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Pastors w/ guns. Screens robbing our attention. Families losing income, homes, and loved ones through detention and deportation. If any of that makes your stomach drop, you’re not alone. We need Sanctuary as christians! We need Shalom. We need Jesus.

Today we sit down with Dianne Garcia, a Mennonite pastor in San Antonio who founded Iglesia Cristiana Roca De Refugio. Diane also leads a nonprofit Nuevos Vecinos serving hundreds of immigrant families. She walks us through what “mass deportation” actually looks like: work authorization stripped, exploitation at work, higher filing fees, loss of benefits, and relentless financial stress, and most devastating... family separation, with parents detained, deported, and children left behind trying to survive a system designed to create suffering.

Along the way, we wrestle with Christian nationalism, gun culture, just war theory, modern drone warfare, and explore one article's plea to reduce the screens in church.

Dianne's 90 Day March

Mejores Juntos

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For more information, you can follow us at
https://www.theologyinpieces.com/
Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces

Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com

Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley
Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim

For more information on the church,
check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org or on instagram.

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Today, we continue: "Theologians in SUV's Coming Back from the Airport".

Listen in on an unfiltered conversation with Sho Baraka about creativity, Christian hip hop, and the hidden forces shaping the modern church. We start light and personal, talking Atlanta culture and the “many hats” Sho wears as a writer, cultural critic, speaker, and artist. From there, he walks us through his origin story: poetry, West Coast influences, freestyling, and the slow work of developing a voice that doesn’t sound like anyone else.

Then we zoom out to the music industry and the attention economy. Sho challenges the pressure to overproduce and to live inside the algorithm, and he names why promotion can feel less like honest communication and more like manipulation. If you’ve ever wondered why so much music feels rushed or hollow, you’ll hear a clear diagnosis and a better vision for making art with patience, maturity, and depth.

The conversation gets even sharper as we talk about the Western church, “relevance,” and the danger of being tethered to empire. Sho argues that what masquerades as church can become Christendom, Christianity shaped to please power. He also reflects on justice work, the temptation to let anger become condemnation, and the hard but hopeful path back through confession, repentance, and real community. If you care about faithfulness, public theology, racial solidarity, and the integrity of Christian witness, this one will stay with you.

Sho came to Waco on he and Malcolm's "Good Culture In An Empire" Tour. If you missed it here, reach out and see if they're coming to your city. They have dates in Denver and Atlanta already lined up.

Check all things Sho Baraka out at www.shobaraka.com/

His Book: He Saw That it Was Good

Latest Album: Spotify: Midnight of a Good Culture / Apple: Midnight of a Good Culture

The Bootmaker's Ballad (Music video)

If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world.

For more information, you can follow us at
https://www.theologyinpieces.com/
Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces

Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com

Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley
Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim

For more information on the church,
check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org or on instagram.

Send us a Question!

“Christ Is King” is everywhere right now and that’s exactly why we needed to slow down and ask what we’re actually confessing. We’re recording during Holy Week, and we feel the tension: the Resurrection is the center of Christian faith, but the name of Jesus keeps getting pulled into arguments about power, violence, and national identity. So we put the slogan on the table and ask whether it’s being used as comfort, as a threat, or as a shortcut to baptize the politics of empire.

We discuss imprecatory psalms, the difference between the oppressed crying out for justice and an empire asking God to bless its weapons. Also, are there prayers that God ignores? Does God listen to the prayers of the wicked? The Pope recently warned that God doesn't listen to those who wage war.

We also take a look at our Mail Bag and there is one consistent theme.... $ Hope you enjoy! Keep writing in!

Sho Baraka & Malcolm's Good Culture in an Empire Event - April 17th! Get your tix.

Resources discussed

Power Over vs. Power Under in Two-Kingdoms by Greg Boyd

The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church by Greg Boyd

Pete Hegseth's Prayer

Terrible tweets:

"the worst of the worst"

Robert Morris released

If this conversation helps you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find thoughtful, grounded faith in a loud, fearful world.

For more information, you can follow us at
https://www.theologyinpieces.com/
Theology in Pieces on Instagram - @theologyinpieces

Email us by emailing hello@theologyinpieces.com

Malcolm Foley - on twitter @MalcolmBFoley
Slim Thompson on twitter @wacoslim

For more information on the church,
check us out at www.mosaicwaco.org or on instagram.