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Last week, I was sitting under the soaring arches of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., reflecting on words and faith.
I was attending an event celebrating the legacy of the late Michael Gerson, a speechwriter for George W. Bush and later a Washington Post columnist, who passed away from cancer in 2022 at the age of 58.
For Gerson, who described himself as an Evangelical Episcopalian, faith animated both his writing and his philosophy of compassionate conservatism, which blended traditional conservative principles like limited government and strong families with a moral emphasis on caring for vulnerable people. He helped design Bush’s PEPFAR program which saved over 20 million lives from HIV in Africa.
“One thing that was so striking about Mike’s speeches and writing is that he unabashedly used the language of morality, spirituality and virtue,” said Cherie Harder, president of the Trinity Forum, a Christian nonprofit that’s aiming to catalyze spiritual and moral renewal in public life. “That kind of language is not what’s often used right now.”
The forum put on the event with the purpose of awarding a new memorial prize in Gerson’s memory to a young writer.
Writers like David Brooks, Russell Moore and Christine Emba talked about Gerson’s ability to bring heart and moral clarity to his writing, whether it was about politics or universal human experiences like driving your child to college, the subject of one of his most beloved columns.
“He had that intellectual and moral consistency the whole time I knew him,” said David Brooks of the New York Times. Gerson possessed “the most finely tuned conscience of our generation,” Brooks said, and he became “an attractive moralist.”
Yet, Gerson was never “moralistic.”
Faith kept Gerson spiritually and morally grounded, his friends said, even amid the divisive political environment, and it also made him a better person.
One of the motivating forces for Gerson was a commitment to justice, said Peter Wehner, Gerson’s friend and writer at The Atlantic.
“He cared too much to ever by cynical,” said Wehner.
Gerson’s care for the words and his awareness of the other in his work can be lessons for writers today.
During a time when the “language of virtue” has faded from public discourse and is being replaced by the “language of domination,” Harder said, writers can work toward reviving a vocabulary that points toward what is good and virtuous. Words like “redemption” and “grace” are absent from young people’s vocabulary, Brooks observed.
“In this moment on social media, there is a tendency to be as harsh as possible, as unkind as possible, to relish pointing the finger at someone else,” said Christine Emba, author and senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, who used to edit Gerson’s columns.
Restoring the language of virtue and morality, and redefining some of these terms, can bring unity to the fractured world that often doesn’t seem to agree on what it means to be ethical, good and virtuous. Even holding oneself back from a harsh comment or careless description, Emba noted, could be part of this language shift.
“In this attention economy, I think our greatest role is to help draw people’s attention — our own attention and our readers’ attention — to what is good, what is true, what is beautiful and what will bring healing that we need so badly right now,” writer Karen Swallow Prior said.
The first annual Michael J. Gerson Memorial Prize for Excellence in Writing on Faith and Public Life was awarded to Matthew Loftus, a family doctor and writer, who lives in Kenya.
Earlier this week, two religion reporters at The New York Times reflected on what it’s like to cover religion today. The journalists, Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias, noted how even words like “Mormon,” “traditional” or “Christian nationalism” land differently depending on who’s hearing them and that writers should instead describe the viewpoints rather than resorting to labels.
That awareness, the work of choosing language carefully, with humility and empathy, feels connected to what Gerson modeled.
Fresh off the press
- On Friday, Pope Leo XIV addressed 16,000 Catholic teens in Indiana via digital visit. He told them to make “true friends,” seek moments of silence and build bridges.
- Political scientist Charles Murray says he doesn’t have a “gift of faith." Still, he found a way to believe.
- The legal battle over the Ten Commandments posters continues in Texas, with the federal judge temporarily blocking the Ten Commandments law in several Texas school districts in response to a lawsuit from a group of parents.
Religion in the charts
Republicans are consistently more religiously observant than Democrats across such measures as belief in God, daily prayer, worship attendance and the importance of religion in daily life, according to the new analysis from the Pew Research Center. For example, 52% of Republicans say they pray daily, compared with 35% of Democrats. When it comes to attending church, 41% of Republicans report attending religious services monthly, compared with 24% of Democrats.
But religiousness tends to vary by race more among Democrats than Republicans. Among Republicans, white, Black and Hispanic members show similar levels of religiousness, with roughly two-thirds believing in God with absolute certainty. Asian Republicans are somewhat less religious but still about half fall in the high or medium-high range, Pew found.
Black Democrats are the most religious among Democrats:75% in this group express absolute certainty in God or a universal spirit. And white and Asian Democrats are the least religious, with only about 29% expressing the same belief. Black and Hispanic Democrats also pray daily — more often than their white and Asian counterparts.
“On all these measures, Black Democrats look a lot more like Republicans than like other Democrats,” according to the Pew.
What I’m reading
Christians continue to face violence from the Muslim extremists in Nigeria. Last week, more than 300 children and teachers were kidnapped from the Catholic school in central Nigeria in one of the largest abductions the country has seen. — BBC
You may have heard that Orthodox Christian churches are brimming with converts, many among them — men. They’re drawn to the ancient tradition of the faith, its “masculine” qualities and its seriousness about the supernatural. — The New York Times
I visited Driggs, Idaho, over the summer, and those memories sprung back in my memory as I read this story about small businesses in the West and the financial pressures they’re up against. — Deseret Magazine
Christianity Today, an Evangelical publication established by Billy Graham, has a new CEO, Dr. Nicole Martin, a veteran ministry leader, Bible teacher and author who also holds positions on the boards of the National Association of Evangelicals, Fuller Theological Seminary, and the Center for Christianity and Public Life. “We will elevate the wide-ranging, far-reaching stories and ideas of the kingdom of God in a way that unifies the church beyond ideological and political boundaries,” according to Martin. — Christianity Today
They love designer brands, parties and Donald Trump. Being a conservative young woman in 2025 may not be exactly what you imagine. — The Atlantic
End notes
A few weeks ago, I chaperoned my daughter’s third-grade class on a field trip to Plimoth Patuxet, the living museum that recreates the settlement where the Pilgrims landed after the Mayflower crossing. At one point, a student asked a guide, who was completely in his 17th century character, “Was it a pleasant trip on the Mayflower?” He didn’t hesitate: “There was nothing pleasant about it.”
The ocean wind seeped through our layers as we wandered between the timber homes and cooking fires, the ocean wind seeped through our layers.
The pilgrims’ 1621 harvest feast, shared with 90 Wampanoag people and 53 surviving colonists, was an experience of sharing gratitude to God for making it through something hard. As kids tried to conjure up what that First Thanksgiving looked like, I watched them balance both a thrill of discovery and discomfort of the gnawing cold.
Later, I came across a list of the things that a 75-year-old man named Samuel Lane was grateful for in 1793. The items on his list were concrete and simple: “Life & health of myself and family,” his Bible and other “useful books,” “for my wearing Clothes to keep me warm,” “for my Cattle, Sheep & Swine & other Creatures, for my support,” for “my clock and Watch to measure my passing time by Day,” “for Tea, Sugar, Rum, Wine, Gin, Molasses, pepper, Spice & Money for to bye other Necessaries and to pay my Debts & Taxes &c,” for “my Leather, Lamp oil & Candles, Husbandry Utensils, & other tools of every sort &c &c &c.”
The part about the warm clothing stuck with me as I thought about the field trip. The list also reminded me that attention, often in short supply today, is an important precursor to gratitude. And that it’s the consistent noticing of everyday comforts and small moments of joy, that, over time, shapes a thankful heart.