In 1927, Sinclair Lewis gave America a character it did not want to recognize in the mirror: Elmer Gantry. Gantry is loud, magnetic, insatiable — a sinner with a capital “S.” He does not discover faith; he discovers its usefulness. He learns that fear, properly stirred, can fill a sanctuary. Redemption, properly marketed, can build an empire. Gantry bellows and...

Over the past several months, I’ve written commentaries revisiting moments in our history when individuals confronted serious challenges and rose to meet them — to remind us who we are and what we stand for. After writing about the tragedy in Minneapolis, I briefly turned to Steve Allen, an entertainer known for his intelligent wit — not to diminish what...

Emily returned to the attic the next evening. The attic felt different, not mysterious, purposeful. She unlocked the small door again and stood for a moment, looking at the shelves lined with lanterns. She counted at least twenty-four before she stopped. They had not been forgotten. They had been prepared. One by one, she carried the lanterns down carefully, setting...

In the winter of his century, Charles Dickens walked a London powered by industry but running short on warmth. People moved past one another as if connection were a luxury they could no longer afford. Wealth and want lived on opposite sides of the same street, and compassion, even at Christmas time, was showing signs of strain. Dickens wrote his...

I have stopped watching national news about Donald Trump because the coverage now mirrors the damage itself. What once informed now exhausts; what once clarified now amplifies. The daily cycle no longer explains what is happening to the country—it re-enacts it. His indecent words following the death of beloved filmmaker Rob Reiner were the last straw. They recalled Joseph N....

A national media organization has recognized the seriousness of our political division and offered something we’ve been missing… A REAL beginning toward ending the death spiral the country has been living in. With the launch of NBC’s initiative, “Finding Common Ground,” the organization is making a deliberate investment in something we’ve been losing: civic dialogue grounded in respect, clarity, and...

Every December, I look forward to reading and watching Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. While there are countless versions of the classic, I always return to the film with Reginald Owen as Scrooge, not only because Owen embodies the part, but also because it features Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit. A brilliant character actor with a gift for sincerity, Lockhart brings...

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” — Abraham Lincoln, 1838 Voltaire once said, “Common sense is not so common.” Nearly three centuries later, that...