The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” — Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride, The first Christians didn’t call themselves Christians. It wasn’t some congratulatory self-identifier as it is today; a way of loudly trumpeting one’s own supposed goodness, quickly slapped on social media bios, bumper stickers, and t-shirts without forethought, personal cost, or empir...

This week, Donald Trump committed blasphememe . He reposted an AI-slop, pseudo-Baroque, Jesus-coded conservative fever-dream fresco of himself in a flowing red and white robe, his glowing hand resting over the forehead of a stricken male, while flanked by a series of awestruck, reverent figures, each one whiter than the other. A rockets’ red glare hodgepodge of cheesy, street corner souvenir shop...

The Trump Administration and its MAGA disciples are at war with the Pope. Add him to their ever-growing enemies list, comprised of clergy, politicians, military personnel, journalists, athletes, musicians, and actors who dare not bend the knee to their Dear Leader; people who have the audacity to oppose this regime’s wasteful violence. In his Palm Sunday address in St. Peter’s Square, just a week...

The words Walter Reed showed up on my timeline over the weekend. I confess that my heart fluttered, my spirit quickened, and I pulled out our corkscrew and put it on the counter, just in case. A few hours later… false alarm. Party postponed. Humanity, still hostage. Unfettered lunatic, still at the wheel. Annihilation, still in play. Hellscape, still fully ablaze. While I would never wish anyone h...

If you voted for Donald Trump, you owe America’s children an apology. You owe them an apology for making them grow up with a hateful, incompetent, petulant, predatory monster as their President. For placing their safety in the hands of an impulsive toddler who trolls world leaders with nuclear annihilation and wields the military like a petrified coward. For unleashing the fierce tide of bigotry t...

Hey, friends, this message isn’t for everyone. It’s not for people who are okay. If you’re perfectly fine, you can skip this. If you’re emotionally regulated, mentally stable, and physically well-rested, go ahead and opt out. Gold star today! If your nervous system isn’t all sorts of jacked up, your sleep isn’t utter trash, your breathing isn’t short and shallow, and your faith in humanity isn’t h...

This Easter, the MAGA God lovers will be everywhere. Your social media feed, your street, and perhaps even your dinner table may be filled with people who loudly claim adoration for both Jesus Christ and this President. Their profiles will be adorned with effusive soliloquies about their steadfast faith. They will share memes proudly declaring that Jesus is Risen. They will publicly pledge their f...

Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, welcome to reality. It was always going to end this way. We tried to warn you. Those of us who’ve been paying attention for the past two hundred and fifty years here pleaded with you not to be distracted by the seductive pull of proximity to power, because it was never going to be permanent with those men. Your elevation in their midst could never be anything but tempora...

A reader recently told me that she thinks I’ve become too negative lately: that she misses the optimistic version of me that she got to know before the 2024 election. “I miss that version of me, too,” I assured her. Then I asked: “So, do you want me to be optimistic or honest?” I wasn’t being facetious or sarcastic with the question. I know that she (like myself and every other sentient human bein...

As someone who grew up in the Church and who spent three decades ministering within it, there’s something particularly distressing about the expansive hellscape we’re all stuck in right now: it’s all because of white, professed Christians who are committed to being terrible. They’re the ones persecuting trans people for existing,the ones working incessantly to deny people the right to vote,the one...

There’s a good deal of online dialogue lately about how we should be responding to people around us, who are finally beginning to extricate themselves from the MAGA death cult; whether due to human rights atrocities, war crimes, pedophile protection, or simply high gas prices and a decimated 401K. Ex-Trumpers have posted tearful monologues about the vitriol they’ve experienced as they’ve stepped i...

“I love Donald Trump. We'll never get another president like Donald Trump. That is why it's important we do everything we can to try to get him re-elected.” A Republican Congressperson didn’t say this a few days ago. A Fox News anchor didn’t say it. A Nazi content creator didn’t say it. Your racist neighbor didn’t say it. (Well, maybe…) Franklin Graham said this. One of the Evangelical world’s mos...

