#churchandstate — Public Fediverse posts

A pastor said liberalism makes men gay. Science: prenatal testosterone shapes neural architecture before birth. Epigenetic womb modification. Each older brother raises male homosexuality probability ~33% via maternal immune response. Homosexuality documented in 450+ species. Zero of them vote.
#LGBTQRights #QueerScience #HomophobiaKills #Science #ChurchAndState #LGBTQ #EqualityNow #FactsMatter #QueerJustice #ThistleAndMoss

A pastor said liberalism makes men gay. Science: prenatal testosterone shapes neural architecture before birth. Epigenetic womb modification. Each older brother raises male homosexuality probability ~33% via maternal immune response. Homosexuality documented in 450+ species. Zero of them vote.
#LGBTQRights #QueerScience #HomophobiaKills #Science #ChurchAndState #LGBTQ #EqualityNow #FactsMatter #QueerJustice #ThistleAndMoss

A pastor said liberalism makes men gay. Science: prenatal testosterone shapes neural architecture before birth. Epigenetic womb modification. Each older brother raises male homosexuality probability ~33% via maternal immune response. Homosexuality documented in 450+ species. Zero of them vote.
#LGBTQRights #QueerScience #HomophobiaKills #Science #ChurchAndState #LGBTQ #EqualityNow #FactsMatter #QueerJustice #ThistleAndMoss

A pastor said liberalism makes men gay. Science: prenatal testosterone shapes neural architecture before birth. Epigenetic womb modification. Each older brother raises male homosexuality probability ~33% via maternal immune response. Homosexuality documented in 450+ species. Zero of them vote.
#LGBTQRights #QueerScience #HomophobiaKills #Science #ChurchAndState #LGBTQ #EqualityNow #FactsMatter #QueerJustice #ThistleAndMoss

A pastor said liberalism makes men gay. Science: prenatal testosterone shapes neural architecture before birth. Epigenetic womb modification. Each older brother raises male homosexuality probability ~33% via maternal immune response. Homosexuality documented in 450+ species. Zero of them vote.
#LGBTQRights #QueerScience #HomophobiaKills #Science #ChurchAndState #LGBTQ #EqualityNow #FactsMatter #QueerJustice #ThistleAndMoss

Dialogue: The Unarmed Prophet and the Armed World

A conversation between Girolamo Savonarola and Niccolò Machiavelli

Florence. Night. The Piazza della Signoria is empty, though the stones still remember fire. The ghost of Girolamo Savonarola stands near the place where he was hanged and burned. Niccolò Machiavelli enters, older now, carrying a manuscript beneath his arm.

SAVONAROLA:
You return to the place of ashes, Messer Niccolò.

MACHIAVELLI:
Florence has many places of ashes, Fra Girolamo. Yours is only the most famous.

SAVONAROLA:
And you have made use of it.

MACHIAVELLI:
I made use of what happened. That is not the same as rejoicing in it.

SAVONAROLA:
You wrote that I was ruined because I was unarmed.

MACHIAVELLI:
Were you not?

SAVONAROLA:
I preached repentance. I called a city to righteousness. I turned hearts toward God.

MACHIAVELLI:
For a time.

SAVONAROLA:
Truth is not false because men grow tired of it.

Read the full Dialogue at PeaceGrooves.

Trump religious liberty commission wants to end separation of church and state

Trump’s advisory panel calls for Presidential Medal of Freedom for Colorado baker who refused to create wedding cake for same-sex couple.

https://sentinelcolorado.com/metro/trump-religious-liberty-commission-wants-to-end-separation-of-church-and-state/

#LGTBQ #ChurchAndState #ReligiousFreedom #NoPaywall

Trump religious liberty commission wants to end separation of church and state

Trump’s advisory panel calls for Presidential Medal of Freedom for Colorado baker who refused to create wedding cake for same-sex couple.

https://sentinelcolorado.com/metro/trump-religious-liberty-commission-wants-to-end-separation-of-church-and-state/

#LGTBQ #ChurchAndState #ReligiousFreedom #NoPaywall

Did the founders create a Christian nation? No, but religion did shape their thinking apnews.com/article/foun... #Secularism #ChurchAndState #History #Religion

Did the founders create a Chri...

Did the founders create a Christian nation? No, but religion did shape their thinking apnews.com/article/foun... #Secularism #ChurchAndState #History #Religion

Did the founders create a Chri...

