Matthew recounts the story of a young, hoity-toity soft-nationalist German theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who discovered the radical soul of antifascism by hanging out in a Black Baptist church in Harlem in 1930. He came to the US believing in the white Jesus of European empire, but left enthralled by the Black Jesus of the oppressed. Back in Germany, he played 78s of spirituals and gospel tunes for the students of his illegal seminaries as he and other members of the Confessing Church issued some of the earliest formal rebukes to the Reich. And then he joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. 

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Matthew recounts the story of a young, hoity-toity soft-nationalist German theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who discovered the radical soul of antifascism by hanging out in a Black Baptist church in Harlem in 1930. He came to the US believing in the white Jesus of European empire, but left enthralled by the Black Jesus of the oppressed. Back in Germany, he played 78s of spirituals and gospel tunes for the students of his illegal seminaries as he and other members of the Confessing Church issued some of the earliest formal rebukes to the Reich. And then he joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. 

Show Notes

UCLA Fires Beloved Professor Over 2024 Encampment Arrest – Poppy Press 

NY Mayoral Candidates Address Sanctuary, Trump and Religious Hatred at Interfaith Forum 

Religion and Socialism Working Group - Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)  

Undersold and Oversold: Reinhold Neibuhr and Economic Justice 

Swing Low Sweet Chariot - Fisk Jubilee Singers (1909) 

St. James Missionary Baptist Church of Canton: Wade In the Water (1978) 

Evangelische Kirche Halle Westfalen

Bethge, Eberhard. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography. Translated by Eric Mosbacher, Peter and Betty Ross, Frank Clarke, and William Glen-Doepel. Revised and edited by Victoria J. Barnett. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Translated by R. H. Fuller, revised by Irmgard Booth. New York: Touchstone, 2018.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. Translated by Reginald Fuller, Frank Clark, and John Bowden. New York: Touchstone, 1997.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Bonhoeffer Reader. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013.

Marsh, Charles. Strange Glory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

Martin, Eric. The Writing on the Wall: Signs of Faith Against Fascism. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022.

McNeil, Genna Rae, Houston Bryan Roberson, Quinton Hosford Dixie, and Kevin McGruder. Witness: Two Hundred Years of African-American Faith and Practice at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014.

Tietz, Christiane. Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Translated by Victoria J. Barnett. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016.

Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind. Translated by Arthur Wills. With a preface by T. S. Eliot. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Williams, Reggie L. Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2014.

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The unavoidable question of the week: why is Jillian Michaels on CNN commenting on slavery, exactly?

As it turns out, Netflix provides the answer. The three-part docuseries, Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, creeps behind the scenes of this uber-popular and uber-disturbing reality show that weirdly promoted fat-shaming while simultaneously pretending to alleviate it.

As we’ll discuss today, we can’t shake the feeling that the biggest loser from this entire mess is all of us.

Show Notes

As Republicans spar over IVF, some turn to obscure MAHA-backed alternative

RFK Jr. Is Getting Personal Authority Over Who to Kick Off Medicaid

Trump and RFK Jr. to Ban COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Within Months’

Scientists Strip ‘Diversity’ Language From Research to Keep Federal Grants

After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

ACOG on "Restorative Reproductive medicine”

Arkansas’ RESTORE Act

MAHA-backed IVF-alternative

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Levitation, world peace, and blissful enlightenment were all essential to the hippie counterculture. But it came at quite a price. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made billions selling magical mantras and the promise of perfect happiness. Most well-known for being endorsed by the Beatles and David Lynch, he was also feted by world leaders and prestigious universities. The true story behind this 5’1” marketing genius is complex and layered: illicit sex, paranormal promises, alternative medicine, palatial estates, overpriced courses, bogus quantum physics, indoctrinated children, and mass group meditation combined with “yogic flying” would supposedly bring about world peace.

For his latest stand-alone episode in the Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian dives deep into the money-scented blissful waters of Transcendental Meditation and reports back on the sharks that swim beneath the surface. Stay tuned for some reflections at the end about the differences between cults and more familiar, normalized religions.

Show Notes

David Wants to Fly

Robes of Silk, Feet of Clay

The Deceptive World of ™

Maharishi Exposed

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Plandemic creator Mikki Willis recently hosted an hour-long webinar to promote his supplements company. Marketed as a storytelling hour to share the power of immunity and god with their followers, the conversation went off the rails. Derek and Julian tune in and discuss.

