Afew years ago, I got into an argument with a friend about religion. The question we tussled over: Would America be better off without Christianity?
She had grown up in an evangelical Christian household and saw the church as a bastion of intolerance at best, a font of a dangerous Christian nationalism at worst. I, a Catholic turned agnostic turned Unitarian Universalist, have usually taken a softer view on Christianity. Although I abandoned the Catholic Church in my mid-20s, I have always found churches and cathedrals to be places of comfort and quiet contemplation. I have long admired American preachers and writers in whose work faith played a central role, from Unitarians like Ralph Waldo Emerson to Baptists like Martin Luther King Jr.
The 2024 election and second Trump presidency have since stretched my kinder inclinations to near breaking.
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