David Belden

David Belden has led an eclectic life as an activist, science fiction writer, professional carpenter, professor (with a doctorate from Oxford in the sociology of religion), business writer, magazine editor and columnist.

How We Respond to Harm

Imagine this, based on a true story. Two teenage boys are arrested for driving drunk. No one was hurt, thank goodness. They are asked to sit in a “restorative justice”

By David Belden

/ 17 Jul 2025

About Being “Woke”

I am extremely frightened that my adoptive country is in danger of losing its democracy. (I came to the USA to marry an American 44 years ago.) I realize this

By David Belden

/ 4 May 2025

The Skills We Need

Donald Trump has major skills that are useful if you want to build a harsher world, in which the strongest exact more from the weakest. Many people who have been

By David Belden

/ 22 Feb 2025

Healing a traumatized humanity

A great, and complicated, man died in August. For decades, Rabbi Michael Lerner was the leading Jewish American voice calling for Israel to understand what it had done to the

By David Belden

/ 2 Oct 2024