Pulse 19 2025

Pulse A COLLABORATION OF ADVENTIST ACTIVISTS

OCTOBER 2025 ISSUE 19

FROM SUCKER PUNCH TO CHARLIE KIRK’S DEATH SEPARATING NATIONALISM AND CHRISTIANITY THE UNITED STATES IN THE GOOD SAMARITAN STORY BIG BRANDS AND THE WAR IN GAZA THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES Uniting Hearts, Inspiring Action

CONTENTS 2 FROM A SUCKER PUNCH

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BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST

4 SEPARATING NATIONALISM

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WHY DOES ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. LOVE THE PHRASE “COMMON SENSE”?

7 THE U.S. IS PLAYING THE

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TURNING FRIENDS INTO ENEMIES

10 WHITE HOUSE LISTS

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IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION

12 BIG BRANDS FUEL THE

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WHO WE ARE

14 CASES CLOSED

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STAY IN THE KNOW

TO CHARLIE KIRK’S DEATH

AND CHRISTIANITY: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ADVENTISM

WRONG ROLE IN THE GOOD SAMARITAN STORY

SMITHSONIAN EXHIBITS IT FINDS OBJECTIONABLE

WAR MACHINE IN GAZA

16 IS DEMOCRACY DYING IN THE UNITED STATES?

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FROM A SUCKER PUNCH TO CHARLIE KIRK’S DEATH Why we must stop calling our opponents monsters.

Right after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017 someone punched white nationalist Richard Spencer in the face on live television. This led to several days of the internet asking whether it is okay to sucker punch Nazis.

(The answer, for those who missed that session, is that no, it is not OK to sucker punch people who have noxious views, because it is not OK to sucker punch people, period.)

At the time I was deeply disturbed to see how many people were willing to endorse political violence. In retrospect, this seems almost quaint.

Violence Goes Public We don’t know the motive of the shooter who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The shooting may have been politically motivated, or simply a bid for fame, or it may have been the result of some psychotic obsession incomprehensible to a normal mind.

But it’s quite reasonable to fear that this was a political assassination, because over the past decade, political violence has become much more normalized than it was when people were wringing their hands over a simple punch that did no lasting harm to its victim. We’ve seen more violent protests, from antifa to the January 6 mob, and more targeted attacks. The decade has brought us attempted assassinations of a conservative Supreme Court justice, Republican

legislators and of course, Trump, along with the killing of a health care CEO, a police officer who responded to an attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a Democratic state legislator and her husband in Minnesota.

Stand down and knock it off.

The people who do these things are not in any sense normal. The United States does not have the kind of organized political violence you see in countries tipping into civil war. What we have, at the moment, is too many people who have been deranged by life circumstances and mental illness and whose fractured brains have been further sickened in the fever swamp of online politics. The Second Amendment makes it easy for those people to get guns that do realworld damage.

If reports are correct, there is no “reasonable gun control” that could have stopped the attack on Kirk; the shooter appears to have used a boltaction rifle, about the last category of weapon that would be banned. The only policy option is mouth control, attempting to tamp down the

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cultural forces that point sick people toward this most destructive and dangerous form of violence.

conservatives shared and reshared the same handful of low-follower social media accounts celebrating the violence.

In a country of more than 340 million people, there will be people who do terrible things and many more who say terrible things—but while these people are too numerous, they are statistically a tiny share of our overwhelmingly sane and law-abiding electorate. Acting as if they are representative or comparing your opponents to your least favorite dictatorship, risks provoking weak minds to violent countermeasures against the dire threat you’ve conjured.

Which brings me to a final point: Stop monstering your opponents. In the wake of Kirk’s killing, a lot of the responses from the left ran along the lines of, “Sure, he was human garbage, but you still shouldn’t kill him.” When others pushed back, people stood their ground. Why shouldn’t we speak ill of the dead or those who offered respectful eulogies, if they were terrible people?

One answer is that it’s a bit cowardly to criticize the dead, who can’t reply. Another is that politically, it’s a bad look; adding to the pain of a family in mourning seems spiteful and petty in the face of the momentousness of death. But the most important answer is that this country needs fewer impassioned denunciations and more understanding of our opponents as complicated people who can hold bad ideas while also exhibiting praiseworthy virtues.

Of course, it’s more satisfying to fight monsters than flawed humans who are, like you, struggling their way through this vale of tears. But if you insist on hunting for monsters, you run the risk that some of your hunting companions will decide to go in for the kill.

Stop monstering your opponents.

Keyboard Control The most obvious place to start is with the legions of keyboard warriors, 101st Chairborne Division, who enjoy spinning online fantasies about hurting their political opponents—or glorifying those who do, like Luigi Mangione.

Almost all those people are just talking, trying to signal their ideological purity or make themselves feel tougher and more courageous than their nondescript white-collar job would otherwise suggest. But they are giving ideas to those who want to do more than talk, including the idea that hurting other people can be a shortcut to fame.

So stand down and knock it off. You are not a member of the online French Resistance; you are a soft and silly adolescent engaging in performative sociopathy to compensate for your real-world deficits.

Speaking of the French Resistance—another way to lessen the risk of political violence is to stop amplifying your political disputes into existential threats.

There has long been a left-wing cottage industry using dodgy data to conjure up an exaggerated threat from right-wing “domestic terrorism.” (The threat exists, but the numbers thrown around are inflated.) On liberal social media, one cannot go long without stumbling across some expert claiming to have diagnosed America’s descent into fascism, rather than more ordinarily bad governance. There are just as many self-panickers on the right ranting about deep state conspiracies and cultural Marxism. In the wake of Kirk’s shooting, some of those announced that “they” had declared war on conservatives, as if the entire left (most of whom were appropriately horrified by the killing) had voted to put a guy on that rooftop. With relish,

—Megan McArdle is a Washington Post columnist and the author of "The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success.” This article appeared September 11, 2025 at wapo.st/46GbVu9

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SEPARATING NATIONALISM AND CHRISTIANITY: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ADVENTISM It should not be controversial to exhort Christians to tangibly show compassion and care for members of our society. Nevertheless, urgings like this are often met with responses that balk at the notion that the church should be concerned about love or social justice. A notable contingent believes this talk of “love” is just “milk”—not the real “meat” of mature Christians.

Furthermore, they contend, it is inappropriate for the church to be involved in matters that are best left to secular government, asserting that preaching sermons about helping others is “politicizing” religion. Many who believe this simply ignore all the emphases throughout the Bible imploring God’s people to actively address others’ suffering. Apparently, Christians’ time is best spent in self-absorption to figure out how to appear more “holy.”

