Frank Nance

09/01/2026

I want fewer partisan political pundits pastoring our churches and more Christians pastoring them.

A man can mourn the nearly 3,000 people murdered on 9/11 and also mourn innocent people who died in the wars that followed. Those two things are not contradictory.

You can debate his numbers. You can debate American foreign policy. You can argue about whether particular wars were justified. But mourning human suffering is not the same thing as hating America.

What concerns me far more is the idea that Christianity requires us to divide the world into people whose deaths deserve our grief and people whose deaths do not.

Jesus never commanded us to defend a political party, excuse our country’s mistakes, or treat criticism of America as hostility toward Christ. He told us to love our neighbors, love our enemies, seek truth, show mercy, and recognize the image of God in other people.

Patriotism does not require pretending our country has never done wrong. Christianity certainly doesn’t.

When pastors begin labeling political opponents “enemies of Christ,” I think the church is wandering into dangerous territory. The pulpit should form Christians, not partisan foot soldiers.

I can love my country and still grieve when my country causes suffering. In fact, I would argue that taking responsibility for what we do in the world is a more serious form of patriotism than insisting America must always be the good guy.

I don’t need my pastor to tell me which political team is righteous. I need the church to keep reminding all of us that no political party gets to claim Jesus as its mascot.

09/01/2026

Whatever happened to candidates debating?

I don’t care whether the candidate has an R or a D beside their name. If you’re asking voters to give you six years in the United States Senate, standing on a stage beside your opponent and answering questions shouldn’t be an unreasonable expectation.

James Talarico has publicly challenged Ken Paxton to three televised debates here in Texas. So far, I haven’t seen Paxton accept that challenge. Dr. Annie Andrews has challenged Darlene Graham in South Carolina as well, and Graham hasn’t answered the calls.

That raises a fair question: why not?

Debates aren’t supposed to be comfortable. Candidates don’t get to control every question. They can’t edit the video afterward. They have to defend their record, explain what they believe and respond when someone standing a few feet away disagrees with them.

That used to be considered part of running for office.

And this shouldn’t be partisan. Republican voters should expect it from Republican candidates. Democratic voters should expect it from Democrats.

Endorsements from presidents, parties, donors or political organizations shouldn’t substitute for answering directly to the voters.

If you want the job, show up and make your case.

09/01/2026

I keep coming back to the same question.

How did transgender athletes become this big of a political issue?

We can talk about fairness in women’s sports. People are going to disagree about it. Fine.

But we are talking about a tiny number of college athletes.

Meanwhile, regular people are getting hammered by groceries, gas, insurance, housing and healthcare. We’re spending money on wars. Tariffs are costing businesses money and some of that gets passed right down to the rest of us. The debt keeps growing. Lobbyists and big donors still have enormous influence. Corruption suddenly becomes acceptable or outrageous depending on which party is doing it.

That stuff touches almost everybody.

So why do we hear so much about transgender athletes?

Because it is easy politics.

You can put somebody on a screen, make people angry about them and repeat the same line over and over. That is a whole lot easier than explaining why food costs what it does, who is paying for tariffs, why we are involved in another war, or why politicians never seem quite as bothered by corruption when it is happening on their own side.

Those questions are harder.

They also hit a lot closer to home.

Who is paying more? 🤔

Who is making money? 🤔

Who is funding these politicians? 🤔

Why are we fighting? 🤔

Why does everybody suddenly discover principles when the other team takes power? 🤔

I’m not saying the sports issue should never be discussed. I’m saying the attention ought to match the size of the problem.

If politicians can keep us furious about a handful of athletes while millions of people are worried about their grocery bill, their insurance premium, their rent or the next war, maybe we ought to notice that.

Especially when the people keeping us angry are the same people we should be asking for answers.

08/30/2026

A healthy democracy should have a way to investigate political corruption even after someone leaves office.

That shouldn’t depend on whether we liked the politician or voted for them.

Other countries have learned this the hard way. Peru created special prosecutors and recovered roughly $200 million connected to corruption under Alberto Fujimori. The Philippines recovered billions after Ferdinand Marcos left power. Nigeria worked with foreign governments to recover more than a billion dollars stolen under Sani Abacha.

The lesson isn’t simply “prosecute former leaders.”

It is to build independent institutions capable of following the money, examining contracts and financial relationships, recovering assets that were obtained illegally, and doing it under established laws and normal due process.

There is an equally important warning.

Accountability cannot become political revenge. Peru and the Philippines both saw the families of disgraced leaders return to political power, partly by convincing supporters that investigations were persecution. And Nigeria discovered another problem: even recovered money can be corrupted again if there isn’t transparency about where it goes.

The better principle seems fairly simple.

Leaving office should not provide immunity for corruption. Changing political parties should not determine whether corruption gets investigated. And anyone accused of wrongdoing should receive the same due process regardless of party.

Follow the evidence. Follow the money. Recover what can be proven to have been illegally obtained. Make the process transparent.

Then apply the same standard the next time, regardless of whose name is on the ballot.