Did the founders create a Christian nation? No, but religion did shape their thinking apnews.com/article/foun... #Secularism #ChurchAndState #History #Religion

Did the founders create a Chri...

Did the founders create a Christian nation? No, but religion did shape their thinking apnews.com/article/foun... #Secularism #ChurchAndState #History #Religion

Did the founders create a Chri...

A quotation from Lyman Beecher

It was as dark a day as ever I saw. The injury done to the cause of Christ [by disestablishment], as we then supposed, was irreparable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tell for the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut. It cut the churches loose from dependence on state support. It threw them wholly on their own resources and on God.

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) American minister, preacher, abolitionist
Autobiography, Vol. 1, ch. 51 “Downfall of the Standing Order” (1864) [ed. Charles Beecher

More about this quote: wist.info/beecher-lyman/83657/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #lymanbeecher #churchandstate #disestablishment #establishment #firstamendment #freedomofreligion #religiousfreedom

https://www.europesays.com/news/19220/ Texas can require public schools to display the Ten Commandments #ChurchAndState #Conservatism #Courts #DonaldTrump #Education #GeneralNews #GregAbbott #Headlines #KayIvey #KenPaxton #LAStateWire #LizMurrill #Louisiana #News #Politics #Religion #Schools #StephenAHigginson #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #Texas #TopStories #TXStateWire #USNews #USRepublicanParty

Atomic clocks define our seconds. A 16th-century papal decree defines our years. The most underexamined contradiction in modern science is the calendar.

https://onlys.ky/godless-time/

#Secularism #History #Science #Calendar #ChurchAndState

Blurred Lines: Trump’s AI Imagery and the Evangelical Crisis of Identity – Franklin Graham

https://bluepress.blog/2026/04/16/blurred-lines-trumps-ai-imagery-and-the-evangelical-crisis-of-identity-franklin-graham/

Blurred Lines: Trump’s AI Imagery and the Evangelical Crisis of Identity – Franklin Graham

https://bluepress.blog/2026/04/16/blurred-lines-trumps-ai-imagery-and-the-evangelical-crisis-of-identity-franklin-graham/

Blurred Lines: Trump’s AI Imagery and the Evangelical Crisis of Identity – Franklin Graham

https://bluepress.blog/2026/04/16/blurred-lines-trumps-ai-imagery-and-the-evangelical-crisis-of-identity-franklin-graham/

Blurred Lines: Trump’s AI Imagery and the Evangelical Crisis of Identity – Franklin Graham

https://bluepress.blog/2026/04/16/blurred-lines-trumps-ai-imagery-and-the-evangelical-crisis-of-identity-franklin-graham/

Blurred Lines: Trump’s AI Imagery and the Evangelical Crisis of Identity – Franklin Graham

https://bluepress.blog/2026/04/16/blurred-lines-trumps-ai-imagery-and-the-evangelical-crisis-of-identity-franklin-graham/

On Monday, #PopeLeo said he would continue to publicly oppose #war, while downplaying the idea that he was engaged in a direct dispute with #Trump.

“The things I say are not meant as attacks on anyone,” Leo told reporters.

He added: “I do not look at my role as being political, a politician. I don’t want to get into a debate with him. I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.”

#law #ChurchAndState #FreedomOfReligion #TrumpIsUnfit

Asked directly about #Trump’s comments on Truth Social, #PopeLeo said: “It’s ironic — the name of the site itself. Say no more.”

Leo’s comments came after Trump’s lengthy attack on the pope on Sunday night….

Tensions between the 2 leaders have risen in recent weeks. The pope has criticized Trump’s attacks on #Iran & appeared to distance himself from efforts by Pete #Hegseth, the #US Secy of #Defense, to portray the #US - #Israel campaign against Iran as a #Christian mission.

#ChurchAndState

During the discussion, the small group of #Pentagon & #Vatican officials discussed their differing views of current events, according to people on both sides with knowledge of the conversation.

What is less clear is how adversarial the meeting was.

#law #Trump #Hegseth #Republicans #Constitution #FreedomOfReligion #ChurchAndState #Christianity #Evangelism #NewApostolicReformation #NAR #military #war #NationalSecurity #geopolitics #USpol

During the discussion, the small group of #Pentagon & #Vatican officials discussed their differing views of current events, according to people on both sides with knowledge of the conversation.

