The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast

John Pavlovitz
  • 4.8 (81)
  • Society & Culture

Authentic words for everyone trying to figure out the best way to be human. johnpavlovitz.substack.com

  1. 3h ago

    Franklin Graham and The White Evangelical Church Need Jesus

    Most morally compromised men of faith don’t sell their souls all at once. Sometimes it happens in a billion tiny moral transactions; a series of infinitesimal compromises over time that are invisible to them, but not to others. They can’t see from the inside what is so apparent from a distance. Moment by moment and choice by choice, they begin to slowly drift from their calling, and no one close to them ever tells them while they’re still humble and amenable enough to listen. The power they accrue begins to gradually silence dissent or to remove it from their orbits altogether. These men end up spending their entire lives breathing solely in the intoxicating air of sycophants’ praises; never protected from their own hubris, never cautioned against their recklessness, never alerted to the ways they’ve lost the plot or begun leasing off large sections of their credibility for worldly rewards. Surrounded by genuflecting yes-men and women lacking the intestinal fortitude to push back against the toxic sludge pouring from their lips, they begin to feel increasingly comfortable and even emboldened in it. As they do, the teachings and the words of Jesus become less and less helpful because they begin to testify loudly against them, voicing their opposition—and so they begin to discard them, too. They learn instead to bask in the easy applause of the salivating multitude, who gladly amen their every bitter word, no matter how reckless or incendiary. As the hateful choir cheers their ramblings, they grow more and more delusional, more and more comfortable bowing before the golden idols of their ego and ambition. With each day they slide further down the slope that leads to whatever Hell is, distracted by the buzzing noise of the crowds and unaware of the flames licking their heels. And then one day, these professed men of God find themselves campaigning for a predator, defending ethic cleansing, celebrating the expulsion of refugees, and vilifying an entire religious tradition. They end up justifying the separation of families, going to battle for the NRA, and passionately defending an endless parade of lies from a pedophile President—all the while still imagining themselves righteous and still cosplaying as Christians. These are such days for men like Franklin Graham and the ministers who emulate them. This is how far they have drifted, and it’s going to be almost impossible for them to make their way back, because to do that, they would have to do something they have proven unwilling or unable to do: own their mistakes, admit their failings, cop to their poor alliances, and confess their present sins in the ascension of this malignant narcissist President. Franklin Graham and the White Evangelical Church need Jesus.They need repentance.They need to have the scales fall from their eyes, and to accurately see the horrors they’ve manufactured against so many people made in the image of God.They need to own and confess the ways they’ve denied Jesus, the millions of millstones they’ve tied around the necks of their followers.They need to lament becoming beholden to Donald Trump and the Republican Party and Fox News, and to the supremacists and bigots who now compromise the lion’s share of their ever-shrinking but increasingly militant white racist base.They need to deeply grieve over the LGBTQ men and women whose bullying they’ve defended and blessed, the xenophobic social media rants against Muslims they’ve birthed, and the trauma to the sick and the poor regularly assaulted by a serial predator they have proudly hoisted upon their shoulders as good and Godly.They need to see the irreparable damage they’ve done to the Christian Church and to the name of Jesus. But it’s likely that none of this will happen, because practically speaking, the God they fall prostrate before is the person they see in the mirror. In many ways, it’s little surprise that Franklin Graham found affinity with Donald Trump, as they are frighteningly similar animals; men cradled from birth in wealth, position, and privilege; buffeted heavily by the deep coffers of others, and handed riches and influence most people will never possess, rarely, if ever, considering that they may not be worthy of it. Though Trump hasn’t read the Bible, let alone studied it enough to politically weaponize it the way Graham has, in many ways the reverend is a man cut from the same cloth as this President. Though benefiting from every conceivable blessing and advantage this planet has to offer, they are fueled by a narrative of their unceasing persecution, believing that they are being continually assailed by the very people whose backs they’ve been standing on the whole time: the marginalized, the oppressed, the underserved—the least of these,” Jesus speaks of incarnating him. Franklin Graham speaks with a convincing religiosity; a shiny veneer of down-home, America First religion that makes him impervious to accountability in the eyes of the suggestible multitudes who buy the ever angrier, ever more alarmist, ever more exclusionary gospel they now sell. And it’s up to the rest of us to condemn and to oppose them; the Christians and the non-Christians, who know that human beings who pervert religion and leverage God in order to marginalize already marginalized people or stockpile power are the very thing that most turned the stomach of Jesus. They are the salivating wolves in lily-white sheepskins preying upon the most vulnerable. They are the descendants of the religious zealots of Jesus’ day, who too betrayed their greatest calling because the enticing aroma of limitless power was too strong to withstand. History is recording the Evangelical Right’s abomination of a marriage with this godless President, and though there were what surely felt like short-term wins, the lasting damage to the Church will be irreparable. People outside Christianity suspecting that religious people are all hypocritical frauds are being given plenty of evidence for it. Franklin Graham and the multitude of lesser-known spiritually compromised leaders need the barrier-breaking, wall-obliterating Jesus whose name they invoke, even as they praise a President who is completely antithetical to him. They need the knees-in-the-dirt penitence they so demand of the world, so that they can admit culpability in the violence of these days and push back against the walls and the bans and the barriers. They need to embrace the coming of a Jesus who said that among men like them, there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and to break the tethers between themselves and Donald Trump. Sadly, I don’t see that happening. They have too much of this world to gain, even if it costs them their souls. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  2. 1d ago

