Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Culture

What’s going on, who we are, and what the big deal is.

  • The idea of a Space Force seems absolutely crazy. We should care less about how absurd it is and more about why anyone would want it. Space Force. Even the words make me laugh. It seems like a farce. Like the moonshot gamble of a desperate administration. Mocking it so tempting. And where did it…

  • The case of a church of pot testing religious freedom on the sincerely-held standard is absurd. Which says more about the standard than the church. It was bound to happen. A pot church claiming a sincere religious belief. This is precisely the case we all imagined when Justice Samuel Alito penned the majority opinion in…

  • Many of us get caught in shallow or simplistic arguments about security which don’t match scripture or tradition. Here’s how we can change that. Immigration is always in the zeitgeist. We can’t not talk about it. Some raise it to stoke fear or denigrate our government. But for Christians, immigration is always a pressing political…

  • In the social media era, separating truth from fiction is hard. Here’s one way you can tell the difference between a real argument and a dishonest one. The difference between a simple argument and a simplistic one is authority. Simplistic arguments try to make complex issues bite-sized. They’re like trading a balanced diet for a…

  • Civility

    When a fresh outrage comes, we sharpen knives and loosen vocal cords for the usual conversation around civility, asking as always “why can’t we just get along?” as if this were the whole problem. It isn’t. There’s a lot of talk about civility right now. Whether it’s a conversation on Facebook or serving a public…

  • We mistake extremism in belief for political extremism. The rise of authoritarianism isn’t only tied to political division or partisanship. Authoritarianism is an extremism we can find anywhere in politics. Why our fear of division blinds us to the real threat to democracy We’ve taken it as gospel that we’re divided. It seems like we…