This week, we reflect on the anticlimactic America250 celebrations in Washington, DC, and around the country. We also talked about the tragic, suspicious death of African American 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells, whose body was found after he disappeared during a boat trip with a group of white friends on Horn Island over the Fourth of July weekend, and why so many Black Americans are reacting differently than white Americans to this story. Finally, we talk about the mainstreaming of Doug Wilson, an extremist self-described Christian nationalist who leads a small denomination of churches to which Pete Hegseth belongs. In the past year, he's landed high-profile interviews from CNN, New York Times, and most recently NPR. But his rising influence is mostly due to the failure of mainstream white evangelicalism to defend itself from incursions from the far right. Today, mainstream white evangelical leaders are not only failing to condemn his dangerous, illiberal views, they are inviting him into their circles and joining him on his own platforms. If we needed one more piece of evidence of the complete moral and theological collapse of the white evangelical world, the embrace of Wilson is it.

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Independence Day Edition

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This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s order to remove Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants. The lead opinion, written by Justice Alito, declared that Trump’s derogatory language about these groups (“they’re eating the pets”) and their country of origin (“sh*thole countries”) was not “OVERTLY” racist and therefore not a factor in discerning his motivation for the order. Justice Sotomayor, in a blistering dissent, declared that “the references—of filth, disease, and primitiveness—are shot through with racial stereotypes.” Meanwhile, Trump is giving white South African refugees welcome bags with a PragerU children’s book on so-called reverse racism, and a document that defends the country’s founding on slavery. We talk about how these moves violate not only basic moral decency but Christian teaching about treating immigrants with hospitality and respect and, well, just not bearing false witness against your neighbor. We close by reminding listeners of the need to pay attention to the bright lines being crossed and to not cede the flag or patriotism to the Christian nationalists who distort their meaning.

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Jemar Tisby- JemarTisby.Substack.com