Now New Zealand: Murderer's Manifesto Proclaims Trump as "Symbol of Renewed White Identity and Common Purpose"

#BREAKING: In manifesto, Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shooting suspect said he supported U.S. President Donald Trump "as a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose," but not as a policymaker. pic.twitter.com/RHW2SwzjXs

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) March 15, 2019

Things I've read this dark morning that are illuminating, and which I want to pass on to you:

"Getting Crueler, Smaller, Uglier" — "And We're Being Led Into War by a Corrupt President"

@Starbucks The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything. They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in handcuffs for doing nothing. All the other white ppl are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing. pic.twitter.com/0U4Pzs55Ci

— Melissa DePino (@missydepino) April 12, 2018

In the News: "In Many Ways, Donald Trump Is 'White Jesus'" — And "Remarkable Upsurge of Hate-Based Killings of LGBTQ People," Etc.

I say anti-Semitic things, and then Jews criticize me. What is this conspiracy??? Anyway here’s a list of Jews pic.twitter.com/nOcZ8XoWpR

— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) January 30, 2018

Another offering of articles, tweets, etc., that I've read in the past several days, which strike me as worth sharing with all of you:

Not Even Close: Knowing Exactly Who Roy Moore Is, Majority of White Alabamians — and White Evangelicals Overwhelmingly — Tried to Put Him in Senate

8 in 10 white evangelicals & 6 in 10 white Catholics & Mormons elected Donald Trump, claiming "pro-life" motivation.

I will not forget.

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) November 6, 2017

Charlene White, "In Alabama, black women saved America from itself – as they've always tried to do":

"Catholics, Take Responsibility for Hate": Twitter Discusses Terrorist Attack on Muslims in London Yesterday

Cardinal Nichols please condemn islamophobic comments we see from catholic extremists on Twitter Catholics take responsibility for hate

— maureen clarke, (@retrochbabe) June 19, 2017

I've recently been a lurker in an online conversation about Jordan Denari Duffner's Religion Dispatches article claiming that Islamophobia is common in the Catholic media. Several people involved in this conversation who are movers and shakers of the American Catholic intellectual establishment, with strong ties to leading "liberal" Catholic journals in the U.S., responded viterupatively to Duffner's report: Totally unsubstantiated, they said. Sloppy research, they said. Grew up Catholic and never saw any evidence of Islamophobia among Catholics, they indicated.

Important Finding in New PRRI Survey: "White Evangelical Protestants Stand Out" — As Opponents of LGBTQ Rights, With Claims That "Christians" Are Uniquely Persecuted

Yesterday, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published the findings of a survey it conducted in February 2017, which breaks down perceptions of discrimination by American religious groups, and which also looks at the response of various U.S. religious groups to LGBTQ rights. A key finding of this survey, confirming findings of other surveys by different polling groups in recent years: white evangelicals are a significant outlier group when it comes to the claim that Christians experience stark, serious persecution in American culture, and as opponents of LGBTQ rights. 

Religion and Politics in the News: "It Is No Surprise to Me That Online Debate Has Become the International Sport of Cis White Men"

An assortment of items I've read in the past few days on religion, politics, culture — and their intersection — in American public discourse right now; these range from commentary on women's rights and misogyny to white supremacy to homophobia to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia:

Good, Bad, Ugly: Week in News — "We Judge This to Be Hypocrisy Unprecedented in the History of American Politics"

Journalists know: When leaders go berserk, furiously denying there's anything going on, blaming others--that's when you're getting close.

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) March 4, 2017

The past week in tweets and newsfeed, as I've captured it for you readers (reflecting my  preoccupation with matters like the obligation to speak truth and defend the least among us, and what happens to social groups that succumb to moral vacuity and do not push back against leaders channeling dark, destructive energies):

Authoritarian Shysters Do Not Want Us Making Connections; Making Connections Is the Essence of Being An Adult Moral Thinker with a Developed Conscience

Charles Pierce then adds,

Trump's Clear Signal That Some Count and Others Don't: Another Wave of Bomb Threats at Jewish Centers Today, Another Cemetery Vandalized Yesterday

NBC News confirms there has been another wave of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and schools across the country pic.twitter.com/TqBNbOGOnl

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 27, 2017

This morning: 

Jewish community centers in at least 11 states received bomb threats on Monday, echoing similar waves of threats on Jan. 9 and Jan. 18.

