t like to be around gay people at all and neither does Russ. They just don’t like them. At all. And so he got aggravated with it and said he was straight and he didn’t want anything to do with it and he walked off. That’s when him and Russ went into the bathroom and decided to pretend that they were gay and get him into the truck and rob him. They wanted to teach him a lesson not to come on to straight people.

The mother of Russell’s girlfriend, Linda, was in a lesbian relationship at the time of Matthew’s murder and a friend noted Russell “got along very well” with Linda and her girlfriend.

Stephen reported that Matthew and Aaron knew each other socially and sexually. Aaron and Matthew travelled in the same circles and Aaron was part of what was essentially a male escort service. Matthew’s boyfriend, Ted Hanson, revealed to Jimenez (after much hesitation) that Matthew and Aaron were known to do drugs and have sex in the limo owned by one of the crime kingpins. They were not strangers. And it was not gay panic that sent Aaron into a rage.

Matthew had already suffered in many ways before the night of his murder: he had been the victim of abuse in his younger years, had severe mental health issues, and had struggled to stay on track in college (University of Wyoming was actually the third college he attended). He was lost. All of this seemed to contribute to Matthew’s decision to join this underground drug community in Laramie—for security and belonging.

As a witness to his deepening crisis in his final days, she also recalled that he’d been “in a lot of emotional pain .. wishing he had more security ... feeling very alone, lonely, isolated.”

It was no longer such a mystery to me why Matthew had fallen in with an improvised “family” of dealers — or why he’d become a dealer himself. Since his teen years, Matthew had used a variety of drugs to cope with his isolation, not to mention the pain of being victimized sexually. But as a part of the Denver circle he gained a sense of belonging and even empowerment, however illusory or short-lived. His dealer friends whom I interviewed talked about how much they respected and looked up to him; and I imagine he, in turn, mistakenly looked to them to provide the security he longed for.

VIII.

All of these moments coexist in Laramie. It is a tight-knit community with churches on almost every corner. It was also home to a serious meth-dealing crime ring. It’s where a horrific murder took place that shocked the nation. It’s also where my grandparents met and started their lives together.

Every community has these dualities, just as every person has this duality to a degree. Matthew Shepard the person is more complicated than the saintlike figure he became. The story is more complicated than the simple one portrayed in The Laramie Project and others. To simplify a complicated narrative, an entire town got marred in the process.

The likelihood that what happened to Matthew Shepard was about meth, not homophobia, does not for one minute excuse what happened to him or diminish in any way the horror of his brutal killing. As Andrew Sullivan wrote in a foreword for the 2019 edition of “The Book of Matt”:

That Matthew Shepard was a meth dealer and meth user says nothing that bad about him and in no way mitigates the hideous brutality of the crime that killed him; instead it shows how vulnerable so many are to the drug’s escapist lure and its astonishing capacity to heighten sexual pleasure so that it’s the only thing you want to live for. Shepard was a victim twice over: of meth and of a fellow meth user, driven to a form of madness that sustained meth use invariably produces. Gay men did not want this to be known - because it muddied the narrative of sainthood for Matthew and aired some dirty laundry many in the community wanted kept out of sight.

Straight people who wanted to display how concerned they were had a unique chance to weigh in with genuine sadness, shock, and pity and were not inclined to ask questions.

And then there was the huge pressure not to query a murder that seemed to have no purpose if it didn’t advance gay equality.

Stories are powerful things. They are how we make sense of the world, rally people to challenge injustice, remember loved ones, hold onto the past. Stories can also be used to conceal the truth, gloss over complicated facts, and avoid uncomfortable realities.

Laramie is part of my story. In my bedroom sits that rocking chair my grandfather owned, the black one with the gold seal of the University of Wyoming. It travelled with him during his college days, his early years of marriage, the years spent raising a family of four kids, and the multiple moves throughout his career. Then it sat in his room in Lubbock, next to the painting of “Hank” the cowboy that reminded my grandfather of his dad. And now it sits by my bed, and I think of him every time I sit in the chair.

And now I think of Laramie, too, the mountain town with multiple stories to tell.

Welcome to the July edition of “Book Reports,” where I share passages from books I’ve found intriguing recently. I aim to post these once per month. I also include a few links to articles and podcasts that have piqued my interest.

So without further ado…

The Days the Music Lived

Growing up in Buddy Holly’s hometown of Lubbock, Texas, I was well versed in the lore. We did a Buddy Holly themed music program in elementary school. Our minor league baseball team was called The Crickets. I once attended a journalism day camp and we got to meet Holly’s widow.

Another Lubbock native, Natalie Maines, noted the irony that the face of Buddy Holly—who famously died in a plane crash—greets you at the Lubbock airport.

Because Holly’s memory was so embedded in the local culture, it was hard to fully grasp his full impact, especially since he died nearly three decades before I was born. To really get a sense of Holly’s legacy and life, I picked up music journalist Phillip Norman’s “Buddy: the Definitive Biography of Buddy Holly.”

Even world-renowned rock ‘n roll musicians start somewhere, and I have enjoyed the Lubbock anecdotes in the first few chapters, like this one about one of Holly’s first girlfriends.

Buddy regularly accompanied Echo to services at the Church of Christ’s richly endowed establishment on Broadway, and took part in get-togethers and expeditions organized by its youth group. For her sake, he even gave up Lubbock High’s annual Prom, the dance where she would have been a scripturally enforced wallflower, instead escorting her to the banquet and entertainment which the Church of Christ provided as an alternative.

I grew up Church of Christ in Lubbock and am very familiar with Broadway. My mother, a generation younger than Holly, was also forbidden from dancing growing up. By the time I attended Lubbock High Prom (as a guest, I attended a different school) Church of Christ kids could freely attend dances.

Norman has written biographies of Elton John, The Stones and The Beatles. Buddy Holly’s impact could be seen across all of them:

During my research for all three biographies, Buddy cropped up time and again. I learned the full story of how he had encouraged Paul McCartney and an unhappily bespectacled John Lennon to write their earliest songs on truant afternoons in Allerton, Liverpool; how Buddy tracks like ‘Crying, Waiting, Hoping’ and ‘Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues’ bolstered the Beatles’ early repertoire around the Liverpool dance-halls and helped get them through all-night club sessions on the Hamburg Reeperbahn; how the first record they ever made, at their own expense, was “That’ll Be The Day’; how their very name evolved from a desire to be as much as possible like Buddy’s group, the Crickets.

I had no idea Holly’s impact was that deep. I never fully grasped how influential he had been in a relatively short time before he died at the age of 22.

As a songwriter, performer and musician, he is acknowledged as the progenitor of virtually every world-class rock talent to emerge in the sixties and seventies. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, all freely admit that they would never have started to play music without having had the way shown to them by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The uncountable imitators and derivatives of those artists, whether they know it or not, owe the same elemental debt. However rock may have seemed to advance or mutate over the past twenty years, one performer above all remains ineradicably part of its spirit and soul. Listen to the newest record by the latest ‘original’ singer-songwriter: you’re almost bound to hear an echo of Buddy in there somewhere.

McCartney was such a fan that he created an entire music festival in his honor.

McCartney also inaugurated the annual Buddy Holly Week’ of memorial concerts and fan-fests, coinciding with Buddy’s birthday on 6 September which continues to this day.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

I have always been a fan of Amy Poehler from her days at SNL to her time on Parks and Recreation. Her podcast is also a delight.

I thoroughly enjoyed her memoir, “Yes Please,” for its humor, but also for its humanity. I always admire writers who write unflattering stories about themselves, their mistakes, their flaws. In her chapter, “Sorry, Sorry, Sorry,” Poehler writes about a joke on SNL that went terribly wrong.

In a sketch written for her, Poehler played Dakota Fanning opposite an actress playing Miley Cyrus:

MILEY

Hey Dakota, check this out! It’s my new Hannah Montana dolll Pretty awesome, right?

(MILEY TAKES OUT A CUTE DOLL AND MAKES IT DANCE)

AMY / DAKOTA

I’ve also got a new doll. It’s from my upcoming flm Hurricane Mary, where my sister and I play severely disabled twins.

(AMY/DAKOTA TAKES OUT A CREEPY DOLL)

MILEY

(AS HER DOLL)

Hey Dakota, want to play?

AMY / DAKOTA

(AS HER DOLL)

I wish I could but I am severely disabled.

Poehler was unaware of the context of the sketch, and that it was based on a real girl who was severely disabled.

Months later I received a letter from Marianne Leone and Chris Cooper It was simple and painful. It said something like “Shame on you for making fun of a real girl. Her name is Anastasia and she is amazing. You should know her story,”

“Hurricane Mary” was a real movie written by Marianne about twin girls with cerebral palsy and their mother’s battle on their behalf.

Poehler was conflicted:

I’d like to tell you that I responded to the note. Or that I turned around and faced that letter head-on. I’d even like to tell you that I checked my body and heart and realized I was fine with the sketch and felt no need to apologize. Nope. Instead, I got angry. Anger and embarrassment are often neighbors. Sometimes we get defensive about what we feel guilty about. I was angry about the fact that I was being accused of something I didn’t do. I didn’t make fun of a real girl on purpose! I would never do that! That’s not me! That’s not me at all!

Years later, Amy still hadn’t responded. She confided to Spike Jonze about her guilt over the situation. He offered to help, but learned the situation was even worse.

Jonze forwarded an email from Leone:

Yeah, I was furious at the skit she did on SNL and wrote her a letter to tell her. The skit was a gratuitously cruel slap at disability which wasn’t funny in the least. What made it so, so horrible was that she was talking about the Somoza twins and the script I wrote about their lives. It was also the same night Hillary Clinton was on and I knew that Anastasia was watching it with friends, since she was in Texas stumping for Hillary, so I knew she saw herself being parodied in a horrible, unfunny, cruel way. I was doubly insulted for the twins that Poehler never had the class to answer the letter, so, quite frankly, 1 am glad that it bothered her. (We had our return address on the letter, and, face it, we’re not that hard to find.)

So, Spike, what I feel now is that I, we don’t need an apology from her, but if she wants to make it up to ANASTASIA, she can contribute to her staying at London School of Economics for another year to get her Master’s in Human Rights. Nothing will stop Anastasia. She will effect change in the world.

Poehler eventually mustered up the courage to apologize to Leone and Cooper, and also reached out to Anastasia, who graciously accepted her apology. It was Anastasia’s grace that truly taught Poehler a lesson.

Shame makes people abandon their children and drink them selves to death. It also keeps us from true happiness. An apology is a glorious release. Anastasia gave me a huge gift. That e-mail changed me. It rearranged my molecules. She has lived a life of struggle and decided not to pick up the armor. She teaches me about compassion. She makes her journey about open hearts. She is not ashamed.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

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The Vanishing Moderate Church

The state of American politics and religion is not a healthy one. The growing polarization among churches, where churches/denominations become right coded or left coded, is only exacerbating the problems.

Ryan Burge has written extensively about these issues on his excellent Substack, “Graphs about Religion.” His most recent book, “The Vanishing Church” looks at how more moderate (some might say “purple” churches) are becoming increasingly rare.

But all hope is not lost. Burge has reason (based on data) to think we might not be as polarized as we think. At the institutional level, there’s been a dramatic shift. At the individual level, it’s much more nuanced:

White evangelicals and Catholics have swung significantly toward the right over the last several decades.

Members of the clergy in those denominations have staked out increasingly conservative positions. The nonreligious are moving in the opposite direction, perceiving the Democratic Party as becoming more moderate over time, while atheists and agnostics are moving toward the leftward pole of the ideological spectrum.

Yet the data in this chapter points to a much different conclusion: The average American tends to be fairly moderate, nuanced, and pragmatic in how they view some of the most talked about and divisive issues in modern society. Said succinctly, the individual-level data doesn’t seem to match what is happening at the institutional level of American society.

One example of how this plays out centers on discussions of Christian Nationalism vs. pluralism. The average churchgoer appears to prefer the latter.

For instance, respondents were asked to think about their ideal religious composition for the country. They were given a range in which 1 meant “I would prefer the US to be a nation made up of people belonging to a wide variety of religious beliefs” and 10 meant “I would prefer the US to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith.” I calculated the distribution of responses to this question for the entire sample and then just for people who identified with a Christian tradition (see fig. 9.5).

What is striking to me is how little the responses differ between the two samples. One would assume that Christians would have a strong preference for a country that was primarily Christian, but that’s not actually the case. Instead, just 17 percent of Christians said that they would strongly prefer a United States that was Christian. That was just four percentage points higher than the entire sample. On this scale that ranged from 1 to 10, the share of Christians who chose an answer of at least 6 was just half the sample. That means that exactly half the sample of Christians would prefer a country that had much more religious diversity. This data refutes the idea that there’s a huge contingent of American Christians who are being driven to religiously purify the country and make sure it is primarily Christian. Of course, such people do exist. About a third of the Christian sample chose an 8 or higher, but they certainly do not represent the majority position among Christians in the United States.

These nuances get lost in the discussion because institutional leaders present a more rigid and uniform front while toxic group dynamics prevent people from expressing diverging viewpoints.

The data points to the simple fact that there are a whole lot of people on both sides of the religious divide who listen to the thought leaders of their respective tribes and just can’t believe everything they are hearing. However, they do agree that the other side is clearly wrong and deserves to be ridiculed for belonging to a different tribe. That’s the real tragedy of the current discourse.

Questioning the prevailing opinions of one’s own group once or twice is acceptable, but like-minded people quickly tire of such inquiries. So, for an individual who feels out of sync with their chosen social group, only two options are available: They can go through the difficult process of switching sides, or they can simply keep their doubts, worries, and questions to themselves. The data seems to suggest that many people take this second route, simply because it’s easier.

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What I’m Reading

• Nate Silver has “12 questions for the center-left.”

• A new study suggests “Half of Gen Z Says Christians’ Support for Trump Makes Them Less Likely to Go to Church.”

• “You’re Just Wounded: 6 Ways Christians Sometimes Avoid Difficult Conversations”

• Ross Barkan details why “You Have to Understand What You Hate” when it comes to writing about ideas you strongly object to.

• Sabrina Joy Stephens looks at “The Political Cost of Political Tribalism.”

What I’m Listening To

• Matt Yglesias and Jerusalem Demsas of The Argument weigh in on “Does the oligarchy exist?” The answer is no.

• The Normal Gays podcast discusses some of the more unhinged reactions to Matthew Vines’ op-ed, “I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.”

• Dennis Sanders interviews Garwood Anderson — former Dean and President of Nashotah House Theological Seminary — to discuss those caught between conservative and progressive churches that expect total agreement.

• Jason Miller talks with Brit Barron, a former megachurch pastor who came out and carved out a new life for herself as a comedian, speaker and author.

America the beautiful turns 250 tomorrow. For weeks, we have received one of the best birthday presents the world can offer as travelers from all over discover our country for the World Cup. Buc-ees! Ice refills! School buses!

As Ethan Strauss put it, it’s as if “a thousand Alexis Tocquevilles applied their observations to Bass Pro Shops.”

The World Cup has been a reminder of how generous, open-hearted annd decent Americans are. As Andrew Sullivan, an immigrant himself noted in his piece, “DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION”:

A small-town sheriff in Texas helped a group of Swedes in a broken-down RV, and another Texan invited fans from France and Poland to his 30-acre property for a cowboy tour. Zoom in on Lawrence, Kansas, where 300 Americans waited in the rain for hours in the night to cheer the arrival of the Algerian team. This is America.

In honor of America’s 250th birthday, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the notable speeches given over the course of our two-and-a-half centuries as a nation. To help with that effort, I’ve taken speeches from the collection, “Classic American Speeches,” plus a few additional ones.

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Patrick Henry, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”

Many would recognize the final lines of Patrick Henry’s rousing speech delivered to the Convention of Delegates of Virginia on March 23, 1775. But the many lines before it are a rousing call that crescendos until the famous final line: “Give me liberty or give me death!”

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in very house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable-and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace— but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale, that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

George Washington, First Inaugural Address and Farewell Address

Reading the spirited speeches of figures like Patrick Henry, it is notable how measured and humble the words of the nation’s first president are. George Washington was deeply popular among his compatriots, but was reluctant to ascend to the presidency. It is probably this humility more than any other trait that made Washington the ideal first president to the newborn nation.

…the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all 1 dare aver is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare hope is, that if, in accepting this task, I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendant proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclinacion for the weighty and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the motes which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my country with some sham of the partiality with which they originated.

Washington’s humility shone through at the end of his two terms, both of which he took reluctantly. He was constantly resisting power, aware of his own limitations. His precedent of two terms became the norm until FDR, more than 100 years later. His reluctance to seize power is a trait that many modern presidents do not share.

Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself, and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.

Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

On the day after the 76th birthday of the United States, former slave and social reformer Frederick Douglass gave a speech to a small gathering of the Rochester [New York] Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. It was meant as a rebuke, highlighting the fact that more than 3 million black people remained enslaved on a day that celebrated freedom.

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national inde-pendence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, there-fore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”

Listeners would have quickly picked up on Douglass referring to “your National Independence,” “your political freedom,” “your great deliverance,” “your national life” [emphasis mine]. This is not a collective celebration.

I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address

More than a decade after Douglass’ speech, the nation was engulfed in a civil war. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, honoring a battle widely believed to be a turning point in the war. One battle resulted in 50,000 deaths between Union and Confederate Soldiers. By the end of the Civil War, more than 700,000 soldiers died, about 2.5% of the U.S. population at the time.

I have included the text of the two-minute speech in full:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address

The nation has faced numerous challenges in its lifetime, but often with resiliency. FDR helped rally the nation during the Great Depression during his inaugural address:

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truch, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream

There are few speeches in the nation’s history more powerful than MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered to more than 250,000 supporters at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.

Five score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree is a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.

One hundred years later the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . . .

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. . . . The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.

. . . We cannot walk alone. And as we walk we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

And then the crescendo to the stirring words that many can recite from heart:

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . . I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

Barbara Jordan, 1976 DNC Keynote Speech

Finally, a speech given as the nation turned 200 years old and faced many challenges. Among the many issues America faced in 1976 was high inflation, racial strife, a rise in political violence, and a nation reeling from government corruption in the years after Watergate. Barbara Jordan, the first African American senator since Reconstruction, was asked to be the first African American and the first woman to deliver a keynote address at a major party’s national convention.

Now, that I have this grand distinction, what in the world am I supposed to say? I could easily spend this time praising the accomplishments of this party and attacking the Republicans, but I don't choose to do that. I could list the many problems which Americans have. I could list the problems which cause people to feel cynical, angry, frustrated. Problems which include, lack of integrity in government, the feeling that the individual no longer counts, the reality of material and spiritual poverty, the feeling that the grand American experiment is failing or has failed.

I could recite these problems and then I could sit down and offer no solutions, but I don't choose to do that either. The citizens of America expect more, deserve and they want more than a recital of problems. We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community. We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present, unemployment, inflation, but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America. We are attempting to fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal.

The theme of national community is one Jordan echoed throughout her speech.

In 1976, are we to be one people bound together by common spirit, sharing in a common endeavor, or will we become a divided nation? For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future. We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future, together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor, it can be done. There is no executive order. There is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals. And if we do it as individuals, there is no president of United States who can veto that decision.

As a first step, we must restore our belief in ourselves. We are a generous people, so why can't we be generous with each other? We need to take to heart the words spoken by Thomas Jefferson, "Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and that affection without which liberty, and even life, are but dreary things."

As she closed out her speech, Jordan ended with a reminder of Americans shared destiny:

What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance. Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It’s tough, difficult, not easy, but a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny.

Our nation in 1976 faced many of the issues we face today: political violence, unprecedented government corruption, racial strife, malaise about the economy, wars in the Middle East. But we’ve also come through those times before, just like we came through the Civil War and the Great Depression.

All these speeches give us insight into being an American, from Henry’s pugnacity, to Washington’s humility, to Douglas’ admonitions to FDR’s resolve to Jordan’s hope.

Happy birthday, America!

Welcome to the June edition of “Book Reports,” where I share passages from books I’ve found intriguing recently. I aim to post these once per month. I also include a few links to articles and podcasts that have piqued my interest.

June being Pride Month, a fact I’m somewhat ambivalent about (more on that below), I thought I’d share excerpts from a range of gay and lesbian authors that have been meaningful to me.

So without further ado…

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The Politics of Homosexuality

Andrew Sullivan’s collection of essays, “Out on a Limb” is one I return to often. Through pieces on faith, torture, the Iraq War, race and more, the book provides a glimpse into Sullivan’s personal evolution as a writer and a thinker. But it also gives glimpses into how America has evolved on a number of issues. In his 1993 essay for The New Republic, “The Politics of Homosexuality,” he offers four frameworks that are seen in the debates around gay rights, each one with its own drawbacks. He then offers his own framework that he believes provides the best way forward.

The essay is fascinating not only for its arguments, but also because many of the frameworks that existed in 1993—long before gay marriage became the law of the land—are still present in the debates on gay rights generally.

The first framework—a conservative view—describes the more fundamentalist strain of conservative thought as it existed in 1993:

Its fundamental assertion is that homosexuality as such does not properly exist. Homosexual behavior is aberrant activity, either on the part of heterosexuals intent on subverting traditional society or by people who are prey to psychological, emotional, or sexual dysfunction.

…

The politics that springs out of this view of homosexuality has two essential parts: with the depraved, it must punish; with the sick, it must cure. There are, of course, degrees to which these two activities can be promoted. The recent practice in modern liberal democracies of imprisoning homosexuals or subjecting them to psychological or physiological “cures” is a good deal less repressive than the camps for homosexuals in Castro’s Cuba, the spasmodic attempt at annihilation in Nazi Germany, or the brutality of modern Islamic states. And the sporadic entrapment of gay men in public restrooms or parks is a good deal less repressive than the systematic hunting down and discharging of homosexuals that we require of our armed forces. But the differences are matters of degree rather than of kind, and the essential characteristic of the conservative politics of homosexuality is that it pursues the logic of repression.

