We just watched the American church wearing purple and scarlet, standing in front of the beast she had long feared, and collectively decide, "I really think we can tame that thing." It really is that simple: she wanted power and riches, and the beast offered exactly that. /1🧵 2/ I don't think Revelation is literal prophecy. I don't believe a Rapture is just around the corner. But Revelation is full of really good insight into humanity's relationship between religion and empire, and the principles apply each time those two intersect.

They're already setting up the conditions to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment shortly after he takes office. But it's a long game. If they move too fast, MAGA will revolt. So they have to take it very very slowly and carefully. /1🧵
newyorker.com/magazine/2024/… 2/ So they will start slowwwwly letting his supporters know everything that his opponents know and have been screaming about - but things that were very carefully hidden from MAGA by their echo chamber media. On right wing media, all they see is a perfect demigod.

3-1/2 years ago, on 1/10/2021, my then-pastor preached a vehement message criticizing us for not listening to the prophetic voices telling us that Trump had won the 2020 election, that we needed to trust God, not our own knowledge. I now see spiritual abuse in that message, /1🧵 2/ a gaslighting of our God-given conscience and deeply rational outrage about the absolute evil we'd just watched consume the Capitol, with God's name on the lips of the rioters. The pastor's insistence that our spiritual fitness was dependent on listening to a chorus

Why I voted for Kamala Harris as a Christian: After four intensive years of rethinking my doctrines and politics, I have concluded that my former right-wing positions on abortion, LGBTQ, racism, 2A, welfare, climate, and immigration were WRONG. Specifically: /1🧵 2/ For months in 2022 I studied abortion intensively, and for my own purposes I wrote a 53-page paper on "A personal framework for the morality of abortion" and in 2024 a 33-page paper on "Studies on the best ways to reduce abortions." Banning abortion is counterproductive; pro-choice, in all its complexity, is (perhaps paradoxically) in fact the best way to reduce abortion. Furthermore, the anti-abortion position is inherently harmful to huge numbers of women and families, and violates many things that pro-life people claim to value. You can find my papers linked here:
crucibleofthought.com/studies-on-the…

Each time I post something about leaving the Republican Party after voting twice for Trump, I get a ton of questions asking how I could have been so dumb. I get the incredulity; I wonder the same thing. But I think the question is asked in good faith, so here's my answer. /1🧵 2/ First, the short version: I grew up SO Republican that I never thought there was a real honest alternative. And Trump scratched my itch for seeing Christians take over the reins of government. But January 6th broke me: I was unwilling to be associated with that. So, details:

I continue to be flabbergasted by the seemingly gleeful spread of misinformation and outright lies by the right. I was a Republican party-line voter from my very first vote for George HW Bush, straight through to voting twice for Trump (to my DEEP regret). But NEVER AGAIN. /1🧵 2/ All those years, we Republicans told ourselves that WE were the party of truth and law and order and respect for the Constitution. We constantly ridiculed Democrats as liars, hypocrites, who would say anything to buy votes, do anything to steal elections, who hated America.

I don't typically "post angry," but I'm angry, and this deserves a response. After Tim Walz's VP acceptance speech last night at the DNC 2024, where his teenage son Gus was shown crying and shouting with pride over his dad's nomination, a certain ugliness ensued. /1🧵 2/ Unsurprisingly, pundits across the Trump far-right camp launched a flood of hate and ridicule against Gus and his emotional display. Witness these absolutely horrid posts by the likes of Ann Coulter and other right wing influencers.

Today many copies of this silliness popped up in my feed: lots of people claiming a photo of Air Force Two in front of the Detroit hangar full of many thousands of Kamala fans is... yep, fake. I started to wonder why? We've all seen the associated video, right? Uh... Nope. /1🧵

https://twitter.com/seanfeucht/status/1822333641915293924

2/ I read through a few hundred comments on some of the threads about that photo, claiming no airplane tail number, misplaced fingers, lack of reflections in the airplane engine cowling, different images on phone camera screens, and etc. are proof that the photo was AI-generated.

Today I'm reading the outrage about the Olympic boxing match between Italian Angela Carini and Algerian Imane Khelif. People are screaming about a "biological male" competing in women's sports. So let's talk about intersexuality, because it's critically relevant here. /1🧵 2/ Here's the thing: Khelif has been a woman her entire life, and barring genetic testing, would never be doubted as a woman had she not so effectively punched a fellow woman in the face in a boxing ring.

After extended holiday conversations with family members still entrenched in evangelical thinking, I’m convinced that a prime reason for their obstinacy is that they simply don’t know - and don’t want to know - actual history. /1 2/ They really don’t want to know the true history of the Bible texts. Of Bible translations. Of Christian thinking. Of evangelicalism. Of America. Of church practices. Of denominational formation. Of doctrine.

Short thread about myself. 45 years as a sold-out-for-Jesus conservative evangelical charismatic Christian, strongly Republican. 31 years in the same church, A/V lead, worship leader, marriage ministry, deacon, trustee. Then came George Floyd and COVID in 2020. Crash. /1 2/ The church's response stunned me, and rocked my world view. Not only my church, but most others across the nation showed that what they'd been preaching was mostly talk. Actually living out the hard part of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others - it just didn't happen.

1/ On the first Palm Sunday, Jesus didn't choose to enter Jerusalem riding a stallion carrying the symbols of rule. He chose a humble donkey instead. 2/ That choice is interesting because riding a donkey had long been seen as a sign of royalty in ancient near-Eastern cultures, and the Old Testament is loaded with such examples, both historic and prophetic.