135. We Took Over the Tim and April Show: Let's Talk About...

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tim & April Show Ep. 135

Title: "We Took Over the Tim and April Show: Let's Talk About..."
Date: August 6, 2026
Hosts for This Episode: Brian Wrecker, Tamiece Spencer Helms, Ciara Jones (CJ)
Network: The New Evangelicals

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Episode Overview

For Episode 135, the Tim & April Show is “taken over” by guest hosts Brian Wrecker, Tamiece Spencer Helms, and Ciara Jones (CJ), who dig into challenging questions at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. This episode centers on how American Christianity processes (or fails to process) public grief, specifically the deaths of controversial white political figures like Lindsey Graham and Charlie Kirk. The conversation interrogates themes of white supremacy in religious and political mourning, spiritual bypassing, and the deep-rooted connections between American evangelicalism and structures of power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Context of the Takeover (00:52 – 03:10)

• Hosts introduce themselves and banter about filling Tim and April’s shoes; they set a playful, candid tone but establish they're ready to go deep into complex issues.

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2. Lindsey Graham’s Death and Evangelical Mourning (03:31 – 09:55)

• Evangelical Responses to White Political Deaths
  • Brian reads a social media reflection by evangelical leader Mike Kosper, who urges mourning Lindsey Graham as a principled, pragmatic image-bearer whose political life was complicated but fundamentally oriented toward "good."
    • “So much of the Lindsey Graham discourse on here is gross and inhumane. A human being made in the image of God has died and that’s always a tragedy…” (Brian quoting Mike Kosper, 06:08)
• Reactions and Critique
  • The hosts dissect Kosper’s “nuanced” Christian framing, calling it a way that whiteness protects its own legacy regardless of harmful actions.
  • Tamiece connects this response to “grief phobia” in American and specifically white Christian culture:
    • “White supremacy allows white people the privilege to always be remembered well, no matter the substance of their life... The substance of their life does not matter, because white supremacy demands that white life is remembered well to insulate the lie of white supremacy.” (Tamiece, 07:31)

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3. Double Standards in Grief: White Power vs. Black and Brown Loss (07:03 – 15:09)

• Comparing Public Reactions
  • The group notes that the deaths of Black victims (e.g., Nolan Wells) are often immediately pathologized or criminalized, while white leaders are remembered sympathetically or honorably, regardless of their impact.
• Clip of Lindsey Graham’s Comments
  • Brian plays a clip of Graham justifying bombings and civilian casualties for American/Israeli military interests:
    • “We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes.” (Lindsey Graham, Clip, ~10:42)
  • The hosts react with horror, challenging the complicity of Christian and white supremacist logic in such stances.
    • “Whiteness thinks people are dumb. It will literally play in your face...” (CJ, 11:04)

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4. Theology of Mourning and the Politics of Grief (15:09 – 19:53)

• Who Is Worthy of Grief?
  • “How we grieve is a political practice itself. Period. Point blank. Period.” (Tamiece, 15:09)
  • The group emphasizes that resisting “celebrating” certain deaths is not about callousness, but about truth-telling, and refusing to sanitize the legacy of harmful leaders.
• Superhero Complex in White Evangelicalism
  • Tamiece shares observations about how white Christian nationalism often imagines itself in “superhero” terms, emphasizing order and violence against “evil”—a self-justifying supremacist mythology.

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5. Death, Martyrdom, and Indoctrination in White Christianity (19:53 – 24:43)

• Christian Indoctrination about Death
  • Tamiece and CJ recount their upbringings in churches where “dying for Jesus” as a martyr was glorified, or violence in God’s name was normalized.
    • “They’re churning out 20-year-olds who are very, very bought into this idea that Jesus is coming back violently to kill anybody who doesn’t believe in him.” (CJ, 19:55)
• Christian Supremacy as the Core of White American Christianity
  • Brian contends that white supremacy is difficult for white Christians to name, but they readily embrace Christian supremacy, which serves the same social functions.

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6. Systemic White Supremacy and the Souls of White Folk (24:43 – 25:43)

• Du Bois, White Theology, and Moral Certainty
  • Tamiece references W.E.B. Du Bois and the “Souls of White Folk,” underscoring how white theology historically demonizes the Black soul but avoids scrutinizing the white soul’s own moral corruption.

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7. Palestinian Liberation, Selective Grief, and Gospel Distortions (25:43 – 37:24)

• The Litmus Test of Palestinian Suffering
  • Brian and others argue that evangelical indifference to Palestinian genocide (and celebration of figures who support it) reveal the structural rot in white American Christianity.
  • “Palestinian liberation is such a litmus test right now... He turns away from a genocide of brown people in Gaza...and wants us to mourn the war hawk who’s sanctifying those killings.” (Brian, 25:53)
• Black Evangelical Complicity & Spiritual Bypassing
  • The team critiques certain Black evangelical leaders (e.g., the Perrys) for wanting to maintain respectability or legibility to white Christians, sometimes bypassing the necessary anger, accountability, and solidarity.
    • “I think sometimes Black evangelical forms of anti-racism are kind of steeped in spiritual bypassing. Where we want to get to the Kumbaya, but we don't want the rage, we don't want the anger, we don't want the accountability." (Tamiece, 35:47)

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8. Calls for Truth-Telling about Legacies (37:24 – 48:00)

• Policing the Grief of the Marginalized
  • The hosts discuss how calls to “not speak ill of the dead” are often a means of controlling narratives and silencing honest critique of powerful oppressors.
    • “In our culture, we do a lot of mental gymnastics to make sure that Black death is always seen as a necessity for white safety, and we do a lot...to make sure that white death is always seen as a tragedy that came too soon.” (Tamiece, 41:19)
  • CJ: “I refuse to worship someone who doesn't care about my life. So, image of who? What God?...If that's the image of God, then I want nothing to do with it. Call me apostate, baby, I will wear it as a badge of honor.” (46:13)

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9. Preview: Christian Nationalist Masculinity

(48:00 – 54:52)

• Tamiece brings up Victor Marks, a Republican candidate emblematic of the merging of death, faith, masculinity, and power in contemporary white evangelicalism.
• The next episode will address Christian nationalism’s embrace of violent, superheroic masculinity.

