Fix Democracy First is a non-profit in the state of Washington fighting to improve our Democratic processes. We have been running initiatives and projects in support of public financing of campaigns, fair elections, overturning Citizen's United, protecting voting rights and other similar efforts for almost two decades. We have recently merged with WAmend and continue to work very closely with allies, partners, and volunteers towards our common goal of getting money out of politics.
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A theological look at addiction recovery: why faith communities matter alongside treatment, and how loneliness fuels dependence in America.
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Recovery Is Sacred Work: Faith, Belonging, and the Crisis of Dependence
Sep 28, 2026
September’s observance of National Recovery Month gives us a chance to celebrate people rebuilding their lives after substance use and mental health challenges. It should also force us to ask an uncomfortable question: What kind of society leaves so many people desperate to escape their own lives?
Addiction is often described as an individual disorder. Clinically, that description matters: substance use disorders affect the brain, behavior, judgment, and physical health. Yet addiction does not develop in a vacuum. It can take root in grief, trauma, chronic pain, economic insecurity, family rupture, social isolation, or a loss of purpose. Recovery therefore requires more than abstinence. It requires a life in which connection, dignity, responsibility, and hope become possible again.
Faith-informed support can make a real difference because recovery is both personal and communal. Faith communities are often among the few institutions that can accompany people for years rather than weeks. Treatment programs may end. Insurance coverage may run out. Caseworkers change, and friends sometimes disappear. A healthy congregation can remain present through relapse, reconciliation, job searches, court dates, funerals, and ordinary Tuesday evenings when loneliness becomes especially dangerous.
That presence is not a substitute for professional treatment. Prayer does not replace medication, psychotherapy, detoxification, harm-reduction services, or emergency care. The strongest faith-informed response respects clinical evidence and understands spiritual care as one part of a wider network. It does not ask people to choose between God and medicine. It recognizes that healing may arrive through physicians, counselors, peer specialists, family members, support groups, and communities of worship.
For many people, spiritual practices contribute something clinical systems are not designed to provide: a moral and spiritual language for suffering. It allows a person to say, “My life has meaning beyond what I have done or what has happened to me.” It offers rituals for grief, practices of confession and forgiveness, opportunities for service, and a story large enough to hold both failure and hope. At its best, faith insists that no human being can be reduced to a diagnosis, criminal record, relapse, or worst decision.
That conviction is urgently needed in an era marked by loneliness, dependence, and fractured belonging. Our culture celebrates independence, but many people experience it as abandonment. We are connected to devices and detached from neighbors. Work is often insecure. Families are geographically scattered. Public spaces where people can gather without spending money have dwindled. Digital platforms promise community while training us to perform, compare, consume, and remain online. The result is a society crowded with communication but starved of dependable presence.
Co-dependence takes many forms. Some people depend on alcohol, opioids, stimulants, gambling, pornography, or compulsive shopping to quiet distress. Others become trapped in digital habits that provide stimulation without intimacy. These behaviors are not morally or medically identical, and careless comparisons can trivialize the lethal reality of substance use disorders. Still, they share a social context: a growing struggle to tolerate pain, form durable bonds, and find meaning outside consumption.
A socio-theological response begins by challenging the fantasy of the self-sufficient individual. Human beings are dependent creatures. We enter life dependent on care, remain dependent on relationships and institutions, and often leave life dependent once more. The problem is not dependence itself. The question is what—or whom—we depend upon, and whether those relationships lead toward freedom, responsibility, and mutual care.
Faith traditions have long taught that people belong to one another. In Christian language, the community is a body whose members cannot dismiss one another as unnecessary. Jewish teaching binds love of God to justice, memory, and communal obligation. Islamic practice joins worship with charity, discipline, and care for the vulnerable. Across traditions, the person is not imagined as an isolated consumer but as a neighbor, kinsperson, worshiper, and moral agent.
