We’re abandoning our humanistic core. The elements of our civilization that lift the spirit, nurture empathy and orient the soul now play a diminished role in national life: religious devotion, theology, literature, art, history, philosophy. Many educators decided that because Western powers spawned colonialism — and they did — students in the West should learn nothing about the lineage of their civilization and should thereby be rendered cultural orphans. Activists decided persuasion is a myth and that life is a ruthless power competition between oppressors and oppressed groups. As a result of technological progress and humanistic decay, life has become objectively better but subjectively worse. We have widened personal freedom but utterly failed to help people answer the question of what that freedom is for.

The most grievous cultural wound has been the loss of a shared moral order. We told multiple generations to come up with their own individual values. This privatization of morality burdened people with a task they could not possibly do, leaving them morally inarticulate and unformed. It created a naked public square where there was no broad agreement about what was true, beautiful and good. Without shared standards of right and wrong, it’s impossible to settle disputes; it’s impossible to maintain social cohesion and trust. Every healthy society rests on some shared conception of the sacred — sacred heroes, sacred texts, sacred ideals — and when that goes away, anxiety, atomization and a slow descent toward barbarism are the natural results.

It shouldn’t surprise us that, according to one Harvard survey, 58 percent of college students say they experienced no sense of “purpose or meaning” in their life in the month before being polled. It shouldn’t surprise us that people are so distrusting and demoralized. I’m haunted by an observation that Albert Camus made about his continent 75 years ago: The men of Europe “no longer believe in the things that exist in the world and in living man; the secret of Europe is that it no longer loves life.”

We could use better political leadership, of course, but the crucial question facing America is: How can we reverse this pervasive loss of faith in one another, in our future and in our shared ideals? 

Read it all.

The deepest cultural wound isn’t politics or economics.

It’s the loss of a shared moral order.

When nothing is sacred—no heroes, no texts, no ideals—anxiety rises, people atomize, and barbarism quietly returns.https://t.co/CryYvXJk5x#culture #meaning #morality #trust…

— Art Berman (@aeberman12) February 2, 2026

William Nicholson’s original script will barely be changed in the production at the Aldwych Theatre, which opens next week, apart from updating a story that a character reads from a newspaper. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Mr Nicholson initially had no time for C. S Lewis, sharing his mother’s view that the Narnia author was a “drippy Protty”. But, when his colleage in the BBC’s religious department Norman Stone — filmmaker, Lewis fan, and Christian — suggested creating a television drama about Lewis’s relationship and marriage to an American mother-of-two, Joy Davidman, Mr Nicholson was transfixed by their slow-burn love story.

“I personally connected, as a much younger person — I was 36 at the time — to the whole question of fear of commitment in love, which is maybe more of a male thing, but it was certainly something I was experiencing. I wanted to love and be loved, but was very afraid of committing myself to a full love affair, love relationship, marriage, children.”

Lewis’s loss of his mother at the age of ten probably affected the author’s ability to form close relationships, Mr Nicholson thinks. “When the person who is most central to your life, who gives you your sense of being loved, disappears and leaves you in pain, it’s reasonable to conclude that something closed off at that point, and had to be opened again. I responded to the fear of being made vulnerable by love. I made that one of the central themes, because that related strongly to me. I wasn’t married at the time; so I was able to channel a bit of myself into Lewis, and Lewis into myself.”

Read it all.

"Shadowlands speaks to something deep in all of us about loss, love and loss, and the fear of loss."

The story of C. S. Lewis’s marriage, exploring love, loss, and faith, is back on stage, says @SusanGrayMeets #CSLewis #Shadowlands #grief #theatre https://t.co/ltrjwQftU9

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 31, 2026

The line from Thucydides, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”, is getting quite the airing of late. You are meant to nod gravely along to it, as though it expresses a bitter but universal truth about international relations.

Does it, though? The phrase implies that a country becomes more aggressive as it grows more powerful. Well, the US was never mightier than it was around the time of Trump’s birth in 1946, when it made half of the manufactured goods in the world and had a nuclear monopoly too. With all this power, the US didn’t “do what it could” to the weak. Instead, it set up the Marshall Plan and Nato, those masterpieces of enlightened self-interest. It rebuilt Japan and Germany as pacifist democracies. The belligerent turn in American behaviour has in fact come during its relative decline.

