politics

Laughter and Comprehension: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Irony of American History

For the past several months I’ve been working on a chapter, “The Pilgrims and Religious Liberty,” to be included in an upcoming book: Strangers and Pilgrims on the Earth: A Quadricentennial Celebration of the Mayflower Pilgrims, 1620–2020. Months of research have brought some surprises, dispelled some myths, and led to the conclusion—which almost always accompanies honest investigation—that history is complicated. The nuances,…