It’s Ruining Dinner with Diana Butler Bass on Tax day! Also, apparently, the day the Vice President told the Pope to stop doing theology. Diana Butler Bass joined me for what was supposed to be a casual religion news roundup and turned into something I didn’t entirely expect — a full-on church history seminar about what happens when empire tries to silence the gospel and why it never actually works. We started where everyone started this week: JD Vance, a newly minted Catholic who received what sounds like the Peter Thiel E-Z Pass lane through RCIA, publicly suggesting that the Pope — the Pope — should think more carefully before opining about theology. The same Pope who then responded to a Pentagon threat referencing the Avignon papacy by giving an even stronger anti-war speech. We talked about Trump’s Easter posts, the Jesus meme, the “I thought I was a doctor” explanation, and the remarkable spectacle of evangelicals — evangelicals — saying the president might be demon-possessed.
But Diana being Diana, she kept pulling the historical threads, and we ended up somewhere genuinely useful: the long story of how American Christianity split the sacred from the secular, why that split is breaking down, what it means for a congregation trying to figure out what to do with the 250th anniversary of a nation that’s currently threatening popes and bombing people on Easter Sunday, and why Whitehead’s image of the flickering Galilean vision might be the most honest thing you can say right now about where hope lives. We didn’t ruin anything. The ruining is, as Diana noted, already adequately covered.
Want to hangout with us in person?! Join 600+ Listeners, 30 theologians, & 30 God-Pods at Theology Beer Camp 2026 this October 8-10 in Kansas City!
This conversation was originally for our Substack members, but we’re sharing a portion with all of you – join us at The Process This or The Cottage to catch future episodes live!
Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.
Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp
Two Books, One Night: Finding Beauty in What We Can’t Control
Religious Liberty & Violence – Unpacking the First 100 Days of Trump 2.0
Shall the Fundies (Keep) Winning?, Abortion, and Black Holes
Ruining Dinner with Diana Butler Bass and Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
Evangelical Decline, the Supreme Court, and the Horizon of Possibility
Hang with Diana Butler Bass and Tripp Fuller at Theology Beer Camp 2026!
Something is brewing for Theology Beer Camp 2026. And we’re kicking things off with a little beautiful chaos.
We are launching an epic giveaway. Not a prize bundle — a care package for apocalyptic times.
We’re giving away “Broadcast from the Wasteland: The Beautiful Resistance Collection” — 15 books that won’t let you stay comfortable:
Authors who go after white evangelicalism, Christian nationalism, and empire economics — hard
Explorations of disgust theology, enemy love, and the sacred work of untangling church from state
Voices broadcasting hope from the ruins, helping you see what’s ending and imagine what comes next
Your resistance reading list. Your broadcast from the wasteland. Your invitation to the work of reconstruction.
Three winners. Here’s what’s up for grabs:
🥇 Grand Prize ($1,200 value)
Choose 10 books from the collection
Two TBC 2026 tickets — in-person or online, bring a friend
Two custom 1L steins for toasting the revolution
🥈🥉 2nd & 3rd Place
Choose 5 books from the collection
👉 Enter now: tinyurl.com/TBC26GiveAway
Join Our New Donation-Based Online Class - Theology for Troublemakers!
The injustices we face are immense—but they are not unique. What theological and ethical tools and ideas can we take from previous generations to confront our social ills today?
For over four decades, Dr. Gary Dorrien has been one of the foremost scholars of liberal theology, social ethics, and democratic socialism—tracing the movements and figures who dared to believe that Christianity demands justice. His multi-volume histories have shaped how a generation understands the social gospel, Black theology, and the ongoing struggle for a more just world.
This course begins where all serious social ethics must begin: with the social movements themselves. What was actually happening when Reverdy Ransom and Ida B. Wells called for a “new abolition”? How did Reinhold Niebuhr’s realism shape—and sometimes limit—Christian engagement with power? Why did welfare mothers become the leaders of a national movement for economic justice? What made James Cone declare that Black Power was the gospel?
Only by understanding what these figures and movements accomplished thencan we wrestle with what faithfulness demands of us now.
WHAT IS INCLUDED?
6 Pre-Recorded Lectures: Each video lecture features Dr. Dorrien’s masterful teaching, drawing on decades of historical research and his landmark scholarship in social ethics and liberal theology.
6 Livestream Conversations: Each week includes a live conversation with Gary Dorrien, Aaron Staufer, and Tripp Fuller—your chance to ask questions and engage directly with one of the world’s leading scholars of Christian social ethics.
Guest Lecturers: Learn from a diverse range of voices including Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joe Strife, Nicholas Hayes Mota, Carolyn Baker, Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Charlene Sinclair.
Online Community: Connect with other participants in the private Facebook group and access all lectures and livestream replays on the Class Resource Page.
ASYNCHRONOUS CLASS: You can participate fully without being present at any specific time. Replays are available on the Class Resource Page.
COST: A course like this is typically offered for $250 or more. Your contributions are what make our classes possible. We invite you to contribute whatever amount you feel led to give (including $0).