Leadership explains some of this, in that Harry Truman was “better” than Trump, but only some. The rest is structural. It is easier for a nation to be magnanimous from a great height. Paranoia and aggression set in when that position slips. As such, we should expect a volatile US until it gets used to the role of being a, not the, superpower. Britain and France got there in the end, despite having to fall much further.

No one ever quotes the other bit of the famous Dylan Thomas poem about decline. After nagging the reader to “rage against the dying of the light”, he concedes that giving up makes more sense: “wise men at their end know dark is right.”

Read it all (subscription).

Always beware a declining superpower – https://t.co/4Xah6qhSiO via @FT
Like a wounded tiger, always most dangerous in that state

— Marshall Auerback (@Mauerback) January 21, 2026

As Abernathy tells it—and I believe he is right—he and King were first of all Christians, then Southerners, and then blacks living under an oppressive segregationist regime. King of course came from the black bourgeoisie of Atlanta in which his father, “Daddy King,” had succeeded in establishing himself as a king. Abernathy came from much more modest circumstances, but he was proud of his heritage and, as he writes, wanted nothing more than that whites would address his father as Mr. Abernathy. He and Martin loved the South, and envisioned its coming into its own once the sin of segregation had been expunged.

“Years later,” Abernathy writes that, “after the civil rights movement had peaked and I had taken over [after Martin’s death] as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” he met with Governor George Wallace. “Governor Wallace, by then restricted to a wheel chair after having been paralyzed by a would-be assassin’s bullet, shook hands with me and welcomed me to the State of Alabama. I smiled, realizing that he had forgotten all about Montgomery and Birmingham, and particularly Selma. ‘This is not my first visit,’ I said. ‘I was born in Alabama—in Marengo County.’ ‘Good,’ said Governor Wallace, ‘then welcome back.’ I really believe he meant it. In his later years he had become one of the greatest friends the blacks had ever had in Montgomery. Where once he had stood in the doorway and barred federal marshals from entering, he now made certain that our people were first in line for jobs, new schools, and other benefits of state government.” Abernathy concludes, “It was a time for reconciliations.”

Read it all (my emphasis).

It’s a tragedy that 60 years later most American students can’t even understand MLK or why his writing and speaking were so powerful.

He brought the entire weight of the Western, Christian, classical tradition to make his case. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail King casually… pic.twitter.com/vrtdMlgEzU

— Jeremy Wayne Tate (@JeremyTate41) January 19, 2026

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Read it all.

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.” #MartinLutherKingJr #MLK #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/gNKvhjzGBZ

— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center (@TheKingCenter) January 17, 2026

The last time Iran was convulsed by nationwide protests, in 2022, the Arab world was transfixed. The Islamic Republic had spent decades building a network of powerful allies that came to dominate the region. Many Arabs wondered if the prospect of regime change in Tehran offered a chance to throw off Iran’s yoke in their own countries.

Pan-Arab news outlets, often funded by Gulf monarchies, egged on the protests with sympathetic, round-the-clock coverage. Arab diplomats kept their counsel in public but sounded ebullient in private. At one point Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accused Saudi-backed media outlets of inciting further unrest and demanded that the kingdom rein in their coverage. “Otherwise you will pay the price,” he warned.

The protests in Iran today arguably pose an even greater threat to the regime than those in 2022—yet the reaction in the Arab world has been surprisingly muted. Evening-news broadcasts this month have been led, routinely, by stories other than Iran. Many officials sound nervous when they comment, if they say anything at all. Two things account for the change in tone: Iran’s diminished status, and the Gulf’s growing fear of chaos.

The Israeli wars that followed the massacre of October 7th 2023 have wrecked Iran’s network of proxies. Hizbullah, its once-powerful ally in Lebanon, has been badly weakened and still faces near-daily Israeli air strikes. Bashar al-Assad’s pro-Iranian regime in Syria is no more. Iran itself is reeling from 12 days of Israeli and American bombardment in June. As for Salami, he no longer makes threats: he was killed by an Israeli air strike at the beginning of that war.

All of this makes the fate of the Islamic Republic seem less urgent.

Read it all.

The protests in Iran today arguably pose an even greater threat to the regime than those in 2022—yet the reaction in the Arab world has been surprisingly muted https://t.co/cQUYYF21oh

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 14, 2026

here is a difference between a revolution and a counterrevolution. It is a recurrent mistake of the American media to conflate the two. That is because the success of 1776—the 250th anniversary of which we celebrate this year—predisposes us to sympathize with revolutions. I can think of no better explanation for the naivete of much liberal commentary on subsequent revolutions: France in 1789, Russia in 1917, China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, Nicaragua in 1979, Egypt in 2011 and, most relevant to today, Iran in 1979.

