{"id":72579,"date":"2026-01-07T15:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=72579"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:54:07","slug":"tomorrow-never-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomorrow never knows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Greenland,<\/em> though.<\/p>\n

Again, if you asked any MAGA court evangelical in 2024 about the Proper Christian Stance on U.S. policy toward Greenland, they would have said the same thing that 99% of Americans of any religious or political stripe would have said: \u201cWhy on earth are you talking about Greenland?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"These MAGA evangelicals who obsess about having the official and mandatory Proper Christian Stance on everything<\/em> did not then have any \u201cstance\u201d on Greenland because it was freaking Greenland<\/em>. Way back in 2024, nobody had or needed to have a \u201cstance\u201d on Greenland any more than they needed to have a \u201cstance\u201d on Ellesmere Island.*<\/p>\n

Think again of all of those MAGA evangelicals we looked at on Monday<\/a> as they recited and affirmed their brand-new revised and expanded Proper Christian Stance on Venezuela \u2014 folks like Franklin Graham and Mike Huckabee and Eric Metaxas and Johnnie Moore. Every one of them, back in 2024, held a different<\/em> Proper Christian Stance on Venezuela.<\/p>\n

And every one of them, back in 2024, would have laughed at the absurdity of your bewildering question about Greenland.<\/p>\n

And then \u2014 because their lives are governed by the need for everyone, everywhere to always line up behind every mandatory Proper Christian Stance on everything \u2014 they probably would have guessed that you were testing them about their adherence to the PCS on something like melting glaciers and climate change. They\u2019re always testing one another with pop quizzes like that, and they\u2019d be ready for this one. So maybe after a brief moment of confusion over the bizarre and seemingly out-of-nowhere nature of your Greenland question, they\u2019d have resorted to a creedal recitation of the PCS on climate change \u2014 that it\u2019s a socialist\/Communist conspiracy** promoted by America\u2019s enemies, etc.<\/p>\n

That would get them back on the sure footing of established Proper Christian Stances circa 18 months ago. Look at this 2024 Voter Guide circulated by the Family Research Council<\/a>. It outlines the PCS on climate change and the Green New Deal, so they would know what the correct answer was on that.<\/p>\n

But that 2024 Voter Guide didn\u2019t say anything about Greenland.<\/p>\n

Today, however, just a little more than a year later, those MAGA evangelicals all understand that there is now a Proper Christian Stance on Greenland, one that holds that this semi-autonomous, sparsely populated Danish territory in the far north ought to be, for some reason, a colony and possession of the United States.<\/p>\n

That 2024 Voter Guide is now hopelessly out-of-date \u2014 a relic from a distant and forgotten past.<\/p>\n

And if the Trump administration, emboldened by the military prowess displayed by its raid on Venezuela, lurches forward with its scheme to invade and seize Greenland, the new Proper Christian Stance on Greenland will be not just loudly proclaimed, but enforced<\/em>. Any American evangelical who does not affirm and celebrate this weird new stance \u2014 on Greenland, of all things \u2014 will be swiftly condemned, farewelled, Ciziked and Throckmortoned into oblivion.<\/p>\n

The eponymous verbs there take their names from two conservative white evangelicals who were booted from evangelical institutions for their deviation from Proper Christian Stances. Richard Cizik was fired from his long-time job at the National Association of Evangelicals after a Fresh Air interview in which he said that he might kinda maybe be willing to support some kind of non-marriage civil union recognition for same-sex couples, and in which he mentioned that he had voted for Obama. That was four strikes for Cizik \u2014 he was insufficiently anti-gay, he voted for a Democrat, he voted for a Black<\/em> Democrat, and he spoke politely to Terry Gross without flouncing and denouncing her and NPR like Bill O\u2019Reilly did. Warren Throckmorton<\/a> is a retired psychology professor from Grove City College whose blog was terminated and deleted from Patheos\u2019 evangelical channel because \u2026 well, we still don\u2019t know why<\/em>, exactly. Maybe it was because he was too vocally critical of David Barton\u2019s dishonest pseudo-history or maybe it was because he kept pointing out that \u201cconversion therapy\u201d was a cruel scam or maybe he stepped on some invisible third rail that angered some wealthy ultra-right donor. But one day he was there and the next he was gone.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what will happen to any white evangelical who dares to deviate from the mandatory Proper Christian Stance supporting the glorious American invasion of \u2014 yes, really, it sounds like a warped joke but it\u2019s not \u2014 Greenland<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is the thing about Proper Christian Stances \u2014 they\u2019re always changing. They have changed in unpredictable and unforeseeable ways since 2024. And they will change again in unpredictable and unforeseeable ways in 2026. They are unfixed and uncertain in the most terrifying, Orwellian sense because they are a form of party-line enforcement as capricious and inconstant as the party line in 1984<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about this perilous uncertainty before \u2014 see \u201cMemory vs. Hobby Lobby: Evangelicals and contraception and why Denny Burk is not a conservative<\/a>.\u201d That post was about how the official and mandatory Proper Christian Stance on contraception in 2013 was radically different from the Proper Christian Stance on contraception in 1984 (the year, not the novel) and different even from the PCS throughout the George W. Bush years.<\/p>\n

