Stephen
@stephenwaldron.bsky.social
Theologian writing a book on the political theology of the New Apostolic Reformation. Websites: https://stephenwaldron.substack.com/
theologyandsociety.com
theologyandsociety.com
Reposted by Stephen
"Three possibilities for action that the church can take vis-a-vis the state [that misuses force]:
1st, questioning the state as to the legitimate state character of its actions..
2nd.. to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel...
3rd.. to fall within the spokes."
- Bonfoeffer, 1933
1st, questioning the state as to the legitimate state character of its actions..
2nd.. to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel...
3rd.. to fall within the spokes."
- Bonfoeffer, 1933
January 24, 2026 at 10:42 PM
"Three possibilities for action that the church can take vis-a-vis the state [that misuses force]:
1st, questioning the state as to the legitimate state character of its actions..
2nd.. to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel...
3rd.. to fall within the spokes."
- Bonfoeffer, 1933
1st, questioning the state as to the legitimate state character of its actions..
2nd.. to bind up the wounds of the victims beneath the wheel...
3rd.. to fall within the spokes."
- Bonfoeffer, 1933
Reposted by Stephen
Follower request: Does anyone have recommendations for good books on Christian socialism?
January 23, 2026 at 1:51 AM
Follower request: Does anyone have recommendations for good books on Christian socialism?
There's a book to be written on the influence of Switzerland on US evangelicals during the 20th century. Leaders like Francis Schaeffer and Loren Cunningham chose to base their ministries there while theologians like Bernard Ramm and Dan Fuller studied with Karl Barth. And, of course, Lausanne 1974.
January 23, 2026 at 6:57 PM
There's a book to be written on the influence of Switzerland on US evangelicals during the 20th century. Leaders like Francis Schaeffer and Loren Cunningham chose to base their ministries there while theologians like Bernard Ramm and Dan Fuller studied with Karl Barth. And, of course, Lausanne 1974.
Reposted by Stephen
Very pleased to have a paper in this special issue of the Indonesian journal of Theology focussing on Ecotheology in Asia and the Pacific: indotheologyjournal.org/index.php/ho...
January 23, 2026 at 10:25 AM
Very pleased to have a paper in this special issue of the Indonesian journal of Theology focussing on Ecotheology in Asia and the Pacific: indotheologyjournal.org/index.php/ho...
Reposted by Stephen
It’s perverse beyond description: my own government trying as hard as it can not to protect my city, but to enraged, attack, and destroy it, I campaign of pure malevolent aggression, conducted by US government paramilitaries against its own citizenry.
January 21, 2026 at 11:45 PM
It’s perverse beyond description: my own government trying as hard as it can not to protect my city, but to enraged, attack, and destroy it, I campaign of pure malevolent aggression, conducted by US government paramilitaries against its own citizenry.
Reposted by Stephen
Catholicism has significantly declined since 2013-14 across all six countries we surveyed.
2/
2/
January 21, 2026 at 3:24 PM
Catholicism has significantly declined since 2013-14 across all six countries we surveyed.
2/
2/
Not the only or main thing going on here, but the Anabaptist tradition was right, I think, to conclude that baptized Christians have a very different role to play in society than the magistrate who wields the sword. While we're having "courage and clarity about Jesus and sin."
I'm sure it is a "normal church," which is of course precisely the problem.
January 19, 2026 at 11:05 PM
Not the only or main thing going on here, but the Anabaptist tradition was right, I think, to conclude that baptized Christians have a very different role to play in society than the magistrate who wields the sword. While we're having "courage and clarity about Jesus and sin."
Looks like a bunch of top SBC officials are characterizing this as a random anti-Christian act by a demonic mob, attacking religious freedom for no reason in particular (not acknowledging that one of the pastors is an ICE official): www.baptistpress.com/resource-lib...
January 19, 2026 at 2:30 AM
Looks like a bunch of top SBC officials are characterizing this as a random anti-Christian act by a demonic mob, attacking religious freedom for no reason in particular (not acknowledging that one of the pastors is an ICE official): www.baptistpress.com/resource-lib...
I'm not a fan of the Southern Baptist Convention (generally an awful institution since 1845), but I'm genuinely shocked that a guy on the pastoral staff of an SBC church is also serving acting director of an ICE field office.
Activists interrupted the service of a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul, MN, today to protest that one of the pastors is the acting director of the nearby ICE field office:
publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/protesters...
publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/protesters...
