Molly Worthen

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Freelance Journalist | Professor of History — University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Molly Worthen is professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She lectures widely on religion and politics and teaches courses on North American religious and intellectual culture, global Christianity, and the history of ideas. She writes about religion, politics, and higher education for The New York Times and has also contributed to The New Yorker, Slate, The American Prospect, Foreign Policy, and other publications. She is the author of Spellbound, Apostles of Reason and The Man On Whom Nothing Was Lost.

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Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump

Everyone feels it. Cultural and political life in America has become unrecognizable and strange. Firebrands and would-be sages have taken the place of...

Featured on: Wednesday, August 20, 2025

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May 29, 2026

Penna Dexter

Stunning Reversal

Penna Dexter Two years ago, I complained that: “Radical transgender directives just keep coming from the executive branch of the federal government.” There’s been a stunning reversal. States fought ba...

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May 29, 2026

Kerby Anderson

TV Dinners to Smartphones

Kerby Anderson Columnist Bob Greene noticed a connection between TV Dinners and smartphones. In fact, he says the 1950s meal was a gateway drug for screen addiction. He believes that our zombie-like a...

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Secret service surround shot president trump

May 28, 2026

Kerby Anderson

Political Fantasy

Kerby Anderson A recent poll of Americans conducted by NewsGuard and YouGov is disturbing on its face. It is even more concerning the deeper you delve into the data. The topline comment is that a siza...

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