The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast

Well, it turns out, the Evangelicals were right. The pulpit-pounding preachers were right. Franklin Graham was right. The Republicans were right. Donald Trump was right. Fox News was right. The Religious Right was right. Every single one of them was speaking gospel truth all along. They’ve all been warning me for years, and I didn’t want to believe them, lest hopelessness set in. But the proof is...

If you’re a professed Christian currently still supporting this President and this Administration, and you’re on your way to church on Sunday, here are a few things you might talk with God about in between the songs and sermons: Pray about the tens of millions of sick, elderly, and poor who are slowly being suffocated, driven to poverty and illness and starvation, as your President sabotages the A...

Dear Friend, Thank you for your note letting me know that you’re worried about me, that you’re concerned about my health, and that you’re not sure that I realize I’m coming across as really angry lately. I do realize it, and yes, your assessment is correct. I am angry. I can imagine I’m not all that fun to be around right now, and that from time to time my words can be received as combative or abr...

Surveying my social media feed this week, the questions swirl like a storm inside my head as a former pastor: How does someone end up here? What happens in the journey of a soul that brings it to such a barren place? How does a human being reach this kind of moral wasteland? How do millions of professed followers of Jesus reach a point where they collectively harbor predators, willfully abandon su...

This week, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who sought to once again deny LGBTQ+ people the right to marry. The courts have no business taking away such elemental freedoms to begin with, so this was welcome news, but neither do the supposed Christians relentlessly imploring the courts to undo marriage equality. Kim Davis doesn’t need to bless same-gen...

This week, I finally reached my limit for bad news. A few days ago, something showed up on my timeline (I can’t even remember exactly what, to be honest), and it was as if my already fragile psyche broke, sending me spiraling into an expansive five-alarm emotional crisis that was somehow equal parts panic attack, emotional numbness, and scalding rage. I think the kids call it “crashing out.” The d...

Eight Senate Democrats caved last night, breaking ranks with their party and partnering with Trump and the Republicans on a deal to reopen the Government. They do so without the continuations of the ACA subsidies that precipitated the shutdown to begin with—a supposed dealbreaker for the Dems, one that, like so many other party lines drawn to oppose this authoritarian regime, has ultimately proven...

The steady stream of vitriol that progressive Christians receive from MAGA Evangelicals is completely understandable. As they fire off threatening texts, furiously tap out expletive-laden emails, and break into violent, performative histrionics on social media, I genuinely feel for them. They often receive some really bad second-hand news from us that blows up the story they’ve spent a long time t...

Dear Friend, There’s a good chance you won’t see this, as at some point over the past year or so you either unfriended, unfollowed, or physically disconnected from me, or I from you. There may have been a decisive severing or a slow drifting apart, but the resulting space between us is the same. Still, I’m hopeful that somehow these words will reach you, because there are some things that you need...

On Monday night, 24-year-old Marshawn Kneeland ran a blocked punt into the end zone, scoring a touchdown for his Dallas Cowboys, amid the deafening roar of 80,000 home crowd fans and before the eyes of millions of people watching around the country. On Thursday morning, he was gone by his own hands. He was a young man living his childhood dream, someone at the pinnacle of his profession, less than...

Dear Zohran Mamdani and Muslims in America, Witnessing the simply staggering hatred directed at you during the New York City Mayoral campaign, and one hundredfold now in the wake of the Mayor-Elect’s victory, as an American Christian, I wanted to apologize. I’m sorry that the loudest voices representing my faith tradition right now seem to be the most hateful ones, the ones least like Jesus. I’m s...

Did you feel that, America? The steady, throbbing kick-drum rhythm thundering throughout this land on election night? Boom boom…boom boom… boom boom…boom boom… You could feel it in Michigan…and in Detroit,and New York,and California,and Virginia.and New Jersey. Boom boom…boom boom… boom boom…boom boom… In historic gubernatorial races, in flipped Congressional seats, and in shifted city councils… B...

Dear Phobic Christians, I’m not sure how we got here. I don’t know how you ended up deciding that anyone else’s body, their gender identity, or their sexual orientation was any of your business. I don’t know who told you that you had any right to tell another human being who they could be attracted to or find contentment with, or what pronouns they should use for themselves, or how they should dre...