These teachings carry social consequences. If recovery is treated solely as a matter of private willpower, society can congratulate the successful and condemn those who struggle. A theological view of human interdependence tells a different story. It asks whether communities provide housing, health care, meaningful work, transportation, food, safety, and companionship. It examines how racism, poverty, incarceration, disability, and untreated trauma shape exposure to addiction and access to recovery. It calls for personal responsibility, but refuses to use that phrase as an excuse for public indifference.
Faith communities must also examine their own failures. Some have treated addiction as evidence of weak belief or secret sin. Some have pressured people to disclose painful histories without protecting their privacy. Shame has driven people away from congregations at precisely the moment they needed trustworthy support.
A recovery-centered theology must reject these patterns. It should understand relapse not as proof that a person is beyond hope, but as a serious event requiring renewed care, assessment, boundaries, and treatment. It should train clergy to recognize overdose risk, suicidal behavior, trauma, and domestic violence. Congregations should keep naloxone available where appropriate, build relationships with local treatment providers, support families, and create pathways into peer-led recovery groups. Good intentions are not enough; compassion needs competence.
Intervention also needs care. Families and clergy may feel compelled to confront someone whose substance use is placing lives at risk. Such action can be necessary, but it should not become an ambush built around humiliation. Effective intervention protects safety, names specific harms, offers realistic treatment options, and sets clear boundaries. Qualified professionals should guide it whenever possible. The goal is not to win an argument. It is to open a door while refusing to cooperate with destructive behavior.
Most of all, people in recovery should not be treated merely as recipients of charity. They are leaders, mentors, parents, workers, ministers, artists, and neighbors. Their experience gives them knowledge that institutions often lack. Any serious recovery ministry should include them in designing programs, shaping language, training volunteers, and evaluating results—nothing about people without them.
National Recovery Month celebrates progress, but recovery is rarely a clean ascent. It is usually built through small acts repeated over time: making a call, attending a meeting, taking prescribed medication, telling the truth, repairing a relationship, surviving a craving, finding safe housing, or returning after a setback. Faith-informed communities can honor this slow work by remaining steady when dramatic testimonies give way to ordinary life.
The deepest promise faith can offer is not that suffering will disappear. It is that suffering need not sever a person from human dignity or communal belonging. Recovery becomes possible when people encounter treatment that respects their bodies, relationships that survive honesty, and communities that expect responsibility without withdrawing love. In that shared work, healing is not only personal; it is communal and enduring.
September should remind us that recovery is more than a personal victory. It is sacred social work. When a person finds a path out of dependence, the whole community receives an invitation: to become less judgmental, more truthful, better trained, and far less willing to let anyone heal alone.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, and scholar-practitioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
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Faith leaders can help renew America's social and civil contracts by protecting every eligible vote and honoring lawful results. Here's how to get involved.
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Dignity, Democracy, and the Courage to Stay Engaged
Sep 28, 2026
Crises are arriving faster than we can absorb them: climate, loneliness, artificial intelligence, housing, addiction, debt. In communities across Washington state, what I see is not mainly anger. It is a sense of being overwhelmed.
When everything feels urgent, people are tempted to withdraw. And when enough of us quietly withdraw, we can begin to believe that nothing works anymore and the rules no longer apply.
In moments like these, we need to return to essential questions: Who counts as fully human? What respect do we owe one another? And how will we put those answers into everyday practice?
Our religious and ethical traditions carry generations of reflection on these questions. In my Christian tradition, every human being bears the image of One Creator. Every one. That conviction challenges every attempt to reserve dignity for the powerful, the familiar, or our own group. My belief in One Creator commands me to recognize all people as human beings—joined in a dignity and identity that transcends our differences.
Jesus spoke of “another commandment like” belief in One Creator: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It refuses to let us love only our own group, for we are part of a larger one: human.
Apply this to elections: The right to vote is based on the dignity of every person and the worth of every group.
Other traditions offer their own understandings of compassion, reciprocity, responsibility, and accountability. Their differences matter. And yet even though our beliefs are very different, the basic moral agreements in these traditions are strikingly similar.