    This Isn’t An Election; It’s A Rescue Mission—And You Can Still Save Someone

    We are a people in peril. The damage our Republic has sustained over the past two years is incalculable. There is no way to accurately quantify the irreparable harm done to the connective tissue of this nation, to our systems of support, to our electoral processes, to our safeguards against foreign and domestic threats, and perhaps, most of all, to the relational tethers we have to one another. Everything is fractured, nothing has been spared. He and they have poisoned the collective so completely that we’re almost better off not even attempting to fathom it, lest the grief fully paralyze us and render us hopeless. As of this writing, we are less than two weeks away from an election that is so much more than that. The choices we make in November are far more consequential than merely altering the balance of power in Congress, flipping key seats, or ousting incumbents committing malpractice. This is a life-or-death proposition; a rescue mission. It is a rescue mission for our nation, one final chance to rip our destinies from the hands of an extremist death cult whose love for both God and country is nonexistent; an unashamedly sadistic cadre of morally defective beings. It is a rescue mission for the lives of tens of millions of human beings here who are and will continue to be brutalized by their own government; those penalized for their pigmentation and punished for their poverty. It is a rescue mission for the sick, for the poor, for the foreigner, for the black and the brown and the queer and the disabled and the different who will be legislated into oblivion. It is a rescue mission for hope; a desperate grasping for a better future that we’ve been steadily bleeding out week after week as we have witnessed the brutality of a mad despot, his sycophantic disciples, and a high court who’ve abandoned any obligation to the Law. I love this country, or at least, I love the country I thought we had a chance of being just a few short years ago, before we allowed such a parasitic, ugly hatred to get, first a foothold and then a stranglehold here. And as heartbreaking as it’s been seeing us mark our 250th year of existence with such lunacy at the helm and with such wasteful, ubiquitous violence everywhere we look, my greater fear is that we somehow have not realized how urgent the next 12 days are, and what is in the balance between now and November 3rd. But if you’re reading this, I think you realize it. I don’t think I need to share any alarming anecdotes about his cognitive deterioration, or subject you to another breaking news story about their efforts to poison the electoral process, or bombard your already battered psyche by detailing ICE’s brutality. I don’t have to convince you of the gravity of these moments. But you might be able to convince someone else who I can’t reach; someone in your circle of influence who has checked out because they’re exhausted, someone who feels their vote doesn’t matter, someone who’s bought into the dangerous fiction that the choices amount to the lesser of two evils. Over the next 12 days, you might still have a chance to rouse someone you know out of the haze of apathy or to extricate them from the nihilistic resignation that would render them silent when their voices hold such promise and carry such weight. If you can do nothing else between now and November 3rd, you can help the people around you understand that this isn’t about politics; it’s about seeing tens of millions of imperiled human beings standing at the very precipice of staying alive—and doing the smallest thing we can do to save them. Remind them of the tangible ripples of this election on hungry children, on immigrant families, on every woman they know, on their neighbors with disabilities, on people needing cancer treatment, on their elderly family members, on sexual assault survivors, on fathers in domestic concentration camps, on gay teenagers. Help your people to understand that this isn’t a vote, it’s an act of heroism. The apathetic, grieving, war-weary people around you may not be interested in winning a political battle, but there’s a good chance they’d jump at the chance to pull someone from the jaws of death or to spare them unimaginable suffering, which is, without hyperbole, what we’re doing here. Speak to the people you share this life with, whether up close or in passing. Remind them of the very human stakes of November 3rd. Tell them you’re on a rescue mission and ask them to join you. May we be lifesavers in these days. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  3. 2d ago

