You're Invited! Our October Convocation Unscripted+LIVE Webinar this Thursday October 9
Plus the latest from The Convocation Unscripted team
You’re invited! Come join The Convocation Unscripted team for our October monthly LIVE webinar, where we’ll discuss the ongoing threats to our democracy, bringing our combined expertise in religion, history, and politics to the discussion. We hope you can join us LIVE on October 9 at 5:00 PM ET. It’s free, but you’ll need to register below to receive the Zoom link.
If you haven’t joined us before, this is a chance to ask us your questions directly and connect with a warm and encouraging community in the chat.
In the meantime, we’re sharing our most recent episode of The Convocation Unscripted here, ICYMI or want to listen again. We had some technical difficulties on this one, but we managed to get through it! We’ll look forward to being with many of you on Thursday. And we’ll send around the recording on Friday.
How You Can Support Our Work
Many of you have asked how you can support our work. The Convocation Unscripted is FREE, but you can support us by becoming paid subscribers to our individual publications:
The Cottage - Diana Butler Bass
White Too Long - Robby Jones
Du Mez Connections - Kristin Du Mez
Footnotes - Jemar Tisby
ICYMI from The Convocation Team
White Too Long
This week, a new A “Bright Line Watch” survey of over 700 leading American political scientists found that their rating of the U.S. as a functioning liberal democracy fell precipitously since Trump took office in January. Robby give his take in the context of the Jewish High Holidays.
The Cottage
Hegseth is probably the most openly Christian nationalist true believer in the entire Trump administration (Russell Vought may be tied with him). He always brings Jesus to the war party. Because, of course, in the theology of Christian nationalism Jesus is a Warrior. It may well be their central image of the Son of God — a bloodthirsty, revenge-seeker with a sword in hand.
Du Mez Connections
if you’re looking for background on this sort of Christian warrior posturing, Chapter 12 of Jesus and John Wayne has it covered. Here is a brief excerpt from the chapter, where I discuss retired colonel David Antoon’s response to the infusion of warrior rhetoric into the military in the 2000s:
He found this attitude “diametrically opposed” to the values instilled in him decades earlier. Then, fighting and killign had been spoken of “soberly and with humility”—killing was accepted as a fact of war, not exalted. But “somewhow that had all been transformed into a kind of holy bloodlust.”
Footnotes
In the context of the news going from bad to worse, speaking of hope seems foolish. Hope has become another 4-letter word—something forbidden and distasteful. Hope seems out of style, hokey, detached from reality, blindly optimistic, historically uninformed, naive.
But what if we have misunderstood hope? Hope is not a feeling. Hope is action. Hope is a choice. Hope is a conviction.
