preach

I devour a lot of self-help and self-improvement books, and many preach about the dangers of what happens when you give up.

As investigative journalists like Kathryn Joyce for Salon have documented, the Capitol riot was rooted in Christian nationalism and other far-right ideologies that explicitly preach a belief in strict social hierarchies that put white men in authority over everyone else.

“It certainly cannot argue that it is an agent of change. In the past it has always tried to say it’s about keeping stability - more of the same - and out of panic they are trying to preach what they don’t believe in.”

Passages that inspired Christians to open settlement houses to shelter poor city dwellers and join union picket lines to fight against decrepit working conditions also formed the core of Martin Luther King Jr.'s argument that pastors cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring the earthly hell of racialized oppression.

As Nelson demonstrates via "Daytime Revolution," the couple’s efforts to preach unity in the face of that era’s deep acrimony is a lesson that we could sorely use today.