    No, America, We Will Not Be Okay.

    I am a semi-retired optimist. I used to believe that things would always be okay: that no matter how bad circumstances seemed in the world, I trusted that people would eventually do the right thing, that goodness would prevail, that the rational center would hold. I used to believe that our Constitutional checks and balances would protect us from overreaching parties and mentally unstable presidents and political leaders lacking a working moral compass and complete perversions of our systems of justice. I used to believe that most people were basically decent, and that this decency would win the day because our shared humanity was something we were all equally interested in protecting. I no longer fully believe those things. I no longer believe that our leaders will choose country over party, because over and over, I’ve watched them pollute the system and disregard the rules to hold power, steal elections, and gain Federal judges and Supreme Court Seats. I no longer believe that the truth matters to everyone, because I’ve witnessed too many powerful people ransom it off to the highest bidder—and too many people I know and love grow violently allergic to facts, data, and objective reality. I no longer believe that the American Church is a source of moral leadership, because I’ve witnessed far too many Evangelical leaders sink deeper and deeper into the putrid moral cesspool of their political bed-making. And I have zero confidence in those presently leading us to do anything to defend the common good: They are not going to protect the air we breathe or the waterways that sustain us or the diverse ecosystems that hold life together, when there’s so much money to be made off them. They are not interested in stopping gun violence or mass shootings, because they profit from both the guns that create the carnage—and the fear it generates among their voting base. They have no intention of protecting marginalized and vulnerable communities from discrimination, when they can use those very communities as props to terrify the privileged into bans and walls and wars and rally cries of “send them back” and “America first.” They have no interest in stewarding the full diversity of America, only leveraging and weaponizing some fairy tale nationalistic nostalgia to keep uneducated white people more focused on anthems and flags than on the disparate humanity they’re supposed to be providing refuge for. And I know that because there is no integrity or nobility left in the people currently leading us, that things are not going to be okay as long as good people are bullied into silence and numbed into inaction and content to merely feel bad and do nothing else. No, the only way things are going to be okay is if good people make them okay: If Christians and Atheists and Muslims and Jews and Agnostics and Sikhs and Hindus and Buddhists and Pagans and Humanists who are all committed to the common good realize that their strength is in their combined power and their unified voice. If political progressives, moderates, and reasonable Conservatives realize that hashtag campaigns and one-day marches aren’t substitutes for sustained engagement in the political process and showing up en masse and in unison. If compassionate people of faith stop ceding the conversation about religion to the bigots, grow louder about their religious convictions, and push back hard against the supremacy and misogyny and nationalism of the Evangelical Right. If straight, white people decide that the rights of migrant families and gay teenagers and Muslim communities are worth them pissing off their friends and neighbors and pastors and families to defend. These are unprecedented days in our nation and in the world. Simply believing that our leaders will do what is right is irresponsible now. Trusting that everything will work out simply because it always tended to work out in the past is a fool’s delusion. Having blind faith in the system when the system is so badly broken is willfully consenting to our demise. We’re going to need to leverage our economic resources, our relational capital, and our collective influence to renovate the system so that it serves the people. No, positivity alone is not enough anymore; only positivity and moving with clarity and force are. I want to come out of retirement and be fully optimistic again, but it will be a whole lot easier if a whole lot more people will discard the naive hope that the arc of the moral universe will invariably bend toward justice—and decide to be the courageous arc-benders themselves. I hope people of faith and morality and conscience all decide that they won’t leave the future to chance, that they will not be found waiting for someone else to rescue them. No, America, things will not be okay unless we wake up and work and vote and fight like hell—and make them okay. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  4. 3d ago

    I Went To Pride Dressed As Jesus. Here’s What Happened...

