u/vagueboy2

>“Many Muslims feel misunderstood, unsafe, unsecure, under attack, and the fact of Christians and others being able to show up for them and say, ‘we are mourning with you, we are here to be in solidarity with you,’ I think that that in itself is important,” she told RNS in an interview Wednesday. 

>Omar Abusham, who grew up attending the mosque, said its deep ties to the wider San Diego community are what set it apart from other houses of worship. He now works as the programs and outreach coordinator at San Diego’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

>“It was genuinely a second home,” he said of the Islamic Center. “We have our friends there, we have our families there. It was a place that united everyone, and it wasn’t just for Muslims.”

>The Islamic Center has hosted Black History Month programs, events about Palestine and Sudan, and gatherings that drew curious neighbors and Jewish and Christian allies, he said. 

>“It was a place that welcomed everyone — it still is. There’s a lot of grief right now, but it’s a place that we’ll continue to go to,” Abusham said. 

https://religionnews.com/2026/05/21/after-years-fostering-interfaith-ties-san-diego-mosque-finds-allies-in-grief/

This is an old article, but still relevant to our current political and religious conversation. I heard in a podcast a while back that many conservative Evangelicals cited Rand's Atlas Shrugged as being influential to their political beliefs, which is pretty remarkable.

>The ideas of Ayn Rand that people cozy up to the most are her other points. That government is evil. People have taken that stance possibly ever since the idea of government was created. But Rand vocalized it well. She made it seem rational (though not realistic) that the only way the individual could achieve happiness is by being free of government intervention. She didn’t just make it easier to blame government; she made it moral. Rand also made it possible to justify selfishness without making it seem heartless. She explained why being selfish was actually in the public’s best interest. She legitimized behavior that we are told is wrong even as children. Rand didn’t just make selfishness OK. She made it heroic. 

>What has been born out of this mishmash of ideologies is some Frankenstein-like creature with features of both. Head of Objectivist, torso of Christian, feet and hands of the modern conservative. A bible in one hand, John Galt sign in the other. A figure with the economic backup of capitalism and the moral right of religion. It’s calling for the end of government, and it’s doubly justified: “I have two books saying what I believe is right. How many do you have?”

https://technicianonline.com/80169/opinion/the-unlikely-team-of-ayn-rand-and-christianity/

This is a bit of a long read, but for those with the time it's a very interesting one. Ehrett reviews James Baird’s new book King of Kings: A Reformed Guide to Christian Government, which offers an apology for a political ideology that may fall just shy of being full-bore Christian Nationalist in scope, but certainly embraces the notion that Christianity must be at the core of our nation's political life. It's interesting in that while Ehrett is himself against CN, finds the book "a fascinating and challenging read precisely because I agree with so much of it."

The issue he has ends up apparently being not with Baird's beliefs regarding religion in politics, but his definition and use of "religion" in this context.

>“[T]he core of religion,” Baird writes, is “what we believe about God and our relationship to him[.]” “[T]rue religion” is, on this formulation, something essentially epistemic or cognitive, which can be “progressively added” to “bare-minimum beliefs” about nature, creation, the world, or what have you. In Baird’s telling, “piety, religion, and morality” are subjective internal forces that “compel [people] to do what is good for their community.” Hence, promoting true religion in public office is mostly a matter of telling people to go to church.

When this happens, authentic faith is replaced with a nominal one.

>[T]he modern reduction of religion to private assent, rather than a disposition with implications for all domains of reality, logically empowers the “secular state,” disempowers the church, and renders Christian affiliation a mere shadow of one’s supervening membership category, which is citizenship within the nation-state. The state, thereby, comes to define the shape of Christian theology to serve its own purposes.

He concludes with a highlight of why this particular discussion is important:

>...because King of Kings is the sort of book that will be read by churchmen, I think it’s worth underscoring that the questions here go far beyond now-familiar arguments about “faith and politics.” They implicate fundamental judgments about the history of the nation-state, the relative primacy or marginality of theology as an interpretive paradigm, and the future “Christian strategy” for a secularizing age.

Anyway, interesting stuff for those that are interested in this topic.

https://mereorthodoxy.com/the-problem-with-religion

Posting some good news. I wanted to highlight this as things like the "rededication" service have definitely overshadowed these other events, which I feel show our commitment to our shared humanity and love of Christ towards neighbor much better than a religious spectacle. Something we (hopefully) can all support.

Faith groups, others joining hands to help neighbors in celebration of America's 250th

>Here’s her 178-word explanation of why American law should “prefer the Christian faith” and exclude others, as found in the transcript of her May 1 show, “Jenna Ellis In The Morning,” which is produced by the American Family Association:

>The whole point of having a civil society that recognizes the principles of religious freedom is so that we can go and evangelize, so that we can practice our faith, so that we can train up our children in the way they should go, says Proverbs, so when they’re old they won’t depart from it. It’s so that we can preserve and protect the Christian way of life. I mean, we don’t have all these protections for our rights that our Founders recognize come from God our Creator, so that we can go out and live a pluralistic society and say, ‘Well, let’s recognize the dignity of Islam.’ I mean, that’s not the point, that’s not the purpose whatsoever. We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work. And we have this whole perverted notion that somehow our Constitution demands pluralism. That just isn’t there. If you take the whole context of the Declaration, the Constitution, the founding and everything we’re celebrating in America 250, absolutely.
...

Ellis also referenced the book The Silent Jihad as evidence for this.

>The Silent Jihad is published by New Christian Right and is available as part of the $99, four-book “Christian Nationalist Starter Pack,” which includes books on white genocide and repealing the 19th Amendment that gave women the vote. The publisher seems equally skeptical about religious freedom for Jews, and sells a T-shirt reading: “I’LL TAKE THE CHRISTIAN, HOLD THE JUDEO.”

The author, Calvin Robinson, is a "priest" in the English Catholic Church of North America, a group founded in 2024 as a Anglican/Catholic separatist denomination.

Posting this in light of prior comments claiming that "Christian Nationalism is just term made up by the media to bash faithful Christians". This is exactly what Christian Nationalism wants to accomplish in the US, but not just for Muslims, but for essentially all non-Protestant religions (including Catholics).

https://baptistnews.com/article/religious-freedom-is-for-christians-only-says-jenna-ellis/

>“And by the way, no government funds,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last November.

>“These are all private individuals that put up a lot of money to build the ballroom,” he added. "Not one penny is being used from the federal government."

>But the gleaming 90,000 square-foot space that he repeatedly said would cost the public nothing may ultimately leave taxpayers on the hook for $1 billion, due to new security enhancements that are tied to the project.

Republicans propose $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to secure Trump ballroom

How many of us are surprised that taxpayers will be on the tab for this?

"Well the money is needed for security enhancements after the shooting!"

How come these enhancements weren't considered prior to the shooting? Are they this short-sighted, or just this poor at planning?

Meador's discussion of irony and its usage in our modern times is brilliant. It really helped to explain how, for example, Trump, Hegseth, and Jimmy Kimmel can say outrageous things in such a way that makes them immune to criticism for saying the outrageous thing, because they are "obviously joking". Meador specifically discusses Hegseth's use of Pulp Fiction lines in what was purported to be an actual prayer.

Some Things Shouldn't Be Made Into a Joke

April 23rd, 2026 | 13 min read