iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Bessent spoke at my son’s graduation. Talked about the holocaust being evil (duh), then contrasted it with the moon landing. Said things can go from bad to good in a hurry. The moon landing offset genocide, in his opinion. Not civil rights. Not the end of apartheid. The effing moon landing. 🙄

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

College: REAL ID is all you need. College: if you don’t have “REAL ID” you have to provide proof of citizenship. College: no, your birth certificate cannot be used to verify your citizenship. Easier if you just get a REAL ID. DMV: bring your birth certificate to get a REAL ID. 🙄

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Another moment when The Handmaid’s Tale feels all too prescient.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Just finished reading Pete Enns’s book Curveball. A good portion of it addresses understanding God through science. Not just on the big evolutionary scale but also at the quantum level where things are wildly unpredictable. Good stuff.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Great writing on Dobson. The disconnect between his supposed work on the Meese Commission and everything else he did is astounding.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I live in SC, where scholarship has been banned and the worst of human biases have adapted themselves to modern social and political discourse. And I can’t help but believe that things could be so much better if we’d let history speak to us.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

movement in NC. Things just were the way the were. At best, no reason; at worst, “they” didn’t like “us” and just wanted to cause trouble. That’s all we have left when we ignore history, refuse to talk with and listen to one another, and deny any opportunity for accountability and restoration. Now

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

that racial tensions in and near Plymouth were real (I never felt it, but I was told), but no one said why. No one talked about our history, about things that had happened just a few decades before my family moved there in 1988. And I certainly never learned anything about the white supremacy

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I never learned anything about any of it in school. I attended school in Washington, NC 4th grade through graduation. And none of this ever came up. I lived in Plymouth, but I never learned of the Plymouth Massacre. I spent time in Williamston, but never heard of Sarah Small. I knew, or was told,

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

So many incredibly important people and events were in the places I lived and went to school. In fact, Dr King gave an early version of his Dream speech in eastern NC roughly 10 months before delivering the speech in Washington DC. But like David mentions in this article,

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

A couple years ago, I came across David Cecelski’s website. He’s an historian who studies NC, especially eastern NC where I grew up. I’ve been surprised to learn how significant my hometown (Plymouth) and nearby areas were to the civil rights movement. davidcecelski.com/2026/03/05/r...

davidcecelski.com

Reflections on Teaching the History of the White Supremacy Movement of 1898-1900

A few weeks ago, I gave a lecture at Duke Law School on the history of the white supremacy movement of 1898-1900 and how it shaped our political system, our society, and our legal system here in No…

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

“They rightfully expect that … I will not offer them information without addressing the connection between what they are learning and their overall life experiences.”

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

“There are times when I walk into classrooms overflowing with students who feel terribly wounded in their psyches … yet I do not think they want therapy from me. They do want an education that is healing to the uninformed, unknowing spirit.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

I work with men who are in prison, and I’m constantly trying to understand my responsibility to them in terms of their own desires to recover their lives and move forward in a positive direction. Rereading bell hooks, this line resonates:

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

The only part that makes sense is calling trump a “boy.”

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

My son graduated from univ. of South Carolina and had Scott Bessent 🙄. 4 yrs of quality ed topped by an irrational cabbage-head. Mentioned the horrors of the holocaust then tried to offset that with the effing moon landing. Not civil rights. Not the end of apartheid. The effing moon landing.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

If anyone’s thinking of a Weekend At Bernie’s spinoff…

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

It’s the same kind of evil that murdered Charlie. And Melissa Hortman. And Palestinians. And Iranian school kids. And George Floyd. It’s like evangelicals’ definition of evil is simply which “side” gets it.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I think vouchers also have to do with pushing hard-right political education on kids. A $7k voucher is just enough to make evangelical schools affordable; non-eva schools run $20k + per yr. Eva schools are largely sold out to GOP. I used to be admin in an ACSI school. ACSI pays lobbyists.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Yes, and I think it’s also about pushing hard-right political education.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

George Floyd and Charlie Kirk shared the same birthday. Floyd’s murder by police reminds me how much work remains in pursuit of “liberty and justice for all.” Charlie’s life reminds me that so many stand in opposition to liberty and justice and baptize their opposition in religious language.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

It will be interesting to see if he and his family make it out on Thursday. Evangelicals voted for this.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

What is essential, though, is that each of us—including those of us who work for justice—admit our lostness and look to be found. This is a tough one for me. Restoration > retribution @broadleafbooks.bsky.social bookshop.org/p/books/lost...

bookshop.org

Lost, Hidden, Small: Finding the Way of Jesus Where We Never Think to Look

Finding the Way of Jesus Where We Never Think to Look

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

They were lost together in their pain, their pride, and their alienation of the “other.” This doesn’t mean they were equally privileged or empowered. Accountability and repair requires something different of each of us.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

“When Jesus talked about the lost, he was talking to bitterly divided groups of people.” Oppressors and oppressed—the people in the crowd were and had been both victims and offenders at various times. Each of them needed to recover wholeness, first within themselves, then among one another.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

“A life of faith is a life of unlearning our certainty… Life with Jesus is learning to see as Jesus sees. And here's the thing: On the Jesus Way, sight precedes salvation … And seeing, we enter into the kingdom, stunned to realize it is already in our midst.” K H Murphy @broadleafbooks.bsky.social

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

To all the school students complaining “why do I have to learn this? I’m never gonna use it” You might be president one day, and we’re gonna need you to know some stuff.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

@PayTelComm advertises itself as an ethical company that invests in “restorative initiatives,” but as soon as @FCC caved to the sheriffs and backed out of its 2024 ruling, PayTel doubled the cost of phone calls for incarcerated people. Integrity has a price, I guess.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I keep thinking about the sacred-secular split that “worldview” people make into a thing. Not sure I can get those thoughts into a post though.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I think for some it’s the idea that Jesus’s message is personal, not political—Jesus wants one person to care for another, but government is about swords and punishments. (I used to think that way too.)

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

The criminal justice system in this country is already short of justice. Having a president who mocks the very notion of justice is incredibly shameful.

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

He did not try to overthrow the government. Nor did he assault police officers. He made a bad choice related to drugs. Years of incarceration, loss of job, strain on wife and kids, still facing “collateral consequences” after “paying his debt to society.”

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Jonathan Branch @jonathanbranch.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

One thing that bothers me about the pardons is that I work everyday with men incarcerated for far less. Last week, a man who completed our program was denied a job, not because he wasn’t qualified, because he has 6 mos of supervised release.

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