#Black Pastors Trump

[afriblaq]

"These runaway slaves hiding in the white house"

[this-is-me19]

Just a friendly reminder…

The above, I’m pretty sure is based on Pastor Martin Niemoller’s poem “First they came for…”:

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

[jccheapalier]

Rooftop Revelations: People got rich off identity politics. Now, we’re m...

[jenks378]

Black Pastor CLAPS BACK At Joy Reid For Crying Over White People Being A...

[socialjusticeinamerica]

“The ownership of the Proud Boys' trademark is now in the hands of a Black church that the White supremacist group vandalized in 2020.

The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., was granted ownership of the group's trademark in a Feb. 3 ruling from Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The decision also gives the Metropolitan AME Church a lien on the trademark and the power to block the Proud Boys from using the trademark or selling licensed goods, like T-shirts or hats, without the church's approval.

Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys' leader, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement to the New York Times, which earlier reported the court ruling, and which Tarrio posted on X, he said the judge should be impeached and the church's nonprofit status revoked.

Tarrio, who had been serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy tied to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building, was pardoned by President Trump after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

The ruling on the Proud Boys' copyright stems from an incident on Dec. 12, 2020, when members of the all-male right-wing group attended a "stop the steal" event in Washington, D.C., and also attacked the Metropolitan AME Church by climbing over a fence to get onto church property, where they destroyed a "Black Lives Matters" sign, according to court documents. A court ordered the Proud Boys to pay the church $2.8 million, money that the group has failed to pay, the documents note.

As a result, the court gave the Metropolitan AME Church ownership of the trademark, giving them the right to deny use of the group's name and yellow or black laurel wreath symbol.

"This is our time to stand up, to be very clear to the Proud Boys and their ilk that we came here fighting, that we have never ever capitulated to the violent whims of White supremacist groups," Rev. William H. Lamar IV, pastor of the Metropolitan AME Church, told CBS MoneyWatch. "If they thought we would be afraid, they were wrong. There are many people with us and who stand with us."

The Metropolitan AME Church, which was founded in 1838 and has hosted speakers including Frederick Douglass and Eleanor Roosevelt, can now collect funds from sales of Proud Boys merchandise as well as its membership dues, people familiar with the case said. The church can also block the Proud Boys from using the trademark, they said.

The notoriety of the Proud Boys' name likely helped the group in recruitment, which means blocking use of its trademark could both hurt the group's ability to sell merchandise and recruit new members, they added.

"From our point of view, it's fitting that the money the Proud Boys raised in sales and dues will go to fund the good work of the Metropolitan AME," Kaitlin Banner, who represented the church in the case and serves as deputy legal director at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, told CBS.

In his statement posted on X, Tarrio indicated he didn't intend to honor the court's ruling. "I hold in contempt any motions, judgments and orders issued against me," he wrote.”

[allthegeopolitics]

Shopping giant Target is facing a huge backlash, including calls for a boycott from a Black pastor and civil rights leader, after it said it was ending some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Just four days after Trump’s inauguration, Target issued an announcement stating that it planned to eliminate hiring goals for minority employees, as well as ending an executive committee focused on racial justice. Target also stressed the need for “staying in step with the evolving external landscape,” CNN reports. The new Republican administration has repeatedly attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices, which help to provide equity for marginalised groups, particularly in work environments.

Continue Reading

[spacelazarwolf]

i looked up the current candidates for the 2024 presidential election in the usa and it is. really fucking bleak.

democrats:

joe biden - current president. doing...ok. he's pro trans rights and has been doing some good stuff to fight climate change, but he's like a hundred years old and

robert f kennedy jr - seems to have decent opinions on a lot of policy, but thinks that chemicals in the water are making kids transgender and has suggested that covid is a conspiracy by ashkenazi jews and chinese people

marianne williamson - anti vaxxer apparently, also i guess thinks love is the only thing that will defeat trump

republicans:

ryan binkley - conservative pastor that thinks marriage is "between one man and one woman", anti choice, wants to Build A Wall

doug burgum - republican governor that has actively passed anti trans legislation, anti regulation (unless what you're regulating is trans people ig????)

chris christie - is apparently opposed to bans on gender affirming care, but vetoed a bill allowing trans people to change their gender marker, anti choice

ron desantis - i feel like i don't need to explain

larry elder - denies systemic racism and wants police to be harder on crime, anti crt and dei, pretty solidly anti trans

nikki haley - anti choice, extremely anti trans, anti immigrant, supports israel while also having an evangelical pastor who has a history of antisemitism and racism and queerphobia open for one of her events

will hurd - doesn't seem too horrendous, not noticeably anti trans, but supports 15 week abortion ban

asa hutchinson - great value brand trump

perry johnson - was republican candidate for governor of michigan but was disqualified due to fraudulent ballot signatures

mike pence - yeah

vivek ramaswamy - "anti wokeism", would pass a law requiring teachers to disclose to parents if they found out their kid is trans, supports bans on gender affirming care, wants to end sanctuary cities and address mental health through "faith based approaches", hedge fund bro

tim scott - said that america is not a racist country and the biggest problem facing black people is "fatherlessness incentivized by welfare", opposes same sex marriage and gender affirming care and thinks democrats are using school to "indoctrinate children"

corey stapleton - montana secretary of state, couldn't find much abt him

donald trump - donald trump

independent

cornel west (green party) - seems really cool actually but two party system will fuck him over

i hate the two party system so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also congrats to the dems for yet another milquetoast kennedy, and congrats to the republicans for having the most racially diverse list of racist and transphobic candidates!!!

