In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?

When our founders created America, it was in the age of the printing press, when individuals could freely join the conversation. And that robust, democratic dialogue more often than not lifted up the best available evidence and asserted what was more likely to be true than not.

The signs that the world is spinning out of kilter are increasingly difficult to misinterpret. The question is how to convince enough people to join a critical mass of urgent opinion, in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

This is by far the most serious crisis civilisation has ever faced.

I'm asking you in your sermons to do the work of the Lord here on earth. I ask for your help in getting that message out urgently tomorrow.

My parents were true believers in the efficacy of American constitutional democracy, and I was thoroughly inculcated with reverence for what we the people are capable of doing. The complication in that simple narrative is that as I got older, the Vietnam War shook my confidence in how our democracy was working. I ended up serving in that war, but it started with a lie, and I was very proud of my father for being one of its earliest opponents.

Throughout history, religious wars have always been the most brutal and cruel and merciless.