News with Nuance: March 14, 2025

Your Friday dose of News with Nuance: the week's biggest stories, unpacked + more ..

Hi Readers,

In case you haven’t noticed (but you read this newsletter, so I’m sure you can’t help but notice) I am in full-on-preparing-for-book-launch mode. The official launch of Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood, is just 11 days away!

That means it’s also just 11 days until my 40th Birthday. So I may or may not be having a complete existential crisis over here. Coupled with Lent, the news cycle, normal parenting stuff … it has been a wild ride.

In the midst of all that, though, I’m grateful for the grounding effect of my community, which certainly includes this newsletter community here. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, prayers, and just presence as I continue to try and do the work I feel so called to do.

I’ll spare you too much further book news here - but just want to make you aware of a couple of upcoming events:

1. THIS SUNDAY, March 16, 12:15 p.m. - Central Lutheran Church - downtown Minneapolis

   1. I will be leading a conversation and teaching session on the theological roots of Christian Nationalism, and how they’re manifesting today in radicalized masculinity/boyhood - and also in our news cycle. Join us! There will be worship and lunch beforehand, beginning at 10:30 a.m.

2. NEXT THURSDAY, March 20, 6:30 p.m. CT (7:30 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. PT) ZOOM

   1. A Teach-In on Christian Patriarchy and Gender Radicalization

      1. Join me and journalist/author

         Sarah Stankorb
         to explore how Christian patriarchy impacts us all, breeding violence at home and within churches. It warps marriage and parenting. From denying the very existence of trans and non-binary Americans, to daughters raised to be subservient women, to sons taught power as their birthright, these reporters explore how the model of Christian patriarchy has become baked into our politics and affects us and our families.

         This LIVE online “teach-in” offers an opportunity to learn how Christian nationalism empowers its close ideological kin Christian patriarchy.

         Get your questions answered with time for Q&A at the end.

3. If you’re interested in more opportunities to learn and discuss, I’ll share information on my recent podcast/video appearances - as well as a full list of upcoming events later in this newsletter. You can also see all upcoming events by clicking here. I just added official tour stops in Laguna Beach, Calif., and Chicago!

4. And if by chance you’ve preordered and received your book early - I’d love for you to leave a review on Goodreads, and share a photo on social media with some words about what you’re reading, if you’re so inclined. There’s no better way to help books get out into the world than word-of-mouth!

Now let’s get to the news … with nuance …

The Headline: The ‘Horror Story’ of Hazardous Waste in a Small Pennsylvania Town

Photo by Scott Goldsmith, Inside Climate News

One of the most important reasons I write this News with Nuance newsletter is to showcase stories like this one. Produced with funding from a nonprofit, told by on-the-ground journalists in Appalachia - and rich with details of the ordinary, grassroots people who are pushing back against big money and big business to protect their land and their community: this story has it all.

That also means there is a lot in this story to cause alarm. The small community of Yukon, Pa., has been ravaged by outside exploiters (a common Appalachian story) for generations. But today, the damage has gotten so severe that the community has become unsafe for habitation.

Like so many environmental and climate dangers, much of what was happening in and around Yukon was largely invisible. It couldn’t often be seen, smelled, tasted, heard, touched. And yet the hazardous waste pouring into the community - and being moved throughout it through mechanisms meant to bring drinking water - was wreaking havoc on peoples’ health, not to mention the plants and animals in the area.

Important to notice here too is how beautiful the surroundings are in many of these photos. So many politicians pay lip service to their desire to “save” or “preserve” rural America. (More often, that language just means preserving whiteness) … but then, as we will see in news shared later in this newsletter about farmers living under the Trump Administration - rural communities are often the first to suffer the effects of climate disasters. These beautiful natural places have few lines of defense against almighty profit. Thankfully, as you’ll read too in this story - there are many brave defenders rising up to work together to protect their land and people by all means necessary.

The Quote:

Some days the landfill’s outfall at Sewickley Creek, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River where treated wastewater is released, is barely dripping. But on other days, it foams and smells. “When the pipe is really full and running, it has a very yellow tinge and has a very strong effluent smell,” said Eric Harder, the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper at the MWA. “The most noticeable change is the amount of foam that is created where the discharge dumps into Sewickley Creek.”

