Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies

by N.T. Wright

The USA convulses between its political extremes represented by white Christian nationalists and progressive identitarians. It lacks the consensus and belief in a greater good that once characterised its political class. The American political extremities believe that the other side should not even exist. America’s respective news channels and social-media platforms attract viewers and rake in massive profits by pouring gasoline on the fires of grievance and stoking the embers of indifference. Then there are the lobbyists who buy politicians like someone collecting antique spoons. The West might not have hard corruption such as that found in a banana republic, but it is infested with the soft corruption of corporations that fund political campaigns to further their own interests. America’s political actors and the tribalized media entities have based their funding models on hyping up audiences with the grievance de jour.