Sharing what I'm about to start learning.
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Monday, May 18, 2026
U.S. White Christian Nationalism at 'Rededicate 250'
"On Sunday [May 17, 2026] the Trump administration will present its own vision of a Christian revival when it hosts a prayer gathering on the Mall in Washington. The event, billed as “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving,” is being held to “prepare” America for its 250th anniversary in July.
* * *
Theologically conservative religious congregations located in Republican-majority areas experienced greater growth and vitality, according to the study. Researchers say the appeal of leaders such as President Donald Trump and the late conservative speaker Charlie Kirk – heroes to many White evangelicals – may have contributed to the growth in evangelical congregations.
* * *
The renewed vitality of the evangelical church can also be seen in Rededicate 250 on the National Mall on Sunday. The lineup of speakers includes White evangelical pastors such as the Rev. Franklin Graham and the Rev. Robert Jeffress, alongside such Republican figures as House Speaker Mike Johnson, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The gathering will feature live music, public prayer and scriptural readings and is framed by the ideology of White Christian nationalism, the false belief that America was founded as a Christian nation. Organizers say it will honor the Christian faith “that inspired America’s founders” and give thanks for “God’s presence in our national life throughout 250 years of American history.”
The event comes as the Trump administration is drawing fire for injecting its version of Christianity into American political life. The administration has been criticized for framing the Iran war as a Christian crusade. President Trump upset many Catholics with his recent feud with Pope Leo over foreign policy, and further inflamed some Christian supporters when he posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person. (The post was later deleted after Trump said he thought the image depicted him as a doctor.)"
"Religion is ‘back in fashion’ in America. Here’s why," John Blake, CNN, May 16, 2026
"The speaker list tells you exactly what this is: Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Jonathan Falwell, Paula White, and more, standing alongside cabinet secretaries lending the full weight of the federal government to a Christian Nationalist rebranding of America.
It is a government-sponsored revival meeting dressed up as patriotism."
Fish Stark, American Humanist Association executive director, May 14, 2026
"The President just released his 'counterterrorism strategy' and named 'secular political groups' as one of their targets. He ended it by saying 'we will find you, and we will kill you.'
This conveniently comes right before this weekend’s 'Rededicate 250' event on the National Mall a government-sponsored day of prayer, paid for with your tax dollars."
Fish Stark, American Humanist Association executive director, May 15, 2026
"Event organizers with “Freedom 250,” a partisan public-private partnership created by Trump outside congressional oversight, are framing their spectacle as a supposed continuation of America’s Christian founding, pointing to a “day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” declared by the Continental Congress on May 17, 1776."
Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, May 16, 2026 email
Read: ‘Jubilee of Christian Nationalism’: Trump Event Denounced as Attack on Church and State Separation: “If President Trump and his allies truly cared about America’s legacy of religious freedom, they would be celebrating church-state separation as the unique American invention that has allowed religious diversity to flourish.” Julia Conley, Common Dreams, May 15, 2026
"I spent half the day on Sunday down on the National Mall attending Rededicate250, an event sponsored by the White House as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation (Shout out to my friend Dr. Steve Livingston, Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, who came with me and shared his own astute observations). Today, I’ve talked to both NPR and CNN about what I saw and what I think it means.
You can watch my interview on CNN Situation Room above or here at CNN. And you can listen to the interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition” below. And scroll down for a photojournalism-style account of my encounter with the bad faith on the National Mall."
Postcards from the Rededicate250 Christian Nationalist Event in DC
My take on CNN and NPR: Trump's vision for a white Christian America takes the stage in DC.
Robert P. Jones, May 18, 2026
Trump controls the GOP, and Christian nationalists control Trump The primary defeat of Sen. Bill Cassidy showed Trump controls the GOP. But the prayer rally in DC shows who is really driving the agenda. John Gallagher (He/Him), LGBTQ Nation, May 19, 2026
They're trying to turn our country into a White Christian ethno-state. Where if you are the "wrong" race or the "wrong" religion, you are a second class citizen. We won't let them.
