Latest news with #ElizabethBruenig
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Politics
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The Atlantic 's July Cover Story: Elizabeth Bruenig's 'Witness,' on Sin and Redemption in America's Death Chambers
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. 'Capital punishment operates according to an emotional logic,' staff writer Elizabeth Bruenig writes in her July cover story for The Atlantic. 'Vengeance is elemental. Injustice cries out for redress. Murder is the most horrifying of crimes, and it seems only fitting to pair it with the most horrifying of punishments.' But as a Christian—embracing the doctrine that we're all sinners in need of redemption—Bruenig explains that she is interested in forgiveness and mercy, which are 'some of my faith's most stringent dictates. If those forms of compassion are possible for murderers, then they're possible for everyone.' For her first Atlantic cover story, Bruenig draws on the past five years of her reporting on death row. Bruenig has witnessed five executions of death-row inmates, and has also helped bring attention to the prevalence of botched executions: that is, the seeming inability of executioners in some states to kill the condemned humanely. Further, she has formed relationships, even friendships, with prisoners awaiting execution. In 2023, Bruenig was named a Pulitzer finalist for her reporting on Alabama's death row. Alabama has now banned Bruenig from its prisons. In an editor's note to lead the issue, also published today, The Atlantic's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, writes that Bruenig 'possesses an almost-otherworldly toughness that has allowed her to witness, again and again, the unnatural act of state-sanctioned killing,' adding that Bruenig 'does not flinch from any of the ugliness of capital punishment, and, crucially, she does not flinch from the appalling crimes committed by so many of the men on death row.' Goldberg continues: 'For understandable reasons, people turn away from the subject of capital punishment. But Liz has done a remarkable thing here—she has written a propulsive narrative about redemption and sin and invested her story with humanity and grace.' Also accompanying the article is a series of original paintings by The Atlantic's creative director, Peter Mendelsund, including a striking cover image of a corridor leading to an execution chamber, and a prisoner lying on the table within it. When she witnessed her first execution, Bruenig writes: 'The only certainty I had going into the Indiana death chamber in December 2020 was the simple sense that it's generally wrong to kill people, even bad people. What I witnessed on this occasion and the ones that came after has not changed my conviction that capital punishment must end. But in sometimes-unexpected ways, it has changed my understanding of why.' Bruenig writes that 'capital punishment as an institution relies on judgment at every level: judgment about guilt, about fairness, about proportion, about pain and cruelty, about the possibility of redemption. Judgment about how to carry out a death sentence and how to behave as one does so. And then there is the judgment that must be directed at oneself and one's community—the distant, sometimes-forgotten participants. In all of this, I see the arc of my own evolving comprehension.' The cover story also addresses how these questions have touched her own family's life: When Bruenig's sister-in-law was murdered, nearly a decade ago, her husband and father-in-law both stood opposed to the death penalty. (The killer was ultimately sentenced to 40 years in prison.) 'Choosing mercy is the moral path even in the hardest cases—even if you believe that some people deserve execution,' Bruenig writes, 'and even if you know for a fact that the person in question is guilty and unrepentant.' She writes: 'To default to mercy is to impose limitations on one's own power to retaliate, and to acknowledge our flawed nature. To a Christian, mercy derives from charity. And in the liminal space where families of murder victims are recruited into the judicial process—to either bless or condemn a prosecutor's intentions—showing mercy is an especially heroic decision. To think this way is to understand that the moral dimension of capital punishment is not just about what we do to others. It's also about what we do to ourselves.' Elizabeth Bruenig's '' was published today at Please reach out with any questions or requests to interview Bruenig on her reporting. Press contacts: Anna Bross and Paul Jackson | The Atlantic press@ Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
a day ago
- Atlantic
's July Cover Story: Elizabeth Bruenig's 'Witness,' on Sin and Redemption in America's Death Chambers
'Capital punishment operates according to an emotional logic,' staff writer Elizabeth Bruenig writes in her July cover story for The Atlantic. 'Vengeance is elemental. Injustice cries out for redress. Murder is the most horrifying of crimes, and it seems only fitting to pair it with the most horrifying of punishments.' But as a Christian—embracing the doctrine that we're all sinners in need of redemption—Bruenig explains that she is interested in forgiveness and mercy, which are 'some of my faith's most stringent dictates. If those forms of compassion are possible for murderers, then they're possible for everyone.' For her first Atlantic cover story, Bruenig draws on the past five years of her reporting on death row. Bruenig has witnessed five executions of death-row inmates, and has also helped bring attention to the prevalence of botched executions: that is, the seeming inability of executioners in some states to kill the condemned humanely. Further, she has formed relationships, even friendships, with prisoners awaiting execution. In 2023, Bruenig was named a Pulitzer finalist for her reporting on Alabama's death row. Alabama has now banned Bruenig from its prisons. In an editor's note to lead the issue, also published today, The Atlantic 's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, writes that Bruenig 'possesses an almost-otherworldly toughness that has allowed her to witness, again and again, the unnatural act of state-sanctioned killing,' adding that Bruenig 'does not flinch from any of the ugliness of capital punishment, and, crucially, she does not flinch from the appalling crimes committed by so many of the men on death