Just finished Wake Up, Dead Man. And WOW. Haven’t watched something this Matt coded since Midnight Mass.

I've been blown away by the generosity shown to my book this year, and wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the books that meant the most to me in 2025—along with a few I'm especially excited to see out in the world in the new year. THREAD

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.

Even if you're not attending #aarsbl2025 or can't make my session, you can buy the book and others in @nyupress.bsky.social's great line of religious studies book at 30% off. nyupress.org/american-aca...

Coming January 2026: Reunion: A Podcast about Family Histories. @jstuart.bsky.social and I have been hard at work reading books and recording and editing episodes for this, and we can't wait to share it with you! Additional info, including a separate feed, subscription link, + guest lineup, TBA.

Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:

For more on Rev. Woolf, who appears to have been arrested today: he published an editorial with @rns.org literally this week titled “Why clergy should risk assault to protest ICE” —> religionnews.com/2025/11/13/w...

Over the past year, my lab has hosted a cohort of people from around the world who are trying to move their communities to online tools under their control. OUT TODAY: Learn about their thinking and doing in our collectively authored Open Social Network Cookbook. https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Please enjoy listening to three religious studies types - me, @kellyjbaker.bsky.social, and the great @mjcressler.bsky.social - talk about THE EXORCIST in nerdy and religiony ways!

Friend of the @podonlyknows.bsky.social pod here, hyping this fun convo. I could talk #TheExorcist for days, especially with these two brilliant and beautiful humans. 😈🖤

We're back tomorrow with more spookiness as we talk to @mjcressler.bsky.social about THE EXORCIST!

I'll leave you from Portland with one last video of the @unpresidentedbrass.bsky.social, the unofficial house band of #NoKings

“I hope that if anyone sees this video and is disturbed by it, that what they think about is that if they are willing to do that to a clergy in broad daylight, imagine what they are doing to detainees in the dark.” Grateful for the prophetic witnesses in our midst. baptistnews.com/article/unit...

“I hope that if anyone sees this video and is disturbed by it, that what they think about is that if they are willing to do that to a clergy in broad daylight, imagine what they are doing to detainees in the dark.” Grateful for the prophetic witnesses in our midst. baptistnews.com/article/unit...

Our new CFP is up and it is monstrous.

Everything that needed saying, and then some. Thank you @jamellebouie.net 🙏🏼 | Charlie Kirk Didn’t Shy Away From Who He Was. We Shouldn’t Either. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

"Unlike prominent right-wing influencers like Mr. Bannon, Charlie Kirk and Laura Loomer, he has no ties to the Trump White House." Well, that's just flat out wrong. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/u...

Yes DC!

Guess I never announced this (rather exciting) news publicly. Along with my ongoing work for @cpitco.bsky.social, not to mention varied and sundry other projects, I'll now be working officially as a Writer™. 🥳🎉🤨

In Middleton, NY. This guy probably saved his neighbors from Trump's masked thugs. This is how you firmly assert your rights and stand up for our communities.

Let them know you're filming them and keep asking the key questions: "Do you have a warrant signed by a judge? Show me." "Do you have a badge? Show me." "Do you know how pathetic you are? You showed me."

DHS is recruiting using a not-so-subtle reference to a 1978 book from white nationalist William Gayley Simpson, Which Way Western Man? Simpson's book was released under an imprint associated with the National Alliance, founded by Turner Diaries author William Luther Pierce.

*whispers* I think the @historians.org "guiding principles for AI in history education" are actually pretty good (and I say this as an historian and a public interest tech professional). 🧵 www.historians.org/resource/gui...

From this month's edition of The Onion.

Families in Gaza are starving to death. Meanwhile, Trump & Netanyahu are using US taxpayer dollars to replace international aid orgs in Gaza with mercenaries — leading to even more deaths. ENOUGH. I led 20 Senators in calling on Trump to stop supporting this barbarity:

Catholic institutions preach justice—but are they practicing it when it comes to workers’ rights? Ken Homan dives into the clash between faith values & labor organizing in Catholic spaces in her piece for @poweratwork.bsky.social. Read now at poweratwork.us/faith-labor-...!

Wait. Chloe Kelly has scored the winner in two Euro Finals. Has any footballer ever done that?

Good piece by @jamellebouie.net taking apart JD Vance's reprehensible immigration worldview on the substance. I'd add that JD seems to cast our admission of immigrants purely as an act of benevolence on our part, when of course that's not the story at all www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

2019 all over psmag.com/ideas/yes-tr...

I wrote about the day the president attended the opening of an American concentration camp:

let's just all ask ourselves very seriously where we think *this* is going and whether or not we'd like to go there www.theguardian.com/us-news/arti...

this is the level of funding where all the possibilities for American politics that have been described as hyperbolic over the past decades - the comparisons to Nazi Germany and other nightmares of the 20th century - become logistically possible and politically likely

Bless me father, because the latest @jgodsmonsters.bsky.social is dedicated to THE EXORCIST. Essays on religion, science, sex, demons, and the 1970s, all #openaccess. @josephlaycock.bsky.social @mjcressler.bsky.social @rmclindsey.bsky.social godsandmonsters-ojs-txstate.tdl.org/godsandmonst...

I think the Catholic Church should do this every day in every city

Pumped to contribute to this special issue on 50 years of The Exorcist for the Journal of Gods and Monsters (this is the revised and published version of a rockstar roundtable we did a couple years back). Check it! 😈🤮 | godsandmonsters-ojs-txstate.tdl.org/godsandmonst...

I just like to post these data from time to time to puncture the mythological aura of mid 20th c protests. They were less popular than pretty much any 21st c mass action & people criticizing them used the same lines. Protest is about people coming together, shaping narratives, & building power.

Ignore the clickbait title. The article is a fascinating, nuanced long read that’s worth your time (especially if you’re an historian). | A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/m...

"Bluesky is dead" Meanwhile on Bluesky:

Based on crowd-sourced records of No Kings Day event turnout, and extrapolating for the cities where we don't have data yet, it looks like roughly 4-6 million people protested Trump across the U.S. yesterday. That's nearly 2% of the U.S. pop! Mobilized anti-Trump resistance is exceeding 2017 levels

bUt WhErEs ThE rEsIsTaNcE 🙃

Catholic influencers are saying it's sinful to break the law. From the Catechism: "The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel."

'Horrendous incident' Dem. senator on Sen. Padilla's forced removal from DHS Sec. Noem's press conference.

I was thrilled to review Sam Tanenhaus's epic "Buckley" for The Unpopulist. substack.com/home/post/p-...

BREAKING @prri.org: 76% of Americans, including 52% of Republicans, oppose spending $45 million to hold a large parade of soldiers, weapons, and combat vehicles on the streets of Washington, D.C., in celebration of the Army’s 250th birthday and President Trump’s birthday. prri.org/spotlight/mi...

guess we will soon see how this take ages