Shea is a former Republican member of the Washington state House of Representatives who was stripped of his committee assignments and booted out of the party in 2019 in the wake of a report detailing how he had “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” and “planned, engaged in and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States Government in three states outside the state of Washington over a three-year period.”The report exposed Shea’s deep ties to the far-right militia movement, as well as a document he authored laying out the “Biblical Basis for War,” in which he declared that the enemy must agree to accept bans on abortion, same-sex marriage, communism, and idolatry and agree to live under biblical law. If these demands were refused, Shea declared that the only solution was to “kill all males.” Shea has been associated with support for white nationalists, many of which have viewed Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho as the home of a future white Christian state.On Sunday, Feucht returned to Spokane for a worship event where he and Shea jointly prayed over the city’s mayor Nadine Woodward, as well as Jessica Yaeger, a candidate for city council, and Natalie Poulson, a failed state legislative candidate.

Source: Christian Nationalist Singer Sean Feucht Joins ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Matt Shea To Pray Over the Mayor of Spokane | Right Wing Watch

The Russian Orthodox Church is not entirely united behind Kirill: over 150 priests signed a letter protesting the war in March 2022, calling for “reconciliation and an immediate ceasefire.” But at the highest level, the church is wedded to political power. One prominent Orthodox television channel owner went so far as to say that Putin was sent by God.

Source: A Russian Christian Speaks Out by Rachel Cañon Naffziger

Alien Citizens: Karl Barth, Eberhard Arnold, and Why the Church Is Political by Will Willimon

1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here? Faith is Hope.

Source: Spe salvi (November 30, 2007) | BENEDICT XVI

“I’m thoroughly convinced that neither Democrats or Republicans put poor and working people at the center of what they’re about.”