The last episode of the Esau McCaulley podcast (as of July 4, 2025) is really excellent. I highly recommend it.
There’s a wonderful discussion of patriotism with a really helpful metaphor – the best I’ve heard yet! You’ll recognize it when you hear it. That conversation is followed by a discussion of big church vs. small church – the advantages and disadvantages of each. (Spoiler: To be fair, it is a discussion weighted towards small church.) Lastly, there is a closing segment discussing Peter Thiel’s philosophy and what it means to be human – a certain kind of techno-false gospel.
Listen in your favorite podcast app or watch it on YouTube or listen here in your favorite web browser.
Kieran Healy is a Professor of Sociology at Duke University. I really don’t know much about him, though he seems to have written a bunch of interesting articles and writes a blog. I found an intriguing quote from his latest blog note in an email newsletter of Alan Jacobs and followed up by reading Healy’s essay on the process of becoming an American citizen. Appropriately enough (and deeply appropriate for our times) it is entitled American.
In his essay, he reflects on what one learns and is tested on in the citizenship exam that one takes to become a citizen. I found his reflections both encouraging in their content and deeply troubling when compared to the reality of our current federal government’s approach to immigration.
I was captured by the portion of the Healy essay that Alan Jacobs quoted:
I know the nationalities of my fellow oath-takers because of the next stage of the ceremony. This was the Roll Call of Nations. I did not know this was going to happen. Every country of origin represented was announced in turn. As your country was named, you were asked to stand up, and remain standing. Afghanistan came first. Then Algeria. The last person to stand, immediately to my left, was from the United Kingdom. There were twenty seven countries in all, out of only fifty or so people. For me this part in particular was enormously, irresistibly moving. It perfectly expressed the principle, the claim, the myth — as you please — that America is an idea. That it does not matter where you are from. That, in fact, America will in this moment explicitly and proudly acknowledge the sheer variety of places you are all from. That built in to the heart of the United States is the republican ideal not just that anyone can become an American, but that this possibility is what makes the country what it is.
Wow. That’s what I learned growing up in the heartland of America. It’s inspiring. And that’s why the present treatment of so many where I live in LA County is so horribly depressing and awful and unAmerican. This drumming up of conflict by deporting contributing members of our community is just not what America is about. It divides us and induces fear. It’s wrong in so many ways. Iranian Christians dragged out of church to be deported? A student deported as he graduates high school? A resident of 47 years detained to be deported? The stories from torn-apart families are piling up; it’s horrifying to witness. And it’s even bad for those who are empowered and ordered to arrest and detain these people who are not criminals. It is not the American in which I grew up and learned American values.
And I haven’t even begun here to evaluate what is happening by uniquely Christian standards… Read American.
In a talk I recorded for Long Beach Friends Church on June 22, 2025, I mentioned that there were some really good resources to understand migration issues. This sort article is written to provide links to those resources. I used these resources in preparing that message.
For a long-term historical survey of migration contextualizing present-day migration, far and away the best research is included in a book by one of the world’s leading scholars of migration, Hein de Hass. It is entitled How Migration Really Works: The Facts About the Most Divisive Issue in Politics. I highly, highly recommend it. It is well-written and covers a great deal of ground. I found some of the things I believed about immigration were simply not true. This is not a partisan book. (I don’t get anything if you use that link above to purchase from Amazon. Purchase where you will.)
Evangelical Immigration Table is a Christian organization that connects followers of Jesus with the world of American immigration in a way that strives to honor Jesus’ teaching.
Bible Project’s podcast series on how the Bible was formed is really excellent, easy to understand, and very helpful to form a good basic foundation for approaching the Bible. It is quite faithful to the way scripture presents itself and takes into account what we know of the world in which scripture was given to God’s people. I highly recommend it!
Prior to this, my awareness of the Holcombs was primarily because I appreciated their music. They both have music careers of their own and often work together, which is the music of theirs I appreciate the most. I learned that Drew Holcomb has a masters in theology from St. Andrews University. I learned that there is such a genre of music as Americana – I’d never heard of it before. (I suppose that says more about my awareness of the music world than anything else.) I learned some things about Drew Holcomb’s backstory that deepened my appreciation of his music quite a lot. I note that Lee C. Camp is a hospitable interviewer who opens the way to deeper conversation than is the norm. All in all, it was an interview that made my morning. Quite encouraging!
There’s an earlier interview of Drew Holcomb on this same podcast that is, shall we say, a bit more emotionally intense. It addresses the subject of vulnerability in art. I listened to it earlier. Of course, that led me to listening to the more recent interview this morning. A second portion of this earlier episode is an interview with Audrey Assad.
The triggering event for all of this was Lee C. Camp being interviewed by Skye Jethani on the Holy Post podcast (at about the 56 minute mark). That interview was also quite good, motivating me to connect with No Small Endeavor, where I noticed Lee C. Camp had interviewed Drew Holcomb, among many others I find intriguing.
Maybe my note here will trigger your interest in No Small Endeavor, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, or Ellie Holcomb. All are worth checking out. The Holcombs have topped my music listening list for two or three years now.