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10. Memorable Banter & Closing Moments (49:58 – end)

• The hosts playfully dissect Christian public witness, recalling how they once evangelized loudly in public and now see those actions differently.
  • “If what she said is true, then the way she behaved makes perfect sense. That’s one of the reasons I know that that kind of gospel is not true. Because it makes you behave like a psychopath.” (Brian, 52:02)
• Candid, joking talk about timing, “banter killing,” and relaxation as resistance, interwoven with quick book references and calls to rest.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "White supremacy allows white people the privilege to always be remembered well, no matter the substance of their life." (Tamiece, 07:31)
• "We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes." (Lindsey Graham, quoted by Brian, 10:42)
• "How we grieve is a political practice itself. Period, point blank, period." (Tamiece, 15:09)
• “If people breathe easier upon your passing...it’s an indictment on how you lived.” (Tamiece, 15:44)
• “Policing grief is just a tool to protect the system that produces Black and brown death.” (paraphrased theme, developed throughout)
• “Rest is resistance.” (CJ & Tamiece, 53:44)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:31 – Lindsey Graham, Kosper quote, and reactions
• 07:31 – Whiteness and protection of legacy
• 10:17 – Audio of Graham on Israel and US power
• 15:09 – Grief as a political practice
• 19:53 – Martyrdom and indoctrination in White Christianity
• 25:43 – Palestinian genocide as a litmus test
• 35:47 – Black evangelical spiritual bypassing
• 41:19 – Selective public grief and American history
• 46:13 – Image of God and apostasy
• 48:00 – Masculinity, Victor Marks, and Christian Nationalism
• 52:02 – Public Christian witness, "makes you behave like a psychopath"
• 53:44 – “Rest is resistance” and outro banter

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a raw, unfiltered, and deeply critical conversation about how American Christianity deals with grief, legacy, and power—especially as it relates to race and national identity. The guest hosts challenge listeners to rethink whose deaths are mourned, why, and at what cost, while setting up future episodes to tackle masculinity and Christian nationalism even further.

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Next Week: The follow-up will unpack “masculinity, forgiveness, power, church theology”—don’t miss it!

Transcript

[Tim Whitaker]

This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for from a browse to a bike ride this summer. Find more on Facebook.

[April]

You're listening to a new evangelicals production,

[Tim Whitaker]

The Tim and April show, where we unravel faith, politics, and culture.

[Brian Wrecker]

Welcome to the Tim and April Show. I am not Tim Whitaker, and in fact, nobody is Tim Whitaker or April. I am Brian Wrecker, a bit of a wish. Tim Whitaker, as it were. And I have with me if my dear friends want to introduce themselves, I

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

am Tamiece Spencer Helms, and my name is Ciara Jones. Some of you also know me by cj and we're taking over the Tim and April show the whole month over. Absolutely. And April was already hanging with my people at Pride Month. Okay. I saw that little parody video. April. I was. That was really funny.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

And I want to say, like, it was nice to. It was nice to see that.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Okay.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

The evangelicals with the LGBTQ people. So I appreciate that that's putting the new.

[Brian Wrecker]

New evangelicals. All right. Because the evangelicals I used to be around did not mess around with the queers, except in a way that was. I'm trying. Sorry, I almost said. I almost said a bad word. We're not cursing on this show. We are on the new evangelicals. We're on Tim and April Show. We don't curse. And so I almost said we don't f. With the gays, but I didn't say that. But now we can be friends. And so, yes, we are friends with Tim and April. All of us are friends with Tim and April. None of us are Tim and April. We're taking over the show. And so we're just happy to be here.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Yeah, we are.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Absolutely. What have you all been up to this week? I haven't seen either of you in, like, a few months. What's going on? Rise to Brian.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I'm currently. My armpits are sweating because I'm trying. I want to be as funny as April or Joy. And I. I don't know. I just don't know if I can pull it off, y'.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

All.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I'm nervous, dude.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I don't.

[Brian Wrecker]

I don't think any of us can. You know what? I Just want to hold your honest truth for a moment.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I think I can. I think it be as funny as Tim. April.

[Brian Wrecker]

Well, Tim, all we have to do is really just get mad about stuff. You know what I mean? Like, that's like, I don't. Can we rise to the level, level of like, just pure, like shock jock rage? As TIM I'm not sure, but we can, we can try to. Why don't we just. We should just be ourselves. You know what I mean?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Let's be ourselves. Okay.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I feel like in my best moment, I can get a little giggle. Can I get a little April Joy cackle? I don't know, but I think we can get a little audience giggle going. Okay. I get a little chuckle.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Chuckle for, you know, chuckle. Chuckles for the month of August. And y' all get your cackles back in September.

[Brian Wrecker]

Get your cackles back.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Yeah.

[Brian Wrecker]

I mean, ultimately we're, we're friends in real life. We've connected at quite a few different events and things. I mean, we haven't hung out as much as I think we'd all like because we all live in different parts of the world. But I think it's cool that we get to hang out for a few hours over the course of this month and everybody else gets to hang out with us and they're forced to listen to the interesting stuff that we think is interesting.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

We have so many interesting things to say. Okay. And I've been thinking about,

[Brian Wrecker]

like, what, what are we going to talk about today?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

There's a lot of things I want to talk about. I mean, one, they're a little bit nerdy and a little bit depressing. So I don't want to get into all that just yet, but I do want to forecast that. I'd like us to talk about Lindsey Graham. I want us to talk about Charlie Kirk. I want us to talk about spiritual bypassing, you know what I'm saying? So those are some of the things on my mind today as I come into the proverbial office.

[Brian Wrecker]

So we are, we do have some topics on Deck. The reality is this is being pre recorded. So by the time we do this conversation airs, Lindsey Graham will have been dead for some weeks. But right now there's a lot of chatter about the reaction to his death and what is the right way that we're supposed to respond. And even though this might feel like old news, this is perennial because this happens a lot. People be dying just regular, with regularity. And, and because our current world order is ruled by decrepit old White men who are mostly on the verge of death. I don't think the deaths are going to stop anytime soon. They will only continue unabated. And so we're gonna be constantly told how we're supposed to respond to all these old white people who are making our lives miserable, dying. And I think, y', all, I want to hear your thoughts about it. But first I was curious, would it be helpful for me to read a response from an evangelical and hear what we're being scolded on and how we're supposed to quote, unquote, respond to this sort of thing? Okay, bet. So this is Mike Kosper. Mike Kosper, for those of you who don't know, he is, I'm not sure what his current role is. For a while he was the editor in chief, I believe, of the podcast section of Christianity Today. So Christianity Today, major evangelical publication. He directed and produced the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, which really put him on the map as a major evangelical voice. And so he's kind of thought of as one of these intellectual, thoughtful evangelicals, not like one of the, you know, the sort of low level dumb guys, Christian nationalists, but like, you know, more supposed to be having more nuanced takes. So I was a little surprised by this. He said this and I want yalls reaction to it. So much of the Lindsey Graham discourse on here is gross and inhumane. A human being made in the image of God has died, and that's always a tragedy. Graham's political life with was both principled and pragmatic. Principled in that he, in my opinion, had hardcore convictions about foreign policy and standing up to America's enemies. Pragmatic in that he always looked for ways to position himself and at times ingratiate and contradict himself to maintain relevance to the political moment, whether that meant looking for ways to align with Obama or looking for ways to align with Trump. The pragmatic was in service to the principled. One can, and I do think that posture was at times unfortunate. But one can't look at his record on foreign policy without seeing a person with a clear eyed vision of how good and evil were competing on the world stage. And that work matters. The larger legacy deserves analysis, but not today. For now, I think the humane thing is to mourn the death of an image bearer who wanted to see his country kept safe from ghouls who chant Death to America and otherwise work to degrade our ability to defend ourselves and maintain a western alliance that values liberty and human dignity. Amen. Amen. God bless America.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Amen.