Call this our social contract: the commitment to treat one another as people whose dignity and well-being matter. We inherit this contract, but each generation must decide whether to practice it.
Our civil contract gives the social contract a public framework: constitutions, laws, courts, elections and terms of office. It establishes how we exercise power, resolve disputes and hold leaders accountable at scale.
The Declaration of Independence’s assertion that “all men are created equal” named a promise the nation’s founders did not fully achieve. Slavery, the treatment of Indigenous peoples, and exclusion of women were embedded in our beginnings. Yet, inspired by the founders’ vision, generations of Americans have worked to make equality a reality. The response to a broken promise is not to abandon it, but to make changes to fulfill it.
Our traditions don’t just carry values; they remind us that multiple values inform our actions. The prophet Micah calls us to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Justice and kindness, love of self and neighbor belong in the same life.
Apply this to elections: Only eligible voters should vote. Every eligible voter should be able to vote safely and have that vote counted accurately. These commitments support each other. Together, they protect our shared ability to choose our leaders.
Free, fair, and safe elections also require a commitment that lasts beyond Election Day: honoring the lawful outcome. Recounts and legal challenges have their place. We must examine evidence and correct errors through established processes. Our willingness to accept the result cannot depend on whether our preferred candidate wins.
That is where our two contracts become personal. Can I recognize my neighbor’s equal standing when their vote helps defeat my candidate? Can I remain committed to our shared rules when I am disappointed or afraid?
Faith communities can help us practice those commitments. Congregations, synagogues, mosques, temples, and sanghas ground people in the deep values of the social contract. They offer places to grieve, examine our conduct, repair harm, and begin again.
The work is ordinary and concrete. Help people register and vote. Encourage people across political differences to serve as poll workers. Check rumors before forwarding them, starting with the ones that flatter your side. Pray publicly for an honest count and for the losing side’s dignity. Commit in advance to nonviolence. When something goes wrong, pursue accountability through lawful means.
This is the purpose of Faith in America, a partnership that includes Paths to Understanding, Braver Angels, and Interfaith America. We are inviting people across religious and political differences to support free, fair, and safe elections. We provide resources to help leaders in doing so. www.braverangels.org/faith-in-america.
Online prayer gatherings are planned for October 11 and November 1. The invitation also includes recording a one-minute video explaining why these elections matter, ideally alongside someone with whom you disagree.
These actions make a public promise: We will stay engaged. We will protect one another’s participation. We will hold ourselves to the commitments we ask others to keep.
An election cannot resolve every crisis. But how we conduct it — and how we respond afterward — helps determine whether we retain the capacity to face those crises together.
We inherit teachings about our obligations to one another. We write rules for our common life. In this anxious moment, we must renew both contracts through what we do and how we respect each other.
That is how we build a country where we can belong and thrive together.
Rev. Terry Kyllo is a Lutheran pastor and directs Paths to Understanding, a Washington State organization working to gather neighbors and grow trust, and a leadership partner in Faith in America.
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Young adult friends sitting on concrete stairs, talking and smiling while holding books on a college campus
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My Students Are Politically Apathetic. Here’s What Colleges Can Do To Get Them Involved and Engaged.
Sep 27, 2026
A recent national poll conducted by Harvard University revealed that young Americans are a pessimistic bunch. People between ages 18 and 29 view inflation and the rising cost of housing as national crises. More than a quarter of young adults believe they’ll end up worse off financially than their parents. And only 13% say the country is on the right track.
Yet when it comes to doing something about it — such as voting — Gen Z is pretty apathetic. Fewer than half of young Americans voted in the 2024 elections. With the midterms fast approaching, the Harvard survey found that just 35% of Gen Z definitely plan to vote — but without much enthusiasm. Only about 1 in 10 (12%) feel motivated to participate.