Protesters Disrupt Southern Baptist Church of Pastor Who Leads ICE Office in Minnesota
On Sunday, an unplanned liturgy of “ICE out!” and “Justice for Renee Good!” erupted in the sanctuary of a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
publicwitness.wordandway.org
January 18, 2026 at 11:41 PM
I'm not a fan of the Southern Baptist Convention (generally an awful institution since 1845), but I'm genuinely shocked that a guy on the pastoral staff of an SBC church is also serving acting director of an ICE field office.
The gospel of law and gender likes to call itself "saving faith," but it instead of "saving" it tends to simply kill any interest that people have in understanding other people and their perspectives.
McCracken also has the bizarre idea that a faith rooted in Christ's love and self-sacrifice involves "cheap grace" if it isn't also obviously homophobic. The actual truth is that the homophobic Christianity he wants offers cheap grace to straight people.
January 18, 2026 at 11:29 PM
The gospel of law and gender likes to call itself "saving faith," but it instead of "saving" it tends to simply kill any interest that people have in understanding other people and their perspectives.
Reposted by Stephen
I’ve been thinking more about this. I think a failure to recognize that to truly follow Christ means willingness to die for others is the failure that underlies every other petty common uncharity and ordinary, defensible selfishness
can u imagine being not only a baptized christian but an ordained priest and then, when NPR asks you about the Bishop of New Hampshire's comments last week, what you find to say is "I didn't sign up to be a martyr"??
January 18, 2026 at 3:07 PM
I’ve been thinking more about this. I think a failure to recognize that to truly follow Christ means willingness to die for others is the failure that underlies every other petty common uncharity and ordinary, defensible selfishness
Finally watched Wake Up Dead Man. It was kind of stunning--would be intimidating to make a film about Christianity after this one. To the extent that it had a "message," and despite comedic moments, it did a far better job of expressing Christianity at its best than 99.9% of sermons do.
January 18, 2026 at 12:26 AM
Finally watched Wake Up Dead Man. It was kind of stunning--would be intimidating to make a film about Christianity after this one. To the extent that it had a "message," and despite comedic moments, it did a far better job of expressing Christianity at its best than 99.9% of sermons do.
Reposted by Stephen
I realise I'm just a freak, but living in a multicultural city is the best thing of all time, it's just the best possible human experience and i can not understand why anyone on earth would be like "weve got to destroy this"
January 17, 2026 at 4:28 AM
I realise I'm just a freak, but living in a multicultural city is the best thing of all time, it's just the best possible human experience and i can not understand why anyone on earth would be like "weve got to destroy this"
Reposted by Stephen
Geneva 1538-1541
John Calvin Scorner
Florida, State Census, 1935
Florida, State Census, 1935
November 23, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Geneva 1538-1541
Maybe this is my least woke opinion, but they simply need to punish people for smoking on trains. We can't have a society when people destroy society with impunity by making transit unusable.
CTA board approved a pilot to not prevent, but mitigate the negative impacts of, smoking on the 'L'. And there was discussion of how Trump's FTA is exploiting CTA crime concerns by threatening a $50M funding cut, rather than offering to collaborate on solutions.
chi.streetsblog.org/2026/01/15/c...
chi.streetsblog.org/2026/01/15/c...
January 16, 2026 at 12:45 AM
Maybe this is my least woke opinion, but they simply need to punish people for smoking on trains. We can't have a society when people destroy society with impunity by making transit unusable.
For some reason that is hard to grasp, many people apply what Dubya called "the soft bigotry of low expectations" to this guy. Employers don't accept this kind of behavior from pretty much any employed person, but so many people just laugh this off from the most powerful person in the world.
Trump says a lot of deranged shit, but, per this Reuters article — and the threats of invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota this morning — he is very clearly exploring how to cancel the midterms.
www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
January 15, 2026 at 4:31 PM
For some reason that is hard to grasp, many people apply what Dubya called "the soft bigotry of low expectations" to this guy. Employers don't accept this kind of behavior from pretty much any employed person, but so many people just laugh this off from the most powerful person in the world.
Reposted by Stephen
I learned about this woman at my local church in suburban MD. The deacon, a man who both looked and sounded like Tobias Fünke, gave a moving homily about how she was an example of what Christ meant when he said “I have come to set the world on fire, and how I wish it was already blazing.”
Grateful to @geneweingarten.bsky.social for bringing up a story of a murder in the Civil Rights era that I had never heard of, one that has particular relevance right now.
geneweingarten.substack.com/p/this-has-h...
geneweingarten.substack.com/p/this-has-h...
This Has Happened Before
Viola Liuzzo was 39 years old when she was murdered. It was March 25, 1965.
geneweingarten.substack.com
January 12, 2026 at 7:12 PM
I learned about this woman at my local church in suburban MD. The deacon, a man who both looked and sounded like Tobias Fünke, gave a moving homily about how she was an example of what Christ meant when he said “I have come to set the world on fire, and how I wish it was already blazing.”