[Tim Whitaker]

Amen.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

It's wild. I have a lot of thoughts on this and I'm actually currently. I just started the book Prophetic Lament. Have either of you both read this book?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Yes.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Okay, Tamisha, know what's going on, but I just started this book and it's like all about how American culture is grief phobic. How like we don't want to lament. And when we do lament, it's on the side of the powerful. And it's interesting because we're also coming on the heels of a very tragic loss of life of a young black man, Nolan Wells. A mysterious loss of life. And the immediate conversation was, what was Nolan doing right, to lead to his own death. What was Nolan doing to cause his own death? And, and I think when I think about the book Prophetic Lament and Lindsey Graham's death, I think about how white supremacy allows white people the privilege to always be remembered well, no matter the substance of their life. Like the substance of their life does not matter because I think white supremacy demands that white life is remembered well to insulate the lie of white supremacy. If all white people live great lives, then of course whiteness should be lionized. Right. But if we're honest about the substance of white political leaders lives, we have to be honest about the danger and violence of Christian nationalism and white supremacist ideology. So I think I always wonder like what power do we protect by lying about the lives that certain white politicians and leaders have lived? So that's just what I when you

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

were wow, that's good. Would you got me?

[Brian Wrecker]

Yeah. I mean I really wanted Yalls reactions as, you know, not, not just the white response, but it did make me, I was very like when I read that, I was shocked because to call him principled and pragmatic. I mean this is somebody who, in the early primaries when Trump was first running, he was very opposed to Trump. He even said, I don't have the quote in front of me, but something to the effect of the election of Donald Trump will be the end of the Republican party. We cannot give our party to this man. He was very, very against him. Until all of a sudden it was the pragmatic thing for him to absolutely flip flop. He's become one of the most sycophantic people, you know, holding onto Trump's coattails in recent years. So in addition to that major flip flop and the way that he reacted to Trump in some of the most smarmy, like slimy ways imaginable, he's Also been one of the strongest voices denying the genocide in Gaza and giving unquestioned military support to evil to Israel. That was a weird little slip there to unlimited bombs. He wants to write blank checks. He has said, really, that there's no limit on civilian casualties, that, that we should. That we should give Israel. He has said some of the really most profoundly pro war things. Pro death. I would say he has fully embraced death, certain kinds of death. I did queue up a clip to maybe illustrate this, which is maybe worth watching as well, just to kind of get a glimpse for the kind of person that we're talking about as principled and pragmatic that we have to mourn his death as an image bearer rather than talk about the facts.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Wow. And I've seen this clip, I think, before, but I like, can we play it? And then I want to point something out in that previous text because I think there's some really interesting connection points that I'm making in terms of my, what I'm peeping in social analysis world. But play the clip. And then, like, I think there's some points that get said in both of them that I think would be really cool to draw out.

[Brian Wrecker]

He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

[Emily]

Why?

[Brian Wrecker]

Because if you got a problem with that, take it up with God. He's the guy that did it, not Trump. So I just want to say I feel good about the Republican Party. I feel good about where we're going as a nation. We're killing all the right people and we're cutting your taxes.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Disgusting.

[Brian Wrecker]

Trump is my favorite president. We've run out of bombs. We didn't run out of bombs in World War II. Can we go back to that quote?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Yeah, bring up.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

No, no going back to this quote. Okay? Now look, folks, let's just call a spade a spade, okay? You cannot hear something like that and call it principled and pragmatic. The thing that whiteness does is it plays in your face. We are not idiots. Whiteness thinks people are dumb. It will literally play in your face. I mean, there's some things here that I think one of the things that I've learned about, like, in my studies and I know that we've talked about on this show before and just in the world, the reason I want people to understand whiteness is because it's not an identity. It's a way of being. And so here you've got this, like, very assertive, assumed authority over naming rightness and wrongness, over deciding who's a ghoul and who's a human. And I want to see the manager who told white people they get to decide who's human, who's worthy of mourning, who is a ghoul, who are the right people to bomb. I mean, the arrogance and presumption that comes out of white mouth on a regular basis is. So it's just. And then for these people to come alongside and call it principled and pragmatic. It's like. I mean, I don't even know if we need to answer the question of what power is being protected. We know the power. You can't love God and Mammon. That's what Jesus said. You're going to end up picking one and you can see what people have chosen by the. This is absurd.

[Brian Wrecker]

Yeah, he's telling on himself too. It is interesting how he tells. He spells it out. We're killing the right people. So who determines who are the right people? Who decides who are the right people that it's good to kill? And we're not just talking about people, we're talking about children. And in Gaza, we have. I mean, so those comments, something that I think is worth noting that was recent, I believe February of this year, whenever it was, it was after the UN had a independent report where it was determined not only that there is a genocide happening in Gaza, but they also said that the unprecedented scale of inhumanity towards children, specifically in modern conflict. These investigators had never seen anything like the specific targeting of children in Gaza. Over 20,000 children dead, over 40,000 children maimed, and snipers and soldiers are targeting children directly. And so when we're talking about the who are the right people to kill, what he's really saying is that there are some children that it's okay to kill.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right?

[Brian Wrecker]

There are some conflicts in which in order to achieve our ends, it's okay. And it's actually the right thing to kill tens of thousands of children. Those are the right people. And the bombs thing was crazy too.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Like.