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Black MEN tell Barack Obama to go home to Martha's Vineyard & kick rocks!!

"No more simping! It's Trump 2024"

Anton's follow up commentary: https://youtu.be/72b5EywbWqg?si=jtjO9cTFB4eIN7AS

Nina Turner calls out Obama's DISRESPECTFUL tone towards BLACK Men

"...finger wagging & shaming..." from Obama to BLACK Men

Obama's "plantation speech" is rejected

Eloquent Pastor reminds BLACK men it's none of Obama's business which box you check in the PRIVATE voting booth.

"Barry leave us alone!"

Polling Black men in Chicago

Ace Smart

Under Trump: No new wars, better economy & low crime.

Under Kamala Harris:

[camisoledadparis]

In the USA, Pope Francis appoints an "anti-Trump" and "pro-LGBT" cardinal to head the Archdiocese of Washington! Chosen by the sovereign pontiff on Monday, January 6, 2025 to lead the Archdiocese of Washington, Robert McElroy, 70, has issued several criticisms in recent years regarding the future American president's migration program and his treatment of LGBTQ people!

A symbolic decision. Pope Francis on Monday appointed a Catholic cardinal who is very critical of Donald Trump's political program as the new head of the Catholic Church in Washington, a few days before the billionaire's inauguration as President of the United States, and on the fourth anniversary of the attack on the United States Capitol, January 6, 2021!

Robert McElroy, 70, already made a cardinal by Francis in 2022, has been Bishop of San Diego since 2015! He is particularly known for his public anti-Trump stances… During the Republican leader's first term, Bishop McElroy strongly criticized his plans to launch a mass deportation campaign targeting millions of immigrants living in the United States! He called on Americans to "disrupt" these plans in a 2017 speech and later told a Catholic magazine that Catholics "simply cannot stand by and watch (migrants) be deported"! A bold move: Robert McElroy is also an outspoken ally of Francis among the American Catholic bishops, who are widely divided over the Pope's pastoral agenda! He has taken progressive positions on issues such as welcoming LGBTQ Catholics and calling for the ordination of priests… Before arriving at the head of the archdiocese, the cardinal had a classic career path: holding a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, as is customary for Catholic prelates, he also earned a doctorate in politics from Stanford University, where his thesis focused on American foreign policy!

"This is a bold move," Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic who has closely followed Francis' papacy, said of RobertMcElroy's appointment! He will replace Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who has led the Archdiocese of Washington since 2019 and is retiring… Gregory was the first African-American leader of the Catholic Church in Washington and the first black cardinal in the United States!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noel Sims at Popular Information:

In a January 24 press release from the Department of Education, the Trump administration declared that book-banning was a “hoax.” But last month, President Trump invited John Amanchukwu, the self-proclaimed “book-banning pastor,” to the White House for a Black History Month event. Since 2023, Amanchukwu, a youth pastor from North Carolina, has travelled to at least 23 school board meetings in 18 states on a nationwide book-banning tour financed by Trump donors and allies, including Turning Point USA (TPUSA). On this tour, Amanchukwu demands that school districts remove books that do not align with his conservative Christian ideology — usually books written by or about LGBTQ people. Amanchukwu relies heavily on insults and threats during his school board speeches, maximizing each appearance's potential for social media virality. At a recent stop in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Amanchukwu launched into a typical rant about the book "It Feels Good to Be Yourself." Amanchukwu said the book was "a lie" because it acknowledged that gender identity is fluid and intersex people exist. As proof that the book was lying to children, Amanchukwu cited Genesis 1:27. Informed by the chair of the school board that he was out of order because his comments did not pertain to items on the day's agenda, Amanchukwu just began speaking louder, attempting to drown out the board members. Asked to return to his seat, Amanchukwu was undeterred. "We want to ban books that seek to pervert the hearts and minds of children," he shouted. The shouting continued for approximately three minutes, until the board declared a recess. In April 2023, Amanchukwu attended a meeting of the Wake County Board of Education in his home state of North Carolina with then-candidate for state superintendent Michele Morrow and other local activists. In his comments, Amanchukwu said that inappropriate books were being "purchased and delivered" to local schools as part of a plot by the "Democrat Party" that "castrates children, mutilates children, perverts children, grooms children, murders children, and indoctrinates children." (The Wake County Board of Education is non-partisan.) [...]

