Fascism, Faith and the Cost of Silence with Father David Gierlach

Fascism does not only advance from above, it advances through accommodation of the intolerable.

This week, Trump said the massive triumphal arch he wants to build in Washington, D.C., a monument to himself looming between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery, could double as a military complex, complete with drones, ammunition, and snipers on the roof.

Stephen Miller is leading an effort across the federal government to track down and deport migrant children.

They're using information gathered supposedly to protect these children to find them and the people caring for them.

About 200,000 children have reportedly been ordered deported since Trump returned to power.

Then there was Trump casually asking, when do I blow the entire nation up? As he considered escalating the war on Iran.

Tens of millions of lives discussed as though they are his to extinguish, like he's playing a video game.

And ICE arrested nearly 51,000 people in August alone, a record, while masked Asians terrorize communities and more people die at their hands.

snipers atop a monument to Trump, children hunted through government files, tens of thousands seized in a month, an entire country threatened with destruction.

This is where we are.

This is what people are accommodating to.

This is the consolidation of fascism, the spectacle of violence, the machinery of oppression, the persecution of Black and Brown immigrants and those who appear to be immigrants.

And the open assertion that there are no limits on what this regime can do or whose lives it can destroy.

And this regime wraps all of it in the language of God and country and Christian righteousness.

Christian fascist leaders invoke God to sanctify cruelty, domination.

and an American empire rooted in white supremacy and male supremacy.

It gives this fascism its moral permission structure, where cruelty is turned into virtue, domination into divine order, and submission to Trump into a test of faith.

Too many religious institutions have met this, if not with outright support Too many have met this with silence or accommodation.

But this is not the whole story.

Religious leaders and their congregants have defended immigrants, stood against war, challenged Christian fascism, and put themselves on the front line for the persecuted.

They are drawing on faith, not as a refuge from the world, but as a moral mandate to confront injustice.

What does it mean to recognize that fascism is here, not simply as an intellectual conclusion, but as a reality that demands action? What responsibility falls on religious leaders and people of faith and all people of conscience? And how can individual acts of courage become part of the collective resistance needed to politically defeat this fascism? That is at the heart of my conversation with Father David Gierlach.

Let's get into it.

Fascism does not only advance from above, it advances through accommodation of the intolerable.

This week, Trump said the massive triumphal arch he wants to build in Washington, D.C., a monument to himself looming between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery, could double as a military complex, complete with drones, ammunition, and snipers on the roof.

Stephen Miller is leading an effort across the federal government to track down and deport migrant children.

They're using information gathered supposedly to protect these children to find them and the people caring for them.

About 200,000 children have reportedly been ordered deported since Trump returned to power.

Then there was Trump casually asking, when do I blow the entire nation up? As he considered escalating the war on Iran.

Tens of millions of lives discussed as though they are his to extinguish, like he's playing a video game.

And ICE arrested nearly 51,000 people in August alone, a record, while masked Asians terrorize communities and more people die at their hands.

snipers atop a monument to Trump, children hunted through government files, tens of thousands seized in a month, an entire country threatened with destruction.

This is where we are.

This is what people are accommodating to.

This is the consolidation of fascism, the spectacle of violence, the machinery of oppression, the persecution of Black and Brown immigrants and those who appear to be immigrants.

And the open assertion that there are no limits on what this regime can do or whose lives it can destroy.

And this regime wraps all of it in the language of God and country and Christian righteousness.

Christian fascist leaders invoke God to sanctify cruelty, domination.

and an American empire rooted in white supremacy and male supremacy.

It gives this fascism its moral permission structure, where cruelty is turned into virtue, domination into divine order, and submission to Trump into a test of faith.

Too many religious institutions have met this, if not with outright support Too many have met this with silence or accommodation.

But this is not the whole story.

Religious leaders and their congregants have defended immigrants, stood against war, challenged Christian fascism, and put themselves on the front line for the persecuted.

They are drawing on faith, not as a refuge from the world, but as a moral mandate to confront injustice.

What does it mean to recognize that fascism is here, not simply as an intellectual conclusion, but as a reality that demands action? What responsibility falls on religious leaders and people of faith and all people of conscience? And how can individual acts of courage become part of the collective resistance needed to politically defeat this fascism? That is at the heart of my conversation with Father David Gierlach.

Let's get into it.