Let it never be forgotten that, in The New York Times on February 16, 1979, the Princeton professor Richard Falk confidently asserted: “The depiction of [the Ayatollah Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false. What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals.” Moreover, “the key appointees” in the new revolutionary government had “a notable record of concern for human rights and seem eager to achieve economic development that results in a modern society oriented on satisfying the whole population’s basic needs.”

“Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics,” Falk gushed, “Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third‐world country.”

Nope….

Read it all.

The West wants a revolution in Iran. What’s actually happening is a counterrevolution—and history shows those are usually doomed to fail, writes Niall Ferguson. https://t.co/WjZRsgcy5R

— The Free Press (@TheFP) January 13, 2026

Religion rather than secular society is often blamed for using violence to achieve its aims. Professor Howard in Broken Altars: Secularist violence in modern history, in contrast, demonstrates convincingly how violence has been used more often by secular regimes against religion. He seeks in this book to “bring needed nuance and perspective to a complex, often fraught topic”.

He sets out three definitions of secularism: passive secularism, combative secularism, and eliminationist secularism, and focuses in his book on the latter two, describing as passive secularism what we in the West would consider to be characteristic of a tolerant political regime with liberal principles — church-state separation, freedom of conscience, and freedom of the press — all vital ingredients of a democratic system.

He presents, as examples of combative secularism, three case studies of early 20th-century modernisation: Mexico, Spain, and Turkey. 

Read it all.

Xenia Dennen reviews a study of #secularism in its aggressive forms 📚 #books #bookreviews https://t.co/o2xDU7RWds

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 11, 2026

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are

Read it all.

Chicago ushers in 2026 with a BANG! Last night at midnight along the Chicago River. #chicago #NewYear2026 #news pic.twitter.com/OvoeJueXMq

— Barry Butler Photography (@barrybutler9) January 1, 2026

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied:

‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’”

–Minnie Haskins (1875-1957)

Happy New Year everyone. A glimmer of light on the horizon started the year off for me and plenty of others who gathered on Glastonbury Tor to see the first sunrise of 2026. pic.twitter.com/LlZOZtmGW3

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) January 1, 2026

‘Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: and from age even unto age Thou art’ (v. 2). Thou therefore who art for ever, and before we were, and before the world was, hast become our refuge ever since we turned to Thee. … But he very rightly does not say, Thou wast from ages, and unto ages Thou shalt be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression, I Am that I Am; and, I Am ‘hath sent me unto you;’ (Exod. iii. 14.) and, ‘Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.’ (Ps. cii. 26, 27.) Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly thither from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.

–Saint Augustine, from his Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XC

Morning everyone I hope you are well. I wish you all a Happy New Year from Ambleside. Have a great day (and year).#lakedistrict pic.twitter.com/SME2aHkSIo

— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) January 1, 2026

O God of new beginnings and wonderful surprises, thank you for the gift of a new year. May it be a time of grace for me, a time to grow in faith and love, a time to renew my commitment to following Your Son, Jesus. May it be a year of blessing for me, a time to cherish my family and friends, a time to renew my efforts at work, a time to embrace my faith more fully. Walk with me, please, in every day and every hour of this new year, that the light of Christ might shine through me, in spite of my weaknesses and failings. Above all, may I remember this year that I am a pilgrim on the sacred path to You. Amen.

–Courtesy of Saint Agnes Cathedral, Rockville Centre, New York

1 Jan 1622: The #Papal Chancery adopts January 1st as the beginning of the new year. Previously, the new year had been March 25.. #OTD #HappyNewYear #history #pope #NewYear #ad https://t.co/Esutcc8BN6 pic.twitter.com/IeuVjSHyBM

— Today In History (@URDailyHistory) January 1, 2026

26 Dec: The feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr remembered for his charity, is also called Boxing Day, from the custom of giving alms or gift boxes to the poor and to workers in thanks. In the “Calendar of Flowers,” purple heather is his dedicated flower. #BoxingDay pic.twitter.com/6aKf4IcGUA