It is disappointing that the church is abdicating its responsibilities toward the alleviation of societal harms and trivializing that responsibility as a “political” pursuit. Meanwhile, some wings of government—at least in the US— argue that it is not the government’s duty to tend to those who are hurting. Instead, they uphold that caring for others should be up to neighbors and charitable organizations—such as churches. Those who are hungry, unhoused, and displaced are someone else’s problem. Helping those in need seems to be a hot potato everyone wants to toss to someone else. It is all the more ironic when the parties involved

include those who claim the US is a “Christian nation.” In their ideal vision, the US is a Christian country in which church and state are merged, yet neither the government nor the church believe it is their responsibility to help those who are most vulnerable.

Some still maintain that Christian Nationalism is not problematic.

Let us not forget, those of us who identify as Christian profess belief in a religion that calls for compassion toward those who are poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised, targets of unjust systems, refugees, and orphans. Support of this can be found across the Bible: Leviticus 19:33, 34; Deuteronomy 15:11; Deuteronomy 27:19; Proverbs 19:17; Proverbs 31:8, 9; Isaiah 1:17; Isaiah 10:1, 2; Isaiah 58:6, 7; Micah 6:8; Matthew 22:39; Matthew 25:31-46; and James 1:27. Scripture’s command to attend to the needs of our neighbors is not confined only to those who share our background or nationality (Luke 10:25-37). While many of us fret about not appearing too political, some factions relish the chance to inject their religious influence into government and intertwine politics with faith.

I have written before about the dangers of

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Christian Nationalism, citing reputable sources to every claim. Despite my thoroughness in exposing the perils of giving Christian Nationalists a platform in Adventist congregations, my work garnered a few comments—some exceptionally long—that boiled down to “nuh-uh!” Some people’s preconceived notions kept them from accepting that “noticing” is an alt-right antisemitic term and that right-winged media personality and activist, Charlie Kirk, is dog whistling to other white supremacists when he says it. Kirk boldly flaunts these antisemitic views, alongside his sexism and racism, and funnels these Christian Nationalist beliefs into his partisan organization, Turning Point USA. Despite its obvious overtures of racism and sexism, some still maintain that Christian Nationalism is not problematic.

Looking at the 900-page Project 2025,— which was architected by the Heritage Foundation—some dismissed this right-winged roadmap as unserious. But over the last six months President Donald Trump has implemented almost 50 percent of its proposals. That same Heritage Foundation has published another plan: Project Esther. This time the scope is international. Those familiar with the Old Testament book recall that Esther was able to use her position to expose plans to harm the Jews and bring about the destruction of their enemies. Most of the story is centered on Haman, who is eventually hanged. Ultimately, all those who were against the Jews were annihilated during Purim.

The first paragraphs of Project Esther refer directly to this story, ending with this chilling proverb: “So many Hamans, and only one Purim”! In their zeal to push Zionism as a means to supposedly usher in the reign of Christ, the Heritage Foundation seeks to eliminate everyone they perceive to be a “Haman,” defined in later paragraphs as anyone who criticizes the Israeli government or expresses sympathetic sentiments toward Palestinians.

The project’s creators avow their desire to “protect American Jewry” and “the sanctity of the core values derived from our Founding documents.” From Project 2025, we have seen what their “core values” entail. They pointedly state that their methods include a plan to “orchestrate actions and activities across society in collaboration (where appropriate) with federal and state government to achieve the desired impact and align resources toward priorities.” In this document they juxtapose “all proud Americans” against “Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim” people. In their minds these identities are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive. The project’s authors expose their already known bigotry by grossly equating the purported coordinations of Hamas’s pogrom with “a George Floyd-style event”—because to them, the cold-blooded murder of an unarmed Black man by a smirking police officer in a public setting in broad daylight was simply an “event” for publicity.

Going National When U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reposts a video of his pastor, Doug Wilson, speaking about his church’s desire to infuse its beliefs into government to create a theocracy— that should be an undeniable cause for alarm.

This is disturbing not just because some far-right pastor has some wacky ideas, but because those ideas are being embraced by people at the upper echelons of government. This is not speculation, fearmongering, or being unduly critical of people who do not espouse what I claim they do. This is a government official unabashedly proclaiming that Christian Nationalist principles are ones he embraces—including the belief that slavery was not entirely bad since there were some presumably good enslavers, that women should not vote, and that “women are the kind of people that people come out of” because “it doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically.”

This is a pastor boasting about Christian Nationalism’s connections to the US executive branch and its influences on the president—a blatant admission that the current administration is being infected by this ideology. Furthermore, this is a declaration that the goal is to spread this dogma, not just throughout the country, but across the world. These are Wilson’s words— words gleefully shared on social media by a top US government official.

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Going Global In their stated objectives to squelch any support for Palestine and all criticisms of the Israeli government, the Heritage Foundation classifies anyone who does either of these as part of a so-called “Hamas Support Network.”

They argue that these individuals should face punishment from the American government and private organizations, including—but not limited to—restrictions on access to education, removal from public office and academic appointments, being barred from social media, being prevented from exercising their First Amendment right to protest, and being kept from the ability to buy, sell, or participate in the US economy. This should alarm of scholars of the book of Revelation.

The U.S. has often played a role in landing people in harm’s way in the first place.

Heritage Foundation’s missive even lists several Jewish people who allegedly abet Hamas and outlines how it is the job of the Project Esther progenitors to save Jews from their own community, as they assert that, as a whole, it has been derelict in the defense of its own people. This foundation seeks to use their feigned concern for eliminating antisemitism to strengthen support for the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians. If their care for the Jewish community was genuine—instead of painting those concerned with human rights abuses as part of some antisemitic cabal—they would focus on actual antisemitic actions and tropes spread by current alt-right leaders and influencers.

This is not the first time we have seen the veneer of caring about “protecting” one group applied as a guise to hurt another. Misogynists use the label of “promoting women’s rights” in their attacks against the LGBTQ community; pedophiles employ the cover of “saving the children” to dismantle education; racists invoke

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saving “Black jobs” as an excuse for xenophobic deportations; antisemites pretend to care about “protecting Jews” to lend credence to their antiMuslim, anti-Palestinian agenda—a word that appropriately describes a 30-page blueprint about how to execute their proposed mission against groups they have declared as their enemies.

When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Bigots are brazenly posting their machinations to use religiosity as a vehicle to leverage influence in the government to achieve their goals of harming others and advancing supremacist ideals across the world. All while the people of God are busy arguing about whether preaching sermons on helping the poor is getting “too political.” Wake up!

We are the hands and feet of Christ. One of those hands should be extending aid, offering assistance, and relieving the pain of those suffering in oppression and impoverishment.

The other hand should be used to actively fight against those who want to co-opt Christianity to use as a conduit of hate. As the apostle Paul wrote: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).

Sharing love, opposing hatred: it really is that simple. If not us then who? If not now, then when?

Groups such as JustLove Collective, Conscience and Justice Council, Adventists for Social Justice, and Adventist Peace Fellowship, among many others, have been working in this vein. It is not partisan to do so. And it is not a responsibility Christians ought to pawn off on someone else.