This was a predominant view in 1993, when Sullivan notes “In twenty-four states sodomy is still illegal, and the constitutionality of these statutes was recently upheld by the Supreme Court.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum is a radical politics of homosexuality:

For the radicals, like the conservatives, homosexuality is definitely a choice: the choice to be a “queer,” the choice to subvert oppressive institutions, the choice to be an activist. And it is a politics that, insofar as it finds its way from academic discourse into gay activism (and it does so fitfully), exercises a peculiar fascination for the adherents of the first politics. At times, indeed, both seem to exist in a bond of mutual contempt and admiration. That both prefer to use the word “queer,” the one in private, the other in irony, is only one of many resemblances. They both react with disdain to those studies that seem to reflect a genetic source for homosexuality; and they both favor, to some extent or other, the process of outing, because for both it is the flushing out of deviant behavior: for conservatives, of the morally impure, for radicals, of the politically incorrect. For conservatives, radical “queers” provide a frisson of cultural apocalypse and a steady stream of funding dollars. For radicals, the religious right can be tapped as an unreflective and easy justification for virtually any political impulse whatsoever.

What Sullivan describes about the radical view in 1993 could easily describe much of the more radical elements of the LGBTQ+ movement today (and many progressive groups), which suffers from an ever-growing list of demands and interests and identity groups.

The trouble with gay radicalism, in short, is the problem with subversive politics as a whole. It tends to subvert itself. ACT UP, for example, an AIDS group that began in the late 1980s as an activist group dedicated to finding a cure and better treatment for people with AIDS, soon found itself awash in a cacophony of internal division. Its belief that sexuality was only one of many oppressive constructions meant that it was constantly tempted to broaden its reach, to solve a whole range of gender and ethnic grievances. Similarly, each organizing committee in each state of this weekend’s march on Washington was required to have a 50 percent “minority” composition. Even Utah. Although this universalist temptation was not always given in to, it exercised an enervating and dissipating effect on gay radicalism’s political punch.

More important, the notion of sexuality as cultural subversion distanced it from the vast majority of gay people who not only accept the natural origin of their sexual orientation, but wish to be integrated into society as it is.

What many gay people objected to about queer radicalism in 1993 is what many object to today:

For most gay people — the closet cases and barflies, the construction workers and investment bankers, the computer programmers and parents—a “queer” identity is precisely what they want to avoid. In this way, the radical politics of homosexuality, like the conservative politics of homosexuality, is caught in a political trap. The more it purifies its own belief about sexuality, the less able it is to engage the broader world as a whole. The more it acts upon its convictions, the less able it is to engage in politics at all.

A third view—the moderate politics of homosexuality—tries to find a middle ground but ultimately fails:

Unlike the conservatives and radicals, the moderates do believe that a small number of people are inherently homosexual, but they also believe that another group is susceptible to persuasion in that direction and should be dissuaded.

These people do not want persecution of homosexuals, but they do not want overt approval either. They are most antsy when it comes to questions of the education of children but feel acute discomfort in supporting the likes of Patrick Buchanan and Pat Robertson.

…

Being privately tolerant and publicly disapproving exacts something of a psychological cost on those who maintain it. In theory, it is not the same as hypocrisy; in practice, it comes perilously close. As the question of homosexuality refuses to disappear from public debate, explicit positions have to be taken. What once could be shrouded in discretion now has to be argued in public. For those who privately do not believe that homosexuality is inherently evil or always chosen, it has become increasingly difficult to pretend otherwise in public. Silence is an option —and numberless politicians are now availing themselves of it —but increasingly a decision will have to be made. Are you in favor of or against allowing openly gay women and men to continue serving their country? Do you favor or oppose gay marriage? Do you support the idea of gay civil-rights laws? Once these questions are asked, the gentle ambiguity of the moderates must be flushed out; they have to be forced either into the conservative camp or into formulating a new politics that does not depend on a code of discourse that is fast becoming defunct.

Finally, there is the liberal politics of homosexuality, which views gay rights through the lens of the Civil Rights movement. But this approach has its drawbacks as well:

In the process, the liberal politics of homosexuality has also reframed the position of gays in relation to straights. It has defined them in a permanent supplicant status, seeing gay freedom as dependent on straight enlightenment, achievable only by changing the behavior of heterosexuals. The valuable political insight of radicalism is that this is a fatal step. It could enshrine forever the notion that gay people are a vulnerable group in need of protection. By legislating homosexuals as victims, it sets up a psychological dynamic of supplication that too often only perpetuates cycles of inadequacy and self-doubt.

What Sullivan ultimately offers is another form of liberal politics, but one that neither patronizes nor excludes gay people.

This liberal politics affirms a simple and limited criterion: that all public (as opposed to private) discrimination against homosexuals be ended and that every right and responsibility that heterosexuals enjoy by virtue of the state be extended to those who grow up different. And that is all. No cures or reeducations; no wrenching civil litigation; no political imposition of tolerance; merely a political attempt to enshrine formal civil equality, in the hope that eventually the private sphere will reflect this public civility. For these reasons, it is the only politics that actually tackles the core political problem of homosexuality and perhaps the only one that fully respects liberalism’s public-private distinction. For these reasons, it has also the least chance of being adopted by gays and straights alike.

Chasten Buttigieg has something to tell us

Re-reading Chasten Buttigieg’s memoir, “I Have Something to Tell You,” it’s remarkable how much has changed in the 25 years since Sullivan wrote his essay on “The Politics of Homosexuality.” Long gone were the days when nearly half the states criminalized sodomy. In 2018, an out gay man was running to be president of the United States—and was seen as a credible contender.

Travelling across the country, Chasten saw a different side of America than what was often presented in the media. In farm communities, college towns, rural areas, suburbs and everywhere in between, Chasten saw people enthusiastically embrace his husband, Pete. But many of the media narratives, even in liberal outlets, seemed stuck on the idea that being gay was a nonstarter for too much of the country.

Unfortunately, they seemed to exist in a parallel universe to the campaign sometimes depicted in the media. In the first few months of 2019, before the campaign really got intense and took off, media narratives consistently focused more on how the media narratives were going to change than on the issues, or even on any of the candidates’ skills as a politician.

This was extremely frustrating. Commentators were always projecting, worrying that voters would turn out to be less accepting than they were.

But his trips throughout America consistently showed a different side:

These kinds of discussions were so prevalent that I was often surprised, visiting pockets of “real America” outside New York, at how little my being gay seemed to matter to voters. At the beginning of the campaign, members of the “coastal elite” wondered, pointedly, “Is the country ready for a gay president?” “Let them vote and find out!” I’d scream (in my head, of course). I remember one early interview during which the journalist was so dismissive of Peter that I assumed he’d be painted as a single-issue candidate (the single issue being that he was gay) and no one would take him seriously. Even in one of my final interviews on the trail, a journalist tried to surprise me with some arbitrary polling numbers about whether the country was “ready or not.” The possibility that all these stories would have an effect was really hard to think about-the prospect of the campaign tanking not because America hated gay people, but because Americans assumed that most other Americans hated gay people.

Not that everything was rosy. Hate mail is part of entering the national stage, but what the Buttigieg’s received was a painful reminder of what was lurking in the hearts of some Americans:

Peter and I used to get random mail from strangers all the time, but before he was running for president, the letters were usually innocuous: invitations to chicken dinners, graduation ceremonies, and the occasional letter from a fan of his work as mayor. Once people everywhere learned his name, that changed completely. We started getting a postcard or letter with no return address every other day, and it would always contain more or less the same message: renounce your sinful ways, God hates fags, burn in hell.

I was surprised that actual hate mail was still a thing. It’s so retro to send snail mail—why not tweet your opinion at me so I can see it in-stantaneously? But I suppose I appreciate these people taking the time to write on a piece of actual paper and send it to us. Rather than recycle the letters, I would occasionally take them upstairs to the office and shred them, which was kind of fun.

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Do You Still Talk to Grandma?

Despite the enormous progress we’ve seen when it comes to growing acceptance of gay people and the increased acceptance of gay marriage, there are still difficult moments to navigate. Some close friends and family members may have sincerely held religious or political beliefs that keep them from fully supporting gay marriage. Some loved ones, however, might have harsh views on a variety of topics and knowing how to set boundaries and when to show grace is the topic of Brit Barron’s excellent book, “Do You Still Talk to Grandma?”

A black lesbian pastor who grew up in evangelicalism, Barron has hard-won wisdom to share. What I appreciate about this book is how Barron has been able to transcend the understandable pull of labeling everything good or bad, black and white.

In a passage describing her meeting Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr, she describes part of this awakening:

Some of us left evangelicalism because of our own identity, some because of beliefs, others because of the corruption or collapse of a church. But one thing was very clear: We had all experienced loss. When we spoke that weekend and asked questions, several of us spoke with anger, sarcasm, and general disrespect for evangelicalism. We spoke in a tone that suggested that we believed we were better than them-those antiquated evangelicals. They were dumb and wrong, and we were the ones who crammed into this room with this man because we were the ones who were going to do it better-be better-because we were the ones who were better. I just knew Rohr felt the same.

But when a participant asked Rohr a pointed question about evangelicals,

Rohr paused and then told us all of the issues he saw with the evangelical church, and all of our heads were furiously nodding as he spoke about greed and power and unwarranted exclusivity and so on. Then he said, “I’d like to also take a moment and tell you a few things they have taught me.”

…

I sat with what he said, the critique and the praise, and I wondered if the critique was enough to cancel out the praise or vice versa. But why? Why couldn’t I hold both at the same time? This man had found a way out of the binary and hard lines that I felt trapped in, and I desperately wanted that.

Dividing the world into good and bad is comforting, but it’s also limiting, and blinds us to the complexity of individuals.

Perhaps the most enticing part of binary thinking is that it creates a world in which we could be right. We can eat, sleep, and breathe on the “right” side of the line, we can be continually and eternally good, we can have the right theology, the right ideology, the right parenting method, the right language, the right kind of activism, the right everything so that we will only ever land on the side of the hero and never the villain.

Realizing that each person is a complex mixture of virtue and vice, including ourselves, gives us grace for one another. It also helps us have humility about our own failings.

There have been times in all our lives when we’ve behaved more like a hero and other times when we’ve played the villain. We have all been hurt, and we have all hurt. We have all loved, and we have all broken a heart or two. We have fought for healing and reconciliation, and we’ve all sought revenge. We slide up and down the moral spectrum. But the spiritual and emotional space where we are freed from false binaries and false choices is the space where we can learn how to be human.

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The Problem of Pride

I remember the first (and only) Pride parade I attended. I had my first boyfriend visit me in Austin and we were very excited to experience this together. I was also attending my first affirming church at the time, and it was meaningful to have that support.

I think moments like that can be important. But I also worry about the need for constant external validation. That same church ultimately decided to host a drag show, which I thought was completely inappropriate. There seemed to be an ethos, which I’ve seen often in Austin, that if a church, business, or organization isn’t constantly, stridently showing their support, then they don’t really care about gay people. That expectation seems like a recipe for misery on both sides.

I’ve had a number of conversations recently with gay people who have grown tired of Pride, or even wonder if it’s become unhealthy. A whole month? For an innate trait none of us chose?

I also think they heavy handedness of Pride has led to a backlash. This dynamic could be seen when the San Francisco Giants’ baseball team held their annual Pride Night and a few players chose to write Bible verses over the rainbow logos on their caps. Outrage ensued. But events like this strike me as compelled speech, demanding players to join in the advocacy for something they don’t support. The fact this took place in SAN FRANCISCO makes it all the more irritating, as if gays in the most gay friendly city need every sports player to positively affirm them.

The winning ethos of the gay rights movement from the 1990s through the 2010s was “we just want to be left alone.” The pitch was that gay marriage would require little of straight people. In the last several years, especially after gay marriage became the law of the land, that winning ethos morphed into requiring an active validation of homosexuality.

My latest piece elaborating on some of these thoughts drops Monday at “The Coddling Movie” Substack, where I’m a paid contributor. I’ll discuss the shift from asking for tolerance to demands for active celebration, the mission creep of the LGBTQIA+ movement, and how persuasion and respect for pluralism, not performativity, is what ultimately leads to lasting change.

Stay tuned.

What I’m Reading

• James Kirchick writes for FIRE about Frank Kameny, who was fired for being gay in the 1950s and helped spark the gay rights movement by challenging that decision.

• Independent sports writer Ethan Strauss shares his thoughts about the San Francisco Giants’ Pride Night, which led to outcries after a few players wrote Bible verses on their caps in a form of protest.

• Comedian Jeff Maurer also shares his thoughts on the controversy and believes “Sports as Social Justice Has Run Its Course.”

• My dear friend, Sally Gary, shares about coming out to her mom on Mother’s Day many years ago.

• Bill White, who is writing a memoir about his personal faith journey after his son came out to him, was recently on Oprah.

What I’m Listening To

• One of the best gays, Nate Silver, joins the Central Air podcast to discuss recent primary results and Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate.

• Katie Herzog joins Ethan Strauss’ podcast to discuss whether Pride Month is wearing thin and the controversy around the San Francisco Giants’ Pride event.

• Matthew Vines had author Ronan McCrea on his Substack to discuss McCrea’s excellent book, “The End of the Gay Rights Revolution.” I also highly recommend Vines’ post last year about “The Paradox of Pride.”

Welcome to the March edition of “Book Reports,” where I share passages from books I’ve found intriguing recently. I aim to post these once per month. I also include a few links to articles and podcasts that have piqued my interest.

So without further ado…

Halloween Costumes at Yale

Yale University recently released a report on the erosion of trust in higher education. Within a decade, the percentage of Americans who said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in colleges and universities fell from 57% to 36% in 2024. The report notes one incident in particular that demonstrated the prevailing ethos of the past decade:

For those who were at Yale or paying attention to its activities in fall 2015, “Halloween” operates as shorthand for a series of events that began with an email from the Yale Intercultural Affairs Committee urging students to think twice about potentially offensive costumes. Subsequent incidents gained international attention, notably with a viral video highlighting a group of students surrounding and shouting at a faculty head of college. The very word “Halloween” remains charged around campus. Few episodes have done more to raise public questions about Yale’s commitment to freedom of expression and open, reasoned debate.

One of the students who was at Yale during this time was author, speaker, and commentator Rob Henderson, who wrote about his experience in his memoir, “Troubled.” As a kid who had a troubled childhood and was in the foster care system for much of his childhood, he was interested in taking Professor Erika Christakis’ course, “The Concept of the Problem Child.” But that was before she was hounded off campus for sending an email.

“I’m confused, honestly,” I said to the student next to me. “I have no idea why people are upset about this.”

He sighed. “I knew that email would be controversial as soon as I read it,” he said

The university administration had recently circulated a campus-wide email to students asking them to be sensitive about what Halloween costumes they wear. The idea was that costumes that implied that other cultures or interests were unserious or played into stereotypes might cause discomfort or harm to other students. In response, Erika Christakis wrote an email to the students within her residential college. In her email, she questioned whether the administration should interfere with students’ lives-she defended freedom of expression and urged students to handle disagreements about costumes on their own. The social climate immediately changed. Hundreds of students marched throughout campus. They called for apologies from the university and insisted Christakis and her hus-band, who was also a professor and who defended her, be fired, among other demands.

The culture of Yale mystified Henderson, who grew up poor. He had to have other students explain it to him:

A student from Greenwich, Connecticut, who had attended Phillips Exeter Academy (an expensive private boarding school), explained that I was too privileged to understand the pain these professors had caused. At first, I was stunned. But later, I came to understand the intellectual acrobatics necessary to say something like this. The student who called me “privileged” likely meant that due to my background as a biracial Asian Latino heterosexual cisgender (that is, I “present” as the sex I was “assigned” at birth) male, this means that I have led a privileged life. However, I also learned that many inhabitants of elite universities assign a great deal of importance to “lived experience.” This means that your unique personal hardships serve as important credentials to expound on social ills and suggest remedies.

Things got worse for the professor as the tumult over an email began to gain national attention.

Meanwhile, the student protests became a national story.

Erika Christakis and her husband, Nicholas, were ridiculed and reviled, with little public support from students, faculty, or the administration. Privately, many people-perhaps most-were supportive, but they were fearful of openly expressing this.

Erika was asked by some of the protesters to announce when she was going into the dining hall so that students wouldn’t be triggered. She stepped down from her teaching position at the university, although her husband remained. After those incomprehensible events, I would gaze at the beautiful architecture throughout the university and think about a line I’d read from

F. Scott Fitzgerald, describing Gatsby’s forever altered relationship with the green light across the bay: “His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”

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Amanda Knox Finds Freedom

Amanda Knox made international headlines after being accused of murdering her roommate. The case against her was always flimsy, but she quickly became a scapegoat, falsely accused of a heinous crime when a significant amount of evidence pointed in a different direction.

In the fall of 2007, a twenty-one-year-old British student named Meredith Kercher was studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. She shared a cottage with three roommates—two Italian law interns and an American girl. Two months into her stay, a burglar named Rudy Guede broke into her cottage when no one was home. When Meredith returned, Guede raped and killed her, then fled the country.

We know this beyond any doubt because Guede left his fingerprints and footprints in her blood; he left his DNA in and on her body. The MO of the break-in matched his previous burglaries. He was know to carry a knife. He later admitted to being at the scene. But before the forensic evidence came back identifying Guede, the authorities, desperate to find the killer, with the eyes of the global media upon them, questioned the American roommate for fifty-three hours over five days, in a foreign language, without a lawyer, eventually coercing her in the dead of night into signing statements that implicated herself and others. They arrested her and accused her of Meredith’s murder, all before a single piece of forensic evidence was analyzed.

Amanda Knox was eventually able to find freedom, not just in the judicial sense of being released from prison. She was able to find a way to find freedom from the existential crisis of being falsely accused.

My face was in newspapers and magazines and on billboards in Times Square, but my world was so, so small. I had to try something else, be something else. That something else is what this book is about.

What I’ve only recently realized is that freedom is not the state of being. It’s a practice. And for the last few years, I’ve been making meaning out of my misfortune. I’ve been creating my own freedom. If Waiting to be Heard [Knox’ first book] answered the question “What?!,” this book answers the question “So what?” It is a road map of my personal evolution as I directly confront the existential problems I’ve faced since I was first arrested and charged for a terrible crime I didn’t commit: Could I ever be anything more than “the girl accused of murder”? Would I ever be truly “free”?

Knox recounts her journey toward internal freedom and the universal lessons to be gained from her experience.

That story is my story. It is a story that truly speaks to who I am in a way that all the things that have happened to me never could. My circumstances may be extraordinary, but the challenges I’ve faced are universal. We all want to persevere through hardship, and you don’t have to be in a prison cell to feel trapped in your own life. You can feel hemmed in by the stories others tell about you, even if they aren’t headlines splashed across international publications. I hope that my succcesses and my failures can be illuminating for your own journey toward equanimity, resilience and wellbeing.

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My Return to the “Church and Main” Podcast

I was thrilled to join Pastor Dennis Sanders once again on the “Church and Main” podcast to discuss my recent Substack series, “Preachers, Prophets and Politicians.”

In the episode, we discussed how the religious left and right are both falling into the same trap: mistaking tribal partisanship for genuine moral courage. From megachurch pastors building empires on outrage clicks, to progressive Christian influencers spreading election conspiracies, to politicians wrapping their campaigns in the language of the gospel, we explore how audience capture, social media incentives, and the hunger for a platform are quietly eroding the church’s credibility.

My Recent Piece in “The Coddling Movie” Substack

I had another essay published at “The Coddling Movie” Substack. While college campuses dominated by progressive sensibilities have made headlines for years, some alarming illiberal trends are brewing on more conservative campuses. Today, Texas has become ground zero for many of these fights, especially at one of its flagship universities, Texas A&M, where I went to grad school.

From a string of firings—including one that targeted the university president, to censoring certain works of Plato, to filming and monitoring classes—a chill on free speech and free expression has descended on the campus.

Here’s an excerpt:

I attended Texas A&M to earn a master’s in public administration from the Bush School of Government and Public Service. As part of the curriculum, we discussed topics we would very likely face in public service careers: Title IX, affirmative action, hiring and firing practices, policing, labor law, and more. Our professors required us to talk about race and gender and how they impact these policies. Having a firm grounding in arguments for and against certain policies was vital.

Discussions like these are now under threat. Just this past semester, an ethics course at the Bush School was cancelled when a professor was unable to distinguish when topics like race, gender and sexuality would come up.

The Coddling Movie

Lone-Star Censorship: Don’t Let Texas A&M Become Yale

Over the past decade, trust in higher education has collapsed. And for good reason. From shouting down speakers to compelled speech in the form of diversity statements to violent protests, many college campuses have become breeding grounds for all kinds of illiberalism…

Read more

4 months ago · 13 likes · 2 comments · Ryan Self

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What I’m Reading

• Comedian and former “Last Week Tonight” writer, Jeff Maurer, reflects on Stephen Colbert and how “We’re ALL doing safe comedy.”

• Michelle Cottle of the New York Times asks the question I’ve been wondering for years: “can someone please tell me when it will finally be time for America to move past its unhealthy attachment to the Kennedy political dynasty?“

• The Texas Tribune reports on “the megadonors and dark money groups boosting James Talarico’s anti-billionaire Senate bid.”

• The New York Times takes a hard look at Ken Paxton’s scandal-plagued career, from his adultery, to defrauding investors, to bribery and abuse of office.

What I’m Listening To

• Nate Silver recently joined a favorite podcast of mine, Central Air, to discuss the upcoming midterms and the US Senate race in Texas.

• I’m a longtime fan of conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan (a subscriber to Ryan’s Boring Book Club!) and have enjoyed the work of liberal writer Jerusalem Demsas at The Argument. This discussion between the two about liberalism was enlightening.

• Pastor Dennis Sanders talks with Pastor Jackson Campbell Walker about “the good news vs. the good work.” Two gay pastors discussing the importance of balancing social justice with the gospel.

Zachary Elwood is the author of two well-researched books on depolarization, Defusing American Anger and How Contempt Destroys Democracy. He’s also written op-eds for The Hill, Newsweek, and other outlets and hosts the podcast People Who Read People.

I recently spoke with Zachary to discuss his books, how technology amplifies anger, whether the recent assassination attempt on Trump tells us anything about America, the role of humility, and more.

The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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Ryan Self: You've written two books about depolarization. Obviously, this is a topic very near and dear to your heart. Why are you so passionate about depolarization?

Zachary Elwood: I see it as arguably the biggest problem, not just in America, but for humanity. Just our tendency to go down these high-conflict spirals, which I think leads to all sorts of bad outcomes. I think it makes us, as a group, dumber because it makes us more us-versus-them in our mindsets. It makes us less able to solve actual problems. It makes us focus on fighting instead of solving problems, right?