    They say God works in mysterious ways. I’m gonna co-sign that sentiment. Our decidedly purple North Carolina town recently held its third Pride festival. The first two incarnations were, by any metric, glorious successes, with residents pouring in for a celebration of diversity, inclusion, and community. Thousands of people supported local businesses, enjoyed amazing entertainment, and met their neighbors. But as joyous as they were, the events were both marred by a predictable, now ubiquitous ugliness… A group of the usual “Christian” suspects descended on the gathering: a bullhorn-wielding, sign-waving, joyless mob drafted from local Evangelical churches, the nearby Southern Baptist seminary, and outside agitators from neighboring towns. As with all such assemblies of these miserable self-appointed soldiers in the army of a homophobic Lord, they came with the sole intent of harassing, condemning, and intimidating the LGBTQIA+ community—and we were having none of it. Those first two years, dozens of us counterprotested passionately, confronting them with the very scriptures they weaponized; we overpowered their instigative hymns with Lady Gaga singalongs; we drowned out their condescending shouts with a thunderous drum line. It was an effective, albeit cacophonous response, and we felt we’d succeeded in neutralizing their intrusive presence. This year, however, as Pride grew closer, my heart said something else was called for; something requiring no such volume, something that was not a refutation of a grotesque thing but a declaration of something beautiful. An idea floated into my consciousness, something that I had neither expected nor initially took seriously. It said, " In the presence of unloving people bastardizing the namesake of my faith tradition, I could incarnate it… I could literally be Jesus.” Yes, initially the alarms of blasphemy and heresy clanged like midday steeple bells in my head, and the muscle memory of a thousand brimstone sermons forecasted certain lightning strikes and eternal damnation, but then I thought, “To hell with that.” The more I sat with the idea, the better it felt in my spirit. This was the right way to go: I would literally stand between those self-righteous bullies and the disparate assembly of humanity whose space and safety they sought to invade. I would be a physical barrier to the self-sanctified stone-throwers. I would embody the love for my neighbors at the center of the faith story I was raised in and make it visible. I would make a rebuttal of their hateful exclusion with an expression of effusive welcome. In a matter of seconds, a quick Google search and a handful of clicks, and my costume was on its way… I arrived at the festival, ran into a nearby restaurant, and excitedly changed into a robe, beard, and wig, augmented with rainbow leis and sunglasses, just to make my affiliations clear and avoid triggering attendees with post-Church PTSD. I grabbed the signs I’d made to denounce the protestors:I’m not with them.Ignore Them. Enjoy Pride.This Ain’t Loving Your Neighbor, Kids.And the ones affirming attendees:God Is Proud of You.You Are Loved As You Are.My Dad Things You’re Beautiful. And from the very second I stepped out into the street, I knew I’d made an inspired, perhaps even anointed choice. “Jesus!” two teenage girls shouted almost immediately, running toward me, their eyes beaming. “Can we take a selfie?!” They asked. Of course, I obliged. They fist-bumped me and left cheering, “Way to go, Jesus!”This happened hundreds of times during the day, and sure, some were responding to what they saw as the kitsch factor, others relishing the chance to reclaim some measure of joy from a tradition that has harmed them. But so many of them were like a middle-aged woman with a thick Southern drawl, who curled the back of my neck with her hand and pulled me close enough to whisper in my ear, “Thank you for representing the Jesus I grew up believing in, but never found in my church.” When she pulled away, she smiled widely, tears streaming down her face. A group of high school students asked if they could stand with me, holding signs, and handing out leis, and they were nearby most of the day, as were scores of moms, grandparents, teachers, business owners, and progressive ministers whose churches had come to be visible allies. Over the next six hours, thousands of people passed by and smiled involuntarily, threw me a peace sign, or nodded in approval. Then there were the protestors, who, as I hoped, were brought to a kind of stunned silence, seeing a physical manifestation of a “Jesus” whose tangible love for his neighbors spoke louder than any shame-throwing histrionics or finger-wagging judgement they came armed with.They tried to hurl hellfire and damnation at me, but the optics of screaming at their boss in front of the gays clearly made them uncomfortable, and most of them ended up crestfallen and defeated—and the beautiful part is that I didn’t have to make a sound. One of them did approach me, saying with mocking concern, “Can I give you a Gospel tract?””No thanks,” I replied, smiling. “…I wrote it.” I swear that asphalt was holy ground. I was a local church pastor for nearly thirty years, and I’ve spent over a decade serving as virtual pastor to people all over the country. Along the way, I’ve been blessed with countless moments when I felt I was in the sweet spot of my calling; caring for people, advocating for those under duress, and standing against the scripture-wielding bullies. But it’s been a long time since I had a day like this, doing my best to step figuratively and literally step into the feet of Jesus and remind people that they are loved without caveat or condition. It was one of the best sermons I’ve ever preached—and I didn’t have to say a word. I’m sure this will give the Bible-thumpers and stone-throwers fits, and they’ll double down on predictions of my scalding, torturous eternity, but I think my and Jesus are cool. I think this is right where he’d be. And I think I was pretty chill, all things considered. I mean, it’s not like I turned tables over or anything… The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  5. 4d ago