It is up to us.

—Courtney Ray, MDiv, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist, is an ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She is president of the Society for Black Neuropsychology. This article is adapted from bit.ly/3Wh5Q2q

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THE U.S. IS PLAYING THE WRONG ROLE IN THE GOOD SAMARITAN STORY When I am acclimating myself to my neighbors, one of the things I enjoy doing is asking how they came to be my neighbors. You never really know people’s backgrounds, and it’s always interesting to see people light up at the opportunity to tell you a bit about themselves.

Often, both in Washington D.C. and my home state of Texas, I’ll run into people from Ethiopia.

When I went to college in Austin, I got to know a lot of people whose families came from Ethiopia. In getting to know them, I learned about the conflicts that have forced people to leave their homes in 2022 and obtain protection under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) because of the nation’s ongoing wars and humanitarian crises. The TPS designation allows migrants to live temporarily in the U.S. when they cannot return to their countries safely, often because of dire circumstances. For the Ethiopians I met, TPS offered an escape from physical danger and a chance to thrive in the U.S. while they worked to end the conflict back home and care for their loved ones as best they can.

These classmates, neighbors, and friends have been on my mind as I’ve read about President Donald Trump’s attempts to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Afghans, Cameroonians, and Nepalis. Recently, a federal

court announced that the administration could proceed with ending protections for more than 60,000 people from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Nepal.

TPS offered an escape from physical danger and a chance to thrive in the U.S.

TPS can be described as a way our nation embodies the kind of neighbor-love Jesus describes in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

In the parable, Jesus describes the Samaritan traveler who finds a man beaten up on the side of the road and lodges the man at a nearby inn, generously paying for the man’s care out of his own pocket (See Luke 10:25-37).

Victims, Or Criminals.

But if the U.S. has been the Good Samaritan, offering care to those who found themselves in harm’s way, the Trump administration thinks it’s high time we stopped paying for their care. In trying to end TPS for people from various countries, the administration has claimed it’s now safe for those who once needed

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temporary protection to return home, and, further, that criminals have abused the program.

“For decades, TPS has been abused as a de facto amnesty program to allow unvetted aliens to remain in U.S. indefinitely,” said a news release from the Department of Homeland Security. “Too often these programs have been exploited to allow criminal aliens to come to our country and terrorize American citizens.”

Neither claim by the Trump administration holds up to scrutiny. Let’s take Venezuela for example: While the Trump administration has terminated TPS status for many Venezuelans living in the U.S., it’s also sending Navy ships to threaten “drug cartels” the administration claims are running the country. Now, we can hold a healthy skepticism of Trump’s claims and his impulse to intervene militarily, but it seems odd for a country to be safe enough for its migrants to return, yet so unsafe it needs U.S. intervention.

Furthermore, the American Immigration Council’s analysis of crime and demographic data found that as shares of the immigrant population grew in the U.S., the crime rate actually fell. In other words, removing TPS status doesn’t protect people from criminals; it just winds up sending people back into recognized conflicts.

So far, tens of thousands of people who had previously been protected by TPS are now living in fear and uncertainty as efforts to end TPS make their way through the U.S. court system.

While many of the administration’s attempts have been initially blocked by judges, higher courts are gradually clearing the way for the administration to proceed—unless another court intervenes. This leaves TPS holders in an anxious limbo when they are already monitoring conflicts and disasters at home—a move that demonstrates the administration’s determination to target people with maximum hostility who are already vulnerable.

But let’s back up. Theologically, there’s a problem with the Good Samaritan analogy when it comes to TPS: While we may like to think of the U.S. as the Good Samaritan who takes care of vulnerable neighbors, this ignores the role the U.S. has often played in landing people in harm’s way in the first place.

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Consider Haiti Consider Haiti, one of the countries for which the Trump administration has attempted to revoke TPS, but which is currently being blocked by a federal judge—a decision with which the Department of Homeland Security “vehemently disagrees.” Haiti’s current designation as a TPS-protected country, which began in 2021, was extended in 2024 because of civil conflict on the island. Much of the misery in Haiti is associated with interventions from the United States, with the 1915-1934 occupation, in which the U.S. rewrote the Haitian constitution and advanced U.S. financial interests held on the island; we also backed repressive leaders like François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and contributed to decades of mismanaged humanitarian aid, which only worsened conditions.

The U.S. has often played a role in landing people in harm’s way in the first place.

In 2021 President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by a squad of hit men, some of whom received U.S. training and were allegedly hired and financed by Miami-area companies. In the wake of the assassination, Haiti has faced political instability exacerbated by gang violence and weapons smuggled from U.S. states because of lax gun laws. Earlier this month, Trump ally, Erik Prince, announced a deal in which about 200 personnel from his private security firm would occupy the island to reduce gang violence before taking on a role in the nation’s tax collection—an eerily familiar echo of the U.S. occupation of Haiti in 1915.

This context provides a clear picture of the absurdity of proclaiming that Haitians no longer need temporary protection from conflict. It also

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highlights the problem of assuming we can simply wash our hands of the well-being of Haitian people here in the United States. If we’re considering the parable of the Good Samaritan, we’re much more likely to be seen as sanctioning the robbery and assaults of the stranger.

Priest? Levite? Or Samaritan Despite the remaining court orders that currently prevent the White House from ending TPS status for thousands of people, the administration seems determined to use its power to keep these communities in limbo and, at worst, send people into situations in which their lives will be at risk. All this can make it overwhelming to think of ways to help. And with so many other situations demanding our attention—including images of U.S. troops on our streets—it’s tempting to focus on more personal concerns.

This is the sort of division that the parable of the Good Samaritan obliterates. After the beaten-up man is ignored by religious leaders, it’s ultimately a Samaritan—an outsider—who stops to help. In telling the parable, Jesus makes it clear that it’s the Samaritan whose example we should follow; radical neighbor-love that refuses to see those unlike us as beyond our sphere of concern. Instead, we are all fellow members of a beloved community—and Jesus expects us to treat each other as such.

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Right now, this kind of care might be as simple as reaching out to your neighbors with curiosity about where they’re from and forming genuine connections. When we do this, we learn to appreciate the way we depend on each other. And when we recognize this kind of interdependence, it can spur us to other acts of care, such as supporting national organizations that are working to protect TPS-supported communities.

It might mean visiting a local bakery, coffee shop, restaurant, or worship space we wouldn’t otherwise. When we approach each other and our shared spaces with openness, curiosity, and care, we build vital connections necessary to grow and protect our community and everyone in it. In this way, we build the beloved community when we recognize the image of God truly in us all.

—Chad Stanton is Political Director for Sojoaction.

This article is adapted from sojo.net/articles/opinion/us-playing-wrong-rolegood-samaritan-story Aug 21, 2025.

