#Arkansas leads the nation in #ChristianNationalism — 54%, according to the Public Religion Research Institute's recent survey. How did we get here? Part One of "Fertile Ground" is up at brohammett.substack.com/p/fertile-gr... #PRRI
New Lenten essay: "What's Eating Us" — #gluttony, and it's not what you think.
The monks who named it called it "madness of the belly." It's not about weight. It's about fixation — and why America monetized the craving and the cure. brohammett.substack.com/p/dust-and-d...
It's #AshWednesday. New #Lenten series: "Dust and Desire: The #SevenDeadlySins for #Lent."
We start with #lust — and it's not what you think. A line from desert monks to the #EpsteinFiles, and the ancient virtue that heals it. brohammett.substack.com/p/dust-and-d...
When we erase words like #racist from the story of #MedgarEvers’ murder, we aren’t correcting history—we’re hiding it. Memory is resistance. Storytelling is defiance. Truth matters.
Read: brohammett.substack.com/p/erasing-me... #BlackHistoryMonth
When people say “this isn’t #1930s #Germany,” they’re right. Germany studied #Arkansas. #Pastors and church leaders once led the #KKK—and that “respectable” system later shaped #Nazi race law. Read at open.substack.com/pub/brohamme...
One year into Trump’s second term, Scripture offers a warning we can’t ignore. From Pharaoh to Nero to today, tyrants follow the same pattern—and faithful #resistance always begins by refusing the lie. Read more at brohammett.substack.com/p/from-phara...
We’ve domesticated #MLK into a harmless dreamer. The real King believed in nonviolent disruption—creating tension to bring #justice. Today’s protests against ICE raids aren’t betraying his legacy. They’re embodying it. open.substack.com/pub/brohamme... #MLKDay #Nonviolence
#Orwell warned us about the moment power demands we see five fingers instead of four. This week: peaceful protest labeled #insurrection journalists raided, prosecutors resign—while #Jan6 insurrectionists are pardoned. This is a test of #truth. How many fingers do you see? #Minneapolis bit.ly/4r1NvEd
#Baptism isn’t apolitical—it’s a vow to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they appear.
Following #Jesus into the Jordan means standing with the vulnerable, even when it costs us.
brohammett.substack.com/p/into-the-w...
#BaptismOfTheLord #ReneeGood #ReneeNicoleGood
Two people watch the same video and see incompatible realities. This is the collapse of shared #truth. #Orwell warned where this leads. We’re not at Room 101 yet. But the choice is already here. Do we belong to truth? #ReneeNicoleGood #ReneeGood brohammett.substack.com/p/before-roo...
#Epiphany isn’t just about the #Magi and the star. It’s also about Herod, refugees, massacred children, and what happens when tyrants aren’t held accountable. On the anniversary of #January6, Matthew’s Gospel still speaks. Follow the star—not the strongman.
ICE’s cruelty is tearing our neighbors apart during the holiest time of the year.
As faithful Americans, we demand that ICE stop attacking our neighbors.
Watch our new ad with @protectdemocracy.org and then head over to LoveNotICE.org to add your name to our letter.
#LoveNotICE
#Trump's #primetime #PresidentialAddress echoed something ancient: the rhetoric of #Herod the Great—illegitimate power, paranoia, and scapegoating the vulnerable. The #Gospels offer a different vision of authority. One leads to death. The other to life. Read more at open.substack.com/pub/brohamme...
Christians invented #Xmas. The real threat to #Christmas isn’t inclusive greetings but turning the #Nativity into a culture-war weapon with roots in white #ChristianNationalism. My new essay digs into the history and the harm. Read at: bit.ly/4ptNjgn #ProgressiveChristianity #War_on_Christmas
New essay: My puppy Larry changed how I think about #ChurchAttendance—not the theology, but the sheer effort it takes to show up. Maybe declining attendance isn’t a failure of commitment but a sign the old #Church has died and something new is emerging.
brohammett.substack.com/p/paws-pews-...
New essay: “You don’t pay…All done.”
A small kindness from a British receptionist, and years later, a young immigrant woman who died alone but never uncared for. Healthcare is hospitality—and it reveals who we are.
Read at: open.substack.com/pub/brohamme...
For 10 years, #TDS has been used as a insult—if you’re bothered by #Trump, you’re “deranged.”
After a decade of lies, violence, cruelty, felony convictions, and now defending Holocaust deniers, I think the real derangement lies elsewhere.
New essay: brohammett.substack.com/p/the-real-t...
#Sloth isn't the problem. It's #Greed. open.substack.com/pub/brohamme...
Hi, I’m God.
Jesus and I agree that starving the poor so you can build yourself golden bathrooms and golden ballrooms is evil. Anyone who does that shall burn for eternity. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Thanks,
God
420+ anti-science bills targeting public health protections like vaccines threaten lives and are backed by some Christian groups. As a pastor, I believe faith and science can—and must—work together. This isn’t just bad policy; it’s a matter of life and death. brohammett.substack.com/p/when-faith...
Reagan’s famous line, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you,” hides a dangerous idea. As #Arkansas faces cuts to vital programs, we need to ask: What if nobody’s coming to help? Read more at: brohammett.substack.com/p/the-most-t... #arpx #arkansasbluedots
Some buildings become monuments to greatness.
Others become monuments to insecurity that history has to bury out of embarrassment.
They’re grotesque. (9/9)
who covered everything in gold and built monuments to himself because he was desperate to be seen as great.
Nero's palace was bigger than it needed to be. More gold than made sense. Built to prove something that real power never has to prove.
Then the Romans buried it in shame. (8/9)
Very secure leader behavior.
Oh, and it's "self-funded"—by Google ($22 million), Lockheed Martin (undisclosed), and various tech companies (undisclosed) who are all - purely coincidentally - doing business with his administration.
So the word "grotesque" comes from an insecure tyrant (7/9)
for doing all of this."
Makes him seem smaller.
Aides say he 3D-printed little dollhouse models that he fidgets with during meals. "The tenser things are, the more he moves the pieces around."
So when actual work needs doing, he's... playing with tiny buildings.
Very normal. (6/9)
Gilded Corinthian columns. Crystal chandeliers. Gold everything. All modeled after Mar-a-Lago.
He's literally remaking the People's House to look like his country club.
Interior designers are calling it "tacky," "looks cheap," “gilded rococo nightmare” and—"makes him seem smaller (5/9)
Now, why am I bringing this up the day after the East Wing got demolished?
Because somebody just tore down a building that survived World War II to build a ballroom TWICE THE SIZE of the White House itself.
$250-300 million (the number keeps going up). (4/9)
they found these wild, distorted paintings everywhere. They called it "pittura grottesca"—"cave painting."
That's where we get the word "grotesque." It literally means: the excessive, desperate stuff from Nero's palace that was so cringe they had to bury it. (3/9)
built himself a 100-300 acre golden palace called the Domus Aurea. It had a 98-foot statue of himself, a party barge lake, and SO. MUCH. GOLD.
When Renaissance artists discovered it centuries later (buried underground because even Romans were like, “This is too much”), (2/9)
Fun Etymology Lesson That'll Ruin Your Day (a thread)
So I learned something delightful on our trip to Rome.
You know where the word "grotesque" comes from?
Nero's palace.
Emperor Nero—the guy who murdered his own mother and used Christians as garden torches—(1/9)