[Brian Wrecker]

Like, it's good that we run out of bombs. More bombs is better. Just in that rubric like, where are the bombs? As more is better. Like, that was a crazy thought.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Dude, this idea, take it up with God. God's the one doing it. And I know me and Tim talked about this on the New Evangelicals podcast about this invisible eventual entity that you can blame eventually, right? Like, this thing that I don't have to hold accountable is the one doing it. It's not me, it's God doing it. Take it up with God. And this idea that y' all have Ownership over God and what God sanctions. It's just. It's a wholesale mess that I feel like it's telling on itself on live television and what it's doing. I think this Idea is, to CJ's point, of like the Nolan Wells thing. You know, your nervous system and your perception of the world has been conditioned by whiteness to think certain lives matter less. That's why it doesn't register for you as a travesty the way that Charlie Kirk does. I mean, the idea that somebody like Lindsey Graham and Charlie Kirk should have national flags, right, flown when they've spoken inhumanely about other humans. Meanwhile, you have bodies of brown children and bodies of black boys going missing. And these people, they must have done something to deserve it, right?

[Tim Whitaker]

No, absolutely.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

It's a mess. Go ahead.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

How we grieve is a political practice itself. Period, point blank, period.

[Brian Wrecker]

Who's worthy of grief?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Who is worthy of grief? Right? And when we think about how white Christian communities in particular are grieving Lindsey Graham, how they did grieve Charlie Kirk, we can think about Justice Scalia and how people were very critical of black communities for what they perceived as a celebration of Scalia's death versus an honest exhale. Because this person lived in ways that were so oppressive to their ability to survive that for him to die meant they are more free. There are some people who live lives that are so oppressive to others that their death actually creates space for the freedom of others. And that's not a celebration of their death. That's an indictment on how they lived. It's an indictment on how you live if people breathe easier upon your passing. And again, it's not that community valorizing your death. It's them saying, as you lived and voted against my reproductive rights, as you lived and voted against my right to be able to marry my loved one, as you lived and voted against my right to health care and my right to housing access, I could not breathe as you were alive. And I think for white folks, there's this fear. Well, to be honest about the way, like I said, certain white leaders have lived is to also be honest about the harm of white supremacy. And in prophetic laments. Yes, in prophetic laments, you know, he talks about what we protect by not naming the grief within American history. We protect this mythological idea that whiteness is good, that white supremacy is a good order of the world. And something else I want to highlight and I want to turn over to you all is I love the show the boys. And I've been thinking so much about how, like, white Christian nationalism and white fundamentalist theology is caught up in superhero culture. I think a lot of, like, white Christian men see themselves as a type of superhero that is bringing order to the chaos. And I think about this because if you remember that guy who called Michelle Obama a man, like something he said is like, there's only one person stronger than the Incredible Hulk, and that's Jesus. And I thought that was like, really interesting language. And so I think there's a way we also see this intersection of, like, white Christian nationalism and this superhero crusade to order the world against these evil demonic forces. And it's like, it's a mess. It's a hot ass mess. So I'm sorry, Kim, you're about to cut that.

[Brian Wrecker]

I'm sorry, a hot what?

[Tim Whitaker]

Mess?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

It's a hot mess. Okay, a little hot mess.

[Brian Wrecker]

No, it is. It is a mess. And I can almost. I can see how death is a. It is like a way of controlling the narrative that in this moment now, they're able to say, well, you can't speak ill of the dead. And that's a way of then able to reinforce all of us all the time.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Name a black person who's died by police that wasn't lambasted in the media.

[Brian Wrecker]

Because the system is what they're protecting. The system is what they're protecting. And if the system churns out black death, brown death, if that's a product of the system, then we can't say, well, there. There has to be a reason. It has to be a good system. We have to protect the thing, right? And so, I mean, that's what Lindsey Graham was doing. He was just advancing American imperialistic logic. That is not. He didn't make that up. That, that is. That is the system that exists. And he saw his place in it and he became a good company man, a good soldier within that system. And so now we can't speak ill of him because all he did was really stand up for what we have been as a country and advanced who we have been. So to say that we have to speak ill of him is to say that the whole system actually is corrupt and has been producing unjust and evil outcomes. And yet, though I think death, though, should give us the. It should give us an opportunity to reflect on what this life created. Did it produce flourishing and wholeness, especially for vulnerable people, or did it actually produce more death in the world?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

But I'm. You.

[Brian Wrecker]

Sorry, Brian, go ahead. I was going to pivot to some Bible verses, but maybe Nobody cares about that.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I love the Bible. My question for both of you was around this, actually, because I, I don't know what denomination y' all grew up in. I grew up Assemblies of God. Pentecostal, okay? Pentecostals do not play about the valorization of death, okay? And my. I. I had a class in my youth group called Battle Cry. All we read were books about Christian martyrs, okay? My church would be having kids play out how they would die for Jesus if someone came and said that they should deny. You know what?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I'm.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I was just going to ask you all if you felt like you were also indoctrinated into accepting one, that your own death might be required by Jesus or that the death of others brings us closer to Jesus. You know, because I feel like when I look back as a kid, like I said, I think having even a class name Battle Cry is unhinged, okay? And then as I said, reading all these martyr books is unhinged. So I also just wondered if death was part of any of your theological upbringing, because the Assemblies of God Church.

[Emily]

Love.

[Brian Wrecker]

Oh, yeah.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I was at ihop, KC Child. We had to talk interns into believing that Jesus was going to come back and kill people in Kansas City, okay? That's a charismatic prayer movement. And we were in there 24 7, day and night because this man had a dream that God was raising up Joel's army for the end times and that Jesus was going to come back and literally kill people. And that if people felt any twinge of like, oh, no, not my Jesus, they were offended with the bridegroom and they needed to repent. And so you. They're churning out 20 year olds who are very, very bought into this idea that Jesus is coming back violently to kill anybody who doesn't believe in him. So you translate that over, right? And we prayed and fasted every Tuesday for Israel, for. For God to put the temple in Israel. So you think about all of this stuff that Lindsey Graham is saying. This stuff is deeply theological. And that's why it feels so craz to see family members. Because you have deeply, deeply, theologically embedded violence and anti blackness and anti queerness into your faithfulness to God. And that is why when you poke white supremacy, Christianity gets mad. And when you poke Christianity, white supremacy gets mad is because they have, in America, become two sides of one coin. And that's why people are like, this has nothing to do with Jesus. And they are correct. What we're dealing with here is, is a religion of whiteness. That's what we're dealing with. And they're using the name of Jesus because it's. It's easier to name drop than to actually have intimacy with him. But he says name dropping is not the same as intimacy. Intimacy has a tell. And we can tell you people ain't been with Jesus. You don't know nothing about him, so you have nothing to tell me about truth or morality.

