News with Nuance: Nov. 10, 2023
Your Friday dose of News with Nuance: the week's biggest stories, unpacked + more ..
Hi Readers,
Before we dive into the news - a quick note that I’ll be speaking at this event here in the Twin Cities tomorrow (Saturday 11/11) beginning at 9 a.m., with the luminous Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church (and Royal Wedding fame). You can get tickets for in-person or online participation at the link above; the event is taking place at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., and is a joint project with the Episcopal Church’s assembly gathering. I’ll also be leading a workshop from 11 a.m. - noon after the worship service/keynotes. Hope to see some familiar faces - and if you can’t make it, please do pray for me. I’ll be sharing a more personal story than I usually do, and in a format I haven’t done before.
I also want to give a special welcome to new subscribers to
from the event I did last week at Meetinghouse Church in Edina, Minn. My internship pastor, Mark Wickstrom, started his ministry career at Meetinghouse (then Colonial Church) and I felt such a personal connection to being there with you, especially given the congregation’s rich history and witness for activism and justice, especially around racism and Civil Rights.If you’re new here, what you’re about to read is my twice-monthly edition of News with Nuance, a newsletter that dives deep into the news stories of the past two weeks and attempts to find the human stories, providing the nuance often lacking behind the headlines. Each edition also includes a corner on Christian Nationalism, where I share recent developments in politics, culture, and media related to Christian Nationalism (unfortunately, these are more and more prevalent in American politics) and help to reiterate my theological perspective on how to find our way out of Christian Nationalism and plainly point out the places where it exists and is warping our national and religious dialogue. I’ll also re-share my definition of Christian Nationalism in each edition, to help refine and clarify what exactly it is we’re discussing.
I always find starting this newsletter daunting - and I always finish it feeling more settled and hopeful than I did what I first began. I hope you have the same experience. Now let’s get to the News … with nuance …
Photo by Kobi Wolf, Washington Post
The Headline: A kidnapped Israeli activist and two sons grappling with a war in her name
One of the tragedies of our 24-hour news cycle, and the availability of so much news and information right at our fingertips, is the inevitable empathy fatigue and crisis overload. I’ve certainly been feeling the effects of that lately, as the world now faces major conflicts not only in Ukraine but also in Israel/Gaza, following up the horrifying attacks launched against Israel by the Hamas terror group on Oct. 7.
Every weeknight around midnight, I receive a newsletter containing global news stories and perspective from the day before. I gain valuable knowledge and insight from this newsletter, in fact, it’s where I first read the story above. And yet a few weeks after Oct. 7, as news of the atrocities in Israel gave way to the unremitting deaths and destruction in Gaza, especially affecting children, I found myself worn down and unable to take it in or process. I found myself just wanting the stories to stop, so that I could detach into my own Midwestern comfort.
I say this knowing that detachment is a necessary survival skill, and none of us can function in our own lives for our families and loved ones if we are lost in despair and hopelessness day after day. And still we have to balance that function with a need to continue to cultivate compassion and work for peace and justice.
I’m sharing this story with you because it was a story that invited me back into the struggle for peace and justice, with a renewed sense of clarity and hope, even as my heart broke for these two sons whose mother, a longtime Israeli peace activist who often worked across the border in Gaza, had been taken hostage on Oct. 7. Their wrestling with the right response, their commitment to the mother’s legacy; all of it was so human and crushingly real and intense. I just know Vivian Silver would be so proud reading this article, of her two sons. And I pray that somehow she will return home to them soon.
Story by Kevin Sieff, Washington Post
The Headline: Having rights still bewilderingly popular
Alexandra Petri is the only columnist who I subscribe to personally, so that I make sure to get every single article that she writes. There aren’t many writers today who specialize in satire, and I find it to be such a valuable way to communicate and also to forcefully denigrate unjust and exclusionary policies without being either too patronizing or not direct enough.
If you’re not well-versed in the history and importance of political satire, it’s worth reading this extensive article on Wikipedia. Like theater, and art, satire often speaks the language of the oppressed, and it’s a tool of those who don’t have extensive power or, in our modern language, platform. Satire isn’t for official government communications or press releases. It’s for pamphlets and posts and for underground journals: the language of resistance.
The best satirists, like Petri, often use hyperbolic language to make a point that is seemingly obvious, but one that has been denied often by those in power. In this piece, she notes how obvious it is that Americans would vote to hold on to their right to make decisions. She strips away the language of the anti-abortion movement, its co-option of the term “Pro-Life,” and its shaming language toward women and mothers of “murdering babies,” and instead uses ridicule and understatement to point out the basically unjust and hate-filled position of, unfortunately, much of the present-day GOP: that only certain Americans are allowed the basic rights and freedoms that we once believed were extended to all.
The Quote: It has been suggested that this is why voting is such a flawed method for determining what ought to happen, and some people are working so hard to do away with it. “Let Dave decide everything on everyone else’s behalf,” while popular with Dave, tends not to be popular with everyone else. And the thing is, as Justice Samuel Alito noted in his Dobbsdecision, “Women are not without electoral or political power.”
Column by Alexandra Petri, Washington Post
More from Israel/Gaza
Why Israel should promote peace in the midst of war
Why writing “political” poetry is necessary in such times as these
From WaPo columnist David Ignatius: How a deep Palestinian yearning has been hijacked by Hamas
Gaza is plagued by poverty, but Hamas has no shortage of cash. Where does it come from?
More Headlines + Nuance + Human Stories from around the World
How Myanmar’s unrelenting airstrikes chase families from camp to camp
Facing a labor crisis, South Korea turns to migrants. Why are they more likely to die on the job?
