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America’s Military Tradition Meets a Moment of Disrespect: A Reflection on the Quantico Assembly
Michael A. Smith
Historian | Author | Public Theologian
In a nation that has long revered its military leaders, the events at Quantico, Virginia last week marked a jarring departure from tradition.
Nearly 800 generals, admirals, and senior enlisted leaders—men and women who have sworn oaths to defend the Constitution and who have led troops in war and peace—were summoned to a hastily arranged meeting. What they received was not strategic briefing or solemn recognition, but a public dressing-down from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who used the occasion to rail against “woke” culture, berate physical appearances, and promote a return to “highest male standards” in combat.
A Legacy of Civil-Military Separation
From the founding of the republic, America’s relationship with its military leaders has been one of admiration tempered by constitutional caution. George Washington’s resignation of his commission in 1783 remains one of the most powerful gestures in American political history—a deliberate act to prevent the rise of military autocracy and to affirm civilian control over the armed forces. Every general who later ascended to the presidency—Grant, Eisenhower, even Jackson—followed this precedent, maintaining a clear boundary between military command and political power.
This tradition is not merely symbolic. It is foundational. The military serves the Constitution, not a party or a person. And while presidents are commanders-in-chief, they are expected to respect the institution’s apolitical stance, its internal professionalism, and its sacred trust with the American people.
The Spectacle at Quantico
The gathering at Quantico shattered that trust. Defense Secretary Hegseth, who has faced criticism for his own military record and public behavior, launched into a tirade against “fat generals,” “toxic leaders,” and diversity initiatives. He strutted across the stage, invoking crude slang (“FAFO”—an acronym for “F*** Around, Find Out”) and demanding a return to grooming and fitness standards that many saw as exclusionary and regressive.
President Trump followed with a speech that veered into campaign-style rhetoric, invoking tariffs, the Nobel Peace Prize, and his controversial executive order to use the military in domestic law enforcement. He praised the “warrior spirit” and suggested that American cities could serve as “training grounds” for handling “the enemy within.”
For many in the room, the spectacle was not just inappropriate—it was humiliating. These were not political operatives or campaign donors. They were career officers, many with combat experience, some with wounds both visible and invisible. To be summoned under threat of retribution, only to be berated and used as props, was a profound breach of respect.
The Cost of Contempt
The emotional toll of such treatment cannot be overstated. Among those present were leaders who had served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam—some who had been prisoners of war, others who had lost limbs or comrades. To be called cowards, to be mocked for their appearance, and to be subjected to partisan theater undermines not only morale but the very fabric of civil-military relations.
It is especially galling when such contempt comes from leaders whose own service records are marked by controversy. Hegseth’s military career, while real, has been overshadowed by allegations of misconduct and public intoxication. Trump, who received multiple deferments during the Vietnam War, has previously disparaged decorated veterans, including the late Senator John McCain, a former POW, whom he infamously said was “not a war hero” because he was captured.
A Moment for Reflection
This moment demands more than outrage. It calls for reflection on what kind of republic we wish to be.
Do we honor the tradition of Washington, who understood the danger of military power unchecked by principle? Or do we slide into a culture where loyalty is demanded, not earned, and where the military is used as a stage for political grievance?
The officers at Quantico deserved better. They deserved the respect that comes with service, the dignity that comes with sacrifice, and the constitutional clarity that has guided America for over two centuries. To berate them is not just a breach of decorum—it is a betrayal of the very values they swore to defend.
—Written in the spirit of civic clarity and historical conscience...MAS
Morning news of generals resigning after Quantico meeting 10/9
While there have not been mass resignations on October 9, 2025, the days following a controversial Quantico meeting on September 30 have seen two high-profile retirements and have led to speculation and fear of further departures
. The meeting was led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and attended by hundreds of generals and admirals.
I finally found what I had seen, but there is a note, that this is probably "clickbait"
Consider this... How are we able to know what is truth?!
BUT, listen to the end of this video... Catching a lie, but learning what is really happening is also important... Keep Alert!
UMILIATED аѕ 5Тrumр HUMILIATED аѕ 5000 Army Generals QUІТ ОΝ НІМ Wednesday Νіght: "You’re a CRIMINAL!?!"
Let’s cut through the noise. You’ve seen the headline—some wild claim about “5,000 generals quitting.” That’s clickbait. But here’s the truth that actually matters: a president trying to drape federal power in camouflage and march it into our cities, not to protect democracy, but to flex on it.
000 Army GeneralТrumр HUMILIATED аѕ 5000 Army Generals QUІТ ОΝ НІМ Wednesday Νіght: "You’re a CRIMINAL!?!"
Let’s cut through the noise. You’ve seen the headline—some wild claim about “5,000 generals quitting.” That’s clickbait. But here’s the truth that actually matters: a president trying to drape federal power in camouflage and march it into our cities, not to protect democracy, but to flex on it.
s QUІТ ОΝ НІМ Wednesday Νіght: "You’re a CRIMINAL!?!"
Let’s cut through the noise. You’ve seen the headline—some wild claim about “5,000 generals quitting.” That’s clickbait. But here’s the truth that actually matters: a president trying to drape federal power in camouflage and march it into our cities, not to protect democracy, but to flex on it.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 was composed in a moment of constitutional clarity and civic anxiety. Born from the ashes of Shays’ Rebellion and the fragile balance between federal authority and state sovereignty, its original purpose was to provide a last-resort mechanism for the president to quell actual insurrections—armed uprisings, violent rebellions, and systemic threats to the rule of law. It was a tool of preservation, not provocation. (italic emphasis mine gb)
Historically, its invocation has been rare and solemn:
Eisenhower used it to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock. Johnson deployed it to protect civil rights activists in Alabama, and George H.W. Bush responded to the 1992 Los Angeles riots at the request of California’s governor.
Each instance was tied to a constitutional crisis or a breakdown in local governance. The Act was a federal drumbeat summoned only when the rhythm of justice had been drowned out by violence.
ICE Creates Violence Again America
In contrast, the Trump administration’s flirtation with the Insurrection Act feels less like a constitutional safeguard and more like a political improvisation. Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Act, not in response to rebellion, but to bypass governors, defy court orders, and deploy troops to cities like Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles under the banner of “crime control.”
This shift reframes the Act from a shield of last resort into a sword of executive dominance. The administration has drafted legal defenses to justify its use, despite opposition from state leaders and federal judges. Critics argue that Trump’s interpretation stretches the statute’s language, terms like “unlawful obstruction” and “domestic violence,” to encompass peaceful protests, local policy disagreements, and partisan narratives of urban decay. It’s a syncopation of power: where the original beat was restraint, the new rhythm is escalation! (Michael, I just had to find a video to illustrate this significant change! gb)
This isn’t just a legal debate. It’s a question of civic authorship. Who gets to define rebellion? Who controls the tempo of public safety? And when the federal government plays its own rhythm over the will of the states, what happens to the harmony of democracy?
Trump--Biden--Trump
The Trump administration’s approach risks turning the Insurrection Act into a tool of suppression rather than protection. It echoes the very grievances that led to its creation: the fear of unchecked military force, the erosion of civilian control, and the silencing of dissent under the guise of order.
The Insurrection Act was meant to be a drumline for democracy, a steady cadence summoned only when the rhythm of civil order collapsed. But when that beat is hijacked, when the snare of federal force drowns out the voices of local governance, we must ask: who’s conducting the score?
Trump’s invocation of the Act isn’t just a legal maneuver; it’s a remix of civic memory. It transforms a tool of last resort into a first strike against dissent. It weaponizes rhythm, turning the pulse of protection into the percussion of control.