What is less clear is how adversarial the meeting was.

#law #Trump #Hegseth #Republicans #Constitution #FreedomOfReligion #ChurchAndState #Christianity #Evangelism #NewApostolicReformation #NAR #military #war #NationalSecurity #geopolitics #USpol

Cardinal’s meeting at #Pentagon was ‘unusual,’ #Vatican official says

Through the first year of Trump’s 2nd term, tensions between his admin & the Vatican — with the first #US born #pope — have simmered.

#law #Trump #Hegseth #Republicans #Constitution #FreedomOfReligion #ChurchAndState #Christianity #Evangelism #NewApostolicReformation #NAR #military #war #NationalSecurity #geopolitics #USpol
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/10/trump-vatican-pentagon-meeting/

Cardinal’s meeting at #Pentagon was ‘unusual,’ #Vatican official says

Through the first year of Trump’s 2nd term, tensions between his admin & the Vatican — with the first #US born #pope — have simmered.

#law #Trump #Hegseth #Republicans #Constitution #FreedomOfReligion #ChurchAndState #Christianity #Evangelism #NewApostolicReformation #NAR #military #war #NationalSecurity #geopolitics #USpol
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/10/trump-vatican-pentagon-meeting/

"The U.S. has the military power 'to do whatever it wants in the world,' and the Catholic Church 'better take its side,'"

—From a report on the Pentagon-Vatican meeting, as covered by Religion News Service and The Free Press.

#Pentagon #Vatican #PopeLeoXIV #AvignonPapacy #Religion #ForeignPolicy #ChurchAndState

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/04/09/pentagon-confirms-it-met-with-vatican-but-denies-reports-of-a-bitter-clash-amid-the-popes-mounting-criticism/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

The Worst Kind of Freedom

Dediticii of the State, Paroikoi of the Kingdom:

On Christian Nationalism, False Freedom, and the Pilgrim Church

There is a freedom that sings loudly and yet is already in chains.

There is a freedom that waves a flag, quotes a verse, demands a prayer in the public square, and calls itself holy. There is a freedom that speaks the name of Jesus with one breath and the language of domination with the next. There is a freedom that insists it is under threat whenever the neighbor is also allowed to breathe, speak, worship, live, vote, belong, or flourish. And that freedom is no freedom at all. It is fear dressed in patriotic robes. It is anxiety holding a Bible. It is the oldest lie of empire baptized in civil religion.

Christian nationalism is built upon that lie.

It says, “We must take the nation back.”
It says, “We must restore Christian order.”
It says, “We must defend our way of life.”
But underneath all of its grand language is a smaller and sadder confession: we do not trust the way of Jesus to be enough unless Caesar kneels beside him. And once the church begins to think that way, it has already bent the knee to another throne.

That is why the old Roman word dediticii has such prophetic force here. In Roman usage, deditio was surrender, and dediticii were those marked by that surrender, those living under the terms of a conquering power; in later Roman legal usage the term could also refer to people whose liberty was degraded, curtailed, a kind of freedom beneath full belonging.  What a terrible phrase that is for the church to deserve: not merely conquered, but living in the illusion of liberty while shaped by the chains of empire.

And that is the tragedy of Christian nationalism. It imagines itself strong, but it is surrendered. It imagines itself sovereign, but it is already owned. It imagines itself defending the faith, but it has accepted the terms of a lesser kingdom. It seeks power in the way Rome seeks power, order in the way empires seek order, peace in the way fearful nations seek peace: through threat, hierarchy, exclusion, privilege, and force. It calls this righteousness. It calls this prudence. It calls this realism. But the gospel calls it what it is: temptation.

For every freedom built on another person’s diminishment is already a form of bondage.

If I can only feel secure when someone else is excluded, then I am not secure.
If I can only feel righteous when someone else is silenced, then I am not righteous.
If I can only feel free when someone else is less free, then I am not free.

I am merely protected by a cage large enough to mistake for a kingdom.

This is the bitterest irony of all: those who would limit the freedom of others in the name of preserving their own eventually discover that they, too, have become servants of limitation. They must constantly patrol the borders. They must always be on the lookout for enemies. They must keep watch over books, bodies, ballots, classrooms, pulpits, prayers, and pronouns. They must nourish grievance. They must cultivate suspicion. They must remain forever agitated because domination cannot rest. The soul that clings to supremacy must live in permanent alarm. And so the one who promised freedom becomes the custodian of fear.

