Monthly Archives: January 2026

I moved to Minnesota a few years ago now. I joined a wonderful congregation of believers at First English Lutheran. It is called “First English” because it was the first English speaking Lutheran church in Faribault.

If my memory serves, we have recently celebrated our 168th year as a congregation. I wasn’t a member the whole time, but it is still a milestone.

Everyone is so kind and generous and loving. Most are Norwegian. They will engage in gentle humor towards the “Swedish” Lutherans from time to time. But I’ve found my people.

I have never been a part of a Scandinavian community of people before. They don’t expect me to eat lutefisk, but it is available at the local grocer. Hot dish is a real thing. Minus 15 isn’t really too bad. It’s the wind that makes it cold. I’m getting used to it.

They find the culture that I escaped from very strange. I think it is hard for Minnesotans to grasp what is actually happening with ICE, they seem a bit shellshocked. But they show up for the community.

But I grew up with the culture that spawned ICE. I grew up in Christian nationalism. I remember the potlucks where the members of the church would laugh and joke about killing Muslims, queers, libtards, Mexicans. The culture that I was steeped in celebrated the murder of George Floyd as a “righteous killing”, and the death of Breonna Taylor as her own just deserts.

I could see the men in my former culture in a pick-up truck stalking and killing Ahmed Arbery for jogging in the wrong neighborhood.

When I was writing about those things at the time, when I was appalled at the senseless slaughter, the response was so immediate and huge that my heart would palpate, I would wake up vomiting. My friends called me woke, liberal, a “Social justice warrior”. The church started splintering. I would delete the posts. Go house to house trying to explain.

But they were convinced I was communist, liberal, woke, feminist…

My new Lutheran friends have a hard time understanding it.

If you were a Democrat, you would never admit it. My father would have disowned me, screamed at me, denounced me. (He passed in 2016). He made life so miserable for my Democrat cousins That they had to block him on Facebook.

One man I know was alienated from his son because his son was a Democrat. His son would invite him over, but have to hide the Joe Biden sign or this man would just scream at him for hours. These aren’t isolated. It was the water we drank, the air we breathed, the atmosphere we lived in.

Anyone who didn’t comply to the right wing agenda would be shunned, ridiculed, or denounced publicly.

At church meetings the jokes were continuous. The assumption was that every good Christian was Republican, authoritarian, homeschooled.

Everyone either was homeschooled or went to Christian school. The curriculum was A Beka.

It is strange for me to be in a culture that doesn’t know a beka.

America was founded on Christian principles. Slavery was good. The wrong side won the civil war. The earth was 6000 years old. “Secular science” has an agenda to destroy Christian values.

For reading, everyone used McGuffey. Bad boys deserved to be beaten and shamed. Good boys have good things happen to them. Children are to be obedient and if they are not, there is the rod of correction applied to the backside.

Pain and fear purposefully inflicted are redemptive. Submit and you won’t be hurt. Cower in fear, and they might leave you alone.

Recite the catechism word for word. Don’t deviate from any declaration of the church.

If we say that cremation is evil, you say, “Yes. We will comply.”

If we say that creation happened in six literal days, you say, “Yes, we will comply.”

If we say that women can’t be trusted in positions of leadership, you say, “Yes, we will comply.”

Anyone who steps out of line is publicly shamed.

And if any girl finds herself pregnant and is stupid enough to ask the church for help, she will be compelled to stand in front of the congregation and ask their forgiveness. Sanctified slut shaming, you know. And then they would all wring their hands in concern over the “scourge of abortion.”

If we say that life begins at conception, you say, “Yes, we will comply.”

If we say that the nine year old girl seduced the grown man, you say, “Yes, we will comply.”

If we say that a man has the right and duty to train up his wife and discipline her as he sees fit, you say, “Yes, we will comply.”

My Norwegian friends would have no idea what to do with this.