But we know another rhythm. One born in the hush of ancestral breath, in the foot steps of marchers on Edmund Pettus Bridge, in the syncopated shout of protest songs that refused to stay in key. That rhythm resists. It remembers. It reclaims.
So let us not be fooled by the tempo of suppression. Let us write our own score—one that honors the original beat of the Act, while refusing its distortion. Let us teach, testify, and turn every pause into a call for authorship.
Because in the end, the most dangerous insurrection is not the one that storms the gates; it’s the one that rewrites the rhythm of law to silence the people it was meant to protect.
And let us never forget that God in Heaven Loves Us and Loves ALL of His Children
~~~
Latest News:
The President of Columbia Blames
President Trump for murder of Columbian Citizens
in bombing of boat...
(also other boats have been bombed.)
Outside of Venezuela with no previous notice of Legal Approval
Now Reading: After I heard about the book, by Book News Expert Velshi, I immediately bought it... Read the Introduction and knew that this was enough for most people to decide, immediately, whether you wanted to read this book... I'll be reading as I do non-fiction books ongoing, but I wanted to get this out today... The author. John Fugelsang is a comedian... How better to read about this major issue, but with a little smile or two... God Bless, Gabby
Introduction
I’m here because two people broke a promise to God. My mother was born during the Depression in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her name was Mary Margaret, but she always went by Peggy, and she entered the convent directly out of high school. Her prom date had asked her that night if she would marry him. She politely declined, gently informing the poor boy that she’d already made plans to marry someone else. At age eighteen, while other kids were still enjoying the 1950s, she joined the Daughters of Wisdom order. She ceased to be Mary Margaret and received her new name, Sister Damien. This was before the movie The Omen was released, but you can imagine the jokes she would’ve had to live with had things worked out differently. The convent put her through nursing school and then sent her to Africa, first to work with lepers, and then at a village hospital in Malawi. But before they sent her overseas to begin her new life, they briefly assigned her to Holy Family Hospital in Brooklyn, New York.
My father had been born in Brooklyn just a few months before her, and had become a Franciscan brother a year after graduating high school. He’d been working as a butcher at the Brooklyn fish market, and after losing half a finger, celibacy probably seemed like a step up. Upon entering the brotherhood, he ceased being Jack and became Brother Boniface. As a brother, he taught history to Catholic boys at St. Francis Prep, coached basketball, wore the robe and rope belt, and walked among the people like the Lost Jedi of Flatbush. My father, the brother, met my mother, the sister, when he entered Holy Family for tuberculosis treatment. By all accounts, he was instantly smitten by this quiet, Southern girl in a nun’s habit, a woman he knew he couldn’t have, and had promised God he would never want. She was reserved and came from the segregated South; he was all Brooklyn charm and passionate about civil rights in ways her Southern father was not. He was exactly one foot taller than her, and their strong Southern and Brooklyn regionalisms did not suggest any potential compatibility.
But they became friends, and when the convent sent Sister Damien to Malawi, Brother Boniface took it upon himself to write her letters—many letters—to innocently keep her informed of what was going on in the states—civil rights, Vietnam, and US politics. Her village had no TV or radio, so his letters became the de facto newspaper for the entire convent. Her Mother Superior would open his envelopes and read them aloud; Damien was often the last to read her own mail. Eventually, she returned—briefly—to the US. After ten years of hiding his feelings, poorly, my father eventually convinced her to leave the convent and go on a date. They were married two months later, in the chapel at Fort Story Army base in Virginia Beach.
They soon settled on Long Island and tried to raise us to be progressive, free-thinking, sexually repressed Catholics. Which is why I would eventually turn to stand-up comedy, as I could never afford the therapy I so deeply required.
SON OF A NUN
My brothers and I were raised in Bohemia, Long Island, listed in the Guinness Book under “Most Ironic Town Name.” If you knew what “bohemian” meant, you were probably the town bohemian. We were an extremely Catholic family. I’m pretty sure we had open-casket reunions. Lots of kids had to go to church twice a year. A few had to go every Sunday and give something up for Lent. We attended Catholic Mass every Sunday and every single holy day, even when that meant church after school. Skipping church was not an option—ever, for any reason—except extreme illness or if you were dying. And if it looked like you might die on a Sunday, then you’d still have to get to five o’clock Mass on Saturday night.
We learned all the Bible stories that kids are usually taught: Adam and Eve in the garden, Noah building the ark, Moses parting the Red Sea. The slaughter of the Midianites, where God commands Moses to kill all the men and nonvirgin women—but keep all the virgin girls—didn’t make its way into any of our illustrated children’s Bibles. My dad was a lector, CCD (like Sunday school, except rarely on Sundays and seldom in schools) teacher, and eucharistic minister at church; my Uncle Louis in Brooklyn was a Catholic deacon; my brother an altar boy. And when my mother became head nurse at a convent nursing home for her former order, there was a steady multicultural flow of elderly nuns in and out of our house. We said grace before every dinner and our prayers before bedtime. Whereas some kids were taught piano, my parents got me organ lessons. And to the best of my knowledge, I was the only child in Bohemia, Long Island, to have been baptized in his parents’ living room by a priest his mother had known in the jungles of Africa.
And I was taught—relentlessly—that Christianity was about the things Jesus prioritized: Service to others. Forgiveness. Caring for the poor, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner. Fighting injustice with nonviolence, like Dr. King and Gandhi. Standing up for the less fortunate, like Dorothy Day and Catholic Charities. Love. Empathy. Compassion. And go wash your hands, we’re leaving for Mass in five minutes.
My parents presented as Republicans, identified as Independents, and lived like closeted Democrats. Like most dads, mine was liberal in some ways and conservative in others. He maintained the same severely short haircut regardless of what decade he was in, flew the US flag outside our home, and believed God was love.
His overall parenting strategy was to guarantee that I’d be way too liberal to ever fit in with Christians and far too Christian to ever blend with liberals. And almost every therapist I’ve ever been able to afford has agreed that his plan worked perfectly. When I was very young, my father pulled me out of bed late one night to watch Jimmy Carter sign the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. He couldn’t believe an American Christian had helped bring peace to part of the Middle East, and he wanted his kid to witness Christian, Jew, and Muslim embracing each other. I was too sleepy and confused to even understand what I was seeing. Moshe Dayan had an eyepatch, which was cool, I guess. My father’s face convinced me of the moment’s significance. I had never seen him so happy. To him, this was everything Christianity—and America—could and should be.
I was lucky to grow up around large Catholic families in both Brooklyn and the South—and to have eventually married into a very sane Protestant family. I’ve been blessed with relations who’ve been White, Black, and Latino; gay and transgender; cops and convicts; military members, teachers, chefs, immigrants, DREAMers, and firefighters; hardcore right-wingers, reasonable Libertarians, compassionate lefties, and the happily politically apathetic. I’ve had Muslim cousins, Jewish in-laws, an atheist brother, and an ex-nun mother. I don’t get to hate anybody. Big families meant many reunions, many conservative relatives, many cans of beer. My dad would often debate loved ones on politics and scripture, in the same gregarious Brooklynite way he’d debated for years with his Franciscan housemates.
It exasperated my Southern mom, but everyone mostly loved each other, despite any differences in voting habits. I think many of us remember an America when family could disagree over politics while still generally getting along. Maybe yours still can. And I swear, it all seemed quite normal at the time. I had no idea growing up what Roe v. Wade was, nor did I know that the issue of abortion was splitting and redefining American Christianity. But when the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority decided to make abortion their central political issue—half a decade after Roe v. Wade, by the way—the American church would never be the same. In the eighties and nineties, my father the social studies teacher always kept the news on. Being that this was during the rise of the Moral Majority and Christian right, I was exposed to many interviews with white men who were introduced as “Christian leaders.” But these Christians didn’t talk about helping the poor, welcoming the stranger, or fighting injustice. They never mentioned the evils of racism. They didn’t quote scripture to justify the need for all of us to take care of the least of us.