— American Atheists (@atheists.org) May 19, 2026 at 1:30 PM
[image or embed]
This 1-Minute Section Of Mike Johnson's Public Prayer Is Disturbing Experts Experts break down what concerns them the most about the House speaker's message to thousands of attendees at the "Rededicate 250" event. Kimberley Richards, HuffPost, May 19, 2026
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
On the personal apocalypse
I wrote a memoir of personal apocalypse, Bad Fire. (See more on tuckerlieberman.com)
This passage from someone else's blog reminds me of the process and the message.
"Apocalyptic fiction, especially stories about personal apocalypses, can do so much to help trans people understand themselves and their place in the world. Once you realize that you have survived one, you can learn to be kinder to yourself. You woke up one day, and whether you expected it or not, your previous life was nothing but ruins. Nothing was usable. Maybe you tried to pretend that it was for awhile. Maybe even a few of your friends survived the cataclysm. Maybe you can rebuild together, side by side. Perhaps that hides that it was an apocalypse to you. Maybe you’re convinced you’re the last sane one, the last vestment of the old world, unaware of how the new one has changed you. Maybe you feel like Frankenstein’s monster: bright, smart, the mental embodiment of all that the previous civilization seemed to value, and yet the villagers chase you. 'The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.' Or maybe the freedom of that old world’s death is exhilarating to you. Maybe it suffocated you. Maybe this new freedom is what you always longed for. We can learn so much from surviving an apocalypse. Many of us survive several in our lives: transition, divorce, imprisonment, destitution."
Unstuck In Gender: The Experience of Trans Apocalypse: On experiencing transition as apocalypse, Auto_Anon, May 11, 2026
Friday, May 8, 2026
Conversion therapy is still legal in Britain
Conversion therapy should be dead, but it isn't, and that's why I share this on Dead Men Blogging, from Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube.
ICYMI, March 20: "It's finally ready: the biggest episode of Philosophy Tube ever! The sequel to "I Emailed My Doctor 133 Times." This is my investigation into conversion therapy: where it came from, why it's still legal in Britain, and how it's being done right now on the NHS with the knowledge and assistance of certain members of the British government." Philosophy Tube on Patreon.
(2 hours 10 min)
Then, this. (1 hour 51 min)
Image: Bertel Thorvaldsen's sculpture of Christ. Copenhagen Cathedral. Image by Gunnar Bach Pedersen © public domain Wikimedia Commons.
..jpg){kind=link}
Thursday, May 7, 2026
A new collection of Sylvia Plath's poems
"A variorum, short for (editio) cum notis variorum, is a work that collates all known variants of a text. It is a work of textual criticism, whereby all variations and emendations are set side by side so that a reader can track how textual decisions have been made in the preparation of a text for publication." (Wikipedia)
"My guests on this week’s Book Club podcast are Amanda Golden and Karen V. Kukil, editors of the new The Poems of Sylvia Plath, a variorum collection of every poem Plath wrote. They tell me what light her juvenilia sheds on her later work, how art and music fed into her poetry, and how deep her poetic partnership with Ted Hughes ran."
— Sam Leith. Listen: "The Poems of Sylvia Plath," The Book Club podcast, The Spectator, 7 May 2026
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) was an American poet.
There will be an event in Bath, hosted by the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, on the evening of Mon 29 June.
"Imagine being able to read the poems of Sylvia Plath without knowing how she died. It’s a near-impossible thought experiment, given how her name and image have been reduced to what her daughter, the poet Frieda Hughes, called the “Sylvia Suicide Doll”. ... Read the poems away from the letters, the journals and the blurbs, and the page clears to reveal jewel-like perception and virtuoso music."
— Jeremy Noel-Tod, Here, at last, is Sylvia Plath: A new collection of the poet’s work puts away the suicide doll and replaces it with wit, wordplay and truth. Prospect Magazine, May 6, 2026
Here's the cover reveal from last November.
Buy it from the publisher, Faber.
Friday, May 1, 2026
Llueve sobre Babel
Llueve sobre Babel is playing in theaters in Colombia! A Cali bar that's the inferno. As per Instagram: "Gala is building a queer magical realism cinematic universe. Two more films in development: Moonchild and Ascension. This is what Colombian cinema looks like when it stops asking for permission."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)