I tuned out politics for a while, but midterms are coming round 😭

I know/love a bunch of Christian podcasts that are slightly or highly right leaning, but are there any good Christian ones that are left leaning? I know there are good people on both sides and I want to hear it.

I’m Roman Catholic so that angle would be most preferred, but I’m open to try anything a “TrueChristian” sub proposes (not so much the “Christianity” sub lol)

edit - guys be nice 😭 I am right leaning as well but I know IRL really good people who are Dems and I want to understand them better 💔

edit 2 - thanks to u/traugar I found Jesuitical and listened to a David French episode from January this year and it was at least interesting. I’m not changing what side I plan to vote for but he brings some receipts and a different perspective!

Jake Lang has been in the news quite a bit bc he is causing quite the stir. But it’s not a good stir. He’s trying to preach Jesus while being so rude and arrogant towards Muslims. I find this grievous and anti Christian. I see too many people supporting him. Preaching Jesus while being hateful just doesn’t fly. It reminds me of Trump who catered to the Christians to get their vote. Like I want to say to take His name out of your mouth, bc you do not represent Him.

A bit more of a local story than a national one. For American citizens, the lesson to be learned is to not be so easily swayed by the strong language of campaign ads, especially as election season is starting to enter its full swing.

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. - Matthew 10:6, ESV

The DHS released this video three days ago. While I could comment on the abject cruelty of such a video, I shall try to limit my commentary in such a way that it pertains only to the topic at hand.

Upon viewing this video, I was immediately struck by a thought: this video reminds me of negative depictions of slavery. One may cry foul, but hear me out first.

Negative depictions of slavery do many things to highlight the inequality and injustice of the slave trade. They focus most especially on juxtaposing the slave and the slaver. It is here that I find many striking similarities between this video and art of slavery.

First and foremost, the clothing. In art, the slave is dressed in rags or cheap, simple clothes. White is often the color of choice for these sorts of depictions. Whereas the slaver wears colorful finery, indicative of their wealth and power. This art intentionally highlights the power differences between slaves and slavers (on an interesting note, art that depicts slavery positively tends to have well-dressed slaves). Take note of these very same similarities in this video. The men being deported wear white, simple clothes. Standing around them are men in varying colorful uniforms.

Next, there is the shackles. I do not use that term lightly, either. These are real shackles, with hefty chains. They wrap around the waist, connecting to the wrists. The ankles, too, are shackled, forcing the men to shuffle. Now, in terms of transporting prisoners, waist chains are nothing new. And yet, the technology used here seems almost primitive. They are not the modern handcuffs often used by police for transport, these seem more like something you would find in colonial reenactment.

Then there is the intentional shots highlighting the posture of the men. It is natural for a man to hunch in such a scenario, but the video goes out of its way to show multiple different man standing beside the guards, highlighting the defeated postures of the prisoners beside the confident postures of the guards. This too, is reminiscent of slave imagery. In order to highlight the oppression that occurred in the slave trade, the slave is often depicted looking defeated or ashamed. They are hunched over, their eyes are cast down, they cling to themselves and to their loved ones. A (as I understand it) younger tradition now is to depict slaves as defiant, but even in this, they are defiant in chains. They are defiant in positions of vulnerability and weakness. This is the fundamental depiction of injustice in this sort of art.

Finally, there is the range of emotion shown in the video. Three men are highlighted. The first attempts to maintain some dignity. He may perhaps be seen as the one who remains defiant, or perhaps he could be seen as the propagandized slave, the one who dresses nicely and walks alongside his master. Then there is the second man who weeps openly. I do not fault him, but I shall compare him to women and children nonetheless, for these are the figures often depicted weeping and in terror, then there is the final man, who looks simply dead (and it is he who breaks my soul the most). It is this look of borderline apathy that is not only found in art of slave auctions and ships, but also in art of slave work. It is the look of a man who has accepted his fate, who has gone beyond defiance or misery and instead does what he is told. This, I believe, is the more honest depiction of what the gentry of the time would consider to be a "good slave."