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WHITE HOUSE LISTS SMITHSONIAN EXHIBITS IT FINDS OBJECTIONABLE The White House has published a list of Smithsonian exhibits, programming, and artwork it considered objectionable, one week after announcing that eight of the institution’s museums must submit their current wall text and future exhibition plans for a comprehensive review.

The list borrows heavily from a recent article in The Federalist that objected to portrayals at several museums. It argued that the National Museum of American History promoted homosexuality by hanging a pride flag; overemphasized Benjamin Franklin’s relationship to slavery in its programming; and supported open borders by depicting migrants watching fireworks “through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border wall.”

Other grievances were previously enumerated in an executive order that President Trump authorized in March, which criticized the National Museum of African American History and Culture for a 2020 worksheet that describes aspects of “whiteness” as “hard work,” “individualism" and “the nuclear family.” The worksheet was part of an online educational portal called Talking About Race. Once it drew

criticism, Lonnie G. Bunch III, secretary of the Smithsonian, had it removed.

The White House list also featured complaints that were not part of the Federalist article or the president’s executive order. Those include a stop-motion animation at the National Portrait Gallery about Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a government leader during the coronavirus pandemic, and a series at the African American museum that it says “featured content from hardcore woke activist Ibram X. Kendi.”

A recent article in The Federalist argued that the National Museum of American History promoted homosexuality by hanging a pride flag.

The Smithsonian Institution and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is an unprecedented pressure campaign and the granularity here is shocking,”

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said Samuel J. Redman, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has written extensively on the Smithsonian’s history.

“This list, even from a cursory look, is cherrypicking various examples from an enormous and diverse museum.”

The unsigned list from the White House was the latest in the president’s effort to overhaul the Smithsonian, which oversees 21 museums, libraries, research centers, and the National Zoo. The Trump administration sent Mr. Bunch a letter saying that eight of its museums had a 120-day deadline to replace whatever the administration considers “divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions.”

Trump also said that the Smithsonian was “out of control” and focused too much on “how bad slavery was.”

The Smithsonian, which has long operated as an independent institution outside the purview of the executive branch, gets 62 percent of its more than $1 billion annual budget from congressional appropriations, federal grants. and government contracts.

This year, Trump said that Vice President JD Vance, who is a member of the Smithsonian’s board, would work with Congress to prohibit expenditures on exhibitions or programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with federal law.” In recent months, Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to the president, has taken credit for leading efforts to overhaul the Smithsonian.

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Some of the White House’s efforts to change the capital’s cultural scene have been successful. Trump purged the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts of Biden appointees and installed himself as its chairman. The director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, resigned in June after the president said he had fired her, calling her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.” The list published by the White House also included material that has been displayed in the National Museum of African Art and the American Art Museum. It is titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian.”

—Zachary Small is a reporter for the New York Times, writing about the art world’s relationship to money, politics, and technology. This article is adapted from nyti.ms/4ns9cvD

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BIG BRANDS FUEL THE WAR MACHINE IN GAZA In 2003, Rachel Corrie, 23, a U.S. college senior, was killed by a bulldozer. This was not a freak accident. Corrie was in Gaza with a team of peace activists, nonviolently protecting Palestinian homes from demolition. The bulldozer operator was an Israel Defense Forces soldier.

The Cat D9 was made in East Peoria, Illinois.

Corrie’s family subsequently sued Caterpillar for war crimes and extra-judicial killing—without success.

In June, the United Nations released an investigation into the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s ongoing anti-Palestinian project. The report adds 48 international corporations, institutions, and charitable organizations to a list of more than 1,000 corporate entities that, violating international law, profit from Israel’s project to displace, replace, and now eliminate Palestinians.

Caterpillar continues to sell Israel “dual-use” (civilian and military) heavy machinery. Since October 2023, Caterpillar equipment has been used to carry out mass demolitions of homes and hospitals, plow under crops, and even bury alive wounded Palestinians. In 2025, Caterpillar secured a new multimillion-dollar contract with Israel.

We rarely think of construction equipment as a weapon. How much less do we think of U.S. companies such as Airbnb, Expedia, and Tripadvisor as part of the war machinery? Yet

they make millions providing services that support Israel’s settlement system. Against international law, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon—also American companies—grant Israel “virtually government-wide access to their cloud and artificial intelligence technologies” according to the U.N. report; without this, it would be impossible to guide armed drones or activate smartphone surveillance.

“This is why some people don’t want peace: they make more money from war.”

Additionally, faith-based charities enable Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. The Israel-based Jewish National Fund (JNF) supports Israeli military infrastructure and West Bank settlements; the U.S. branch of JNF is the largest contributor. The U.S.-based Christian Friends of Israeli Communities sent $1.2 million to projects in the settlements in 2023. According to tax returns, 65 percent of that support went to surveillance cameras, control rooms, emergency command centers, surveillance vehicles, drones, and communication devices in settlement areas.

The weapons supply to Hamas militants is outside the scope of the U.N. report. But in the

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past, Hamas got much of their vastly inferior weaponry from Iran, China, and Russia. After Israel’s near total blockade of Gaza began in 2007, Hamas has improvised by stealing from their enemy and repurposing unexploded ordnance. Last year, Israeli intelligence officials concluded that “a significant number of weapons used by Hamas in the October 7 attacks and in the war in Gaza came from an unlikely source: the Israeli military itself,” according to The New York Times. Since the U.S. supplies two-thirds of Israel’s conventional arms, many of those weapons were likely American-made by Lockheed Martin.

War profiteering is not new. Josiah E. DuBois, a lead war crimes prosecutor at the Nuremburg “industrialist trials” after World War II, called the leaders of the companies that manufactured the infrastructure for mass killing “the generals-ingray-suits.” In 2022, Pope Francis called out the greed of CEOs who make millions off violence.

“This is why some people don’t want peace: they make more money from war,” Francis said.

As Christians, we can be conscientious objectors to this ever-expanding war industry.

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Ten Corporations That Support Israel’s Campaign Against Gaza (in no particular order) Lockheed Martin Microsoft Alphabet Amazon IBM Caterpillar Palantir Technologies Hyundai Volvo BlackRock Vanguard

—Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is senior editor of Sojourners magazine and author of Bending the Arch: Poems. This article is adapted from sojo.net/magazine/september-october2025/big-brands-fuel-war-machine-gaza

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CASES CLOSED The law says you can’t carry a rifle or a shotgun in Washington, D.C. But the Trump administration generally takes a dim view of gun restrictions, and it said that it wouldn’t bother enforcing that provision anymore. (Officials cited a pair of Supreme Court decisions that overturned other gun restrictions.) The administration has made similar announcements about several other laws that don’t align with its agenda.

The Constitution says the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

He has some leeway to decide what that means.