Lessons from fallen autocrats

08/25/2026

When we repeatedly talk about a “Muslim takeover,” “invasion,” or the threat of Sharia law, we should think seriously about what that language does.

Most people who repeat it will never commit violence, and criticism of Islam is not the same thing as hatred of Muslims. But rhetoric matters. When an entire group is constantly portrayed as dangerous, disloyal, or threatening our way of life, it becomes easier to fear people we’ve never actually met and easier for extremists to justify hostility toward them.

That is why relationships matter. Before we decide what “they” want, maybe we should actually know some of “them.”

Fear grows very easily in the absence of relationship.

In the homes of two White middle school students, Florida authorities found weapons, bomb components, and a screed on demographic replacement that has incited several mass shooters.

08/25/2026

The Ezra Klein podcast today says a lot in a short time!

A government program cannot really be called successful simply because the benefit exists; it has to be realistically accessible to the people it is supposed to help.

If progressives want people to trust government, they cannot merely expand government programs. They have to make interacting with government feel less like punishment.

The “Time tax” is real, and it means the hours, paperwork, phone calls, documentation, emotional stress, and mental effort required to access government services. For someone already juggling poverty, work, childcare, illness, or unstable housing, that burden can be enormous.

Administrative hurdles are not always accidental. Some programs deliberately create an “ordeal” to discourage people who supposedly do not really need the benefit and to prevent fraud. The problem is that the ordeal also blocks eligible people.

This podcast discussion contrasts programs like SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, and housing assistance with Social Security, Medicare, and the Postal Service. The latter tend to presume eligibility and focus more heavily on delivering the service rather than repeatedly proving that the recipient deserves it.

And we see poverty also imposes a cognitive burden. If someone is already dealing with financial instability, childcare, transportation problems, health problems, or housing insecurity, requiring them to master a complicated bureaucracy can actually make escaping poverty harder.

The broader prescription is not simply “more government.” It is government that is simpler, faster, more respectful, and more focused on outcomes. The phrase they settle on is essentially: make government “simpler, fairer, faster.”

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000785709673

08/24/2026

After a school shooting, Americans often ask why overwhelming grief and public outrage so rarely lead to meaningful action in Washington.

A new Stanford study offers part of the answer.

Looking at 25 years of campaign spending, researchers found that pro-gun PAC contributions increased after fatal school shootings in competitive House districts. The surge was especially large when a shooting occurred close to Election Day.

That suggests the political power of the gun lobby may work in a way we don’t always notice.

It doesn’t necessarily have to persuade most voters that gun laws should remain unchanged. It can instead help protect vulnerable lawmakers at the very moment those lawmakers are facing the greatest pressure from their constituents to act.

In other words, when public grief creates political consequences, organized money can help soften those consequences.

That may help explain one of the most frustrating patterns in American politics: horrific school shootings generate enormous attention, grief, and demands for change, yet those demands so often fail to produce much movement in Washington.

The gun lobby’s influence may be less about changing what Americans believe and more about making it politically safer for lawmakers to ignore them.

New data show how pro-gun groups target their political spending after fatal school shootings.

08/23/2026

This reflection on Exodus got under my skin.

Pharaoh looks at a growing group of people and decides they might become a problem. Then fear starts doing what fear does.

The part I can’t get past is who actually does the right thing.

The midwives refuse to kill children. Moses’ mother does something desperate to save her son. Pharaoh’s own daughter finds this Hebrew baby and helps him anyway.

It’s easy to read Exodus now and shake our heads at Pharaoh. I’m not sure it would have felt that obvious if we had been there listening to all the reasons people gave for being afraid.

Security. Borders. Culture. People who are different from us.

Those arguments aren’t new.

And if my politics are making me more suspicious of immigrants, Muslims or anybody else I barely know, I probably need to ask what that is doing to my faith.

That’s what stayed with me from this.

I know who I want to be in the Exodus story.

I’m less certain I would always recognize it in real time.

Frank Nance

The Holy Rebellion of the Hebrew Midwives

08/21/2026

If I would oppose Muslims using legislative power to require Islamic teachings in public schools, why would I support Christians using legislative power to advance Christian teachings there?

If I would be alarmed by Muslim officials saying America ought to be governed according to Islamic values, should I be equally cautious when Christian officials say government ought to enforce “biblical” values?

If I believe Muslims should live under the Constitution rather than Sharia, shouldn’t Christians also accept that other Americans live under the Constitution rather than Christian doctrine?

https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/muslim-sharia-law-isnt-the-religious?r=cxlef&utm_medium=ios

Frank Nance

The Christian Right has been right.

08/21/2026

Sometimes I wonder whether controversy has become less of a liability for prominent pastors and more of a career strategy. Provocative sermons and culture-war commentary build an audience, that audience creates influence, and influence eventually creates media opportunities. At some point, it becomes difficult to tell where ministry ends and brand-building begins.

🎙️ One of Texas’ most prominent—and controversial—pastors is going national.

Lakepointe Church senior pastor Josh Howerton has partnered with conservative media outlet TheBlaze to expand his “Live Free” podcast without changing the show’s content.