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Stephen

@stephenwaldron.bsky.social
1.2K followers 349 following 2.3K posts

Theologian writing a book on the political theology of the New Apostolic Reformation. Websites: stephenwaldron.substack.com theologyandsociety.com

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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 5h
A lot of reasons for this are mentioned in the replies here, but one that I don't hear much about is that fact that charging an EV is likely impossible if you live in multifamily housing in an even moderately dense urban area. That's a huge part of the potential market for small, cheap EVs.
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Scott Lemieux @lemieuxlgm.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
If you're a blue state NIMBY, you ride with Donald Trump and Sam Alito. End of story
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amb @amb.fyi · 04/10/2026
Build the housing, run the buses, metaphorically and literally make room to welcome red state refugees into big blue cities
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Anna Ezekiel @annaezekiel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A new open access article by Hugo E. Herrera on Karoline von Günderrode's reception of Schleiermacher - so happy to see research moving in this direction: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Division and interconnection between spirit and the world: Karoline von Günderrode’s reception of Soliloquies - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Division and interconnection between spirit and the world: Karoline von Günderrode’s reception of Soliloquies
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Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 04/10/2026
I'm not sure if she's aware of it but this 2022 @rebeccajtiffany.bsky.social tweet is basically an article of faith at @liberalcurrents.com ( @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com quoted it in www.liberalcurrents.com/feminism-wit... and I've referenced it countless times ever since)
My YIMBY take: Every trans 18 year old who is stuck living w unsupportive family should be able to afford an apartment in a vibrant urban space w transit on a min wage job. (+raise the min wage). Build so much housing that that is the norm. Same for others stuck in bad situations
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Sort of insane fact about how broken US urban planning is—America now spends more building *just the lights for roads and highways* than on all subways & ground mass transit combined Spending on roadway *pavement* is 18x transit spending
a graph of roadway and mass transit lights
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Cover of the book Ideologies in the Age of Extremes: Liberalism, Conservatism, Communism, Fascism 1914-1991 by Willie Thompson
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dan mentos @danmentos.com · 22/09/2026
[job interview] interviewer: so god killed all your kids? job: that's right
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Claire E. Aubin @ceaubin.com · 01/10/2026
I also want to be clear that I don’t mean a conglomeration of circumstances *will* make *everybody* bad. Just that imagining yourself/anybody else to be naturally (due to empathy) above the world we are all subjected to is a fantasy. Like good things, anybody on earth is capable of very bad things.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Once in a while I think about Jory Micah's bizarre journey from normie evangelical feminist twitter poster to rabid antisemite and it's incredibly unnerving.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Lol, autowarcom sounds like an online car dealership.
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Fr Chase 🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁 @kalanthropos.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Youth pastor voice
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
To be clear, I'm a big fan of more traditional theological education (which I would define as like "reading and discussing Rosemary Radford Ruether"). I just don't know that there's much of a market for that at this point.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
More traditional theological education that revolves around academic learning and engagement with mainstream scholarship seems to have fallen on hard times, though. Maybe that's good, I'm not sure!
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The comment in the article about theological education being in crisis makes me think a lot of different things. Theological education in conservative Baptist (and adjacent) contexts seems to be thriving overall. Theological education linked to progressive activism (as described here) is surviving.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One real divide is between those (like D. French) who admit that the thing has fallen apart and those (like Kristian) who are at least acting like they're deluded enough to think it'll all come back together after some internal reforms.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There was a core of institutionally powerful evangelicals who truly believed the "compassionate conservatism" thing and thought that everyone else in their camp did as well. They kind of still do and assume that this is all just a passing cloud. After all, they have biblical truth on their side.
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Jay Geller @jaygeller.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This lack of differentiation is not accidental. There is a long history of blurring the lines between "victim groups" intentionally. Ultimately, it allows non-Jewish/Roma/Jehovah's witnesses/etc. Germans to say that during that era, they too were victims on equal footing with Jews and the others.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Seeing people arguing about whether the United Methodist Church or conservatives who left it were "culturally influenced" and despairing. The broad Christian public has not learned the basic lesson of historicism: none of us are outside history or culture. We are always part of and creating them.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Every time this happens it's reported like "unforeseeable phenomenon of 'oversupply' causing market rate rents to fall" when this is an entirely predictable result of doing the thing that very few unaffordable cities bother to do.
Wall Street Journal promoting an article on falling market rate housing costs in Portland, Oregon.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Today, a guy walked by me on the street loudly talking on the phone about how "if you murder people you won't get put in jail but if you say anything bad about the Jews you will." There's a lot of antisemitism that has been boosted by social media, imo.
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Joe Fish @sadbusdriver.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
the thing with luxury condos is that they're mostly a myth. 1. within the same county, condos sell for 35% less than single family homes 2. within the same neighborhood, they sell for 43% less 3. within the same neighborhood and adjusting for some quality characteristics, they sell for 21% less
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Cover of the book "A History of Western Music: Poems" by August Kleinzahler