It would be naïve of me not to bring up race. One may object that I only draw these comparisons because the men in question are black. To which I say, yes, that probably does contribute to my thoughts on this matter. The fact is, American slavery was something primarily done to the black and brown community, and the thread that transforms such art from depictions of generic suffering to depictions of American slavery is, ultimately, the race that is being oppressed. You cannot separate American slavery from race, and you therefore cannot separate art about american slavery from race.

So what shall we conclude? Shall we say, then, that the DHS has intentionally compared this to slavery? Do I even mean to suggest that the comparison is that easy to make? By no means on both accounts.

Could it be possible that this is the DHS's intention? I sincerely hope that it is not.

What is undeniable, I think, is this: these men have the same look about them as slaves did. They are juxtaposed against their captures in a remarkably similar way, they wear the same faces that slaves wore, they walk the same way that slaves would walk, they wear the same chains that slaves wore.

Even if you disagree with my conclusions about the historical comparisons, I hope you can recognize the pain and cruelty these men are being subjected to. This grieves me greatly, and I sincerely hope it grieves you too.

From a year ago, and rather lengthy, but provides a great deal of historical background on the modern Christian "culture war" mentality.

Medieval Christian cultural warfare came at an immense cost. In addition to the loss of innocent human life, the toll inflicted upon Western Christianity’s integrity is incalculable. Generations of Western Christians have been forever saddled with an ugly stain on their legacy. On top of that, the mission of Jesus was severely distorted. I try to imagine what it might have been like for my Jewish ancestors to have lived through such travesty. What grotesque images of Christ formed in their minds? I am haunted by the thought that they likely went to their graves picturing Jesus as a hateful, brutal, bludgeoning, terrorizing arsonist. Who would want anything to do with such a Jesus?

The good news is those savage medieval days are long gone. The bad news, however, is that some of the same motivations that plagued those Christian mobs are still very much alive and well in America today. They lurk behind Christian nationalist agendas, feed obsessions with “Christian” culture wars, and provoke present-day versions of Christian tribalism. No wonder this tragic medieval-era story has such an eerily familiar ring to it.

The parallels are unmistakable, including an assumption that Christians are entitled to hold cultural supremacy over non-Christians, resentment from the perception that Christians are being dethroned from their God-endowed position, a panicked readiness to embrace conspiracy theories, and an impulsive desire to use what is imagined as the cause of Jesus as a cudgel for beating a godless secular culture into submission.

...

How will we find our way through this confounding post-Christian labyrinth? Christian nationalist and culture-war ideologies offer what may sound like an appealing pathway forward. The call to “take back our country” and win the culture wars strikes a responsive emotional chord. At the same time, however, this entices Christians to chase after the same old useless idols of power, control, and score-settling that bedeviled our medieval predecessors. We would do well to choose an alternate path – the one blazed by Jesus himself.

Deuces

I double-checked this, and sure enough, the top post on Reddit (/all) is a comics post asking for the death of the president.

Originally, this post wasn't even going to be about that.

This post was going to point out that I've been seeing the posts about Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Peter Cullen (voice actor), and every comment section has a top thread—all highly upvoted—complaining that Trump isn't the one who died instead.

I know that Reddit is very far left, but I want to be clear on this: They want Republicans dead.

This isn't an anomaly. This isn't an exception. This is in every comment section I came cross. Every one. And now the top post on this site is begging for the death of the leading Republican.

I said what I said.