If you watched American TV news in the late twentieth century, you received a steady diet of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and all manner of ex-segregationists and blow-dried televangelists, all ranting about welfare queens, feminists, and AIDS patients. These right-wing Christian media stars preached the virtue of forcing poor pregnant women to give birth against their will, that they might experience substantially greater poverty and greater risk to their health. They warned us that any government programs that actually helped the poor were “communist.” They expressed outrage at protests against racism, while never denouncing actual racism. They always punched down—always attacking the poor, the addicts, the migrants at the border, and a gay minority they assured me the Bible condemned, somewhere.
Millions of American Christians were media-fed this version of Christianity. White supremacist. Pro-apartheid. Anti-labor. Zero teachings of Jesus. Offering only condemnation and propaganda, always seeking more power, and always needing more cash. Watching TV news was the first time I became aware of Christianity as a political force in my country, but it was a Christianity I couldn’t understand. I didn’t have the words to express it, but it was awkward to be told I was the same religion as these men. These were the fundamentalists, the power-hungry grifters who took advantage of the fact that most people don’t know the Bible all that well. They were charlatans, frauds, hypocrites, and villains. And they made for great TV. Within a decade, Christianity in US media culture would become synonymous with the criminalize-abortion movement and condemning gay people. And the fact that attacking abortion and gay people has nothing to do with the ministry and teachings of Jesus has never gotten in the way of the right-wing agenda. And apparently, the media’s still never been told.
My parents generally felt that some people had abortions too casually, but they would never vote for any politician who would take that right away. They never joined a political party but also never voted Republican (for “Jesus-based reasons”). Years later, my mother would tell me about hospitals pre-Roe, saying most nuns she’d worked with as nurses vigorously supported giving women the choice. But by the 1990s, if you told another young person you were “Christian,” they often presumed that you despised gay people and feminists and thought the government should force rape victims to be pregnant by their attacker.
BEHOLD, THE “SMALL C CHRISTIANS”
Now, some of my atheist friends like to say that religion is responsible for all the world’s hate, violence, sexism, homophobia, war, and oppression. In a 2018 US News and World Report survey of more than twenty-one thousand people from all regions of the world, the majority of respondents identified religion as the “primary source of most global conflict today.” And I can certainly understand why they feel that way. But they’re mistaken. The primary driver of most global conflict, oppression of women, suppression of science, persecution of gay people, and abuse of power is not religion. It’s the extreme fundamentalist wings of all the world’s religions that provide all these dramas for the rest of humanity.
The overwhelming majority of progressive, moderate, and even conservative Christians, Jews, and Muslims are getting along just fine, right now, in all corners of the earth—just trying to make their way through life and leave a better world for their kids. Of course, people from different backgrounds peacefully coexisting, working together, and building families, businesses, and communities in a drama-free way doesn’t attract much media attention. But the violent lunatics and bigots? They get the eyeballs and clicks, so they still get the coverage. In recent decades, the US has witnessed fundamentalist Christianity publicly mutating into Christian nationalism: the belief that God intended America to be a Christian nation and that a “true” American should be Christian, too. These hopeless romantics fervently believe the Bible must be prioritized in both your government and your day-to-day life. Well, their interpretation of the Bible, that is. This powerful, profoundly white, well-funded, and growing movement seeks to impose a very narrow religious identity on our entire nation. And it all serves a deeply inspiring vision, where America gets to be a second-rate theocracy, like Iran, guided by ultraconservative values that just so happen to put their group first.
“Christian nationalism” is also becoming an umbrella term for all kinds of right-wing zealotry: The fundamentalists, who use faith as a cover for power and control. The spiritual bullies, convinced that they get to be as cruel and judgmental as they want because they already know for a fact they’re going to heaven. The Apocalypse worshippers, whose Bible is pretty much just Revelation duct-taped to a Left-Behind Book. Pious politicians who brag they’ve accepted Jesus as their savior, while actually only accepting him as their mascot. The Strapped Bro-Dudes for Jesus, worshiping a jacked-up, gun-toting, ass-kicking Alpha Christ, who doesn’t actually appear in the Jesus parts of the Bible. The Christian supremacists, who always believe violence is morally acceptable if it’s their side doing it. The Holy Haters, convinced that God despises the same people they do, including LGBTQ people, immigrants, academics, Muslims, Jews, the poor, foreigners in general, environmentalists, science believers, people who support women’s reproductive rights, people who think gun safety laws could maybe help save a few lives, racial minorities, liberals, organized labor, feminists, atheists, and/or anyone else they think God put here by accident. While many of these movements overlap, the general shared goal is societal control, under the guise of “defending Christianity.”
They don’t care about Jesus’s teachings or commandments. They’re not really concerned with “freedom of religion.” Their mission is earthly power, in the form of a Christian nation that’s controlled by their specific, Jesus-free take on the Bible. These groups are aggressively shaping our political discourse, cultural norms, and legislative priorities. They don’t like that they can’t control women anymore, and they’re terrified of becoming a minority in a country they believe they own. And our meanest Christians tend to piously and publicly worship Jesus as their King, because that’s considerably easier than following his inconvenient teachings. They fight for legislation that neglects the poor and vulnerable, defunding social welfare programs and criminalizing homelessness. They do this while prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy, exacerbating poverty and inequality but never alleviating suffering. They weaponize scripture they themselves don’t follow against minorities they dislike. They preach nationalism over global compassion. And they often frame anyone who disagrees as “enemies of God.”
It’s a gospel of control over caring, power over humility, and judgment over mercy. They won’t fight for the words of Jesus, but they’re profoundly committed to stuff they believe he said. For many of our right-wing friends and neighbors, Jesus is three things—the manger, the miracles, and the cross—but never the three years he spent teaching, reforming, and explaining what a “Christian nation” would actually need to do to earn that label. Jesus modeled servant leadership, washing his disciples’ feet and teaching that the greatest among his followers should be the servant of all (John 13:1–17, Matthew 20:26–28). He was not about total right-wing domination of the school board. Many Americans can remember being raised in a Christianity that focused on love, forgiveness, and service—the values of the biblical Jesus, whom Christians are generally supposed to follow, above the other parts of the Bible.
And yet millions of bewildered Americans have grown up to find this religion of peace and empathy has been hijacked by a right-wing movement that uses Jesus’s name, waves him over their heads like a prop, and legislates against his actual teachings. And if there’s one thing the Bible shows us, it’s that authoritarian government, aligned with some extreme conservative religious fundamentalists, literally killed Jesus. Also, Some of Them Like to Kill People From the 2012 Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Sikh temple shooting to the 2015 Charleston church shooting; from the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally to the 2018 Tree of Life Congregation synagogue shooting; to the US Capitol attack of January 6, 2021—all acts of violence committed by right-wing men who proclaimed themselves Christian.
Any Christian individual or group who advocates, engages in, or justifies violence directly rejects Jesus’s unglamorous, deeply unsexy teachings of non-retaliation and love. Jesus blessed the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) and taught reconciliation (Matthew 5:23–24). His true followers are instructed to live in peace with everyone (Romans 12:18). He quite famously challenged his followers to love their enemies and to care for those who are different from them.
But Christian nationalists and white supremacists have shown what religious zealotry and authoritarian propaganda can do in a country that has over one hundred guns for every person.