    No King’s Day Was Really Nice. And That’s What Worries Me.

    No King’s Day Episode 4 went off pretty much as predicted. Cities all over America were filled with a massive, ebullient mob of families, schoolteachers, ministers, parents, grocery store clerks, college students, business owners, grandparents, and toddlers on shoulders. Highways and overpasses were lined with exuberant, sign-waving throngs of joyfully defiant human beings loudly declaring their shared disdain for a wannabe dictator. Local parks exploded in a kaleidoscopic display of disparate humanity, converging to declare their solidarity and their collective rejection of authoritarianism. Republican lawmakers’ offices were surrounded by a spirited show of resistance from pissed-off, fed-up constituents demanding accountability. The vibes were positive. The chants were spirited. The dance lines were jubilant. The sign game was strong. And it was all, well… really nice. We gathered together. We made some noise. We gave speeches. We raised our fists. We encouraged one another. We put the Republican Party on notice. And when it was over, we all felt the emotional intoxication that events like these usually yield. But if we’re honest with ourselves, was it all the equivalent of a strongly-worded letter to powerful, corrupt people who threw it directly in the trash the moment it arrived? Here we are after the fourth of these gatherings. The Constitutional crises are still piling up.We’re still immersed in an unnecessary, unwinnable war halfway across the world.This Administration’s disregard for legality and morality is still escalating.The complete Epstein files are still concealed, the monsters within them still evading their reckoning.ICE is still ravaging our communities with impunity and with taxpayer funding.Our traitorous, cognitively-decimated, sociopathic Predator-In-Chief is still unstable and violent.We’re still a hair’s breadth from full-on fascism. And in the aftermath of Saturday’s protests, the United States is less than three weeks away from a nation-altering election that the current Administration is clearly doing everything to rig and disrupt, and one it has no intention of honoring, should the votes of the people not be in their favor. Regardless of the results at the polls, we are almost certainly going to be thrust into chaos by this sitting president; one that we have never experienced in our 250-year-history. I wonder if we have it in us to do what we might be required to do to ensure the will of the voters is honored, and the directives of the Constitution are followed. Though I want more than anything to be wrong, as I look at the fierce, fiery protests that have shut down France and those we’ve seen in Spain and Italy and elsewhere, I’m terribly worried that Americans may be too soft and too polite to meet the moment that is likely coming. The last three No Kings Day protests didn’t stave off the chaos that is now here, and it won’t prevent what this regime has planned. We’re going to need a mass display of sustained civil disobedience that we haven’t seen since the 1960s, and that isn’t something we seem capable of. The painful truth is that fascist dictators are rarely voted out, and monstrous authoritarian regimes don’t leave simply because they’re politely asked to. Practically speaking, as meaningful and uplifting as our collective efforts on Saturday were to us, they didn’t matter even a little bit to Trump and his sycophantic gaggle of ghouls. Like so many times before, they allowed us to have an afternoon where we all felt a false sense of power, blew off steam, and then largely returned to our lives currently in progress, while they continued to dismantle our Republic largely unabated. Yes, we rallied people to vote, we equipped them with the tools to make their voices heard, and we implored them to show up in numbers too big to manipulate, at least in theory—and those are all important things. But what happens if we wake up on November 4th and we find ourselves with a presidential administration that refuses to release the stranglehold on this nation that it has? I’m not advocating for violence or inciting wide-scale property damage, but I sure as hell know that if the American people are the only thing standing between our Republic and a cadre of lawless, violent, deranged traitors who show every sign that they’re not leaving voluntarily, signs and chants aren’t gonna cut it. We need to remember that transformative activism is found in sustained and forceful movements, not in soothing moments, and unless we actually strike fear into the oppressors and oligarchs, we may get the very king we claimed for four times in two years that we’d never tolerate. I really want your honest thoughts on all of this. Do you share the same concerns that I have about our willingness to make a more sustained and disruptive response should this Administration do what has been unthinkable? Do you worry that we are too passive and polite a people to push back the way that people in Europe and Central and South America have?Is a post-election No King’s Day going to need to be different, and are we capable of it?Let me know in the comments. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Oct 16