Today, the United States announced nearly $2 billion in partnerships with faith-based and community organizations that provide global health and humanitarian assistance around the world. This historic announcement is the largest allocation of global health foreign assistance to faith-based organizations in over 20 years. It underscores the Trump Administration’s commitment to partnering with organizations that demonstrate faith in action and have proven their ability to deliver health and humanitarian assistance in the world’s most difficult environments.
This new funding will be provided to an extensive network of internationally recognized and local faith-based partners including World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse.
...
As part of this historic announcement, the United States is announcing our intention to provide $538 million to trusted partners as part of a series of global humanitarian assistance awards through which the State Department is channeling life-saving assistance. This $538 million in humanitarian response funding – for Samaritan’s Purse and a consortium jointly led by World Vision and Compassion International – is expected to reach 7 million people with critical, lifesaving assistance across 16 humanitarian crises. Over $100 million will be made immediately available to respond to natural disasters around the world while also strengthening preparedness in 23 disaster-prone countries.

I am happily surprised time and time again how those I know in real life are able to see the Christlike beliefs of both US main parties and the unChristlike beliefs of both. Few of those I know in real life make generalizations of either US political party.

I’ve found myself staying away from some reddit forums because it seems the “loudest” posters are more often the ones who generalize political/religious beliefs.

For reference, I live in a conservative area.

We are back for an unprecedented third week of derision. And this time- never let it be said that my derision is not bipartisan

A narrative exists where Donald Trump is an electoral juggernaut. He pantsed his primary rivals in 2016 and exposed the Republican establishment as an out-of-touch paper tiger, demolished a rival presidential campaign more than a decade in the making, only lost re-election in a titanic effort involving literally the most votes ever cast, won a debate in the rematch so badly that his opponent was forced to drop out by his own party, and finally shrugged off a mountain of oppo and bad vibes to coast to the presidency again, in the process becoming only the second Republican to win the popular vote since my sister was born (she is, for the record, well into the second decade of her career and a recent homeowner. Proud of you, sis!). And he did all this by making electoral inroads into demographics long considered part of the Democratic coalition, such as working class voters, union workers, Hispanics, and black males.

There is of course, an opposing narrative. Mr. Trump is on tape bragging about sexual assault, has insulted basically every demographic that isn't "white Christian male", was embroiled in so many scandals to the point that everyday Americans had to learn obscure legal terms like "emoluments", wrecked our foreign alliances, responded ineffectually to COVID, incited an armed mob to storm the capitol- and the Democrats still managed to lose to him. Twice.

This is the story of DNC chair Ken Martin.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has one job- elect a Democratic president. Their recent performances have been... mixed. In the wake of their 2024 loss, the Dems held an election to choose a new leader to spearhead their efforts for the next four years and selected Mr. Martin, best known for moving Minnesota from a purple-ish state to one that is a rather distinct shade of blue.

His tenure didn't exactly get off to a great start due to his feud with then-DNC vice-chair David Hogg. Mr. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland school shootings-turned gun control activist, was widely regarded as a leader of the new generation of young Democrats. However, Mr. Hogg vowed to fund primary challenges against longtime Democratic officials that he viewed as ineffectual, a move Mr. Martin opposed, which eventually led to Mr. Hogg's resignation. Probably not the best idea to antagonize an important leader of the Democratic youth movement, who the Dems will doubtless need to turn out in 2028.

But with that in the rearview mirror, let's examine the most obvious measure of the health of the DNC- money. Democrats have, spanning almost two decades now, had a persistent fundraising advantage over Republicans. This is due to a large array of factors, but briefly Democrats have both a more extensive small donor network, while also recently starting to win the fundraising battle among wealthy donors. So with that in mind let's crack open the books for the DNC versus their counterparts at the RNC. Both committees report their finances quarterly, and in the spring the RNC had about $130,000,000 million dollars on hand; a remarkable haul considering that the election isn't for another two years. The DNC on the other hand had, drumroll...