ALWAYS IN POWER, ALWAYS UNDER SIEGE
In contemporary America, you’ll hear a steady refrain from the pulpits of preachers and the podiums of politicians: “Christianity is under attack.” Christians still constitute the majority and wield significant cultural and political influence, mind you, but that’s never stopped a narrative of systemic oppression. This talking point, which pairs nicely with shrieking claims of persecution, warns of an encroaching secular agenda that seeks to destroy “traditional Christian values” and turn our families into transgender atheist groomer communists who listen to hip-hop and use paper straws. Politicians use the “Christianity under attack” rhetoric to secure votes and consolidate power. By framing themselves as warriors in a spiritual battle, they thirstily pander to a sense of tribal loyalty among a certain kind of Christian voter. Televangelists and megachurch pastors have long capitalized on the victimhood narrative to solicit donations and build obscene personal wealth. And polarizing cultural wedge issues are historically one of the slickest ways to redirect attention away from real social and economic problems. Examples of “Christianity under attack” have included First Amendment restrictions on public prayer in government settings, restrictions against anti-LGBTQ discrimination, and resistance to teaching creationism in public school science class. Nothing that threatens Christian religious practice—just conservative religious domination. Donald Trump never even tried to sell himself as an actual Christian to earn blind evangelical obedience. Rather, he easily attracted voters sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas by branding himself as a defender of “Christians under siege.” Which is to say he pandered to and played up the persecution complex: “I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it…. And we’re going to reverse that trend big league.” January 30, 2016, campaign event in Dubuque Christianity is under attack—but by divisive right-wing fundamentalists who publicly worship Jesus while fighting against, voting against, and legislating against his actual commandments. Help the poor? No. Care for the sick? No. Turn the other cheek? No. Render one’s taxes? No, sucker. Be kind to the incarcerated? Hell no. Welcome the stranger? Bitch, please. Modern right-wing Christians have been suckered into an anti-Christian trap of aligning with power, instead of challenging it.
But conservative power was what Jesus stood up to—not for—time and time again: The authoritarians among the religious leaders, drunk on their own eminence. The wealthy, worshiping their own stature and possessions while denying the suffering of the poor. The capitalists in the temple, greedily exploiting poor believers. The imperial government of Rome, whose hunger for power led to its own collapse.
Religion, like all institutions of man, is inherently flawed, but irony will never let you down.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART
Shakespeare tells us that even “the devil can recite Scripture for his purpose.” And from the very beginnings of the American experiment, Christianity has been used to justify all manner of evils, from slavery to ethnic cleansing to preemptive war. Historically, American Christians of both major political parties have used a Bible to justify the slaughter of Indigenous people, the enslavement of African people, the labor exploitation of Asian people, ignoring the suffering of European Jewish people, cruelty to gay people, the indiscriminate detention and torture of Muslim people, and of course, pushing perpetual second-class citizenship on female people.
But there’s another side to this. Because for nearly every great injustice perpetrated throughout history by authoritarian Christianity, liberal and moderate Christians—and many conservatives, too—have fought back. Progressive Christians helped lead the battle to abolish slavery. They’ve opposed imperialism, segregation, and science denial; fought for humane conditions for the American worker and for an end to child labor. Throughout history, Christian reform movements have dared to critically engage authority with scripture and tradition, supporting compassion, social justice, and human rights, as Jesus did. And I’m sorry, but they really do listen to better music. Decent Christians—including moderates and sane conservatives—along with righteous atheists, agnostics, and many people of other religions, have always had to band together to beat back the batshit-crazy Christians.
St. Francis of Assisi left the Crusades and preached against war. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist, used the scriptures to shame white America out of the mutually destructive American apartheid of segregation. And millions of liberal Christians have, very gradually, helped many conservative loved ones beyond a whole lot of homophobia. It’s sadly not a coincidence that some of the most historically bigoted and segregated parts of this American Land have also been known as the “Bible Belt.” And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nobody hates like a Christian who’s just been told their hate isn’t Christian.
Liberal and moderate Jesus-following Christians—and their allies—have the power to stand up to right-wing Christianity and call its adherents out on their own terms, using the very book fundamentalists wave around so bombastically. Never forget that the first-ever protest by a white person in this hemisphere against slavery and human rights abuses was against Columbus himself, led by his ship’s own Catholic priest, Bartolomé de Las Casas. There’s an inspiring true heritage of authentic Christianity, and it’s almost always manifested itself in resistance to Christian authoritarianism.
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND HATE
This is a book about what Christianity started out as, what it became, and why it’s still worth fighting for. It’s about the grotesque mutation that is Christian nationalism and how fundamentalism has always been the opposite of Jesus, even though it gets most of the TV airtime. And it’ll show how the best of Christianity has always pushed back against the worst of it. This book is not an attack on God, Jesus, or Christianity. It’s not designed to ridicule people of faith or mock belief. It’s not another atheist manifesto, and it won’t try to convince you that religious people are superstitious or dumb. It’s also not going to ask you to believe in miracles or divinity, or to take all of the Bible as literal fact. Most Christians don’t. It doesn’t denigrate the idea of organized religion, and it won’t mock the life or teachings of Jesus.
It’s designed to help you use the Bible when engaging with the Christian fundamentalist in your life, at your job, or, if you must, in your social media feed. It’s a guide to everything the haters got wrong. It focuses on Christianity through the teachings of Jesus, known to some as the “red letters” of the Bible. And it’ll show that if you’re debating an authoritarian Christian on almost any subject that divides us, Jesus probably has your back. Whether you’re a believer, agnostic, or atheist, whatever you think about politics, you’re going to have to deal with these people at some point.
They want to control the level of freedom in US society based on how they pick and choose from the Bible. It’s going to be increasingly vital to dismantle their supernatural authority by elegantly pointing out that they don’t really follow this Bible they claim to base their lives on. And you’ll be surprised at how good it feels, too. You may find yourself unable to escape a particular person like this in your life, and that person may delight in projecting authoritarianism or hate as some kind of spiritual piety.
But there are two things to remember: Much of the time, these people don’t really know the Bible all that well. And they’re 100 percent counting on you not knowing the Bible all that well. For all of our lives, fundamentalists have used the Bible to manipulate their way into our government, all over our school boards, and onto our airwaves. If they’re going to stand in your house and claim to represent Jesus, you’re allowed to prove if they really mean it. The extreme right uses Jesus’s name as camouflage. This is a guide to camouflage removal.
A FEW HELPFUL DISCLAIMERS First, I am not a clergy member, nor a professional academic or theologian. This means I will not be using the word “exegesis” at all in this book, beyond this sentence. But I do know many wonderful scholars and clergy, gracious and learned people with all the spiritual and academic depth I lack, and they have charitably allowed me to ask them about a few theological specifics above my pay grade. I am but a friendly guy on a barstool, tugging on your coat about what’s actually in the Bible.
But I promise: What I lack in credentials, I make up for in name-dropping. As a comedian, I’ve long known that taking on toxic Christianity is not a commercially viable subject matter. But like many, I got tired of seeing my parents’ faith used to merge Jesus and meanness. Against the strenuous wishes of many wise agents and managers, I began talking about Christianity onstage. And everywhere I’ve performed, spoken, or broadcast, I’ve been amazed at the massive numbers of truly good people I’ve met, of every conceivable background, who were raised Christian but now feel alienated from the domination and cruelty of so many churches.