The very nature of conflict is that it makes people not really see the overall conflict as the problem. It just makes them focus on the other side. I think we need more people to see the conflict dynamics themselves as the problem and focus on that as the root cause, instead of focusing on the various things we see on the other side that bother us.

RS: Along those lines, a common theme in your books is that understanding someone's perspective is not the same as agreeing with them. Why is it so important to understand what the other side believes, even if you strongly disagree?

ZE: That is really the main objection that I and others in this space hear. There is this instinctual sense, which I think is common in any conflict dynamic, that even trying to understand the “other side,” trying to understand one's perceived enemies, is in some way helping them, right? I think that's most of our instincts. It's an instinct I used to have. Why should I even try to understand these people? I'm making excuses for them. I'm helping them in some way. I think even internally, it can feel like you're doing something bad.

I think many people just don't actually see the better versions of the other side's beliefs. They focus on the worst, most extreme versions. They don't see that there's a large set of pretty easily understood concerns and frustrations that are held by rational and compassionate people on the “other side.” And a lot of times that's just about your own fear of the other side, right? It's not necessarily about supporting one's group. It's more about overstated fears and frustrations, about their perceived enemies. So I think trying to understand our “enemies” or our opponents is very important for creating better, less polarizing dynamics and bringing down the temperature and even reducing the various stances that both sides perceive as extreme and unhelpful.

RS: You mentioned contempt. Of course, contempt is part of the title of one of your books, “How Contempt Destroys Democracy.” Can you talk about what contempt is and how that shows up in our society?

ZE: I struggled with the title a little bit because I wanted to make it short. It's not just about contempt; it's not just about anger. It's also about overstated fears that we have of the other side. It's all the mix of negative emotions. Basically, having an exaggerated, misplaced feeling of threat from the other side. I think that's key to seeing it.

I think contempt is hard to define, but I think the standard definition is basically seeing someone or a group as not worth considering, being so inferior morally that their ideas are not even worth engaging with. That they're beneath consideration as an equal kind. I think we see that all around us. I think you start to see how that cycle drives people to behave in more us-versus-them ways.

For example, so many people who voted for Trump, and I've witnessed this personally, a big part of their feelings is about feeling disrespected by the other side. I think that's true on both sides. It's also not to say that there aren’t legitimate, non-emotional stances that are driven by actual things happening. But just to say the emotion can be a big part of why people feel what they feel. It can even shift your stances in various ways.

If you think that Trump and his gang are mortal threats to you, that's going to shift your views on some stances, even in ways that aren’t obvious. That's why I chose contempt for the title. Because I do think many people in the polarization space, including polarization researchers, focus on contempt as a driving force of toxic conflict in general.

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RS: I think that sounds about right. Once I started thinking about contempt, I started to notice it everywhere, even in myself. We all have to work on our own versions of contempt, looking down on people as if they're beneath you. I think the kind of self-righteous moralizing, morally superior language that pops up, especially on social media, really drives a lot of that.

ZE: To have contempt is the easiest thing in the world. Realizing that helps you see that it's so easy to be angry about something, to have contempt about something. I think seeing that helps you be more sympathetic even to other people's contempt, too. I think there's this meta-level thing. It's like we should also be cognizant of the fact that we live in high-contempt times and should cut people some slack for even showing contempt towards us, right?

RS: Speaking of social media, in your books, you include a lot of tweets and social media posts. What role does social media play in this polarization?

ZE: My opinion, it plays a very large role. I think it's obvious that humans can get into high-conflict cycles very easily on their own. But I do think that technology, the internet and communication technology in general, have just sped up everything. Everything's visible, so all the things that apply to communication in general are just amplified and ramped up. It's like putting social interactions on speed, which I think brings out the worst aspects of social interactions.

Anybody can insult anybody online, anytime. You can perceive all the insults to you or your group at any time online. This relates to the proliferation of cable news. There's so much more content, which means somebody needs to create content to serve those demands. So there's a proliferation of people creating polarizing content as society grows more polarized.

There are all these feedback mechanisms at work. When you're more remote from people, more distant, you're more likely to behave in ruder ways and say things you wouldn't say in person.

RS: I definitely think it just amplifies the worst human instincts that are there and just blows it up.

Yeah, which is interesting, because so often the focus is on the product features. You hardly ever see anybody talk about the basic, foundational fact that just speeding up communications can have a detrimental effect. I have just never seen anybody talk about the kind of “medium is the message” kind of idea about how the medium affects things. We just hear about Facebook implementing these features, and that was bad. But maybe the whole thing is, if we're going to succeed as a species long term, we need to process that as a society and talk about the ways that these things derange our interactions.

RS: Here’s one example showing the way social media works, especially with algorithms. Hours after the first Trump assassination—which was obviously very jarring, a man died—I saw a tweet from a progressive pastor who has 56,000 followers. The first tweet was very responsible and measured. It was something like, "now is not the time to make jokes and spread conspiracy theories, now is the time to condemn political violence.” And that one got some traction. It got 700 likes, which is super impressive for me, but compared to his typical content, not so much.

Then hours later, he sent another tweet that was like, “If you believe God saved Donald Trump, but didn't save the kids at Uvalde, Santa Fe, Parkland, then you're worshiping partisan politics and not Jesus.” Very accusatory, injecting this other inflammatory topic. And that one got like 160,000 likes and tens of thousands of retweets. You can see the measured, responsible tweet got a good engagement, but the accusatory, scolding tweet got tens of thousands. That's how it works.

[The tweet cuts off but ends: “The appropriate thing to do when someone tries to kill someone and wounds them is to:

1. Pray for them or wish them a full and speedy recovery
2. Condemn political violence

via Sharon McMahon]

RS: Recently, there was a third assassination attempt on President Trump. How are you processing that event, including the reactions to the event, when it comes to polarization?

ZE: Toxic conflict creates more of this tendency to, in my opinion, overreact to what are one-off events. I see this even in the depolarization/bridge-building space. My fundamental belief on whether it's violence against Trump or violence against anyone is that we live in a huge country. There are a lot of people in America, so even in the least polarized times, you would have people doing violent things. I think it's a mistake to overreact to the actions of single person. I think that's what polarization leads us to do.

America is a big place with a lot of individuals, and obviously some of them are quite sick and unwell and deranged. One-off events do not tell us something about America. I think that's a mistake. It becomes this us-versus-them dynamic, where people are trying to tally up the offenses and be like, “my side is better for XYZ reasons, because that's how I've done the math.” It's just counterproductive.

You're never going to make conclusive evidence about what this tells us about America, or what this tells us about Republicans, or what this tells us about liberals. You're just creating your own bias to math, and it's counterproductive. You're just speaking to the choir. In many cases, you're not making a conclusive thing.

Getting back to your question about the assassination, I think we just need to keep in mind that we live in a big country and bad things are going to happen. Bad people are going to do bad things of various sorts, and we really need, if we're going to be mature about it, to get out of this high-conflict spiral. We really need to question our instincts to be like, “this tells us everything we can know.” Or “this is the reason that I support Trump, because people are attacking him.” We need to look at the country and our conflicts and take a step back and try to look at it from a bird's-eye view. That's what I see. And I can say that about things that have happened that are associated with offenses from both sides.

RS: I think that's wise to take that approach. I saw a journalist whom I respect, the morning after the Trump assassination, had a post that was like, “who is responsible for more violence, the right or the left?” I don't think those are helpful questions.

ZE: How do you do the math? Because there's so many ways to tell it. You'd have to figure out how to weight the things that were not murderous related to, say, the George Floyd protest. There’s all these ways you can do the math and how people will do the math will be related to how their biases are formed. Even if you could somehow do the math, in any conflict there's going to be one side that is worse on various things than others. There's never going to be some totally equal dynamic. Focusing on, “who's worse on this front?” is completely counterproductive.

RS: Yeah, it's not helpful. So with your work, you're not saying that we should avoid hard and heavy topics. Perhaps the opposite. Part of what depolarization means is understanding each other, and that requires us to have these difficult conversations. In your book, you tackle some heavy topics like guns, gender identity, immigration. Why was it important for you to write about concrete examples like that?

ZE: I think that's a fundamental challenge in this. Because when I was thinking about that first book, “Defusing American Anger,” I wanted people to see that the highly negative emotional dynamic is a key part of what drives our polarization, our contempt for each other and our more extreme stances. So seeing that emotion cycle as key is very important.

I also think what's top of mind for people is obviously the specific issues. So in order to even get people to see that it's worthwhile to dig into this emotional contempt cycle, you have to get them to see the better versions of the arguments on the other side as a way in. Because if you think the other side is horrible and evil on these various range of issues, you're not even going to have an interest in examining the underlying cycles and dynamics. That's why I felt it was important to delve into those issues. Even though that was the hardest part of the book, and even though that was what led to it being, I think, quite, quite long.

If you see Trump as destroying democracy, it's hard for you to want to see “what can I do to help the conflict be less toxic?” And similarly, on the other side, if you see liberals as destroying various things that you care about, you're not going to really be interested in examining the psychological underpinnings of conflict in general.

That’s why I focused on that a good amount. I've had people say that was the most valuable part of that book. I should have promoted that book more, because more people need to read that stuff. I think that alone could be a good book, just going through the issues back and forth and getting people to see the more rational frustrations on both sides.

RS: I agree. I thought those sections were very helpful and just bring more nuance to both sides and understanding where people are coming from and what the underlying fears are. Those sections were extremely helpful.

On a similar note, how does humility play a role in depolarization efforts?

ZE: Yeah, I think it plays a big role. I think that's the hardest part, though, because toxic conflict leads to more certainty about a variety of things. I think humility counteracts that. I think when you start to delve into seeing how rational and compassionate people can be on both sides and have very divergent narratives and frustrations, I think it does make you more humble.

It doesn't mean you still can't have very highly passionate stances. I think that's important to see too. I think it just makes you more humble about how you speak about other people's motivations. I think that's the key part. Even if I think I know what's driving one specific person, I don't know what's driving all these other people on this side, right? So I think seeing how these dynamics work, makes you more humble in how you speak, makes you less arrogant, which I think is a fundamental key to us behaving in better ways.

What I'm trying to get people to do is not forego their passionate political stances of whatever sort. That's obviously never gonna stop. But I think how we speak about the “other side” can actually create the very dynamics that upset us. I think that's the most practical thing I'm trying to get people to see: pursue your political passions of whatever sort, but be very aware of how you speak. It can either amplify us-versus-them thinking and more toxicity, or it can help reduce it, even while you pursue your goals.

I think that's the that's the most practical thing. You see so many people just amplifying the most extreme people on the other side by how they speak. I think both sides are riling up each other and amplifying that dynamic. I think we just need more people cognizant of how they speak and aware of the role of humility and persuasiveness in our political communication.

RS: I think something you said really strikes me. When you're speaking online to your particular tribe, it can also polarize the other side. And this obviously is the whole thing what we're talking about. You're not just shoring up support for your side. you're also getting people more entrenched because they see these scolding, moralizing, self righteous tweets, and now they're just more in their own tribal area, so it's totally unproductive.

ZE: I think it's, I think it's really counterintuitive to how this works, because there's a great study about Israeli and Palestinian conflict. They basically showed that one group hearing the other side criticize itself actually lowered their anger and contempt at the other side. I think that says a lot about our instincts and how our instincts can be faulty. Because our instincts are like “we should never criticize our others our side, it helps the other side.” But actually being willing to criticize your own side signals to the other side that you're a reasonable person, that you're not one of these extreme stereotypes that they perceive.

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RS: I think that's such an important point. When you criticize your own side, it signals the other side, “Oh, this is not a monolith.” When you see the worst behavior on the right or the left, it's a blanket assumption about everyone. But when people in those other tribes see, “Oh, there's a diversity of thought here, maybe I should kind of rethink this group and not project onto the entire group.” I'm more likely to engage with them as some sort of more equal footing when you see that.

As we wrap up, what tactic have you found most helpful in your depolarization work?

ZE: I think the most useful area is how you can pursue your political passions and even fight the “other side” while behaving in less polarizing ways. For example, the most popular thing I wrote on Substack that went semi-viral was “8 Tips for Activists Who Want to Reduce Polarization.” I think there is this hunger for people who are angry at the other side and want to do their political work but are also curious about wanting to reduce us-versus-them thinking.

I think that’s the quandary for many people. It can be counterintuitive: how do I fight for what I believe in but also bring down the temperature? I think that’s key to showing people the pathway for that. I think that’s what prevents us from moving forward. So many people don’t see how you can thread those two needles.

Defusing American Anger: A depolarization endeavor

8 Tips for Activists Who Want to Reduce Polarization

“The idea is to see yourself as others see you. Once you do that, then you get a sense of what makes others so mad at you and willing to fight so hard. And you can then start asking questions about, well, do I really need to do those things? Or maybe if we did it this way, I wouldn’t provoke so much opposition but I’d still get the things that I really …

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a year ago · 75 likes · 39 comments · Zachary Elwood

I think that’s important—creating more content like that. I’ve been kind of out of the polarization thing for awhile becuase I’ve been working on other things. But if I were working on polarization work full-time, that’s what my focus would be: showing people how you can pursue your political passions and your activism while doing the best you can to reduce animosity and contempt.

RS: That’s such an important point. It’s not that you’re setting aside your deeply held beliefs; you can still fight for them. It’s how you advocate for your beliefs is what its all about.

I think that’s a wrap. Thank you so much. I think this was a really good conversation.

ZE: Awesome.

My ancestor is a reminder of our connection to history

A relative of mine found an obituary of my great-great-grandfather, James Burr Self. A native Texan, he was born in 1867 in Cleburne, about three hours north of where I live in Austin. He drove a stagecoach until settling on a farm just outside Olney, Texas, which remained in the family for several decades and generations. There is still a “Self Road” in that area that leads to what was once the Self Farm.

I share my first initial, middle and last name with his son, my great-grandfather, Robert Clark Self.

This connection to my family’s history reminded me of a passage in Ryan Holiday’s “Ego is the Enemy,” which discusses our connection to history and the need to stay rooted in that connection.

It’s sad how disconnected from the past and the future most of us really are. We forget that woolly mammoths walked the earth while the pyramids were being built. We don’t realize that Cleopatra lived closer to our time than she did to the construction of those famous pyramids that marked her kingdom. When British workers excavated the land in Trafalgar Square to build Nelson’s Column and its famous stone lions, in the ground they found the bones of actual lions, who’d roamed that exact spot just a few thousand years before.

We are more connected to the past than we realize.

Someone recently calculated that it takes but a chain of six individuals who shook hands with one another across the centuries to connect Barack Obama to George Washington. There’s a video you can watch on YouTube of a man on a CBS game show, “I’ve Got a Secret,” in 1956, in an episode that also happened to feature a famous actress named Lucille Ball. His secret? He was in Ford’s Theatre when Lincoln was assassinated.

I was a toddler when my great-grandfather died. He was born in 1901. William McKinley was president. The U.S. population was about 76 million people and had only 45 states. Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona were still territories. My great-great-grandfather surely knew people who fought in the Civil War.

Seeing an actual ancestor of mine brings a sense of connection to the past. It humanizes the past. Real people were navigating real challenges. That awareness should bring a sense of humility.

As our power or talents grow, we like to think that makes us special—that we live in blessed, unprecedented times. This is compounded by the fact that so many of the photos we see from even fifty years ago are still in black and white, and we seem to assume that the world was in black and white. Obviously, it wasn’t—their sky was the same color as ours (in some places brighter than ours), they bled the same way we did, and their cheeks got flushed just like ours do. We are just like them, and always will be.

In 2020, a relative on the other side of the family found a picture of my great-grandpa and his family. The picture was taken roughly 100 years before circa 1919. As I looked at the faces, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, I realized the people I was witnessing in the photo were living in the midst of the “Spanish Flu” that ravaged the world.

As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is nothing new under the sun.

Everyone is a victim of purity culture

I recently finished former pastor, speaker, podcaster Jen Hatmaker’s memoir, “Awake,” and was taken by the depth of her writing. Much of the memoir focuses on the aftermath and rebuilding after discovering her husband has been carrying on an affair for two years. He was voice-to-texting his mistress while in bed with Jen. It’s cliche to say a memoir is vulnerable, but this truly was. Hatmaker is clear-eyed and honest about her own flaws and mistakes, while also clear about the devastation her ex-husband caused.

Lurking in the background of nearly every chapter is how her conservative evangelical upbringing contributed to some of the damage she experienced in her life and is still unpacking. I grew up in a very similar environment and, as a gay person who has had to work through my own baggage with church, I found I resonated with Hatmaker’s words. Sometimes, growing up gay in evangelical spaces, you can feel singled out, as if you had a unique trauma due to your sexuality. This is true on some level, but stories like Hatmaker’s reveal that the way sexuality is discussed in some evangelical churches leaves everyone with scars.

Hatmaker experienced the damaging effects of purity culture firsthand and was adamant about shielding her daughter from the same experience. As she recounts her time in the church youth group:

Before they separate the guys and girls into Sunday school classrooms, the student pastor walks to the front of the dingy youth room holding a fresh rose: “Isn’t this flower beautiful, everyone?” We all agree that it is. So far, we are nailing our coursework. “Girls, right now, you are like this lovely rose. The most beautiful, possible gift.”

“This”—he holds out the blooming rose—”is like presenting yourself pure to your husband on your wedding night. Perfect and preserved! But when you start giving your body to your little boyfriends, you begin destroying the gift.” At this alarming statement, he plucks the petals off the rose one at a time and lets the fall to the stained carpet.

Hatmaker notices the disparity in how the girls are made responsible, while the boys seem to be let off the hook:

This is confusing as it is denigrating. According to the indictment, didn’t boys pluck those petals off? Were they also some of sort of flower gradually losing their bloom? Or is sexual purity just the girls’ responsbility and requirements?

While she was hyper-aware of the damage purity culture messaging could do to her daughter, it was only later that she realized the damage it could do to her son:

The girls would not be targeted if we had a say. Men and boys had been spiritually centered since, well, Earth’s beginning, and whatever camp we chose would not pile on that narrative.

So imagine my surprise when my son finally admitted his camp experience years later.

“Mom?” Want to know where I learned about porn? Youth camp in seventh grade. And not in the way you think, like from other dudes. Every night, the camp leaders took the middle school boys out to the fire pit and said, ‘Who here watches porn?? If you won’t admit that you do, go back to the cabin.’ I went back every night, Mom, because I had no idea what porn was! I didn’t know what that word meant. And every night, they kept saying those of us leaving were lying. On the fourth night, I finally just stayed because I was so embarrassed. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I could tell I was doing something wrong. Then they spent an hour telling us how dirty and filthy it was, and that God knew what we were up to. And how we were ruining our future marriages.”

What I appreciate about this memoir is that, while Hatmaker is clear about the harms her upbringing caused, she isn’t indulging in relentless evangelical bashing, a subgenre in many progressive Christian books. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and she loves him dearly. She can take the good with the bad, just like she is thankful for the children and the good memories her marriage produced, even if it ended painfully.

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Death to Self

Last year, former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse announced he had stage four metastatic pancreatic cancer. He had months to live. He is 54.

His recent podcast appearance with Ross Douthat has been making the rounds and I would encourage anyone to watch it. In the interview, Sasse grapples with his final months of life, his own mortality, what he’s learned and how his faith plays a role in each of those questions.

Sasse also touches on a topic he has been focused on since his career in the Senate: calling for civility and bridging divides. As an earlier part of that ongoing effort, he wrote a book that had an impact on me: “Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal.”

Sasse is brilliant. A graduate of Harvard, he also has a master’s in philosophy and a PhD in history from Yale. He has a vast knowledge of the great thinkers and ideas and weaves them together in his writing.

There’s an interesting military phenomenon that applies to this political moment.... In urban combat training, there is a well-documented tendency to shift our focus from a distant but important target to a less important but closer target. If you’re being attacked and your threat is fifty yards away, but a closer target pops up, you’ll turn your attention to the new target—even if it’s less of a threat. We tend to want to knock down the easier stuff. Conversely, we want to ignore or deny challenges that are farther out or more difficult.

The book came out in 2018, but the immediate problems our nation faces are roughly the same. And the remedy Americans are looking to more and more is tribal politics, or just whatever the current culture war battle on Twitter is that day.

It seems clear that in America today, we’re facing problems that feel too big for us, so we’re lashing out at each other, often over less important matters. Many of us are using politics as a way to distract ourselves from the nagging sense that something bigger is wrong. Not many of us would honestly argue that if our “side” just had more political power, we’d be able to fix what ails us. Fortunately, we can avoid addressing the big problems as long as someone else—some nearer target—is standing in the way of our securing the political power even to try. It’s easier to shriek at the people on the other side of the street. It’s comforting to be able to pin the problems on the freaks in the pink hats or the weirdos carrying the pro-life signs.

But rather than fixing anything, this fixation on tribal forms of politics is only making things worse, and its blinding us to how we contribute to these very problems.

At least our contempt unites us with other Americans who think like we do.

At least we are not like them.

I’m not sure what caused those protesters to tell marathon runners that I was feeding them poison, but I am sure it wasn’t my position on the omnibus spending bill. (I was against that monstrosity, by the way.)

We’re angry, and politics is filling a vacuum it was never intended to fill. Suddenly, all of America feels marginalized and ignored. We’re all standing there in the dark, feeling powerless and isolated, pleading: “Don’t you see me?”

What else I’m reading

• Kelsey Piper of “The Argument” discusses why “Red States Get Waymos. Blue States Get Studies.”

• Hector Herrera of “The Coddling of the American Mind Movie Substack,” shares his thoughts on the remarkably direct report from Yale about the university and higher education in general has lost public trust.

• Keith Johnson discusses Karl Barth on nationalism in Germany

• I’m very excited to read pastor Bill White’s Substack and his journal entries from his time after his son came out to him and their journey together. Bill and his son wrote a deeply moving piece that appeared in the NYTimes a few years ago.

What I’m listening to

• Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), was recently in Austin for a special event and podcast taping of “Win Win.” Lukianoff took questions at the end and I asked what alumni can do about the encroaching illiberalism at Texas A&M University. You can hear my question and his response on the episode.

• Kent Dobson has a unique perspective as the sone of one of the founders of the Moral Majority and the former co-pastor with Rob Bell at Mars Hill Church. His podcast “Shadow and the Prophetic Imagination” helped me work through some thoughts I’ve had about being “prophetic.”

