Generally speaking, “conservatives” (in the broad sense of the word) know how to build and maintain institutions in ways that “progressives” don’t. Conservatives also generally know how to stick together in ways that progressives don’t.

Here are a few reasons why… Conservatives know what they are trying to conserve because they don’t have to imagine something new, while progressives have a sense of what needs to be done and pursued, but often find out that people aren’t on the same page - and thus, they splinter.

There are plenty of people who hold bad ideas. In fact, everyone will be wrong, many times in their life - this is inevitable.

The problem isn’t necessarily with people who have bad ideas, but what we do when those bad ideas are coupled with power and influence. What do you do when people with bad ideas garner power and resources to promote and perpetuate those bad ideas?

When some people hold bad ideas, it isn’t consequential. When others hold them, it can be deadly. When bad ideas gain muscle, it can lead to devastation.

You will always have an audience with white evangelicalism if you don’t actually address racism and white supremacy with any real force. Always.

White evangelicalism is always on the lookout for the palatable person of color to say just enough not to appear backwards. This isn’t to say there aren’t any “good” white evangelicals. What you often find is that white evangelicals don’t want to fall out of grace with the tribe they’ve curated and cultivated and called home - a home that has been brutal for Christians committed to racial justice.

If you don’t understand the weight of the brutal murder of #TyreNichols on the Black community, this would be a good moment to press in & pay attention, to sit in & sit with the grief, & to try to comprehend that many know they could’ve been in the same situation. They’ve seen and experienced this since they can remember. Police brutality existed since the days of chattel slavery.

I can’t tell you the number and type of Black people who have experienced some form of harassment, profiling, mistreatment, and violence at the hands of police.

Woke up to news of another mass shooting.

10 killed. 10 more injured.

It was after a Lunar New Year festival in Monterrey Park, CA, a city that is 65% Asian and 27% Hispanic, but almost all Asian where the shooting took place.

It is also the first suburban Chinatown in the US. News of a second shooting also surfaced in Alhambra, CA, which is one town over - just three miles away.

Alhambra is 52% Asian and 26% Hispanic.

Christian nationalism is a religion many Christians in the US need to repent of.

Turn away from the false religion of Christian nationalism. Believe in the gospel, which can teach you how to love your country without worshipping it. Christianity is not American. The United States is not a Christian nation. America has been informed and influenced by Christian values, but has never been Christian - ever. All one needs to do is look at Black history to understand that the US was never a Christian nation.

"Let no man then be humiliated on account of his poverty: It is not poverty which humiliates, but wealth, which compels us to have need of many, and forces us to be under obligations to many?"

John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom:

"For while the rich man is a slave, being subject to loss, and in the power of every one wishing to do him hurt, he who has nothing, fears not confiscation, nor fine..."

The acceptance of PPP forgiveness and student debt forgiveness is a great analogy because in the US, corporations often enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as people do.

To say otherwise would be to mislead people. What’s interesting about the conservative political pushback around student debt forgiveness is how there is a preferential treatment for the rich.

For most of my life, I’ve heard that conservatives are the fiscally and morally responsible ones. I don’t find this true.

Despite the command to enact and practice the year of Jubilee (where people’s debts are literally canceled), Biblical scholarship suggests that the people of God never obeyed God on this command.

The people of God have ALWAYS struggled with entitlement and greed. We aggressively paid off our student loans over 15 years. It took a lot of sacrifice.

I still support student debt relief. Education is a significant equalizer for a world that doesn’t know how to value people apart from what they “produce” or are perceived to be “worth.”

My friend who is a Chief Diversity officer shared that there have been a growing number of complaints by white faculty and staff that the jobs were being reserved for people of color and that their voices were being silenced.

They decided to look at the numbers. They found that white faculty and staff DISPROPORTIONATELY outnumbered all staff and faculty of color, especially in positions of power. Most jobs were still going to white men (who were often the loudest and often had the highest retention rates). But that’s not all…

Day 3 of the @aachristcollab Asian American History #reclaimtrip:

We drove 3 hours to Manzanar, one of ten concentration camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated for years being able to only bring the things they could carry with them. In front of the guard station and the Manzanar concentration camp sign. The US unconstitutionally incarcerated 127,000 Japanese Americans in camps like this. Over 10,000 Japanese people were forced here.

Day 2 of @aachristcollab #reclaimtrip:

Starting in Little Tokyo with Bill Watanabe, who is giving us a tour of some Japanese American history displayed here.

