The Convocation Unscripted

Amid the continued onslaught against our Constitutional rights by the Trump administration, Robby, Kristin, and Diana discuss the importance of focusing on “bright lines” that are being crossed. We celebrate the institutions that continue to hold courageous conversations in these challenging days, such as First Baptist Church of Richmond and St. Mary’s College in Indiana, which are hosting Robby and Kristin for public conversations. We discuss the likely illegal detaining of Mahmoud Khalil--a Palestinian recent graduate of Columbia University, U.S. green card holder, and husband of an American citizen—for speech the Trump administration did not like. We also talk about the dangers of Trump’s usurpation of power by declaring a national emergency. This emergency declaration, made without any legitimate grounds, gives Trump the power to unilaterally impose tariffs and to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, as he is likely to do shortly to institute mass deportations. 

Finally we talk about the heresy circulating in Christian circles that empathy is a threat to the gospel. We point out that previous purges of empathy as a Christian virtue among white Christians in America prepared the ground for the genocide of Indigenous people and the enslavement of people of African descent. We know where that road leads. We also discussed the importance of universities and churches to avoid the trap of neutrality, since, as our colleague Jemar always reminds us, justice takes sides.

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In this episode of The Convocation Unscripted, Diana, Jemar, and Kristin talk about the AI-generated video about Gaza that Trump shared, the ongoing relevance of the "God & Country" documentary, Jeff Bezos' interpretation of "free speech", and how not lose your humanity from an article by Kelly Brown Douglas.

Watch "God & Country"

Read about the AI-generated video

Read Kelly Brown Douglas's article

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The Convocation Team (minus Diana, who was traveling this week) opened the show by talking about the importance of Katherine Stewarts’s important new book, Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, which was released this week. The hosts agreed that Money, Lies, and God is a must-read book to understand the coalescing of white Christian nationalism, the tech bro oligarchy, and authoritarianism that is actively wrecking the nation under Trump. We also discuss emerging alternative platforms of courageous journalism happening on platforms like Substack. And we note the hypocrisy of Trump’s executive order establishing an “Anti-Christian Task Force” at all federal agencies, which is simultaneously a vehicle for white evangelical Protestant Christian favoritism and a weapon against other Christians and religious groups Trump considers disloyal.

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In this episode, the Convocation Unscripted team highlights the religious resistance to the Trump administration’s abandonment of three decades of guidance that prohibited the government from conducting immigration enforcement raids in “sensitive locations,” including places of worship, schools, and hospitals. In response, a diverse group of 27 Christian and Jewish organizations filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, claiming that such raids would violate their religious liberty and duty to welcome the stranger. We also talked about the role the law played in securing civil rights for African Americans when the executive and legislative branches failed to do so. Finally, we talked about the absurd turns the MAGA DEI hysteria has taken and the opportunity for Christians to develop a new theological anthropology consistent with a pluralistic democracy.

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On our second live Convocation Unscripted show, we were glad to be joined by over 600 live participants. Robby kicked us off by highlighting the main findings of PRRI’s recent study of support for Christian nationalism in all 50 states, reminding us that while the 3 in 10 Americans who are Christian Nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers are enjoying a moment of extraordinary influence, they are actually outnumbered by a margin of 2 to 1 in the general population. They are neither the best of us nor the majority of us. Jemar reminded us, particularly those of us who are white Christians, that in addition to examples of courageous, justice-seeking leaders like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we have an often overlooked resource closer to hand in the witness the Black church here in the US. Kristin and Diana talked about Trump’s jarring speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he announced the establishment of a task force on “anti-Christian bias,” making it clear that this administration’s commitments to religious liberty are narrowly focused on protecting the interests of conservative white Christians alone. Trump’s attacks on Lutheran and Catholic social service agencies are just the beginning. After discussing a dozen listener questions, we wrapped the episode by each sharing a passage about resistance and hope from our recent books.

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In this week’s edition of The Convocation Unscripted, we take a moment to recognize and grieve with the families of the 67 people who lost their lives in the fatal collision between and American Airlines jet and a military helicopter. This tragedy was close to home to Diana and Robby, who fly out of DCA regularly and walk and bike the scenic trails near the airport along the Potomac River. We also reflect on President Trump’s awful attempt to use a national tragedy to further pull the country apart by blaming—without any evidence other than what he called his own “common sense”--Biden, Obama, Buttigieg, the military helicopter pilot, and of course DEI initiatives that he insisted favored lower intelligence hires. Noting that Trump similarly blamed the California wildfires on DEI firefighter hires, we emphasize the importance of recognizing that this will be the playbook: weaponize everything, even disasters and the deaths of scores of innocent Americans, to advance a white supremacist worldview that justifies the destruction of the government itself. But we also noted, with some cautious hope, that we are beginning to see the stirrings of a faith resistance: from Bishop Mariann Budde’s “sermon heard round the world,” to Quakers quietly suing the Trump administration over its mandate for ICE officials to round up immigrants while they are at church, to the Catholic Bishops finally speaking out when J.D. Vance questions the authenticity of their religious commitments to support immigrant families.

This week’s edition of The Convocation Unscripted was our first show after the inauguration of Donald Trump as president. There was so much to talk about and so many incoming questions from the nearly 500 listeners who joined us live, that we extended the show a bit. We covered a lot of ground, opening with how we are all coping emotionally with the deluge of executive orders and authoritarian rhetoric. We also talked about the symbols and rhetoric of white Christian nationalism at the inauguration, Bishop Mariann Budde’s courageous sermon and appeal to mercy at the Washington National Cathedral, the blanket pardon of the violent January 6th insurrectionists, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute (yes, it was a Nazi salute), Trump’s torrent of big and little lies, and the need for all of us to contribute resources to organizations, clergy, and leaders who are taking courageous stands, not just at the national level but at the local level.

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This is our first Convocation Unscripted+LIVE episode for 2025, which we’ll now be doing weekly during the first 100 days of Trump’s administration. We opened this episode by talking about the devastating wildfires in Southern California, which incoming President Trump is already politicizing with blatant lies about its causes. We talked about two events that each seem to mark the end of an era and are related to truth-telling. First, we discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement this week that META is going MAGA, by appointing top officials from Trump’s orbit to its board and global policy positions, donating to Trump’s transition fund, and, most significantly, ending its fact-checking program on all platforms. We also reflect on President Jimmy Carter's funeral, which provided moving tributes to his life and legacy. And we recall that Carter’s principal campaign promise was, “I will never lie to you.” A new era indeed.

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In our last episode of The Convocation Unscripted for 2024, the Convocation Unscripted team give previews of their upcoming writing projects for 2025. Robby unpacks the findings from PRRI’s new post-election survey. The survey found that majorities of all white Christian groups voted for Donald Trump, as did Latino Protestants. Majorities of every other group—Christians of color, non-Christian religious groups, and religiously unaffiliated voters—voted for Kamala Harris. The survey also found that Democrats are five times more likely than Republicans to say they are altering upcoming holiday plans to spend less time with certain relatives in the wake of the election. Jemar and Kristin talked about the bizarre conception of manhood that seems operative among Trump’s inner circle. Jemar also emphasized a disturbing finding from the PRRI survey: that white evangelical churchgoers were more likely than infrequent attenders to support Trump. They are, Jemar noted, white vectors for, superspreaders of the MAGA movement and white Christian nationalism. Kristin talked about the importance of taking risks and normalizing the basic task of telling the truth in spaces that are denying it. Diana raised the dangers of Elon Musk’s influence over elected officials and the new threats of oligarchy and plutocracy we are facing with the staggering amount of wealth at the disposal of a few.

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