The money behind Amanchukwu

In August 2023, Amanchukwu officially announced a nationwide tour of school boards in partnership with a “major organization,” TPUSA. In June 2024, he appeared on a podcast hosted by TPUSA Founder Charlie Kirk during which Amanchukwu revealed that TPUSA had chipped in “thousands and thousands” of dollars to support his work. Amanchukwu also said he received “hundreds of thousands” of dollars from Robert “Dr. Bob” Shillman. Shillman is a businessman and right-wing donor who has previously funded anti-muslim activists including Laura Loomer, Brigitte Gabriel, and Tommy Robinson. Shillman also hosted a fundraiser with J.D. Vance for the Trump campaign in September 2024. Some specifics of the financial arrangement between Amanchukwu, TPUSA, and Shillman have not been disclosed. But, based on TPUSA social media posts, it appears that Shillman’s donations to TPUSA are being used to fund Amanchukwu's school board tour. Amanchukwu has worked with TPUSA Faith, an offshoot of TPUSA, as a contributor since July 2022. Amanchukwu was a featured speaker at America Fest, TPUSA’s annual conference, in December 2024 and is often featured on TPUSA's social media accounts.

[...] In Fall 2024, Amanchukwu became a visiting fellow at the Center for Renewing America, an organization founded by Russell Vought, a lead author of Project 2025 who was recently confirmed as Trump's Director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Center for Renewing America did not respond to questions about Amanchukwu’s work. [...]

Causing chaos at school board meetings to create viral social media content

When Amanchukwu announced his school board tour, he said he would travel to the “wokest and bluest and darkest cities in America.” Instead, his tour has largely stopped in purple or red districts — Boise, Idaho; Washoe County, Nevada; Gwinnett County, Georgia; Midland, Texas. On at least two occasions when Amanchukwu visited school boards that only allow public comments from people residing in their district, Amanchukwu has claimed to be the roommate of a local activist. Amanchukwu’s school board speeches follow a routine format. He identifies a few books he feels do not belong in school libraries. These books often feature LGBTQ characters and range from picture books to more mature young-adult novels. Amanchukwu reads a passage from one of the more mature books and admonishes school board members for allowing such “perverse” material in their libraries. Amanchukwu frequently breaks meeting rules, which has resulted in him being escorted out of meetings by police on several occasions — and provides eye-catching content for his social media accounts.

Popular Information does an exposé on anti-LGBTQ+ extremist and book ban advocate John Amanchukwu. Amanchukwu’s activities have been funded by right-wing bigwigs, such as Turning Point USA.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Right Reverend Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., has a history of practicing what’s called “the prophetic tradition”: naming the world’s ills and calling out those who perpetrate them. In 2020, after President Donald Trump ordered the dispersal of Black Lives Matter protesters from Lafayette Square and then posed there for photographs, standing before St. John’s Church and holding a Bible, she expressed outrage. “Mr. Trump used sacred symbols to cloak himself in the mantle of spiritual authority, while espousing positions antithetical to the Bible that he held in his hands,” Budde wrote in an op-ed. When Trump ran for reëlection in 2020, she said that she had “given up speaking to President Trump.”

Yet earlier this week, from the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral, Budde addressed President Trump directly and personally. Her nearly fifteen-minute sermon focussed on what she described as three necessary elements for national unity: dignity, honesty, and humility. Then, toward the end of her sermon, she added a fourth, calling on Trump to “have mercy” on those in America, particularly immigrants and members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, who are currently afraid. The final two minutes of her sermon went viral, drawing ire from Trump’s supporters, who have commented that she should be placed on “the deportation list,” and that Budde is “exhibit A for why women should not be pastors, priests, or bishops.” Trump posted on Truth Social that Budde was a “so-called Bishop.” “She is not very good at her job!” he added. “She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Budde, the author of “How We Learn to Be Brave,” from 2023, has not apologized to Trump, nor to anyone else, for her remarks. On Thursday morning, she spoke with me by phone from her home in Washington, D.C. In a forty-minute conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, Budde reflected on what she’d intended to say in the sermon, the role of prayer in her life, and the responsibility of religious leaders to address the social and political realities of their time.

You’ve mentioned that your decision to speak about mercy came after hearing Trump talk about God’s will, and invoke the divine right of kings in his inaugural speech. Can you walk us through how you made this decision to speak out, and the role that prayer played in it?

I was starting to feel incomplete, just unsettled, about the three pillars of unity—that there was something missing. So I was struggling before Monday morning, actually, just talking back and forth with people with whom I was sharing my ideas and thoughts.

At some point on Monday—and I can’t remember when, but it was in the context of the sweeping descriptions of whole swaths of people in our society in ways that were so harsh and inconsistent with what I knew to be true, what most of us know to be true—the word mercy kept coming to me, mercy and empathy. I decided to stay with mercy, in part because I knew that, in that context and in that moment, I needed to honor the office of the President and the fact that millions of people, as I said, placed their trust in him and were counting on him to lead the country. He himself felt providentially spared to make America great again, as he said, but also to lead, right?

I was trying to find a way to bring into the room those who were not part of the vision of unity that he described in his Inaugural Address, and, indeed, the way he’s been talking about our country through the entire campaign. And, of course, I was in prayer. I was in conversation with different people within my own inner dialogue. And so I chose to ask for mercy, and I also tried to humanize the people I was referring to, who are in need of mercy—the people who are afraid.