[Brian Wrecker]

I think it. It's pretty obvious to. To many of us, I think that really what is driving so much of deconstruction is this. It's become apparent that Christianity in America is really an outlet of supremacy. It's just another. That is what we're being discipled into. We're being discipled into supremacy. And I feel that white supremacy is hard for white Christians to name. They're very uncomfortable with the idea of white supremacy. It's very sensitive. But they will fully and readily embrace Christian supremacy without blinking. It's very easy for them to think, well, of course our religion is correct. Yeah, that. That neat. Well, the temple, of course it should be there. So some of those theological issues, which are our supremacist ideas, are easier for them to embrace because it doesn't have whiteness explicitly over top of it. It is just about. Oh, this is about Jesus. It's a spiritualized version of supremacy. And so they're talking about sort of Christian conquering, white winning in the name of Jesus. But at the end of the day, it is actually accomplishing the same ends as white supremacy. They've just been able to spiritualize it.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Oh, man.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Oh, man. I love both the responses. And it made me think about, have either of you read the Souls of white folk?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

W.B.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

du Bois. Oh, my gosh, Souls of white Folk. I love it because it's like when you think about white theology, so much of it theologizes the black soul. Like slavery is based upon. Upon the Hamitic myth. The idea that Ham was cursed by his father, Noah, because he saw Noah naked and clothed him when he was drunk, and then he curses. Ham's family and black folks were seen as descendants of this cursed body. And therefore the best we could hope for was to be enslaved because at least our bodies have purpose. And so, so much of white theology is about, you know, denigrating the souls of black and brown communities and saying something is inherently wrong with our soul. But we don't really get to say a lot about the white soul, how white supremacy is corrosive to the white soul. And I love souls of white folks because Du Bois starts it by saying, like, high in the ivory tower, I look at a sea of white, look at a sea of souls. And I'm clairvoyant of all of them, but I'm not. I'm most clairvoyant of white souls. And he says, and he talks about, like, what causes a white man to see a black girl on the street and push her into the road? What causes a white man to see a black old woman struggling and to yell at her for being on the side of the sidewalk or drinking out of his water fountain? You know, within theology school, we talk a lot about what we call the co. Construction between Christianity and whiteness. And that so much of the ways that white folks feel empowered to look, to look away from systemic inequality is to say that's what God calls the world to be in. That is the order of the world. And I think a lot of folks, white folks, believe in this kind of almost spiritual social darwism that says we have more because we are better morally. This moral claim to goodness, I think, keeps a lot of white folks locked in their perception.

[Brian Wrecker]

And for many people, that's what their Christianity is. That's what it does. The primary function of their Christianity is to sanctify that hierarchy of lives.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

That's it.

[Brian Wrecker]

Like that. And when you take that away, you've attacked the very foundation of their faith, because that's the primary purpose it's serving. And that's why I think that Palestinian liberation is so important. It's such a litmus test right now. Because Mike Casper would not dream of pushing a little black girl into the road. He would never. He's not a white supremacist. I'm saying, like how he would. If you would suggest that he was a white supremacist, he would say, oh, my God, no, I love black people. I have all these black friends, et cetera, et cetera. I would never. He's probably done interracial marriages, you know what I mean? And yet, and yet he turns away from a genocide of brown people in Gaza. 20,000 children dead. And he wants us to mourn the war hawk who's sanctifying those killings rather than mourn the children who gets our grief.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

That's right. That's right. I just don't. Just call it something else at this point. It's the thing. Don't play in my face and call it Christianity. Don't play in my face and call it Jesus. Come on, call it something else. Call it what it is. It's ever Christmas, right?

[Brian Wrecker]

And. And when people die for that. They might be a martyr, but I don't think that they're Christian martyrs when they give their lives. And so this, you know, we, we've mentioned there's some parallels here with the response of Christians, the really over the top response to the death of Charlie Kirk. And I wanted to play another clip. Is now a good time to maybe introduce this other clip?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I was just gonna say we should put a clip in there. So perfect foreign.

[April]

Hey everyone, Melinda Hale here, executive director of the New Evangelicals. Thanks for listening to our podcast. I just wanted to take a minute to personally invite you to be a part of our community. At tne, we're creating space for people of faith who care about justice, compassion, and living out the teachings of Jesus in real, tangible ways. As a nonprofit organization, not only do we offer thought provoking podcasts, but on our new app and online platform, TNE Connect, we offer free educational resources, additional content, and a space to connect with like minded people for meaningful conversations and encouragement. So if what we're doing has been helpful to you, if you've learned something, felt, seen, or been challenged to grow, head over to thenewevangelicals.com to join TNE Connect or make a donation. Your support means the world to us. Thanks for being a part of the movement.

[Emily]

Hi, my name is Emily. I'm from Cocoa, Florida and I decided to donate and follow the newbie Evangelical page because I believe in the work that they're doing. I think it's important to create a healthy environment where people are comfortable asking hard questions about, you know, their existence and their religion. And I'm spiritual but not religious. But I do believe there's like a fundamental truth, there is a fundamental reality where we all come from, where the universe comes from. Totally agree that there's something going on, you know what I mean? But beyond that, I don't know. I don't have the answers. And to me, that's given me a lot of freedom to kind of explore my humanity how I want, instead of being bogged down by the fear tactics of Christianity and them telling me that I'm wrong for simply having human experiences and human feelings and wanting to explore those. So yeah, it's. We keep talking about it. If people are getting upset about it, that means we got to keep talking about it. Let's bridge the divide, communicate. Let's try to reduce our misunderstandings of each other and just all come together to realize we're all human, we're all here on this earth together. And instead of fighting about which religion is right? Maybe we could come together to make the world we live on a better place why can't we make heaven on earth? Why are we all waiting to get off of earth?

[Tim Whitaker]

This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you you're looking for from a browse to a bike ride this summer. Find more on Facebook. Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OB GYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be use as directed.

[Brian Wrecker]

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[Tim Whitaker]

This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know is you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for from a browse to a bike ride this summer. Find more on Facebook.

[Brian Wrecker]

So in this clip, let me just set it up really quick. Jackie Hill Perry and Preston Perry have a podcast. They are black evangelicals and they are responding to the death of Charlie Kirk because these are black evangelicals who were confused at all of their white compatriots in evangelicalism being so overwhelmed with grief at this man who they saw very clearly was opposed to their very identity. And so they were, like, having a moment of confusion. And Mark Driscoll in his nationalist self responds to them. And so, yeah, we'll go ahead and play it. I didn't celebrate Charlie's death.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I was sad. But one of the things that grieved me was seeing so many believers who appreciated Charlie not being able to understand why we might not be as impacted over his death in the same way that you are. Why don't you think he's a martyr? And it's like, because I heard what he said.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

And so it's not that I don't appreciate his stances on abortion, on sexuality, on marriage, but it's also, I hear other things alongside that that don't give martyr.