Ideally, developing civic engagement and political socialization skills begins at home, with young people listening to their parents discussing the news and going with them to vote. Then, throughout elementary, middle, and high school, students should be formally learning about American democracy and how government works. Long before they reach college, young people should have learned to listen to other people and hold civil conversations.
But whatever civic and political awareness young people are gaining before entering college, it has been smothered by their frustration and disconnection from the larger world. It seems like absolutely everyone around them — their parents, their classmates, their real and parasocial friends on social media — are yelling about everything. They are bringing this attack-first approach with them to college and the communities where they will live as adults.
Although colleges might not think it’s their job to teach their students how to talk about civics, government and American democracy, it is. Instead of leaving families, the internet, and the nation’s K-12 schools to do the heavy lifting, institutions can help their students learn civic discourse by getting them to grapple with these three questions.
First: Why should we care?
For a generation that possesses little in the way of civic obligation, classes that touch on government and democracy should start with this fundamental question. In Oklahoma, where I was born, raised, and teach, all students who want to earn a college degree must take American Federal Government, a political science course that teaches them about the U.S. government, political parties, political theory and behavior, and civil rights.
But just because this course appears on their degree plan doesn’t mean that students understand why it’s so important to learn about civil liberties, the separation of powers, and the Electoral College. As the Founders might have said, it’s not self-evident.
I start each class by explaining the “why.” Although much of what I teach focuses on what’s happening in Washington, D.C., I urge my students to think about these issues in the context of their friends and neighbors. Government is about establishing the rules we all use to get along, resolve our disagreements, and live our lives. Civil society works only if we care about one another and can use discourse and dialogue to reach consensus on even the most polarizing and divisive issues.
Second: How do I advocate for things I care about when I’m scared of the reaction I’ll get?
Online discourse is rough and tumble — so much so that many students simply don’t bother to start conversations. My students missed out on crucial socialization opportunities during the pandemic by being isolated at home. That makes virtual discussions difficult for them. In-person conversations are nearly impossible. They’re scared to advocate for family, friends, or their community for fear of being ignored or even canceled.
Having hard conversations are fundamental to creating a viable civil society. Removing this intimidation barrier so students will express an opinion and back it up is critical.
Rose State College has been fortunate to partner with Unify America, whose Civic Gym initiative gives my students a forgiving space to build their civic muscles and practice having civil discussions. The program paired my students with students from other colleges across the country for a structured virtual one-on-one discussion about the issues of the day. In many instances, students agree. When they don’t, the program helps them find some common ground and figure out a way to disagree with respect and with understanding of where the other person is coming from. Not only did my students become more informed about issues facing Oklahoma and the nation, they got to hone their dialogue and thinking skills — skills that should serve them well long after they leave my classroom.
Third: How do I really learn about these issues?
Reading, researching, and talking to other people are great ways to learn about politics and government. The best ways are to see it in action.
Our campus is only about 15 minutes from the state capitol in Oklahoma City, so I take my classes to meet with lawmakers and interest groups, advocate for an issue they’re passionate about, and make their voices heard. If I taught at a more remote campus, I’d urge my students to attend school board and town council meetings to see their local government at work and engage with their local elected officials.
Immersive, first-hand civic experiences such as these are invaluable. Plus, they get my students to practice their conversation skills.
Learning about civic discourse is more than just government, politics and voting. It’s about building community and learning valuable skills — communications, critical thinking, disagreeing in a civil way — that will help students at home, at work, and throughout their lives.
Emily Stacey is a Professor of Political Science at Rose State College.
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United States Capitol building shows classical architecture and an American flag waving against a clear blue sky.
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Our Democracy Is a Beast, When It Should Be a Buffalo
Sep 27, 2026
The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists.
We asked Alejo Cruz, a Fall Fulcrum Fellow, to share what democracy means to him and how he sees its current health.