I figured there were probably one thousand people in the cathedral that morning. And I was guessing that there were parents in the room of children who were gay and lesbian, or maybe even transgender, or they themselves were gay or lesbian, so they would know something of the struggle. I was trying to humanize, to bring us into that same spirit of when we get to know each other, we’re more alike than we are different. And also, in speaking of the immigrant population—and particularly those who are arriving into this country and taking on the tasks that keep our society going, often behind the scenes or at off hours, and doing really back-breaking labor—to say that these are people that many of us know. I wanted to bring them into the room, to help evoke the images of actual people, rather than broad categories or characterizations.

Writing—and you’re a writer, so I think you understand this—is a form of prayer for me. It involves everything, right? Every aspect of my being, all of my ego, my insecurities, my strengths. You know those rare moments when you feel like you actually have energy to write, and other times when you feel like you’re going to fall asleep in front of the screen? It’s all prayer, and so that was certainly a part of it as well.

You’ve spoken in the past about the uselessness of speaking to Trump, that you’re done speaking to Trump. I thought, as I listened, that yes, you addressed him, but were you speaking to Trump?

That’s really interesting. I guess when I said in the past that I was done speaking to Trump, I really meant I had given up any illusion that my words would have any influence on him. I did not see myself as one he would consider a credible voice to listen to. And I daresay that is still the case. Yet, in that moment, I chose to address him personally. I could have kept it in the broad third-person plural, like I had for the other three [principles of unity], right? We need these three things. We all need to do them. But I thought, in that moment, I would honor his office.

As a communication technique, family-systems people will often tell us that, if you really want someone in your circle to hear you, let them overhear you talk to somebody else. Like if my children, my grown adult children, talk to someone else about their lives, and I happen to be eavesdropping—I’m sitting over in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, you know what I mean—and they’re talking to a college friend, or they’re talking to a family friend or an uncle, they talk differently, and I listen differently.

I was actually counting on people overhearing me talk to Trump in a way that would communicate to them. So there was that. The other part was that I was very aware that I was not simply speaking to those gathered in the sanctuary of the cathedral but that we were actually part of a public discourse that had been going on throughout the political season. As I mentioned, there’s a certain amount of rhetoric that we take as normal now, and particularly so in political seasons, and it’s a really dangerous way to run a country. If we talk to each other like that all the time, we are going down a path of self-destruction as a nation.

You just talked about your kids, and, as a pastor’s kid, I have some experience of how the political can play out in the personal. I would imagine your kids are just so proud of you. How are they? How is your family with all this?

I have two adult sons, and they have both been so supportive. And, of course, they have friends, communities, and colleagues, and this has been a bit of a whirlwind for them. They are proud, they are grateful, but they’re also themselves, you know? These are things that they strive to live by every day. So, in some sense, I wanted to honor them.

I’m in my sixties now, so I spend most of my time thinking about how I can live in a way that puts wind in the sails of those coming up behind me in the years I have left, certainly as a bishop, and whatever time God gives me on this earth. That’s my most important work now: to encourage rising generations—all of us, really, but particularly those who will live on past my lifetime—to live in hope. To hold on to the things that build community. To work for the things that matter. To trust in God. To believe that there is a spiritual force beyond us that is trustworthy and a source of strength and courage. And these things really, really matter.

People are talking about only part of what you said. And so I want to ask, are there other things in your sermon that you’d like to draw attention to?

I think the whole beginning, which was the idea of: What does unity mean in a country of such diversity and difference? Can this country actually be the United States? That’s an age-old question in America, involving how we have lived through our aspirations and our failures to live up to those aspirations, and the people who call us to live up to them, and the ways we change.

That’s our story, or part of our story, but then we have this other overlay, which I was trying to describe. I think I first heard this phrase from Tim Shriver: the culture of contempt. We are living in a time when we are being socialized to respond to those who disagree with us on anything as if it were the worst possible thing that anyone could possibly think or feel.

And in that culture of contempt, the word “hate” easily falls off our lips. And I’m guilty of this—how easily I find jokes at the expense of other people funny, particularly if I disagree with those people. This has become so normalized. There’s a little bit of that that’s simply human, but when it’s amplified by social media it becomes part of the outrage-industrial complex: “Let me say something that is sure to cause offense, and then just watch everyone explode.” So how can we be mindful of that? How can we transcend that?

But, also, I can understand the sermon would have landed very differently if I had left the last part out. And, in fact, someone actually said to me, “You might want to consider not saying it, given how it will be received.” Someone I really admire, who works in the public arena—someone who is daily trying to uphold our values in the federal government—said to me, “Look, Mariann, you don’t have to go there if you don’t want to.” And I thought about that for a minute, and I thought, Well, but if I don’t?

She suggested, if I was going to do that, “One issue, do one issue.” And so I was focussing on immigration, and I was sharing it with somebody else. But I said to them, “What about what’s being said, particularly about trans kids and the L.G.B.T.Q. and what it’s like for them?” And then another person wrote to me and said, “You know, if there were one thing that I’d ask you to include . . .” So there it was again.