• The podcasting team at Reflector released “Strange Bedfellows,” which explores how the LGBT “community” came to be and why it may be starting to split apart.

• Zachary Elwood interviews the creator of “Cards Against Humanity” and how we’re all playing “status games.” I am hoping to interview Zachary about two of his books, “How Contempt Destroys Democracy” and “Defusing American Anger,” and posting that interview here soon. Stay tuned!

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This is the second in a series exploring what it means to be “prophetic.” You can read part one here. In this post, I want to discuss the contrast between the two (likely) candidates in Texas for U.S. Senate, Ken Paxton and James Talarico. I think Talarico presents an interesting case study in progressive Christianity, which I’ve become more familiar with in recent years.

The Last Temptation of James Talarico

A former public school teacher turned Texas state representative, James Talarico is running to become the first Democratic senator of the Lone Star State in more than 30 years. A seminary student at Austin Presbyterian, Talarico has been able to speak eloquently about his faith, political ideals and how those two intertwine. This has caught the attention of national figures as wide-ranging as Joe Rogan and Ezra Klein.

But there is a central tension for the seminarian running for senator, a tension Texas Monthly captured in its profile, “The Last Temptation of James Talarico.” In the piece, the author shares an insight from Talarico’s longtime mentor and pastor, Dr. Jim Rigby:

“Rigby didn’t tell Talarico outright what to do, but he did explain that choosing the politician’s path would not be the prophetic one, and that it would come with certain pitfalls. The prophets, he said, were not fortune tellers but rather interpreters of the political situation of their time. They also gave up political power to maintain their purity. “A politician never gets to choose between pure good and pure evil,” Rigby recalled saying. “When you have power and you’re supposed to be negotiating between two different sides, there’s no purity, which is why the prophets surrendered power.”

Talarico didn’t surrender power. He ran an aggressive campaign, flipped a Republican-held district, and entered the Legislature in 2019 when he was 29 years old, then the youngest member of the Texas House of Representatives.”

Talarico didn’t surrender power. He pursued it.

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A Stark Contrast

Talarico presents a strong contrast to his likely opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. As New York Times columnist David French put it, Paxton is one of the most immoral men to ever hold elected office in Texas:

The man is an admitted adulterer, which is something that used to matter to conservative Christians. His wife, a conservative state senator, has filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” Paxton tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election, and he’s so corrupt that several of his top aides blew the whistle on him and resigned or were removed from their jobs, with many of them claiming that he provided favors for a donor in exchange for personal benefits, including finding employment for the woman said to be his mistress. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

Paxton’s numerous scandals have not stopped him from continuing to use faith-based messaging around his campaign. At the recent CPAC event, he claimed it was the “grace of God” that “delivered” him through his impeachment trial.

In the same opinion piece criticising Paxton, French went on to praise Talarico for his decency:

Yet if the primary American divide is between decent and indecent, then the equation changes. Talarico shines.

Or, to put it another way, Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian, he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.

French received significant backlash for the piece, but I think he is directionally correct. I would, however, put more nuance to it (which is what the following post is). Talarico’s rhetoric about loving your neighbor is a welcome reprieve from the harsh, scalding rhetoric of both the right and the left.

Many criticisms from the Religious Right were also deeply hypocritical. For years, they overlooked or even cheered the ways Trump and his administration have used Bible verses and Christian messaging to advocate for behavior, rhetoric and policies that are counter to the Gospel.

If we are measuring simply by who is more “decent,” I agree there is no contest. Paxton presents an incredibly low bar, however. I think there are reasons to put some caveats to whether Talarico presents a uniquely “Christian” way to engage in politics.

Called to Service

A recent profile in The New Yorker details a meeting between Talarico and former Democratic Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. The meeting took place in the pastor’s office at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, because what else would be taking place there?

“Rawlings asked about his sabbatical from seminary: “You’re putting being ordained on hold? God’s gonna wait?”

“This is where I’m being called.”

Talarico has been called (by God?) to put seminary on hold and run for the U.S. Senate. But further down in the article, Beto O’Rourke shows a different side:

“I think the world of James,” [Beto] said recently. “I told him, ‘If you end up being the guy who runs for Senate against the Republican machine, you will want friends on that ticket.’ ” Instead, “James came in, like, ‘I don’t care what you guys are doing with your little huddle. Fuck all y’all, I’m doing this.’ He blew everything up in his excitement to make the case for himself.” O’Rourke called Castro afterward and said, “What the fuck?” But he also told me, “You’re not going to win in this game unless you’re really fucking confident.”

Beto remains the benchmark for many Democratic statewide campaigns in Texas after coming just 2.6 percentage points behind Ted Cruz in 2018. He is the closest Democrat to ever win a statewide election in Texas in the past three decades. In 2018, hoping to win in a ruby red state, Beto leaned heavily on themes of crossing divides and unity.

I voted for Beto in 2018 because I was drawn to his unifying words. But during the 2020 campaign, which began mere months after the 2018 campaign ended, Beto’s rhetoric changed.

Consistent themes of reaching across the aisle and working together became aggressive calls to combat conservatives. “There’s more that unites us than divides us“ became “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

All I’m saying is: politicians tend to say things that will win them elections and avoid saying things that will lose them elections. That’s why I’m less willing to take their statements at face value.

Talarico is a politician and should be evaluated as such. He chose to set aside the role of preacher and prophet to pursue his true “calling.”

As his mentor warned him, there’s no purity in being a powerful politician. You will have competing stakeholders, interest groups, and constituencies. You will be influenced by the polls, the media, your opponent’s attack ads, social media, party leadership, and so on.

A preacher/prophet aims to speak the truth. A politician aims to win votes.

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Thou Shall Not Lie

Talarico sometimes engages in deception in his quest for power. This is obviously common among politicians, but it calls into question whether his words are “prophetic” or merely opportunistic.

Most notably, during his appearance on “The View,” he was asked to explain why he had missed 800 votes during his tenure in the Texas House. In response, Talarico claimed he missed those votes because he was breaking quorum while protesting Republicans’ redistricting efforts. As veteran journalist and Capitol watcher, Scott Braddock, tweeted, this was a lie:

Unbelievable: Rep @jamestalarico did not miss hundreds of votes because he was breaking quorum. That’s because no votes can be held on the Texas House floor if there’s not a quorum #txlege

This was far from the only time Talarico’s words didn’t match his actions.

A central focus of Talarico’s flipping tables rhetoric has been against billionaires and the influence they wield through their political action committees. But as Politico reports, Talarico has gladly accepted funding from PACs tied to billionaires in the past:

The single biggest donor to Talarico’s state House reelection bid last year [2024] was a group funded by casino mogul Miriam Adelson, according to state campaign finance data.

Adelson, the widow of the late Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, is one of President Donald Trump’s largest financial supporters and is seen as a boogeyman by much of the left.

…

Talarico received a total of $59,000 from the Texas Sands PAC through donations in February and December of 2024, according to state campaign finance records.

Billionaire Miriam Adelson and Texas Sands PAC have a vested interest in expanding legal gambling into Texas–a massive market. As journalist Zaid Jilani wrote earlier this year, Talarico voted in favor of a bill that would’ve put the question to Texas voters through a constitutional amendment.

Talarico claims on his website, “I’ve never taken a dime of corporate PAC money.” Technically true, but misleading. Texas Sands PAC is legally an issue advocacy PAC, not a corporate PAC funded by a corporation, a distinction the average voter will likely not make.

This is not the only disconnect between rhetoric and actions. Later in the piece, an anti-gambling advocate doesn’t mince words:

“The one word that comes to mind to describe his position would be hypocrisy,” said Les Bernal, the executive director of Stop Predatory Gambling, a national group that advocates against legal gambling. “If he [is] studying the Gospel, he must have missed the reading where Jesus says ‘Love others like I love you.’ Because casino gambling especially is a prime example of loving yourself more than your neighbor because it’s a business based on greed, manipulation, and exploitation.”

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“Christian Nationalism”

Another key theme to Talarico’s campaign is warning against Christian Nationalism on the right. Talarico and others are right to be alarmed about this phenomenon. Trump’s rhetoric around the Iran War contains multiple examples.

I think scholar Dr. Matthew Taylor’s recent post about how Christian Nationalism is probably best understood as a spectrum is helpful. Otherwise, the term becomes confusing when someone seeking power and heavily relying on Biblical language to advocate for their policies also denounces those seeking to use power for Christian ends.

Heath W. Carter, associate professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary, recently noted these contradictions in a piece for The Atlantic, “Americans Should Stop Using the Term Christian Nationalism.” While discussing Talarico’s recent appearance on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show,” Carter noted:

[Talarico] told Colbert that “there is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. It is the worship of power in the name of Christ. It is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Talarico’s critique verges on irony. Given his own campaign for Senate, one presumes he is not opposed to the pursuit of power by avowed Christians. In fact, in that same interview, he outlined a more biblical approach to politics, citing the Gospel of Matthew on the measure by which believers will be judged: “by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger—nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people.”

In that same interview, Talarico raised a common critique of how the Religious Right has elevated concerns about abortion and homosexuality:

For 50 years, the Religious Right…has convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage—two issues that aren’t mentioned in the Bible, two issues that Jesus never talked about.

These are fair points. But when you visit the website for Talarico’s church, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, you are greeted by a cross draped in the rainbow pride flag and transgender pride flag. As a gay person, I appreciate when churches are clear (anywhere on their website) whether they are affirming or not of same-sex relationships. What I don’t appreciate is churches making that the center of their identity.

Just below that, with the title of “What Makes St. A’s Special,” is an image of a banner, “We Support Reproductive Rights.” Elsewhere on the website, you can find information on how the church is a “Reproductive Freedom Congregation.” The church has made abortion central to its identity.

Those are only a few of the red flags the church might raise for the average believer.

When the right makes abortion and gay marriage the center of their faith, it’s bad. But when the left does it, it’s good. When the right uses power to advance their interpretation of Scripture, it’s dangerous and toxic. But when the left uses power to advance their interpretation of Scripture, it’s righteous, noble and pure. Or, as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat put it after watching Talarico’s appearance on Colbert:

The other guys misled you into believing that Jesus was entirely on their political party’s side, but as it turns out Jesus is entirely on *my* political party’s side.

As I noted in the first post on this series, critics of the Religious Right would be much more compelling if they hadn’t engaged in some of the same behaviors themselves.

Weilding the Bible for Political Purposes

Much has been written about Talarico’s comments about how “God is nonbinary.” I think it is true that the Creator of the Universe does not fit into our biological categories. But why should that have any bearing on public policy?

The context of Talarico’s statement is what bothers me more than the statement itself. Talarico was speaking out about a bill limiting girls’ sports to female participants.

This has obviously been a contentious policy issue in recent years, so how should we navigate these questions? Should we turn to public polling that 70% of Americans (and likely a higher percentage of Texans) believe “Transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender”? Should we turn to science that shows a clear male advantage, on average, over females in sports? Should we consider safety and fairness questions, not just for transgender athletes, but for the cisgender athletes competing against them?

No? We’re going to go with “God is nonbinary?”

Journalist Dave Wiegel of Semafor interviewed Talarico last September about this moment and got the following response:

I would think that all of my fellow Christians would agree with that statement, that God is beyond gender, or, as the Apostle Paul says: In Christ, there is neither male nor female. That’s not me, that’s Ephesians.

It’s actually Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” That passage is not about God’s gender but the fact that we are all one in Christ. But that’s just my understanding, I didn’t go to seminary.

But again, what does this have to do with the public policy question at hand?

This is what people criticize the Religious Right for: using their interpretation of Scripture over and above other considerations—including the clear majority of the public—when debating legislation.

Would an agnostic or atheist be comfortable with this rationale? Unlikely.

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Speaking Truth to Power

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the prototypical pastor who used his prophetic voice to enact social change. He is rightly regarded for his work in furthering Civil Rights, but a true test of his character came as the Vietnam War ramped up.

The heavy toll the war had taken on both America, Vietnam and the surrounding region compelled King to speak out against the very president who had delivered landmark Civil Rights laws only years before.

Now, let me make it clear in the beginning, that I see this war as an unjust, evil, and futile war. I preach to you today on the war in Vietnam because my conscience leaves me with no other choice. The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war.

…

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.

Those are strong and stirring words taking direct aim at the LBJ Administration. King used his prophetic voice to call out injustices, even when inconvenient.

But imagine if, in addition to being a preacher, he was also a U.S. senator. He now has competing interests. Are there bills making their way through the legislative process he’ll need the president’s cooperation on? Is it an election year? What do the polls say? Are there defense contractors in his district?

I’m aware the current pastor of King’s church, Ebenezer Baptist, is also a U.S. senator from Georgia. I still think that’s a bad dynamic for all the reasons above. Preacher and Politician are two hats that do not fit on the same head.

All these extra layers, all these additional considerations, all those endless temptations to compromise.

Perhaps that’s why Talarico’s pastor told him:

A politician never gets to choose between pure good and pure evil. When you have power and you’re supposed to be negotiating between two different sides, there’s no purity, which is why the prophets surrendered power.

Or as Talarico stated in his interview with Colbert: “When the church gets too cozy with political power, it loses its prophetic voice.” This is from the man who put seminary on hold to run for the most powerful legislative body in the world.

Talarico didn’t surrender power. He pursued it.

I was recently talking to a family member who had left their church after attending for several years. The church was their main source of community. They had been active members. Their kids made many friends in the children’s ministry. Leaving would be difficult.

The pastor of the church, Josh Howerton, had become more and more nakedly partisan and domineering in recent years. He infamously preached “How to vote like Jesus,” explaining why he believed Trump was the best candidate for Christians. He claimed his motives were pure:

I am not here to seek the approval of man. I am not here to seek the approval of a party. And I am not here to seek approval of a politician. I am here on behalf of the living God. Your convictions ought to pull your vote either right or left. But ultimately, the most important thing is that your heart goes up into the kingdom of God so that the Holy Spirit can come down on your life and bless your life. That’s what matters.

While Howerton claims he wasn’t seeking the approval of man or a politician, he got it. His social media following exploded, his media empire gained traction, he was invited to the White House. He became a growing and influential voice on the Christian Right.

While the church has grown as Howerton’s influence has grown, it has also lost hundreds of members. Those who have left include longtime members, many noting the “coarse, arrogant culture” that has developed. Howerton has made misogynistic jokes and comments from the pulpit. He later offered an apology, but appears to have plagiarized it.

And yet people stay. New members join. Because the church has become less about modeling the character of Jesus and more about toxic tribalism.

A Compromised Witness

There is much to be alarmed about on the Religious Right: Pete Hegseth’s form of Christian Nationalism, the Trump Bibles, and many other examples of faith leaders like Josh Howerton, to name a few.

But I worry that because the Religious Right has so lost its way, the Religious Left has given itself license to engage in some tribalistic behaviors of its own. In order to be effective voices, they have to be credible. And many are not. Precisely because the Religious Right holds more institutional power, the credibility of its critics matters even more. When those critics mirror the same tribal instincts, they weaken their ability to confront that power effectively.

A prophetic voice is not simply one that speaks passionately about injustice—it is one that speaks truth consistently, even when that truth is uncomfortable for its own audience. Your willingness or not to criticize your own side shows whether you are being “prophetic” or just partisan.

In this series of posts, I want to explore what it means to be “prophetic.” I also want to explore the ways churches and faith leaders compromise their prophetic voices by becoming partisan, chasing social media clout and succumbing to a phenomenon called “audience capture.”

Culture War Fan Service

What has happened to too many preachers turned political pundits is the phenomenon of “audience capture.” Prominent Christian author and professor, Dr. Richard Beck, described the phenomenon this way:

Through the hits, shares, downloads, and followers the writer or podcaster starts to chase virality, pulling their content away from careful, thoughtful analysis toward ideological bomb throwing. The influencer isn’t influencing the audience. The audience, through their attention, is influencing the influencer. The influencer starts to serve the interests, values, beliefs, prejudices, and biases of the audience. “Influence” becomes, in the end, culture war fan service.

It is difficult to be a consistent, thoughtful, prophetic voice while also striving to increase your online following. Beck continues:

This is why having “a large following” is a sure sign that you’re not going to encounter authentic Christian content. Because that “large following” is, rather, an ideological movement that has hijacked the influencer. “Large following” means culture war fan service. And if you doubt this, ask the influencer to call out the evil at work in their audience. They will not do so, for that would hurt their gig and their pocketbook.

Social media rewards reactive, polarizing, anger-inducing content. It does not reward nuance, thoughtfulness and fair-mindedness. If you’ve amassed a massive following on social media, it’s likely because you’ve become skilled at provoking tribal outrage.

As Pastor Zach Lambert stated when announcing the launch of his Substack:

• It is often unhelpful to limit discussions about who God is, who we are, and how we should show up in the world to 140 characters

• Algorithms on social media platforms contribute to outrage culture and the overall polarization which plagues so much of our public discourse

• Social media gives us the illusion of connection without the depth of community–we can have brief, surface-level interactions, but healthy, dialogical engagement is almost impossible

• Dopamine driven rewards on social media can sometimes create addictive engagement which lead to information overload, neglect of responsibilities, and mental health issues

As Lambert correctly points out, social media is a poor medium for meaningful theological and moral discussion because it flattens complexity, distorts engagement, and incentivizes outrage. Its algorithms and reward systems foster polarization, shallow connection, and even unhealthy patterns of use.

The larger the social media following, the larger the temptation to avoid critiquing your own tribe while only critiquing the other.

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Unequal Scales of Justice

In the days and weeks after the 2024 Election, former United Methodist minister and popular progressive Christian influencer John Pavlovitz shared a series of tweets and a Substack post espousing conspiracy theories and claiming Harris had won the election. He has a massive following: 382,000 followers on X; 571,000 followers on Facebook; and more than 118,000 Substack subscribers. As the Substack, “A Public Witness,” described his influence:

When Pavlovitz writes something, it gets noticed — especially among progressive Christians. As Wired noted, Pavlovitz’s X post questioning the vote totals the morning after the election was viewed more than 5 million times. Such reach was why they highlighted him as an example of Kamala Harris supporters engaging in emerging “conspiracy theories” and “baseless disinformation about the election being stolen.”

Pavlovitz’s post-election social media post wasn’t just the case of someone waking up on the wrong side of the bed. He’s regularly suggested — without evidence — that Harris actually won the election.

I first heard of John Pavlovitz’ election denialism and conspiracy theories from a progressive pastor I know who shared his frustrations privately with me. This pastor has a large (and growing) social media following himself. I was not surprised that he never shared that frustration publicly, given that he rarely criticizes figures on the left on his social media.

The disconnect was notable, however, as this pastor speaks out frequently and forcefully about the dangers of conspiracy theories on the right. A recent Substack post of his focuses on the book “Reality in Ruins: How Conspiracy Theory Became an American Evangelical Crisis.” The pastor had also recently invited the author to speak at his church about the same topic.

In February, this pastor posted a screenshot of an interaction he saw in the comments of a Facebook post. In the comment, one individual was sharing an AI-generated image of Bad Bunny burning an American flag. Despite being told it was clearly fake, the individual doubled down. Facebook comments are not known for their nuance or truthseeking.

The progressive pastor then tweeted about the interaction to his 56,000 followers and described the Facebook comment as “such a perfect encapsulation of right-wing outrage in our country.” In the tweet, the pastor’s screenshots included the individual’s first name, last name and profile picture. The individual is a non-public figure.

After the tweets, the interaction and screenshots became a separate post on Substack. Full names of non-public figures included.

Pavlovitz has 571,000 followers on Facebook. The random individual who got called out has 2,000. Pavlovitz shared a series of posts on social media and Substack that got millions of views and national media attention. The random individual was commenting under a post on Facebook, which likely wouldn’t have been seen by more than a few dozen people if the pastor hadn’t shared it on his own platforms. One of these people is progressive. One of them is conservative. One of these people is getting a pass (the pastor has since quoted Pavlovitz approvingly on his Substack). The other is being turned into an example of “right-wing outrage” and publicly singled out.

This asymmetry is telling. People notice things like this. It not only erodes the credibility of pastors desiring to be prophetic voices, it also erodes the credibility of The Church.

I recently raised concerns about the tone and tactics of this pastor’s social media with him directly, sharing examples of either contemptuous, false or overtly partisan posts. He did not address the examples, but stated his work was “rooted in conviction rather than an attempt to gain social approval or group acceptance.” I was not encouraged by the response.

This is not about one pastor. It is about a pattern—one that I’ve seen repeatedly across leaders who are otherwise thoughtful and sincere.

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Blurred Lines

This dynamic isn’t limited to social media. It also shows up in how churches and pastors relate to political power itself.

I come from a faith tradition (Churches of Christ) that is typically averse to anything perceived to be political messaging in a church. This has some drawbacks, but it also leads to a built-in resistance to blurring the lines between Christian witness and partisan advocacy. For example, at the fairly conservative church I grew up in, there was a class one Sunday on the dangers of Christian Nationalism.

That’s why I was surprised to hear prominent Church of Christ members named as part of Sen. John Cornyn’s “Faith Advisory Council.” (John Cornyn is also a member of the Churches of Christ.) Popular author and pastor, Max Lucado, alongside Phil Schubert, the president of my alma mater, Abilene Christian University, are part of a council “to stand for faith, family and freedom.”

In the midst of a heated primary, the announcement appears less about seeking guidance and more about co-opting faith for political ends.

The issue with aligning yourself with a candidate is that it colors your public statements about a party or politician. If Max Lucado, whom I deeply admire, were to speak out about Cornyn’s primary opponent Ken Paxton’s damaged character, it would now land differently. Any criticism will come across as an attack from a campaign rather than a prophetic denunciation. If Lucado were to critique James Talarico, it will seem more of a partisan attack.

This is why I’m averse to pastors aligning with a particular party or politician. When I see a pastor tweeting or retweeting content from one political party—and only that party—I begin to question whether their critiques are coming from a place of principle or merely partisanship. This is especially true if the content is about winning the midterms, taking back the House or Senate, or winning up and down the ballot.

Prophetic voices were meant to speak outside the system to critique it. Once they are co-opted by the system itself, their prophetic voice is compromised.

From Spiritual Formation to Political Mobilization

When faith communities become tightly aligned with political identities, they risk losing their ability to challenge those identities—and instead begin to reinforce them.