I don’t know Joshua Luke Smith. Never heard of him before today. I just read a brief article about him (he’s an MK). He’s a poet and rapper who works in prisons. That’s all I know except for the experience of hearing him read a couple of his poems.
What shoved me towards his work was Brian Bakke posting on social media a link to a recent reading of one of his poems which I think is entitled Sunflowers in Babylon. (Either that or Uncle Terry’s Legacy. I’m not sure.) Brian’s advice is serious business for me, so I decided to check it out. I’m not one who is much for poetry, but for eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds Joshua Luke Smith had my full, rapt attention. After he finished, I wanted to read the words of the poem and ponder a bit. I found a transcript here. Wow.
Then, I wanted to find out more about this guy. He’s got a website. The first video on the page “My Work” was a blessing. Would that I could bless like that! And he’s all over the common social media.
Then my granddaughter Malea arrived, walking to our house from her nearby elementary school. I told her I just saw a great video on YouTube. She wanted to see it. It held her attention for all eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds, too. She wanted to know why he wrote it. “Did he write that for a funeral?” I said perhaps it was inspired by his uncle’s passing, but that it was not performed for a funeral. She said she liked it a lot. Then her Dad picked her up to go home.
So this note is my recommendation to pursue some of his poetry for yourself. Planting a sunflower seed? It’s me, one who was deeply encouraged pointing to the source of the blessing. We need some blessing, some hope, some direction just now. The other events in the news out of DC today… Well, I’m not going to go there. Joshua Luke Smith. I’m going to recommend some time with his readings.
In the 1992 American edition of his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power(first published in German in 1974), Josef Pieper commented that advertising in modern societies damages language. Words are “perverted and debased to become a catalyst, a drug, as it were, and . . . as such administered. Instrument of power may still seem a somewhat strong term for this; still, it does not seem so farfetched any longer.”
Of course, in these days, this thought strikes me as deeply relevant. What is evidently false is claimed to be true – outright lies! Spoken by those in positions of great responsibility and power. And what is true is denied and suppressed. All in the name of influencing and controlling other humans for some presumed “good” end. Not all words are like this – yet? – but so many seem to believe what is simply false and damaging. And so it continues. Straight talk is hard to find.
Pieper, in this book, insists those who care for truth must stand solidly against such twisted and twisting use of words. Quoting Pieper…
This implies also opposition to anything that could destroy or distort the nature of the word as communication and its unbiased openness to reality. In this respect we are well able to pronounce the general principle and at the same time to be very specific: opposition is required, for instance, against every partisan simplification, every ideological agitation, every blind emotionality; against seduction through well-turned yet empty slogans, against autocratic terminology with no room for dialogue, against personal insult as an element of style (all the more despicable the more sophisticated it is), against the language of evasive appeasement and false assurance… and not least against the jargon of the revolution, against categorical conformism, and categorical nonconformism…
Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power by Josef Pieper
How to oppose such words spoken for purpose without regard for truth? I mean, how to oppose such with integrity for Jesus’ teaching and love for even those who behave as enemies? It often seems difficult. Muddy. And yet, scripture has true words that speak profound wisdom to those who will listen….
All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Matthew 5.37, New International Version of the Bible
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one another.
Ephesians 4.25, New International Version of the Bible
When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.
Proverbs 10.19, New International Version of the Bible
These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; do not plot evil against each other, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this,” declares the LORD.
Zechariah 8.16-17, New International Version of the Bible
In a very recent policy change, the new presidential administration withdrew guidance that said that ICE shouldn’t conduct an immigration raid during a church service except for when there is a public safety threat.
Note well… if a terrorist (or similar) were to run into a church there was already a way for ICE to have the authority to go into that church. What changed was the administration rescinded its limitations on immigration enforcement in “protected areas” like churches and hospitals and shelters.
We (generally speaking) all want law enforcement to protect public safety. However, churches that serve the immigrant community (like Long Beach Friends) don’t want ICE showing up and standing outside the church building on Sunday morning – or even worse, raiding the church! One of our services is in Spanish and we have many immigrant members from a diverse background. We know that people are afraid. We desire that our neighbors – all of them – should be able to attend worship services without fear.
In reaction, five Quaker organizations have sued to disallow ICE raids on houses of worship. I don’t know much directly about the suit, so please allow me to refer you to a Reuters news article about this lawsuit. My immediate reaction is: Good on these Quakers! I’m thankful for their actions.
I read the Christianity Today article by Tish Harrison Warren of this title some time ago, and reread it this morning after hearing her speak near the close of the Esau McCauley podcast. In being away from my normal place and thinking of the new year and beyond, this thought strikes within me a lingering chord as a word for today… for the particular time in which we find ourselves. It is speaking in part as reaction to the approach of our times that purports to represent the silicon valley, er… mode? ethos? You’ve heard it, “go fast and break things.”
Check the short article out for yourself. Hopefully you won’t hit the paywall obstruction: Go slow and repair things. Perhaps you will find it helpful as a starting thought moving into a new time, as I am.