[Brian Wrecker]

If you claim to be a Christian

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

and you don't have any sympathy for a Christian brother who is talking about Jesus, that bleeds out from the neck

[Brian Wrecker]

globally in the most watched murder in

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

the history of the world. If you turn that into a race issue, that may say a lot more about you.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Boy, get out my whole face. I. You know what? I'm sorry. This guy. First, you actually have to care what he thinks. First, you really actually have to care what Mark Driscoll thinks. Who cares?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Unfortunately, someone does.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Number two. Like, where do they think his stances are coming from? To say, where do y' all think this man's stances on those issues are coming from? If it is not whiteness, where do you think it's coming from?

[Brian Wrecker]

One thing that's interesting, I mean, there's a lot of interesting things here. But one thing that's interesting is we started with a tweet from Mike Kasper, who kind of rose to prominence within evangelicalism by creating a podcast docuseries about Mark Driscoll's fall critiquing Mark Driscoll. So Kosper has been a critic of Driscoll, and yet when it comes ultimately to grieving those who would uphold white supremacy, they are on exactly the same page. This was a lot of folks, including my own criticism of the rise and fall of Mars Hill, is that it made the criticism about Driscoll specifically and his personal issues, his anger problems, as opposed to recognizing some of the systemic issues that we're talking about, like the embedded white supremacy. The logic.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I mean, one thing I wanna say about the video. Love the cable knit sweater. A little bit jealous. I wasn't wearing that sweater. And we need to discuss our fashion wearing after this, so I want to put that out there. I was feeling a little jealous. Number two, I do take most of

[Brian Wrecker]

My fashion inspo from masked lesbians.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Because we're dressing down. Yeah, we're dressing down. That's why. You know what?

[Brian Wrecker]

That's a bit of a hack, boys. If you're not sure what to wear, just.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

That's so cool.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Lesbians are wearing, you know. And also if you look at who women like, they. I always feel like they're men that look a little bit. That look a little bit like masc lesbians. You know what I'm saying? Like when I look at Justin Bieber, that's Ruby Rose, you know what I'm saying? Look, let's be honest, Justin Bieber's a rube. So I just want to say women like a man with a feminine touch and I just want to put that out there. But back to the core of this, I think what's really interesting is like Jackie o' Perry and Preston Perry and Lecrae too. I'll put them in there. And just in general, I think black. Even Tamisa had an ancestral sigh. She felt. They felt disappointment for every black ancestor.

[Brian Wrecker]

She sighs in Auntie, this side came

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

all the way from the back of the bus

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

to me. Sighed like Wakanda. Oh my gosh. That was a different. I'm trying to hold it in, child. This is all I want to say that I want to throw it to me because I really want to know what they have to say about this. But I think it shows the limitations of black evangelical anti racist approaches. Because black evangelicalism, I think still wants to be too legible to white folks in the sense of like, we still want to have a foundation of forgiveness, but I think it becomes apolitical forgiveness. Because we want to show we are still Christian and we are still good. We want to have reconciliation with white Christians who do harm because we want to show that we are Christian and good. And so I think sometimes black evangelical forms of anti racism are kind of steeped in spiritual bypassing. Where we want to get to the Kumbaya, but we don't want the rage, we don't want the anger, we don't want the accountability. But I'm curious your thoughts on this tea, because you helped me think so much about race and restorative justice. Like you're my person here.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure, you know, how I feel about the Perry's child. I mean, my heart breaks. But I think about like, you know, one thing. This was a hard lesson I had to learn. But I think after I wrote Faith Unleavened and I was kind of talking about, oh, my gosh, white supremacy's embedded everything. And then I got to this place of, like, oh, I'm actually going to get off the hamster wheel of trying to make white people care. And when you listen to the Perrys, like, you can tell that there is a sense in which white people caring about what they have to say and buying into what they have to say is a point of security for them, right? There's some white person holding some kind of purse string that is keeping them from rocking too much of a boat. And I would say that, like, in 10 years, everything will become clear for them. I just. You can't hold this line very long because it's counterintuitive. This Christianity is designed to erase you. And so what you find then are people who look like us, who talk like Mark Driscoll, until Mark Driscoll, right, comes and questions the thing that they do have in common with a person who died. And that's what I'm saying. Y' all can play in these circles all you want to. It is two sides of one coin. That's why he's coming against the Perrys, because it's not actually about Jesus. It's about the maintenance of white to name the ghoul and their ability to name who. Who the right people to bomb are, you know?

[Brian Wrecker]

Yeah, it is interesting watching them wrestle. Well, you can see them. They're seeing the cracks in it in that video. I wonder if they were surprised. There was a time, for example, when Trump rose to prominence in 2015. I was surprised. It was a naive surprise. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. My frame of mind at the time was, this is not who we are. This guy, he doesn't represent us. This is not who we are. And my journey from 2015 to 2020 was recognizing, no, not only is that exactly who we are, not only is he not an aberration in the evangelical movement, but in many ways, the culmination and fulfillment of the evangelical movement. He is, in some ways, the best embodiment of that mindset. And so I really. It took me a while to see that. And in this moment, they're like, Charlie Kirk. That's not who we are. His gospel wasn't our gospel. It's not giving martyr, Jackie says, because his gospel was the 14 words. The thing Charlie talked about the most was the great replacement theory that, you know, they're coming from the global south, that we've got to secure the borders. That was his gospel. That's what he cared about most. Jesus was really just a way to paint a veneer of spirituality over that fear based supremacist mindset. And so they see that, they're like that guy, that's not our guy. But what they don't see is that when the entire movement celebrates him, centers him, puts him on their church stages, that, oh, is, is actually is the spirituality of this movement that I've given myself to is actually if I just peel back one layer, is that actually what it is? All the way down. And that's a scary thing to do, and it's hard to do when it's giving you so much money, platform, et cetera, et cetera.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

That's it. You got to decide what you're going to worship. You gotta decide. Mine was 2012. I mean, it was like, wait a minute, what?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Like, what do you think?