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This one is a very easy read. It's not bad, but probably won't be shocking to anyone who has followed religion journalism and religious demography (e.g., stuff by Ryan Burge) in recent years.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Cover of the book "Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters" by Bob Smietana
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dr. hazel 🕸️🕷️ @hazelmonforton.com · 18/09/2026
The "they don't know I'm" party meme except it's the pope when he was young, at an actual party, actually holding a drink. Tweeted by user @hardflics with the caption "They don't know I'm the future Pope."
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
One big question: is it possible to promote greater openness-to-experience in the percentage of any given large population that is genetically predisposed against it?
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
All forms of racism are downstream from small minds that live in small worlds. Ultimately, we need to solve that.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
One of the many intellectual shortcomings of white racists in the US is the idea that there's a single culture to which people can "assimilate." I have a cousin who would have been at Texas football games a few years ago. Others have found other parts of US culture to assimilate to or not.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Yes, agreed that good administrators are necessary (and instructors who disregard admin work are worse as a consequence). I still think that higher ed ends up being very admin-heavy, partly because instructors have too often ceded too much of that work, thinking that it's beneath them.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Using Lilly's endowment to build schools' endowments... I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not (it probably is), but it seems a little bit absurd on the surface.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
That's a lot of money! I wonder how much of it will go directly into theological education, rather than endless layers of admin and infrastructure. Like, you could hire a couple thousand people for 3 years with that kind of money.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Not sure how he found kids who look so "Aryan," but it's unnerving for sure. Luckily, it seems to be a pretty empty stadium. This stuff is a failing effort, but more people will be murdered before it's over.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Anecdotally, I remember this coming up at a party with a bunch of philosophers, one of whom raised the issue and the rest of whom were somewhere between offended and puzzled at the idea that golf courses are an ecological and land use nightmare.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
He's not wrong, and I wonder how golf courses as land use/water use would poll if they were the kind of public concern they should be.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yeah, most churches/denominations are struggling there. Mainline churches have the problem of often restricting their implied audience to people with graduate degrees, though. Pentecostals/charismatics are often far more open to people with lower educational attainment, which imo is ideal.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yeah, I think Catholicism has staying power for reasons that no Protestant body can replicate (both in terms of ecclesiology and culture).
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I believe it was an Episcopal Church-specific study, though? Seems like we're doing a natural experiment on a much larger scale.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yeah, I think a lot of people make that choice. Go to the church with bad music because of other priorities. But church leaders should do their best not to make that the choice.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
At some point, seminary education should include a substantial reckoning with how the seminarian and much of what they've learned are going to be far removed from the lives and vocabulary of most of their audience, which is something they will have to continually deal with in church leadership.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The other thing: when progressive churches refuse to use contemporary music, they're doing the same thing as blue state NIMBYs: literally strengthening their political enemies. Why? I'm guessing they just don't realize what they're effectively doing.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
To connect this to a couple of my other favorite topics: a lot of this is an educational attainment gap issue. People with higher ed degrees tend to find traditional church music more fitting, and guess who leads almost all mainline and progressive churches? It's one more form of alienation.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Not sure, but a lot of people are fine with telecasts of services at "satellite campuses," so.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I like a lot of it personally, but I'm mostly talking about what people go for in general. I don't think most people who join non-denominational megachurches are necessarily in it for the theology or anything. They're looking for something that connects with their lives and doesn't bore them.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I'm not saying that more traditional church music won't work for anyone anywhere, but it's generally not going to attract or keep most people. If that's the hill that churches want to die on, they can take that principled stand, but they should know that that's the choice they're making.
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
For a lot of small, struggling mainline churches this is an understandable shortcoming, but the bigger ones who don't adapt are choosing to die. And if churches are worried that contemporary worship music is too formulaic or shallow, they're probably limiting themselves to white church music, imo.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18/09/2026
i am genuinely bewildered by people who say that the rise of white nationalism in the republican party is a response to the "woke left." like, did the woke left cause pat buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign? is the woke left why steve king had a long career in congress?
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
open.substack.com/pub/johnganz...
open.substack.com
Reason v. Rule
The Real AI Risk is to Culture Itself
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Ganz is onto something here. There's a reason that breakthroughs in mathematics have typically been achieved by young people while truly great work in the humanities usually doesn't happen until middle age.
Excerpt from John Ganz substack on AI and Aristotle on techne and phronesis
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Stephen @stephenwaldron.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's not my discipline, so I can't say much about those questions about whether it should have been published. I do think that blowback shouldn't be a consideration for journals. I just have a general reaction of "what are we even going here?"
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