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David W. Congdon

@dwcongdon.com

2.2K followers 1.1K following 1.8K posts

Senior Editor, University Press of Kansas | Lecturer, KU | Who Is a New Christian? (Cambridge, 2024) | Bylines: Christian Century, Sojourners, Presby Outlook, Revealer

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 7d

I have a new article out in @christiancentury.bsky.social responding to Trump and Dolan's comments about Charlie Kirk being a missionary. I argue they were right—and this tells us something important about the legacy of Christian mission.

Christian Century @christiancentury.bsky.social · 7d

“Cardinal Dolan and President Trump are right about this. Kirk was indeed a missionary—and that’s precisely the problem.”

– @dwcongdon.com

www.christiancentury.org/features/yes...

Yes, Charlie Kirk was a missionary

Trump is right about this—but not for the reasons he...

www.christiancentury.org

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Reposted by David W. Congdon

Jason❌ @gizmosspace.bsky.social · 20h

This is awesome.

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Reposted by David W. Congdon

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 13h

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 16h

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 18h

"I concur...and yet I dissent. Not from the majority’s opinion, but I dissent from the racism embedded in the federal case law."

This is so good. The concurring/dissenting opinion begins on p. 27.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 18h

Washington Supreme Court Justice Mungia has an extraordinary opinion condemning "the underlying racism and prejudices that are woven into the very fabric" of SCOTUS opinions about Native people.

"We must clearly, loudly, and unequivocally state that was wrong.”
www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf...

MUNGIA, J. (concurring)—I concur with the majority’s opinion.1
And yet I
dissent. Not from the majority’s opinion, but I dissent from the racism embedded in the
federal case law that applies to this dispute.
FEDERAL INDIAN LAW IS A PRODUCT OF THE RACIST BELIEFS ENDEMIC IN OUR SOCIETY
AND OUR LEGAL SYSTEM
While it is certainly necessary to follow federal case law on issues involving
Native American tribes and their members, at the same time it is important to call out that
the very foundations of those opinions were based on racism and white supremacy. By
doing this, readers of our opinions will have no doubt that the current court disavows, and
condemns, those racist sentiments, beliefs, and statements.

Since the founding of our country, the federal government has characterized
Native Americans as “savages”: They were “uncivilized.” They had little claim to the
land upon which they lived. At times, the federal government attempted to eradicate
Native Americans through genocidal policies. At other times, the federal government
employed ethnic cleansing by forcibly removing children from their parents’ homes to
strip them from their culture, their language, and their beings.2
Federal Indian case law arises from those racist underpinnings.
The majority correctly cites to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8
L. Ed. 25 (1831), which is one of the foundational cases involving tribal sovereignty.
That opinion is rife with racist attitudes toward Native Americans. Chief Justice John
Marshall, writing for the majority, describes a tribe’s relationship to the federal
government as one of “ward to his guardian.” Id. at 17. In effect, the opinion presents
tribal members as children, and the federal government as the adult. That theme would
follow in later opinions by the United States Supreme Court—as would the theme of
white supremacy.
Cherokee Nation began with the premise that Native American tribes, once strong
and powerful, were no match for the white race and so found themselves “gradually
sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms.” Id. at 15. The white man
was considered the teacher, the Native Americans the pupils:

Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United
States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
Id. at 17.
This characterization of superior to inferior, teacher to student, guardian to ward,
was repeated in later United States Supreme Court opinions.
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 (1903),
often characterized as the “American Indian Dred Scott,”
3
the Court used that rationale to
justify ruling that the United States could break its treaties with Native American tribes.
These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities
dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food.
Dependent for their political rights. . . . From their very weakness and
helplessness . . . there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.
Id. at 567 (quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 383-84, 6 S. Ct. 1109, 30 L.
Ed. 228 (1886)).
Our court also carries the shame of denigrating Native Americans by using that
same characterization: “The Indian was a child, and a dangerous child, of nature, to be
both protected and restrained.” State v. Towessnute, 89 Wash. 478, 482, 154 P. 805
(1916), judgment vacated and opinion repudiated by 197 Wn.2d 574, 486 P.3d 111
(2020).
3 See A

Returning to Cherokee Nation, Justice William Johnson’s separate opinion was
less tempered in how he considered the various Native American tribes:
I cannot but think that there are strong reasons for doubting the
applicability of the epithet state, to a people so low in the grade of
organized society as our Indian tribes most generally are.
Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. at 21. Native Americans were not to be treated as “equals to
equals” but, instead, the United States was the conqueror and Native Americans the
conquered. Id. at 23.
In discussing Native Americans, Justice Johnson employed another racist trope
used by judges both before and after him: Native Americans were uncivilized savages.
[W]e have extended to them the means and inducement to become
agricultural and civilized. . . . Independently of the general influence of
humanity, these people were restless, warlike, and signally cruel.
. . . .
But I think it very clear that the constitution neither speaks of them as states
or foreign states, but as just what they were, Indian tribes . . . which the law
of nations would regard as nothing more than wandering hordes, held
together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither laws or
government, beyond what is required in a savage state.
Id. at 23, 27-28.
This same characterization was used by Justice Stanley Matthews in Ex parte KanGi-Shun-Ca (otherwise known as Crow Dog), 109 U.S. 556, 3 S. Ct. 396, 27 L. Ed. 1030
(1883). Justice Matthews described Native Americans as leading a savage life.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 19h

I definitely didn't intend to be making that stronger claim. I don't think any historical development is inevitable (here I would echo DBH's tradition book), and I recognize that some in the original postliberal camp did not and would not follow this trajectory.