I try not to do this in isolation anymore, because I just need more eyes and ears to help me think this through. And so I was with the director of communications at the Cathedral, a dear friend, Kevin Eckstrom. And I said, “What do you think?” He said, “Yeah, yeah, put it in there.” And he himself is a gay man. And I thought, O.K. I wasn’t speaking in the abstract. These are not stick figures in my head, these are real people, my friends’ children. And so I knew what was going to happen, but if I’d just started with “Mr. President, I’d love to talk to you about your positions on immigration,” that wouldn’t have been appropriate.

“If you really want someone in your circle to hear you, let them overhear you talk to somebody else,” Budde says.

Listening to you, I think about Karl Barth’s famous dictum, about “preaching with the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.”

I was taught by someone who was taught by Karl Barth, and he was very fond of that expression. I think he even said, “The New York Times in one hand.” I think there are two ways that I believe about that, one very pastoral and the other more public-minded. I had a professor say once—and I believe this with all my heart—that if you know what people are thinking about when they’re coming into church on Sunday morning, it’s very important to acknowledge that. So if something’s happened in your immediate surroundings, the country, or the world and it’s on people's minds, he said, you just need to acknowledge it. That doesn’t mean it can be the topic of your sermon, but somewhere make space for that.

So I believe that, and I honor that to the best of my ability. And, sure, I think it’s important for us. It may not be the newspaper, always, it might be other sources of news. But to trust that Jesus came for the world. Jesus came for the world. It’s the world for which he died. And so to not be mindful of what is happening in places beyond our immediate sphere is a denial of the world that God loves. I’m all in on that one.

You spoke against Trump when he was on the campaign trail and during the Black Lives Matter movement. And I’m wondering if the response you’ve had now is larger than any you’ve had before. Is this a new moment for you?

The only comparison is to the response after the Black Lives Matter protest and the clearing of Lafayette Square. People had been starting to gather at St. John’s, and we were working to make the plaza a kind of resting place, a sanctuary where people could get food and sanitizer and face masks, and you could say a prayer with them, to stand in solidarity with those who were protesting peacefully. All that was being undertaken when this clearing thing happened. So that whole wave of response, both positive and negative, lasted for about four or five days in this same kind of whirlwind. The one difference was that there was a huge number of clergy in the D.C. area that wanted to join me in making a statement. There was this influx of people who said, “We want to go back to the plaza. We want to pray with you there.” And so there was this whole other thing to manage, which got out of hand. And then, like most of these things, the news cycle went on, and it all just went away.

This is day three of this particular cycle. So I can’t tell you if it’s better or worse.

You’ve received an overwhelming number of responses, both positive and negative. In the negative responses, is there a new sense of risk that you’re feeling?

To keep my own sanity, I don’t spend a lot of time reading the comments. But those who have been monitoring them are concerned about the level of violent speech that is embedded in them. But I honestly can’t say if it’s worse. I didn’t read them in 2020, either. Actually, my assistant at the time just said, “Yeah, you’re not reading these. You’re not reading these. You can only read these.” She only gave me the ones that were supportive. But I said, “O.K., what’s the ratio?” And she said, “Oh, it’s about fifty-fifty.”

I don’t know if it’s fifty-fifty here. But the people around me are almost universally concerned. I can’t say whether that’s accurate, or it’s just that there’s a state of fear in the air about the levels of violence in our society. I think there is a case to be made that we have become more violent in our rhetoric, and that there is greater license given to unguarded speech.

You have spoken in a radical and clear way about the root of faith, about what Christianity was, and Jesus’ message was. Do you see yourself in the prophetic tradition? What does bearing radical witness and being part of the religious left, if that’s fair to say, mean to you?

I think you could argue it a couple of ways. I would like to say I was being pretty normal. I don’t think I was saying anything that was all that radical, to be honest. I feel like it was pretty basic. Treat people with dignity, be honest, be humble. Care for your neighbors—not only care for your neighbors but care for the stranger. I mean, this is pretty basic spiritual practice.

Now, is it easy? No, it’s not easy. But you wouldn’t have to be a Christian or a person of faith to espouse those pretty universal values. But we live in a time and we are now led by a President who is, by his own definition, a disrupter. He’s really determined to disrupt the way our society functions. He feels a tremendous mandate to do that. He has a lot of influence. And, at least in his opening few days as President, he is leading the country in the way he promised in the campaign, which is harsh and inflammatory in its assumptions about whole swaths of human beings, and also what it means to be this country. So I would say, both as an American and as a Christian, I’m pretty much right in the center. If it comes across as radical, that just says something about the times we are in.

Of the many insults Trump levelled at you, the idea that your service was “very boring” made me laugh. I thought, well, how many Episcopal services has that man sat through? Because that’s pretty typical.

You know, it makes me laugh, too. To be honest, I find a lot of our services boring. And I try to liven them up a bit, right? I mean, we could always do better. And he’s certainly entitled to his opinion. Do those services go on? They do. There’s a lot of music. There’s a lot of different invocations of prayer. We had a lot of people to include in the service, so I could understand that he was feeling a bit restless. It’s not his preference, I don’t think.

