78- Is Patriotism a Sin? (America's 250th Celebration)

78- Is Patriotism a Sin? (America's 250th Celebration)

Send us a Question! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2100783/fan_mail/new] With America heading into a 250th anniversary, we sit with an uncomfortable question Christians tend to dodge until it’s unavoidable: is patriotism a sin? With Malcolm on sabbatical, Slim goes solo and names why this topic feels so spiritually charged right now. We start with the emotional pull of national pride, the summer nostalgia, the stories we tell ourselves about home and belonging. Then we turn and face the hard collisions: what do we do with a country we love when its history and violence? From there, we unpack why patriotism is uniquely tempting for Christians, because it borrows the language of religion: sacred symbols, rituals, songs, and pledges that can quietly train our hearts toward ultimate loyalty. Next, we dig into a biblical view of patriotism and nationalism through the New Testament lens: citizenship in heaven, life as exiles, Jesus’ refusal to advance his kingdom through coercion, and the enemy love ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. We also take Romans 13 seriously, offering a more nuanced reading alongside insights from John Howard Yoder and themes echoed in Greg Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation [https://a.co/d/080xuAwU]. Finally, we trace the historic shift after Constantine and ask the question that won’t go away: did the church convert the empire, or did the empire convert the church? Before all that we look at 2 different denominational conversations happening right now.  1 in the SBC banning women Pastors [https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/us/sbc-southern-baptist-convention.html] and 1 in the PCUSA and Polyamory or Monogamy in the clergy. [https://www.christiancentury.org/news/polyamory-gains-visibility-monogamy-faces-vote-pcusa]  The Artificial Line and a point where we agree with Trump.  [https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5390511/us-canada-border-trump-artificial-line] If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world. For more information, you can follow us at https://www.theologyinpieces.com/ [https://www.theologyinpieces.com/]Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces [https://www.instagram.com/theologyinpieces/] Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley [https://twitter.com/MalcolmBFoley] Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim [https://twitter.com/wacoslim] For more information on the church, check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org [https://mosaicwaco.org/]or on instagram [https://www.instagram.com/mosaic_waco/].

77 - "A Slow-Motion Disaster." Sanctuary and Immigration with Dianne Garcia

Send us a Question! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2100783/fan_mail/new] Pastors w/ guns. Screens robbing our attention. Families losing income, homes, and loved ones through detention and deportation. If any of that makes your stomach drop, you’re not alone.  We need Sanctuary as christians!  We need Shalom.  We need Jesus.  Today we sit down with Dianne Garcia, a Mennonite pastor in San Antonio who founded Iglesia Cristiana Roca De Refugio [https://www.rocaderefugiosatx.org/]. Diane also leads a nonprofit Nuevos Vecinos [https://www.nuevosvecinossatx.org/] serving hundreds of immigrant families. She walks us through what “mass deportation” actually looks like: work authorization stripped, exploitation at work, higher filing fees, loss of benefits, and relentless financial stress, and most devastating... family separation, with parents detained, deported, and children left behind trying to survive a system designed to create suffering. Along the way, we wrestle with Christian nationalism, [https://x.com/ChristnNitemare/status/2059637992570909007] gun culture [https://dangerousbutgood.com/], just war theory, modern drone warfare, [https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/05/christians-listen-pope-leo-encyclical-artificial-intelligence/] and explore one article's plea to reduce the screens in church. [https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/10/a-vision-for-screen-free-church-smartphones-livestreaming/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=article] Dianne's 90 Day March [https://www.chron.com/news/article/texas-pastor-march-ice-dilley-children-21938256.php] Mejores Juntos [https://open.spotify.com/show/0zbMgHNnGGMqLEltAqxrkc?si=c07aa9d860d64305] If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world. For more information, you can follow us at https://www.theologyinpieces.com/ [https://www.theologyinpieces.com/]Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces [https://www.instagram.com/theologyinpieces/] Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley [https://twitter.com/MalcolmBFoley] Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim [https://twitter.com/wacoslim] For more information on the church, check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org [https://mosaicwaco.org/]or on instagram [https://www.instagram.com/mosaic_waco/].

76 - "Marketing Is Witchcraft" And Other Road Trip Theology w/ Sho Baraka

Send us a Question! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2100783/fan_mail/new] Today, we continue: "Theologians in SUV's Coming Back from the Airport".  Listen in on an unfiltered conversation with Sho Baraka about creativity, Christian hip hop, and the hidden forces shaping the modern church. We start light and personal, talking Atlanta culture and the “many hats” Sho wears as a writer, cultural critic, speaker, and artist. From there, he walks us through his origin story: poetry, West Coast influences, freestyling, and the slow work of developing a voice that doesn’t sound like anyone else. Then we zoom out to the music industry and the attention economy. Sho challenges the pressure to overproduce and to live inside the algorithm, and he names why promotion can feel less like honest communication and more like manipulation. If you’ve ever wondered why so much music feels rushed or hollow, you’ll hear a clear diagnosis and a better vision for making art with patience, maturity, and depth. The conversation gets even sharper as we talk about the Western church, “relevance,” and the danger of being tethered to empire. Sho argues that what masquerades as church can become Christendom, Christianity shaped to please power. He also reflects on justice work, the temptation to let anger become condemnation, and the hard but hopeful path back through confession, repentance, and real community. If you care about faithfulness, public theology, racial solidarity, and the integrity of Christian witness, this one will stay with you.  Sho came to Waco on he and Malcolm's "Good Culture In An Empire" Tour.  If you missed it here, reach out and see if they're coming to your city.  They have dates in Denver and Atlanta already lined up.   Check all things Sho Baraka out at www.shobaraka.com/ [https://www.shobaraka.com/] His Book: He Saw That it Was Good [https://www.shobaraka.com/product-page/he-saw-that-it-was-good] Latest Album: Spotify: Midnight of a Good Culture [https://open.spotify.com/album/4iGpfDIVBa5zVBLeqtXo9q?si=Om4bp0pbRiK0YrbSQfyjrw] / Apple: Midnight of a Good Culture [https://music.apple.com/ag/album/midnight-of-a-good-culture/1831528515] The Bootmaker's Ballad (Music video)  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n10Mw3i8vm8] If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world. For more information, you can follow us at https://www.theologyinpieces.com/ [https://www.theologyinpieces.com/]Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces [https://www.instagram.com/theologyinpieces/] Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley [https://twitter.com/MalcolmBFoley] Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim [https://twitter.com/wacoslim] For more information on the church, check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org [https://mosaicwaco.org/]or on instagram [https://www.instagram.com/mosaic_waco/].