— VenetiaJane's Garden (@VenetiaJane) December 25, 2025

Grim was the world and grey last night: The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light, The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea, And over the mountains’
teeth It whistled bitter-cold and free, As a sword leapt from its
sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head; His mantle long and pale Upon the
bitter blast was spread And hung o’er hill and dale. The world was
blind, the boughs were bent, All ways and paths were wild: Then the
veil of cloud apart was rent, And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer Was pricked with distant light; A
star came shining white and clear Alone above the night. In the dale
of dark in that hour of birth One voice on a sudden sang: Then all the
bells in Heaven and Earth Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below: They heard her song arise O’er mist and
over mountain snow To the walls of Paradise, And the tongue of many
bells was stirred in Heaven’s towers to ring When the voice of mortal
maid was heard, That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night With stars about its head, And
the hall is filled with laughter and light, And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring With bells of Christendom, And Gloria,
Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.

Buongiorno!

La Natività, c.1165.
Mosaico/Autore anonimo
Cappella Palatina, #Palermo #Italia
STELLA PARIT SOLEM ROSA FLOREM FORMA DECOREM (Una stella diede alla luce il sole, una rosa un fiore, la forma la bellezza).
I tre Magi sono bianchi!, pastori giunti in fretta con offerte. pic.twitter.com/7tbXOWEGUu

— Miguel Calabria (@MiguelCalabria3) December 23, 2025

The Sandford St Martin Trust has welcomed the review by the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, of the BBC’s Royal Charter, but recommended reinstatement of the Corporation’s obligations to represent the UK’s diverse belief communities.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Trust called for “formal opportunities for representatives of faith communities to participate meaningfully in the public consultation as part of the Charter Review”.

It also urged the BBC to commit itself to commissioning and making available “programming and content that reflect the full diversity” of the UK. It cited 2023 Ofcom data, which included the finding of a 42-per-cent decline between 2010 and 2022 in the time devoted to religion and ethics programmes by public-service broadcasting networks.

“This included near-zero provision from Channels 4 or 5, raising concerns about religious literacy, cultural understanding and representation,” the Trust said.

Read it all.

The @sandfordawards has welcomed the review by the Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, of the BBC’s Royal Charter, but recommended reinstatement of the Corporation’s obligations to represent the UK’s diverse belief communities#BBC #RoyalCharter #DonaldTrumphttps://t.co/Jl7np1og8c

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 17, 2025

Jared Kaplan, the chief scientist and co-owner of the $180bn (£135bn) US startup Anthropic, said a choice was looming about how much autonomy the systems should be given to evolve.

The move could trigger a beneficial “intelligence explosion” – or be the moment humans end up losing control.

In an interview about the intensely competitive race to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) – sometimes called superintelligence – Kaplan urged international governments and society to engage in what he called “the biggest decision”.

Anthropic is part of a pack of frontier AI companies including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, xAI, Meta and Chinese rivals led by DeepSeek, racing for AI dominance. Its widely used AI assistant, Claude, has become particularly popular among business customers.

Kaplan said that while efforts to align the rapidly advancing technology to human interests had to date been successful, freeing it to recursively self-improve “is in some ways the ultimate risk, because it’s kind of like letting AI kind of go”. The decision could come between 2027 and 2030, he said.

Read it all.

AI systems will be capable of doing “most white-collar work” in two to three years: Anthropic’s chief scientist https://t.co/CciDRlxTDH

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) December 3, 2025

Europe is now caught somewhere between war and peace.

In recent weeks, drones appearing mysteriously above airports and halting flights have made headlines. Those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Germany alone has three drone incursions a day on average—over military installations, defense-industry facilities and critical infrastructure points—according to a previously unreleased tally by German authorities.

Drones are part of an intensifying barrage that European leaders suspect Russia is directing at the continent over its support for Ukraine. It includes sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.

“We are not at war” with Russia, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said recently, “but we are no longer at peace either.”

For Russia and the West’s other adversaries, including China, Iran and North Korea, small-scale action can yield big payoffs. Moscow is bogged down militarily in Ukraine and so would struggle to engage members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in conventional combat. Instead, malicious activities that are often dubbed hybrid war or gray-zone conflict let the Kremlin challenge its adversaries without overt hostilities.

Read it all.

Michael Claesson, Sweden’s chief of defence staff, told the Financial Times that Russia was combining "sabotage, special operations, even attacks against individuals" with attacks on critical infrastructure and "exploiting vulnerabilities in the information environment" in order… pic.twitter.com/Qtlm7vvZum

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 23, 2025

In this month’s Q&A, contributing editor Serena Sigillito interviews Dr. Angela Franks about her new book, Body and Identity: A History of the Empty Self.