I’ve sat in that very cathedral for several hours at a stretch.

Yeah, they can be long—we love our words.

I kept thinking of what you didn’t have to say, which is that you were a woman in that pulpit in front of a newly resurgent form of Christianity in America—whether we’re talking about conservative evangelicals or we’re talking about this kind of newly muscular Catholic opposition to women in the priesthood. You were ordained in 1989. Is that right?

That’s right.

The Episcopal Church first ordained women in 1974. So for you, being a woman and a priest and now a bishop, have you faced opposition?

Mild opposition; nothing compared to what the first women went through. I came after the hardest, hardest struggles and resistance had occurred. By the time I was elected bishop, there had been several women bishops before. So I would say I was blessed to be among those who benefitted from the ones who had come before me, and I have tried to remember them and honor them and open doors for other people, because doors were opened for me.

It strikes me that one of the aspects of your sermon that’s been missed is how pastoral it was. It was a message of care, and it was spoken with tenderness and humility. As a pastor, do you have advice to people listening to you about how to care for themselves and keep going at this time? How do you care for yourself? How do you keep going?

I think it’s a really good question. When I wrote “How We Learn to Be Brave,” I did feel that there was an internal kind of—well, you know, what Howard Thurman called “the sound of the genuine.” We are not on our own here. We are not isolated from one another. And there is a force at work in the universe that is ultimately for good which we can tap into and which can empower us. For people of faith, we give that very particular names. But even for people who are not there are ways to describe that sense of empowerment that is bigger than we are and can work through us in ways that astonish us. We can’t control it. We can’t evoke it on command, but it’s real, and we can count on it, and it allows all of us to do extraordinary things. When we do it together, then we can move mountains that seemed immovable before. And I do believe that, and I do believe that is the life of faith, but also you don’t have to be a person of faith to trust that innate human capacity to channel love, goodness, and real strength into our own lives and into the world. ♦

[thestrangestthing89]

There are thankfully only a handful of people who swear this is a conservative, Christian show but it's interesting to me considering how negatively the show depicts religion.

S1 - There aren't any direct references to religion but subtle hints. It's implied Hawkins is a typical middle class suburban neighborhood. It's 1983, Reagan was president, and there are hints of the towns Christianity through the bullies. When Will goes missing there are several comments that make it clear that the people in this town aren't surprised. The middle school bully makes a comment that he got "killed by some other queer" and says his father was talking about it. Parents in the town talk about Will being gay. We see Steve's friends - the high school bullies - also making homophobic comments about Jonathan and his brother. The bad guys are homophobic. They also all lose fights this season. The show takes an anti-bullying stance and you are supposed to feel for Will and his friends here. He's a child that's gone missing and the people in the town don't seem to care much or act surprised by it.

There are a few exceptions to this - Joyce mentions to Hopper that Lonnie called Will gay slurs because she is also worried he got killed because he's gay. Hopper takes this seriously during a time when absolutely no one would have criticized him for ignoring this situation. Plenty of people were ignoring gay people dying during this time. No one would have batted an eye at a cop acting like this didn't matter. But Hopper pays attention and puts together a search team. So there are a few people in town who do care - Scott Clarke being one of them. And obviously the rest of our main cast doesn't care what people say about Will because they help to look for him all season. The good guys aren't homophobic. The good guys care about Will. And this includes all of our main characters - the people the audience are supposed to root for go against homophobia and bullying.

(Edit: I forgot to include a conversation between Joyce and Lonnie. When Will's fake body is found Lonnie wants Joyce to see a pastor and Joyce says no. Lonnie is trying to convince her she is crazy. He's the bad guy, and the first thing he wants to do to "fix" the situation is to get Joyce to talk to a pastor. It's another negative association with religion. Joyce is right here. She isn't crazy. And Lonnie isn't being comforting when he says this. He's being controlling and dismissing her feelings. It's clear from what we see of Lonnie that he's an asshole. He abused Will and Jonathan (and likely Joyce as well), he tried to turn Jonathan against his mother when Will went missing, he exploited an opportunity for money. He's not a person we are supposed to be rooting for.)

S2 - This season has a more direct reference to Christianity and it's the Reagan signs on some of the front lawns in Hawkins. This isn't surprising considering again, it's a middle class suburb. Reagan was a popular president at the time and got elected by popular vote twice despite his mishandling of the AIDS crisis and a number of other issues. His name is synonymous with the Christian right. During his time in office, the pro-life movement started to take hold, and he cut back on welfare reform and disability rights to name a few of the problematic things he did. Basically, anyone who wasn't an able-bodied, straight, white, middle class Christian male was struggling and yet he won twice. These days, his name is often compared to Trumps - they openly hated the same groups of people.

This sets the stage in a subtle way for what's going on with the main characters. Because our characters are all outcasts - gay, black, disabled, poor, etc - they are struggling to fit in to mainstream society (which makes it so ironic this show is mainstream). Even Hopper who is your typical straight, white, leading man struggles to fit in - his daughter died and he is coping with depression and substance abuse issues. Things no one discussed openly at the time and were viewed as shameful.