Now, I won’t be claiming to be anything resembling a great Christian. Tragically far from it. I’m happy to run through an extensive list of sins and shortcomings for you. But Jesus taught me the joy of calling out pious religious frauds, and I’d like to show you how rewarding it can be. I generally trust people who are seeking the truth; I tend to be wary of those who claim they’ve found it. When I cite specific scripture, I strongly encourage you to doubt me—and research what the Bible really says. I won’t ask you to believe anything I can’t prove, so you’ll know I’m not selling you religion.
A few more things before we begin: This book covers many topics and you’re welcome to create your own adventure and skip around. Because the teachings and commandments of Jesus are relevant to many of our modern debates, some quotes and parables are cited more than once, in different chapters. Throughout the book, I frequently refer to the Torah as “the Old Testament.” I’m sorry if you’re offended by the term; it’s the simplest shorthand for talking to Christians, and I’m a simple person. Also, I won’t be capitalizing the H in “He” or “Him” every time I talk about Jesus. I tried it, but it started to feel a bit too much after a while. I’ll still capitalize the H when referring to God, so you’ll know I’m not trying to be disrespectful. I know how certain right-wing folks are sensitive about pronouns. Most cited verses are from the NIV Bible, but I do go full King James for some of the gorier moments. And please know, nice conservative Christians, that this book is not about you—it’s about those extreme right-wing hateful Christians. I come from two large, rather conservative American Christian families. And while I may disagree politically on some issues with our conservative Christian brethren, I’ve always found most to be quite lovely, and often more liberal with kindness than many, well, liberals. But nice conservative Christians are going to have to deal with these haters too, so I thank you for making it this far.
There will be much in this book that conservatives will disagree with; I’ll try to be as polite as I can. Parts are quite silly, and I’m sorry for that. The point is, intrepid conservative friends, while we may disagree, I know you won’t hate me with a violent bloodlust over it. And let me point out that nowhere in this book will I suggest that the Democratic party is somehow the party of Jesus on a policy level. Far from it. I’ve never belonged to a political party, and I’m happy to hear you out about big money in politics, Wall Street donors and lobbyist culture, lip service to climate action, how our representatives don’t fight hard enough for single-payer healthcare, universal basic income, unions, paid family leave, etc. I’m all ears. But while Democrats fall painfully short in many ways, their party policies on healthcare, social safety nets, immigration, gun safety, women’s equality, gay rights, and antiracism are light-years closer to the teachings of Jesus than Trump-era Republicanism, which remains the brazen, junk-wagging opposite of JC’s actual words. Atheist friends—thank you for making it this far. And I get it—we’re arguing over a book that was written by Bronze Age goat herders who thought the earth was flat, etc., etc. I know. And I agree with you that religion should have no power over our governance, but here we are. Nonbelievers will also have to deal with fundamentalist Christians; perhaps you already do, perhaps they’re the family you still love. I can confirm that calling them superstitious cult members or saying they’re brainwashed to believe in myths doesn’t work. The hardcore ones will just double down and say you’re on the side of Satan. But I find that if we positively engage folks like this on what’s actually in the Bible, something else can happen. They may get defensive, but they might appreciate that you took the time to engage them on scripture itself. You’ll have an easier time convincing them that Jesus wasn’t an immigrant-hating homophobe by talking about what Jesus himself taught than if you just call them an immigrant-hating homophobe. And again, I’m not asking anyone to take anything in the Bible as literal fact. But if you plan on debating the fundamentalist Christian in your life, it helps to know the specifics of who said what and to ask questions rather than seek conflict. Also, I tend to be too irreverent when I should be serious, and can sometimes be way too churchy when it’s time for a joke. Sorry in advance; I promise to feel guilt over it. Finally, some surveys will tell you how the fastest-growing religious demographic in America is Mormonism. Some say Islam. More recent ones say “no affiliation.” I would argue there’s a large and growing religious group we don’t acknowledge—people who were raised religious but now consider themselves “spiritual” because they’re turned off by the cruelties and hypocrisies of organized authoritarian religion.
Spiritual people use religion to become better people. Fundamentalists use religion to pretend they’re better than other people. Human hate has been around a lot longer than religion. It’s natural and at times we all fall prey to it, but religion didn’t create hate—hate found voice in religion. The right has turned a movement based on compassion and love into a mean, self-worshiping tax-free clique. The intolerance of right-wing Christianity is what’s driving young people away from religion. It’s not because our youth are controlled by Satan, although the fundamentalists might be. They’ve got a First Amendment right to twist scripture to their liking. You’ve got a First Amendment right to call them out for it. It’s time to take the Bible back from the hypocrites. And remember—if your church isn’t telling you to love your enemies but keeps telling you who your enemies are, you’re not really in a church.
For some, a government shutdown is a lapse in funding. For others, it’s a lapse in faith. But for those of us who listen for rhythm in the civic body, it’s something else entirely: a syncopated break in the democratic score.
The shutdown is not silent—it’s syncopation. A deliberate disruption in the expected rhythm, where absence becomes its own kind of signal. In this pause, we hear what’s been buried: the groan of underfunded schools, the hush of shuttered clinics.
The static of stalled progress.
“The legal authority for continued operations either exists or it does not,” Benjamin Civiletti opined in 1980, trying to fashion a rule for how the federal government should operate when the government runs out of money and Congress has not authorized new spending before the deadline.
Civiletti’s memo, penned at the end of the Carter administration, transformed shutdowns from informal delays into legal ruptures. Before him, agencies operated on faith—trusting Congress would eventually restore the beat. After him, the law demanded silence when funding ceased. The Anti-Deficiency Act of 1870 became the metronome of dysfunction.
In the last 50 years, there have been twelve government stoppages. Here is a list of the major ones and their aftermath.
1975: Ford’s shutdown was quiet, almost apologetic. Agencies continued to operate, trusting that Congress would restore the funding. It was a moment before Civiletti’s pen turned pauses into prohibitions.
2013: Obama’s shutdown was a siege. The Affordable Care Act was the battleground, and the budget was the weapon of choice. The rhythm was broken not by accident, but by design.
2025: Trump’s shutdown is a purge. The Office of Management and Budget isn’t just pausing services—it’s reshaping the bureaucracy itself. The shutdown is no longer a missed beat—it’s a rewritten score. Trump wants to rewrite the score by firing thousands of federal employees. Democrats want to prevent medical insurance costs from skyrocketing. But every day, Americans have a say in this shutdown too, and they should raise their voices loud and clear for the America they want, apart from the partisan lines spouted by both sides in this dispute.
Each moment marks a shift—from pause to protest to purge. The rhythm isn’t just missed—it’s being manipulated.
Like jazz, democracy thrives on tension. The offbeat is where truth lives. Shutdowns reveal who sets the tempo, who gets silenced, and who insists on singing anyway.
This moment demands more than observation—it demands authorship. We must remember that syncopation is not collapse, it is resistance. It is the griot’s pause before the truth lands. It is the community’s insistence on gathering even when the lights go out.
“Faithful execution of the laws cannot rest on mere speculation.” —Civiletti, 1980
Let us gather stories of those furloughed, those forgotten, those who kept the rhythm alive despite silence. Let us build a counter-archive, a syncopated testimony that refuses to be erased.
Let educators teach the shutdown not as a budgetary footnote, but as a civic rupture. Let organizers use this moment to recompose the score. Let artists and authors write the beat back into American life. After all, whose government is it anyway?
!!!
The shutdown has become a stage, not for governance, but for performance. Each side points fingers with rehearsed precision, casting blame like a call-and-response chorus. But the audience—us—is left without resolution, only noise.
President Trump’s administration has choreographed a messaging blitz:
Federal agencies post banners blaming “Radical Left Democrats.”