75 - Christ Is King? Depends What You Mean

Send us a Question! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2100783/fan_mail/new] “Christ Is King” is everywhere right now and that’s exactly why we needed to slow down and ask what we’re actually confessing. We’re recording during Holy Week, and we feel the tension: the Resurrection is the center of Christian faith, but the name of Jesus keeps getting pulled into arguments about power, violence, and national identity. So we put the slogan on the table and ask whether it’s being used as comfort, as a threat, or as a shortcut to baptize the politics of empire.  We discuss imprecatory psalms, the difference between the oppressed crying out for justice and an empire asking God to bless its weapons.  Also, are there  prayers that God ignores?  Does God listen to the prayers of the wicked? The Pope recently warned that God doesn't listen to those who wage war.  [https://x.com/Pontifex/status/2038209125646016547] We also take a look at our Mail Bag and there is one consistent theme.... $ Hope you enjoy!  Keep writing in!   Sho Baraka & Malcolm's Good Culture in an Empire Event - April 17th! Get your tix.  [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1985818277926?aff=oddtdtcreator] Resources discussed Power Over vs. Power Under in Two-Kingdoms [https://reknew.org/2017/07/two-kingdoms/] by Greg Boyd The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church [https://a.co/d/0gTScR7y]by Greg Boyd Pete Hegseth's Prayer [https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/at-pentagon-worship-service-hegseth] Terrible tweets: "the worst of the worst" [https://x.com/philvischer/status/2036471830274339323] Robert Morris released [https://x.com/AlyssaDegraff/status/2039005173939626229] If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world. For more information, you can follow us at https://www.theologyinpieces.com/ [https://www.theologyinpieces.com/]Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces [https://www.instagram.com/theologyinpieces/] Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley [https://twitter.com/MalcolmBFoley] Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim [https://twitter.com/wacoslim] For more information on the church, check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org [https://mosaicwaco.org/]or on instagram [https://www.instagram.com/mosaic_waco/].

74 - Tax The Rich Or Feed The Beast

Send us a Question! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2100783/fan_mail/new] “Christian socialism” can sound like a contradiction if you’ve been taught that Christianity and capitalism belong together. We slow the whole thing down and ask a better question: what does the gospel actually announce, and what kind of economic life should that announcement produce? Along the way, we respond to a debate clip that tries to shrink the gospel into “Jesus’ finished work” while treating justice as merely an implication. We argue that the good news is bigger, more public, and more demanding than that, without turning works into a way to earn salvation. Then we get honest about how systems shape souls. Capitalism is not just private property and Starbucks choices. It’s a moral formation built around profit motive, endless growth, and “voluntary exchange” that often isn’t voluntary when it involves housing, healthcare, wages, and survival. We connect modern wealth to empire history, including the doctrine of discovery and the long chain of dispossession that set the table for today’s inequality. If the top owns staggering wealth while the poor are crushed, the question isn’t only “did you personally exploit?” but “what does it mean to retain excess while your neighbor suffers?” We also define socialism in plain language, talk about why so many “failed socialism” examples ignore U.S. intervention, and bring the conversation back to Scripture: Jubilee, debt forgiveness, gleaning, Acts 2, and Acts 4. Our bottom line is not blind faith in the state but a call for the church to offer a real economic witness in the shadow of empire, so there are no needy among us. Books, Articles, and Notes: John Perkins Stood Almost Alone - [https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/03/why-john-perkins-civil-rights-stood-almost-alone/](Russell Moore) The civil rights leader treated love of God and love for others as inseparable. Tax the Rich: How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich even Richer [https://a.co/d/03h1bKVK] It's Basically Just Immoral to Be Rich [https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2017/06/its-basically-just-immoral-to-be-rich] Malcolm's Debate [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN0giB3lvmU&t=837s] Thaddeus Williams RECAP of the debate. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slsb3DY3EB8] The Case for Christian Socialism [https://andrewspringer.medium.com/the-case-for-christian-socialism-cad41e19ab4c] Christianity and Capitalism are Incompatible [https://thedawnishere.substack.com/p/christianity-and-capitalism-are-incompatible] Institute for Christian Socialism [https://christiansocialism.com/] If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world. For more information, you can follow us at https://www.theologyinpieces.com/ [https://www.theologyinpieces.com/]Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces [https://www.instagram.com/theologyinpieces/] Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley [https://twitter.com/MalcolmBFoley] Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim [https://twitter.com/wacoslim] For more information on the church, check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org [https://mosaicwaco.org/]or on instagram [https://www.instagram.com/mosaic_waco/].