So we have the Reagan sign on the Wheelers front lawn. This tells me that at least Ted is a Reagan supporter which makes sense given this is an upper middle class white family. I am skeptical of Karen (or anyone else in this family) being conservative but I will get to that in S3. Dustins house has a Mondale sign so they are democrats which makes sense - Dustin has a disability and his mother is a single parent. Reagans policies would have hurt them. We don't see the politics of the other boys families but I think it's a safe bet to assume they are democrats. Will's family is poor and his mother is also a single mother. Not to mention that there are hints both Joyce and Jonathan suspect he is gay and they love Will so much, there is no way they would have ever voted for someone like Reagan. And even though the Sinclair's are also an upper middle class family they are black and while no group of people votes in the exact same way, Reagans policies were incredibly racist. Lucas mentions struggles to fit into Hawkins because he's black in the book Lucas on the Line. His family wouldn't have fit into this town even though they are financially well off. It's a mostly white town and that would have absolutely resulted in them being on the receiving end of racism on a regular basis. So even though their family technically conforms, people would not have accepted them.

So we know that our main characters don't fit in and we know Reagan represents all things Christianity and conformity. One of the main themes of the show is "forced conformity is killing the kids" a line directly stated by Eddie in S3 so more on this in a bit.

Something else happens this season that isn't a direct reference to religion but an adjacent theme and it's the conversation Nancy and Jonathan have with Murray. They are trying to figure out how to take down Hawkins lab and get people to believe them. Nancy doesn't understand at first why presenting the evidence they have won't work. And Murray says - people don't want to see whats behind the curtain. It's comforting. They like the curtain. - So they water down the story so the town will understand it in a way that they won't resist. This, I believe, is essentially what the writers are doing with this show. They are watering down that this has been a show that is anti-conformity from the beginning and there are signs of it in S1. But they know if they come right out and say that a main storyline is a queer coming-of-age story, a lot of their mainstream audience isn't going to watch. So up until now anyway, they have been subtle about it. But the audience is starting to notice something is off, especially with Mike in S4 because things aren't adding up.

S3 - It is now the summer of '85 and while there aren't direct references to Christianity, we still get some hints of conservatism. The only reference to religion is a passing comment that Dustin's new girlfriend Suzie is a Mormon. There is also a passing comment made by Max in S2 that there were Mormons at the door when Billy questions her. It was Lucas and she is trying to hide him from her racist brother, so she lies and says she was talking to Mormons. These comments are pretty neutral even though Dustin mentions Suzie's father wouldn't approve of him because he isn't Mormon himself. At the time we are seeing this moment, it's hard to tell if Dustin is telling the truth (everyone thinks he's making up his girlfriend this season.) But we see more of this in S4.

And then there is the comment by Karen Wheeler about Margaret Thatcher. She's on the phone with someone and says "I don't know Cath, maybe if I was Margaret Thatcher that'd be an another story." (this is in episode 5 by the way). A lot of people take this comment to mean Karen is conservative but I feel like it's so vague. We have absolutely no idea what the context of this conversation is or even who she is talking to (presumably one of the mothers from the pool). It's unclear if she was saying something positive or negative. We don't know what she is talking about, all we hear is her say Thatcher's name. So I feel like it's a leap to assume it was a conservative statement she was making.

I have a hard time believing that Karen is conservative (or at least not ultra conservative like a lot of Reagan supporters) for a few reasons. One of which is the contempt she has for Ted. She is frequently rolling her eyes at him or annoyed in some way and we know in canon he is the guy who represents conformity. However, Karen doesn't. This season especially she is shown to not be happy with her life. She is supposed to be a conservative housewife, but she almost has an affair and makes a few interesting comments. One of which was during her conversation with Nancy about her job. Nancy is discussing her misogynistic bosses and Karen gives her helpful and supportive advice about not fitting in. It seems personal, and from what we know about her, this sticks out. Because she seems like she is a typical housewife. I always felt like there was more to her backstory, but she seems to relate personally to Nancy's story of being an outcast at her job.

There is also her relationship with Mike. In S1, we see her trying to connect with him emotionally and get him to talk about his feelings about Will going missing. Karen is clearly someone who her kids can talk to, even if they resist sometimes. And her kids don't exactly fit in or represent conformity. She has been shown to be worried about her their safety repeatedly, Mike in particular, and we never see her trying to force them to conform in any way. And this is a thing that someone in her position would have absolutely been teaching her kids - conservative, Christian values. But we don't see anything like this or any hint of this. So I don't buy the 'she's conservative' theory. I don't think we've seen enough evidence of that. And while the Wheelers are probably a family that goes to church on Sundays, I don't get the impression this is a major influence in their lives. There is no religious paraphernalia around the house and this would have been a very common thing for a family that was pro-Reagan to do. I feel like they are passively conservative. It's the popular, normal choice and Karen and Ted are the epitome of doing things because they think they are supposed to. But this hardly makes them die hard believers.