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The right has waged a war on “woke” Sesame Street for generations. When the party passed the 2025 Recissions Act, they were finally able to take a significant field advantage in this battle—one which Big Bird and Mr Snuffleupagus never wanted to be in. That bill stripped $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, greatly damaging NPR, PBS, and mostly their member stations. The CPB announced it will have to close in January 2026. What will take its place? Well, the right has a plan for that, or so Vox speculates: PragerU.

Founded in 2009 as a right-wing alternative to reality, the sprawling, well-funded network teaches kids to hate DEI, love paying taxes, and recognize that the Bible offers the only salvation on this planet. Could it replace Sesame Street, however? Well, it’s already in use in numerous classrooms—and the right wants it in all of them.

Show Notes

The White House has a preferred alternative to PBS. It may already be in countless classrooms.

What Percentage of White Southerners Owned Slaves

How Neoliberalism Swallowed Arts Policy

The Global Liberal Arts Challenge | Ethics & International Affairs

When the Arts Are Attacked, Democracy Is at Risk | Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council

Davis, Michael. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.

Kamp, David. Sunny Days. New York: Simon & Schuster, n.d.

Ledbetter, James. Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States. London; New York: Verso, 1997.

Stewart, David C.The PBS Companion: A History of Public Television. New York: TV Books, 1999.

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In preparation for this Thursday's episode on PragerU, Derek looks at one of the propaganda organization's videos featuring naturopathic practitioner, Joseph Pizzorno.

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The Enhanced Games promises to display the "true potential" of athletes by letting them use any sort of performance enhancement drugs available when it launches in Las Vegas in 2026. Yet why would a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists with no interest in sports be behind it? Likely because it's all a supplements grift, as Derek and Julian discuss.

Show Notes

The Definitive, Insane, Swimsuit-Bursting Story of the Steroid Olympics

Joe Rogan Experience #2166 - Enhanced Games

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The implications of awarding Robert F Kennedy, Jr with a position he’s completely unqualified for are becoming clearer by the day. While he’s made numerous egregious and dangerous moves as Secretary of HHS, canceling nearly $500 million of mRNA research grants is one of the most startling and shortsighted to date. Today we look at both the microcosm and macrocosm of such a move.

Show Notes

Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts

RFK Jr. slashed mRNA vaccine development funding. A Nobel Prize winner just responded

Kennedy to halt $500 million in vaccine projects

Exclusive: Medical journal rejects Kennedy's call for retraction of vaccine study

Do All Celebrities Have Lyme Disease Now? 

CDC Lyme Disease Case Maps 

How mRNA Vaccines Work

CDC Explaining How Vaccines Work

Clinical Advances for mRNA Vaccines and Cancer Immunotherapy

Katalin Kariko’s Brittanica page

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Well, I seem to always be inspired by the person who is considered marginal. Firstly, their spirit of survival, their resilience, their lack of self-pity, the ability usually to laugh in the face of having nothing and to create a kind of sense of flamboyance and life at any cost, despite having you know no resources of any kind that are visible. That's what inspires me and I think in making portraits of the so-called outsiders, I'm also then allowed to question what is that society that deems us an outsider?

— Mira Nair on BBC “Masterpiece”, 11/29/04

When official America speaks of good and bad Muslims, we must not think that they are speaking of the attitude of Muslims to Islam. They are actually talking about the attitude of Muslims to the U.S. A good Muslim is simply a pro-American Muslim and a bad Muslim is simply an anti-American Muslim. This is not about Islam, it is about America.

— Mahmoud Mamdani, C-Span's Book TV series, hosted by the University of Michigan on April 15, 2005.

Want to better understand Zohran Mamdani’s intellectual and emotional heritage? Want to understand how he seems to be thrashing the culture war with, well culture?

Matthew did, and so he looked into the films of his mom Mira Nair (Part 1), and the scholarship of his dad, Mahmood (Part 2).

Show Notes

Masterpiece - Mira Nair - BBC Sounds 

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Author Mahmood Mamdani 

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim | Penguin Random House Secondary Education 

Reluctant Fundamentalist, The

Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) 

Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam - Truthdig  

Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong | The New Republic

#ZeeJLF2018 | Mira Nair

A timeline of JK Rowling's anti-trans shift 

Mori Araj Suno lyrics 

My secret debate with Sam Harris: A revealing 4-hour dialogue on Islam, racism & free-speech hypocrisy - Salon.com 

New Atheists and old prejudices - The Chronikler

The Clash of Civilizations - If Books Could Kill - Apple Podcasts 

President Reagan welcomes al-Qaeda and Mujahideen leaders to the White House, May 1986  

For Zohran Mamdani, Mom Mira Nair’s Films Were a Formative Influence

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