Every election cycle, we the people are subject to different takes on democracy. It’s essentially become America’s favorite mad-lib — each new phrase stitches something new onto the idea of democracy for the people to rationalize in their minds. Democracy is [x], democracy is [y]. But the word “democracy” was originally a byproduct of two concepts. The root words being “demos,” meaning “the common people” and “kratos” meaning “power/rule”. The word itself is simple, yet the idea has become complex… and beastly.
Democracy does not need another definition; It doesn’t need another pundit, politician, or podcaster to overcomplicate it. Just as poets cannot debate their interpretation of a poem before agreeing on its prose, new interpretations of democracy will keep misdirecting discussion unless we agree on what democracy means. By minimizing democracy to its simplest terms, we can then begin to make sense of our differences. By cutting away the connotations that have turned “democracy” into a beast of a word, we learn the debate is not with democracy itself. But rather with the people it governs.
The beast created by ancient Athens was a simple creature. Combined, democracy meant that the common people have power. Every other characteristic we associate with democracy (i.e., electoralism, liberalism, egalitarianism) was added after years of people trying to make sense of the word. That’s not to say that these characteristics are invalid– equal rights, individual freedoms, and free and fair elections have been the basis on which American progress has been founded. These are the cornerstones of our democracy that make the United States so desirable.
But American democracy has been reduced to a chimera, with each generation of politicians stitching a new part onto a beast so distorted it exists for us as a distant dream.
Somewhere along the line, democracy became more of an idea rather than a practice.
Disillusioned, the American people don’t know what to make of a beast with the ears of a donkey, the trunk of an elephant, and the wings of an eagle, all stitched onto the body of a buffalo we were told could fly.
As the U.S. grew, so did our democracy. Westward expansion gave our beast the arms of a grizzly and tail of a scorpion, turning our democracy into the stuff of legends. But in creating a powerful democracy, we gave life to a beast that is a mere echo of what we had at the start. Unrecognizable and ravenous, we’ve set our democracy loose on the world — and it’s out for blood. From the jungles of Latin America to the islands of Southeast Asia, we’ve let the beast roam free under the pretense of spreading “democracy.”
The American chimera is sick and hungry. But how do we, as a nation, feed the beast? How do we satiate the democracy we so quickly defend? And how will we justify creating a creature that consumes without end? We feed it our tired, our poor; turning our backs on the homeless with barbed wire at the door.
All that to say that our democracy is not well. One can point to our civil rights, liberties, and elections and claim that our democracy remains robust. But how can a country pride itself on a system that gives power to the people, when its people are at the mercy of power? Instead, the power has been consolidated amongst the ones with the time and resources to participate.
Participation is a prerequisite to a sound democracy, yet it’s taken historic political polarization in the U.S. for voter turnout to rise. And even at our peak, elections have only reached about two-thirds of the American population. And while that may be cause for celebration, whose voices are being left out of the conversation? Who are the Americans being fed this idea of democracy, but hunger for something of sustenance?
An overworked mother may “have” the resources, but little time. An unhoused man may “have” time, but little resources. How are either expected to participate in a democracy that does not consider them members of the people Capitol Hill is supposed to represent? It’s far too easy for the opposition to blame those who have not had the privilege of participating in democracy. Lack of civic engagement is often framed as a personal shortcoming, rather than a systemic issue. But as someone who has watched my mother be drained of her youth and my father stripped of his humanity, no one can convince me that their existence is a flaw in our democracy. When it is our flawed democracy that has neglected their existence.
We’ve reached a point in our democracy where people are priced out of power. And that’s because those in power do not view certain Americans as the people our government is meant to represent. The beast we’ve created feeds on the marginalized to protect those that can afford to be regarded as people. It’s time we strip the beast of its power and see it for what it is: a fantasy. If we are to cure our democracy of its ailments, we must reduce it back to its simplest terms. America must return to the buffalo and begin again.
Alejo Cruz is a student at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Cruz draws on his experience growing up in an immigrant household and his reporting with unhoused people and asylum seekers to center human rights and community voices in his journalism, a commitment he hopes to deepen through solutions‑focused reporting with The Fulcrum.
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