That is why this is not merely a political error. It is a spiritual deformation.

Christian nationalism is not simply bad analysis. It is bad discipleship. It is the church forgetting what kind of people it is. It is the church forgetting that Jesus did not seize Rome; Rome seized Jesus. It is the church forgetting that salvation did not come through occupying the governor’s palace, but through faithfulness unto death. It is the church forgetting that Pentecost did not create a purified nation but a multilingual people. It is the church forgetting that the Lord’s Table is not bordered by tribe, race, party, passport, or patriotic myth. It is the church forgetting that Christ rules from a cross before he is confessed in glory.

And when the church forgets these things, it becomes available for conscription.

It can still sing.
It can still preach.
It can still quote scripture.
It can still say “Lord, Lord.”

But it begins to sound less like the Beatitudes and more like a millstone. Less like the prophets and more like the court. Less like the crucified and more like Pilate washing his hands while the machinery of death carries on.

Against all this, the New Testament gives the church another word, a better word: paroikoi. The term carries the sense of strangers, sojourners, resident aliens, people dwelling near but not fully at home in the order around them. In 1 Peter 2:11, believers are addressed in precisely that way, as “foreigners and exiles,” those whose lives in the world are real but not reducible to the world’s claims.  And Paul, in Philippians 3:20, gives the church its political center of gravity: “our citizenship is in heaven.”

There is the contrast.

Dediticii are defined by surrender to imperial terms.
Paroikoi are defined by faithful dwelling without ultimate belonging.

Dediticii live under the dictates of the conqueror.
Paroikoi live under the promise of God.

Dediticii accept diminished freedom as though it were normal.
Paroikoi know that their life comes from another commonwealth.

Dediticii are shaped by subjection.
Paroikoi are shaped by pilgrimage.

The church is called to be paroikoi, not dediticii.

The church is called to dwell in the world, bless the world, serve the world, weep with the world, labor for justice in the world, and seek the welfare of the city; but it is never called to worship the city, confuse the city with the kingdom, or surrender its conscience to the rulers of the age. It is called to be near without being possessed. Present without being absorbed. Public without becoming idolatrous. Loving without becoming captive. The church does not need to dominate in order to be faithful. The church needs to remember who it is.

And who is it?

It is a baptized people, not a blood-and-soil people.
It is a Eucharistic people, not a nationalist people.
It is a Pentecost people, not a monocultural people.
It is a cruciform people, not a triumphalist people.
It is a resurrection people, not a fear-governed people.

That is why Christian nationalism is so dangerous. It does not merely propose a flawed strategy. It offers the church a false identity. It tells Christians they are landowners of a sacred nation rather than pilgrims of a holy kingdom. It tells them they are guardians of civilization rather than witnesses to Christ. It tells them their task is to possess the machinery of rule rather than embody the mercy of God. It tells them the neighbor’s difference is a threat rather than an occasion for love. It tells them anxiety is wisdom. It tells them domination is stewardship. It tells them privilege is providence.

And many believe it because it flatters the flesh.

It flatters the longing to be secure without sacrifice.
It flatters the longing to be righteous without repentance.
It flatters the longing to be powerful without being crucified.
It flatters the longing to call coercion conviction and call fear discernment.

But Christ does not flatter the flesh. Christ calls the church to die.

To die to supremacy.
To die to tribal vanity.
To die to the dream of holy violence.
To die to the seduction of being chaplain to empire.
To die to every flag that asks for what belongs only to God.

The church must hear this plainly: when it reaches for power by limiting the lives of others, it does not become more itself. It becomes less. When it seeks freedom through exclusion, it does not enlarge liberty. It redistributes bondage. When it blesses structures that narrow the humanity of the neighbor, it nails its own soul to those same structures. That is the judgment hidden inside the word dediticii: those who think they have secured their place have, in truth, surrendered themselves to a power that can only give them the worst kind of freedom.

But the gospel still offers another way.

Be paroikoi.
Be pilgrims.
Be resident aliens of grace.
Be people whose identity papers are issued in heaven.
Be people who do not need Caesar to certify the lordship of Christ.
Be people free enough to bless without ruling, to serve without controlling, to witness without seizing, to love without fearing.