The White House website features a live clock tracking how long “Democrats have shut down the government.”
Out-of-office email templates for furloughed Workers are scripted to assign blame.
Meanwhile, Democrats counter with their own refrain. They claim exclusion from negotiations, demand ACA subsidy extensions before agreeing to any funding bill, and the Democratic National Committee fires back: “Republicans own this shutdown.”
This is not governance.
It’s branding.
The shutdown is no longer a lapse in funding. It’s a rupture in rhythm, choreographed for maximum spectacle. The syncopation is not accidental. It’s strategic. A missed beat designed to distract, distort, and divide.
As I wrote above, titled Shutdown as Syncopation, “The beat is not broken. It is being manipulated.”
And yet, in this cacophony, we must listen for the deeper rhythm. The rhythm of those who are furloughed. The rhythm of students whose aid is delayed. The rhythm of communities whose services are suspended.
Let us not be spectators to this spectacle. Let us be composers. Let us write the next measure, but not in blame, but in memory, not in spectacle, but in stewardship.
We can build a counter-archive. We can gather testimonies. We can syncopate the silence with truth. “Even in the dark, the drum speaks,” cited from Field notes from the Georgia Sea Islands, 1939.
The shutdown is not silent; it’s syncopation. A deliberate disruption in the expected rhythm, where absence becomes its own kind of signal. In this pause, we hear what’s been buried: the groan of underfunded schools, the hush of shuttered clinics, the static of stalled progress.
“The legal authority for continued operations either exists or it does not,” Benjamin Civiletti said in 1980.
We have gone from Gerald Ford’s 1975 quiet delay to Obama’s 2013 ideological siege, and now, Trump’s 2025 bureaucratic purge. Forty-seven is using the shutdown to fire thousands of federal workers, all the while blaming the Democrats for his ill intent to inflict maximum pain on the American public, who are dazed thus far by the razzle-dazzle blitzkrieg of nine months of Project 2025.
Each shutdown marks a shift from pause to protest to purge. The rhythm isn’t just missed, it’s being manipulated.
Shutdowns erase more than services. They erase memory. Each furlough is a forgetting. Each closed office is a silenced archive. But memory resists. It lives in the griot’s voice, the jazz riff, and the community archive.
“A nation that forgets its past has no future,” Winston Churchill said. Each shutdown comes without a whimper, reminding leaders of the pain felt by the people in the previous shutdown.
The shutdown has become a stage. Federal agencies post banners. Out-of-office emails assign blame. The spectacle distracts from the rupture. But we must listen for the deeper rhythm.
“The beat is not broken. It is being manipulated,” I’ve written elsewhere.
Our ancestors knew how to survive in times of pause. They made rhythm from rupture. Spirituals bent melody around absence. Field hollers turned isolation into call-and-response.
Shutdowns echo that legacy, not in reverence, but in distortion. We must reclaim it.
“The silence is not empty. It is encoded,” I wrote when the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to the U. S. Constitution.
Shutdowns dim the lights. But they do not extinguish the score. We write in the margins. We sing in the silence. We syncopate the shutdown. We survive and are reborn.
“Even in the dark, the drum speaks.” —Field notes from the Georgia Sea Islands, 1939
Think of a moment when the rhythm broke. Who kept the beat alive? Write your verse, bend the silence, host a listening circle, build a counter-archive, teach the shutdown as rupture, visualize the silence, and reclaim the narrative.
If this rhythm resonates with you, join the drumline, share this post to amplify the beat, and contribute your own verse to the civic score, because in the end, a new nation will rise out of the syncopated ashes of Project 2025.
“Why kill them?” she whispered. “Grace was only thirteen—just a girl. Why?” “They do whatever he wants.” “Whatever who wants?” “Jeremiah. The Prophet.” On the boy’s lips, the name sounded more like a curse than a name. “The man in the painting,” she said. “And he shall gather the righteous. And lead them all to hell.” He shoved the fur-trimmed hood off his head, and she could see his profile in the gloom, his jaw squared in anger. “Whose houses were those?” she asked. “Who lived in Kingdom Come?” “My mother. My sister.” His voice broke and he lowered his head in mourning for a village that was now engulfed in flames. “The chosen ones.”
CLOAKED BY A VEILOF FALLING SNOW, THE ARMY STOOD ASSEMBLED. Jane stamped her feet, trying to stay warm, but already her toes had gone numb and even the scalding cup of coffee she’d just gulped down could not ward off the bitter chill of that Idaho dawn. If she were a member of the strike team, the cold would not matter to her, because adrenaline made you immune to discomforts as minor as subzero temperatures. But on this morning, relegated to the status of mere observer and forced to stand idly by, she felt the chill gnaw deep into her bones. Cathy, standing beside her, seemed not to care at all about the weather. The woman was utterly still, her face heedlessly exposed to the wind. Jane heard the rising pitch in the voices around her, could feel the tension in the air, and she knew that action was imminent. Pasternak came striding back from the huddle of command officers. He was carrying a two-way radio. “We’re ready to move, as soon as they pull the gate down.” He handed Jane the radio. “You stay with Cathy. We’ll need her advice once we get in there, and you’re her escort. So keep her safe.” As Jane clipped it to her belt, an alert came over the speaker.
“We have activity inside the compound. Looks like two men approaching.” Through the falling snow, Jane saw the figures walking closer, identically dressed in long black coats. They moved without hesitation, striding directly toward the lawmen. To Jane’s surprise, one of the men produced a set of keys and unlocked the gate. The law enforcement team leader stepped forward. “I’m Lieutenant MacAfee, Idaho State Police. We have a warrant to search the compound.” “There’s no need for a warrant,” the man with the keys answered. “You are welcome to enter. All of you.” He swung the gate wide open. MacAfee glanced at the other officers, clearly taken aback by the welcome. The greeter beckoned the visitors forward.
“We’ve gathered in the assembly hall, where there’s room for everyone. We ask only that you keep your weapons holstered, for the safety of our women and children.” He opened his arms wide, as though inviting in the whole world. “Please join us. You’ll see that we have nothing to hide.” “They knew,” Cathy muttered. “Goddamn it, they knew we were coming. They’re prepared for this.” “How did they get word of it?” Jane asked. “He can buy anything. Eyes, ears. A cop here, a politician there.” She looked at Jane. “You see what the problem is? You see why he’ll never have to face justice?” “No man’s untouchable, Cathy.” “He is. He always has been.” Cathy’s gaze returned to the open gate. The law enforcement team had already walked into the compound, their figures fading beyond the falling snow. Over the radio, Jane listened in on the chatter. Heard calm voices, matter-of-fact responses. “First building checked and clear …” “All clear in number three.” Cathy shook her head. “He’ll outsmart them this time as well,” she said. “They don’t know what to look for. They can’t see what’s right in front of their goddamn eyes.” “No weapons. All clear …” Cathy stared at the distant figures, now receding to little more than ghostly shapes. Without a word, she, too, walked through the open gate. Jane followed her. They moved between rows of buildings that stood silent and dark, following in the boot prints of the police team. Ahead, Jane saw candlelight glowing warmly in the assembly hall windows, and she heard music, the sound of many voices raised in song. It was a sweet and ethereal hymn that soared heavenward on notes sung by children. The scent of wood smoke, the promise of warmth and fellowship, beckoned them toward the building. They stepped through the door, into the assembly hall. Inside, a multitude of candles lit the soaring space. A congregation of hundreds filled gleaming wood pews. On one side of the aisle sat the women and girls in a sea of pastel dresses. On the other side were the men and boys, clad in white shirts and dark trousers. A dozen law enforcement officers had gathered at the rear of the hall, where they stood looking about uneasily, uncertain how to proceed in what was clearly a house of worship. The hymn came to an end, and the final, thrilling notes faded. In the silence, a dark-haired man emerged onto the stage and calmly surveyed his congregation. He wore no priestly robes, no embroidered shawl, no ornaments that set him apart as different or special. Instead he stood before them garbed in the same clothes as his followers, but the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to the elbows, as though in preparation for a day’s labors. He needed no costume, no eye-catching glitter to hold the crowd’s attention. His gaze alone, so intense it seemed radioactive, riveted every pair of eyes in the hall. So this is Jeremiah Goode, thought Jane. Though his hair was shot through with silver, it still looked like a young man’s mane, thick and leonine, falling almost to his shoulders. On this gloomy winter’s day, his presence seemed to give off as warm a glow as the flames leaping in the hall’s enormous stone hearth. In silence, he surveyed the audience, and his gaze finally settled on the police officers standing at the rear of the hall. “Dear friends, let us all rise to welcome our visitors,” he said. As if they were a single organism, the congregation rose in unison and turned to look at the strangers. “Welcome” came the chorus of greeting. Every face looked scrubbed and pink-cheeked, every gaze wide-eyed with innocence. Wholesome and healthy was the picture here, the portrait of a contented community united in purpose. Again, in unison, they all sat down. It was an eerily choreographed movement that set off a simultaneous creak of benches.