Here we are at the “Go for Broke” memorial. When WW2 ended, there was a large debate among the Japanese American community as to whether they should create a memorial to honor the soldiers who had fought. Those who survived were torn, feeling like they shouldn’t erect a memorial to themselves as they were still alive.

Just landed in LA to join the @aachristcollab Asian American History #reclaimtrip.

Starting at the First Korean Presbyterian church in LA and what used to be the Korean National Association.

This is the first Korean Church in LA, established in 1906 (building built in 1938). This is the first Korean Church building to be built from the ground up. It was built in 1938 after purchasing the lot in 1936. The first Korean church established was in Hawaii in 1903.

This is the interior of the building.

It’s an aging congregation.

The consistent pattern where engaging with social issues that don’t fall along politically conservative lines creates suspicion around one’s theological commitments demonstrates how deeply politicized the evangelical movement is. Far too often, political conservatism is far more the norming norm than Biblical truth and church tradition is. People read the Bible through a politically conservative lens more than they do a contextually informed exegetical reading.

This is the outcome of the CRT mania. A CRT mania that began with people (including many Christians) misrepresenting what CRT is to the public and seeking to discredit it because it sought to distract people away from actually addressing racism.

Our education is truncated: 🧵

https://twitter.com/rcallahanwaco/status/1538162005026168834

My younger school years, we didn’t really talk about histories that didn’t make America sound like a perfect country. Our bipartisan governmental system was propped up as a perfect system where I was led to believe that every person had a voice that was heard.

Soon enough, if things don’t change, churches will have to become closed and isolated communities.

I shared with every senate office the following:

Most churches in the US are under 100 people. Most can’t afford metal detectors. If they get funding, it’s still inadequate. 1/

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1537912986622316549

People can find ways to sneak by metal detectors unless they have a security guard. Most can’t afford a security guard, this especially leaves churches like ITPC in Laguna Woods (which is made up of elderly people) especially vulnerable.

On this day in 2015, a white supremacist gunman bursted into Mother Emanuel AME, murdering 9 African American Christians huddled around the Scriptures.

Yesterday, I was in Sen. Tim Scott’s office in Washington D.C. to advocate for increased gun safety measures. It hits deeply. These are the #emanuel9. Each of them precious in God’s sight. Each of them whose lives were senselessly taken because hate has a home and is able to so easily access a weapon that belongs in war zones.

Listening to the Jan. 6 hearings & thinking about how I had to pause, pray, & reflect when I arrived here. I never thought the @uscapitol would become a crime scene - perpetrated by fellow US Citizens. I also never thought so many Christians would find a way to explain it away. Hearing the first hand accounts of the Capitol police, members of the House of Representatives (& their staffers), & my former students who were in DC during the events, it is disheartening to hear so many Christians justify & seek to revise the plain history we witnessed.

Just returned from DC. Meetings with GOP senate offices on gun safety measures were good overall. Some highlights:

- Most of the GOP offices were actively working on finding solutions to the mass shooting problems. Almost all were focused on mental health. - Every office was uber generous with their time. We got way more time than we were schedule for. One office gave us an extra hour.

- Everyone cares about the victims of gun violence. They may not like the emphasis on guns as the problem, but they care.

In the US, we make an explicit claim that we are for liberty and justice for all.

I love this ideal.

However, one of the reasons we struggle to get to justice is because of an idolatrous commitment to liberty at the expense of justice - by those who identify as Christian. We should value and cherish our liberties, but not when they come at the expense of justice. Justice at is core is a commitment to righteousness - it is a commitment to making things right.

Sadly, people often think of justice as retribution, not righting the wrongs.

Hello @Grace4NY @tedlieu @AndyKimNJ @CongressmanRaja @SenDuckworth @YoungKimCA @RepJudyChu @maziehirono @RepStephMurphy @MichelleSteelCA @RepStricklandWA @RoKhanna @RepJayapal @MarkTakano @RepBera @DorisMatsui @BobbyScott @KamalaHarris @kaikahele:

Please read (& share) this🧵 1st, it’s amazing to have a whole tweet filled with elected Asian American leaders in federal government. 👏🏼

2nd, We at @aachristcollab just released a statement on Uvalde yesterday that has already garnered signatures from nearly every state in the US.

…ianamericanchristiancollaborative.com/statement-on-u…