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Faith beat: Gen Z’s Commodified Christianity

Gen Z’s interest in Christianity is booming, but they seem to be “just finding content about God,” laments Freya India at The Free Press. Ample content online — from influencers, podcasts and hashtags to Bible apps and subscriptions — makes “learning about the faith” feel “easier than ever,” but yields a “shallow faith,” one “fast and convenient.” Beyond the apparent “gamification of Christianity,” religious apps share the same problem as Instagram communities or online porn: You encounter “the virtual version of everything first, before the real thing.” Instead, offer Gen Zers “something otherworldly” that “doesn’t abide by market logic”; warn them that faith is complex and “to know more about it, the subscribe button won’t help.” They must “step into church.”

Libertarian: The Cost of Degrowth

Thomas Piketty, the “rock star” French economist, offers a plan for “global managed decline dressed up in the language of climate justice and equality,” warns Reason’s Veronique de Rugy. He’d “cap gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in wealthy countries at roughly $69,000.” This allows just 0.115% annual growth for the United States, which now averages over 3%. Anyway, it’s impossible to “restructure the global economy at that scale without a coercive apparatus that dwarfs anything in human........

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