    If We Want To Stop Mass Shootings in America, We Need To Stop Voting Republican.

    The sickening Déjà vu is here. “How dare you politicize a tragedy like this!””This is not the time to talk about guns!””You can’t even wait until the bodies are in the ground!” Predictably, I’m hearing these sentiments again today from Conservative gun lovers, in the wake of another mass execution, this time in the hallways of Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon. I knew I would. And honestly, normal grieving over these lives would be preferable to this. I’d really like to have that option. We all would. I wish I could give every single one of those beautiful human beings the personal attention they deserve. I want to spend time telling each of their stories in the greatest detail; to find out what they loved to do, their favorite foods, the movies they liked, the people they dreamed of being when they grew up, the people they were up until their final terrifying day. I’d like to see the pictures they had on their bedroom walls, to learn the names of their dogs and secret crushes, to hear about the specific idiosyncrasies that only those who know them well understand. I wish I could talk to their parents and their best friends and their favorite uncles, so that I could paint a fitting portrait of every one of their vibrant, priceless lives enough to eulogize them properly. It would be healthy to pause and try to let us all catch our breath from something so terribly breathtaking. But that’s the problem: there simply isn’t time. There isn’t time to “wait until the bodies are in the ground,” because by the time that happens there will be more shootings. This is the stunning regularity of death by guns here. Before we can properly mourn them, there will be more students or shoppers or church members or moviegoers or music fans or tourists to grieve over. There will be more hallways riddled with bullets, more terrifying phone video taken by young people whose classrooms became war zones, more breaking news of an active shooter, more frantic texts from parents to their sons and daughters that will not be returned. Before we’ve had a chance to grieve and bury the children and the adult killed today, there will be more dead people. And on that terrible day, just like today, Conservative politicians and their boosters will tell us this isn’t the time.They’ll again chastise us for being insensitive.They’ll once more feign indignation and accuse us of politicizing a tragedy.They’ll again pretend that they actually give a damn about the memories of these young people or the pain of their families, or the fact that someone’s children were once again huddled and terrified in storage closets, while they tell us it’s too soon to talk about how wrong this all is. And every excruciating second they’ve scolded us to quietly endure, millions of dollars will flow directly from the NRA to the very conservative politicians charged with protecting these children who will die.In that time of silent waiting, gun advocates will generate every false narrative to blame the carnage on mental health or Muslims or trans kids or immigrants or liberals; to place culpability somewhere else, on the media, the culture, on video games—anywhere else but where it belongs.And during the moments they are expecting us to say nothing, people will be easily buying assault weapons and planning the next atrocity, while the people who love and sell and profit from guns try and wash the blood from their hands long enough to copy and paste thoughts and prayers platitudes. And in the time it takes to properly grieve and mourn these children and the adult killed today in Bend, the Conservative politicians and their collaborators will have long forgotten about them.They will have moved on.These victims will be yesterday’s news.The precise nightmares of this day will have been replaced by another round of terrified teachers, of distraught parents speeding toward schools, of hollow public mourning from politicians tone policing our outrage and doing nothing else. By the time we bury these sons and daughters and parents, there will be another set of bodies awaiting the ground.Before these wounds have healed, there will be more wounds inflicted.And the gun lovers will be there again to tell us this isn’t the time.To hell with that.This is the time. This is the time, because this isn’t normal.This is the time, because kids aren’t supposed to die in school.This is the time, because we have a gun problem.This is the time, because half our Government is in bed with the gunrunners. So yes, we agree. These children and their teacher deserve to be properly eulogized. They deserve to be rightly remembered. They also deserved to live. And the children and teachers who will die tomorrow deserve to live, too. Until we stop choosing leaders with more reverence for weapons of rapid carnage than for the bodies, lives, and families torn apart by them, we will continue to endure a collective grief that is both unnatural and preventable.If we want to stop mass shootings in America, if we want to honor the dead, and if we truly want to defend life—we need to stop electing Republicans. Here are some organizations that are helping make this country safer: Moms Demand ActionEverytown for Gun SafetyThe Coalition to Stop Gun ViolenceViolence Policy CenterGabby Gifford’s Americans for Responsible SolutionsThe Brady Campaign The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Oct 13

