In this episode we interview Reverend Darren who is a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA in Wisconsin.
This conversation started as a text and google doc exchange around the story of Amalek within the Old Testament of the Christian Bible and the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible. We talk about how we should understand the relationship between these biblical stories and documented history, their relationship to the Gaza genocide, and how we might fit our analyses of these narratives into the relationship between US imperialism and zionism. Along the way, Darren engages with questions of faith practice, the relative absence - and silence - of particularly Euro-American liberal Christian congregations among those standing in defense of Palestinian lives, and Palestinian sovereignty. Darren also discusses how the gears of US fascism - called for in documents like Project 2025 and Project Esther, and being enacted through the Trump administration - are being lubricated by the absurd and ethically vacuous nature of US liberalism.
A couple things to mention, this conversation was recorded 10 days ago, so the 8th year anniversary episode we mentioned is currently out on our YouTube channel. In addition to reflections from Josh and myself, it featured special appearances from Stefano Harney, Renee Johnston, Fred Moten, Sina Rahmani, and Lara Sheehi
This episode was also recorded before the 2nd anniversary of Tufan Al Aqsa and before the ceasefire agreement. We have episodes on the YouTube channel about those developments as well, one putting Abdaljawad Omar and Lara Sheehi in conversation together and the other with Nora Barrows-Friedman from Electronic Intifada and Sina Rahmani from the East is a Podcast.
As always the absolute best way to support us and to help us continue to sustain our work and hopefully grow as a project is to become a patron of the show or support us through our BuyMeACoffee page. Shout-out to all the people who gave us a little something for our 8th anniversary.
Related conversations:
"The Book of Genocide" Nick Estes w/ Justin Podur
"The Crusades: Then & Now" MAKC with Adnan Husain
"Christian ZIonism & Zionist Settler Colonial Ideology" MAKC with Adnan Husain
The original background for the thumbnail image (slightly re-colored) is available here
