Counterpoint Blog
Explanations are Not Justifications: On the Need for Careful Deliberation
The Delusion that Only Individuals are Real By John Thatamanil Am I responsible for America’s racist past, even though I myself immigrated to the US from India when I was just eight years old? Read more…
Starving the Flame of Hate Speech: The Obligations of Ethical and Religious Communities By John Thatamanil Kanye West likes Hitler. Now we know. We also know that hate speech flourishes when it is given free Read more…
Which Comes First? Trust or Truth? By John Thatamanil Trust in our institutions is crumbling—churches, governments, science, higher education, etc. The list could go on indefinitely. This is a problem in my home country, the Read more…
Stolen Focus as Spiritual Crisis: On Joining the “Attention Rebellion” By John Thatamanil Of the creation and enumeration of crises, there is no end. Any short list of major contemporary crises must include the ongoing Read more…
Conformation and Transformation: Two Ways of Thinking about the World By John Thatamanil Two warring impulses operate in the world’s religious and wisdom traditions—within as well as across them. Echoes of these impulses can be Read more…
“An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: On 9/11 and Nonviolence By John Thatamanil Twenty years ago, in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, just weeks after the events of 11 September 2001, I urged rhetorical rather Read more…
Creatures of a Common Home: Finding Our Way to Planetary Solidarity By John Thatamanil “Maybe when the aliens show up it will finally happen,” I said to my son. “What will happen?” he inquired. “A Read more…
Pilate vs. The Truth: A Biblical Confrontation for Post-Truth Christians By John Thatamanil Christians of all stripes should know better, but white American evangelicals don’t seem to: there is an absolute contradiction between following the Read more…
Lost in the Present By John Thatamanil The climate crisis, the COVID pandemic, the global rise of authoritarianism—these are just the handful of quandaries human communities must confront in our time. But how? What resources Read more…