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Reposted by David W. Congdon

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

This is the genius of the Portland protests - they make the claims of lawlessness look not just wrong, but comical

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 1d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 20h

This is already so cringe, but it’s going to look especially bad when the bubble bursts.
dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

UNC schools of data science and information science to merge, forming unnamed ‘School of AI’

SDSS Dean Stanley Ahalt will be made dean of the new school while SILS Dean Jeffrey Bardzell will stand as the University’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI.

dailytarheel.com

Reposted by David W. Congdon

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 21h

the DOGE-ification of CBS news

Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 22h

News: Bari Weiss just sent a memo to staffers at CBS News asking them to produce a memo explaining "how you spend your working hours—and ideally, what you've made (or are making) that you're most proud of."

One CBS News staffer puts it like this to me: "We just got Elon Musked."

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

I ended up feeling very frustrated with it. The writing was painfully bad at times, and I found the ways they advanced the plot to be so contrived and unbelievable. For me, ep 5 on the ship was so good that it highlighted how bad the rest was.

David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

A lot of moderate evangelicals claim that MAGA is a “perverse inversion” of old evangelicalism, while others would see lots of continuity. The point being that these are judgments that depend a great deal on how we view the past and its relation to the present.

David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

I tend to agree, but much depends on your word “natural.” What exactly counts as a natural development? I don’t think Nicaea is a “natural” development of the NT, if by natural we mean “inevitable.” But it is a possible development.

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Spencer Reynolds @sreynolds.bsky.social · 1d

Antifa is not a group; the president cannot designate domestic terror groups.

My @brennancenter.org colleague @faizapatel.bsky.social is out today with a deep review of NSPM-7. It is a dangerous directive that will facilitate predatory politics-based targeting: www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

This is exactly how I respond whenever AI comes up.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

Reposted by David W. Congdon

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 1d

It really can't be said enough: the goal of the "anti-woke" movement was always to destroy social norms against bigotry. And it worked. And there's a whole lot of purportedly "left" thinkers & commentators who helped it -- indeed, it couldn't have been done without them.

They should feel bad.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

But Hauerwas’s culture-homogenous community of tradition and virtue is very much a proto-BenOp project that dovetails nicely with current postliberal theory. If you read Deneen alongside Resident Aliens, it feels like a shared discourse. I don’t think that’s an accident.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on Hauerwas and Milbank. I think Milbank has always been a Christian nationalist, so he seems pretty obvious to me. Hauerwas I recognize is more complicated, and I certainly don’t think it’s the only direction one could go with his work.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 1d

Lois Nettleship's new book on the University Religious Conference is now out. This is a really interesting historical study of a little-known student interfaith group. Use the code INTERFAITH to get 30% off and free US shipping.
kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700640676/

Reposted by David W. Congdon

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d

grawlix | noun | a series of typographical symbols (such as $#!) used in text as a replacement for profanity

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Reposted by David W. Congdon

Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 3d

The First Amendment explicitly guarantees:

-the right of the people peaceably to assemble
-to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
-the free exercise of religion
-freedom of speech

If this priest had also been press, ICE would have violated all five 1A freedoms at once.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 3d

Here’s video of the incident

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Reposted by David W. Congdon

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 19d

Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 3d

I’ve watched this several times now and it really is something. Clearly Miller was giving away their game plan to announce martial law and invoke the Insurrection Act. That’s not really a surprise—we’ve seen this coming for months. But it was fascinating to see the higher ups shut down the interview

Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 3d

Stephen Miller just said the quiet part out loud claiming that Trump has plenary authority when it comes to deploying troops. (Plenary means full authority.) After making the statement, he froze completely, like a deer in headlights. The video is worth watching.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 3d

Yes, very true.

David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 3d

The absurdly named Alliance Defending Freedom continues their campaign to enforce White Christian supremacy.

Reposted by David W. Congdon

Anthea Butler @antheabutler.bsky.social · 3d

So since I'm annoyed let me say a few things today.Some folks have been writing about Christian Nationalism and apocalyptic right wing movements for YEARS here in the US. YEARS. Do we get to have a platform in major mags and newspapers... rarely.

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David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 4d

Yes they are.

David W. Congdon @dwcongdon.com · 4d

I think we have to pair this with the distinction I use in my book between theological voluntarism and intellectualism. Voluntarism says that something is right because a person in authority says so; intellectualism says something is right because it is publicly evident and reasonable.

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