Stephen
stephenwaldron.bsky.social
Stephen
@stephenwaldron.bsky.social
Theologian writing a book on the political theology of the New Apostolic Reformation. Websites: https://stephenwaldron.substack.com/
theologyandsociety.com
Hard to say if this is really happening, but it just snowed here and temperatures are in the 20s tonight. They're trying to have fun as sadists, but they're not also masochists.
November 11, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Uh oh
bluesky branding refresh unveiled
November 8, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Not sure if anyone will get this reference anymore, but Rod is starting to look a lot like C. Everett Koop.
incredible that these guys have a massive hard on for a country that, if it were a state, would rank behind kansas in terms of wealth and which would be a total backwater if it weren’t economically integrated with more functional countries
November 8, 2025 at 7:15 PM
21st century John Calvin concluding that the human mind is a factory for making nimbyisms
November 7, 2025 at 11:49 PM
Reposted by Stephen
A family friend was telling us about what her husband shared about his experience in Broadview before he was deported back to Mexico. She's been sharing to friends and family because she's just in disbelief & horror what her husband told her. She wasn't able to talk to him until he was in Mexico.
November 7, 2025 at 3:08 AM
It's kind of remarkable how much conservative discourse on critical theory and critical race theory has no connection to actual facts or knowledge about those schools of thought.

Recommended into to critical theory: Grand Hotel Abyss (Jeffries)

On CRT: The Origins of CRT (Martinez/Smith)
November 6, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Stephen
Wyndham Lewis would've gone crazy with this framing up to, like, 1936 or a little later (Pound would simply have kept going with it)

(would've called it "Hitleritis" or something. fewer syllables)
November 6, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Imagining type of guy in the 1930s accusing people of having "Hitler derangement syndrome."
November 6, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Stephen
Incredibly funny to watch the right wing going Oh so just because I love money and hate poor people I'm a bad Christian according to "the pope"???
November 4, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Stephen
I know the sandwich throwing trial is more "fun" but I hope folks will pay attention to this trial in Chicago today. People held at Broadview share details of the disgusting, inhumane conditions. A man said agents told him to sign self deportation papers and lied to him about what they were.
Now in Judge Gettleman's courtroom in Chicago, waiting for the morning hearing on this case - which alleges the Broadview, IL ICE facility is a "black hole" where detainees are deprived of legal counsel and subject to inhumane treatment - to begin.
Update: District Judge Robert Gettleman told the govt to return the immigration detainee plaintiffs in this lawsuit to IL by 4pm yesterday, as they had already been moved out of state.

I finally got word the plaintiffs were back in IL at ~7:45 am. A hearing in the case is set for 9:30 am today.
November 4, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Reposted by Stephen
We’re in a strange limbo where secret police are routinely beating, disappearing, and shooting everyday people in public, but they’ve not yet consolidated enough power to stop us from talking about it on social media. That imbalance prob can’t last. Either we roll them back or this gets rolled up .
November 3, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Maybe this is too obscure for people to care, but the ACNA is currently being led by a one-time major Christian Reconstructionist leader (Ray Sutton), who was co-pastor of the Tyler, Texas church where Gary North and David Chilton were members.

anglicanchurch.net/press-releas...
November 4, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Ganz gets this right. Too many people on the Left now toss around the word "Nazi" when they should just say "bigot" or "fascist," and it's going to be crucial to accurately reserve it for the bluntly antisemitic faction on the Right.
November 4, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Stephen
A Religious Studies Scholar’s Guide to “Bad Quotes”

After 9/11 (I was 18), I remember being confronted by a list of Bad, Scary Quotes from the Qur’an.

I had never read the Qur’an and had no idea what was Really In There. I was pretty liberal, not susceptible to “all Muslims are terrorists.” BUT!
Oh so you’ve “read” the #Talmud? Then tell me how much vinegar one needs to offset the volume of a mouse falling into a vat of it. You can’t? Then shut the fuck up 😂
November 3, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Taking the Lord's name in vain has now pivoted to video
Add a dose of propaganda to your morning coffee.. This smells of Russian-like “special operation”
November 2, 2025 at 11:58 PM
There are a couple helicopters overhead, but ICE is outnumbered on the ground and doesn't know the terrain here. May they fall flat on their faces like the hapless losers they are.
October 31, 2025 at 6:16 PM
It's really too bad that it's basically impossible to do state- or national-level campaigning on housing because popular/populist ideas are completely detached from solving the problems and would only make things worse (e.g., Harris handing out money to first-time homebuyers).
This is interesting because the most popular *policy* items, apart from abortion, are only tangentially related to the things voters tell us they care most about, ie cost of living and housing.

I think if you go up with this as your platform, you get smoked for being "out of touch"
October 31, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Stephen
Just got this action alert, I think from @betterstreetschicago.org

Sign a witness slip immediately for the transit funding bill. Info in alt text

mbl.ms/mKgZnW7m-BQ
October 30, 2025 at 10:39 PM
It's fascinating how many people have collaborated up to the point of voting for this and justifying it, but then bemoan polarization and say that things like J6 went too far, before once again going all in. I think a lot of it comes down to information environments and in-group biases.
A ton of people are going to claim they were in this camp.

www.axios.com/2025/10/29/e...
October 29, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Stephen
October 28, 2025 at 3:44 AM
If you live in Illinois, please contact your state legislators about the urgent need to fund transit before cuts start happening:

act.aflcio.org/letters/save...
October 25, 2025 at 3:16 PM
One thing that seems unsolvable right now, but is having destabilizing political impacts, that is online markets for both jobs and romantic partners are utterly broken, even while those online markets are increasingly the only realistic way for most people to match with employers or partners.
October 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
I've been meaning to share my review of @matthewdtaylor.bsky.social's The Violent Take It By Force on the Reading Religion site. Here it is: readingreligion.org/978150649778...

As I mention, the book is both well-researched and very accessible to a wide audience. Read it if you haven't yet!
The Violent Take It by Force - Reading Religion
A propulsive account of the network of charismatic Christians that consolidated support for Donald Trump and is reshaping religion and politics in the US.Ove...
readingreligion.org
October 23, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Intriguing that 82% of US Christians think that "Continuing family traditions" is an important aspect of being a Christian. One can do some creative "interpretation," but the founder of the religion (whether you think it's Jesus or Paul) seems to have been fairly anti-family!
86% of Christians in the US say that being honest is *essential* to being a Christian. www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...
October 22, 2025 at 3:30 PM
ICE kidnapped 2 people in my neighborhood yesterday. Neighbors who saw yelled, blew whistles, hid others. Beyond those actions, it seems vital to do just everything we can to maintain freedoms of expression, religion, association, etc. against the authoritarian onslaught until it inevitably ends.
October 22, 2025 at 12:59 PM