For our citizenship is in heaven.
And because our citizenship is in heaven, we are finally free on earth: free to tell the truth, free to defend the vulnerable, free to refuse idols, free to reject every gospel of blood and soil, free to stand with those whose liberty is threatened, free to be neither conquerors nor cowards.

The church does not need a Christian nation.
The church needs Christian faithfulness.

The church does not need the illusion of greatness.
The church needs the courage of holiness.

The church does not need to become the soul of the state.
The church must become again the body of Christ.

So let the nations rage. Let the parties boast. Let the demagogues preach their frightened liturgies of invasion, purity, and control. The church must not join their choir. The church must remember its name.

Not dediticii of the state.
But paroikoi of the kingdom.

Not surrendered to empire.
But dwelling in hope.

Not the keepers of a lesser freedom.
But the witnesses of the all-encompassing liberation of Christ.

Disgusting & certainly not “#Christian”

At #Pentagon Christian service, #Hegseth prayed for #violence ‘against those who deserve no mercy’

#US #Defense Secy #PeteHegseth, hosting his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the #Iran #war began, prayed Wednesday to have “every round find its mark.”

#CognitiveDissonance #hypocrisy #TrumpsWar #Trump #WarCrimes #RulesOfWar #law #geopolitics #MiddleEast #Republicans #ChurchAndState #Evangelism #NAR
https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-03-25-2026#0000019d-269d-d062-a1fd-bf9db0fa0000

Disgusting & certainly not “#Christian”

At #Pentagon Christian service, #Hegseth prayed for #violence ‘against those who deserve no mercy’

#US #Defense Secy #PeteHegseth, hosting his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the #Iran #war began, prayed Wednesday to have “every round find its mark.”

#CognitiveDissonance #hypocrisy #TrumpsWar #Trump #WarCrimes #RulesOfWar #law #geopolitics #MiddleEast #Republicans #ChurchAndState #Evangelism #NAR
https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-03-25-2026#0000019d-269d-d062-a1fd-bf9db0fa0000

#ChurchAndState

"The Biblical Passages I Support Putting In Classrooms

The MAGA Christo-fascists are preoccupied with pushing Christianity into the classroom. This manifests with efforts to impose by law requirements to hang the Ten Commandments in every classroom. These efforts are misguided. They provide little guidance on how children should conduct their lives and the Ten Commandments are overly concerned with how we should treat God, rather than each other. However, the Bible has powerful messages on how we should live our lives, and I support posting selected passages with those messages.

Here is my list for the Biblical passages that should be displayed in every classroom in America. For that matter they should also be prominently displayed in every legislative body in the country, to include the national House and Senate."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/23/2374472/-The-Biblical-Passages-I-Support-Putting-In-Classrooms

Who Will Be Romero Today?

On this day we remember Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. The church remembers him not simply as a tragic victim, but as a martyr whose blood was joined to the blood of the people he refused to abandon. Vatican sources still name him what so many already knew him to be in life: a “voice of the voiceless,” assassinated at the altar because he would not stop speaking for the poor.

Romero was killed soon after one of the most fearless sermons of the twentieth century. Addressing soldiers and police, he said that they were killing their own campesino brothers and sisters, and that God’s law stood above the commands of violent men: “Thou shalt not kill.” He declared that no soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God, and he ended with that thunderous plea: “In the name of God… cease the repression!”

That is why Romero remains dangerous. He did not speak in abstractions. He did not bless power from a safe distance. He did not soothe the conscience of empire. He named the sin directly. He named the victims directly. He named the moral responsibility of those ordered to carry out injustice. And for that, he was silenced by a bullet at the altar. Yet even in death he was not silenced, because martyrdom is a form of speech the powers of this world do not know how to answer.

Ten years later, in 1990, his name was still summoning people into the streets. The flyer for the Washington march commemorating Romero’s assassination called for an end to U.S. war in Central America, a march from the Capitol to the White House, and even nonviolent civil disobedience after the rally. It named the demands plainly: end U.S. aid to El Salvador, withdraw U.S. advisers, stop repressing the people, end the war against Nicaragua, lift the trade embargo, normalize relations. That call was real, and it was public. It survives in archival collections even now.

And I remember that day not as a line in a history book but as something lived in the body. Ten years after Romero’s assassination, I was arrested outside the White House after I and other activists built a miniature Central American village there. We were trying, in our small and vulnerable way, to make visible what policy papers and patriotic speeches tried to hide: villages, families, campesinos, the poor, the disappeared, the threatened, the dead. We were insisting that Central America was not a chessboard for Washington, but a place of human beings made in the image of God.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.

