ICE is on the loose in our cities, acting with seeming impunity. They've repelled from Black Hawk helicopters, thrown journalists and protestors to the ground, and belligerently refused to unmask, provide identification, or present warrants for the people they're kidnapping.
Among the social media videos documenting this despicable stormtrooper behavior came the image of a priest being hit in the head and knocked to the ground by a pepper ball shot from an ICE building rooftop.
We've homed in on this disturbing moment to ask if what we'd seen so far had not crossed a red line for the American public, what does it mean to shoot at a priest protesting injustice in prayer?
Show Notes
Surge in U.S. Concern About Immigration Has Abated
Portland’s ‘War Zone’ Is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online
DC Churches to Trump: Stay Out of Our Parking Lots
Religious protesters say ICE threatens religious freedom in Chicago
In LA, faith leaders protest to stand up for the detained and keep the peace
Chicago Pastor Sues Trump Admin After Allegedly Being Shot by ICE Agents
Federal lawsuit brought by Black et al against Noem and DHS
Evangelical Pastor Doug Pagitt on Christian Nationalism
Exclusive: The Churches Fighting Back Against ICE
Religious leaders offering communion to detainees turned away at Broadview ICE facility
Bishop Rojas on rise in ICE raids: ‘It is not of the Gospel of Jesus Christ'
Religious leaders offering communion to detainees turned away at Broadview ICE facility
Signs of Faith Against Fascism: An Interview with Eric MartinPaul Elie: Daniel Berrigan was a fierce critic of the United States. He was also a great American.
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Yallidarity (w/Nathan Evans Fox) [Introducing Antifascist Dad Podcast]
Hey everyone… special drop today: the inaugural episode of Matthew’s new side project, Antifascist Dad Podcast.
Matthew sits down with songwriter Nathan Evans Fox to talk about kinship, Appalachia, and the viral hymn that’s resonating across communities. Nathan shares the roots of his concept of yallidarity—solidarity rooted in labor, joy, food, music, and taking care of one another.
They discuss the myths and realities of Appalachia, the erasure of labor history, and the dangers of “bootstrap” individualism. Nathan tells about his upbringing in fringe charismatic churches, the connections between charismatic Christianity and Trump-style politics, and how faith traditions can nurture resilience—or be co-opted by empire.
They dig into Nathan’s viral “Hillbilly Hymn”: why the cops disappear when Jesus returns, why kinship always beats bootstraps, and how to imagine an abolitionist future that doesn't erase culture but reorients it toward joy, justice, and care.All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.
Show Notes
Everything Nathan Evans Fox
Gaza Sumud flotilla: How Israel breaks international maritime law | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
Gaza-bound flotilla rejects Israeli claims of Hamas funding | Euronews
Contact Restored with Global Sumud Flotilla after Israeli Interference - Palestine Chronicle
The Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee
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Bonus Sample: Antifascist Christianity: Black Jesus (Pt. 2)
Full episode on Patreon
Part 2 moves from Christofascist spectacle to the “mushy middle” of liberal Christianity—why it so often blesses order over justice and falters when fascism rises. Drawing on MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, Reggie Williams’s Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus, and lived experience inside white urban churches, he traces how bureaucratic piety, respectability politics, and spiritual bypassing drain the Gospel of conduct and courage—what Bonhoeffer called a “funeral wreath” laid on the culture.
How do institutions become procedurally compassionate yet politically inert? Matthew weaves in memories of global South Christian art, Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montréal, and the everyday service-industry grind of parish life to show how care without solidarity becomes maintenance—while Black Jesus points to co-suffering, mutual aid, and material resistance.
Touching grass means moving from abstraction to accompaniment and from decorum to defense.
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Brief: Antifascist Christianity: Black Jesus (Pt. 1)
In this first installment of Antifascist Christianity: Black Jesus, Matthew revisits Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s journey from the theological classrooms of Berlin to the Black churches of Harlem — where he encountered a Jesus entirely unlike the imperial figure of his upbringing. Bonhoeffer arrived in New York a servant of white European Christendom, and left transformed by the radical, suffering, and liberatory presence of Black Jesus.
Matthew connects Bonhoeffer’s awakening to today’s spectacle of white nationalism in worship — from the triumphalist religion on display at Charlie Kirk’s memorial to the enduring cultural power of “white Jesus” as theology for empire. Drawing on Reggie Williams’s Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus, Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism, and Jeanelle Hope and Bill Mullen’s The Black Antifascist Tradition, the episode traces how colonialism created a Christ built to bless domination, and how the Black church reclaimed him through solidarity, suffering, and resistance.
The contrast between the fortress hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God and the spiritual Were You There becomes the turning point in Bonhoeffer’s faith — from triumph to trembling, from power to empathy.
Part 2, out Monday on Patreon, explores how liberal Christianity tried to stand between these poles, and why it failed.
Show Notes
Hope, Jeanelle K., and Bill V. Mullen. The Black Antifascist Tradition. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2023.
Robinson, Cedric J. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Revised and Updated Third Edition. Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley. Preface by Damien Sojoyner and Tiffany Willoughby-Herard. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
Williams, Reggie L. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014.
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278: This Podcast is Illegal
Our podcast is not actually illegal—yet. Thanks to Trump’s recent Security Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-7, or “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” it soon could be.
Today we talk about one of the starkest moves into fascism Americans have yet seen from MAGA: what it is, how pre-crimes can soon be reality, and the fear factor this memo is designed to inspire. We’ll also discuss some possible responses to the next phase of MAGA authoritarianism.
Show Notes
Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”
What Is NSPM-7? Over 3,000 Nonprofits Sound Alarm on New Trump Directive
Trump Orders Broad Effort to Root Out Groups He Says Organize Political Violence
The meme-ification of political violence
The Upside of Collapse
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Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
Deutschland