This Ain't It

What would Jesus drink? According to a growing shelf of American energy drinks, the answer is something with a crown of thorns on the can and a Bible verse on the back. This week we get into the strange new world of Christian energy drinks. There's Yahweh, with a picture of Christ and the tagline "Take Him Anywhere." There's Agape and its Preachin' Peach, 4GVN with a flavor literally called Gospel...

A pastor's D-Day Facebook post, a Defense Secretary's speech at Normandy, and three nights of fire in Belfast. They're all connected. Fresh off two weeks in Northern Ireland teaching the Troubles, Matthew walks through the riots that broke out after a stabbing in north Belfast, the far-right accounts (including Elon Musk's) pouring gas on it from across an ocean, and why the American officials com...

After a few weeks away, Matthew and Melissa are back — and they're not easing in. The episode opens with Melissa getting quizzed on actual 1960s Southern voting literacy tests (the ones used to keep Black citizens from the ballot box), and it turns out someone with a bachelor's degree in the year 2026 would've failed plenty of them too. From there, it's a deep dive into the Louisiana v. Callais de...

On this week's episode, we unpack Lillia Ellis's Christian Century piece " Spectator Violence is a Form of Moral Injury, " sparked by the recent attempted assassination at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Why does an NPR poll show 30% of Americans now believe political violence may be necessary? What does Simone Weil's writing on the Iliad tell us about how violence dehumanizes the oppresso...

This week, Melissa and Matt dig into the ongoing entanglement of the Trump administration and Christianity — and why it should bother everyone, especially right after Easter. From Pete Hegseth reading a fake Bible verse pulled from Pulp Fiction at a Pentagon prayer service and comparing the press to Pharisees, to Paula White-Cain telling Trump at Easter lunch that his suffering mirrors Christ's, t...

It's Holy Week, and Matt reads a piece he wrote last year exploring the political and revolutionary dimensions of Jesus's final week in Jerusalem. Drawing on Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited , Diana Butler Bass, and Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan's The Last Week , the conversation digs into what "Hosanna" actually means — not a shout of praise but a cry for salvation — and why Jes...

They want you to think the SAVE Act is about showing your ID when you vote. It's not. It's about requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship just to register — and when you actually read the bill, the implications are staggering. Your driver's license doesn't prove citizenship. A passport does, but roughly half of Americans don't have one. Changed your name when you got married? You'd need to...

In Episode 26 of This Ain't It, Melissa and Matt dive into the aftermath of the Texas Democratic Senate primary, where James Talirico defeated Jasmine Crockett to become the Democratic candidate. The hosts explore the backlash Talirico has faced from conservative Christian media outlets, including a Christian Post article listing six supposedly "blasphemous" theological takes from the candidate. M...

Eschatology, the study of the end times, isn't just a Sunday School topic anymore. It's shaping military rhetoric, command structures, and foreign policy. When the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, Matthew's first thought wasn't about geopolitics. It was about the end-times ideology driving some of the people in power right now. This week, Matthew and Melissa are joined by Reverend Timothy...

What does it really mean to "take the Lord's name in vain"? If you grew up in a Southern Baptist church like us, you were probably taught it was all about not saying "oh my God" or using God's name as a cuss word. But the deeper meaning of the Third Commandment goes far beyond language. It's about invoking God's name to justify power, violence, injustice, and personal ambition. In this episode, we...

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode discusses sexual abuse. No graphic details are shared. The Epstein files are everywhere right now, but we're not here to rehash the headlines. Instead, we're using this moment to ask a bigger question: why does the church have such a long history of protecting powerful men and silencing the people they hurt? We dig into the stories of David and Bathsheba, Tamar, an...

In this episode, Melissa and Matthew dive into the 74th National Prayer Breakfast, recapping Trump's speech, Pete Hegseth's controversial remarks, and the troubling history behind the event itself. They break down Trump's claims about rising church attendance and Bible sales, and his comments about heaven, as well as Hegseth's speech declaring America a "Christian nation," his use of Mark 8 to fra...

