By my latest calculation, the roughly half-million people who make up WORLD’s readers and listeners each week are likely to divide their votes next month among three different groupings:

Those who hope to elect Donald Trump—Something well over 50 percent. Half will be enthusiastic about their choice, and others will cast their ballots under duress.

Those who favor Joe Biden—If it’s over 25 percent, almost everyone will be surprised. Only a handful will be excited about that choice.

I finally found some “common ground.” Not quite what I was looking for, but as best I can tell, it’s an issue where Republicans and Democrats seem to have virtual agreement. 

They’ll do that by simply remaining silent.

The topic is debt retirement. I may repeat myself—but it’s important to our families and businesses; our churches and schools; our city, state, and national economies; and to the world.

Of all the criticisms President Trump has to live with, you don’t often hear him called a cowardly middle-of-the-roader. You may not like his position on any particular issue, but you probably know what he thinks.

Immigration? The Washington “swamp”? Free trade with China? Prisoners of war like the late John McCain? No hugging the stripe at the center of the road. You know what your president thinks. Or at least what, on the record, he says he thinks!

Calling someone a “single-issue voter” may be accurate—but not the fastest way to win that person as a lifelong friend.

I know that to be the case based on experience. When someone says I’m a “single-­issue thinker,” I hear them calling me shallow, superficial, simplistic, and probably at least a little bit lazy.

WORLD readers (and listeners!) are typically surprised when I tell them that the idea for such a magazine was originally born out of a ministry to children. It’s a story worth retelling.

In the 34 years since we published the first issue of WORLD Magazine, perhaps half a dozen names leap off the pages as truly memorable one-on-one interviews I was privileged to pursue with notable people. And of those half-dozen interviewees, none ranks higher than the British-born theologian J.I. Packer, who died on July 17.

Which makes it more embarrassing to tell you of my carelessness with that interview. 

Every now and then—and sometimes when the swamps of Washington seem most impenetrable—a notably bright light dawns. That happened earlier this month when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled convincingly in favor of religious liberty for the nation’s schools.