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Week before last, I wrote this: I've always supported the health-care reform law, and I remain mostly optimistic about it (despite this week's tech glitches). But the point I take from [Obamacare convert Butch] Matthews isn't that people will agree with me about stuff once they have the facts. It's that if Obamacare's coverage expansions don't work out as well as we supporters expect them to, we should acknowledge this—rather than going down the endless path of confirmation bias and doubling down on existing loyalties. In that spirit: I was wrong when I dismissed the problems with the Obamacare exchange rollout as mere "glitches" confined to a parenthetical aside.

New today from the Century: Pastor Francis, Obamacare's unimpressive first two weeks, more.

Chesterton wrote that what St. Benedict stored, St. Francis scattered. It was a prophetic phrase.

I have great respect and gratitude for our democratic system. But my respect and gratitude are being tried.

I’ve been thinking about Jacob a good deal lately, so for this week’s Century lectionary column I wrote about Jacob and the angel. But I also rather wanted to write about the Gospel reading, the Unjust Judge parable from Luke. I wanted to write about the parable because on the surface it is a bit nonsensical.

New today from the Century: Carol Howard Merritt on avoiding tokenism, John Buchanan on cynicism about government, more.

Wanting to avoid tokenism is important. But it's a terrible excuse for our indolent inability to see beyond our own thought bubbles. 

Our fall books issue's reviews include Greg Carey on Reza Aslan, Katherine Willis Pershey on Debbie Blue, Philip Jenkins on Diarmaid MacCulloch and more.

There was a good bit of incredulity in my Twitter feed the other day in reaction to the interview with Antonin Scalia in which he confessed to belief in the devil. His response to the interviewer should have silenced the Twitterverse.

New today from the Century: Bromleigh McCleneghan on National Coming Out Day, Mark Braverman reviews Rashid Khalidi, more.