That radical change caused trouble for any white evangelical with ties to white evangelical institutions who wasn\u2019t paying close attention to the constantly changing and updating PCS. Those who made the mistake of reciting, in 2013, what every good white evangelical knew that everyone was expected to believe in 2003 were forced to recant and apologize lest a Ciziking or Throckmortoning ensue. The same punishment could be meted out to anyone working for a white evangelical institution who publicly acknowledged that the PCS had changed from what it had been just a few years before. Memory<\/em> was a form of deviation, and therefore a punishable offense.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I wrote toward the end of that post:<\/p>\n

What does it mean to follow leaders who are not bound by fact or memory?<\/p>\n

It means that they might tell you anything \u2014 absolutely anything<\/em> \u2014 and expect you to follow along.<\/p>\n

You may wake up tomorrow only to learn that all right-thinking evangelicals now believe in transubstantiation.<\/p>\n

But wait, you\u2019ll protest, we\u2019re evangelicals \u2014 most of us are not even sacramental, this is a contradiction of what evangelicals used to believe. And they will tell you that evangelicals have always<\/em> believed in transubstantiation, that the fries and Coke we consume at the Eucharist literally become the body and blood of Christ. You\u2019ll start to say something about bread and wine, but they\u2019ll cut you off, reminding you that evangelicals have always<\/em> believed that the Last Supper was fries and Coke, and that anyone who doesn\u2019t agree with that isn\u2019t really a true evangelical or a good conservative.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My attempt there to present an absurdly exaggerated hypothetical was somewhat over-the-top, but is it really any more absurdly over-the-top than the actual surreal reality we are now facing involving the potential invasion, seizure, and annexation of freaking Greenland?<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

* My personal \u201cstance\u201d on Ellesmere Island is that this foreign territory constitutes a grave threat to American national security, looming just a few short miles off the northwestern coast of our beloved territory of Greenland. The only strong and forceful way to counter this threat is to send most of America\u2019s Border Patrol and ICE agents to guard every square inch of the Nares Strait. This essential task should be overseen, personally, by Greg Bovino, Tom Homan, and Secretary Kristi Noem. Gov. Greg Abbot is also invited to accompany a contingent of Texas National Guard to assist with this vital mission.<\/p>\n

** I\u2019m so old I can remember when the official PCS was that climate change was a New Age<\/em> conspiracy promoted to pave the way for the coming New Age Antichrist\u2019s One World Government.<\/p>\n

This change from a \u201cNew Age\u201d bogeyman to a \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d bogeyman is generational. The generation of white evangelical leaders who watched Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment<\/em> and resented that they couldn\u2019t sleep with her was eventually replaced by a generation of white evangelical leaders who watch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Fox New and resent that they can\u2019t sleep with her.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have always been at war with … Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":72558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTomorrow never knows<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We have always been at war with ... Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.\" \/>\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\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tomorrow never knows\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We have always been at war with ... Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-07T20:54:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2026\/01\/Miller.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1179\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1428\" \/>\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=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/\",\"name\":\"Tomorrow never knows\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-07T20:54:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-07T20:54:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"We have always been at war with ... Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tomorrow never knows\"}]},{\"@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":"Tomorrow never knows","description":"We have always been at war with ... Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.","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\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tomorrow never knows","og_description":"We have always been at war with ... Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2026-01-07T20:54:07+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1179,"height":1428,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2026\/01\/Miller.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/","name":"Tomorrow never knows","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-01-07T20:54:07+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-07T20:54:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"We have always been at war with ... Greenland? This was never the Proper Christian Stance enforced by white evangelical leaders, but the Proper Christian Stance is always changing.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2026\/01\/07\/tomorrow-never-knows\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tomorrow never knows"}]},{"@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\/72579","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=72579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}