What would Jesus drink? According to a growing shelf of American energy drinks, the answer is something with a crown of thorns on the can and a Bible verse on the back.

This week we get into the strange new world of Christian energy drinks. There's Yahweh, with a picture of Christ and the tagline "Take Him Anywhere." There's Agape and its Preachin' Peach, 4GVN with a flavor literally called Gospel Gummy, and Praise Energy, complete with a cartoon mascot named Zion the Lion. We pulled the thread from there and found Christian protein powder, Holy Locust snack bars, hot sauce, beard oil, dog collars, ammunition boxes, and yes, scripture toilet paper. The list does not stop.

Underneath the jokes there's a real question. When a company prints a Bible verse on a product and calls that its ministry, who is actually being reached? We talk about why none of these drinks seem to fund anything beyond brand awareness, why the only people buying a Jesus energy drink are people who already believe, and how "God told me to do it" became the most reliable business plan in the country. We also get into Christian music's grift era, the Marjoe documentary, Byron Donalds finding Jesus in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, and what Gallup's church attendance numbers might have to do with all of it.

Plus a Miko and Berger update at the end, because priorities.

Links:

The Guardian piece

The Internet Today episode that discusses Christian energy drinks

A pastor's D-Day Facebook post, a Defense Secretary's speech at Normandy, and three nights of fire in Belfast. They're all connected. Fresh off two weeks in Northern Ireland teaching the Troubles, Matthew walks through the riots that broke out after a stabbing in north Belfast, the far-right accounts (including Elon Musk's) pouring gas on it from across an ocean, and why the American officials commenting on it don't seem to know loyalist from republican. He also brings a report from a Burt Jones campaign stop, where some of the rhetoric sounded awfully familiar.

Links:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/11/police-warned-addresses-targeted-belfast-riots

https://districtmagazine.ie/features/on-the-ground-at-the-belfast-riots/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/07/pete-hegseth-d-day-speech-immigration-grotesque-stupidity

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/belfast-riots-elon-musk-anti-immigrant-violence-stabbing-rcna349384

After a few weeks away, Matthew and Melissa are back — and they're not easing in. The episode opens with Melissa getting quizzed on actual 1960s Southern voting literacy tests (the ones used to keep Black citizens from the ballot box), and it turns out someone with a bachelor's degree in the year 2026 would've failed plenty of them too.

From there, it's a deep dive into the Louisiana v. Callais decision and what it means for the Voting Rights Act. Matthew and Melissa trace the long history behind it: where the word "gerrymander" comes from, the difference between "cracking" and "packing," the Reconstruction amendments, and the 1873 Colfax Massacre and U.S. v. Cruikshank — a story that runs straight from a burning courthouse in Louisiana to the gutting of Section 2 today. Then they break down the ripple effects already underway across the South and beyond (Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and more), why Justice Kagan's dissent matters, why Alito's "that was a long time ago" reasoning is so galling, and what an actual fix for gerrymandering would even look like.

Books & authors mentioned: Carol Anderson — The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America; Lee Drutman — Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop; Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt — Tyranny of the Minority. Plus the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and Justice Kagan's Callais dissent. 1960s voting tests: https://secure.splcenter.org/page/67431/survey/1?locale=en-US

On this week's episode, we unpack Lillia Ellis's Christian Century piece "Spectator Violence is a Form of Moral Injury," sparked by the recent attempted assassination at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Why does an NPR poll show 30% of Americans now believe political violence may be necessary? What does Simone Weil's writing on the Iliad tell us about how violence dehumanizes the oppressor as much as the victim? And why is "the boy who cried wolf" energy creeping into how we react to attempts on people's lives?

From there, the conversation pulls in Hannah Arendt, Steve Bannon's "flood the zone" strategy, Joseph Goebbels quotes that hit way too close to home, and James Baldwin's most disturbing short story (you've been warned). Matt and Melissa dig into how authoritarianism doesn't need you to believe the lie, it just needs you too exhausted to look for the truth. Plus why education and critical thinking are the actual antidote, why you should always read the graffiti when you travel, and dispatches from Puerto Rico's far-right government gutting their universities.

It wraps with the most unhinged customer service email Melissa has ever received about her y'allainright.co store, involving dozens of postcards, a stranger's mailbox, and one very confused recipient who may or may not be in the Epstein files.

Mentioned in this episode: Lillia Ellis (Christian Century), Simone Weil's "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force," Hannah Arendt, Lillian Smith, James Baldwin's "Going to Meet the Man," Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, and Daniel Immerwahr's How to Hide an Empire.