When that guy said it was humiliating to die on behalf of Somalis, it was pretty shocking in the sense that he (and, more than that, his supporters) seem to have finally reduced their Christianity to something completely detached from Jesus.
die amerikanischen Christen
die amerikanischen Christen
"the most disgraceful and humiliating end a person could possibly meet," matt walsh?
whose death does that sound like?
whose death does that sound like?
January 10, 2026 at 2:21 PM
When that guy said it was humiliating to die on behalf of Somalis, it was pretty shocking in the sense that he (and, more than that, his supporters) seem to have finally reduced their Christianity to something completely detached from Jesus.
die amerikanischen Christen
die amerikanischen Christen
It's fascinating when ideology keeps people from seeing what is coming next. On October 7, a friend told me to read their Israeli relative's account of what had happened for "another perspective," and I immediately knew it would be hell for Gazans in the coming months, but they had no clue.
January 10, 2026 at 4:39 AM
It's fascinating when ideology keeps people from seeing what is coming next. On October 7, a friend told me to read their Israeli relative's account of what had happened for "another perspective," and I immediately knew it would be hell for Gazans in the coming months, but they had no clue.
Reposted by Stephen
AOC: “I understand that VP Vance believes shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, & I do not — That is a fundamental difference between VP Vance & I — I do not believe the American people should be assassinated in the street”
January 9, 2026 at 6:30 PM
AOC: “I understand that VP Vance believes shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, & I do not — That is a fundamental difference between VP Vance & I — I do not believe the American people should be assassinated in the street”
When I post things related to religion/theology with no incendiary political angle, there's typically no real response on here. When there's a political connection? Tons of reposts/replies show up. The incentives on here are heavily tilted in favor of politics posting, unfortunately.
I'd be happy with big non politics accounts.
January 5, 2026 at 9:09 PM
When I post things related to religion/theology with no incendiary political angle, there's typically no real response on here. When there's a political connection? Tons of reposts/replies show up. The incentives on here are heavily tilted in favor of politics posting, unfortunately.
Also, this has almost nothing to do with "housing policy." There are relatively empty areas around, e.g., Erie, Pennsylvania or New London, Connecticut because most people want/need to live in or very close to large population centers with jobs, not in remote deserts or mountain ranges.
50-60 million acres of this land is held in trust for sovereign Native nations. This was written by a professor who teaches at the most highly ranked law school in the country and who should have mentioned this.
reason.com/volokh/2026/...
reason.com/volokh/2026/...
President Trump’s New Housing Policy Should Include Massive Privatization of Federal Land
The U.S. government currently owns 28% of the land in the United States, which is way too much.
reason.com
January 5, 2026 at 6:59 PM
Also, this has almost nothing to do with "housing policy." There are relatively empty areas around, e.g., Erie, Pennsylvania or New London, Connecticut because most people want/need to live in or very close to large population centers with jobs, not in remote deserts or mountain ranges.
"Baptized in the Holy Spirit" is a distinctively Pentecostal/charismatic concept, but "revival and reformation" is even more particular to NAR theology: "Revival" includes conversions and shifts within the church; "reformation" is the result of "NAR" people taking political dominion over society.
MercyCulture, the Christian nationalist church network in Texas that often flirts with QAnon, just opened a prayer house across from the Supreme Court. Among their prayer board items: Ending human trafficking and for Trump to be "baptized in the Holy Spirit."
January 5, 2026 at 3:49 PM
"Baptized in the Holy Spirit" is a distinctively Pentecostal/charismatic concept, but "revival and reformation" is even more particular to NAR theology: "Revival" includes conversions and shifts within the church; "reformation" is the result of "NAR" people taking political dominion over society.
Reposted by Stephen
Like the OP says, it’s just so sad to me. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the Word made flesh. He proclaimed an upside down kingdom and died on a cross to shatter the chains of death and open a gate to everlasting life.
These guys want to trade *that* for gender roles?!
These guys want to trade *that* for gender roles?!
January 2, 2026 at 10:12 PM
Like the OP says, it’s just so sad to me. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the Word made flesh. He proclaimed an upside down kingdom and died on a cross to shatter the chains of death and open a gate to everlasting life.
These guys want to trade *that* for gender roles?!
These guys want to trade *that* for gender roles?!
Reposted by Stephen
It's incredibly sad how many (most?) conservative Christians have reduced "Christianity" to mean "patriarchal gender roles." That reduction is the subtext for almost every claim now about how "the culture" needs to be resisted or restored.
January 2, 2026 at 10:08 PM