President Obama, for instance, chose not to prosecute a raft of marijuana crimes and put off deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.

President Trump has zealously embraced the same discretion. In the most extreme example, he ordered the Justice Department not to enforce a bipartisan law banning TikTok that the Supreme Court had unanimously upheld. Some experts say that he does not have the power to nullify laws that way.

But not every case is so clear. In many fuzzier instances, Trump is using his discretion to realize his political goals. Here are a few examples of how he is selectively enforcing the law.

The targets Executive agencies don’t have unlimited staff or money, so officials get to make choices about what bothers them most. In February, for example, Trump issued an executive order telling agencies to preserve “limited enforcement resources” by “de-prioritizing” enforcement of certain regulations. Here’s what that looks like: Corruption: Trump ordered the government to stop enforcing a law that makes it illegal for U.S. companies to bribe foreign governments. (He said the law hurts American firms.) The attorney general told the Justice Department not to worry about a law requiring foreign lobbyists to disclose their activities. During Trump’s first term, prosecutors had invoked it to bring charges against several of his allies.

Civil rights: As part of his effort to root out D.E.I., Trump told government offices to stop enforcing many civil rights provisions. A Labor Department office, for instance, will no longer investigate employers who allegedly underpaid women or awarded promotions based on race. The administration has abandoned hundreds of cases under the fair housing law, meaning it won’t prosecute landlords who keep out gay

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people or owners who refuse to sell to people of a different faith. Trump also instructed the government to nix the “disparate-impact” test, which looked at whether minority groups were affected differently by criminal background checks, credit checks, zoning regulations, and more.

Climate: Trump has ordered federal agencies to stop fighting climate change, which means ignoring the statutes that mandate such efforts. Coal plants have skirted pollution limits under the Clean Air Act by asking the E.P.A. nicely over email. In May, Trump told the Energy Department not to enforce what he called “useless” water-conservation rules for things like sinks and showers.

Nobody home A direct order is not the only way to curb enforcement. Trump has also slashed budgets and head counts, which has a similar effect. Laws bite only if people are there to enforce them.

Taxes: Trump culled a quarter of the I.R.S. work force and wants to reduce its funding by nearly 40 percent next year. Taxes account for almost all of the government’s revenue. But Trump’s cuts could limit enforcement and cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars, according to the nonpartisan Tax Law Center. Tax evaders, who tend to be America’s highest earners, may get off easy.

Crypto: The Trump administration moved staff members responsible for enforcing crypto regulations at the S.E.C. into other roles. It also disbanded the Justice Department office responsible for investigating cryptocurrency crimes. (Trump and his family have invested in crypto ventures that stand to benefit from weaker oversight.)

Vulnerable consumers: Since Trump installed the White House’s budget director as acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency has halted nearly all its enforcement actions and tried to fire 90 percent of its workers. Congress created the bureau in 2010 to watch over

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predatory businesses and the big banks that brought on the mortgage crisis.

The Constitution says the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

An interpretive dance Congress makes laws; courts interpret them; and the president enforces them. Yet the president has interpretive power, too. How much interpretation is too much? Consider two examples: The Supreme Court said in 2020 that laws prohibiting sex discrimination in the workplace also apply to sexual orientation and gender identity, and the Biden administration brought such cases on behalf of trans workers. But Trump told the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to stop.

Compared with the Biden administration, which filed 30 cases against polluters in its first six months, the Trump administration has filed 11, according to a Times analysis of federal data.

It’s normal for enforcement to change as administrations come and go. The Supreme Court knows they have different priorities, so its rulings say they can decide on a case-by-case basis not to take action against someone who might have broken the law. But the court has repeatedly barred a more sweeping approach to nonenforcement. The government cannot, the justices say, simply throw out a law.

—Evan Gorlick is a writer for The New York Times newsletter. This article is adapted from bit.ly/4gS8zsN It originally appeared August 25, 2025.

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IS DEMOCRACY DYING IN THE UNITED STATES? On Friday, September 5, Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell told Southern Baptist pastor and Newsmax host Tony Perkins that Trump may try to declare that “there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States" in order to claim “emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,” overriding the Constitution’s clear designation that states alone have control over elections. Mitchell has long called for voting restrictions and was on the infamous January 2021 phone call Trump made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pressed Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” that would give the state’s electoral votes to him rather than the victorious Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.

Democracy Docket, the media organization founded and run by voting rights and election lawyer Marc Elias, has been tracking the administration’s assault on democracy and has repeatedly called out both such language and Trump’s attempts to monkey with the machinery of our democracy through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and now the use of the military in Democratic-led cities.

In August, Jim Saksa of Democracy Docket explained that through intimidation, harassment, and delays, troops could keep large numbers of voters from casting ballots. The administration

might even claim fraud to seize voting machines, as Trump contemplated doing in 2020. In Mother Jones, Ari Berman noted the administration has dismantled efforts to promote election security and is working to stack state elections boards with loyalists.

As the administration has attacked the courts, violent threats against judges have dramatically increased.

MAGA loyalist Steve Bannon recently said: “They’re petrified over at MSNBC and CNN that, hey, since we’re taking control of the cities, there’s going to be ICE officers near polling places. You’re damn right.” Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, speaking of Trump’s threatened military incursion into Chicago, observed: “This is not about fighting crime. This is about the President and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections.”

The administration recently announced a

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surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Boston, then announced a surge into Chicago. Although Trump has been threatening to send federalized National Guard troops, at least so far the announcement appears to be limited to ICE agents, who are part of the country’s regular law enforcement systems. Pritzker noted that the administration had made no effort to reach out to state officials as it would have if it actually wanted to combat crime. Instead, Pritzker said, “we are learning of their operations through their social media as they attempt to produce a reality television show.”

The apparent plan of the Trump administration reflects the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, whose writings seem lately to have captivated leaders on the American right, including billionaire Peter Thiel and the man who influenced him, Curtis Yarvin.

Schmitt opposed liberal democracy, in which the state enables individuals to determine their own fate. Instead, he argued that true democracy erases individual self-determination by making the mass of people one with the state and exercising their will through state power. That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition.

Schmitt theorized that politics is simply about dividing people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush enemies.

As J.D. Vance described Schmitt’s ideas in 2024: “There’s no law, there's just power.”

Much of Schmitt’s philosophy centered around the idea that the power of a nation that is based in a constitution and the rule of law belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law. Trump—who almost certainly has not read Schmitt himself—asserted this view on August 26: “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country’s in danger—and it is in danger in the cities—I can do it.”

Although Republicans control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump should be able to get his agenda passed according to the normal constitutional order.

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But since taking office he has operated under emergency powers. On August 22, Karen Yourish and Charlie Smart noted in the New York Times that since he took office, Trump has declared nine national emergencies and one “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C. The journalists report that since 1981, presidents have declared on average about seven national emergencies per four-year term. Trump declared that many in his first month back in office, although experts say no such emergencies exist.