The America White Christians Are Building with Trump, and Exodus of Churchgoers: When Jesus and Gospel Are Betrayed, Obligation to Walk Away

Let me start with the statement that no one has asked me to explain why I find church — connecting myself to a church, going to a church — a non-option at present. And that’s significant, I think. It’s significant that no one from a church community has asked me why I am disenchanted with and alienated from church, and what they, as church, can do about my disenchantment and alienation.

Rise of the Bully Messiah and the Bully's Fear of Resistance

Vulnerable people shouldn't have to suffer because of privileged people's unwillingness to learn & have compassion.

— Marcus Halley (@word_made_FRESH) February 23, 2017

John Pavlovitz on the rise of the bully Messiah: 

You Get Rights, I Lose Rights: Commentary on the Zero-Sum Human Rights Game of White "Pro-Life" Christians Supporting Trump

This WH hasn't learned the deepest lesson of the Civil War: human rights -- equal dignity and freedom for all -- is a NATIONAL imperative. https://t.co/LMCWQfj8sL

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 22, 2017

In the tweet above, Laurence Tribe is responding to White House media man Sean Spicer:

The Strongman Does What Bullies Do — Picks on the Least Among Us; People of Faith Speak Back

ICE detains, removes a Salvadoran woman with a brain tumor from a Texas hospital https://t.co/BkhG6LudFU h/t @PGourevitch cc: @ACLU pic.twitter.com/Y4bBEq66Mv

— David Beard (@dabeard) February 23, 2017

The Big Man, the Strongman elected by "pro-life" white Christians to reChristianize our nation and promote an ethic of life, targets vulnerable transgender children, immigrants frightened for their safety and the security of their families, and Muslims. People of faith speak out in response:

Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Trump Supporters: What to Do with Religious Worldview That Thrives on Generating Imagined Enemies?

The tweet was taken down, so here's the cartoon they posted, complete with an Illuminati pyramid and Bush, Clinton effigies: pic.twitter.com/WvPVY6aIiS

— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) February 19, 2017

Brandon Withrow, "Trump & Putin: Our New Biblical Kings":

Articles About Human Rights and Assaults on Minority Groups in Era of Trump: "ICE Has Been Targeting Those Weakest, According to Reports"

Articles about matters of human rights and assaults on minority groups in the era of Trump that I've read this week and want to pass on to you: 

End-of-Week Articles on Religion and Politics in Era of Trump: "Communities Devoted to Authoritarian Ideologies Are Grounded in Abuse"

More material on religious issues and politics in the era of Trump, which I've read in the past few days and want to recommend to you:

Steve Bannon's Thick Ties to Cardinal Raymond Burke and Trumpist Catholicism: Recent Commentary

Since last October, When the BuzzFeed site provided a transcript of Steve Bannon's statements to a Vatican conference organized in 2014 by the Human Dignity Institute (the comments are captured in a YouTube video) we've known that Bannon's white ethnonationalist ideology links to white supremacist groups globally who want a bloody "holy war" against Islam in the name of Christendom. Bannon told the Vatican conference,

"A Conscience That Is Not Awake to Suffering and Fails to Respond Is Walled Off from the Love of God": Commentary on Trump and Religious Issues

With his performance at yesterday's National Prayer Breakfast (an event organized by the shadowy anti-LGBT group calling itself "The Family," as David Badash reminds us), and with the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch, Trump and religious matters are in the news. Here's commentary in the past few days I'd like to recommend:

Bible Repeatedly Commands Us to Welcome Strangers; "Bible-Believing" Christians Focus Instead on Homosexuality and Abortion

As Matthew Schmalz points out in the Religion News Service article I shared a few minutes ago, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are FULL OF references to the "stranger" or the "alien." And all the verses speaking of the stranger or alien tell us we have a sacred obligation to welcome and provide for the stranger/alien in our midst.