{"id":71945,"date":"2025-11-25T15:42:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=71945"},"modified":"2025-11-25T15:42:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:42:35","slug":"smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Michael Woolf, <\/strong>\u201cWhy clergy should risk assault to protest ICE\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the Trump administration\u2019s mischaracterizations, the protests I have attended have felt much more like church than a violent insurrection. There is plenty of prayer, a lot of singing and some sermons. Most of all, there is a real sense of community that pervades the atmosphere. We are all there to support our neighbors and one another. That community is so important as we strive to confront the powers of evil that are at work in this administration\u2019s cruelty. Alone, resistance is impossible, but together, there can even be a remarkable amount of joy. \u2026<\/p>\n

Our country needs religious leaders of all different faiths to reach deep within their traditions and find the strength to resist tyranny. Each of our traditions has different resources that we can draw from, and they are all needed now. For clergy with privilege like me, now is the time to use it to protect our neighbors and fight for their freedom. I fear that if we wait, it will be too late.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pema Levy and Ari Berman, <\/strong>\u201cThis Is All John Roberts\u2019 Fault\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The Roberts court has spent Trump\u2019s second term not applying the law so much as clearing it out of his way. In a matter of months, the court\u2019s 6\u20133 GOP-aligned majority has permitted a long list of lawless actions, including firing independent agency commissioners, using racial profiling in immigration sweeps, disappearing immigrants to authoritarian and war-torn nations, and defying Congress\u2019 power of the purse. But the court\u2019s acquiescence to an antidemocratic America didn\u2019t start in 2025. Roberts has been embedding white-dominant authoritarianism<\/a> into the country\u2019s source code for two decades. It\u2019s impossible to imagine today\u2019s crisis without the Roberts court having first undermined the foundations of our democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spencer Ackerman, \u201cProfaning the Holocaust\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I took that to be the point of Holocaust education. Not to exceptionalize Jewish suffering, but to\u00a0activate solidarity. To recognize that there is a continuum of atrocity perpetrated by dominant classes against subjugated ones. The Holocaust shows where, once normalized, such things can lead. Antisemitism doesn\u2019t have to be the exact same<\/em> as anti-black racism for the lesson of antisemitism to be to confront anti-black racism. The ongoing Nakba<\/em> doesn\u2019t have to be the exact same<\/em> as the Holocaust for me to find it appalling\u2014particularly because it is performed in the name of my safety.<\/p>\n

That was what I learned from my Holocaust education: Never again for anyone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stuart Hall, in \u201cCulture, community, nation\u201d<\/a> (via<\/em><\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since cultural diversity is, increasingly, the fate of the modern world, and ethnic absolutism a regressive feature of late-modernity, the greatest danger now arises from forms of national and cultural identity \u2014 new or old \u2014 which attempt to secure their identity by adopting closed versions of culture or community and by the refusal to engage \u2014 in the name of an \u2018oppressed white minority\u2019 (sic) \u2014 with the difficult problems that arise from trying to live with difference. The capacity to live with difference is, in my view, the coming question of the twenty-first century. New national movements that, in their struggle against old closures, reach for too closed, unitary, homogeneous and essentialist a reading of \u201cculture\u201d and \u201ccommunity\u201d will have succeeded in overcoming one terrible historical hurdle only to fall at the second.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tatianna Schlossberg, \u201cA Battle With My Blood\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Suddenly, the health-care system on which I relied felt strained, shaky. Doctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, didn\u2019t know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs. (Columbia was one of the Trump Administration\u2019s first targets in its crusade against alleged antisemitism on campuses; in May, the university laid off a hundred and eighty researchers after federal-funding cuts.) If George changed jobs, we didn\u2019t know if we\u2019d be able to get insurance, now that I had a pre-existing condition. Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn\u2019t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly. Bobby has said, \u201cThere\u2019s no vaccine that is safe and effective.\u201d Bobby probably doesn\u2019t remember the millions of people who were paralyzed or killed by polio before the vaccine was available. My dad, who grew up in New York City in the nineteen-forties and fifties, does remember. Recently, I asked him what it was like when he got the vaccine. He said that it felt like freedom.<\/p>\n

As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world\u2019s largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings. Hundreds of N.I.H. grants and clinical trials were cancelled, affecting thousands of patients. I worried about funding for leukemia and bone-marrow research at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I worried about the trials that were my only shot at remission. Early in my illness, when I had the postpartum hemorrhage, I was given a dose of misoprostol to help stop the bleeding. This drug is part of medication abortion, which, at Bobby\u2019s urging, is currently \u201cunder review\u201d by the Food and Drug Administration. I freeze when I think about what would have happened if it had not been immediately available to me and to millions of other women who need it to save their lives or to get the care they deserve.<\/p>\n

My plan, had I not gotten sick, was to write a book about the oceans \u2014 their destruction, but also the possibilities they offer. During treatment, I learned that one of my chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine, owes its existence to an ocean animal: a sponge that lives in the Caribbean Sea, Tectitethya crypta.<\/em> This discovery was made by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, who first synthesized the drug in 1959, and who almost certainly relied on government funding, the very thing that Bobby has already cut.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bill McKibben, <\/strong>\u201cThey\u2019re doing to America what they did to Christianity\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The obvious and straightforward fact that the Jesus of the gospels calls for a kind of radical love centered on the poor is what has always made Christianity something of a scandalous religion: appealing to the masses, but because of its inherent radicalness needing to be contained. In the 1950s it was contained by dilution \u2013 Protestantism was so dominant that it basically baptized the status quo. The 1960s broke that \u2013 the leadership of these churches, who were among the most committed followers of Jesus, found that they had little choice but to march in Selma, literally or figuratively. But many of their followers did not want to; they had been on board because Protestantism was part of the fabric of American life, not a challenge to it. Membership in mainline churches began dropping off. And for many of those who still felt a cultural or personal need for Christianity, evangelicalism was on the rise: it meshed wonderfully with the emerging Reagan-era emphasis on individualism and spoke directly to Americans who rejected the movements of the civil rights era.<\/p>\n

The idea that personal salvation \u2013 as opposed to concern for others \u2013 was at the heart of Christianity always bordered on the heretical, but over the decades it has morphed into the absurd farce we see now, where Jesus is held to bless every show of dominance and aggression we can imagine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":67260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-71945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-smart"],"yoast_head":"\nSmart people saying smart things (11.25.25)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-25T20:42:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2024\/05\/TMYK-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"502\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/\",\"name\":\"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-25T20:42:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-25T20:42:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)","description":"Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)","og_description":"Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2025-11-25T20:42:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":502,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2024\/05\/TMYK-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/","name":"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-11-25T20:42:35+00:00","dateModified":"2025-11-25T20:42:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Featuring Michael Woolf, Pema Levy and Ari Berman, Spencer Ackerman, Stuart Hall, Tatiana Schlossberg, and Bill McKibben.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2025\/11\/25\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-11-25-25\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Smart people saying smart things (11.25.25)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}