-$17,000,000

No, that is not a typo, that is a minus symbol out front. The DNC literally had to take out a loan to continue operations. In all fairness to Mr. Martin the root causes were likely out of his control, as the donor spigot rapidly dried up in the face of the beating the Dems took in 2024. However, he has had two years to right the ship, so how were things still so bad? Moreover, Mr. Martin stipulated that the DNC had borrowed money to lay the early groundwork for a successful 2028. This sort of made sense, until people more closely examined the DNC's expenditures. Emblematic of the issues was that the DNC had spent significant money in the US Virgin Islands. Remember what I said about the DNC's one job? Now, you may not have an ironclad grasp of the electoral college, but I am pretty sure that you know that the US Virgin Islands, like all American territories, casts exactly zero electoral votes. So with all respect to the Islands, which I am sure are a lovely place filled with lovely people, I would propose that a group focused on winning the 2028 presidential election should spend on a place with no electoral votes somewhere on the order of no dollars.

That brings us to the final major controversy of Mr. Martin's term. One of the promises he made in his campaign for DNC chair was to publicly release the "autopsy" of the 2024 campaign. Given the absolute drubbing Dems took in 2024, this report was expected to deal out lumps to basically every Democratic interest group. Did the activist left drag the party out of the political mainstream? Did moderates fail to realize how much Biden and Kamala's tepid stance on Gaza would alienate progressive and Muslim voters? How much of a factor did the embrace of transgender rights and the infamous they/them commercial actually play? Who was really to blame for the Weekend-at-Bernie's-esque efforts to have Biden run for a second term? And what exactly happened to all that money from the aforementioned fundraising advantage, lit on fire to purchase legions of ineffectual ads and equally useless campaign consultants? The results of the autopsy would doubtless point fingers at everyone, but perhaps the tough lessons learned would be useful in 2028, to say less of this year's midterm elections. But instead Mr. Martin delayed releasing the report, delayed again, delayed some more, before finally announcing that he would not release it.

Democratic insiders were apoplectic. Allow me to do a brief plug. If you are truly a political junkie of either side of the aisle, do yourself a favor and look up Ken Martin's damage control interview with Pod Save America's Jon Favreau (no, not the Marvel director, the former Obama staffer and left-leaning podcast bro). For those not a sicko like me, I would summarize Mr. Martin's performance as incredibly defensive and inauthentic, with him making the completely not-credible claim that the autopsy was actually finished and the lessons learned already incorporated into campaign advice disseminated by the DNC, but no sorry you aren't allowed to see this report that totally exists, trust me bro.

Democratic insiders grew even more apoplectic. All demanded the release of the report; many prominent donors vowed not to give a single dollar until Ken Martin resigned. Backed into a corner Mr. Martin was forced to release the report and yeah... it was rough on all fronts, and not because it was filled with hard-hitting truths. No, the report was an absolute mess, replete with factual errors and misspellings (a word I ironically just misspelled, two Ss apparently), and with large sections entirely missing. Most remarkably, the report completely failed to address several elephants in the room such as the war in Gaza and Biden's advancing age. As it turns out the author, a little-known politico but friend of Ken Martin named Paul Rivera, probably wasn't up to the job- many Kamala staffers reported that they had not had a single conversation with him! And no, we're not done with the finger pointing here, since even more remarkably a few days later Mr. Rivera published what he claimed were the missing sections of the report. Mr. Martin immediately claimed he never received them. Unfortunately relevant emails have been lost to time and neither side strikes me as particularly credible. Who should we believe? I would suggest that the answer is "who cares?" since even the "complete" report contains little in the way of novel insight or actionable information.

And so in summary this- this!- is what us Democratic voters are counting on to save us from President JD Vance/Marco Rubio/DJT Jr./etc. in 2028.

Ugh.

(Oh, and perhaps you think it premature to already be thinking about the 2028 election? Well, chew on this- by this time next year, assuming the calendar is similar to prior years, we will have already had our first presidential primary debates.

See you then.)