Serena Sigillito: I’ve just finished reading your fascinating new book. Can you give PD readers a brief description of the argument you make there?

Angela Franks: Sure. I argue that our concern with the body is usually a smokescreen for deeper questions about identity. I try to show historically why and how identity became a problem for us—why our culture is going through a systemic identity crisis. I try to show that this is not simply a new development, but it has its roots in phenomena that go back centuries, and even millennia.

SS: You’ve mentioned elsewhere that you were inspired, in part, to write this book by Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. I found that a really helpful and thought-provoking comparison. My sense is that your book is more unabashedly academic than Carl’s. Your book seems like it’s aimed at the kind of people who write for places like Public Discourse, who can then draw on your scholarly work and translate it into a more accessible register and help popularize the ideas you articulate. Does that seem right to you?

AF: Yes, I think that’s accurate. I had already been working on my book when Carl’s came out. We got to know each other pretty soon after that, and—as I told him—I was very relieved that his book was not making mine superfluous! I think Carl’s book is primarily a work of translation, whereas mine is a more academic synthesis. One of the books that was really helpful to me was Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self, as well as A Secular Age. Those books are similar to what I’m trying to do—a work that’s lengthier, with an abundant use of footnotes, that really gets into texts at a deeper level. The hope is that it shifts the scholarly discussion around identity.

Read it all.

A great interview with @theologianmom @PublicDiscourse on her fine book on “the empty self.” With @SerenaSigillito.

It wasn’t only secularism that “liquified” the body and emptied the self. Christianity played a large role too. What do we do with that?https://t.co/y6RwYWeaqb

— Rachel Lu (@rclu) December 1, 2025

“Holiday” has become just a secularized term for a day when many break from their routines. However, Thanksgiving is one holiday that truly is a holy day — or at least it was to the Pilgrims who held the first one. To them, Thanksgiving was utterly religious. 

That Thanksgiving was a religious expression to the Pilgrims is hardly surprising. After all, they came to the New World for religious purposes (“Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith” as the Mayflower Compact stated): freedom of religion — not freedom from religion, as so many today seek to recast it. 

The Pilgrims suffered greatly on their ocean voyage over and had to turn back twice. Then, they landed at the wrong place. Next, they faced a mutiny as they waited to come ashore; the response to this impending revolt was the Mayflower Compact, America’s first act of independent governance. They suffered no less once ashore, with barely half surviving the first year: 52 of the 102 who had set sail on the Mayflower. 

However, despite their suffering, like Job, they did not forsake God. And like Job, those who survived saw themselves blessed; for their survival they gave thanks — hence, thanksgiving. 

The Pilgrims had no doubt as to whom they were giving thanks: God. Their action of thanks was to them as obvious as their longed-for connection. The two were inseparable, just as they themselves sought to be to God.

Read it all.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here at CBL, we are so thankful for all of you.

And did you know that Thanksgiving is a deeply Christian holiday?

In 1623, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, made the first formal Thanksgiving declaration. In his declaration, Bradford… pic.twitter.com/l75g1ifSIj

— Center for Baptist Leadership (@BaptistLeaders) November 27, 2025

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Happy Thanksgiving! #DYK the White House’s holiday celebration dates back to President Abraham Lincoln?

In October 1863, Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be celebrated as a holiday.

His #Thanksgiving proclamation implored the nation to reflect and heal in the… pic.twitter.com/Dxbs1oGnTq

— White House History (@WhiteHouseHstry) November 27, 2025

[New York, 3 October 1789]

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor — and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks — for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation — for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war — for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed — for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted — for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed — to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord — To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us — and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

The FBI wishes you and your family a Happy #Thanksgiving. pic.twitter.com/Z4QEIbsSFT

— FBI (@FBI) November 27, 2025

Tucker Carlson’s platforming of antisemitic social influencer Nick Fuentes, who proclaims “Christ is King,” evinces the reemergence of antisemitism in American Christianity. For the last 85 years, World War II and the Holocaust have made antisemitism publicly unacceptable in American Christianity, prior to which it was often acceptable.