    Trump Supporters Have Failed The Human Test.

    Today, an alarming video surfaced of a woman being assaulted at a Trump rally in Youngstown, Ohio, for wearing a shirt that said, “Release The Epstein Files’ while heckling the President as a fascist. The video shows a group of large, grown men violently pushing the woman around, one punching her, wrapping her in a headlock, attempting to rip off her shirt, and knocking her down. Around the woman, hundreds of adults—presumably teachers, parents, police officers, and business owners film the assault on their phones, laugh to one another, shout slurs at her, move away from the melee, or join the salivating crowd's chants of “USA! USA!” A legion of self-identified patriots, alleged protectors of women, and professed followers of Jesus do everything but move in to protect one woman from the brutality of several men, a woman truly advocating for vulnerable women and children. To a person, they refuse to stop the vicious attack of a mindless mob, mainly because they are part of it. Meanwhile, from the platform, their beloved spray-painted, barely literate predator cult leader, a sitting U.S. President no less, ridicules the woman as “fat”, “very fat,” and “low class”. Police finally intervene, not to protect the woman from being beaten by a group of men, but to escort her out. No charges against them. No accountability for their thuggery.No justice for the laws they broke. This should sound familiar. It’s what created him and this putrid national mess in the first place. This rally isn’t an aberration; it’s a microcosm. This is what MAGA is. This is the depravity this movement foments.This is what these people are.Every single person in that arena, just like every single person who still supports him, is morally broken, all of them. The people at his rallies, the people who voted for him, the people who are preparing to step into a voting booth in a few weeks and put a legislative hedge of protection around him, the people we know who align with him—are defective human beings. His supporters are men and women who lack the same kind of decency the rest of us feel obligated to; otherwise, they would have long ago jettisoned him. They have had to make so many ethical and theological exceptions to remain tethered to him that they are no longer capable of empathy or courage or elemental kindness when it is needed. Once you make the initial deal with this kind of devil, the soul transaction is complete and binding. You cannot be partially associated with a career criminal. You cannot marginally approve of a rapist.You cannot conditionally cheer on a vile, belligerent serial liar. Donald Trump is a pass-fail test of one’s capacity for basic human goodness—and over and over again, these people have failed miserably, completely, and joyfully. I am a person of compassion. I believe in seeing the complexities in people, in realizing they are not two-dimensional caricatures or shorthand stereotypes, in believing that they cannot usually be easily summed up in broad strokes. Like many people, I’ve spent the better part of a decade giving people the benefit of the doubt, trying to separate their political affiliations from their humanity, and dismissing every screaming red flag as something else. I’ve labored through ten years dismissing their reprehensible actions as a byproduct of theological programming, family indoctrination, and political brainwashing. I’ve tried to convince myself that they were basically good people, duped by charlatans and led astray by professional liars. But it’s become impossible to rationalize away or make excuses for anyone who, at this point, would attend his rallies, sing his praises, boost his propaganda, vote for his enablers, or stay silent in the face of his prolific, barbaric violence. With every human rights atrocity they shrug off, with every violent diatribe they dismiss as humorous, with every Constitutional crisis they justify, they sink deeper into a cavern of inhumanity that can never truly crawl out of. The people throughout this country who stand with this toxic human filth are no different than the violent mob in that arena. Just like this seething, jeering crowd applauding the assault of one woman whose worth and safety they had no regard for, they too are participating in, silently watching, or cheering it all on. We all need to stop trying to convince ourselves they have been fooled or manipulated by him, and admit that in far too many ways, they are him. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Oct 12