Who Will Be Romero Today?

On this day we remember Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. The church remembers him not simply as a tragic victim, but as a martyr whose blood was joined to the blood of the people he refused to abandon. Vatican sources still name him what so many already knew him to be in life: a “voice of the voiceless,” assassinated at the altar because he would not stop speaking for the poor.

Romero was killed soon after one of the most fearless sermons of the twentieth century. Addressing soldiers and police, he said that they were killing their own campesino brothers and sisters, and that God’s law stood above the commands of violent men: “Thou shalt not kill.” He declared that no soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God, and he ended with that thunderous plea: “In the name of God… cease the repression!”

That is why Romero remains dangerous. He did not speak in abstractions. He did not bless power from a safe distance. He did not soothe the conscience of empire. He named the sin directly. He named the victims directly. He named the moral responsibility of those ordered to carry out injustice. And for that, he was silenced by a bullet at the altar. Yet even in death he was not silenced, because martyrdom is a form of speech the powers of this world do not know how to answer.

Ten years later, in 1990, his name was still summoning people into the streets. The flyer for the Washington march commemorating Romero’s assassination called for an end to U.S. war in Central America, a march from the Capitol to the White House, and even nonviolent civil disobedience after the rally. It named the demands plainly: end U.S. aid to El Salvador, withdraw U.S. advisers, stop repressing the people, end the war against Nicaragua, lift the trade embargo, normalize relations. That call was real, and it was public. It survives in archival collections even now.

And I remember that day not as a line in a history book but as something lived in the body. Ten years after Romero’s assassination, I was arrested outside the White House after I and other activists built a miniature Central American village there. We were trying, in our small and vulnerable way, to make visible what policy papers and patriotic speeches tried to hide: villages, families, campesinos, the poor, the disappeared, the threatened, the dead. We were insisting that Central America was not a chessboard for Washington, but a place of human beings made in the image of God.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.

Who Will Be Romero Today?

On this day we remember Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. The church remembers him not simply as a tragic victim, but as a martyr whose blood was joined to the blood of the people he refused to abandon. Vatican sources still name him what so many already knew him to be in life: a “voice of the voiceless,” assassinated at the altar because he would not stop speaking for the poor.

Romero was killed soon after one of the most fearless sermons of the twentieth century. Addressing soldiers and police, he said that they were killing their own campesino brothers and sisters, and that God’s law stood above the commands of violent men: “Thou shalt not kill.” He declared that no soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God, and he ended with that thunderous plea: “In the name of God… cease the repression!”

That is why Romero remains dangerous. He did not speak in abstractions. He did not bless power from a safe distance. He did not soothe the conscience of empire. He named the sin directly. He named the victims directly. He named the moral responsibility of those ordered to carry out injustice. And for that, he was silenced by a bullet at the altar. Yet even in death he was not silenced, because martyrdom is a form of speech the powers of this world do not know how to answer.

Ten years later, in 1990, his name was still summoning people into the streets. The flyer for the Washington march commemorating Romero’s assassination called for an end to U.S. war in Central America, a march from the Capitol to the White House, and even nonviolent civil disobedience after the rally. It named the demands plainly: end U.S. aid to El Salvador, withdraw U.S. advisers, stop repressing the people, end the war against Nicaragua, lift the trade embargo, normalize relations. That call was real, and it was public. It survives in archival collections even now.

And I remember that day not as a line in a history book but as something lived in the body. Ten years after Romero’s assassination, I was arrested outside the White House after I and other activists built a miniature Central American village there. We were trying, in our small and vulnerable way, to make visible what policy papers and patriotic speeches tried to hide: villages, families, campesinos, the poor, the disappeared, the threatened, the dead. We were insisting that Central America was not a chessboard for Washington, but a place of human beings made in the image of God.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.

Who Will Be Romero Today?

On this day we remember Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. The church remembers him not simply as a tragic victim, but as a martyr whose blood was joined to the blood of the people he refused to abandon. Vatican sources still name him what so many already knew him to be in life: a “voice of the voiceless,” assassinated at the altar because he would not stop speaking for the poor.