For example, at the 1924 Methodist governing General Conference, the church’s prominent Prohibition chief, Clarence True Wilson, blamed the “filth” of films and theater on Jewish “degenerates, all of one race but of no religion, who have corrupted everything their filthy hands have touched for 2,000 years.” He warned: “No nation that has let them control its finances but has had to vomit them up, sometimes with bitter persecutions, to get the poison out of their system.” Wilson faulted German Jews for their “controlling interest in our liquor traffic.”

The audience for Wilson’s remarks included hundreds of Methodist leaders plus the church’s bishops. Yet there’s no record that his speech was controversial. Wilson continued as head of the denomination’s Washington, D.C. office on Capitol Hill for another 11 years. Methodism was then America’s biggest Protestant denomination. And its political influence was such that it was the main force responsible for persuading America to adopt Prohibition, with Wilson its chief advocate. So his anti-Jewish speech did not come from a marginal figure and likely represented the views of millions of Protestants, many of whom joined in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan resurgence, which made Jews, along with Catholics and Blacks, its chief targets.

American Christianity, and America, have been blessed that antisemitism across 85 years has mostly been taboo. But the memories of World War II and the Holocaust are fast fading. And revisionism about both, promoted by Carlson and Fuentes, among many others, is increasingly common. Human nature being what it is, demons once expelled often return and must again be exorcised.

Read it all.

Antisemitism, in subtle & blatant forms, likely will grow in American Christianity. Discerning American Christians must prepare to counter it. The argument against it is not complex & comes directly from our Savior: Love thy neighbor as thyself, without exceptions.…

— @markdtooley (@markdtooley) November 3, 2025

“Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery.If there’s the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble.But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of development and classes of society. -Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment)”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

#OnThisDay in 1821, Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow. (Crime and Punishment, 1866) pic.twitter.com/xcK1G6rZRD

— Bibliophilia (@Libroantiguo) November 11, 2015

Fyodor Dostoyevsky began to write what would become his last novel, “The Brothers Karamazov,” in 1878. It was published in serial installments in the magazine Russkiy Vestnik from January, 1879, to November, 1880. Dostoyevsky had a deadline to meet every month, and his wife, Anna, later complained about the pressure he was always working under. Unlike many other contemporary writers, such as Tolstoy or Turgenev, who were well off, Dostoyevsky lived by his writing and struggled throughout his life to earn enough money. If not for this, Anna wrote, in her memoirs, after his death, “He could have gone carefully through [his works], polishing them, before letting them appear in print; and one can imagine how much they would have gained in beauty. Indeed, until the very end of his life Fyodor Mikhailovich had not written a single novel with which he was satisfied himself; and the cause of this was our debts!”

No one could claim that “The Brothers Karamazov” is polished, or even beautifully written—it is characteristic of Dostoyevsky’s style that everything is desperately urgent and seems to burst forth, and that the details don’t much matter. Reckless and intense: we are headed straight to the point of the matter, and there is no time. This urgency, this wildness, the seeming unruliness of his style, which is echoed in the many abrupt twists and turns in the action toward the end of the chapters—the reader must be kept in a state of suspense until the next installment—runs against something else, something heavier and slower, a patiently insistent question that is related to everything that is happening: What are we living for?

On May 16, 1878, just months before Dostoyevsky began writing “The Brothers Karamazov” in earnest, his son Alyosha died following an epileptic fit that lasted for hours. He would have turned three that summer. Dostoyevsky “loved Lyosha somehow in a very special way, with an almost morbid love, as if sensing that he would not have him for long,” Anna wrote later. When his son stopped breathing, Dostoyevsky “kissed him, made the sign of the cross over him three times,” and broke down in tears. He was crushed with grief, Anna wrote, and with guilt—his son had inherited epilepsy from him. Outwardly, however, he was soon calm and collected; she was the one who wept and wept. Gradually, she grew worried that his suppression of grief would have a negative impact on his already fragile health, and she suggested that he visit the Optina Pustyn monastery with a young friend, the theological wunderkind Vladimir Solovyov. There they met the elder of the monastery—the starets—Ambrose. “Weep and be not consoled, but weep,” he said to Dostoyevsky.

All of this made its way into “The Brothers Karamazov.” The protagonist bears the name of Dostoyevsky’s son Alyosha and many of Solovyov’s traits. The monastery is central to the story, and its elder—named Zosima in the novel—comforts a woman who has lost her child, aged two years and nine months, with words that echo those uttered by Ambrose. But more important to the story than the autobiographical details, which in any case are swallowed up by the vortex of fiction, is the devastating loss of meaning that accompanies the death of a child. 

