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. Benjamin Boswell's sermon How to Be Blessed, written during the 2017 Muslim ban but still painfully relevant today. We talk about why so many churches have twisted "blessing" into wealth and status, how the Puritan work ethic shaped today's bootstrap theology, and why individualism keeps separating faith from the care Jesus commanded.

We also get into churches turning people away for baby formula, the myth of laziness in capitalism, Ludwig Müller rewriting the Beatitudes for Nazi Germany, and why empathy is one of the first casualties when a culture slips toward authoritarianism.

And finally, we read Boswell's modern Beatitudes — blessings for refugees, immigrants, disabled people, Black and brown lives, Muslims, mourners, and all who stand for dignity — and wrestle with where we see ourselves in them.

SHOW NOTES:

For the Facing of this Hour: Preaching that Resists White Christian Nationalism by Benjamin Boswell

A Church Undone: Documents from the German Christian Faith Movement, 1932-1940 by Mary M. Solberg

Axios - Charlotte Faith Leaders Push Back on Trump's Immigration Agenda

NPR - Russell Moore on 'an altar call' for Evangelical America

Propublica - "Ticking Time Bomb": A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn't Get an Abortion in Texas.

Huffpost - A Woman Tested Faith Centers' Willingness To Donate Formula. What She Found Says A Lot About Charity In The U.S.