This Week in Christian Nationalism and Religious Extremism
While this newsletter won’t focus overall on Christian Nationalism, each Friday I will include a brief update from that week, as it’s both a continuing focus of my work and also, I think, a critical threat to both American democracy and the faithful witness of Jesus’ Gospel, which exists independently of the United States!
In one sentence: Christian Nationalism is a version of the idolatrous Theology of Glory, which replaces the genuine worship of God with worship of a particular vision of America, often rooted in a revisionist history of white people in the 1950s, before the Civil Rights movement or the women’s movement. Christian Nationalism supports a violent takeover of government and the imposition of fundamentalist Christian beliefs on all people. Christian nationalism relies on a theological argument that equates American military sacrifice with Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. It suggests that Christians are entitled to wealth and power, in contrast to Jesus’ theology of the cross, which reminds Christians that they too have to carry their cross, just as our crucified savior did.
This Week: In case you missed it - last week I officially announced my new book project, called Our Boys. I’ll have a post in a couple of weeks sharing more about the book and what to expect. There’s a lot of overlap with the work I did in Red State Christians, and Christian Nationalism remains at the center of much of it. I spent three days this past week in Charleston and Columbia, S.C., doing book research at places like the Citadel, Mother Emanuel AME Church, and the African American Museum. I’m exceedingly grateful for the true Southern hospitality I received in South Carolina, especially from fellow pastors who helped me to make connections and build trust with interviewees, especially on tough and divisive topics. I’m thankful for your support and prayers as I continue this research, reporting, and writing work.
Again - lots to report over the past couple of weeks when it comes to Christian Nationalism and where we are seeing it in our nation and world today …
This article about the stereotypes inherent in AI-generated images demonstrated to me the pervasiveness of prejudice. It connects to CN because one of ways CN works in our midst is by dehumanizing others and reducing fellow human beings to stereotypes. In that sense, AI, social media, and tech algorithms grant a big assist to the work of CN.
This past Tuesday was a big election night for school board races across the country, especially as outside national groups attempted to get their candidates into positions. Many of these groups (like Moms for Liberty or, in my home state, the “Minnesota Parents Alliance”) have innocuous sounding names but often function instead to work toward taking funding away from public schools and teachers, encourage homeschooling and parochial schools, and work to ban books that discuss antiracism, sexuality, or gender - among other topics. Most of their candidates failed, but there will still be representation from these groups on school boards across the country, so parents should be advised to take note. Many of these groups draw from the same base that Christian Nationalism does, especially among American Evangelicals. They use the same fear-based rhetoric and also do a lot of appeals toward God, the Bible, and Jesus. But their God or their Jesus or their Bible often isn’t one I recognize.
Christian Nationalism as practiced, organized, and funded by the GOP and the right-wing in America has become a popular export, leading to organized right-wing religious movements in places like Israel and, as this article demonstrates, India. The world’s largest democracy is increasingly cracking down on religious minorities, especially Christians and Muslims, and viewing itself increasingly as a Hindu Nationalist state. One of the most popular and powerful tools of Nationalist movements is censorship and control of the media, and tech companies have been overly willing to comply in exchange for profit, especially Elon Musk.
Speaking of men who are desperate to prove their masculinity, this article really relates to the research I’ve been doing for my new book, Our Boys. It talks about how much Americans are drawn to politicians who “talk tough,” even as they favor policies that are much more rooted in peace and diplomacy. CN plays a role in this, as it teaches Christians that God and Jesus are inherently violent, tough, and militant.
In contrast, women in CN are taught to wield their power through traditional femininity. This video from Missouri activist and former teacher Jess Piper absolutely nails the ways that white women in particular wield this unique power, through deployment of what she calls: “fundie baby voice.” You’ll recognize it immediately.
One of the goals of CN is to thoroughly infiltrate the American school system, through homeschooling, private schooling, or even public school. But they’ve made their biggest inroads in the homeschool movement, as evidenced in this must-read article about homeschool conferences from curriculum creator Heather Stark.
CN does not leave any part of followers’ lives untouched, including their sex lives, often in inappropriate and boundary-violating ways. This article helps explain what’s up with Mike Johnson (and his son’s) use of a popular porn accountability app, Covenant Eyes.
By the way, CN researcher and Taking Back America for God coauthor Sam Perry once wrote the book on this subject, in his book Addicted to Lust: Pornography in the lives of Conservative Protestants.
The Supreme Court is hearing a CN-adjacent case this week, as they debate gun rights for domestic abusers. CN adherents, and many right-wing politicians, are so bloodthirsty for violence and weapons that they’re willing to ignore the glaring statistics, like the fact that 2/3 of mass shootings can be linked to domestic violence.
Alongside reading about that Court case and our American ongoing worship of guns, you have to confront the reality of this article, which documents the ongoing trauma and health costs for children who survive shootings.
Meanwhile, CN ignores the existence of a Jesus who was battered, bruised, and sentenced to capital punishment.
’s wrote this haunting piece about a depiction of Jesus riddled with gunshots in Lebanon.Need some good news?
I was so happy to text a congratulations this Tuesday to my friend, Elaina Ramsey, who has been working tirelessly for reproductive rights and healthcare in Ohio, with her organization Faith Choice Ohio. Elaina has been instrumental in my own theological understanding of abortion and care for mothers, babies, families, and all in need. She has her own courageous story and reasons for doing this work, and I know Elaina and Faith Choice Ohio are so grateful for the support they saw this week in the election results in Ohio.
That’s it for this edition. Thanks for reading. This was a special free edition of News with Nuance to give our new subscribers a chance to see what it’s all about. Thanks to everyone who supports the work of
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Angela
A Few Notes:
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