Romero was killed soon after one of the most fearless sermons of the twentieth century. Addressing soldiers and police, he said that they were killing their own campesino brothers and sisters, and that God’s law stood above the commands of violent men: “Thou shalt not kill.” He declared that no soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God, and he ended with that thunderous plea: “In the name of God… cease the repression!”

That is why Romero remains dangerous. He did not speak in abstractions. He did not bless power from a safe distance. He did not soothe the conscience of empire. He named the sin directly. He named the victims directly. He named the moral responsibility of those ordered to carry out injustice. And for that, he was silenced by a bullet at the altar. Yet even in death he was not silenced, because martyrdom is a form of speech the powers of this world do not know how to answer.

Ten years later, in 1990, his name was still summoning people into the streets. The flyer for the Washington march commemorating Romero’s assassination called for an end to U.S. war in Central America, a march from the Capitol to the White House, and even nonviolent civil disobedience after the rally. It named the demands plainly: end U.S. aid to El Salvador, withdraw U.S. advisers, stop repressing the people, end the war against Nicaragua, lift the trade embargo, normalize relations. That call was real, and it was public. It survives in archival collections even now.

And I remember that day not as a line in a history book but as something lived in the body. Ten years after Romero’s assassination, I was arrested outside the White House after I and other activists built a miniature Central American village there. We were trying, in our small and vulnerable way, to make visible what policy papers and patriotic speeches tried to hide: villages, families, campesinos, the poor, the disappeared, the threatened, the dead. We were insisting that Central America was not a chessboard for Washington, but a place of human beings made in the image of God.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.

Who Will Be Romero Today?

On this day we remember Archbishop Óscar Romero, murdered on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass. The church remembers him not simply as a tragic victim, but as a martyr whose blood was joined to the blood of the people he refused to abandon. Vatican sources still name him what so many already knew him to be in life: a “voice of the voiceless,” assassinated at the altar because he would not stop speaking for the poor.

Romero was killed soon after one of the most fearless sermons of the twentieth century. Addressing soldiers and police, he said that they were killing their own campesino brothers and sisters, and that God’s law stood above the commands of violent men: “Thou shalt not kill.” He declared that no soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God, and he ended with that thunderous plea: “In the name of God… cease the repression!”

That is why Romero remains dangerous. He did not speak in abstractions. He did not bless power from a safe distance. He did not soothe the conscience of empire. He named the sin directly. He named the victims directly. He named the moral responsibility of those ordered to carry out injustice. And for that, he was silenced by a bullet at the altar. Yet even in death he was not silenced, because martyrdom is a form of speech the powers of this world do not know how to answer.

Ten years later, in 1990, his name was still summoning people into the streets. The flyer for the Washington march commemorating Romero’s assassination called for an end to U.S. war in Central America, a march from the Capitol to the White House, and even nonviolent civil disobedience after the rally. It named the demands plainly: end U.S. aid to El Salvador, withdraw U.S. advisers, stop repressing the people, end the war against Nicaragua, lift the trade embargo, normalize relations. That call was real, and it was public. It survives in archival collections even now.

And I remember that day not as a line in a history book but as something lived in the body. Ten years after Romero’s assassination, I was arrested outside the White House after I and other activists built a miniature Central American village there. We were trying, in our small and vulnerable way, to make visible what policy papers and patriotic speeches tried to hide: villages, families, campesinos, the poor, the disappeared, the threatened, the dead. We were insisting that Central America was not a chessboard for Washington, but a place of human beings made in the image of God.

Read the rest of the essay at PeaceGrooves.

When leaders say God put them in power, who’s allowed to question them?
Day 6 of our Shadows Unveiled series digs into the dangerous crossroads of faith, authority, and war.
Families are speaking out. History is echoing.
And the warning signs are impossible to ignore.
Find out why ⬇️
🔥 https://tinyurl.com/5xs9mcx8
#shadowsunveiled #ChurchAndState #accountability #PoliticalPower #FreePress #democracy #divinewill #apocalypse #PeteHegseth #MikeJohnson #blueangels #Putin #SaddamHussein #TylerSimmons

When leaders say God put them in power, who’s allowed to question them?
Day 6 of our Shadows Unveiled series digs into the dangerous crossroads of faith, authority, and war.
Families are speaking out. History is echoing.
And the warning signs are impossible to ignore.
Find out why ⬇️
🔥 https://tinyurl.com/5xs9mcx8
#shadowsunveiled #ChurchAndState #accountability #PoliticalPower #FreePress #democracy #divinewill #apocalypse #PeteHegseth #MikeJohnson #blueangels #Putin #SaddamHussein #TylerSimmons