Read Tia Levings. Read Valerie Hobbs. Read Rachael Denhollender. Read Sheila Wray Gregoire. Read Kristen Kobes Du Mez. Read Aimee Byrd. Read Rachel Miller Green. It is all there. Documented.

But they already have the answer. Paint them all with the “feminist” brush. They’re liberal women. They have an agenda. They reject motherhood so they try to fulfill themselves with progressive ideas….Yes. I’ve heard it all.

When you say, “I’m not going to comply anymore. This is wrong.” The fallout is immediate and huge.

I was diagnosed with severe anxiety. I lost my home, my church, my job and moved to Minnesota for my own health to start over.

And it was a wonderful move. And terrifying.

What happens is this – the thought of complying is terrifying. But the thought of not complying is even more terrifying. Satan tells you that you will lose everything if you do not comply.

He tells you that your life would be in danger. He tells you that you will be beaten or shot. He tells you that you will lose your job or your family or your kids or your community.

And for many people, that thought is too much. It is easier to comply. It is easier to just turn the mind off and go along.

And then we get ICE.

We groomed an entire generation to comply. Just obey.

But we forget that ICE isn’t about obeying the law. They don’t want to enforce immigration law. That was being enforced better under other administrations.

This is about returning to white power. This is about trying to get the world back where the murderers of black children can grow up free, bragging about it until they die.

This is about white men keeping black and brown people in their place. Cowering at their feet.

This is the KKK with new masks. The world that we were creating where the murderers of Ahmed and George were held accountable is unacceptable.

They were uppity. They stepped out of line.

They didn’t comply.

If we don’t make them comply, we will lose our place and our nation.

This is what it is about.

But something is different here in Minnesota.

The Norwegian Lutherans didn’t comply. They don’t play by the rules because they weren’t brought up with those rules. Comply or die isn’t really in the vocabulary in the Lutheran church like it is in the Reformed churches.

And ICE doesn’t know what to do with that. So they hit, beat, kick, spray, punch. And the more they do, the less Minnesotans are to comply.

So this is where we are.

By the way, if you think I’m talking about Trump, you missed it. Trump is a nasty human turd that only cares about money, vengeance and power for himself. He doesn’t care about white power. Trump only sees Trump. So he is the ultimate loser.

This is Steven Miller, Krisi Noem, Hegseth, Vance, Bondi, and that press talking barbie. They aren’t about the law. This is about “comply or die”.

They’ve been steeped in the same culture I came out of. CCM, Separatism, racism, misogyny. All baptized with a thin Christian veneer.

But if you stepped out of line, you paid a heavy price. If you sent your kids to public school, if you listened to Pink Floyd or Elton John, if you wore modern clothes, if you read “secular” literature – the fallout was immense.

I had a man visit my congregation for a few weeks who wrote me a scathing letter because he found out that my wife read books that I didn’t vet first for her. “How can you sanctify your wife if you allow her to read whatever she wants?”

His wife had a lot of stomach issues and wondered why.

I’m pretty sure my new friends think I make this stuff up.

This is why the Reformed and Evangelical world is still solidly behind the terror in our community.

They were raised with the “board of correction” beating them into submission.

And they still think that is Christianity.

The devil is a liar. You don’t actually lose everything. You gain your soul. Yes, you might lose family, friends, or community. But the reward is immense. You gain that which can never be taken away. You gain freedom, you can breathe again, you can laugh and sing and dance.

You could even get a tattoo if you would like, or an earring.

I kid. What you really gain is a wide space to stand in, infinite possibility, you are set free from the prison that you were in.

And there are those who may even lose their life.

But they will find a hundred fold more in the life to come. God will not let one drop of blood fall to the ground in vain.

More to come….but I’m tired.

One more thing. It is time for me to decide if I want to keep paying to keep this site open. I’m tired, and I wonder at times if anyone even listens, or if they ever did.

If you would like for me to continue this site, I’ve attached a donation form which would be helpful.