Read it all.

“The Brothers Karamazov” asks what we are living for, and it “seeks the answer in the little life, among the small people, in the frail, the fragile, the fallible, the failed,” Karl Ove Knausgaard writes. https://t.co/llTCBZ9rHR

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) October 21, 2025

It is….increasingly likely that governments will…resort to inflation and financial repression to reduce the real value of their high debts, as they did in the decades after the second world war. The machinery for such a strategy is in place at central banks, which have a large footprint in bond markets. Already, populists such as Mr Trump and Nigel Farage in Britain attack their country’s central banks with proposals that would weaken the defenses against inflation.

Price rises are unpopular—just ask the hapless Joe Biden—but they do not need political support to get going. Nobody voted for them in the 1970s or in 2022. When governments cannot get their act together, and run economic policies that are unsustainable, bouts of inflation just happen. By the time markets wake up, it is too late.

All the more reason to think ahead and reflect on how inflation harms the economy and society. It redistributes wealth unfairly: from creditors to debtors; from those with cash and bonds to those who own real assets such as houses; and from those who agree on contracts and wages in cash terms to those wily enough to anticipate higher prices. It causes what John Maynard Keynes called an “arbitrary rearrangement of riches”. And that could happen just as societies are grappling with other transfers of wealth that the losers will also see as unfair: in the labour market, as AI takes on routine office work; and through inheritance, as baby-boomers bequeath vast property wealth to those lucky enough to have the right parents.

This multi-pronged upheaval of fortunes could wreck the middle class, which binds democracies together, and scramble the social contract.

Read it all.

Governments are living far beyond their means. Sadly, inflation is the most likely escape. Politicians should think ahead and reflect on how much harm that would do https://t.co/6H1nzpKQQS pic.twitter.com/RF2ACF0MzV

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 16, 2025

To fully understand this ongoing debate, one must consider the historical role of Christianity in America, the legal protections for religious freedom (despite the spread of secularism) amid a decades-old culture war highlighted by societal shifts starting in the 1960s.

As a result, Christianity in the United States is certainly undergoing a transition. It is moving from a position of cultural centrality to one of pluralistic coexistence, especially since new waves of immigrants over the last 30 years who are Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists move to the United States.

In a 2022 post, veteran journalist Richard Ostling, a regular Religion Unplugged contributor, observed:

“Christian nationalism” became common coinage in the U.S. fairly recently, usually raised by cultural liberals who view it with alarm, and often with “White” as an added adjective. The term is not generally embraced by those considered to be participants.

As journalist Samuel Goldman remarks, to describe something as Christian nationalism “is inevitably to reject it.”

The Merriam-Webster definition of plain “nationalism” is “loyalty and devotion to a nation” but adds this important wording, “especially a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.”

“Nationalism” is not the same as “patriotism,” the natural and benign love and loyalty toward one’s homeland that characterizes all peoples and countries, including huge numbers of non-nationalists on America’s religious left as well as the right. Nor is it the same thing as either political or religious conservatism but is instead a narrow faction within those broad populations.

Read it all.

The question of whether #Christianity is under attack, especially in the United States, is a complex and deeply polarizing one https://t.co/REqRKWg2aY

— Clemente Lisi (@ClementeLisi) October 8, 2025

Netanyahu returned to power in December 2022 after only a year and a half, blind to the fact that he was taking control of the state during the most precarious period in a nation’s life: its eighth decade.

Let me explain. The first generation of a country is the one that fought. It had no time for existential dilemmas because it was preoccupied with surviving. The second generation was too busy with state-building to entertain such questions.

But the third and fourth generations—my generation—are those for whom the state is a birthright, already built, paved, and functioning. All the profound existential dilemmas that our grandparents tucked away in the attic have come knocking on our national door. A nation’s eighth and ninth decades almost invariably mark the moment when it tears itself apart over the ultimate question: identity.

The United States, in its ninth decade of existence in the 1860s, emerged as a wonderland unlike any other ever seen. The pursuit of happiness swept across the country. Then, Americans found themselves confronting an unsettling question. How, Americans pondered, is it possible that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the words “All men are created equal,” also owns more than 600 black slaves?