Lieutenant MacAfee called out: “Jeremiah Goode?” The man onstage gave a solemn nod. “I am Jeremiah.” “I’m Lieutenant David MacAfee, Idaho State Police. Would you come with us, sir?” “May I ask why this show of force is necessary? Especially now, in our hour of distress?” “Distress, Mr. Goode?” “That is why you’re here, isn’t it? Because of the atrocities committed against our poor brethren in Kingdom Come?” Somberly, Jeremiah looked around at his congregation. “Yes, friends, we know, don’t we? Word came to us yesterday, the terrible news of what was done to our followers. All because of who they were, and what they believed.” In the audience, there were nods and murmurs of sad agreement. “Mr. Goode,” said MacAfee, “I’m asking you again to come with us.” “Why?” “To answer a few questions.” “Then ask them here and now, so that all may listen.” Jeremiah held out his arms in an extravagant gesture toward his followers. This was grand theater, and he was center stage, with the hall’s arches soaring above him, and the light from the windows beaming down on his face. “I keep no secrets from this congregation.” “This isn’t a matter for a public forum,” said MacAfee. “This is a criminal investigation.” “You think I don’t understand that?” Jeremiah stared at him with a gaze that seemed to sear the air. “Our followers were murdered in that valley. Executed like sheep, and their bodies left to be torn and devoured by wild animals!” “Is that what you heard?” “Is it not the truth? That forty-one good people, including women and children, were martyred because of what they believed? And now you come here, invited through our gates. You men with your guns and your disdain for those who don’t believe what you do.” MacAfee shifted uneasily. In the warmth of the hall, beads of sweat gleamed on his forehead. “I’ll ask this one more time, Mr. Goode. Either you come with us willingly, or we’ll be forced to arrest you.” “I am willing! Didn’t I just say I would answer your questions? But ask them now, where these good people can hear you. Or are you afraid of the whole world learning the truth?” He looked around at his followers.
“My friends, you are my protection. I call on you to bear witness.” A man in the congregation rose to his feet and called out: “What are the police afraid of? Ask your questions so we can hear, too!” The crowd joined in. “Yes, ask now!” “Ask him here!” Benches creaked as the crowd grew agitated, as other men stood. The police officers glanced nervously around the room. “Then you refuse to cooperate?” MacAfee said. “I am cooperating. But if you’re here to ask about Kingdom Come, I can’t help you.” “You call this cooperation?” “I have no answers for you. Because I wasn’t witness to what happened.” “When were you last in Kingdom Come?” “It was October. When I left them, they were thriving. Well provisioned for winter. Already digging the foundations for six more houses. That was the last time I laid eyes on the valley.” He looked to his congregation for support. “Am I telling the truth? Is there anyone here who would contradict me?” Dozens of voices took up his defense. “The Prophet doesn’t lie!” Jeremiah looked at MacAfee. “I think you have your answer, Lieutenant.” “Not by a long shot,” MacAfee snapped. “Do you see, my friends?” Jeremiah said, gazing around at his followers. “How they profane God’s house with their army and their weapons?” He shook his head in pity. “This spectacle of force is a tactic of small men.” He smiled at MacAfee.
“Has it worked for you, Lieutenant? Do you feel larger now?” This taunt was more than MacAfee could endure, and his spine stiffened at the challenge. “Jeremiah Goode, you are under arrest. And all these children are now in protective custody. They are to be escorted off this property, where buses are waiting for them.” A startled cry rose from the women, followed by a chorus of wails and sobs. The entire congregation surged to its feet in protest. In a matter of mere seconds, MacAfee had lost control of the room, and Jane saw officers’ hands drop to their weapons. Instinctively, she reached for her own as the fury swelled, as violence seemed just one spark away. “My friends! My friends!” Jeremiah called out. “Please, let us have peace.” He raised his arms and the room instantly hushed. “The world will know the truth soon enough,” he proclaimed. “They’ll see that we conducted ourselves with dignity and compassion. That when confronted by the brutal face of authority, we responded with grace and humility.” He released a deep and mournful sigh. “My friends, we have no choice but to obey. And I have no choice but to submit to their will. I ask only that you remember what you witnessed here today. The injustice, the cruelty of families wrenched apart.” He gazed upward, as though speaking directly to the heavens. Only then did Jane notice the congregant in the upper balcony, filming the entire speech. This is all on camera. The videotaped martyrdom of Jeremiah Goode. Once that footage was disseminated to the media, the whole world would know of this outrage against a peaceful community. “Remember, friends!” commanded Jeremiah. “Remember!” the congregation responded in unison. He descended the steps from the stage and walked calmly toward the waiting police officers. As he moved up the aisle, past his stunned followers, the sound of weeping filled the hall. Yet Jeremiah’s expression was not mournful; what Jane saw on his face was triumph. He had planned and orchestrated this confrontation, a scene that would be played and replayed on TVs across the country. The humble prophet walking with quiet dignity toward his tormentors. He’s won this round, she thought. Maybe he’s even won the war itself. How would a jury convict him when he was the one who looked like a victim? He came to a stop in front of MacAfee and raised his hands, meekly offering up his wrists to be cuffed. The symbolism could not be more blatant. MacAfee obliged, and the clack of the metal was shockingly loud. “Will you exterminate us all?” Jeremiah asked. “Give it a rest,” MacAfee retorted. “You know very well I had nothing to do with what happened in Kingdom Come.”