In this episode, we dig into what's happening at the Department of Health and Human Services, and why it should worry anyone who cares about science, public health, or basic reality. We break down RFK Jr.'s role as HHS Secretary, from vaccine policy rollbacks and autism misinformation to fluoride removal, CDC shakeups, and the quiet erosion of evidence-based public health guidance. We talk measles...

This week on This Ain't It , we ask does protesting really change anything? As events continue to unfold in Minneapolis, we talk about the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the demand for "peace" in moments of injustice, and why protest is so often dismissed or criminalized. We dig into the language used by those in power, the role of public witness, and what history—from the civil rights mo...

This week, we wrestle with a story that sparked outrage across political and religious lines: protesters interrupting a church service led by a pastor connected to ICE. What follows isn't a clean answer, but a hard conversation about protest, power, and the uneasy space where faith, law, and morality collide. We talk through Romans 13, Christian nationalism, and the way scripture is often used to...

This week on This Ain't It , we devote the episode to ICE—how it was created, what it has become, and why its current tactics are creating fear rather than safety. Following the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, we step back to look at the agency's origins after 9/11, its rapidly expanding budget, and the escalation of raids far beyond their legal scope. We talk about warrantless arrest...

This week, we unpack the U.S. military operation in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro, not as a breaking-news spectacle, but as part of a much longer story. We talk about America's history of intervention in Latin America and beyond, why so many people are cheering this moment as "strength," and what gets ignored when power replaces diplomacy. From oil and sanctions to immigration narrat...

For our final episode of the year, we step back from the headlines to focus on the people who've been showing up anyway. Inspired by John Lewis's call to make "good trouble" and Fred Rogers' reminder to look for the helpers, we reflect on the groups and individuals who have resisted harm, protected their communities, and quietly done the work of care in a hard year. We talk about parents, students...

This week on This Ain't It , we dig into health care—how we got here, why it works the way it does in the United States, and who gets left behind when coverage is treated as optional instead of essential. We talk through the current news around expiring ACA subsidies, rising premiums, and what it actually means for families who already live paycheck to paycheck. From there, the conversation zooms...

This week on This Ain't It , we're finally diving into a topic we've circled for months: immigration. We look at what's actually happening right now—from canceled citizenship ceremonies to political rhetoric about who "belongs"—and how fear has become the driving force behind so much of the national conversation. From the long, expensive maze of the legal immigration process to the economic realit...

This week on This Ain't It , we're talking about the newest culture-war claim: that empathy is dangerous, unbiblical, or even a sin. Starting with 2 Thessalonians and the recent headlines about "empathy as a Christian battleground," we look at how compassion got politicized — and why some Christians are working so hard to separate love from empathy. We also dig into how scripture actually treats c...

This week on This Ain't It , we're digging into national Christianity (a bit different than Christian nationalism), Pentecost, and why so many American churches still resist the radical inclusion the early church was built on. We talk through Mac Loftin's critique of "national Christianity," the idea that faith in the U.S. has become a national identity instead of a global one, and why some Americ...

This week on This Ain't It , we're sitting with the Beatitudes and asking a simple but uncomfortable question: Are we actually "blessed"? From Russell Moore recalling pastors being accused of "liberal talking points" for quoting Jesus, to 30,000 Charlotte students staying home out of fear of immigration raids, we talk about what happens when compassion gets labeled as weakness. We dig into W. Benj...

This week on This Ain't It , we're diving into the wild claim making the rounds online: that women have "ruined" the workplace. A New York Times podcast and a viral essay insist that empathy, emotional awareness, and accountability are destroying American institutions so we pulled the receipts, the history, and the Bible verses they conveniently left out. From Paul's actual teachings on equality t...

This week on This Ain't It , we're talking about the "s" word—no, not that one, the other one: socialism. We dig into what terms like "socialism," "communism," and "democratic socialism" actually mean—and how they've been twisted into scare words by decades of American politics. From McCarthyism's lingering playbook to today's online outrage machine, we trace how fear and misinformation keep shapi...