To Harder, his observations at the outfall and the monthly testing done by the MWA show that Max Environmental is still not doing enough to meet the standards outlined in its permits. EPA’s testing also shows violations for four of Max Environmental’s 10 total outfalls at Yukon between 2021 and 2024. As of January 2025, Outfall 001, the one at Sewickley Creek, was listed as non-compliant or in violation for more than 15 kinds of water pollution, including oil and grease, zinc, cyanide and cadmium.

“If you have a polluter like Max who is handling some of the most dangerous solid waste you can create in the eastern part of the United States, they should really be on top of their wastewater treatment system,” Harder said.

The danger to residents and the environment isn’t just from one exceedance, he added, but from “the cocktail of all those exceedances mixed into one outfall.” Harder said he has seen toy shovels and pails on the shoreline downstream of the pipe. “Personally, I wouldn’t let my kids play in the water there.”

Story by Kiley Bense, Inside Climate News

The Headline: The Trump Depression

Scared, desperate, exhausted people - people who have to work multiple jobs just to pay for housing … people who work jobs that stretch their bodies and minds to the breaking point … people who have less free time than previous generations … people who are chronically unhealthy and sleep-deprived (any of this sound familiar)?

People living in this kind of atmosphere are much easier to control. What kind of atmosphere further exacerbates these conditions: how about an economic depression? And why wouldn’t an increasingly authoritarian president with few guardrails around his executive power, emboldened and strengthened by a team of far-right-wing Christian Nationalist Project 2025 author-advisors … attempt to usher in these conditions to strengthen his grip on power (and along the way, make some money in the stock market for himself and his friends?)

Been wondering lately why this time around, the Trump Administration seems impervious to stock market free-falls? Why its economic policy seems to follow behind its social and cultural policies (most of them rooted in fundamentalist religious ethos?) This article lays out, in stark economic terms, why Trump might just be leading America into economic crisis, and how it serves his purposes (and why too American was uniquely vulnerable to such a situation, connected to last month’s newsletter article about the fallibility of economic indicators).

The Quote:

The cuts in government spending and the layoffs of government employees not only have a direct impact on total demand. Across the economy, institutions from universities to research labs to government contractors have prudently reduced planned outlays because they have no idea whether anticipated government support will materialize.

This is Keynes’s famed multiplier, but in the wrong direction. It artificially recreates what occurred after the stock market collapse of October 1929, as layoffs led to more layoffs and the economy went into free fall.

Which raises the question: What in the hell does Trump think he is accomplishing?

Written by Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect

A few more must-read stories since our last News with Nuance …

Costs of child care now outpace college tuition in 38 states, analysis finds

Delay in conservation grants adds another layer of uncertainty for Minnesota farmers

Denmark postal service to stop delivering letters

Vaccine hesitancy fuels resurgence of childhood diseases in Central Asia, Caucasus

Disciples of White Jesus: Tracking down those who are weaponizing radicalization and a masculine identity that’s dangerous for men and boys

Every edition in this section of the newsletter, we’ll look at stories from around the U.S. and the world that lift up the ways in which this trend of hawking radicalization and violence to young white men and boys (often in the guise of Christianity and conservative politics - with dog whistles of white supremacy) is leading to anger, chaos, disenfranchisement, and fear for everyone. You’ll notice that many of the storylines and main characters here overlap with my previous research (and this newsletter’s previous focus) on Christian Nationalism. You’ll also read stories of the impacts of this kind of messaging on ordinary men and boys who can’t measure up to this fabricated ideal: especially financially, in a global economy that’s emphasizing massive inequality and greed.

But don’t worry - because after this section - we’ll focus on stories of hope, ways masculine identity for young men and boys is being found in compassion, care, diversity, and - when it comes to Christianity - a story closer to the gospel of Jesus himself, rooted in truth, kindness, justice, and love.

This Edition:

WaPo writes about the J.D. Vance of Trump 2, but note the soft-pedaled language around his “controversial” policies and appointments (hmm)

I’ve written before (and also

Jemar Tisby, PhD

has covered this extensively) about the shameless ways in which right-wing movements attempt to cover up their racism or sexism by platforming and giving power to individuals from marginalized groups. Often those individuals have pure intentions and don’t realize the vulnerability of their own position. You can see that dynamic happening in this story: