Trump’s Racist Politicization of a National Tragedy, and The Stirrings of a Faith Resistance

PLUS, our schedule for first 100 days of Trump's administration.

Dear Convocation Unscripted readers,

As a reminder, to keep up with what will be a challenging stream of news, and to help us all collectively sort out the signal from the noise, we’ll be conducting our Convocation Unscripted podcast conversations weekly for the first 100 days of Trump’s administration.

Here’s the rhythm: We’ll hold The Convocation Unscripted+LIVE on the first Thursdays of each month at 5:00 p.m. ET; on the other weeks, the Convocation team will record the show on Thursdays (as we did this week). And each week, we’ll post the show on Friday here via this newsletter, on our YouTube channel, and on our audio podcast. (You can click on those links to receive the show directly via YouTube or Apple podcasts.)

If you or a friend would like to join us for one of our upcoming live conversations, please be sure to subscribe to this newsletter, where we’ll send out the registration link the Tuesday before the show. We may also bring on a special guest from time to time. Here’s the schedule for the upcoming TCU+LIVE shows—we hope you’ll join us:

February 6, 5:00 p.m. ET
March 6, 5:00 p.m. ET
April 3, 5:00 p.m. ET
May 1, 5:00 p.m. ET

See below for the recording of last night’s Convocation Unscripted conversation. If you have friends who would like to join us, please invite them to subscribe (it’s free!).

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Trump’s Racist Politicization of a National Tragedy, and The Stirrings of a Faith Resistance

In this week’s edition of The Convocation Unscripted, we take a moment to recognize and grieve with the families of the 67 people who lost their lives in the fatal collision between and American Airlines jet and a military helicopter. This tragedy was close to home to Diana and Robby, who fly out of DCA regularly and walk and bike the scenic trails near the airport along the Potomac River. We also reflect on President Trump’s awful attempt to use a national tragedy to further pull the country apart by blaming—without any evidence other than what he called his own “common sense”--Biden, Obama, Buttigieg, the military helicopter pilot, and of course DEI initiatives that he insisted favored lower intelligence hires. Noting that Trump similarly blamed the California wildfires on DEI firefighter hires, we emphasize the importance of recognizing that this will be the playbook: weaponize everything, even disasters and the deaths of scores of innocent Americans, to advance a white supremacist worldview that justifies the destruction of the government itself.

But we also noted, with some cautious hope, that we are beginning to see the stirrings of a faith resistance: from Bishop Mariann Budde’s “sermon heard round the world,” to Quakers quietly suing the Trump administration over its mandate for ICE officials to round up immigrants while they are at church, to the Catholic Bishops finally speaking out when J.D. Vance questions the authenticity of their religious commitments to support immigrant families.

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ICYMI from The Convocation Team

A Government that is "for the People" vs. "the Keeper of the Commander's Intent"

A Spiritual Pep Talk from the Shores of the Potomac

To My Fellow Enemies

Stop Saying "We've Been Here Before"