row.' Goldberg continues: 'For understandable reasons, people turn away from the subject of capital punishment. But Liz has done a remarkable thing here—she has written a propulsive narrative about redemption and sin and invested her story with humanity and grace.' Also accompanying the article is a series of original paintings by The Atlantic 's creative director, Peter Mendelsund, including a striking cover image of a corridor leading to an execution chamber, and a prisoner lying on the table within it. When she witnessed her first execution, Bruenig writes: 'The only certainty I had going into the Indiana death chamber in December 2020 was the simple sense that it's generally wrong to kill people, even bad people. What I witnessed on this occasion and the ones that came after has not changed my conviction that capital punishment must end. But in sometimes-unexpected ways, it has changed my understanding of why.' Bruenig writes that 'capital punishment as an institution relies on judgment at every level: judgment about guilt, about fairness, about proportion, about pain and cruelty, about the possibility of redemption. Judgment about how to carry out a death sentence and how to behave as one does so. And then there is the judgment that must be directed at oneself and one's community—the distant, sometimes-forgotten participants. In all of this, I see the arc of my own evolving comprehension.' The cover story also addresses how these questions have touched her own family's life: When Bruenig's sister-in-law was murdered, nearly a decade ago, her husband and father-in-law both stood opposed to the death penalty. (The killer was ultimately sentenced to 40 years in prison.) 'Choosing mercy is the moral path even in the hardest cases—even if you believe that some people deserve execution,' Bruenig writes, 'and even if you know for a fact that the person in question is guilty and unrepentant.' She writes: 'To default to mercy is to impose limitations on one's own power to retaliate, and to acknowledge our flawed nature. To a Christian, mercy derives from charity. And in the liminal space where families of murder victims are recruited into the judicial process—to either bless or condemn a prosecutor's intentions—showing mercy is an especially heroic decision. To think this way is to understand that the moral dimension of capital punishment is not just about what we do to others. It's also about what we do to ourselves.' Press contacts: Anna Bross and Paul Jackson | The Atlantic
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
When My Teacher Made Me Pray
When I was in second grade, my teacher made us pray that the law would change so that a day at school could once again begin with a prayer. I was 7, but even at that age, I knew there was something nonsensical about praying to be allowed to pray. This was at a public school outside Philadelphia in the 1960s, not that long after the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools violated the Constitution. In our predominantly Catholic neighborhood, my family, with its three kids, seemed to me to be abnormally small. There were 30 students or more in that class, and I was probably the only Jewish kid. I bowed my head to my desk and mouthed the words the teacher asked us to recite. She also asked us to bring Bibles to class. I don't know why—maybe to ascertain who among us had one at home. We didn't have anything at home we called a Bible. My family attended a Reform synagogue, and we were not particularly observant. But I would have known by then that I was different from my classmates, because we did not celebrate Christmas. I felt singled out as different, Bible-less and unholy, and it caused me to shut down. That year, I came home with C's and D's on my report cards. [Elizabeth Bruenig: Who counts as Christian?] When my parents asked what was wrong, I would say 'nothing.' I was a middle child, and my role in the family was to never be too much trouble. But my silence ran deeper than that. I knew that if I told my parents about my teacher, they would go to my school and raise objections. That would shine an even brighter spotlight on me, which was the last thing I wanted. I must have figured that it was better for my parents to think I was kind of dumb. I've thought about that long-ago experience a lot recently, now that religion, and specifically Christianity, is ascending in public life. A couple weeks ago, Pete Hegseth, the nation's top military leader, led what was called the 'Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service' at the Pentagon. As described in a New York Times story, it sounded like a revival meeting. 'This is precisely where I need to be, and I think exactly where we need to be as a nation, at this moment,' Hegseth said: 'in prayer, on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.' He continued, 'King Jesus, we come humbly before you, seeking your face, seeking your grace, in humble obedience to your law and to your word.' In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign legislation requiring classrooms in the state's roughly 9,000 public schools to be postered with copies of the Ten Commandments. This school year, for the first time, teachers in Oklahoma were ordered to keep a Bible in their classroom: 'Every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom,' said the state superintendent. He stressed the historical importance of the text for America's Founding Fathers and suggested that it could be brought into science classes as part of discussions about how it inspired investigations into 'God's creation.' He expected 'immediate and strict compliance' with the mandate. To make the case for more religious content in schools and elsewhere in public life, proponents often argue that the Fathers were men of faith who believed that the nation and even the Constitution itself were divinely inspired. History suggests this is an exaggeration at best. The Founders were men of the Enlightenment, and some, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, were attracted to Deism—a belief system that stresses rationality over superstition and rejects the notion of a supreme being who intervenes in the universe. That's a long way from the Christian nationalism of Hegseth and others who are now seeking to bring their faith into the public square. [Molly Worthen: What the fastest-growing Christian group reveals about America] But we are of course a Christian