The Texas Tribune recently did a story on how faith communities have shaped James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett (the piece was written before Talarico ultimately won the primary). The piece describes the way churches became get-out-the-vote efforts in the primary.

While Talarico has brought religion to secular campaign spaces through a populist, faith-based pitch, his chief primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, has targeted the political power of the pews, working to supercharge Democratic turnout by tapping into the civic power of Black churches like her own. She has drawn hundreds to campaign events held at over a dozen Black churches around the state, while wielding endorsements from groups like the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

Crockett is known for her inflammatory rhetoric: calling the wheelchair-bound Greg Abbott, “Governor Hot Wheels;” accusing Hispanics who voted for Trump as having a “slave mentality;” calling Marjorie Taylor Green a “bleach-blonde bad-built butch body;” falsely claiming a Trump official took money from Jeffrey Epstein.

But this did not stop churches from mobilizing in her favor or national faith organizations calling her a “bold and principled leader for our time.” Or from Crockett’s home church becoming a voter registration site.

At the recent Sunday service, outside the sanctuary, members of the congregation scanned a QR code and filled out forms to register to vote or check their registration status.

This voter registration effort occurred after a fiery sermon from the lead pastor, Frederick Haynes III, who is running to replace Crockett in the House of Representatives.

When churches become vehicles for turnout rather than formation, they are no longer positioned to challenge the political figures they platform—they are invested in their success.

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Final Thoughts

When churches align with a party or politician, they lose the ability to critique them. Their criticisms are suspect. By avoiding criticizing their own tribe, their critiques come across as partisan.

Too many spiritual leaders have given themselves license to engage in arrogant, overtly partisan behavior because they believe their cause is righteous. Their motivations are pure and therefore do not need to be examined. But we should not mistake contempt for “conviction.”

Being a smug, self-righteous jerk online is not being “prophetic.”

Pastor Dennis Sanders wrote about the tendency to always view ourselves as the ones standing with Jesus when he is turning over tables, a story found in the Gospels in which Jesus becomes enraged to find the temple has become a place for merchants and money changers.

Whenever somebody talks about Jesus cleansing the temple, listen to where the speaker is in the story. More often than not they are not among the merchants. They aren’t on the sidelines. Where are they? They aren’t in the crowd and they aren’t among the moneychangers. Usually, they are in Jesus’s shoes flipping over the tables of injustice that they see in their own world.

The problem with this text or actually, how people interpret the text, is that it is focused on others that we don’t like. God is focused on our enemies, while we are left blameless, fighting God’s good fight.

Jesus is flipping over tables because a place of worship is being used for commercial purposes, to promote greed and power and purposes far beyond what the temple was built for. We should be careful before assuming, just because we believe our cause is righteous, that Jesus endorses every action in service of that end.

“It’s Time to Turn Some Tables,” is the slogan for Texas State Rep. James Talarico’s campaign for U.S. Senate. I’ve largely avoided mentioning him, and his likely (I’m sorry, I wish it weren’t true) opponent for the general election, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Those two will be the focus of the next post in this series.

The question is not whether we are willing to flip tables.
The question is whether we are willing to let Jesus flip ours.

Mere months after Conan took over The Tonight Show—the height of any comedy career—it was all about to be taken away from him. In the battle for late night, NBC appeared to have sided with Leno, giving the former host of The Tonight Show the 10:35 p.m. slot and bumping Conan to 12:05 a.m.

Conan felt blindsided. He also felt betrayed by his mentor and the man more responsible than anyone for his late night career—Lorne Michaels. His former executive producer at Late Night, Lorne had stayed on the sidelines as Conan battled with NBC executives.

Conan would ultimately leave NBC and end up hosting a show on basic cable. His once-promising career looked derailed.

Tonight, Conan is returning to host The Oscars for the second time, having received rave reviews for his first appearance. He has one of the top podcasts, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” now in its eighth year; a hit HBO Max show, “Conan O’Brien Must Go;” and a media company, “Team Coco,” that was sold to SiriusXM for $150 million.

The 2025 Mark Twain Prize Award winner has left an indelible mark on comedy. He accomplished all this, building a legacy that has outlasted his peers, by showing a genuine curiosity for the world around him and by placing comedy front and center.

Conan’s story is one of the great comeback stories in comedy. And to tell this story, I’ll rely on anecdotes from a few books: “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live,” “The World’s Worst Assistant,” and “Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live.”

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From Harvard Lampoon to Late Night

Conan began his comedy career as a 26-year-old writer for Saturday Night Live. Only a few years removed from serving as president of The Harvard Lampoon, Conan wrote many memorable sketches in just a few years, including Mr. Short-Term Memory with Tom Hanks, Girl Watchers and Nude Beach.

But he didn’t always jump on sketches that turned out to be mega hits:

I remember very clearly when Mike Myers showed up. He was wearing a leather jacket with the American flag on the back. It was his first time there and he was very polite and proud to be at SNL. He was asking us all about what he should submit in our read-through and we were giving him advice, Robert Smigel and Bob Odenkirk, Greg Daniels, and I. And then he came to us and he described to us this idea, this character he had named Wayne who had a cable show in his base-ment, and the show was called “Wayne’s World.” We politely told him that we didn’t think it was his best idea. But I remember very clearly sitting at read-through in my little folding chair, and I turned the page of the script and there’s the “Wayne’s World” we had dissuaded him from submitting. And I felt sorry for him. I thought, “This poor kid is going to have to learn the hard way.” (Live from New York)

Despite this, Mike Myers, like many who worked with Conan, remembers him as an excellent colleague and collaborator:

If Conan’s recounting that, he’s recounting it modestly. My memories of Conan O’Brien are just that he was absolutely sup-portive, decent, fair, hilarious — the funniest guy in the room.

So if he’s saying he was a naysayer at any point, that’s him being extremely modest. He’d always give you great positive en-couragement, but he also had a great eye on how to make something better. You always came away with three great jokes that he would give you. He’s a great collaborator and a generous, generous colleague. (Live from New York)

After SNL, Conan spent a few years as a writer for The Simpsons, writing episodes widely regarded as among the best in the show’s 37 seasons. That includes “Marge vs. the Monorail,” and a song with Conan’s fingerprints all over it.

When David Letterman decamped to CBS after being passed over for The Tonight Show, Lorne took over Late Night and initially approached Conan to be a producer. But Conan had different ideas—he wanted to host.

NBC wanted a big name or someone with on-air experience. But Lorne had seen something in Conan worth taking a gamble on. But he had to convince NBC top brass first:

Michaels, carrying on, said that he had a new name to throw into the mix: Conan O’Brien. [President of NBC West Coast Don] Ohlmeyer and his men exchanged looks. [NBC Vice President of Entertainment Warren] Littlefield wrinkled his brow and asked, “Red hair? Tall Conan? You mean the Simpsons guy?” Jim Biederman, part of Michaels’s Broadway Video team, spoke up in support of the idea. He told Ohlmeyer, “If Letterman was your generation, Conan is mine.” The executives considered the O’Brien idea far-fetched; they were interested in finding out if Garry Shandling was interested. (Lorne)

Conan didn’t own a suit jacket for the interview, so his close friend Lisa Kudrow took him shopping. When Conan was named, the press office didn’t even have a headshot of him. He was a virtual unknown.

The first few months were rough. The critics weren’t kind. Lorne would try to be helpful, but would often make things worse:

After especially harsh reviews, Michaels would call O’Brien to commiserate, but it often had the opposite effect. “Well, I think it’s terrible what so-and-so wrote about you,” O’Brien recalled him saying. “I mean, you don’t deserve to die.” Then he’d turn back into the reassuring dad, signing off with one of his showbiz bromides, such as “The longer you’re on, the longer you’re on.” (Lorne)

Conan persevered, however, winning new viewers and ultimately critical acclaim. Conan would host Late Night for 16 years until it became time for him to take over The Tonight Show—as outlined in his contract. But due to NBC brass’ repeated fumbling in trying to appease both Leno and honor the agreement with Conan, the end result was a situation that made no one happy.

Conan would describe the events in his famous “People of Earth” letter, which read in part:

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction.

The kerfuffle over Conan deepened a rift between Lorne Michaels and his protege. They had completely different instincts.

Had they talked, Michaels would have advised O’Brien to sleep on it before hitting SEND on the “People of Earth” statement. He would have told him to take the 12:05 slot and ride it out. Besides, time slots didn’t mean anything anymore. Plenty of people, he knew, watched SNL online the next day. But he felt that O’Brien was “post-listening” and Michaels isn’t by nature a rescuer. Bill Hader described Michaels’s damage-control instinct this way: “If you start drowning, he’s not like, ‘Here’s a life jacket. He’s like, ‘Oooh, look at that guy drowning in my pool. That’s disgusting; let’s go over here and hang with Alec Baldwin.” (Lorne)

The silence from Lorne was devastating to Conan:

O’Brien felt abandoned. “Lorne could have said, ‘You know what? They didn’t really give Conan a chance. Conan’s proven he can do this. He could’ve said some positive things about me, and he wouldn’t have lost anything,” he said. “He’s Lorne fucking Michaels. That’s what bothered me.” (Lorne)

Lorne had always taken the long view of the television industry and was ruthlessly pragmatic. Being on air was the most important thing. He viewed Conan’s statements and theatrics as counterproductive. Conan viewed his position as a matter of principle, staying true to the craft of comedy.

In later years, Conan would come to understand Lorne’s position more:

I understand now that NBC had been Lorne’s bread and butter since 1975—I was an ancillary thing. In retrospect, I get why he was torn and wanted to lay low. I’ve made my peace with it. We’re friends, and I love the guy.

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The Wilderness

Immediately after Conan left The Tonight Show, he was contractually obligated to stay off the air for several months. So he went on a sold-out tour of the U.S. and Canada, “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour.” Across 30 cities, Conan performed in packed arenas. The tour was later the focus of the documentary, “Conan O’brien Ca’t Stop.”

Rather than strike a deal with another major network (Fox, HBO and Comedy Central were certainly interested), Conan made the unusual choice of signing on with TBS, a minor cable network with a fraction of the audience. But they offered something Conan prized most: creative freedom.

Conan was able to push beyond the regular format of late night TV with more longform sketches and fewer celebrity interviews, and an acclaimed travel series, “Conan without Borders.” When Conan left the show in 2021, he was the longest-running late night host still on the air.

Conan’s second act brought him a growing following that transcended just his regular TV show. He became a regular guest on other shows and podcasts, and hosted the MTV Music Awards in 2014 and most recently, The Oscars. His appearance on the low-budget YouTube show, “Hot Ones” garnered more than 15 million views, demonstrating Conan’s cultural impact.

A Curiosity for Regular People

Conan’s personal assistant, Sona Movsesian, has worked with him since 2009 in the midst of his transition to The Tonight Show. Like many on Conan’s staff, she has been elevated on his show and has been able to grow a platform of her own.

Conan’s genuine decency is something many of his friends and staff remark on. As Sona recounts in her book:

In the time I’ve worked for Conan, I’ve had the pleasure of some once-in-a-lifetime experiences that have really opened my eyes. More importantly, I’ve created a friendship with Conan that will go well beyond my time working for him. Conan visited my family after my grandma died, he officiated my best friend’s wedding ceremony, he and his wife, Liza, threw my now-husband and me a beautiful engagement party, and he even wrote a letter on our behalf to help us buy our house. Despite the dysfunction, there is an affection there, and I can’t imagine being anyone else’s terrible assistant. (The World’s Worst Assistant)

Conan is genuinely curious about the people around him, not just the celebrities he interviews. On his podcast, mixed in with interviews of Tom Hanks, President Obama, Amy Poehler and Carol Burnett, he also regularly interviews fans all over the world to learn about their lives. He also interviews his own staff, bringing them on the show to joke with them about their work.

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A Comedic Legacy

Conan has a legacy built to last because he was always focused on the comedy, not the latest trends. When his fellow late night hosts began to flood the airwaves with non-stop Trump jokes, Conan took a different path:

Some comics have gone the route of ‘I’m just going to say F*** Trump all the time and that’s their comedy… Now, I think you’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you’ve exchanged it for anger. And that person would say, ‘Things are too serious now, I don’t need to be funny.’ Well, if you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny... Good art will always be a great weapon, a perfect weapon against power.

Ratings for the big late night shows have been in steady decline for years due to the changing media landscape. Colbert is set to leave the airwaves in May and Kimmel’s future also seems precarious. The Tonight Show regularly ranks third in the ratings behind these two.

Conan’s ability to pivot to new mediums, new formats and new opportunities has helped him far outpace the relevance of most late night shows. Nearly half of Conan’s podcast audience is under 35. Most Gen Z kids likely barely know the name “Jay Leno.”

The resilience of Conan and the ethos that helped propel his career could be seen in his final monologue for The Tonight Show, which he delivered on January 22, 2010:

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. As proof, let’s make an amazing thing happen right now.

Welcome to the March edition of “Book Reports,” where I share passages from books I’ve found intriguing recently. I aim to post these once per month. I also include a few links to articles and podcasts that have piqued my interest.

So without further ado…

🧑‍🎓 “As far as your talents and determination can take you.”

A book I’ve wanted to review for a long time is Harvard Professor Michael Sandel’s “The Tyranny of Merit.” The book takes a hard look at meritocracy, its history and pitfalls.

Sandel gave me plenty to chew on, but I was especially fascinated by how ideas of meritocracy gained traction over time. Sandel traces the history of the phrase “as far as their talents and hard work will take them.” Reagan first popularized it, but it was quickly adopted by succeeding presidents.

Bill Clinton adopted Reagan’s slogan and used it frequently. “The American dream that we were all raised on is a simple but powerful one: If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be given a chance to go as far as your God-given ability will take you.” By the 2000s, the rhetoric of rising had become a bipartisan rhetorical reflex. Republicans George W. Bush, John McCain, and Marco Rubio all invoked it.

The president who used the phrase more than all previous presidents combined: Obama. Sandel argues it was the central theme of his presidency.

“When it comes to higher education,” Obama told a gathering of educators at the White House, what ultimately matters “is making sure that bright, motivated young people … have the chance to go as far as their talents and their work ethic and their dreams can take them.”

Obama’s rhetoric on the issue is especially notable given recent discussions on “equity.”

“Now, as a nation, we don’t promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea [that] everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That’s an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.”

Echoing Reagan and Clinton, Obama’s rhetoric of rising pointed toward meritocracy. It emphasized non-discrimination (“no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from”), insisted on hard work, and admonished citizens to “take responsibility” for themselves. Here then was the link between the rhetoric of rising and the meritocratic ethic: If opportunities are truly equal, then not only will people rise as far as their talents and hard work will take them; their success will be their own doing, and they will deserve the rewards that come their way.

On its surface, there’s very little for me to disagree with here. But as Sandel compellingly argues, this rhetoric can lead to a form of callousness. You deserve your lot in life. It is 100% the product of your own choices. And if you end up on a lower rung of society, it is because that is where you deserve to be. If you find yourself on a higher rung, that is solely the product of your hard work (even if multiple factors outside your control led you to that position.

Jesse Singal did a much better job articulating this than I am, even if I quibble with how far he’s willing to take this concept.

Singal-Minded

Prove Me Wrong: Luck Determines Almost Everything

Do we talk openly and frequently and loudly enough about luck? I don’t think so. Yes, it’s a frequent subject of conversation; we’re all quite aware of random hit-and-runs and lottery tickets and unwelcome masses found, too late, in loved one’s bodies. But we treat luck as the exception rather than the rule, as though it occasionally pokes its head into our lives, quite consequentially, for better or worse …

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8 months ago · 68 likes · 71 comments · Jesse Singal

This book challenged me and I’m still working through my thoughts on it, which I hope to share in the future.

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🔥 The warmth of individualism

Individualism and collectivism are often viewed as exclusive to particular ideologies, but as Dr. Jean Twenge notes in her excellent book, “Generations,” that’s not always the case:

Two important caveats are worth mentioning. First, neither individualism nor collectivism is all good or all bad. They both involve trade-offs, and whether one judges the outcomes of either system as good or bad is heavily influenced by which system you were raised in. For example, is it good or bad that Western societies have become more accepting of single parents? Your answer partially depends on whether you lean toward individualism or collec-tivism. In general, individualism has the advantage of more individual freedom and choice, and the downside of more social disconnection; collectivism offers less choice but tighter social connections.

But individualism and collectivism are not proxies for right and left.

…it’s important not to conflate individualism and collectivism with political ideologies-they are not the same. Conservatism embraces some aspects of individualism (favoring light regulation of the individual by government) and some aspects of collectivism (emphasizing family and religion). Liberalism prizes individualism’s insistence that race, gender, and sexual orientation should not restrict rights or opportunities, but also supports collectivistic social policies such as government-funded health care.

There is one exception, however:

The one possible exception is libertarianism, a political philosophy that takes some views from the liberal basket and others from the conservative one and overlaps with individualism to a good degree.

💵 Billionaires aren’t the only ones who are wealthy

Economic populism has led to lots of hand-wringing over billionaires and the wealth and power they hold. It used to be just Bernie, but now that messaging has become ubiquitous.

There are valid critiques to be made, but this fixation on billionaires can often feel like it lets off the hook any number of very wealthy people. To be in the top 1% of earners requires an annual income of $660k+ and to be in the top 5% requires $335k+.

But also: if you make $60k or more annually after tax, then you are in the top 1% of earners globally. Fixating on billionaires allows a lot of people to proclaim righteous indignation about “the wealthy” while avoiding how they would also, by any measure, be considered among the wealthy.

This is part of what scholar Musa al-Gharbi argues in his thought-provoking (yet incredibly academic) book, “We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite.” Al-Gharbi focuses on “symbolic capitalists”—highly educated knowledge workers who convert moral and cultural signaling—especially around social justice—into professional status, influence and material advantage.

Rhetoric around “billionaires” is a key way these dynamics play out:

As Richard Reeves argued, “The rhetoric of ‘We are the 99 percent’ has in fact been dangerously self-serving, allowing people with healthy six-figure incomes to convince themselves that they are somehow in the same economic boat as ordinary Americans, and that it is just the so-called super rich who are to blame for inequality.” Reeves’s research amply shows that declines in social mobility and rising inequality cannot be well explained or addressed by simply focusing on the “1 percent.” Yet that is precisely what many symbolic capitalists attempted to do via Occupy: deflect blame onto others using class-based rhetoric, just as they often do with identitarian frameworks. And it was ultimately these same elites who killed the Occupy movement through their insistence on symbolic politics.

Bernie Sanders used to rail against “millionaires and billionaires” until he himself became a millionaire. That level of wealth becomes acceptable when you are part of that club. Apparently, many Americans who rail against the 1% feel similarly.

Articles I’m reading

• The Federal Communications Commission has a long history of abusing their authority to threaten free speech. This Reason article traces the history from FDR to Trump.

• One of my old professors at ACU, Dr. Richard Beck, has an excellent essay about Christianity and audience capture.

• Ethan Strauss wrote an essay awhile back about the end of Colbert’s time on the air and how he may have given into “that self-important feeling” that Johnny Carson was averse to.

What I’m listening to

• Dana Carvey and David Spade have an excellent podcast, “Fly on the Wall,” where they discuss SNL memories. The only thing better is the duo joining Bill Maher on his podcast for a conversation.

• I’ve been a longtime fan of The Fifth Column and highly recommend Michael Moynihan’s interview with historian Jon Meacham.

Writing Spotlight

The past few days have been a high point for this Substack as I’ve been able to grow my audience through a number of opportunities. Thursday, I posted my first piece with “The Coddling of the American Mind Movie” Substack since becoming a paid contributor.

Friday, writer and longtime hero of mine, Andrew Sullivan, shared a similar post of mine in his widely read newsletter. I could not be more thrilled.

Then this morning (Sunday), Tangle News published my essay, “We are all capable of bigotry—and grace.” I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some of the messages and feedback I’ve received already (and welcome to all the new subscribers!)

Thanks to everyone who reads this Substack. More exciting things to come!

I distinctly remember Stephen Colbert skewering President Bush during his 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech. I was a high school kid in one of the most conservative areas of the country—West Texas. We loved George W. Bush. I had his campaign bumper sticker on my first car. But I also loved Colbert, and his speech made me start to reevaluate how I felt about certain Bush policies. That’s the power of comedy.

I was thrilled when Colbert was named as host of “The Late Show.” I listened to the show’s podcast and streamed the previous evening’s show when I got home each day. I told everyone around me to read the GQ profile of Colbert where he discusses losing his father and two brothers in a plane crash.

There was so much depth to Colbert. He was going to bring something new and fresh to late-night comedy. When Colbert began the show, he told the Late Show’s bandleader and close friend, Jon Batiste, he wanted “a show about people and about love and about being a friend to the regular people out there.”

But that didn’t sell as well. And Colbert floundered, often sliding far behind in the ratings. Until he found a magic formula: relentlessly mocking only one side of the aisle, not only Trump but his supporters and anyone who held views to the right of the Democratic Party. He would become a partisan, a shameless cheerleader for the Democratic Party Establishment.

It worked. Contempt, not love, helped shoot Colbert to #1 in the ratings. And soon, nearly everyone in late night followed suit.

Caitlin Flannagan, in her piece for The Atlantic, “How Late Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump,” detailed the vagaries of Trump but also the galling response from late-night comedians:

Trump has it coming, and so do the minions pouring out of his clown car, with their lies and their gleeful disregard for what Nick Carraway called “the fundamental decencies.” But somewhere along the way, the hosts of the late-night shows decided that they had carte blanche to insult not just the people within this administration, but also the ordinary citizens who support Trump, and even those who merely identify as conservatives.

The art for the article really captures the new dynamic of late night and Colbert’s central role in it.

“I want a show about people and about love and about being a friend to the regular people out there.”

Colbert turned late night into an endless contempt fest. And he has that right. He has that freedom of speech. I wish he had used his platform differently. But I defend his right to free speech and any effort to curtail those rights should be fought vigorously.

Colbert’s contempt isn’t why I think he’s a poor choice for free speech martyr. It’s something deeper.

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The Colbert Campaign Stop

On Monday, Feb. 16–the evening before early voting began in Texas—“The Late Show” was set to run an interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate.

But the segment never aired on TV.

The segment did appear, however, on the show’s YouTube account, which you can watch here:

This was the softest of softball interviews. It was a Nerf ball interview.

