On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security shared a propaganda video on the social media site X.
The one-minute video opens with footage of helicopters taking off, and a man with a thick Southern accent says, “Here’s a Bible verse I think about sometimes. Many times.” As people in military fatigues don masks and ready weapons inside the helicopter, the man quotes Isaiah 6:8: “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’”
Superman has always reminded me of Jesus.
In director James Gunn’s latest interpretation, Superman, Clark Kent is once again the heroic savior — thrust into battles against villainous forces and multi-dimensional threats. But this time, the stakes are political.
Released five years ago, Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation is no orindary history book. Since it published, the treatise on militant Christian masculinity has shaped conversations about Trumpism in both Christian and secular spaces. A surprise New York Times bestseller, the book resonated with many readers who found that it clarified their own experiences of growing up in the American evangelical subculture — and it drew criticism from others who found it to be an unfair takedown of conservative Christianity.
Now, it has a theme song.
Everyone loves the story of Jonah and the whale. It’s got it all: drama, danger, whales — or at least “a big fish” as any Bible nerd will point out. And a tidy little lesson at the end about the importance of obeying God.
But the story’s post-whale coda is where things get really interesting. After Jonah finally reaches Nineveh — albeit by a very roundabout route — he obeys God’s command to call the city to repentance. Mission accomplished, he finds a spot outside the city walls with a good view, settles in, and waits for God to smite them. He’s hoping for fire and brimstone and is disappointed when none come. God spares the Ninevites.
When I talk to clergy in my circles, morale is low. It seems like each day brings another new low in the American experiment. One pastor I spoke with said, “I can go to protests, but what is the point? The people in power don’t care, and it doesn’t change anything.”
That got me thinking: What is the point of protest? For me, at least, participating in protests is about living in alignment with my values and bringing the considerable privilege that religious leaders have to bear on unjust situations.
Most would agree with the Nigerian-British singer-songwriter Sade that we don’t need any more war, but we are in desperate need of just a little peace. So, what do we do when it becomes clear that the people advocating for that peace are being thrown in prison or portrayed as “terrorists” who are interfering with the “peace process” in the Middle East due to their advocacy for Palestinian human rights?
Mohsen Mahdawi, who is a legal permanent resident in the U.S., was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on April 14 as he exited his citizenship interview at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Vermont. President Donald Trump’s administration accused Mahdawi of potentially undermining the peace process in the Middle East. But despite this accusation, the government has not charged Mahdawi with a crime. Mahdawi was released from detention on April 30 after U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford granted him bail, commenting that Mahdawi had “made substantial claims that his detention was in retaliation for his protected speech.”
In 2002, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland released a post-apocalyptic horror movie that would redefine the zombie genre forever. 28 Days Later was not only ambitious for its experimental cinematography and reliance on relatively obscure actors, but also because of its critical commentary on violence and militarism. Boyle and Garland have partnered up again for the newest installment in the 28 Days Later film series, with the release 28 Years Later (now playing in theaters).
There’s nothing wrong with a gross and scary zombie movie that just stops there, but the 28 Days Later film series offers more than jump scares and blood-barfing, fast-moving zombies, which are called “infected” in the films.
In Washington, a new piece of legislation glides forward on patriotic branding and moral ambition. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it’s called, promises economic growth, national renewal, and family empowerment. But beneath the shimmering language of prosperity lies a troubling philosophy — one that recasts the U.S. citizen as a market participant above all else and reshapes public policy into a liturgy for the god of the economy.
Several sections of the bill emphasize that a person’s economic output should be what determines their worth and the benefits they receive for living in the United States. Food assistance under SNAP is now contingent on proving one’s usefulness in the workforce, and access to Medicaid is framed as a reward for monthly productivity. Colleges are penalized based on their graduates’ loan repayment rates, reducing education to a measure of economic return, while student aid is calculated not by need but by the expected value of a student’s future earnings. Even newborns are cast as future market participants, with state-seeded “Trump Accounts” designed to train them in contribution and market value from infancy. These provisions redefine public goods not as a matter of justice or care, but as a transactional reward for economic performance.
If it’s not obvious: I genuinely enjoy celebrating July Fourth. Yet I know that many Americans — including Christians who share my commitment to social justice — have a far more complicated relationship with the holiday. And I get that reluctance. So often, celebrating Independence Day is wrapped in a weaponized, politicized form of patriotism which allows no room for critiquing the real harms and contradictions of our nation. But I think it’s a mistake for us to cede patriotism to those who turn it into a poisonous blend of nationalism and ethnocentrism, fixated on blood and soil and fueled by fear of “the other.”
I’ve interviewed celebrities and entertainers before, and my main complaint is always this: They tend to dodge tough topics, which then results in pretty dull conversations.
So when I got on the phone with Christian hip-hop artist Dylan Phillips, whose stage name is nobigdyl., I thought getting him to say anything interesting would be about as hard as fishing for catfish.
But I didn't have to fish long before I realized that nobigdyl. was more than willing to tackle difficult subjects.