Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World

Living with Purpose in a Polarizing World
Author: Albert M. Erisman
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2024-06-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1496487176

Western culture is increasingly polarized, and Christians often feel they are “under siege” by the dominant secular culture. Compounding the problem is that Christians cannot agree among themselves how to respond to a culture that is increasingly “post-Christian.” The authors have observed five basic responses by Christians to this feeling of “exile”: (1) assimilation and acceptance of the new cultural norms, (2) withdrawal from cultural engagement, (3) anger directed toward society (and toward other Christians who don’t see the issues as they do), (4) fear, or (5) seeking power to “take back the culture.” Scripture calls us to a different way, speaking into the world with a new voice. Micah calls us to “seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly” with God, Jeremiah calls us to “seek the good of the city,” and Jesus calls us to be salt and light while knowing that in this world we “will have trouble.” In short, we are to engage the culture we live in as disciples of Jesus. But how practically is that done? In this book, the authors look carefully at the lives of twelve biblical characters who also lived in “challenging times” for guidance in navigating our post-Christian world. Rejecting assimilation, withdrawal, anger, fear, and power-seeking, we are challenged today with the ancient words of Mordecai to Esther: “Who knows whether for just a time as this you have come to this position in your life?”

Why We're Polarized

Why We're Polarized
Author: Ezra Klein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1476700397

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.

Democracies Divided

Democracies Divided
Author: Thomas Carothers
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 081573722X

“A must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of contemporary democracies.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Why divisions have deepened and what can be done to heal them As one part of the global democratic recession, severe political polarization is increasingly afflicting old and new democracies alike, producing the erosion of democratic norms and rising societal anger. This volume is the first book-length comparative analysis of this troubling global phenomenon, offering in-depth case studies of countries as wide-ranging and important as Brazil, India, Kenya, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. The case study authors are a diverse group of country and regional experts, each with deep local knowledge and experience. Democracies Divided identifies and examines the fissures that are dividing societies and the factors bringing polarization to a boil. In nearly every case under study, political entrepreneurs have exploited and exacerbated long-simmering divisions for their own purposes—in the process undermining the prospects for democratic consensus and productive governance. But this book is not simply a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Each case study discusses actions that concerned citizens and organizations are taking to counter polarizing forces, whether through reforms to political parties, institutions, or the media. The book’s editors distill from the case studies a range of possible ways for restoring consensus and defeating polarization in the world’s democracies. Timely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.

Polarized

Polarized
Author: James E. Campbell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2018-03-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691180865

An eye-opening look at how and why America has become so politically polarized Many continue to believe that the United States is a nation of political moderates. In fact, it is a nation divided. It has been so for some time and has grown more so. This book provides a new and historically grounded perspective on the polarization of America, systematically documenting how and why it happened. Polarized presents commonsense benchmarks to measure polarization, draws data from a wide range of historical sources, and carefully assesses the quality of the evidence. Through an innovative and insightful use of circumstantial evidence, it provides a much-needed reality check to claims about polarization. This rigorous yet engaging and accessible book examines how polarization displaced pluralism and how this affected American democracy and civil society. Polarized challenges the widely held belief that polarization is the product of party and media elites, revealing instead how the American public in the 1960s set in motion the increase of polarization. American politics became highly polarized from the bottom up, not the top down, and this began much earlier than often thought. The Democrats and the Republicans are now ideologically distant from each other and about equally distant from the political center. Polarized also explains why the parties are polarized at all, despite their battle for the decisive median voter. No subject is more central to understanding American politics than political polarization, and no other book offers a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the subject than this one.

You Are Us

You Are Us
Author: Gareth Gwyn
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1632996138

The Perils of Polarization and How Self-Liberation Transforms Leadership Through candid accounts of stereotypically vilified individuals—a jihadist, gang member, and white supremacist—as well as additional interviews with people who have been equally cruel and those who have experienced profound victimization, we learn how rigorous inner work can shift even deeply polarized social issues for the better. Piercing the often unconscious and destructive patterns that arise from a legacy of abuse gives rise to a clear leadership methodology, one that heals individuals across racial, political, social, and cultural divides. These stories of reckoning with trauma, pain, and socialized identity reveal how inner change can affect societal reconciliation; how it in fact directly transforms community, workplace culture, and society as a whole.

The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
Author: Martin Gurri
Publisher: Stripe Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1953953344

How insurgencies—enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere—have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. In the words of economist and scholar Arnold Kling, Martin Gurri saw it coming. Technology has categorically reversed the information balance of power between the public and the elites who manage the great hierarchical institutions of the industrial age: government, political parties, the media. The Revolt of the Public tells the story of how insurgencies, enabled by digital devices and a vast information sphere, have mobilized millions of ordinary people around the world. Originally published in 2014, The Revolt of the Public is now available in an updated edition, which includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit. The book concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.

Breaking the Social Media Prism

Breaking the Social Media Prism
Author: Chris Bail
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2022-09-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0691246491

A revealing look at how user behavior is powering deep social divisions online—and how we might yet defeat political tribalism on social media In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves. Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit "reset" and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research. Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts.

Uncivil Agreement

Uncivil Agreement
Author: Lilliana Mason
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2018-04-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022652468X

The psychology behind political partisanship: “The kind of research that will change not just how you think about the world but how you think about yourself.” —Ezra Klein, Vox Political polarization in America has moved beyond disagreements about matters of policy. For the first time in decades, research has shown that members of both parties hold strongly unfavorable views of their opponents. This is polarization rooted in social identity, and it is growing. The campaign and election of Donald Trump laid bare this fact of the American electorate, its successful rhetoric of “us versus them” tapping into a powerful current of anger and resentment. With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one other with distrust and to work for party victory over all else. Although the polarizing effects of social divisions have simplified our electoral choices and increased political engagement, they have not been a force that is, on balance, helpful for American democracy. Bringing together theory from political science and social psychology, Uncivil Agreement clearly describes this increasingly “social” type of polarization, and adds much to our understanding of contemporary politics.

The Sacredness of Secular Work

The Sacredness of Secular Work
Author: Jordan Raynor
Publisher: WaterBrook
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2024-01-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0593193105

From a leading voice in the faith and work movement and author of Redeeming Your Time comes the revolutionary message that God sees our daily work—in whatever form it takes—with far more value than we ever imagined. “The Sacredness of Secular Work does an extraordinary job of being both personally relevant and, more importantly, biblically faithful.”—Randy Alcorn, New York Times bestselling author of Heaven Does your work matter for eternity? Sadly, most believers don’t think so. Sure, the 1 percent of the time they spend sharing the gospel with their co-workers matters. But most Christians view the other 99 percent of their time as meaning very little in the grand scheme of things. But that’s not how God sees it. Jordan Raynor, a leading voice in the faith and work movement and bestselling author, offers a revolutionary message about how our daily jobs—from baristas and entrepreneurs to stay-at-home parent and coaches—have intrinsic and eternal value. In The Sacredness of Secular Work, he reveals unexpected ways our work truly matters. In these pages you’ll discover • How a low regard of our work limits our understanding of God and His Kingdom • Inspiring ways your work can reveal God’s kingdom on earth here and now • Surprising strategies for ensuring your vocation has an eternal legacy • Vital insights on what God’s view of work tells us about heaven Combining research, Scripture, and storytelling, Jordan Raynor proves that work, in its diverse forms, is one of the primary activities that brings God delight. This biblical perspective will set you free to pursue your passions and skills and—perhaps for the first time—experience the Creator’s delight in the work of your hands.