I may not know you, but I think I know something about you. I know you’ve felt something break inside lately, an invisible fracture that only you’re fully aware of. I know the way you walk away from conversations with people you once relied on for wisdom and clarity and compassion, doubting your own sanity because you no longer recognize those things in them. I know the way you feel internally est...

Well, we’re in the “Jesus didn’t say we should feed people” portion of the fall of American Evangelicalism. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, as the Conservative Church has had one foot in Hell and one on a banana peel since it rubber-stamped a sexual predator to our highest office a decade ago. Still, it’s heartbreaking watching millions of supposed Christians reach a new collective moral bott...

A previously undiscovered version of the Christian scriptures was recently unearthed during renovations of a Mar-a-Lago bathroom. This new ‘MAGA Translation’ contains the ‘Gospel According to Don,’ ‘Book of 2 Republicans, and of course, ‘Insurrections.’ The text’s genesis is said to be around the time of the 2016 Presidential Campaign, just after Donald Trump secured the GOP nomination. They now c...

Miserable. Every time I see them, this is the word that prevails. Whenever I encounter a supporter of Donald Trump on social media now, or scan the crowds at his propaganda rallies, or see his surrogates bloviating on talk shows or pounding upon pulpits, I am left with the same conclusion: they are a people bereft of joy. There is so little happiness, so little benevolence, so little kindness. The...

A few days ago, I ran into a friend from my former church at the grocery store. We were quickly catching up on the last eighteen months of one another’s lives while the cashier logged and bagged her purchases. The conversation eventually drifted to the state of the world, and my friend casually interrupted with a revelation that nearly knocked me into the colorful tower of impulse items behind me....

What a difference a couple of millennia make. There’s a story about Jesus that all four New Testament Gospel writers record in their accounts of his life. He’s been teaching a disparate gathering of humanity spread out in front of him. The location is remote, the hour is late, and the people are hungry. When his students suggest that he send the people away so that they can eat something, the writ...

Do you hear that? These Republicans are telling you something right now, America. If you listen carefully, the message they’re sending is unmistakable. With every panicked, quivering, desperate move, they are speaking with absolute clarity. They are confirming how frightened they are right now. There is no other logical conclusion to be reached. There is only one reason they continually gerrymande...

Dear White Hateful White Christians, For a long time, I misunderstood my feelings toward you. You would pop up on my social media feed, show up in my neighborhood, say something over Thanksgiving dinner, or I’d overhear you at a restaurant, and what seemed like rage would rise quickly within me. I thought it was abject hatred. Recently, I realized that I don’t hate you; I feel sorry for you. I gri...

WARNING: May be triggering for those with severe depression, suicidal ideation, or thoughts of self-harm Depression is a real b*****d. If it’s ever visited you, you understand. I’ve spent three decades co-existing with my lingering sadness. Such a clever and persuasive liar, it doesn’t require facts to rob you of your hope. You can have all the evidence in the world in front of you that life is be...

We’re cooked. I hear a lot of people saying that right now. (Well, they usually use a more colorful word than "cooked.”) And, I’m not gonna lie, I often find that showing up as the trending story inside my head lately, too. I also know it’s crap fiction born out of excessive doomscrolling and a lack of fresh air. Yes, it’s all manner of jacked-up out there, and yes, there is real, quantifiable dat...

Running low on hope these days? You’re in good company, friend. For many of us, it’s been a tall order to try and fend off the discouragement that seems unrelenting right now; too much bad news for our battered minds to contain, too much sadness for us to bear. Sleep and rest have been hard to come by. Joy seems in short supply. I get it. If your eyes are tired from scanning the horizon, straining...

This is painful to witness. Watching the White House’s beautiful East Wing being leveled by bulldozers, seeing decades of our nation’s rich history crumbling in a few senseless seconds, it’s impossible not to see it as a microcosm of what has been happening for the last ten months, and really the past decade. Trump is doing to it what he has been doing to America: tearing down generations of progr...