This week, Melissa and Matt dig into the ongoing entanglement of the Trump administration and Christianity — and why it should bother everyone, especially right after Easter. From Pete Hegseth reading a fake Bible verse pulled from Pulp Fiction at a Pentagon prayer service and comparing the press to Pharisees, to Paula White-Cain telling Trump at Easter lunch that his suffering mirrors Christ's, to Hegseth drawing parallels between a military rescue and the Resurrection, to Trump posting an AI image of himself as Jesus, the lines between political power and faith keep getting blurred.

Then we get into the escalating public feud between Trump and Pope Leo XIV, including Trump's claim that Leo only became pope because of him, Vice President Vance telling the pope to be careful when speaking on theology, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushing back by reminding everyone that the pope isn't freelancing — he's drawing on a thousand years of church teaching on just war. It's a lot. Buckle up.

NPR article: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/15/nx-s1-5779690/pope-leo-donald-trump-war-iran-vance-history

It's Holy Week, and Matt reads a piece he wrote last year exploring the political and revolutionary dimensions of Jesus's final week in Jerusalem. Drawing on Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited, Diana Butler Bass, and Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan's The Last Week, the conversation digs into what "Hosanna" actually means — not a shout of praise but a cry for salvation — and why Jesus's entry into Jerusalem was a deliberate counter-protest to Roman imperial power. They explore how Jesus's first sermon in Luke 4 pointed to the Year of Jubilee, how the "domination system" of political oppression, economic exploitation, and religious legitimation carries into the present, and why growing up Southern Baptist meant missing much of this context. Melissa pushes back, asks questions, and keeps things grounded. They wrap up by sharing what's keeping them sane right now — baseball, hammock weather, bird watching, a dense Irish novel, and the importance of stepping away from the news cycle for your mental health.

Books & Authors Mentioned: Howard Thurman – Jesus and the Disinherited; Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan – The Last Week; Diana Butler Bass – Christianity for the Rest of Us, Freeing Jesus; Lillian Smith – Killers of the Dream; Anna Burns – Milkman

They want you to think the SAVE Act is about showing your ID when you vote. It's not. It's about requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship just to register — and when you actually read the bill, the implications are staggering.

Your driver's license doesn't prove citizenship. A passport does, but roughly half of Americans don't have one. Changed your name when you got married? You'd need to produce a paper trail connecting your birth certificate to your current ID. Nearly 21 million voting-age citizens don't have a current driver's license. More than 3.8 million don't have the required documents at all. And Kansas already tried this — a nearly identical law blocked over 31,000 eligible voters while catching fewer than 30 non-citizens.

Melissa and Matt walk through the Constitution, the history of voter suppression in this country from poll taxes to literacy tests, and the exposed math showing that this bill would actually hurt Republican voters more than Democrats. They break down the lies fueling the whole thing, why Trump is holding DHS funding hostage over it, and the part of the bill almost nobody is talking about — the voter roll purges that could remove you without notice.

The episode closes with the Declaration of Sentiments from 1848 and a reminder that the right to vote has never been given freely in this country. It has always been fought for. Every single time.

SHOWNOTES:

The Hill opinion piece

New York Times article about Kansas' similar law

BipartisanPolicy.org - 5 Things to Know About the SAVE Act

SAVE Act - full text of bill

Check Your Voter Registration

In Episode 26 of This Ain't It, Melissa and Matt dive into the aftermath of the Texas Democratic Senate primary, where James Talirico defeated Jasmine Crockett to become the Democratic candidate. The hosts explore the backlash Talirico has faced from conservative Christian media outlets, including a Christian Post article listing six supposedly "blasphemous" theological takes from the candidate. Melissa and Matt break down each controversy — from Talirico's statement that God is non-binary, to his claim that some of his atheist colleagues in the Texas legislature are more Christ-like than self-proclaimed Christians, to his victory speech comparing his campaign to Jesus flipping tables in the temple.

The conversation goes deeper into the tension between progressive and evangelical Christianity, examining how critics from the religious right are labeling Talirico a "false teacher" while ignoring that his views align with mainstream Protestant theology shared by millions of Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, and others. Matt pulls from the Sermon on the Mount, MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail, and Thoreau's Civil Disobedience to contextualize the discussion. The hosts also touch on the broader issue of theological gatekeeping, the "country club church" mentality, legalism versus authentic faith, race and the Black Lives Matter movement, and why empathy seems to be in short supply.