The answer: It is not possible. In the United States, two values collided with devastating force: the right to liberty and the right to property. The American Civil War resolved this clash of two values through bloodshed, claiming over 600,000 American lives, including that of the president.

But America was lucky; it survived. Countries do not always survive their identity wars. We all know the Soviet Union’s fate in its eighth decade.

Against this backdrop, Israel’s five elections in four years, ending with Netanyahu’s return to power at the end of 2022, suddenly come into focus: This was the Israeli civil war.

Read it all.

October 7 Was Israel’s Midlife Crisis.

Read an exclusive excerpt from my new book, A Call at 4 AM, in @TheFP.

Link to pre-order the book in the reply.https://t.co/v8M1sLoEZB

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) October 7, 2025

“I’m currently working on a bunch of hellish paintings,” says the US-born artist Sedrick Chisom from his east London studio. One in particular, destined for the Paris Basel booth of gallery Pilar Corrias, features a Babel-esque “ziggurat tower structure that doubles as an active volcano”. In an earlier work, an axe-wielding “chaotic villain” is drawn with carnivalesque panache. “He’s got all the hallmarks,” says Chisom. “A really morose dying horse, his horns, and he’s just having a delightful time.”

The artist is interested, he says, in “the social dimension of designating something heaven or hell. It’s truly an intersubjective. What might be perceived as heaven by one person might be hell for another.” Chisom is one of a number of contemporary artists bringing the hellish and the heavenly to the canvas as a way of exploring personal and societal unrest, looming ecological crisis and utopian visions of possible transcendence.

At Hauser & Wirth in New York, Canadian painter Ambera Wellman’s current show Darkling (until 25 October) emits a sense of impending doom: her blurry, mutating figures seem to wrestle with a world in breakdown. German artist Florian Krewer sees his exhibition cold tears released at Michael Werner gallery (until 1 November) as a response to “the world feeling more heavy, more depressing and politically more conservative”, he says. By contrast, Greek-born Sofia Mitsola’s vibrant mythology offers a glimpse of paradise (albeit laced with a deadly siren call), and a sense of the sublime emanates from the Rococo interpretations of Flora Yukhnovich (seen in a new mural at The Frick in New York this autumn). Alabama-born artist Verne Dawson, meanwhile, paints a realistic kind of Eden.

Read it all.

What does the afterlife look like? https://t.co/sbYrnVccNK

— HTSI (@htsi) September 25, 2025

The windswept town of Ellendale, N.D., population 1,100, has two motels, a Dollar General, a Pentecostal Bible college—and a half-built AI factory bigger than 10 Home Depots.

Its more than $15 billion price tag is equivalent to a quarter of the state’s annual economic output.

The artificial-intelligence boom has ushered in one of the costliest building sprees in world history. Over the past three years, leading tech firms have committed more toward AI data centers like the one in Ellendale, plus chips and energy, than it cost to build the interstate highway system over four decades, when adjusted for inflation. AI proponents liken the effort to the Industrial Revolution.

A big problem: No one is sure how they will get their investment back—or when. 

The building rush is effectively a mega-speculative bet that the technology will rapidly improve, transform the economy and start producing steady profits. “I hope we don’t take 50 years,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at a May conference with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, referring to the initially slow adoption of electricity.

“Yeah, well, we’re all investing as if it’s not going to take 50 years,” replied Zuckerberg, who surmised at a recent White House dinner the company’s U.S. spending through 2028 was “probably going to be something like” $600 billion.

Read it all.

Media: "Spending on AI is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off? — There are growing, worrying signs that the optimism about AI won’t pan out. An @MIT report found 95% of organizations surveyed are getting no return on their AI product investments. A @UChicago economics paper… pic.twitter.com/qqE1XpcCs4

— Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) September 26, 2025

There’s a great deal at stake in the upcoming Czech election — for Russia. So perhaps it’s no wonder that Czechia has been flooded by pro-Russian disinformation of late.

A victory by populist right-winger Andrej Babiš, who is ahead in the polls, would see him join Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico around the EU table. The Hungarian and Slovak leaders are on friendly terms with Russian President Vladimir Putin and have consistently torpedoed EU unity on Ukraine.

Incumbent Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has framed the Oct. 3-4 vote as no less than a battle over the country’s geopolitical future.

Read it all.

Russia has flooded the Czech election with disinformation as populist right-winger Andrej Babiš leads in the polls. https://t.co/em6KI3M9Mf

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) September 23, 2025