🛠️Weekend Wisdom
Equipping the Saints
A Saturday companion to deepen your engagement with this week's explorations
Dear Family and Fellow Sojourners,
This weekend marks a significant moment as I launch a newly redesigned newsletter. Sajeena and I are deeply grateful for your presence on this journey. Our commitment to investing my time, talents, and treasure in this work represents our way of being faithful, hopeful, loving, and joyful as our nation traverses this wilderness period.
As we embark on this path, we remind ourselves that we each have our distinct part to play in the greater symphony. Drawing from von Balthasar's wisdom, we acknowledge that in times like these, only the Conductor stands positioned to hear the magnificent symphony being created through our collective efforts. Our role is to play our part with integrity and trust in the larger composition.
This Week's Journey
My newsletter now features five distinct series, each approaching our shared concerns from a unique angle. Let me introduce them and share this week's inaugural posts:
Monday: MAGA Christianism Book Chapters
Our Monday slot presents sequential chapters from my forthcoming theological analysis of MAGA Christianism. This week's introduction, "The Challenge of MAGA Christianism," establishes the framework for understanding this phenomenon, beginning with theological mutations including primitive biblicism, practical atheism, and binary apocalypticism. To be clear, MAGA Christianism doesn't refer to supporters of the current administration generally, but rather a specific sociological phenomenon seen in a subset of the MAGA populist movement that merits theological examination.
Introduction: The Challenge of MAGA Christianism
Something profound has happened to American Christianity over the past decade—a transformation so significant that it requires new terminology to describe it. What many observers initially dismissed as a temporary alliance between evangelical Christians and an unlikely political figure has evolved into something far more consequential: a fusion of relig…
Tuesday: "Rooted & Reaching" Personal Essays
Tuesdays feature personal essays that weave together my journey through recovery from workaholism, health transformation, and connection to the land. This week's piece, "The Metrics That Matter: Rethinking Progress at 65," explores how we measure growth, success, and flourishing in ways that honor both our bodies and souls.
The Metrics That Matter
This essay introduces "Rooted & Reaching," a series exploring how working the soil of my land parallels working the soil of my soul—connecting physical stewardship with spiritual growth, recovery with healing, and mortality awareness with flourishing.
Wednesday: Common Life Politics Essays
Wednesdays feature my "Common Life Politics" series that will eventually be published as a Kindle collection. This week begins with "Bullshit," examining how deceptive communication undermines our democracy and how truth-telling functions as spiritual resistance. These essays provide theological foundations for engaging our political moment with integrity.
BLLSHT
A recent conversation with my friend Derek Woodard-Lehman about our current political climate led me back to philosopher Harry Frankfurt's work. Derek recommended I revisit Frankfurt's dual essays on love and bllsht (bovine excrement)—insights that have taken on new urgency in our present moment.
Thursday: "Untold America" Book Chapters
Thursdays bring personal reflections on discovering the "other half" of American history, which will ultimately become a book. This week's post, "The Textbook That Lied: How I Discovered America's Multiple Founding Peoples," shares my awakening to the reality beyond the Anglo-Saxon origin myth that shaped my early understanding.
Friday: "Divine Republic" Satirical Pieces
Our week concludes with satirical commentary that employs metaphor to highlight incongruities between stated values and actual practices in religious-political movements. This week's piece, "The Library of American Greatness Renovation Project," uses the metaphor of library renovation to examine how history is selectively curated.
Supporting This Work
As our community grows, we'll be implementing a thoughtful approach to sustainability. While Friday's satirical pieces will always remain free to all, we plan to eventually place the Monday MAGA Christianism and Thursday Untold America chapters behind a modest paywall. This hybrid model will help support the considerable research and development these series require while keeping the majority of content freely accessible to everyone.
The Connected Vision
Though distinct, these five series form an integrated whole. The theological analysis provides the intellectual framework, the personal essays demonstrate how these ideas manifest in everyday life, the Common Life Politics essays offer constructive ethical alternatives, the historical confessionals provide necessary context, and the satirical pieces help us maintain perspective through humor.
Together, they represent my commitment to thinking theologically about our moment, living authentically, honoring historical truth, and finding hope through both serious analysis and laughter.
In Dialogue With You
Crucially, I see these series not as completed works but as conversations-in-progress. Your insights, questions, and perspectives will help shape these explorations as they develop into books. Each comment, email, and conversation becomes part of the creative process. I invite you to engage actively, challenge thoughtfully, and contribute generously to this ongoing dialogue.Across these diverse explorations emerges a unifying question: How do we maintain truthfulness and integrity in both personal and public life when facing powerful countercurrents?
Engagement Guide: Truth with Love
As we engage with those influenced by MAGA Christianism—whether family members, neighbors, or fellow churchgoers—we often face a fundamental challenge: How do we speak truth without severing relationship?
The False Dichotomy
Our polarized culture often presents us with a false choice: speak truth harshly or remain silent to preserve peace. Yet neither option reflects the way of Christ, who embodied truth and love as inseparable realities.
As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4:15, we are called to "speak the truth in love." This isn't about softening truth to make it palatable. Rather, it recognizes that how we communicate truth matters as much as the truth itself.
Practical Approaches
Speaking truth with love requires:
Affirming relationship before addressing disagreement
Seeking common ground as a foundation for difficult conversations
Addressing ideas rather than attacking character
Being as generous with others' motivations as we are with our own
Recognizing that timing and tone communicate as much as content
This approach mirrors God's patient engagement with humanity. Even when correcting, God first demonstrates profound love for those being corrected.
Virtue in Practice: Truthful Presence
This week, practice the virtue of truthful presence—bringing both honesty and genuine care to your conversations.
Daily Practice: Before difficult conversations, take a moment to consciously affirm (at least to yourself) the value of the relationship and your commitment to both truth and love. Monitor your tone and body language as carefully as your words.
Prayer Practice: "God of truth and love, help me speak honestly without harshness and listen generously without compromise. Guard my tongue from both deception and cruelty. Let me be fully present to others as you are present to me."
Application to This Week's Content
Monday's Theological Analysis: As you reflect on the distortions identified in MAGA Christianism, consider how you might engage with someone influenced by these patterns with both clarity and compassion.
Tuesday's Personal Essay: The metrics that matter in conversation include not just "winning points" but strengthening connection even amid disagreement.
Wednesday's "Bullshit" Essay: Practice the courage to name deception without dismissing the person employing it. Integrity in conversation means addressing falsehood while honoring humanity.
Thursday's Historical Exploration: When discussing contested histories, acknowledge how identity and security needs shape resistance to historical reckoning. Truth-telling requires understanding why some truths feel threatening.
Friday's Satirical Piece: After enjoying the satire, consider: How might you communicate similar insights in direct conversation with someone who might recognize themselves in the satire?
Coming Next Week
Monday: We'll continue our theological exploration of MAGA Christianism, examining how Christian nationalism relates to each of the three theological mutations.
Tuesday: "From Processed to Whole" will explore the parallel journeys of reclaiming authenticity in both food and faith.
Wednesday: "Empathy" will examine how moral imagination becomes essential for democratic community.
Thursday: "Beyond the Mayflower" will reveal the Spanish America that predated Plymouth.
Friday: "The Great Curriculum Cleansing Initiative" will satirically examine efforts to sanitize educational content.
My next "Weekend Wisdom" will focus on "Understanding Before Responding" – the spiritual practice of listening beneath words to the experiences that shape perspectives.
What resonated most with you from this week's posts? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below or via email. Your perspectives will directly shape these evolving projects.