In downtown Des Moines stands a historic Masonic Temple, a beautiful building from another era. Its stonework still commands attention. Its architecture still suggests weight, seriousness, and a world in which its inhabitants once sought meaning. Yet today it sits mostly empty. No young people drive past it and wonder whether they should go inside to look for purpose in life.
Sometimes we wonder whether that is how many Americans now experience the Church: not necessarily as false, but as an impressive structure that no longer feels socially required. And yet the need that once drew people inside has not disappeared. Instead, it has been redirected into politics.
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