Is Renewal Possible?

We live in times when low-grade nihilism simmers just beneath the surface of everyday conversation, the desire for impact birthed in secular zeal soon stymied by chokeholds of institutional breakdown and pixelated trust.

We call out injustice in public but feel squeamish about acknowledging our contributions to it. We text expressions of care to one another but lack the creativity to prove it off-screen. We feel exhausted by the ever-accelerating pace of modern life, by performative politics, by the cultural demand to keep up appearances and continually refine our own identities. Cynical indifference is tempting an entire generation of young adults.

Even as we long for experiences of beauty, transcendence, and meaningful co-creation have we lost the ability to find the quiet space required to discern the movement of God?

Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment magazine and oversees our partner project, Breaking Ground. She is the host of The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-editor of Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year, published in January 2022.

Prior to leading Comment, she directed The Philanthropy Roundtable‘s Character Initiative, a program seeking to help foundations and business leaders strengthen “the middle ring” of morally formative institutions. Her path-breaking guidebook, The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape, was published in 2019. From 2014 to 2017 Anne worked for Laity Lodge and the H.E. Butt Foundation in Texas, and before that, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, World Affairs Journal and The New York Times. She is a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum and a Fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, a Houston-based think tank that explores how cities can drive opportunity for the bulk of their citizens. She has published widely, including The Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, Bittersweet Monthly and of course Comment, and now serves as a trustee for Nyack College. Anne spent the formative years of her childhood overseas before earning a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College (IL) and a master’s degree from Georgetown University. She currently lives in Washington, D.C.