I spent much of 2023-2024 working through The Bible Project’s study on The Sermon on the Mount, obsessively listening and relistening to the 450+ podcast episodes in their backlog, going through many of their in-depth, seminary level Classroom sessions, and watching their beautiful explainer videos.

I found myself laser focused on this content that was making me fall completely in love with Scriptures in a way I’ve never been before, making sense out of things I’d always puzzled over, and expanding my understanding of the story of the Bible. I found myself reading dozens of books related to topics brought up, and I found myself fundamentally changing in ways I wasn’t aware I could change for the better.

And all of this was happening in parallel with me losing my local church to corruption, dealing with repugnant Christian Nationalism in every corner, and struggling to find a Christian community that valued the lives of the poor, marginalized, and indigent.

In that context I began to question things I’d never questioned before. Like, “What does it mean to love your enemy in a Christo-fascist country? What does an appropriate use of violence look like in a Christo-fascist society? Is there ever an appropriate use of violence, or is creative, subversive, non-violence always the way of Jesus? How do I reach my MAGA neighbors who are held captive to this strong delusion? Is that my place?

All of these are questions that I am still wrestling with. To be honest, I think the answer is going to be different for all of us. But I do know for sure that cooperating with the fascists, kowtowing to the fascists, collaborating with the fascists — none of those are the way of Christ. And with their Christian Nationalism mixed in there, to cooperate, kowtow, or collaborate with them is also blasphemy.

Sunday Spotlight on The Helpers

Dr. Rubins : A double board-certified pediatrician and allergist who is using his Substack platform to freely distribute daily information about current food/medicine recalls while the Health And Human Services Departments are under the Trump gag order

The WHO has newsletters that you can subscribe to in order to keep up with World Health now that the US has withdrawn

Veterans Fighting Fascism and Task Force Butler is a group of vets who are working “gather evidence of criminality by extremist organizations so that they can be held accountable in court of law”. They are a small organization in need of donations, who are flighting back against this.