Sometimes you don’t notice attrition when it happens. When you lose elemental parts of yourself, they don’t all depart at once, and since you’re sustaining the daily woundings of this life from the inside, you may not be aware of the thousands of tiny cuts at the time. You may not notice the lifeblood slowly draining from your spirit. In fact, you might believe you’re who you’ve always been, until...

A friend of mine who is politically active and engaged every day in justice work here in our town recently confessed to me and a group of friends, “Dozens of times a day, I look around at everyone seemingly on autopilot, and I just want to scream, ‘The world is f*****g on fire, people!’” I felt seen. According to a recent NPR article , three major reports warn that Democracy in America under Trump...

People often accuse me of being anti-Trump supporters I suppose practically speaking, they’re often correct, but they’re also missing the point, sometimes mistakenly and sometimes intentionally. Well-meaning friends might say this as an oversimplified bit of descriptive shorthand; a way of quickly summarizing the work I do, the words I write and speak, the activism I engage in, and the directness...

A Message to the Would-Be King… We see that you’ve declared yet another war this week. This time, you haven’t viciously attacked some distant nation whose people you’ve bombed without cause, as a reckless and deadly act of distraction. This time, you haven’t launched a violent campaign against brown-skinned human beings, whose dehumanization you’ve trafficked in for over a decade. This time, you h...

Kristian A. Smith is a public theologian, Spiritual Humanist, and digital pastor of The Faith Community Virtual — an inclusive, justice-rooted ministry anchored in Greatest Commandment Theology. A proud child of the Black Church and fifth-generation Baptist preacher, Kristian holds a Master of Divinity from Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology. He is the host of Holy Smokes: Cigars and Sp...

This Saturday is No Kings Day. More than 3,000 protests are planned throughout every state in the U.S., as well as hundreds of cities around the world. If last year’s events are any indication, close to ten million people could be in attendance. We can safely make some predictions about what will happen. this weekend: The National Mall will be overrun by a massive, ebullient mob of radical woke le...

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” These words are a continual presence these days. I hear them a couple of hundred times a day in one form or another. I read them in desperate social media outbursts. I overhear them in coffee shop conversations. I find them in my inbox from friends and from strangers. I hear them in my own head. They are the symptoms of a shared sickness we now find ourselves affl...

How can anyone still support him? Tens of millions of us still find ourselves asking this question, watching a staggering number of Americans somehow remain unflinching in their devotion to this President. Despite high crimes, sexual assaults, cognitive decline, reckless wars, and an authoritarian agenda, they remain seemingly giddy over his existence. But Trump’s supporters aren’t necessarily ple...

Recently, Donald Trump ridiculed California Governor Gavin Newsom’s dyslexia, saying, “Honestly, I'm all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president." Personally, I’d rather have a human being with dyslexia leading our nation than a felonious, traitorous rapist who has the compassion of a ham sandwich, but that’s just me. Trump’s comments, as disgusting and dangerous as they ar...

I still remember the precise moment I stopped believing in hell. Over two decades ago, I was at a Christmas dinner party in the home of a gay couple. From the outside, it looked like any holiday gathering: a warm, beautifully decorated room filled with people laughing and telling stories in the soft glow of the tree, while the silky voice of Johnny Mathis wafted through the air along with the heav...

A vote is loud, Trump supporters. Whether that vote is cast joyfully, or with trepidation, or begrudgingly, or without all the information, or as a protest, it makes the same bold statements: This is my choice. I am with this person. I consent to their conduct. I co-sign their actions. I endorse them. A vote doesn’t have qualifiers, caveats, or escape clauses. It simply says Yes or No . And as we’...

As horrifying and sad as it is watching the worst inhumanity of the past repeating itself in the place we call home, it does allow us to look back and get some idea as to where we’re likely headed. For students of History, the last two years here in America have been one long experience of Déjà vu of the worst kind: a growing assemblage of governmental red flag overreach, incendiary rhetoric desig...

Dear Muslim Friends, I’m an American Christian, and I wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that the loudest voices representing my faith tradition right now seem to be the most hateful ones, the most violent ones, the ones least like Jesus. I’m sorry that these voices are making you feel unwelcome and unloved; that they are magnifying fear, leveraging ignorance, and trafficking in stereoty...