Under normal constitutional provisions and laws, Trump’s actions would have required congressional approval or long regulatory review, the journalists note. Instead, he has enacted sweeping immigration measures, deregulated energy, launched a tariff war that is crushing the U.S. economy, and now put troops in U.S. cities, all on his own hook.

Even when Trump didn’t announce a new emergency, he has cited crises to justify new extreme actions, as when he (or someone; he told reporters he did not sign the order) invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify rendering undocumented Venezuelan immigrants to the notorious terrorist prison CECOT in El Salvador and when he justified the cuts billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” made to congressionally-approved funding because such cuts addressed “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Although the administration continues to insist voters wanted what Trump is doing, his poor job approval rating and the popular dislike of his policies across the board say the opposite. Perhaps more to the point was this weekend’s social media post from J.D. Vance, who pushed back on widespread concern that the administration’s strike against a boat in international waters last week was illegal. The administration claims that the 11 men in the boat were gang members smuggling drugs, but even if it offered evidence for such an assertion, which it has not done, the U.S. cannot legally kill civilians of a nation with whom we are not at war.

This weekend, Vance posted on social

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media: “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” Political commentator Brian Krassenstein replied: “Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime.” Vance replied: “I don’t give a sh*t what you call it.”

Federal courts are working overtime to hold the administration to the rule of law. As Jay Kuo noted in The Status Kuo, just last week saw courts invalidating most of Trump’s tariffs, stopping the administration from deporting unaccompanied children to Guatemala, and declaring his cuts to Harvard University’s funding, his use of troops in Los Angeles, and his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act illegal. Today an appeals court upheld the $83.3 million judgement a jury rendered last year against Trump in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.

said, Latino Americans must now keep papers on them at all times to prove they are citizens or they can find themselves incarcerated.

The court decided these cases without hearings, briefs, or a written decision, under what is called the “shadow docket.” Traditionally, such unsigned, unexplained decisions are used for emergencies either to keep the status quo or to resolve a procedural issue, but under Trump the court’s use of them has exploded. The court, three of whose justices Trump appointed, has sided with him in shadow docket decisions more than 70 percent of the time.

On September 4, Lawrence Hurley of NBC News noted that this new practice of overturning lower court rulings with no explanation is undermining faith in the judiciary. It supports the administration’s narrative that the courts are trying to subvert Trump’s presidency.

The apparent plan of the Trump administration reflects the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt.

But the Supreme Court has been overruling lower court decisions, deciding in favor of Trump’s expansion of power. It allowed Trump to ignore the decision of a lower court that he could not fire the last remaining Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Slaughter, while her case was in the courts. Since 1935, the court had said the president does not have the power to fire members of independent agencies created by Congress.

It also said that the administration can use racial profiling, including personal appearance, language, or type of employment, to stop people in order to check their immigration status, even though that will necessarily mean that U.S. citizens and legal residents will be swept up. Essentially, Justice Sonia Sotomayor

As the administration has attacked the courts, violent threats against judges have dramatically increased. Hurley notes that the lower courts painstakingly research the law to reach a decision, then administration officials criticize any that doesn’t support their actions, Then Trump appeals to the Supreme Court, which rejects the judges’ decisions with little or no explanation. . . .

The administration appears to be in a rush to replace democracy with a dictatorship before the whole administration collapses.

Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported that 46 percent of Americans—almost half —“strongly disapprove” of the job Trump is doing as president while only 24 percent “strongly approve, a 22 percent enthusiasm gap. . . .

—Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College. Her essays are available at heathercoxrichardson@substack.com.

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BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST A meditation on Matthew 5:6 For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a good person, though I was loath to call it being righteous. I once told a spiritual director that I wanted my life to reflect a beautiful person. I hoped that aspiration would filter through my life.

So, little things mattered, such as choosing bamboo toilet paper to save trees; heathy food for my body as I tried to be patient with “idiotic” behaviors.

The problem, I like McDonald’s French fries.

Trees still die because of my paper consumption. And I’m still impatient with my subjective definition of idiots. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of my consistently inconsistent behaviors. It’s as if all my greatest aspirations are moderated by contradiction and mediocrity, leaving me hungering for goodness.

Let me shift our attention to the recent news about Jeffrey Epstein. A friend encouraged me to watch the recent interview with his victims, who spoke about the challenge of being heard. I did and I grieved. Wanting to know more, I started reading the Wikipedia summary of Epstein’s history. I tried to grasp his sexual convictions, along with his financial malfeasance.

Overwhelmed, I quit reading.

I would wager that most of us have not been entangled in histories such as Epstein’s. But I

would also wager that most of us have felt grief and hunger for a goodness we and our larger world do not have.

Epstein’s victims have that same longing.

Without biblical language framing it, they were saying, “Why hasn’t the justice system heard our long cries for help?” “Why does it take so long to get justice?” “Why is the administration considering a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell?” At their deep heart level, they, too, are thirsting for goodness that this upside-down world has not shown them. Situations like these highlight Jesus words for those who ache for a permeating goodness in a broken world.

I know that the view out my window is only a piece of the sky.

Hungry and Thirsty Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God’s goodness that is not yet here.

Blessed are those who see through the surface façades in the world to the ever present dry and weary land that has no water.

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Blessed are those who walk the ancient path, thirsting for the spring waters of life, and hungry for the manna of God’s goodness. They will be filled.

I have no idea what it feels like to be as hungry and thirsty as those trapped in Gaza. It appalls and humbles me. But I do know what it feels like to hunger and thirst for a better world in which Gazas never happen.

I do know my own hunger in the midst of helplessness; my thirst in the midst of loneliness; my tears and poverty of soul.

I do know how deep calls to deep as joy comes on the wings of mystery, yet soon disappears in the morning mist of daily troubles.

I do know the drumbeat of loss, chronic pain, and temptations to compromise.

I do know that the view out my window is only a piece of the sky.

I sympathize as well with the Israelites of long ago who complained in the wilderness after they had left Egypt. Freed from captivity, but with few daily comforts, that wilderness of their unwanted transformation left them grumbling. No daily baths, deodorant, or French cuisine. No ginger tea to sooth an upset stomach or fresh ground coffee to start the day. Just manna, day in and day out.

So they complained, rebelled, and resisted God’s austerity measures as their cravings took precedence: “We don’t have any meat! In Egypt we could eat all the meat we wanted, and there were cucumbers, melons, all kinds of onions and garlic” (Num. 11:4, 5).* “At least there we had grain and figs and grapevines and pomegranates. But now we don’t even have any water” (Num. 20:5) “We wish the Lord had killed us in Egypt. When we lived there, we could at least sit down and eat all the bread and meat we wanted. But you have brought us out here into this desert, where we are going to die” (Ex. 16:3).

