Talia Lavin is a journalist who writes a great newsletter called The Sword and the Sandwich that alternates between social and cultural analysis and reviews of famous sandwiches (I know that seems like an odd combination but it works). In a recent issue she looked at the rise of prophetic religious movements and attitudes in the US:
“Looking into the eyes of those struck by a prophet, you can perceive a ravenous hunger for connection: that the touch of the hand or the breath from the mouth of a charismatic preacher can fill you with the wind of God; that you are not alone in the universe; that you and the rest of the flock can shore up an island of sanctuary for yourselves, and watch in comfort as the world drowns. It is the hunger to be among the elect, and to be immortal, to be one with the Divine, and to welcome the end times. It is the hunger to turn Fortune’s Wheel with your own hands to your own ends, to guide its revolutions, to cast down the capricious goddess and lift up the prophet in his certainty and zeal.”