S4 - This is where religion becomes more direct. Eddie is reading a Newsweek article about the dangers of D&D. During this time Satanic Panic was spreading. People feared for the moral values of the US during a time of extreme conservatism. Eddie clearly thinks this article is a joke. He's mocking anyone who conforms and it's clear Dustin and Mike agree. They are outcasts and they know D&D isn't dangerous. Eddie makes them feel like being different is ok.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Jason. He's your typical straight, white, christian male and fits in perfectly. He's the star of the basketball team and has the perfect cheerleader girlfriend (at least on the surface). He's the opposite of Eddie. And he is the villain in this story. THE GUY WHO CONFORMS PERFECTLY IS THE VILLAIN. He gets progressively more insane as the season progresses. He's charismatic and he quotes the Bible to rile the town up to hunt Eddie and Hellfire club down. They are all in a panic about the murders that are happening and the cops aren't doing a great job containing things (they also don't have all the information to be fair). But by the end of the season, Jason is completely unhinged and holds Lucas up at gunpoint. He's also part of the reason why Max ended up dying. It's Satanic Panic that drives this attitude forward. People are panicking over the loss of morals and blaming that for the reason why bad things are happening. Which I think will make for an interesting lead-in next season with regard to a more openly gay storyline.

On top of this display of religious fundamentalism, we see Suzie and her family. They are Mormons and we know her father is strict with regard to religion. However the family we see is chaotic. Suzie's sister Eden mocks Suzie for basically being a goody two shoes. Eden also has no hesitation about getting high and clearly is not abiding by Mormon values. Suzie doesn't always either. If there is a cause she believes in - like helping Dustin - she only has a little bit of guilt about going against her father and her religion. Her father is pretty much a joke. He's a fumbling idiot the kids need to outsmart in order to get the information they need. It's not exactly a positive representation of religion. Suzie shows that even though her religion is important to her, she is capable of thinking for herself. She hacks Dustins school computer and a government computer (although she doesn't know all the info about what she is doing here) with little hesitation. Her religious morals aren't exactly stopping her from doing something illegal or unethical. She's a hacker above all else.

At the end of the season we see Ted - the dude who represents all things common - reacting negatively to the news about what's going on in Hawkins. The guy who represents conformity is questioning the "propaganda" the news is coming out with to describe the situation in Hawkins. He is questioning the status quo. This is meant to show how even Ted is noticing something isn't adding up about the "normal" explanation of things. Something, at this point, that the audience should be questioning especially with regard to Mike. Because if even Ted can see something is going on here, then surely the audience can too.

The series has gotten progressively more direct about its anti-conformity theme which is why it makes no sense for them to suddenly forget this in S5. This show has always been about and for outcasts. The Wheeler family is a cautionary tale that Nancy said in season 1 was so depressing. She wants the opposite of this, which is why her and Steve and their 6 kids is never going to work (there are a lot of reasons why this is never going to work). And it's also why Mike and El aren't going to be endgame. Those relationships are there to represent conformity and none of the characters in those relationships are happy. They are the expected, normal relationships. If they wanted the audience to like these relationships they would have been written more positively.

So it's funny to me when people say the show is never going to go against the status quo because they have literally been doing this from the start. It's what the entire show is about. All of the characters are outcasts. All of them. So if people are claiming to like and support them, then they need to get behind the anti-conformity theme. And if they can't do that - this show is simply not for those people and it never was.

[darkeagleruins]

Pastor Lorenzo Sewell blasts Harris for bribing Charlemagne to speak to black men in Detroit.

By the way, when Donald Trump spoke to black men in Detroit, he just brought himself …

[kinialohaguy]

President Trump Has a History of Delivering on Promises.  Pastor Bernadette Smith joins Special Report and lists many of the promises that President Trump has delivered on for Black Americans.

[darkmaga-returns]

Newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump’s proclamation pardoning more than 1,500 defendants involved in the so-called “insurrection” of January 6, 2021, has elicited a statement from a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (and a former Kansas City mayor) Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) condemning Trump’s actions.

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me make it plain here that I am not a fan of Cleaver, who, as a Methodist pastor, also goes by “Reverend Cleaver.” I have written about him several times before in American Thinker, of which one example can be found here.

Cleaver’s statement about the pardons of those charged in the events of Jan. 6 reads as follows:

January 6, 2021, was one of the darkest days in American history. As the world looked on and Americans witnessed with their own eyes, President Trump incited an insurrection in an effort to illegally extend his hold on the presidency and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. As a result of the chaos and violence that ensued, more than 100 police officers were injured, several died of their injuries, and the U.S. Capitol building was desecrated, with blood, feces, and other bodily fluids smeared within the halls of Congress. As I reflect on the horrors of that day, it is deeply shocking, but not the least bit surprising.

[shinmothra13returns]

White Pro-Trump Pastor Says America is 'NOT FOR JEWS, HINDUS, or MUSLIMS!"

Yep. Christianity is doing its own segregation tactic on Jewish, Muslims, and Hindus. These white supremacist Christian Nationalists are not just targeting black people anymore, but everyone who won't agree with their racist yet twisted version of Christianity. Christianity is sadly officially dead, thanks to them.