So, like us, at least like me, we hunger and thirst for the world’s comforts and goods.

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different kind of hunger and thirst?

Could this beatitude be the counterpoint to our repetitive story of “more, more from the world” to “I want to a hunger for a better world?

For a thirst for God’s goodness in us right now?

For an ache when all will be well?”

Let’s stop for a moment and consider the righteousness for which we are called to hunger and thirst. The word “righteous” has often been bogged down by a singular interpretive lens we might call a morality code. In the dictionary and we find, “Righteousness is conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong.” Even if we have been educated in a more theological view of righteousness, we often respond to it with similar emotional overtones. Of being holier than thou.

The Great Divorce In many ways, righteousness has been cut off from its Jewish roots and historical development. The Hebrew word for “righteous” (tsadiyq), is not an abstract moral code. Rather, it’s a way of life, a road we walk, a path we journey with God as our only true guide. “If you obey the Lord, he will watch over you and answer your prayers” (Ps. 34:15). “I do what you want and never turn to do evil” (Ps. 18:21). It's not any path, but the path God asks his followers to walk. Ancient Hebrews were a nomadic people, following the same paths from pasture to pasture, campsite to campsite, and watering hole to watering hole. Leaving the path put one in danger of being lost.

This earliest nomadic picture of righteousness is described by Jeremiah. “But you, my people, have turned from me to burn incense to worthless idols. You have left the ancient road to follow an unknown path where you stumble over idols” (Jer. 18:15). We’re not talking about a set of rules and regulations, but about an attune-ment, to listen for the voice of the shepherd and the click, click of a shepherd’s staff on the echoing ground.

The Jesus Way

Development of Righteousness

Could it be that Jesus is wooing us higher up and deeper in with this beatitude, calling us to a

As these nomadic people began to build villages and cities and their bureaucracies grew,

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the path needed clarification. So along came the prophets, clarifying the path as loving God, mercy, and doing justice. For the Lord loves justice; these just ones will see his face. “Learn to live right. See that justice is done. Defend widows and orphans and help the oppressed” (Isa. 1:17).

“Be fair to the poor and to orphans. Defend the helpless and everyone in need” (Ps. 82:3).

We often try to define and control righteousness with law—piety, religious conformity, sacrifices, socially appropriate behaviors. So God employed prophets to voice his heart and instruct in the way of righteousness: “Will thousands of sheep or rivers of oil make God satisfied with me? Should I sacrifice to the Lord my first-born child as payment for my terrible sins? The Lord God has told us what is right and what he demands: ‘See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God’” (Micah 6:7, 8).

New Testament New Testament authors had their own style of expressing this beatitude.

James wrote, “Religion that pleases God the Father must be pure and spotless. You must help needy orphans and widows and not let this world make you evil” (James 1:27).

The apostle Paul used his own expansive vision and cosmic language: “Before the world was created, God had Christ choose to live with him and to be his holy and innocent and loving people” (Eph. 1:4, 5). “We must stop acting like children. We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings, which are like winds that toss us around from place to place. Love should always make us tell the truth. Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ” (Eph. 4:14, 15).

These authors are not laying down rigid codes of conduct or a litmus test of orthodoxy, but a vision in which, together with God, we can be salt and light for all those who hunger and thirst for God’s love in the world.

Cultural Wars What Jesus is teaching transcends our current cultural wars. It’s not about putting prayer back in schools or engraving the Ten

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Commandments on institutional buildings. It’s not taking a black and white stand on abortion.

It’s not about sanitizing history to justify a nation’s re-telling of history. Or libertarian antiregulations or law and order to regulate the heart. Rather it is local communities of people humbly walking God’s ancient path; listening, learning, adapting, removing logs from one’s eyes, reconciling and serving each other for the love of God and the greater good. I suspect our cultural wars are showing us just how far we have lost the road we are to walk.

A Small Piece of the Sky Amid our current global wilderness, it is God’s good work in our hearts that we hunger and thirst for something better. It is God’s good work that can use our trickle of faithfulness when we walk the pilgrim path of justice, mercy, and humility before God, as we accept that the view out our windows is just a small piece of the sky.

God told Habakkuk: “I will give you my message in the form of a vision. Write it clearly enough to be read at a glance. At the time I have decided, my words will come true. You can trust what I say about the future. It may take a long time, but keep on waiting—it will happen! . . . Only those who live by faith are acceptable to me” (Hab. 2:2-4).

—Lisa Holloway is part of the pastoral ministries team at Riderwood, a senior living community in Silver Spring, Maryland.

*Bible texts in this article are taken from the Contemporary English Version (CEV), copyright 1995 by the American Bible Society.

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WHY DOES ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. LOVE THE PHRASE “COMMON SENSE”?

The adage “follow the money” may apply.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. seems fond of the phrase “common sense.” In April, he insisted that autism is now an “epidemic” (a view not shared by most scientists who study autism), asserting that “it just takes a little common sense” to agree with him. At a White House event in May for a new report on children’s health—one subsequently criticized for multiple significant errors, including misrepresentation of study results—Kennedy said, “We’ve relied too much on conflicted research, ignored common sense, or what some would call ‘mother’s intuition.’” In June, he fired the 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, replacing them with eight allies he described as “committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense.”

Common sense is defined by MerriamWebster as “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.”

Often what in good faith seems to be “common sense” isn’t the right solution. Experience or new information can overturn accepted wisdom.

Careful policymakers might advocate a solution to a societal problem that in practice has

unintended negative outcomes. But Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, is also a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist who picks and chooses among studies, scientists, and influencers. Perhaps he is a true believer in his social engineering schemes, but his consistent undermining and avoidance of rigorous expert review feels too convenient.

The Trump administration cut programs that contracted with farmers to supply fresh produce and meat to food banks.

In May, Kennedy launched HHS’ multimilliondollar “Take Back Your Health” public awareness campaign. The stated goal is to “inspire Americans to take back their health through eating real food.” Common sense might tell you Kennedy would advocate proven methods to increase the availability of fresh food for all Americans, especially those facing food scarcity. But the Trump administration cut

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programs that contracted with farmers to supply fresh produce and meat to food banks, and its big, ugly budget bill would cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) support to millions of people. Kennedy could use his position to fight for SNAP funding. Instead, he’s focused on banning artificial dyes and proposing changes that could eliminate access to Affordable Care Act health insurance for millions.

But his health campaign will promote “technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your own health.” Here, the adage “follow the money” may apply. The U.S. wearable technology market value was almost $20 billion in 2023, and Kennedy has deep ties to health influencers and entrepreneurs. For example, Kennedy’s nominee for U.S. surgeon general is Casey Means, a “health-care entrepreneur” who sells a type of

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wearable device—continuous glucose monitors —as a wellness tool. Kennedy hired Means’ brother, lobbyist Calley Means, to focus on food policy as a “special government employee,” thus avoiding government conflict-of-interest restrictions. The Guardian reported that Calley Means “founded a company that helps Americans get such wearable devices reimbursed tax-free.” Because of his special status at HHS, he didn’t have to divest from his personal business interests, which the “Take Back Your Health” campaign may very well benefit.