(Sources omitted for brevity, but as always I am happy to source everything I write)

You truly believe there is a worldwide Satanistic/Communistic/Islamistic/[throw in whatever] conspiracy to overthrow traditional values, replace you with another population? Do you genuinely think that LGBT (who make up 10% of population) are some sort of threat?

You are the majority. You are not overpowered. It is numerically impossible to overpower you. You (as religious) are free of tax, you have the power (and have had it for several centuries) to trump (pun intended) any different opinion and call every single dissent a demon-possessed heretic. You are not oppressed, just because you now (in the Era of Internet) get to hear the minorities say something that at most just matches the tones of your own vile rhetoric that you have been using for centuries. It has been proven to the whole world that, whenever you were in power, you were ruthless to all dissenters.

Actually, this last point is really the chief thing. “We just want a safe society.” “Our opinions our not violent, stop calling us fascists just because we have a more traditional opinion.” “We don’t want to kill non-Christians/LGBT/ethnic minorities, we just want a cohesive culture.” Honestly?

People do not believe you.

I am a half-Russian, half-Serb. Putin’s support system and the government have spent two decades drilling into everyone’s brains the same thing you are saying: “We just fight for traditional values.” “We do not want war.” “We respect other’s opinions.” “We respect other ethnic groups, we just want to protect ours.” And now? What have these “Christian” protectors done?

They are ruthlessly bombing, killing, looting, raping and destroying another country and another people, and not even some distant, unrelated ethnic group as America usually does (which is still bad, to not misunderstand) but a people that is practically their brotherly nation, culturally, linguistically and religion-wise.

And within Russia? They are destroying all dissent, demonizing the opposition, screaming and whining at every turn about how they are the victims of evil satanic conspiracies while freaking bombing and killing people. And the average Russian is also breathing in and letting out such vile rhetoric and beliefs, targeting everyone who is against the war and who does not believe that Holy Mother Russia is the greatest nation on the planet that God Himself has chosen to fight evil. I got out of Russia more because of that fascistoid constant air that made daily life completely miserable than out of any real fear that I might be mobilized.

But since I have no passport and economic liabilities, I went to Serbia. Now, progressive Russians who came to Serbia usually steer away from saying this (out of thankfulness for hospitality I guess) but I am a half-Serb who already lived in Serbia, so I think I have a right to speak: the Serbian society is also filled with such rabid nationalism and hatred against neighboring countries (and denial of 90s war crimes) that I think the only difference between Russia and Serbia is that the other is not (currently, at least) fighting a war. The Balkans are a mess of their own, so I will not comment, but there is a genuine fear that I just moved to the next decade’s war zone.

And do you know what is common between you and Putin’s mafia, supporters & Serbian nationalists? You all cannot shut up about the “LGBT Satanism”.

All of this came to me after seeing yet another video of an American right-winger claiming that “the Wokeism is based on valuing feelings over facts” even though the actual science has proven your own, religiously and dogmatically, ruthlessly defended view of homosexuality as harmful is nothing but a primitive superstition. There is nothing wrong about a man sexually loving another man or a woman sexually loving another woman. Yet you cannot shut up about it.

So why exactly do you need to be trusted to “not be fascists” who will eventually kill a lot of people when you have the chance to do it, since dozens of times those who behaved in the beginning like you have proven they are maniacs who later go on to bomb and kill people?

It always was there to some extent but it seems to have exacerbated after October 7, 2023. The far-right seems to have this idea that Christians and Westerners should form some sort of alliance with the Muslim world to take down the Jews and Israel.

Just recently we had Nazis protesting in conundrum with Muslims in Dearborn. They seem to genuinely consider this alliance a possibility. Nick Fuentes was promoting the idea of the Christian-Muslim for three years before he gave it up due to Sneako's stunt in New York.

It's not just confined to the far-right as we have some of the more moderate right seeming to take a pro-Islamic stance too, like Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson.

And I can't count the amount of times I have seen some Christians say "we should join hands with Muslims because they respect Jesus more than Jews".

So what do you think.