Faithful Citizen Podcast

As we mark the first anniversary of The Faithful Citizen , we're releasing a special episode that tackles the troubling cultural trajectory in modern Evangelicalism: the systematic policing of lament. Triggered by a recent response on the Ask Pastor John podcast that categorized raw, unfiltered grief as a sin, Ellison and Keller, with co-writer Mark Langham, deconstruct the fragile theology that d...

Building on our previous autopsies of spiritual abuse and the systemic blind spots that empower apex predators, this episode confronts the vast machinery that keeps the modern culture-war ecosystem running. How does a movement built on the cross suddenly demand the sword? How do millions of believers witness authoritarian cruelty, political supremacy, and systemic gaslighting, yet call it holy rig...

In this episode, we explore the profound cognitive dissonance experienced by the late-twentieth-century latchkey kid. Children raised deep within the American evangelical ecosystem in the 1980s and 90s essentially grew up in two competing theological worlds. On Sundays, they were marched into structured, high-control churches, weighed down by a theology of total depravity, and taught to submit unq...

In our previous essay, Predator’s Playbook , we examined the architecture of evangelical gullibility and how wolves in sheep’s clothing manipulate the Church to subjugate the flock. But exposing the predator is only half the necessary work. Today, we turn our attention to the bleeding flock left in their wake. Spiritual abuse is frequently dismissed as mere “church hurt,” but it is a profound viol...

Content Warning: Today’s episode deals directly with the minds and mechanics of high-level predators, specifically focusing on the psychopathic profile of serial killer Ted Bundy. We'll discuss the nature of violent crimes and severe psychological manipulation. Viewer and listener discretion is strongly advised. Episode Summary In this episode, we step into the intersection of clinical psychology...

An empire can't survive without walls—and its favourite building materials have always been ripped-out verses. Welcome back to the Wilderness. In this episode of The Faithful Citizen, we turn back to face the fortress. Following our deep dive into the spiritual abuse of patriarchy, we confront a darker, more deeply entrenched reality: the fierce policing of women and the policing of racial boundar...

In this urgent follow-up to Baptizing the Curse and Deconstructing Patriarchy , we bypass the usual preamble to dive straight into the deep end. As we step further away from the geopolitical briefing rooms of the modern evangelical establishment, we have to reckon with a darker, more deeply entrenched reality: the fierce, institutional policing of women is not an isolated theological quirk. It is...

The religious establishment can't survive without walls, and its favourite building materials are ripped-out verses. When the spiritual agency of a woman is raised, the gatekeepers retreat behind an exegetical fortress, deploying the letters of the Apostle Paul like tear gas to shut down the conversation. But what if the entire patriarchal machine isn't built on biblical orthodoxy, but on a stagge...

We are living through an era of profound cultural exhaustion, yet instead of offering a refuge, the institutional church has transformed the sanctuary into a briefing room for a senseless culture war. In this episode of The Faithful Citizen , Ellison Keller dismantles the modern machinery of "Biblical Womanhood" and exposes the patriarchal movement for what it truly is: a baptism of the Fall. From...

"In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." What happens when a society isn't conquered by a foreign empire, but implodes from its own internal rot? In this heavy, unflinching episode of The Faithful Citizen , Ellison Keller dives into the darkest sequence in the biblical canon: Judges 19-21. Moving beyond ancient history, Ellison uses this terrifying...

When critics try to diagnose the ailments of the modern American Evangelical Church, they often reach for sci-fi metaphors—usually comparing the church to the assimilation-obsessed Borg or the militant Klingons. But what if we’ve been looking at the wrong alien species? In this episode of The Faithful Citizen , Ellison Keller leans into his unapologetic Trekkie roots to explore a deeply uncomforta...

Content Warning: This episode deals directly with themes of sexual coercion, spiritual abuse, domestic violence, and suicide. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Episode Summary When powerful men fall, society is conditioned to view their actions as isolated moral failures or tragic "lapses in judgment." But what if these abuses aren't glitches in the system? What if they are the system worki...

If you look closely at the Old Testament prophets, you'll find humanity trapped in a relentless loop: we build an idol, suffer the consequences, repent, and then immediately begin gathering gold for our next calf. In this episode of The Faithful Citizen , we turn to 1 Samuel 8 to witness Israel's foundational tragedy. It's the moment the people of God made a calculated choice to trade the holy vul...