Is Kennedy driven by common sense or just dollars and cents?

—Julie Polter is editor of Sojourners. This article appeared in its August 2025 issue.

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InterAct

TURNING FRIENDS INTO ENEMIES With the stated goal of making America great again, the Trump administration has largely turned its back on the international organizations and treaties that have made the world a little safer, healthier, and more economically secure in the 80 years since the end of World War II. By abandoning its commitment to use “soft influence” to frame the perception of countries around the world, the United States seems to have adopted the role of a stingy bully who uses force and coercion (through punitive tariffs and threats of military action) to unilaterally assert dominance on the world stage.

Below are some of the international organizations the U.S. no longer supports.

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

The agency dedicated to promoting world peace

The body’s mission is to promote and

and security through international cooperation in

protect human rights around the world.

education, arts, sciences, and culture.

World Trade Organization (WTO) A global organization that sets rules for international trade, aiming to make trade more

World Health Organization (WHO) Coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies.

open, predictable, and inclusive.

Paris Climate Agreement (PCA)

United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA)

A legally binding international treaty that seeks to

Provides direct relief and works

limit global warning to less than 2 degrees (Celsius)

programs for Palestinian refugees.

by setting nationally determined climate actions, plans, and a framework for monitoring progress.

According to the Carnegie Endowment: “This is the world that Donald Trump seeks to destroy. His ambition is to replace the international rule of law with the law of the jungle. Rather than a global order that constrains great power privilege, he envisions a regionalized one in which powerful nations pursue spheres of influence and throw their weight around, browbeating lesser actors. In this purely transactional vision, substantive multilateralism yields to bullying bilateralism. There is no ambition to invest in world order or standing international institutions, or any desire to nurture “diffuse reciprocity”—or expectations that the benefits of cooperation will balance out in the long run. Instead, every interaction is an opportunity for one-sided bargaining to improve America’s relative position against all others. bit.ly/4ok0rnB —Stephen Chavez

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IRRESISTIBLE REVOLUTION I know that I am not alone in the struggle of

Spending time in Iraq while the United States

watching my news feed marinate in the kind of

rained revenge bombs post 9/11, Claiborne points

hypocrisy that makes me question the state of

out the human tendency, especially among

my mental health. Loud “Christian” nationalist

American Christians, to do what makes sense

voices scream for performative grief after the

and claim that God has blessed it. It’s kind of

culture of gun violence they advocate takes one

hard to talk about a Prince of Peace while

of their own, critics of the political right are

Christian extremists are bombing hospitals and

booted off of the air at the behest of the FCC,

preschools.

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ISSUE 15

while a megaphone of the political right suggests

What Claiborne shows in his stories is the

that mentally ill homeless people are dealt with

soul damage of violence. The cost of loving those

by “involuntary lethal injection or something —

whom warlust affects. Reading on, Claiborne

just kill ‘em.” (That guy kept his job after an on-

comes home and grows a community of

air apology.)

believers among those who are poor in

There is something to be said for reminding

Philadelphia. They call their group the Simple

ourselves and others that we are not immune to

Way. They are poor, homeless, and dependent

propaganda, and going out of our way to

upon one another. And yes, they advocate for

consume less of it while we continue to

justice so beautifully. The rest of us should take

advocate for justice.

notes!

I describe Shane Claiborne as an American

Though I’ve not met them, I would dare to

Jesus Hippie. In his book, The Irrestible

assume that they consume considerably less

Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Shane

propaganda than the rest of us.

tells stories about living like Jesus with the poor, and learning that you can certainly find a way around the “but what about…” things that keep us serving each other. It turns out there’s a lot we can accomplish when we’re willing to be uncomfortable.

—Marcia Nordmeye

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WHO WE ARE Pulse is the monthly digital magazine of JustLove Collective.

The sponsors of this issue of Pulse wish to remain anonymous. (Thank you.)

Designed by Jeffers Media.

PULSE CORRESPONDENTS

Unless indicated otherwise all Bible references are from the New Revised Standard Version.

STEPHEN CHAVEZ Is a writer and editor, retired after a career in pastoral ministry and as an assistant editor of Adventist Review.

MARCIA NORDMEYER Is a circulation/reference associate at Union Adventist University's library in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is happily married to Jeremy. Their two children are encouraged to read banned books.

LISA HOLLOWAY Is part of the pastoral team at Riderwood, a senior living community in Silver Spring, Maryland.

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Pulse / JustLove Collective / October 2025 / Issue 19

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JUSTLOVE NOTES Discover JustLove Notes—a twice-monthly Substack offering illuminating the vibrant intersection of faith, justice, and love. Each issue features curated book recommendations, evocative music, and thought-provoking articles designed to inspire your spirit and empower meaningful change. Join us on this journey of discovery and transformation.

SOCIAL MEDIA

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Connecting hearts, sharing faith — safe space for LGBTQ+ Adventists.

sdakinship.org

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INSPIRATION COLLECTIVE Podcasts we just love

A House on Fire: This Adventist Peace Fellowship podcast series is based on the excellent book on race and racism

Red Letter Christian Podcast: Christian commentary on the way of Jesus in the world today

Adventist Voices: Weekly podcast and companion to Spectrum designed to foster community through conversation

Adventist Pilgrimage: A lively monthly podcast focusing on the academic side of Adventist history

The Social Jesus Podcast talks about the intersection of Jesus, faith, and social justice today

Just Liberty: A fresh, balanced take on religious liberty—where justice and liberty meet

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Gratitude We are particularly grateful for every contribution to JustLove Collective. Donations are tax-deductible. Though we are a global movement of volunteers, we do need to pay for expenses related to this magazine and to the Summit. For more information, please see our website at justlovecollective.org

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Norma and Richard Osborn

Anonymous

Harry Banks

Something Else Sabbath School

Yolanda and Chris Blake

Eileen and Dave Gemmel

Jill and Greg Hoenes

Heart, Soul & Mind Discipleship Class

Adventist Peace Fellowship Rebekah Wang Cheng and Charles Scriven

Julie and Ty McSorley Elizabeth Rodacker & Ed Borgens SDA Kinship International Adela and Arpad Soo Gillian and Lawrence Geraty Alta Jean & Richard Paul Karah & Tre Thompson Linda & Larry Smith Marit & Steve Case Jackie and Brian Starr

Fountain of Life Foundation Anonymous

ISSUE 15

01/24

SOCIAL MEDIA

ISSUE 15

ONLINE

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justlovecollective.org

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