[Brian Wrecker]

So one thing that I think we do struggle with though, is when it comes to death in particular, there is that, you know, Mike's tweet started off with it. First of all, this is an image bearer of God. Now is not the time. Right now's the time. This is a tragedy because a human being has died. And Jackie Preston, I think, said something similar that like, I'm not. I was sad that he died. Preston said, you know, I'm not going to celebrate, of course, but also I'm not going to call a martyr. So he wanted to kind of say, well, first you have to acknowledge that humanity. First you have to do that. What do you guys think about that? Because that is often like a. Something that is used to police people's emotional reactions to these moments. And I'm future casting here because we all know that there is one guy we're all thinking about who still hasn't died yet. And when he does, you better believe some of us are gonna say some things like it's about time and we're gonna be told, this is a human being. What, what do you. What are your thoughts?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Oh, I have so many thoughts. I. And I know Tamis already loves this person. Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas. Read anything they've ever written. Read anything she's ever written in life. Okay? And I got to see her. Kbd, Come on. I already knew. Tamish already knew, but I saw her speak when I was at Harvard when she had written her book. Black Bodies and the justice of God. The first part of the title by Trayvon Martin. Black bodies and justice of God. Stand your ground. Black bodies and justice of God. Thank you. And something she says in that book Which I love, which everyone should read that book, because it's about how the foundation of United States history is inextricably tied to frameworks of Christianity and Christocentrism. And something she says is in America, the black body is perpetually guilty. It is always guilty. And I thought about that when you were naming kind of your question there. I think, Brian, because there is a way, as I mentioned, our culture sees very little sanctity in black life. If we think about even the murder of Emmett Till, it's based upon this idea that black life is a danger to white humanity. We are always perpetually guilty. We are already criminalized. We are already seen as menacing or evil, which then means that we are always, already meaning in perpetuity, perpetually deserving of punishment. So I think what's fascinating is in our culture, we do a lot of mental gymnastics to make sure that black death is always seen as a necessity for white safety. And we do a lot of gymnastics to make sure that white death is always seen as a tragedy that came too soon. And I would say even white theology is about circumventing its own death. You know, it's a lot of focus on heaven, a lot of focus on being in the world and not of the world. So we can frame white people as separate and a part of needing or deserving suffering. Like, there are just so many ways white theology is grief phobic. And unless it is white grief or white death, then God cares. And I also think white Christians are taught that being Christian is being anti racist or is being justice centered. Like there's a warp theology there. Does that make sense?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Or that it's like comes in a package deal? It's like when you get like three months of Spotify with the purchase or something you don't like. Like being anti racist doesn't is not a package deal. It's work. I mean, you know what I'm saying? You don't just gave my life to Jesus and suddenly I'm just not racist anymore. Like, come on now, y'.

[Emily]

All.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Yeah. In fact, you can be more racist depending on your truth. That part, Yeah.

[Brian Wrecker]

I think that because Christians are taught that our job is to love everybody and also that human life matters and has dignity, that death is an easy moment to try to elicit a particular response and get them to not be truth tellers. And I think that it's just one of those classic two things can be true. Like, I can see that a life has dignity and. But the best way to love someone who has given themselves over to evil systems is actually to tell the truth about them. Because whatever you believe about the afterlife, whether you think hell is a real thing or a metaphor, I think that he gave himself. He walked down the kind of path that leads to Gehenna in Jesus's telling. And so we have to tell the truth about that, because if we don't, that's not actually loving anybody. Well, and that doesn't mean that we dance on somebody's grave. Absolutely. And I don't want. I think, if anything, there should be more clarity in death when we talk about legacies. And so I think we can be cautious. Certainly, I'm not gonna, you know, be the guy. I don't police humor personally. Like, if somebody. You know what this makes me think of is when there was the Trump assassination attempt a few years ago, there were so many good memes going around right afterwards. Y' all remember some of the memes. That was a funny day on the Internet, and I was laughing and I was sharing some of them. And then some people got mad at me that, like, hey, this is a. No, this is a serious thing. Somebody, you know, he could have died. Like, you're going to kind of celebrate this death. We're going to laugh about that death. I think when we're talking about very evil people, I'm not going to police people's reaction to it. I typically won't be. Have that be my primary response. But I think it's a moment for truth telling. I do want to share this one Bible verse because I think sometimes people are like, well, Christians, we should whatever. But Ecclesiastes 8:10 says this. I have seen wicked people buried with honor, yet they were the very ones who frequented the temple and are now praised in the same city where they committed their crimes. This, too, is meaningless. In other words, the author of Ecclesiastes is saying, the real tragedy is the way that these wicked people are being eulogized in the very city where they brutalized people and that the truth is not being told. And so it's sad to me that in these moments, Christians, like, lose their prophetic witness completely.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Oh, absolutely.

[Brian Wrecker]

And they're bullied out of it.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

It's just not. It's another Jesus. Just to me, I think there's a. To me, all of it just feels so clear, like, this is not the Jesus of scripture by any stretch of the imagination. Y' all have made this completely up. The difference is you have had the military and the missionary right to help you back this fallacy across the globe. I mean, the missionary impulse, along with it comes American conceptions of democracy, right? And so it just seems to me like, at this point in our history, like, as a country, let's just tell the truth that this is not Jesus, like, at all. Like. And stop. I feel like there's so much dancing around this issue to where it's like, you know, this guy saying, you know, this was an image bearer, really. I mean, because what do y' all think about God? For real? I mean, because I'm not worshiping somebody who thinks I'm the right person to bomb. Excuse me. I refuse to worship somebody who doesn't care about my life. So, image of who? What God?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

What.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

What image is this? Like? I mean, are y' all gonna hold this man accountable for what he has said about humanity or not? And then tell me after that sentence where it reminds you of God, because if that's the image of God, then I want nothing to do with it. Call me apostate, baby. I will wear it as a badge of honor. Absolutely.

[Brian Wrecker]

I do want to say right there,

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

that was a mic drop. I. I've been cooking up what to say as you both are talking and my booze and walking around full glam in the background. I said, I'm trying to. I'm at work. What's going on here? So I want to say that was a little distracting. She's made an image of God. Hello.

[Brian Wrecker]

You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

You know what I'm saying? It's getting a little distracting over that.

[Brian Wrecker]

That's that. I don't know if nerdy theology goes good with game. I don't know.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Bounce your eyes. Bounce your eyes.

[Brian Wrecker]

What do you mean, an eye trap? You didn't learn about the eye bounce?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Oh, you.

[Brian Wrecker]

You didn't pay attention? When your eyes get caught in the eye trap, you gotta bounce them.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I bounced them a little, buddy.

[Brian Wrecker]

Y', all, we need to wrap up. We're at. We're at. We're probably pushing time.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I want to say one thing. I want to say one thing, but I do want to say a real thing about this.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Y' all only got us for four more weeks.