“That’s what we’ll find out.” “Will you? I don’t think you want the truth. Because you’ve already chosen your villain.” Head held high, Jeremiah walked the gantlet of police officers. But as he neared the exit, he suddenly halted, his gaze riveted on Cathy Weiss. Slowly his lips curved into a smile of recognition. “Katie Sheldon,” he said softly. “You’ve come back to us.” Jane frowned at Cathy, whose face had gone frighteningly pale. “But you told me Katie Sheldon was your friend,” Jane said. Cathy didn’t seem to hear Jane, but kept her gaze on Jeremiah. “This time it ends,” Cathy said softly. “Ends?” He shook his head. “No, Katie, this only makes us stronger. In the eyes of the public, I’m a martyr.” He regarded her windblown hair, her haggard face, and the look he gave her was almost pitying. “I see the world has not been kind to you. What a shame you ever left us.” He smiled as he turned to leave. “But we must all move on.” “Jeremiah!” Cathy suddenly stepped behind him, her arms thrust out in front of her. Only then did Jane see what she was clutching in both hands. “Cathy, no!” yelled Jane. In an instant she had her own weapon out. “Drop it. Drop the gun, Cathy!” Jeremiah turned and calmly regarded the weapon that was now pointed at his chest. If he felt any fear at all, he did not show it. Through the pounding of her own heart, Jane heard gasps in the pews and frantic footsteps as the congregation scrambled for cover. She had no doubt that a dozen police weapons were now drawn and pointed as well. But Jane’s gaze stayed glued on Cathy. On the raw, wind-chapped hands now clutching the gun. Though any cop in that room could have fired on her, no one did. They all stood paralyzed by the prospect of taking down this young woman. We never imagined she’d be armed. Why would we? “Cathy, please,” Jane said quietly. She was standing closest to the woman. Almost close enough to reach out and take the gun, if only Cathy would hand it to her. “This doesn’t solve anything.” “But it does. This ends it.” “That’s what the courts are for.” “The courts?” Cathy’s laugh was bitter. “They won’t touch him. They never have.” Her grip tightened, and the barrel tilted higher, yet Jeremiah did not flinch. His gaze remained serene, almost amused. “You see, my friends?” he called out. “This is what we face. Irrational anger and hatred.” He gave a sad shake of the head and looked at Cathy. “I think it’s clear to everyone here that you need help, Katie. I feel only love for you. That’s all I’ve ever felt.” Once again, he turned to leave. “Love?” Cathy whispered. “Love?” Jane saw the tendons in Cathy’s wrist snap taut. Saw the woman’s fingers tighten, yet her own reflexes refused to kick in. Her hands froze around her weapon. The blast of Cathy’s gun sent a bullet flying...
~~~
There are so many ways writers and movie producers bring the ongoing battle between good and evil, but those that I have always been drawn to are those that balance joy, love and happiness on one side while the villain gets his justice... Tess Gerritsen and those involved with bringing her books to the screen with the series, Rizzoli & Isles, became one of those that I have chosen to enjoy often, mostly on television. So I was happy to have found this latest book which will have a follow up book with one of the same characters next...
I promise I did not know what this book was about! Yet, once again, an author writes about men of power who use their charisma, power...and...religion... to entice and retain a following... It's happened before. Still, I can't quite figure out exactly how, when sexuality becomes part of that situation, that, still, the followers stay...
Given the full-blown exposure and cries for information about Epstein and his ten-year friend, there are many seeking answers--True Answers... You know, folks, sometimes I find that fiction has become more...than...fiction... Are we seeking the answers of logic, compassion, love and friendship through books. Things that we can no longer depend upon in reality? I'm still pondering that within me. What I do know and have accepted, I do want good to win over evil. And if I can only find it in fiction, at least for now, then I'll continue to love and read writers like Tess Gerritsen! J.D.Robb! And all the others who I hashtag, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, etc...
In this book Isles is the main character--Really! Jane is there toward the end, but so much happens before then, that we learn an entirely new side of Maura. Jane is now married! Yes! Never thought that would happen... and Maura is in a serious relationship about which both she and her lover are constantly happy and unhappy. So, after a difficult struggle of deciding on the future, Maura thankfully prepares and leaves for a medical conference...
So routine, that nothing is written about it. LOL Except that she reconnects with another doctor who she had earlier met at a conference and ultimately she joins a foursome to travel for a bit of relaxation...
Except they never got to wherever they were headed. They got lost and in trying to return, their vehicle slid off the road--a private road which was posted no trespassing... which led to "Kingdom Come..."
When you're in danger, all rules are useless, and so they all packed up what they could and headed down that road into a small community of homes, which all looked the same, and which were all...empty... They had moved into the closest house and looked around. They found tables set with food on plates, as if they had just fled... evidence that somebody had been dragged... There was no explanation, no notes... But all of the garages had vehicles stored in them, ready to go...
They chose a jeep, first, to try to get up the sleek road, but not able to get traction, they began to push... And, one of the men, Arlo, got caught by his leg... They managed to get him back to the cabin. But everybody knew they needed to get Arlo to a doctor. Doug chose to attempt to walk out... He never returned...
In the meantime, Maura was designated to care for Arlo and she knew there was only one option to ensure he wouldn't die--amputate the leg... They had gone through all of the homes, gathered up as many medications as they could find and started Arlo on the strongest available... The wait was interminable, because, of course, they didn't know that Doug would not be coming back...
But then, strange things started to happen. A Face seen at a window... Animal noises? Arlo started to hallucinate, or was he, seeing people coming in to stare at him...
In desperation, Maura decided that she was the only one that could try a second time to get out. Arlo still needed care, so his friend would have to stay. The only other survivor was Doug's daughter who was too young to not remain sheltered... Maura started out and soon began to see tracks of Doug so she started following them.... Until somebody knocked her out, only to have her awaken and being dragged away...
As the book goes on and more people learned that there was a lost group of vacationers out on the hills, bits and pieces began to be shared... The community was headed by a man who was a religious leader who invited in all those who wished to join them... But then another explained that soon younger boys were kicked out and arrived in the nearby town seeking help and food... But one of those young boys was the one who pulled Maura to safety... It was then she learned that he had been forced out, because the "prophet" and older men wanted no competition from the males who had arrived... His mother agreed to have him turned away... And it was his sister who had last been chosen by the Prophet...
While many of us will automatically think of the Epstein case where teen females were molested by older men... But, it is the addition of a strongman, a man of authority, that places the emphasis exactly where it is right now. Was it not the evangelical group that supported the first election of the president. Yet knowing that the man was himself a criminal and more... And that's where the merge of reality and fiction comes directly into the light... How can we, at this time in the United States, differentiate truth from fiction... good from evil... Daily being bombarded by violence coming from all sides--real violence against people living in this state or that, invaded by men with guns and masks who grab people--men, women, and children...off the streets, who often disappearing thereafter...
It's wonderful to become immersed in a story where we know that Jane and others will be coming to save Maura and others from evil... I need to have this type of ending, knowing that the rule of law is acting as it should, that the police, FBI and others will work to ensure that, especially the children, will be removed from the presence of such evil...
But now we are seeing that evil members are martyred by their followers...and you learn to ignore that even though the book ends with the good guys winning, there is a deep frustration, knowing that reality has become worse than anything we could ever read...
Only hope that the power of Love will survive moves us forward...
I work to choose how and when to share information... This particular book is scary... While it doesn't have a halloween theme, I wanted to kick off the month of scary stuff with this fantastic writer... More will follow... Yes, I know the background of this particular holiday. I also know that Santa has nothing to do with the Reason for the Season... Sometimes we live in a fantasy world, just for the fun of it. I believe that the world has come very far over the last 2000+ years... And, contrary to what is being attempted by the present administration, you just cannot lie and wash away the knowledge and information that has been brought forward... It's fun to dress up for kids. Personally I see no harm in doing so as long as we spend time talking about reality versus fiction to all. I grew up with Count Dracula, zombies and more, just like we have today... It never entered my mind to believe that anything I was doing was evil... Because I was not taught that there was evil in dressing up...
Keep it simple and when it arises, have a serious talk when it is appropriate to do so... Let me know if you disagree... Because I have a lot of books provided through Book Funnel coming... I strive to expose readers to all of the options that we have in life. Only YOU can choose what seems right for you...at...that... time! As long as you keep your mind active and open, you will begin to learn, to differentiate, and, also, discern what God has chosen for your personal path.
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