When leaders say God put them in power, who’s allowed to question them?
Day 6 of our Shadows Unveiled series digs into the dangerous crossroads of faith, authority, and war.
Families are speaking out. History is echoing.
And the warning signs are impossible to ignore.
Find out why ⬇️
🔥 https://tinyurl.com/5xs9mcx8
#shadowsunveiled #ChurchAndState #accountability #PoliticalPower #FreePress #democracy #divinewill #apocalypse #PeteHegseth #MikeJohnson #blueangels #Putin #SaddamHussein #TylerSimmons

When leaders say God put them in power, who’s allowed to question them?
Day 6 of our Shadows Unveiled series digs into the dangerous crossroads of faith, authority, and war.
Families are speaking out. History is echoing.
And the warning signs are impossible to ignore.
Find out why ⬇️
🔥 https://tinyurl.com/5xs9mcx8
#shadowsunveiled #ChurchAndState #accountability #PoliticalPower #FreePress #democracy #divinewill #apocalypse #PeteHegseth #MikeJohnson #blueangels #Putin #SaddamHussein #TylerSimmons

When leaders say God put them in power, who’s allowed to question them?
Day 6 of our Shadows Unveiled series digs into the dangerous crossroads of faith, authority, and war.
Families are speaking out. History is echoing.
And the warning signs are impossible to ignore.
Find out why ⬇️
🔥 https://tinyurl.com/5xs9mcx8
#shadowsunveiled #ChurchAndState #accountability #PoliticalPower #FreePress #democracy #divinewill #apocalypse #PeteHegseth #MikeJohnson #blueangels #Putin #SaddamHussein #TylerSimmons

Fifth Circuit: Actually, Putting The Ten Commandments In Schools Is Probably Fine

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.techdirt.com/2026/03/20/fifth-circuit-actually-putting-the-ten-commandments-in-schools-is-probably-fine/

Arkansas: Federal Judge Bans Display of 10 Commandments in Public Schools - U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks ruled the law violates the Establishment Clause and the free exercise rights of the plaintiffs. https://dianeravitch.net/2026/03/17/arkansas-federal-judge-bans-display-of-10-commandnents-in-public-schools/ via @dianeravitch #ChurchAndState

A quotation from John Adams

Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws.

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1825-01-23) to Thomas Jefferson

More about this quote: wist.info/adams-john/6121/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #johnadams #Bible #blasphemy #churchandstate #crime #freedomofreligion #heresy #laws #religiousfreedom

I seek Native American / American Indian input on a personal project and set of social campaigns that aim to resolve the political-philosophical tensions of and paralogical gaps within and between several projects of my own --- projects that, I hope, lend credibility to a tentative campaign of my own for local, state, and federal offices over the course of the next thirty years. If you, or someone(s) you know are Native American, indigenous to North America, or an American "Indian", please reach out and/or direct those persons to me. I seek to honor personal and cultural autonomy while practicing the principles of plurality and inclusion: our diversity _is_ our equity.

#NativeAmerican #AmericanIndian #BureauofIndianAffairs #NorthAmericanIndian #indigenous #Politics #Philosophy #Paralogic #Logic #Campaign #StatePolitics #NationalPolitics #culture #antiethnocentrism #autonomy #inclusion #diversity #equity #DEI #syncretism #syncreticfaith #faith #permaculture #threeethics #peoplecare #fairshare #earthcare #churchandstate #resolution #utopia #dystopia #intentionalcommunity

"Baptisms, religious posters and assignments, imposed prayer and distribution of religious texts are common violations in public schools, which particularly marginalize those who are not Christian, religious or often Christians who are not Catholic or evangelical."

#ChurchAndState #education #school #secular #activism

https://www.freethoughttoday.com/sections/100-front-page/ffrf-action-fund-keep-proselytizing-out-of-public-schools/

#religion #bible #politics #churchandstate

Freethought Radio – February 5, 2026

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://ffrf.org/news/freethought-radio/freethought-today-february-05-2026/

Freethought Radio – February 5, 2026

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://ffrf.org/news/freethought-radio/freethought-today-february-05-2026/

Freethought Radio – February 5, 2026

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://ffrf.org/news/freethought-radio/freethought-today-february-05-2026/