[Brian Wrecker]

We said a whole bunch of controversial stuff, and we went too long.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

No. Okay, well, I want to get on both your radars, and maybe even Tim can pull it up, but I didn't send Tim a link, so no pressure on this Tim, but there's a new Republican candidate, Victor Marks. Have you all heard of him? Whose father's name is Karl Marx, which is kind of wild. Not the Karl Marx, obviously, but anyway, Victor Marks is one of the new Republican gubernatorial candidates. And I forget where he just won the preliminary race. But you know, like he talked about how, like when he's been talking a lot about how when he was 7, he like had to murder someone, that he's murdered other people throughout. He kind of has hinted that he's harmed other people throughout his life. He was just caught saying that he saved 46,000 women from sex trafficking. That's not true. And something that in the New York Times article that they highlighted, which I've been thinking about this too. As I mentioned, like she said that he was committed to this white evangelical superhero perception of himself. And what's interesting is we see 10, 12 years ago TRUMP hiding some of this rhetoric, but now we see with Republican candidates this very big marrying between death, power, white supremacy and faith, this interconnectedness, which I think is kind of interesting. It's made me think about like from Charlie Kirk to Lindsey Graham. From Charlie Kirk, you know, celebrating the death of certain communities. From Lindsey Graham celebrating death of certain communities, like to certain people. This is Christianity in practice. And part of deconstruction is helping people understand like God is not on the side, as Howard Thurman says, God is not on the side of the powerful and against the weak and the oppressed. That is a negation of the gospel itself. I want you all just look at this really quickly and just think about, you know, these rising politicians that are very overtly name themselves as Christian and also have kind of this politic of death, I feel this politic that celebrates death and they're seen as almost powerful or manly for tying their faith towards a certain type of, I think, masculinity and violent masculinity in particular.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Yeah, it's really wild to me.

[Brian Wrecker]

Let's talk about that next week. Let's pick up the whole masculine Jesus thing next week. I think that that's the end of the modern day.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

We can talk about forgiveness, Brian, and your thing with the Christian men and masculinity.

[Brian Wrecker]

Yeah, yeah, because that's real, man.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Yeah.

[Brian Wrecker]

So let's close with some weird Christian ish.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I thought I was supposed to Weird Christian.

[Brian Wrecker]

Just wait till you see. I mean, I just want to see Yalls reaction to this. So play the clip.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Jesus Christ is coming back. Put your faith in Jesus who died on the cross for your sins.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

He rose again in three days.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

He's alive. He's a one true God. But the wages of sin is death, hell forever. But he gives life, life eternal. He is love, he is joy, he is salvation. Put your hope in Jesus and repent.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

He's coming back. God bless you guys. God bless you.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Jesus is Lord. Hallelujah. Jesus is Lord.

[Brian Wrecker]

For. For the listeners without video, she's in the airport and she's announcing all of that to, I don't know, like gate 12 or whatever. And everybody's just kind of staring at a big group of people. And I guess what I just wanted to say is that that is the kind of radical truth telling that we need to more of in Christian spaces. Amen.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Oh, what's crazy, what's so wild is like 15 years ago, if I told my youth group that I did that at an airport, they would be like, you saved so many souls for Jesus today. You know what I mean?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Like, I did that.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Tell us.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Stood up on a subway in Boston and did the exact same thing.

[Brian Wrecker]

So how did that feel now?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

It feels like at the time I felt like, yeah, Jesus all for you.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

That's what I'm saying.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

It was. It's really wild what it'll get you to do, man, when you outsource your intuition. Shoot, they can have you doing anything out here. I'm gonna tell you that now.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Yeah. No, to me say that I think that, like, it is silly. And I grew up in a youth group that would be like, if you see people, if you're seeing people walk by you all day and you're just gonna let these souls go to hell, what's wrong with you? You know, like, you start to have this anxiety, you know?

[Brian Wrecker]

Well, one of the. And this is a whole separate topic, so I won't get into this. I'll just say this simply. If what she said is true, then the way she behaved makes perfect sense. That's one of the reasons I know that that kind of gospel is not true. Because it makes you behave like a psychopath. And that's not how Jesus behaved. Jesus was cool as he was cool.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Well, even if you'll see Jesus, Jesus mom is such a black mama in the New Testament, like, she'd be like, jesus don't do.

[Brian Wrecker]

We don't have time for a whole Jesus's black mama things. Yeah, you gotta say, we gotta do a whole episode on Jesus's black mama.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Oh, a white man's gonna tell me, I can't finish on Jesus's mom being black mama.

[Brian Wrecker]

I don't know if we want to do that. I'M gonna sit down,

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

finish my joke, which is, Jesus, mom will be like, go turn your little water into wine. You know what I'm saying? Go do your little miracles. And he'd be like, woman, I'm trying to sit down. You know what I'm saying? So I do agree. Jesus wasn't doing that. I'm sorry.

[Brian Wrecker]

I thought you were going to tell us about the Black Madonna. In which case, we actually should do a whole episode.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

That's a whole episode. I was trying to have a little friendly banter.

[Brian Wrecker]

I want to hear you preach about some stuff. I'm sorry to shut you down. That was rude.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Ryan, the banter killer.

[Brian Wrecker]

The banter. It's my internalized whiteness that tells me that, like, a clock is something that I have to worship. And that, like, when the time is, like, ticking, I'm like, I don't want to disappoint my superiors.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

This guy's time microaggressing us. You don't think we want to be timely? What's up with that, Brian? You don't think black people want to be on time and on time?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

We owe it to our ancestors to move slower, sir.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Yeah, I'm learning. Rest is resistance.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Come on, bro.

[Brian Wrecker]

Rest is resistance. I should get that tattooed, maybe. I would listen to that. That's a great point.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

That's great. And also amazing book. So shout out Trisha Hersey. Just a good book.

[Brian Wrecker]

Oh, my God, indeed.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

That.

[Brian Wrecker]

She's a great.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

Talk about this macho stuff next week, because Jesus didn't even carry the cross by himself. So I don't know where y' all are. Getting Incredible Hulk. He needed help for the cross.

[Brian Wrecker]

Incredible Hulk is really something.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

No, let's do masculinity and stuff. And I'm gonna give Tim some clips of the boys in Homelander talking about Jesus as a superhero and stuff. And also not.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

How did Tim. How did Tim and April normally end this?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

Yeah, how you all in this?

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I don't know.

[Brian Wrecker]

I'm obviously.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

I'm Tim Whitaker.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

No, that was pretty good.

[Brian Wrecker]

I believe it.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

I need my blonde April wig.

[Ciara Jones (CJ)]

You know how Tim talks with his hands. Thanks, everybody. Oh, my God. Thanks, everybody.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

See you next time. I'm timing on Bucks.

[Brian Wrecker]

How about that?

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

We'll see you next time.

[Brian Wrecker]

We need to stop. I think we just stopped talking.

[Tamiece Spencer Helms]

No, but we will see you all next time. We're going to talk about masculinity, forgiveness, power, church theology. Come tap in with us. It'll be a good time.

[Brian Wrecker]

All right, see you next time.