Opinion

There’s been plenty of coverage of what Trump and his administration have done in their first 100 days. In the conservative media ecosystem, this coverage appears as disinformation-riddled praise for how Trump has restored America’s greatness and created renewed prosperity. In mainstream media outlets, this coverage is often focused on cataloguing the harms of policies that often felt chaotic or cruel. And while I’m grateful for those who ensure the public has an accurate understanding of the impact of Trump’s decisions, there’s another set of stories beneath those headlines that rarely get as much attention: how people have consistently been taking courageous action to counter these harms.

At Lane Murray, where I’m incarcerated, a bureaucratic rule creates a peculiar dilemma for someone like me who finds truth and solace in both Christianity and Buddhism. The prison system demands I choose just one, but my soul refuses to be so neatly categorized. We’re also only allowed to change our religious affiliation once every six months. As if divine inspiration could ever follow an administrative calendar.

Francis’ attempts at reforming the church often clashed with Catholicism’s growing right wing and failed to stop the flood of Catholics abandoning the church. It takes time to turn a 2,000-year-old church around, and ultimately, Francis’ papacy would be a complicated one, marred by the damage done in the church’s past, even as he tried to guide it forward into an unclear and troubling future. But like his namesake saint, he always put being a pastor first.

At some point this Easter Weekend, Christians will be reflecting on the final words that Jesus spoke from the cross, sometimes referred to as the seven last words of Jesus. 

When I was younger, I was convinced that System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” was a Christian song because lead vocalist and lyricist Serj Tankian incorporated Jesus’ final declarations into the song. But dissimilar to the order that Christians have typically arranged Jesus’ final words, the song first quotes the cry of reunion and then climaxes with the cry of dereliction.

Considering that the Roman Empire believed Jesus was a terrorist and crucified him as one, emphasizing the cry of dereliction seems apt.

“The problem with the meritocracy ... [is that it] leeches all the empathy out of your society.”

The right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson said that back in 2017 and, by my lights, there’s a kernel of truth there. It almost echoes the early 20th-century sociologist Max Weber’s critique of the Protestant work ethic, how Americans are trained to see wealth as a just reward for living a good life and poverty as punishment for living a bad one; an economic spin on Calvinism. Even if you think Carlson is a reactionary grifter (which I do), I think he’s onto something here.

It’s a straightforward part of the Easter story: The Roman governor Pontius Pilate had Jesus of Nazareth killed by his soldiers. He imposed a sentence that Roman judges often inflicted on social subversives – crucifixion.

What does it mean to celebrate Passover during a time of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, and genocide? Every year, Jews mark Passover by reading the Haggadah and by refraining from eating leavened bread for eight days in commemoration of the ancient Israelites’ hurried trip out of Egypt. The Exodus story tells of their journey from slavery to freedom, and each year Jews are commanded to experience this ritual anew, imagining that God is setting them free as if in the days of old.

But as the yearly calendar brings us to a holiday celebrating divine redemption and freedom, it’s hard to avoid the despair of this historical moment.

Lent is typically a time when Christians engage in fasting or self-denial and reflect on the ways in which we need to repent. In the most unexpected place, a Nosferatu-themed party hosted by a friend of a friend, I encountered an opportunity to engage in the Lenten practice of repentance.

Within the Christian faith, at least within a formal church setting, there is a liturgical element that I’ve never experienced: the sacrament of reconciliation — a practice more commonly known as confession. Rather than sitting in a traditional confessional booth alongside an ordained priest, I made a confession while sitting in a random bedroom. A flimsy blue curtain divided me and the person playing the role of the priest. It was arguably irreligious, a party trick meant to satirize the Catholic Church.

For a Christian, standing up to oppressors isn't just a way to love the oppressed. It's also a way to love oppressors themselves by calling them to repentance.