nation and probably will always remain so. No one knows that better than non-Christians. It is a fact of life, and not an unhappy one, or at least not for me. I am married to a woman who grew up attending a Presbyterian church. We raised our children in both of our traditions. There is a big difference, however, between the choices we make and the ones forced on us. The aggressive push to flood the nation with religious faith—a specific faith, and a particular strain of that faith—undermines any notion of American plurality. It comes at a cost not just to the nation, but to individual Americans. You want to advance in Hegseth's Pentagon? You would do well to attend one of his prayer services—they are going to be held monthly—to pray, and to do so conspicuously and in full voice. Thirty-one million people live in Texas—67 percent of whom identify as Christian. The rest, about 10 million Texans, are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or a mix that a Pew Research Center study identified as atheists, agnostics, and 'nothing in particular.' Some children from those families will now have to sit in school while a faith other than their own is pressed on them. They'll feel, as I did, like an interloper—unwelcome in their own classroom. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
5 days ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
When They Made Me Pray in School
When I was in second grade, my teacher made us pray that the law would change so that a day at school could once again begin with a prayer. I was 7, but even at that age, I knew there was something nonsensical about praying to be allowed to pray. This was at a public school outside Philadelphia in the 1960s, not that long after the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools violated the Constitution. In our predominantly Catholic neighborhood, my family, with its three kids, seemed to me to be abnormally small. There were 30 students or more in that class, and I was probably the only Jewish kid. I bowed my head to my desk and mouthed the words the teacher asked us to recite. She also asked us to bring Bibles to class. I don't know why—maybe to ascertain who among us had one at home. We didn't have anything at home we called a Bible. My family attended a Reform synagogue, and we were not particularly observant. But I would have known by then that I was different from my classmates, because we did not celebrate Christmas. I felt singled out as different, Bible-less and unholy, and it caused me to shut down. That year, I came home with C's and D's on my report cards. Elizabeth Bruenig: Who counts as Christian? When my parents asked what was wrong, I would say 'nothing.' I was a middle child, and my role in the family was to never be too much trouble. But my silence ran deeper than that. I knew that if I told my parents about my teacher, they would go to my school and raise objections. That would shine an even brighter spotlight on me, which was the last thing I wanted. I must have figured that it was better for my parents to think I was kind of dumb. I've thought about that long-ago experience a lot recently, now that religion, and specifically Christianity, is ascending in public life. A couple weeks ago, Pete Hegseth, the nation's top military leader, led what was called the 'Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service' at the Pentagon. As described in a New York Times story, it sounded like a revival meeting. 'This is precisely where I need to be, and I think exactly where we need to be as a nation, at this moment,' Hegseth said: 'in prayer, on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.' He continued, 'King Jesus, we come humbly before you, seeking your face, seeking your grace, in humble obedience to your law and to your word.' In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign legislation requiring classrooms in the state's roughly 9,000 public schools to be postered with copies of the Ten Commandments. This school year, for the first time, teachers in Oklahoma were ordered to keep a Bible in their classroom: 'Every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom,' said the state superintendent. He stressed the historical importance of the text for America's Founding Fathers and suggested that it could be brought into science classes as part of discussions about how it inspired investigations into 'God's creation.' He expected 'immediate and strict compliance' with the mandate. To make the case for more religious content in schools and elsewhere in public life, proponents often argue that the Fathers were men of faith who believed that the nation and even the Constitution itself were divinely inspired. History suggests this is an exaggeration at best. The Founders were men of the Enlightenment, and some, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, were attracted to Deism—a belief system that stresses rationality over superstition and rejects the notion of a supreme being who intervenes in the universe. That's a long way from the Christian nationalism of Hegseth and others who are now seeking to bring their faith into the public square. Molly Worthen: What the fastest-growing Christian group reveals about America But we are of course a Christian nation and probably will always remain so. No one knows that better than non-Christians. It is a fact of life, and not an unhappy one, or at least not for me. I am married to a woman who grew up attending a Presbyterian church. We raised our children in both of our traditions. There is a big difference, however, between the choices we make and the ones forced on us. The aggressive push to flood the nation with religious faith—a specific faith, and a particular strain of that faith—undermines any notion of American plurality. It comes at a cost not just to the nation, but to individual Americans. You want to advance in Hegseth's Pentagon? You would do well to attend one of his prayer services—they are going to be held monthly—to pray, and to do so conspicuously and in full voice. Thirty-one million people live in Texas—67 percent of whom identify as Christian. The rest, about 10 million Texans, are Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or a mix that a Pew Research Center study identified as atheists, agnostics, and 'nothing in particular.' Some children from those families will now have to sit in school while a faith other than their own is pressed on them.