Colbert claims he was told “in no uncertain terms” by CBS lawyers that he could not air the interview with Talarico. CBS lawyers claim they provided “legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” Crockett claims Colbert’s team never contacted her. Talarico claims his interview was “banned” by the FCC (that is misleading, to put it mildly).

There are lots of competing claims here but I would be livid if I were Crockett. Recent polling puts Talarico and Crockett within a percentage point of one another–a dead heat. And Colbert appears to have used his show to tip the scales in a highly competitive primary. I want Talarico to win this primary. I think he is a much better candidate than Rep. Jasmine Crockett. But I think Colbert’s conduct is questionable.

CBS lawyers weren’t claiming Trump’s FCC would force him to interview Paxton, they reminded Colbert of the law, which could require him to give “equal time” to the other candidates, if requested.

Here is the summary on the U.S. Congress website:

Section 315(a) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, requires broadcast licensees to afford “equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office” in the event that the licensee permits a candidate for public office” to use a broadcasting station.” The FCC has issued a regulation pursuant to this statutory directive. The rule contains exceptions, including when a candidate appears on a “bona fide newscast” or in “on-the-spot coverage of bona fide news events.” This rule is colloquially referred to as the “equal time rule,” though this phrase does not appear in the rule or in the provision of the Communications Act authorizing it.

Since 2006, the FCC has allowed interviews on late-night shows to be considered “bona fide news.” But Carr sent a memo in January signalling he was reversing that precedent and would be targeting “The View” and other late night and daytime talk shows for equal time violations.

Multiple things can be true at once:

• Brendan Carr is a bad-faith actor who is using rules on the books to go after liberal leaning TV shows while not applying the same scrutiny to conservative radio.

• The FCC has a long and terrible history of using regulations developed for regulating the radio airwaves decades ago, and applying them in a context that looks very different from when they were written.

• Colbert used his platform to boost one candidate over another in a highly competitive primary.

• Colbert and most late-night comedy shows have become extremely partisan, a stark departure from decades past.

I reviewed the YouTube channel for The Late Show and noted the Dem/GOP elected officials and partisans. You can find the full list here.

Talarico is among nine democratic elected officials to appear on The Late Show in the past three months, a list that includes Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Josh Shapiro and Abigail Spanberger. Zero GOP elected officials have come on the show during that time. At least 10 other guests are deep partisans like Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Chris Hayes and Michelle Obama. I’m not even counting the many liberal celebrities who have appeared on the show.

The only potential GOP partisan (who isn’t even partisan) is…Sydney Sweeney?

Colbert’s cause isn’t righteous; it’s nakedly partisan. The FCC is wrong to intervene, but that doesn’t make Colbert righteous.

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Don’t make Colbert a free speech martyr

I recently attended an event in Austin for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, where Greg Lukianoff was interviewed about threats to freedom of speech. He echoed concerns about the FCC, which was initially created to regulate the airwaves for radio but has grown in power in ways that directly threaten freedom of speech.

But he also reiterated a common theme of his: free speech is essential to the process of approaching truth and avoiding ignorance.

Trump does not care about free speech. Elon Musk has no consistent principles on the subject, either. Brendan Carr is no champion of the First Amendment.

But you know who else isn’t a champion of free speech? Stephen Colbert.

Conservatives (rightly) point out the Biden Administration pressured social media companies and YouTube to censor content related to COVID-19, including satire and humor. As Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who shared science-based analysis of COVID policies but was censored, testified to the U.S. Congress:

What this case has revealed is that a dozen federal agencies, including the CDC, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the White House pressured social media companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to censor and deboost even true speech that contradicted federal pandemic priorities, including especially inconvenient facts about the covid vaccines such as its inefficacy against covid disease transmission.

Did Colbert sound the alarm then? No, he encouraged it. In a July 2021 episode, he lamented that “the only thing spreading faster than COVID variants is COVID misinformation” and cheered Meta’s efforts to root out what the Biden Administration deemed “misinformation.” Zuckerberg would later state he regretted bowing to the pressure campaign from the Biden White House.

Colbert would not abide any perspectives that diverged from the narrative of the Biden Administration. Even when Colbert’s longtime friend Jon Stewart came on the show and did a bit about COVID originating in a lab–which many agencies now believe to be the likeliest cause–Colbert kept interrupting and would barely let him finish.

When the Biden’s FBI pressured social media companies to block the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, Colbert mocked conservatives for complaining. Among the segments was a mocking song calling the Hunter Biden laptop story “debunked claims of made up kompromat,” a “conspiracy” and that Trump “got it from Vladdy P.”

The laptop story was later confirmed to be true.

This was just pure propaganda. It was misinformation, just like when Jimmy Kimmel claimed Charlie Kirk’s assassin was MAGA. There is no consistent standard for when the government should intervene to stop misinformation other than, “if the red team does it, it’s bad.”

Colbert has used his platform to cheer the censorship of speech he views as bad (even if true) and has narrowed the range of guests and perspectives to only those aligned with the DNC. The Late Show does not serve the public interest; it serves the Democratic Party and Colbert’s bottomless grandiosity.

The Dietrich Bonhoeffers of Late Night

All this brings me to my recent piece for “The Coddling of the American Mind” Substack about the fall of Colbert and Kimmel and the historical context of FCC censorship. Here’s how I began the essay:

At 2:30 a.m., the chairman of CBS got a phone call. It was the president of the United States. And he was irate.

“Get those bastards off my back,” the notoriously thin-skinned president shouted. He resented being mocked on one of CBS’ evening comedy programs. The president of the United States was close to the leadership of CBS, and would often vent his frustrations.

The early months of a new administration—led by a man who previously occupied the White House—further imperiled the show. The administration began leaning on the Federal Communications Commission to threaten stations’ broadcast license renewals, citing the Fairness Doctrine.

It wasn’t just the administration. The program’s content was agitating local affiliates and advertisers. In time, the comedy hosts were taken off the air.

This opening story isn’t about Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel in 2025. The above describes the experience of Dick and Tom Smothers in the 1960s. There are parallels to the experiences of Kimmel and Colbert, but there is one major difference: The Smothers Brothers mocked the powerful, regardless of who was in power, drawing the ire of both the Johnson and Nixon administrations over the course of just three seasons.

Kimmel and Colbert didn’t challenge whoever was in power, they became partisan mouthpieces for the DNC. This was most evident during the final months of the Biden presidency:

In 2006, Stephen Colbert gave a brilliant and blistering speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, skewering President Bush mere feet away. This is a moment many comedians and commentators remember because it was so bold. It was literally speaking truth to power.

In 2024, Colbert stood onstage with President Biden—but not to skewer him. To fundraise for him.

Not to be outdone, Jimmy Kimmel also hosted a separate Democratic fundraiser with George Clooney and others. Weeks later, after Biden’s disastrous debate, George Clooney wrote his famous New York Times op-ed admitting that “the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

If George Clooney saw this, surely Kimmel did, too. So did Colbert (even though he claims otherwise). So did anyone who had spent any time with Biden at a fundraiser or during a softball interview.

You can’t help cover up Biden’s cognitive decline—one of the worst scandals in recent history—and then lecture the American people about “speaking truth to power” and the fight for democracy.

You can’t only “speak truth to power” when its Trump or Republicans but let your own tribe off the hook. That’s not being prophetic, that being deeply partisan.

You can’t cheer when your team uses the FCC to stifle speech and then sound the alarm about First Amendment violations when it applies to you.

You can’t poison the airwaves with night after night of contempt and claim you are about Christianity and you want “a show about love.”

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Not All Saints Wear Robes

During the interview that later went viral, Colbert and Talarico shared compliments with each other on how they exemplified the Christian virtues. Colbert would go viral and Talarico would raise millions by claiming Trump “banned” Talarico from the air, even though CBS’ statement makes it clear Colbert was given options to satisfy a law on the books, and he refused.

Toward the end, Talarico extolled Colbert’s Christian witness:

I just want to thank you, Stephen, because I know you’re not a politician, but you have really shown people in this country what Christianity should be, and what it looks like to actually live out the teachings of Jesus–even in a talk show.

Oh Saint James, please.

Welcome to the first edition of “Book Reports,” where I share passages from books I’ve found intriguing recently. I’ll aim to post these once per month. I’ll also include a few links to articles and podcasts that have piqued my interest.

So without further ado…

Is Prince Harry a Reliable Narrator?

I slogged through Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, thinking I might write a review on it, but ended up abandoning those plans. Throughout the book, I often wondered if Harry was a reliable narrator, especially when it comes to stories about his family. The issue is, the Royal Family is likely to stick to their centuries-old tactic of “never complain, never explain,” so these stories remain one-sided.

But there are exceptions to this. One instance is when Harry writes about an interview he had with “Willy” during the brief time they lived together in their 20s:

While sharing that cottage we agreed to a rare joint interview, in an airplane hangar at Shawbury, during which Willy griped endlessly about my habits. Harry’s a slob, he said. Harry snores.

I turned and gave him a look. Was he joking?

I cleaned up after myself, and I didn’t snore. Besides, our rooms were separated by thick walls, so even if I did snore there was no way he heard. The reporters were having fits of giggles about it all, but I cut in: Lies! Lies!

That only made them laugh harder. Willy too.

I laughed as well, because we often bantered like that, but when I look back on it now, I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something else at play. I was training to get to the front lines, the same place Willy had been training to get, but the Palace had scuttled his plans. The Spare, sure, let him run around a battlefield like a chicken with its head cut off, if that’s what he likes.”

What Harry describes sounds like…normal joking between two brothers? Was it really that bad? What would William’s recollection be?

Thankfully, there’s video of the interview.

The entire book is like this: a catalog of every slight Harry has ever received from his family, especially William. “Looking back on it now” could be the subtitle because it’s clear Harry has gone back through his memories and read nefarious intent into even the most inane interactions.

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That time Clinton meddled with Russian elections

In his excellent book, “The Nineties,” Chuck Klosterman looks back at the decade as it was experienced at the time. In doing so, he reveals moments that were lost to history:

There are things forgotten by chance, and there are things forgotten on purpose.

But then there are things that aren’t really forgotten as much as they are deliberately ignored, usually because the memory has come to necessitate an elephantine level of discomfiting rationalization.

One example of this phenomenon is stunning:

America’s involvement with the 1996 Russian democratic election falls into this third category. Boris Yeltsin, the boozehound incumbent, overcame mass unpopularity to win reelection as Russian president, significantly due to assistance from clandestine United States operatives and the support of Bill Clinton.

When the news of this subversion first surfaced, it was hailed as a masterstroke of U.S. statecraft. The July 15 cover of Time magazine pulled no punches: “Yanks to the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win.”

Since the story came out in 1996, there is an online version of the story of Boris Yeltsin’s stunning comeback to win the Russian election:

The outcome was by no means inevitable. Last winter Yeltsin’s approval ratings were in the single digits. There are many reasons for his change in fortune, but a crucial one has remained a secret. For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin’s campaign. Here is the inside story of how these advisers helped Yeltsin achieve the victory that will keep reform in Russia alive.

What Klosterman notes is that:

We do know that Yeltsin was way behind in 1995 and somehow won easily in ‘96, and that most historians classify the entire rease as either mildly or heavily corrupt. The expressed U.S. position on the meddling was that America had a stake in the outcome. Yeltsin was the best hope for expansion of democracy, and bloodlessly shaping international policy is the definition of what diplomacy is. It wasn’t a conspiracy. It was a plan, and the plan worked. It’s just not a plan we prefer to remember.

Hammer and Sickle and Women’s Equality

Speaking of Russia, I recently began reading Julia Ioffe’s “Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russian from Revolution to Autocracy.” The National Book Award finalist traces the history of Russia in the 20th century through the stories of notable women.

Moscow-born Ioffe describes her personal lineage this way:

My little sister, an oncologist, is the fourth generation of women in our family to practice medicine. She follows our mother (a pathologist), our mother’s mother (a cardiologist), and our mother’s mother’s mother (a pediatrician). In fact, two of our great-grandmothers were doctors. Another was a PhD in chemistry who, in the 1930s, ran her own lab and published scientific papers at a time when her peers in the West still needed their husbands’ permission to do much of anything. (Our other grandmother, for what it’s worth, was a chemical engineer who oversaw the lab at a water filtration plant that supplied the Kremlin’s drinking water.)

But Ioffe points out this is not so remarkable in the context of the Soviet Union:

But, measured against the history of their own country, the Soviet Union, the women from whom I descend were perfectly average people. They were ordinary women who happened to be the subjects—and products—of one of the most radical social experiments in history: the attempt to emancipate women and build a new Soviet person. This book is, in part, an effort to explain the extraordinary circumstances that transtormed the lives of my rather ordinary foremothers.

The egalitarian society produced some remarkable rights and benefits decades before the United States.

By 1917, Soviet women had the (increasingly irrelevant) right to vote, years before their Western peers. They had the right to no-fault divorce and child support, paid maternity leave, and free higher education, including in the sciences, by 1918. By 1920, they had the right to abortion, provided by the state for free.

Women also joined the ranks of the military:

The experiment in erasing the legal, educational, and social differences between men and women was so successful that the first post-Revolutionary generation of Soviet women took up arms to fight the Nazis en masse. When Hitler’s army invaded the USSR in the summer of 1941, tens of thousands of young women, most of them teenage girls, swarmed recruitment posts all over the country. Eventually, nearly a million of them would serve in the Red Army, as machine gunners and medics, as sappers and artillery officers, as snipers and fighter pilots in all-female squadrons. This was without parallel among any of the countries fighting in World War II.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book to see if women enjoyed equality in the Soviet bread lines and gulags.

Articles I’m Reading

• Politico does a deep dive into the once-promising University of Austin and how it seemed to turn on the very values it claimed to uphold almost immediately.

• Jeff Maurer, who used to write for Jon Oliver and has since repented, writes an excellent Substack and recently asked after the Grammys, “Will Celebrities Ever Realize They’re Not Helping?”

• Historian H.W. Brands writes about why parts of America like to hate on Texas and how Texans view critiques of their state as merely envy (accurate).

• Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times discusses the absurd fallout for Bowen Yang and his podcast co-host after they expressed skepticism about Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s bid for U.S. Senate.

Podcasts I’m listening to

Andrew Sullivan recently interviewed conservative writer and Lubbock native Kevin Williamson about the dangers of populism. Come for the anecdote about George W. Bush joking about Lubbock High being terrible at football, stay for the discussion of Lubbock’s demographics of rednecks, farmers and college professors.

The Weekly Dish

Kevin Williamson On The Perils Of Populism

Kevin spent 15 years as a writer and reporter for National Review, worked as a theater critic at The New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He’s currently the national correspondent at The Dispatch and a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He’s the author of many books, including…

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7 months ago · Andrew Sullivan

Dennis Sanders is a welcome voice of pastoral care and wisdom on Substack and I appreciate his excellent podcast (which I appeared on last year). Dennis lives in the Minneapolis area and has had several episodes recently about how he’s processing what’s happening in his own backyard.

Despite not being a huge sports fan, I’m a big fan of Ethan Strauss and his excellent podcast. He recently had Chuck Klosterman on to talk about his latest book on football. The episode is so good that I, someone who rarely watches football, found the discussion fascinating.

House of Strauss

Chuck Klosterman

I highly recommend Football, Chuck Klosterman’s latest book. In this podcast, we discuss his trenchant and personal exploration of the sport, along with the following topics…

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7 months ago · 18 likes · 8 comments · Ethan Strauss

Happy Super Bowl weekend!

It’s been another great year for Ryan’s Boring Book Club. I expanded my writing into outlets like “The Coddling of the American Mind Movie” Substack. I got to interview two dear friends, Zach Lambert and Karen Keen, who published books this year. I also interviewed former CNN journalist Chris Cillizza about his favorite political reads. I got blocked by a former Obama speechwriter for sharing a negative review of his book (and got accused of “a hit job” by Cillizza).

This was also the year I published stories and opinions I had long wanted to share, but previously never had the outlet for. Stories like my experiences pledging then depledging a Christian fraternity. And opinions about how some “inclusive” churches can be anything but.

Here are some highlights from the last past year.

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Top 5 Posts

The stars aligned on this one where a topic I love to read and write about coincided with the 50th anniversary of the show. “Live from New York” was fun to revisit and mark the craziest quotes to include in the piece. This was a fun post to write.

My bet that publishing the morning of the 50th anniversary show would lead to plenty of search traffic paid off. The highest traffic source by far was Google, with nearly 5,000 views and six subscribers. There’s a new CNN documentary out about Chevy Chase and stories are popping back up about how difficult he was. I’ve seen a boost in traffic in recent weeks and my guess is the CNN doc is driving a lot of that.

This post remains the “pinned” post on my Substack profile because it’s probably a topic I’m most passionate about: advocating for churches that affirm LGBT people without abandoning Christianity.

I was deeply encouraged to be restacked by not only Matthew Vines of The Reformation Project, but Andrew Sullivan. I was also invited to be on the “Church and Main” podcast with Dennis Sanders, a gay pastor in the Minneapolis area. A shorter version with a quote from Matthew Vines was published in Baptist News Global. Plenty of people, gay and straight, including those who had attended my previous church, responded positively online or reached out with support.

I’m glad the post resonated as I think it’s a point that gets overlooked or dismissed too often: just because a church is affirming or progressive doesn’t mean it’s inclusive.

This one had been on my mind for a long time. Recounting my pledging/depledging experience with a Christian fraternity was one of the most emotionally taxing things I’ve probably ever written, but also rewarding. I say that because after the post went live, I got numerous texts, messages, emails and comments. All positive. I was fully prepared to get some pushback but none came.

I sent an early draft to a friend to get a second set of eyes on it. Immediately after sending, I felt a wave of panic. Am I really doing this? I was watching a video of a musical performance by the fraternity I had pledged/depledged. I was transported back to college, feeling intimidated, but also acutely aware I was about to bring up the behavior of real people who were around 20 years old at the time. I’m glad I published, because not only did it start some good conversations, it was also healing to finally tell that story.

I decided to make my look back at the first 50 years of SNL a two parter, with part one looking at the first 30 and part two looking at the last 20 years. I also wanted to focus on what is a peeve of mine over the past 10 years: chasing “clapter” over comedy.

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My essay about depledging a Christian fraternity ended up being about 11,000 words so I broke it up into two pieces. When I posted on Instagram, I could see a few of the people referenced (not by name) in the essays viewing the social media posts. So that was interesting.

Part two brought more attention to this sad story, but also more well-wishes and kind words from people I had known from my time at ACU.

Honorable Mention

I got the chance to write a two-part series for “The Coddling of the American Mind Movie” Substack. This was apparently the year I decided to do two-parters.

The Coddling of the American Mind Movie

How to Relate to Your Moral Inferiors

Dear Coddling Movie Community…

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a year ago · 56 likes · 21 comments · Ryan Self

The Coddling of the American Mind Movie

That Time a Former CNN Journalist Accused Me of a "Hit Job”

It’s not every day you get accused of a hit job by a former CNN journalist. But that’s what happened to me recently when I shared some opinions (backed up with evidence) about David Litt’s new memoir, It’s Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground…

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a year ago · 49 likes · 4 comments · Ryan Self

I was asked to write a post for “The Coddling of the American Mind Movie” Substack after commenting on a thoughtful piece from Dr. Michael Ziffra. He drew lessons from David Litt’s NYTimes op-ed, “Should you stop snubbing your right-wing family members?” on how to heal relationships. But I felt the actual book painted a different picture than what Litt was presenting in his op-ed. In fact, I found him to be incredibly condescending and judgmental.

The posts generated plenty of discussion and it was rewarding to put my writing in front of a larger audience. I have another post coming out in the “Coddling” Substack in the coming days, comparing and contrasting the censoring of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the 1960s with the experiences of Kimmel/Colbert in 2025.

My Favorite Post

The president of the fraternity, who is a major character in the pledging/depledging series, eventually saw it and called me to apologize for what happened all those years ago. He also said he had become disillusioned with the process upon graduating and saw it as inherently unchristian. The conversation was very healing. We should never underestimate the power of a genuine apology, even years later.

The post also allowed me to put a hopeful, positive conclusion to what had been a pretty dark series of posts. It just happened that the phone call came when I was at a conference attended by hundreds of members of the faith tradition I grew up in, Churches of Christ, and it truly felt like I had come full circle.

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What’s Next

I want to aim even higher this next year. There are authors I’d like to interview and bigger topics I want to cover.

I hope to do more reporting, or pieces where I can provide some unique details on a particular topic. I have a few ideas in the works. I’m trying to balance shorter posts about books and topics that are amusing and longer posts about weightier matters.

I also hope to try a new series of shorter articles once a month called “Book Reports,” in which I share snippets of various books I’ve found interesting. Instead of doing a deep dive on a particular book, I’ll share 3-4 passages from different books. In reading for

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If you have a Substack of your own, recommendations are always a huge help. To really sweeten the deal, I’m offering a $10 Starbucks gift card to anyone who 1) has more than 100 subscribers, paid or unpaid 2) adds “Ryan’s Boring Book Club” to their list of recommended Substacks and 3) tags me in a post letting me know they’ve done so. I will give the $10 egiftcard to the first 10 people who do so. I am stealing this terrific idea directly from Jeff Giesea and The Boyd Institute, two publications everyone should check out.

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Truly, thanks to everyone who reads my work. I’ve enjoyed connecting with many of you (or reconnecting, as is often the case with people I’ve known over the years). I’m so grateful for Substack and the opportunity to write and put my thoughts out into the world.

Hell is also the topic of Brian Recker’s “Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love.” In the book, Recker, a former evangelical pastor walks through the harm a theology of hell and fear-based faith has brought and shares a different way of understanding what it means to follow Jesus.

But a good chunk of this book is just bashing evangelicals and evangelicalism. Hell is a concept that stretches across millennia and faith traditions, which makes Recker’s negative fixation on evangelicals an odd choice. His contempt and bitterness toward that group undermine his message about a “spirituality of love.”

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Parts of this book are sincerely needed

Recker shares his own experiences as a former evangelical pastor and draws on his clear knowledge of Scripture to make his case for why a theology of eternal torment is not only harmful but also unbiblical.

This is important work. So many people have been traumatized by the idea that one wrong move will separate them from God, who will banish them to an eternity of suffering. This has not only turned off many non-Christians, but has led plenty of Christians to abandon their faith altogether.