    MAGA Christians Would Have Live-Streamed (And Cheered) The Crucifixion

    I feel like we’ve read this book before… Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently stated that for the first time in nearly one hundred years, the United States plans to broadcast the execution of a human being. Ft. Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people, is set to die by firing squad on December 6th, an event that would be live-streamed if the Pentagon has its way. In the wake of the announcement, Hegseth has received fierce backlash, with ministers, media members, and politicians expressing concerns. Even President Trump is reported to be conflicted on the idea, though he did give and defend the initial go-ahead. Much of Trump’s base remains supportive. Are any of us actually surprised? If we’ve been paying attention, we’ve all seen this coming. Over the last ten years, under this president and his morally vacant coconspirators, we’ve watched a precipitous descent into the darkest depths of what some people are capable of and other people will allow. In our homes, at family holiday tables, in workplace conversations, and in car repair waiting rooms, we’ve had a front seat to a malignant collective soul rot that has left tens of millions of people unable to see the worth of a human life. Throughout the two Trump terms, we’ve all witnessed an unrelenting campaign of dehumanization intended to desensitize otherwise decent human beings to violence against their neighbors, to see it as justified, as even sacred. Conservative Evangelicals, who’ve been the bedrock of the MAGA movement, have been Trump’s early adopters and most steadfast champions, following him into every campaign of character assassination, mindlessly parroting his incendiary rhetoric targeting Muslims, people of color, immigrants, and transgender people. They have defended each vulgar diatribe, excused every legislative assault on vulnerable human beings, shrugged off atrocities against children, and ratified unthinkable brutality against their neighbors—all while having the stratospheric gall to pretend they give a s**t about Jesus. These self-identified God-lovers have stuck by their guy through a mismanaged pandemic, through illegal wars of choice, through genocides and ethnic cleansing, through the protection of pedophiles, through domestic terrorism, all the while drifting further and further from the namesake of their faith. Though MAGA Evangelicals look to the New Testament and fancy themselves as Jesus’ righteous disciples, the truth is, they’d have been the political power-holders and the religious zealots who persecuted them. They’d have been the lathered-up, bloodthirsty rabble calling for a criminal’s head, the ones demanding an eye for an eye, the ones dancing around the flesh-streaked, blood-soaked dirt around a cross, believing they’d done God’s work. Trump Christians would have celebrated the crucifixion, and it’s not at all shocking that they would be the authors and co-signers of public executions. And is this proposed barbarism of a broadcast killing really any different from what we’re already witnessing every single day? From the bombings of Iranian schools, to the Minneapolis assassination of a young mother, to the relentless slaughter of Palestinians, to the indiscriminate violence of ICE, we are getting live-streamed executions whether we choose them or not. And these horrors are largely being applauded by people who spend their Sundays in a church feigning adoration of a Jesus whose life and teachings they spend the rest of the week ignoring. This is just another sickening sign of the death of humanity at the hands of religious people, convinced their bloodlust is justified and unable to resist the worst of their impulses because they’ve been told by their spiritual and religious leaders that God is on their side. This is kinda the logical moral regression of the White Evangelical Church. The story here isn’t that for the first time in a century, a United States presidency fueled by alleged Christians would be broadcasting an execution; it’s the fact that a decade into the widespread moral collapse of professed followers of Jesus here, it’s all pretty much on brand. The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe

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