This week, we open the conversation with reflections on the challenges of living daily life amid the onslaught of horrific news, so often these days instigated by our own government. We reflect on normalcy—focusing on daily tasks of caring for family, tending friendships, and connecting with local community—as a mode of resistance. We then turn to address the war in Iran, particularly how Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration are glorifying domination and violence itself through their rhetoric and recent propaganda videos officially released by the White House. And we discuss the administration's utter lack of moral justification for the war, including how Trump has failed virtually all criteria from the just war theory tradition in Christian ethics—as two prominent American Catholic cardinals pointed out this week.

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In this TCU+LIVE conversation, we covered a lot of ground. We opened with the significance of Trump’s falling favorability numbers in a brand new survey, especially among white non-evangelical Protestants and Latino Protestants. We also talked about Pete Hegseth’s dangerous commitments to Christian Nationalism and how it is entangled in the War in Iran—noting that the story is much more complex than some of the viral hot takes circulating on social media. For the theology nerds, we unpack the critical differences between “seven mountains mandate” dominionism and premillennial dispensationalism (but we don’t get too far into the weeds!). We also spent the latter half of the show answering listeners’ insightful questions. Thanks so much for all of you who posted, and if we didn’t get to your question, we’ll hope to next time.

On this episode, we discussed the deep logic of white Christian nationalism. It’s all about protecting the hierarchy: men over women, white people over all people of color, straight people over LGBTQ people (when they are even acknowledged at all). So this week, when we saw Doug Wilson—who has been an apologist for white Confederate slave-owning society and an advocate of stripping the right to vote for women—invited by Pete Hegseth to preach at an explicitly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, we were disturbed but not surprised. It’s all about defending the hierarchy. Robby unpacked a major new PRRI survey on Christian nationalism, which demonstrate how strongly these views are correlated to denials of systemic racism, patriarchal gender roles, anti-LGBTQ attitudes, and anti-immigrant attitudes. We wrapped with an appreciation for the life and witness of Jesse Jackson Jr., who died this week. Jemar shared his personal experience meeting Jackson and described his vision of a rainbow coalition that contrasted with white Christian nationalism.

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The Convocation- convocation.substack.com

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Diana Butler Bass- dianabutlerbass.substack.com

Kristin Du Mez- kristindumez.substack.com

Jemar Tisby- JemarTisby.Substack.com