If Recker had focused his attention on harmful theologies and better ways to read the Bible, I would feel comfortable recommending most of the book. I might disagree with some of the theological conclusions he reached, but I would say the book as a whole was helpful.

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Hell bent on evangelical bashing

Instead, Recker spends a significant amount of time just bashing evangelicals. Not just evangelicalism, but evanglicals themselves.

Evangelicals are a broad group encompassing more than 60 million people across a variety of denominations. That’s why it’s bizarre to fill page after page with sweeping statements about this group. Recker mentions “evangelical” 160+ times and here are just a few (emphasis mine):

“[Hell] shapes Christian spirituality in its punishing image. For example, evangelicals often speak of good deeds like caring for the poor as a distraction from the ‘main thing.’

They do? Who says this? I don’t think the average evangelical would agree. Every evangelical church I’ve ever been a part of emphasized helping the poor, whether it’s homeless outreach, food drives for food pantries, or general benevolence efforts. Multiple evangelical members of my dad’s family in rural New Mexico have spent their lives working for a Christian children’s home. They have taken low salaries to serve foster kids, orphans and struggling low-income families. Their pro-life beliefs have led them to create a program for new single moms in crisis, providing them with housing, groceries and assistance with medical care.

Or take this statement:

Certainty is not the goal; wisdom is, and wisdom is often found in the contradictions. This way of thinking is unfamiliar to evangelicals, but letting go of the need for certainty can be liberating.

This is one of many examples where Recker makes an important point but can’t help but get in a dig at evangelicals. Pete Enns wrote an entire book on the topic, “The Sin of Certainty,” and the word “evangelical” appears only seven times, typically as an adjective, not a pejorative.

Viewing wisdom as the goal instead of certainty is not unfamiliar to evangelicals, at least not the Bible professors who taught me at the evangelical Christian college I attended. I learned to be more comfortable with ambiguity from these evangelical teachers. Friends who went on to seminary there talked about how they often left classes with more questions than answers.

Here’s another:

Jesus’s community saw Samaritans as despised heretics, so the phrase good Samaritan was an oxymoron to them. Yet the foreign, “unbelieving” Samaritan is the one who exemplifies the kingdom of God, while those with “good doctrine” pass by the wounded man on a road to Gehenna. If the good Samaritan visited an evangelical church, he wouldn’t even be permitted to take Communion.

Catholics are strict about who takes communion, but I’ve never been to an evangelical church where certain people are banned from communion. Everything preceding that last sentence is great, but the unnecessary (and untruthful) statement at the end sours the entire point.

Not everyone went to Bob Jones University

Recker attended Bob Jones University, an extremely conservative (some would say fundamentalist) Christian College. The university infamously went to the Supreme Court in the 1970s to fight federal mandates banning racial discrimination.

Bob Jones is arguably on the extreme end of conservative evangelical spaces and I worry Recker has taken his experience and universalized it. But his experience is not all experiences.

I attended Abilene Christian University, an evangelical Christian College in West Texas. While it was on the conservative end, there was room for a variety of views to be discussed. In one ethics class, a required Bible course, we were assigned opposing arguments for and against abortion, just warfare, affirmative action and radical free speech.

Across campus, we also discussed different ideas about hell.

After graduating, I worked for the university press at ACU and one book we published was, “Hell: A Final Word,” which argued for annihilationism (the belief that those who deny God will simply be destroyed rather than suffer eternal punishment ). The author, Edward Fudge (one of the sweetest men you’ll ever meet), made waves in the early 80s with his original book on the subject, “The Fire that Consumes,” for which he experienced severe blowback.

Fudge’s life experiences were turned into a feature-length film, “Hell and Mr. Fudge” starring Mackenzie Astin (Scandal) and Kerri Lynn Pratt (Smallville).

The movie is a portrayal of Fudge wrestling with the idea of eternal torment as a child and ultimately changing his views and challenging others to do the same. “Hell and Mr. Fudge” was played at ACU around the time it came out, following a discussion of the movie and the topic.

All this to say—the topic of hell was not shied away from and alternate views were welcome.

My experience is also not everyone’s experience, but my point is that I think Recker errs in painting evangelicals with such a broad brush. Not every Christian college is Bob Jones. Not every evangelical church is rigidly fundamentalist.

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A spirituality of love that is deeply disdainful of others

Recker lampoons evangelicals for being hostile to differing views and excluding those who disagree. But he seems to view those with different views as debate opponents rather than conversation partners.

Here’s one of the discussion questions:

Consider this scenario: You’re at a family gathering where some relatives hold to exclusionary religious beliefs while others have deconstructed or left the faith. How can you maintain genuine connection while honoring both your truth and their humanity?

“You’re at a family gathering where people have different beliefs. What do you do!?!??”

How about…just enjoy your time with family? Respect that people see the world differently, just like you would hope they respect your views. You don’t need to launch into your different beliefs. You don’t have to make every conversation a debate.

This framing isn’t surprising given Recker’s tone in the book and on social media. On Thanksgiving Day, Recker shared a series of posts about how he was going to ruin Thanksgiving:

Thinking about how I’m going to ruin Thanksgiving Dinner by reminding everyone there are more Epstein victims than trans athletes.

Thinking about how I’m going to ruin Thanksgiving Dinner by reminding everyone that Charlie Kirk wasn’t a martyr—he was a white supremecist [sic].

Thinking about how I’m going to ruin Thanksgiving Dinner by reminding everyone that this reign of ICE terror is nothing new for America—from the unacknnowledged [sic] genocide of indigenous peoples to centuries of slavery and segregation, this is exactly who we’ve been.

Is this what “a theology of love” looks like? Posting about how you’re going to “ruin Thanksgiving”? Recker’s feed is filled with memes mocking evangelicals, conservatives and really anyone who isn’t progressive theologically or politically.

From one extreme to another

Recker’s contemptuous, sneering tone online severely undercuts his message about “a spirituality of love.” It also undercuts some of his criticisms of evangelicals when he engages in the same behavior:

When hell is at the center of our spirituality, it creates a malformed version of spiritual maturity. In that view, a mature, spiritual Christian can be abrasive, judgmental, divisive, and pushy. Thankfully, unlike many conservative Christians I have encountered, my dad has the ability to be kind to people who disagree with him, and for that I am very grateful.

Does Recker seem kind to people who disagree with him? Does he show wisdom in how he communicates with people? Or is there just a similar level of arrogant certainty, but this time in the opposite direction?

And again: do we really have to get a dig in at conservative Christians on every page?

Recker seems to have traded one extreme for another: fundamentalist evangelicalism for unbridled progressivism. This is how you get a former evangelical pastor discussing how orgies are a “good thing” in a recent video (h/t to Matthew Vines for flagging that). In the video, Recker and queer activist Brandon Robertson took turns criticizing someone in the comments who lamented that polyamory was being normalized.

“That is such a knee-jerk reaction,” Recker said immediately, not considering someone might have genuine, good-faith concerns about polyamory. In other words, a knee-jerk reaction. “Why do we feel the need to exclude people like that?”

There is no curiosity, no attempt to understand concerns also shared by progressive Christian leaders and biblical scholars like David Gushee. In his book, “After Evangelicalism,” which is very direct in its critiques of evangelicalism (but without the contempt), Gushee pushes back on Robertson’s general arguments:

Robertson seems to suggest that polyamory should be viewed as something like a sexual orientation or identity, that polyamorists are yet another small minority that is differently “relationally wired.” With the weary wisdom of my advanced years, I would counter that embracing polyamory on this basis will weaken the case for LGBTQ equality. I would also suggest that polyamory is not likely to be a realistic option for sustainable, long-term covenant relationships. If children are involved or even possible, polyamory risks destabilizing their always-vulnerable lives.

This is similar to the argument the original commenter made in a follow-up comment: “The harm of polyamory is that you cannot live in faithfulness to every person in a polyamorous unit.”

“Says who?” Robertson scoffs as he and Recker double-team the commenter. “Just because something is not possible for you does not mean it’s not possible for everyone else…. This is why we condemn homosexuality. Because a lot of straight people thought it was icky that gay people had sex and said ‘that’s not right because it’s not right for me.’”

Thank goodness we’ve left a type of faith that’s abrasive, judgmental, divisive, and pushy and instead, unlike evangelicals, chosen to embrace uncertainty and kindness to those we disagree with.

Robertson’s reply is not an accurate way to describe traditional objections to same-sex marriage. Like much of Robertson’s and Recker’s comments, it’s reductive and ungenerous. I would also echo Gushee’s point that framing polyamory this way only weakens the case for same-sex marriage.

Recker seems to struggle with charity and communicates with such disdain and bitterness about those who still hold views he himself once held.

A broader problem

I’m not writing about Recker just to pick on him. I think he is emblematic of a larger problem in certain progressive Christian spaces. And that’s my concern.

When I look at his posts about ruining Thanksgiving and see more than 60,000 likes, I can’t help but think, “what are people being discipled in?”

There’s a danger in “post-evangelical” or “ex-vangelical” turning into anti-evangelical.

I understand Recker’s general frustrations. Evangelicals’ embrace of Trump seems to fly against every value they claim to hold. One of my top books last year was “The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory,” which documents how political identity, nationalism and power seem to be the driving force of this movement rather than the character of Christ.

But being around more progressive spaces, I often wonder if one set of tribalism has been traded for another. Some progressives who admonish others to “love your neighbor” don’t seem to love their own family members, let alone those outside their tribe.

I grew up as a gay kid in a very conservative evangelical environment. I went to college at a conservative evangelical Christian university and got my first job there. I get it. I really do. I’ve had to work through my own frustrations and anger with a movement that caused me real pain as a gay Christian (and have written about it here, here and here). But I’ve also tried to come out the other side without being bitter. I feel like there’s a lot of freedom in that.

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A glaring blindspot

Ironically, one of the experiences that softened my hard feelings toward the non-affirming evangelical church I left behind was attending a progressive church. I was stunned to find so much of the same fundamentalism, insularity, othering and partisanship—just in a different direction.

It wasn’t an evangelical church leader who sent me a series of heated messages over a NYTimes op-ed I shared on social media. It wasn’t a conservative evangelical church leader who sent me a 200-word accusatory text after I wrote briefly about a church’s decision to host a drag show. And it wasn’t an evangelical former church leader who, the following evening, sent an emotional email suggesting I had internalized homophobia and then shut the conversation down.

These were all leaders at an “inclusive” progressive church.

I will confess I still struggle with hard feelings toward that church. I have to work to avoid letting a bitter root take hold and cloud my feelings and judgment. I have to make sure I don’t paint all progressive Christians with the same brush based on my experience with that one church.

Because not only would that be unfair, it would also be untrue.

I’m now part of a church that is both affirming of me as a gay person while also holding fast to Christianity. I’ve met numerous progressive Christians at this church who truly do believe in real inclusion, not just surface level; who truly believe in extending grace toward everyone, not just their ideological allies; and who are open to dissenting views. These people are curious about others, devout in their faith, and committed to creating a welcoming space for all people.

I’ve been blessed by progressive Christian authors like Rachel Held Evans, who wrestled with her changing views while living in a small, very conservative community in Tennessee. Or Britt Baron, who has written lovingly about retaining relationships even with people who hold hurtful views. There is a lot of wisdom in learning to hold onto the good of the communities that shaped you while letting go of the bad.

Or as Recker put it:

For many of us who have deconstructed and moved away from our previous constricting religious environments, it is easy and tempting to look on everyone who hasn’t left yet as hopelessly problematic. We forget that not too long ago, we were in the same system. We must hope for the redemption of everyone who takes part in the systems of oppression we experienced, even as we also work toward the destruction of those systems. Harboring bitterness against our former religious leaders is understandable, but it is a dead end that leaves us in a state of joyless disconnection.

Recker’s painful lack of self-awareness is perhaps the biggest weakness of the book.

You know who might really benefit from reading this book? Evangelicals. You know who is the least likely to read this book? Evangelicals. Not because they’re close-minded, but because the author clearly has nothing but contempt for them.

If people like Kirk Cameron are beginning to change their views on hell, then there’s a lot of people out there who may be receptive to Recker’s message. But Recker’s sneering and disdain overwhelm his message about “a spirituality of love.”

What a “spirituality of love” could actually look like

I recently came across an interview between Preston Sprinkle and Jonathan Merritt, the gay son of the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

It’s hard to imagine growing up in a household more embedded in evangelical culture. But Merritt is able to reach for a spirituality of love that leaves room for disagreement while still holding onto love for his evangelical family and friends.

I really love my family and I really love my evangelical friends. And I see the undeniable goodness in their lives. I was forced to reckon with that. A streamlined narrative of good guys and bad guys, that binary thinking, I couldn’t make sense of what I knew to be true.

In the interview, Merritt talks about how he has real disagreements with his father, and sometimes they have heated discussions. Where they are now has taken a lot of work, but they’ve always been committed to loving and respecting each other through their differences.

Merritt also makes an observation about some of his “ex-vangelical” or “post-evangelical” friends who seem stuck in bitterness:

I find that ex-vangelicals—this is a generalization—my experience is those folks have left what you might call a “fundamentalist” way of being Christian. They’ve left behind all the theology, all the heaven and hell and rigorous piety. But they’ve taken all the underlying machinery of fundamentalism with them. So now it has a kind of liberal theological and political overlay, but the tools of litmus testing, cancel culture—which was really perfected by late 20th-century evangelicalism—and is now being effectively deployed by the religious and political left. They take that with them. I find that it leaves a lot of friends stuck, tethered to the past they desperately want to escape.

What has helped Merritt move forward is a concept from Fr. Richard Rohr to “transcend and include”:

To transcend a tradition and be willing to pick through all the wonderful gifts and intentially take those things with you. That for me is a post-evangelical orientation that can be helplessly in love with the church, to be hopeful about the role of Christianity in the world and in my own life, to be serious about the sacred texts, about what it means to live within ethical frameworks that are good for us and good for our neighbors. That doesn’t mean that I’m not clear eyed about the failures of the way that I was raised or even the ongoing failures I see in evangelicalism. But it also allows me to be clear eyed about the failures that all broken and fallen people in various religious traditions including my own are blind to and perpetuate.

While reading Recker’s book, I was reminded of another set of wise words from Richard Rohr: “If we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it. Someone else always suffers because we don’t know how to suffer our own wounds.”

Recker seems to be transmitting a lot of pain.

I was born in the late 1980s, and while the 90s were my childhood, some memories of the decade are woefully incomplete.

An example of this is the OJ Simpson trial. Even though I was in elementary school, I distinctly remember the endless coverage of the murder trial. It was everywhere. But it wasn’t until middle school that I learned OJ was famous for football, not just murdering people (allegedly!). Only recently did I come across one of his Hertz commercials and my millennial brain simply cannot compute the jovial, friendly man selling rental cars:

This one is from 1992. A Lincoln for only $49!

I had no context for OJ Simpson and experienced news coverage about him differently from someone who knew him as the beloved football player. With the years and information I’ve gained since then, my understanding of the trial has changed.

Viewing the past with the context we have today can be a useful exercise, but it does detract from the unique experience of the time. Capturing the experience of the decade that gave us Nirvana, Seinfeld, Bill Clinton, Alanis Morrisette and more is the goal of Chuck Klosterman’s “The Nineties,” which looks at the decade in all its complicated glory.

This approach provides some unique insights:

• Titanic was going to be a huge, expensive flop, according to most in the movie industry. After all, people knew how it ended.

• At the turn of the century (and millennium), half of the U.S. population didn’t use the internet at all.

• The most popular musician by far—releasing twelve albums during the nineties, eight that would eventually sell more than 10 million copies—was Garth Brooks.

• George W. Bush and Al Gore were viewed as pretty similar candidates, both continuations of the status quo, not representing vastly different worldviews.

As someone who lived through the 90s, I found this book a fascinating look at a decade that many remember fondly, but had plenty of existential dread lurking underneath the surface.

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Smells Like Teen Spirit

While the decade technically began on January 1, 1990, Klosterman argues Nirvana’s “Nevermind” was the true beginning of the 90s:

Nevermind becomes the most commercially successful punk album ever made, in large part because it doesn’t sound like punk music (yet still is). It’s the ideal mainstream version of counterculture ideology. Society at large, still trapped in the 1980s, now has a viable art product that can be used as a fulcrum to overturn everything else.

Nirvana was a band that captured the angsty zeitgeist but also helped make that angsty, disaffected attitude mainstream. And this was the defining attitude of the decade: disaffection. The collective memory is that the 90s were a time of peace and prosperity and many look back with nostalgia. But there was a prevalent angst about the world.

It wasn’t just the music, it was pervasive in entertainment. I recently saw a Substack note that picked up on this sentiment.

The end of the decade brought several films about a general unease with mundane day-to-day life. Fight Club (1999) is about a man stuck in a corporate job who finds release with an underground fight club turned rebellious anarchic militia. Less violent but thematically similar is Office Space (1999), about a man and his coworkers stuck in a corporate job who find release by rebelling. The Matrix (1999) is about a man stuck in a corporate job who wakes up to a new reality and rebels against the literal machine.

Of course, these movies (at least Fight Club and The Matrix) are about so much more than mere dissatisfaction with everyday life. But there’s an undercurrent of ennui throughout much of the music, TV and movies of the 90s.

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The Information Superhighway

The old internet is something hard to capture for those who didn’t experience it firsthand, but I do like Klosterman’s description:

First, a dial tone, followed by eleven rapid beeps from an invisible push-button telephone.

This was followed by three or four high-pitched electronic whistles, collapsing into a longer whistle resembling the flatlining of a dying patient hooked to an EKG machine (this was the sound of the phone line’s echo suppression being disabled). There were a few more beeps absorbed into a wall of white noise, and then the white noise abruptly doubled, meaning the receiving modem was now interacting with the calling modem. There was an instant where it sounded like something inside the computer had broken, spontaneously repaired by the digital interplay of two probing modulators, similar in pitch to a metal detector passing over a pocket watch.

This was bookended by another fleeting second of white noise, and then ... silence. The wall had been breached. The floodgates were open. And then, depending on who you were and the year in which you were living, there was a high likelihood the next sound was a one-word welcome from Elwood Edwards, a voice actor living in Orrville, Ohio. His affable greeting would be followed by a grammatically incorrect phrase: “You’ve got mail.”

My family likely heard those noises in our house for the first time somewhere circa early 1998–late into the 90s. We weren’t the last to adopt this new technology; that was around the time when my friends and family got it, too.

As I mentioned above, at the turn of the century (and millennium), half of the U.S. population didn’t use the internet at all. And most who did used it only for email.

That’s one of the facts that’s been rewritten in the decades that followed—the internet wasn’t ubiquitous. The internet wasn’t a vital part of everyday life. It was a novelty to most and, at best, a way to make everyday activities (sending correspondence, looking up movie times, checking the weather) a little more convenient.

Columbine

The tragedy of Columbine is something I have very clear memories of as a late elementary school student. There were active shooter drills regularly. It felt like a shooting was a likely possibility (not because any of the kids were violent, but because it was talked about so much). Numerous safety measures were implemented (probably for the best) as schools were hardened.

“No tolerance” became so intense I remember a friendly kid in my 5th-grade class brought a handheld hunting game to school and was sent home. The toy was shaped like a gun but had a huge screen and obviously posed no threat to anyone. It was like sending a kid home for bringing the Nintendo Duck Hunter to school.

While the effects of the shooting were evident, the details of the actual Columbine shooting are murkier. Yes, we know the death toll and the victims, but the narrative of what happened got lost in a need to find the cause. Was it the violent video games? Was it bullying? Was it the violent lyrics in music?

What happened next was a tutorial in how the first draft of history is not just incorrect but usually more tenacious than all the improved drafts that come later. … Even though it’s widely accepted that most instantaneous journalism about the massacre was partially wrong, those misguided myths continue to be the most universally remembered aspects (even among those who know the myths are false).

Common misconceptions include:

• Harris and Klebold were not part of an antisocial clique called “The Trenchcoat Mafia.”

• Harris and Klebold were not unpopular loners. They had friends and Klebold went to prom.

• There is no evidence they targeted jocks and cheerleaders.

• Despite the national panic that followed, the shooters were not “goth kids.”

• There’s good reason to believe Harris did not ask … and f she believed in God before shooting her.

If it wasn’t something like video games or music or bullying, then we would have to confront a darker reason:

The persistence of these fabrications can be mainly attributed to a communal unwillingness to admit that there was no rational explanation behind this attack.

Harris was a full-on psychopath who aspired to replicate the work of Timothy McVeigh. Klebold was (at a minimum) depressed and suicidal.

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Y2K

On the evening of December 31, 1999, I was anxiously awaiting midnight. I was old enough to know about Y2K and remember waiting in the hallway for something remarkable to happen. A flash of light? A global blackout?

Apparently, my 12-year-old understanding was about the average understanding, too. And because the phenomenon was complex, coverage lent itself to doomerism:

The mechanical explanation for how this would obliterate the grid was too complicated to explain, so journalists focused instead on the theoretical consequences: Power outrages would be rampant, terminating the lives of hospital patients on life support. Gas pumps and ATM cards wouldn’t work, eliciting panic. Airline navigation systems might go haywire. Nuclear missiles could accidentally launch. A 1997 Newsweek story, “The Day the World Shuts Down,” quoted a data expert who feared ‘on Jan. 1, 2000, a lot of elevators could be dropping to the bottom of buildings.” A Vanity Fair article from January of 1999 was headlined “The Y2K Nightmare” and described “a looming disaster with an immovable deadline that will touch the entire world.”

What’s fascinating is that most people did not buy into this alarmism—56% admitted they were doing nothing to prepare. But the media coverage focused on the few creating doomsday bunkers and stocking up on guns and canned goods.

I recently learned a neighbor on our block had stockpiled nearly a year’s worth of food and rations in their house. They were convinced a doomsday scenario was likely and took numerous precautions. They moved away not long after Y2K came and went, perhaps embarrassed about their overreaction.

Regardless of whether one created a doomsday bunker or simply bought extra water bottles, perhaps underneath all this fear was something existential: we’ve become so reliant on technology we may have lost the power to control it. This fear would seem quaint in the decades to come.

When the dates changed from 99 to 00, there was none of the predicted chaos caused by our reliance on machines. The moment came and went. The 90s were over.

But were they?