If you grew up in the Evangelical ecosystem, you know the story of Gideon: the fearful underdog who defeated the Midianite army with just 300 men, a few trumpets, and a midnight shout. It’s the ultimate Sunday School narrative, teaching us that faith is the only weapon we need to overcome the world. But what happens when we stop reading at the climax? In this episode of The Faithful Citizen , we b...

In the 1990s, the "WWJD" bracelet was the ultimate cultural uniform for a generation of evangelical youth. Handed out by parents and pastors, these simple nylon strips were intended as behavioural management tools—reminders for teenagers to stay polite, compliant, and personally pious. But the institution made a strategic miscalculation: they didn't realize they were handing millions of kids a pie...

There is a golden rule in any major renovation: you can change the paint, update the fixtures, and rearrange the room all you want. But before you swing a sledgehammer, you'd better know exactly which walls are load-bearing. In the final chapter of our  Comfortable Theology  series, we are setting aside the paintbrushes and examining the very foundation of the modern American Church. For decades,...

In Part 1 , we discussed how the modern religious machine exhausts itself fighting ghosts—creating endless culture wars to keep the pews scared and distracted. But what happens when the fog machines clear and your eyes adjust to the room’s reality? You finally see what the empire has been hiding: a massive, gold-hoarding dragon coiled around the altar. In Part 2 of our  Comfortable Theology  serie...

Step into almost any modern American megachurch or dominant Christian nationalist media space, and you’ll be met with a deafening, highly stylized battle cry. But instead of mobilizing against the exploitation of the poor or systemic abuse, the religious machine is shouting at shifting phantoms like "wokeness" and "DEI". In this episode of The Faithful Citizen , host Ellison Keller kicks off the T...

When one of the most foundational architects of the "Evangelical Empire" quotes a single verse about loving the sojourner, and his own theological progeny responds with "breathtaking malice," we are witnessing more than just a social media spat. We are watching a masterclass in what happens when a movement’s political identity finally consumes its theological foundation. In this episode, we perfor...

In times of deep cultural and political confusion, we often scour our feeds waiting for a new strategy or philosophy to save us. But the prophets don't offer new information; instead, they issue a divine subpoena. In this episode, we take Micah 6:8 off of our living room walls and examine it for what it truly is: a formal covenant lawsuit against a society that has lost its soul. We explore the cr...

In the Wilderness of 2026, the American Church faces a terrifying temptation: the lust for a spectacle of judgment. Drawing from the prophetic warnings of Jonah and Amos, this episode examines the "spectator’s hill"—that place where we sit, refreshing our feeds and waiting for our political and religious enemies to burn. We perform a spiritual autopsy on the current state of Evangelicalism, explor...

We're gathered here today not to mourn a tragedy, but to read a coroner’s report. For decades, we were warned that the "Secular World" would kill the Church. We were told that if we didn't fight the Culture War, the faith would be crushed. But the autopsy reveals a different story. The American Evangelical Mind didn’t die of natural causes, and it wasn’t murdered by the "Radical Left." It died by...

We live in an era of the "Big." From the plans for a colossal 250-foot Independence Arch to the rebranding of the Department of War, the structures surrounding us are designed to induce a "vertigo of the soul"—a sense that the State is everything and the individual is nothing. But what if the sheer scale of these monuments is actually a symptom of their impending collapse? In this episode, we expl...

In this episode, we explore the "spiritual biography" of a generation caught between two distinct universes: the earnest moral absolutism of VeggieTales and the systemic fury of Rage Against the Machine . We discuss how these seemingly opposite cultural forces fused to create a cohort of believers who are "tender with people and ruthless with systems". We dive into why the Sunday School lessons ab...

We're watching the end of the post-war order in real time. In this urgent bonus episode, we sit down with two documents: The 1945 UN Charter and the newly released 2026 "Board of Peace" Charter. The difference between them isn't just legal; it's theological. We are moving from a "Family of Nations" model to a "Real Estate Syndicate" model—where peace is no longer a human right, but a luxury produc...