Similar to his argument that the 90s truly began in 1991 with Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” Klosterman argues the era of the 90s didn’t truly end until September 11, 2001. The 90s were marked as a period of relative calm—the U.S. wasn’t engaged in any wars and the overseas conflicts (like the Gulf War) were brief. The Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The relative calm led Francis Fukuyama to declare “The End of History” in his famous book published in 1992. Fukuyama believed humanity had reached “the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

This would prove to be…naive.

The attacks of 9/11 would become a defining point by which we measured what came before and what came after. When the twin towers collapsed, so did the prevailing ethos of the preceding decade. The world as we knew it on September 10, 2001, was gone.

Further Listening/Reading

House of Strauss

HoS: Chuck Klosterman

Because I can’t get enough of The Nineties, we had to have Chuck back to discuss its sports cultural aspects, specifically with an eye towards the evolution of college football. Chuck has worried publicly about CFB losing its soul, which it appears to be in some capacity, but the sport is also…

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3 years ago · 29 likes · 32 comments · Ethan Strauss

“Chuck Klosterman reviews the nineties,” New York Times Book Review

”Chuck Klosterman brings back the nineties,” The New Yorker

Tis’ the season for year-end lists and since everyone from Obama1 to Dua Lipa to Oprah are posting their top 10 lists, I thought I would join my peers and share some of my favorite reads from the past year. This year’s list includes books from personal friends, books about SNL, Vanity Fair, the 2024 presidential candidates, Meta and more. All but two were published this past year.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 books from 2025:

“The Nineties” by Chuck Klosterman

Nirvana. Seinfeld. Columbine. Bill Clinton. Monica Lewinsky. “The Information Superhighway.” Titanic. Y2K.

The 1990s were an era I lived through but, being only two at the start of the decade, I only have a limited memory of.

Chuck Klosterman looks at the decade not from the perspective of 2025, but as it was experienced at the time. This approach provides some unique insights: the internet was not ubiquitous nor heavily used for almost the entire decade, the movie industry assumed Titanic would bomb, and the narrative around Columbine that formed is almost entirely incorrect.

It was fun to revisit some of these touchpoints, like cable news, Seinfeld and Clinton’s presidency, and understand them from the perspective of an adult living in the 90s. The OJ Simpson trial is one of those moments I distinctly remember but had no real context for (it wasn’t until junior high I learned OJ was famous for something other than—allegedly!—murdering two people).

Regardless of how you experienced the 90s (if you were even alive then), this is a very enjoyable read.

Just for fun:

“Original Sin” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s “Original Sin” documents a period in recent history that many of us witnessed with our own eyes—the staggering mental and physical decline of the man entrusted with leading the country. What happened behind the scenes is even more stunning—and enraging. The very people lecturing the public about threats to democracy and restoring “the soul of the nation” were hiding the president’s true condition from the American people.

Biden’s inner circle covered it up. Late Night hosts who would later grandstand about “speaking truth to power,” simply pulled their punches as they fundraised for Biden. And the media? They certainly didn’t cover themselves in glory, either.

One of the authors, Thompson, made this point last year during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner:

On a recent episode of Andrew Sullivan’s podcast, independent journalist Mark Halperin recalled seeing Biden at an event after he left the White House. Halperin said Biden was “glassy-eyed, stuttering and couldn’t follow the conversation” and told his wife, “Thank goodness, [Biden] will never have to be in public life again.”

That was in 2017.

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“Lorne” by Susan Morrison

If you’re a longtime subscriber, you’ve probably picked up on the fact I’m a big fan of SNL. This biography of the indisputable father of SNL (in every sense of that word) traces Lorne Michaels life, from his beginnings in Canada to his decades at the helm of an institution unto itself.

The details of Lorne’s life were gripping, but the behind-the-scenes look at a typical week at SNL was the best part. By “typical,” I mean pure chaos. Pete Davidson had recently broken up with Ariana Grande, who that week sent her infamous “thank u, next” tweet in response to Davidson’s joke in the SNL promo. The host, Jonah Hill, was being a bit of a diva about his vision for a sketch that wasn’t landing with anyone else. Alec Baldwin, practically a regular cast member thanks to his Trump impression, had been arrested for punching a man over a parking space. The usual.

But this chaos has been the norm since SNL’s inception 50 years ago. Lorne has navigated fiery personalities like John Belushi, narcissists like Chevy Chase, brilliant but fragile performers like Gilda Radner. Read my review.

Having helped steer the cultural zeitgeist for five decades, launching plenty of careers from Eddie Murphy to Tina Fey, Lorne’s legacy is one to be revered.

“The Kingdom, the Power and The Glory” by Tim Alberta

This was a depressing read, but an important one.

Over the course of more than 400 pages, journalist Tim Alberta describes the path conservative evangelicals have taken to get to this moment in history, from the rise of Jerry Falwell to the ousting of Russell Moore from the Southern Baptist Convention. Through interviews with faith leaders, churchgoers, public officials and original reporting, Alberta documents how evangelicals embraced a man who seems the antithesis of everything they claim to be for. And how political identity, nationalism and power seem to be the driving force of this movement rather than the character of Christ.

Alberta is the perfect person to have written this book. He’s not just an award-winning journalist, but the son of a conservative evangelical preacher from the Midwest. He’s writing about what he knows. He’s writing about the people and communities that raised him. That’s part of why what has happened is so painful. At the funeral of his father, who died of a sudden heart attack, an elder hands Alberta a note accusing him of treason for criticizing Trump.

The book ends on a note of optimism about his dad’s former church. The pastor is pulling his congregation away from some of the toxic tendencies of Trump. But this ending is perhaps the most depressing part of all. Because the book was published in late 2023. Before Trump retook the GOP primary. Before he was re-elected with 80% support of evangelicals. Before Trump’s Department of Homeland Security started using Bible verses in social media recruitment videos for ICE.

The phenomenon Alberta describes in his book was about to get so much worse.

“When the Going was Good” by Graydon Carter

For all his impact on American culture, I had never heard of Graydon Carter, the longtime editor of Vanity Fair. But when I kept seeing numerous excerpts about the jaw-dropping expense accounts and the A-list anecdotes, I felt compelled to check out Carter’s memoir, “When the Going was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines.”

I’m glad I did.

In his memoir, Carter describes his travails, from star-studded events like Oscar Parties and White House Correspondence Dinners, to more journalistic endeavors like coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial and the Iraq War. Jaw-dropping expense accounts, hosting Princess Margaret and more are covered in this book that was easily my most enjoyable read this year. Read my review.

“Christlike Acceptance across Deep Difference” by Karen Keen

I say this without exaggeration: I believe “Christlike Acceptance across Deep Difference: Constructive Conversations on Sexuality and Gender” may be one of the most important books I’ve read this year. The book is an anthology of essays from a variety of writers—including those who affirm same-sex marriage and those who do not—all focused on understanding how to discern the best way forward on one of the most contentious topics right now, not just in the church but in our society as a whole.

One of the co-editors of this book, Karen Keen, is a dear friend of mine who I’ve gotten to know over the years. She is the wife of one of my favorite people, Sally Gary, who has been instrumental in my own journey of wrestling with issues of faith and sexuality. (Sally is executive director of CenterPeace, an organization that helps provide community for LGBTQ Christians while helping foster productive conversations around LGBTQ matters.) I have been blessed to attend retreats with these two godly women, and I can think of no one better to help edit a book on how to foster constructive conversations.

The book provides deep wisdom, not just on how to navigate this thorny topic, but also how to work together despite our differences on any number of topics. This is sorely needed right now. Read my interview with Karen Keen.

“Careless People” by Sarah Wynn Williams

Meta’s former director of public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has written a tell-all memoir about her time overseeing the social media empire’s global outreach. You may not have seen much publicity about this memoir–that’s because Meta tried to block Wynn Williams from promoting and selling the book.

It’s understandable why. The scathing memoir outlines Meta’s attempts to mislead the public and investors about its engagement with the Chinese government, including developing censorship tools to help China spy on its citizens. There’s also Meta using data to target vulnerable teen girls, among numerous examples of prioritizing profits over people’s well-being. Meta’s lax policies and poor moderation directly contributed to inflaming tensions in Myanmar and other countries, leading to violence and polarization.

The book is gripping to read, but at the back of my mind the entire time, I couldn’t help but think: “Why did you stay at this company so long that you apparently were appalled by?” This is how much of the book reads like:

I was shocked. Horrified. This was not what I signed up for. At all. So I moved my family across the country to live closer to Meta’s headquarters. Mark Zuckerberg was amassing so much power and yet seemed to wield it so irresponsibly. It was terrifying. I didn’t want to be a part of this. So I continued to set up meetings with Mark and world leaders and build Meta’s influence worldwide. But I wasn’t comfortable with it. No sir. What I saw was gut-wrenching, awful behavior. I couldn’t stand it. So I continued working at Meta for years until they fired me.

Some former colleagues have pushed back on some of her claims. I would still highly recommend this book to anyone concerned about the impact of massive tech giants and social media companies.

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“Better Ways to Read the Bible” by Zach Lambert

I’ve been blessed to call Zach Lambert my pastor and friend for almost two years now. Zach is the lead pastor at Restore Austin, which he helped found about a decade ago. On top of being a dad to two young sons, a husband, a prolific Substacker—all while pursuing of a Doctorate of Ministry at Duke University—he somehow found the time to write a new book, “Better Ways to Read the Bible.”

I was thrilled to get my hands on an early copy and read it within a matter of days. Zach has a deep knowledge and love of Scripture, even though he’s personally seen it used to cause harm. With the vast knowledge of a scholar and the skill of an experienced communicator, he walks readers through the harmful lenses that too many have encountered when reading the Bible. He then introduces more helpful lenses that Christians have used to deepen their faith in life-giving ways. Read my interview with Zach Lambert.

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“Drink Your Way Sober” by Katie Herzog

I was stunned to learn Katie Herzog—a journalist and podcaster I’ve followed for years—struggled with alcohol use disorder. But I was also encouraged to hear Katie found a breakthrough that worked for her.

Katie’s struggles with alcohol and her surprising findings about the effectiveness of naltrexone are documented in her recent book, “Drink Your Way Sober: The Science-Based Method to Break Free from Alcohol.” After years of struggling against addiction, what finally worked for Katie was The Sinclair Method (TSM), a counterintuitive approach that involves taking naltrexone while also continuing to drink. As Katie describes it:

The formula is simple: the patient takes an opioid blocker (usually naltrexone, less commonly nalmefene) one hour before drinking every time they drink, and only before drinking. They do not take it on days they don’t drink.

After nine months of trying TSM, alcohol barely crossed her mind. It wasn’t just that she was able to resist drinking; it no longer appealed to her at all. And this has made all the difference. Read my review.

“Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

In certain circles online, there has been one book dominating much of the discussion about ways America can find its way again: Abundance. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson take a hard look at what isn’t working—especially in blue areas of the country like California—and try to find a better way forward.

From housing to energy to medical advancements to infrastructure, progress is being held back by overloaded bureaucracy. While Trump claims to be cutting inefficiency, he’s really just cutting down everything. His worldview is zero-sum, operating from a place of scarcity.

Klein and Thompson want to operate from a place of abundance. They aren’t arguing for deregulation. They’re arguing for smarter regulation. They’re arguing for a way to get America back to building the housing, infrastructure and technology needed to meet the demands of the 21st Century.

I devoured this book. Not only because I’m a fan of the authors, but because I’ve seen the phenomenon this book describes firsthand while working at Austin City Hall.

What are some of your favorite books from the past year?

As I’ve mentioned before, my grandmother collected newspapers of notable events over the years, including some from the 1960s when my mom’s family was growing up in Chicago. These newspapers are a treasure trove of historical primary sources documenting everything from the Moon landing to the JFK assassination to local events like marriages, deaths and community gatherings.

What is probably the most fun about these newspapers is the ads from the time. There’s an ad for 1,000 saccharin tablets (which may or may not cause cancer) for the low price of 17¢. Numerous home appliances are on offer, including portable typewriters, 8mm movie projectors, a “smart” clock radio, sewing machines and COLOR TVs!

Below are just a few of the items found in the pages of Chicago newspapers from the 1960s.

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JFK Musical Rocker

Among the many toys that 1960s children could beg their parents for is an “amazingly life-like” doll of JFK that plays “Happy Days are Here Again.” In addition to wondering how big this life-like doll was, my main question was—when was this ad published? The answer surprised me.

On the colorful front page of this ad insert appears the date in the upper-right corner: November 24, 1963. Two days after JFK was assassinated.

The ad was likely created well in advance of its printing date and overlooked in the two days after JFK’s death. Who would think to check if the assassination of the president impacted a newspaper insert for children’s toys? But there it is, a cheerful doll of JFK that sings “Happy Days are Here Again.”

Of course, something about this doll is haunting. It seems designed to elicit calm. There’s something paternal about the president in a rocking chair reading the newspaper. But by the time this newspaper insert landed on people’s doorsteps, the real-life president had been shot in the head and died almost instantly. He wasn’t sitting in a rocking chair; his body would soon be lying in Arlington Cemetery. The country was in turmoil over this senseless act of violence. The reality for Americans had changed dramatically between when this ad was created and when it was printed and delivered.

And then there’s the song: “Happy Days are Here Again.” It’s hard to imagine a sentiment more out of sync with what the nation was facing and feeling in the aftermath of the president’s assassination. The popular song, originally written in 1929, was sung by various artists, including a version featuring Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand.

The song has a rich backstory and is heavily associated with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s winning 1932 presidential campaign. For many years, it was also the unofficial anthem of the Democratic Party, making it an odd choice for a children’s toy.1 My guess (and this is a complete guess) is that this toy wasn’t perceived as political like it would be today.

This toy seems so odd, not just because of the context of what was happening in the country at the time, but also because it’s hard to imagine something like it existing now. In 2025, a children’s toy sold at a popular home goods store with President Trump would likely be…not well received. But it’s also hard to imagine a children’s toy with a casual depiction of President Obama or President Bush being sold at an apolitical home goods store.

I would love to know what happened to this toy. Were they taken off the shelves? Did they become rare collector’s items? It’s lost to history.

For Ladies, By Ladies

The November 20, 1969, issue of the Chicago Daily News had a special section, “For and about Women.” And naturally, the main story is about how to keep your house tidy.

The second paragraph reads:

Mother would be proud of any bachelor or young marrieds who would line their walls with tidy, pure white components by Interlubke and Thayer Coggin.

This isn’t labeled as an ad. It’s just a bizarre, thinly veiled promotion of furniture that helps organize belongings. And it begins, not by sharing its various features, but by noting that “mother would be proud.” This is what the editors believe is top of mind for women.

At the bottom of the page is a segment called “News Lady.” You can share your essay about “anything relevant to the world of modern woman”2 to the “Women’s Department” at the Chicago Daily News. If selected, you will receive a $25 savings bond. The winning essayist (who preferred to be anonymous) shared her first thoughts about moving to Chicago, including “I found that it is extremely unwise to get on the tollway on the way to the bank—unless of course I am not COMPLETELY out of money. (The man wasn’t nice even when I cried.)”

I know it’s the 60s but the expectations of women are so bleak. And sexist.

I mean, the ads are not subtle:

I wonder if anyone wrote an essay to the “Women’s Department” to share some of these observations about their advertising. At least they would get a $25 savings bond.

COLOR TVs!

Circa 1963, color TVs were still a novelty—and quite expensive. They had not become common household items in most regions of the country but were becoming more widely available.

The ads showcase a number of color TVs available:

• Vista Mark 8 color TV consolette (clearly different from a console) in a handsome ebony-finished metal cabinet. 260 sq inch viewing areas (figure that math out)—$418

• Zenith Color TV Compact Table model also in an ebony metal cabinet with 265 sq inches—$449

• Admiral Color TV with 24-kt gold precision wiring in 6 vital areas for greatest chassis reliability—$399

• Motorola Deluxe Color TV Console in genuine mahogany on genuine hardboard with 265 sq inch viewing area—$529

That sounds not that far off from what a standard flat screen TV will run you these days, until you adjust for inflation:

• Vista Mark 8 color TV consolette—$4,466

• Zenith Color TV Compact Table—$4,797

• Admiral Color TV—$4,263

• Motorola Deluxe Color TV Console—$5,651

You can decide whether having a color TV is worth what amounts to at least one month’s salary. Most TV shows were still black and white in 1963 anyway.

Nostalgia

I remember during the holidays of 2020—in the midst of COVID—I somehow came across a YouTube video of The Judy Garland Christmas Show. I was able to visit my family for Christmas, but was otherwise isolated from friends and family and working from home, like those who were privileged enough to do so. And in that time of less-than-good cheer, I found this video so comforting.

To be as cliché as possible, it seemed like a simpler time. A happy time. Merry and bright. Judy Garland’s daughter did a musical number and I was so impressed. Who was that? Then I looked it up and learned Liza Minnelli (best known as Lucille Austero in Arrested Development)3 is Judy Garland’s daughter.

And then I looked up the date and saw it aired on December 22, 1963—about one month after the JFK assassination. The U.S. was ramping up its military efforts in Vietnam. That spring, the nation was shocked by images of police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. The Cold War had nearly reached a breaking point the year before during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I know intellectually that my life as a gay man would be extremely difficult in 1963, as it was for Americans from racial minority groups and most women. The video elicited a nostalgia for a world I didn’t experience firsthand (and didn’t even exist at the time). That’s how nostalgia works sometimes.

Looking at these ads and articles, I’m struck by how different the world is. This includes major societal shifts like the fact 58% of women participate in the workforce (compared to 38% in 1963, and mostly limited to nursing, education and secretarial work). But in smaller ways that impact our everyday lives, like vastly more efficient and cheaper appliances and any number of inventions that improve the average American’s quality of life.

The world of 2025 looks very different than it did in the 1960s. But it’s fun to look back through artifacts as reminders of how much has changed.

I am embarrassed to admit I’ve never attended the Texas Book Festival before this year. The 30th anniversary seemed a good time as any to check it out. The (mostly) free annual event welcomes more than 40,000 attendees who can hear from more than 300 authors talk about their work. Books covering a variety of genres are discussed, from children’s books to award-winning journalism to literary fiction to whatever it is Ibram X. Kendi is doing (more on that later).

For days before the festival, I watched tents get set up from my office window since I work across the street from the Texas State Capitol. Multiple blocks of Congress Avenue leading to the Capitol became lined with tents, food trucks, signing booths and even a spot for C-SPAN Book TV.

There were too many great discussions happening for me to visit all of them (and some, like the events for Matthew McConaughey and Jenn Hatmaker were sold out or for regular donors). But below are some highlights from the speakers I was able to see.

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Jenna Bush Hager

Jenna Bush Hager has a deep connection to the Texas Book Festival—her mother, Laura Bush, founded the festival in 1995 when she was the First Lady of Texas. Laura Bush, a former librarian, created the festival as a way to encourage literacy and promote Texas’ public library system.

Bush Hager’s event took place at First United Methodist Church, across the street from the Texas Capitol, where her father was once governor, and down the street from the University of Texas, where she went to college. Bush Hager was back in Austin to talk about her new book publisher, Thousand Voices, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Joining her was Ariel Sullivan, the author of “Conform,” which is the first book published under Bush Hager’s new imprint. The book has been described as a mix between “The Hunger Games” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and is currently #1 on Amazon in the “Science Fiction Romance” category and #2 in “Dystopian Fiction.” So obviously, right up my alley.

I attended the session (and paid for a ticket) less because of the book and 100% because I wanted to see Bush Hager. I also knew I was likely going to be literally the odd man out at the event. This was most apparent while waiting in line for the bathroom (single stall, unisex) and noting I was the lone male in a line of middle-aged women.

That said, the author did seem very charming and shared a bit about her writing process. She likes to write on her phone in the car, even when she and Bush Hager’s kids are having play dates (Sullivan’s son attends school with Bush Hager’s son, which is how they got connected). For each chapter or scene, she listens to a particular song on loop and shared the playlist for the book on Spotify.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Andrew Ross Sorkin is a financial reporter for The New York Times and is probably best known for his book on the 2008 financial crisis, “Too Big to Fail.” His latest book is on the financial crisis of 1929 that led to the Great Depression and covers many of the same themes as his previous New York Times bestseller.

Even though the topic is well-worn, Sorkin has been able to track down new sources, such as the minutes from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during that period, which had never been previously released.

Sorkin was interviewed by Evan Smith, founder and previous editor of The Texas Tribune. I’ve seen Smith interview numerous public figures and he always does a good job. This was no exception.

Questions about the current economy naturally arose, and Sorkin noted that while sectors of the economy related to AI have seen tremendous growth, this growth may be masking trouble in the rest of the economy. This has likely caused a bubble that could soon burst.

Another source for concern is the crypto market, which is highly speculative and lacks many of the guardrails put in place after the stock market crash of 1929. Given how much money is pouring into crypto, this could be another bubble that could spell trouble for the U.S. economy.

I had hoped to buy the book and get Sorkin to sign it but they had sold out. Sorkin seemed like an incredibly engaging, measured, thoughtful journalist and I look forward to reading “1929.”

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Ibram X. Kendi

You might ask, “What was it like being in the room with one of the most brilliant minds in America, whose robust ideas will clearly stand the test of time?” I would say I don’t know because I was in the room with Ibram X. Kendi.

Kendi has long been criticized for his ideas, at times in bad faith, but criticisms have also come from black intellectuals on the left, right, and center. He has also been critiqued for refusing to debate or even engage with criticism of his work and ideas, unlike contemporaries like Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Perhaps this is because his ideas are…not very robust.

But Kendi wasn’t at the Texas Book Festival to talk about his previous books on anti-racism. He was there to promote his 400-page authorized biography of Malcolm X for young readers, “Malcolm Lives!”

Sidenote: Do middle schoolers typically read 400-page biographies? The book, published in May, is #47 in the “Children’s Social Activist Biographies” on Amazon, which is apparently a genre that exists.

Kendi tried to tie the current backlash to DEI efforts to what Malcolm X faced because Malcolm X was also framed as antiwhite. I’m curious if the book for young readers discusses Malcolm X referring to white people as “white devils” and the Nation of Islam teaching that whites were the “devil race.”

Toward the end, Kendi discussed how the press had unfairly maligned him after his Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University closed down. But some of the strongest criticisms of Kendi came from his own employees. No matter, these were members of the media running a narrative.

The event ended with the (overwhelmingly white) audience rising to give a standing ovation.