- Hegseth quotes Pulp Fiction;
- Vance and others explain doctrine to the Pope;
- Christian nationalists prefer nationalism over Christianity;
- Homan and Vance tell the Pope to stay in his lane, as if morality has nothing to do with war;
- Christian media always resorts to the OT, not the NT of Jesus;
- And now Tucker Carlson has weird ideas about the Antichrist;
- John Williams’ Schindler’s List
This is the eye-roller story that’s been going around today, e.g. Google News: pete hegseth pulp fiction
The Hollywood Reporter, today: Pete Hegseth Reads Tarantino’s Fake Bible Quote From ‘Pulp Fiction’ at Prayer Service
Subtitled: Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic speech gets presented as a Bible verse, with the Secretary of War vowing to strike down enemies with “great vengeance and furious anger.”
How many times have I noted that conservatives have trouble telling fantasy from reality?
\\\
Other stories this week are about Trump officials explaining Catholic doctrine to the Pope, because he disapproves of Trump’s war against Iran. The arrogance of Christian nationalists.
The Atlantic, Tom Nichols, today: Pope James David Vance the First, subtitled “The vice president has decided he’s a more accomplished theologian than Leo XIV.”
The Trump administration doesn’t seem to have many rules, but one of them is that once the president picks a fight, his posse must show up to support him, no matter how ill-advised the conflict. And few senior officials are more eager to back up the boss in every embarrassing beef than Vice President Vance, who recently seems to have decided that he, and not Pope Leo XIV, is the true arbiter of Catholic doctrine.
Compared with how other religious politicians usually handle this.
Vance just had to speak up. He could have taken his cues from John F. Kennedy or Mario Cuomo, Catholic politicians who were careful to note that their faith was personal and important to them, but that in their public life, they must govern as Americans according to the Constitution. Vance decided on a different approach: The pope, he implied, wasn’t a very good, or very smart, Catholic.
\\
The running theme here is how American Christian nationalists are not actually Christians. The are Old Testament tribalists. They just use their religion as a marker of their tribe.
The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last, today: If you ask Christian nationalists to choose between Christianity and nationalism, guess what they’ll pick?, subtitled “A final word on Trump vs. Pope Leo.”
In 2018 David Frum saw the world more clearly than I did. He wrote, “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
That was on January 18, 2018, less than a year into Trump’s presidency. Frum’s prediction has become one of the key insights for understanding our moment.
It is also immediately what I thought of when Donald Trump attacked the pope this weekend.
American Catholics have increasingly thrown in with Christian nationalism over the last decade. If they are asked to choose between Trump and the Catholic Church, some significant percentage of them are going to choose Trump.
…
The first thing that struck me about the Catholic Trump voters was that every single one of them thought Trump was doing a good-to-great job.
While they also say that Pope Leo is being “too political” for saying things that, to an outsider like me, sound like things that Jesus said. Blessed are the peacemakers, war is bad, and so on.
Long piece, with statistics.
\\
Two more.
JMG, quoting Newsmax, 15 Apr 2026: Homan Wants To “Educate” Vatican On Immigration
And
The Guardian, yesterday: JD Vance defends Trump amid spat with Pope Leo: ‘Stick to matters of morality’, subtitled “Catholic vice-president effectively tells Leo to stay in his lane after pope criticized the White House over the Iran war”
Because… fighting wars has nothing to do with morality?
Yes yes, Iran is bad, even contemptible. It’s a religious theocracy even worse than what the US would become, if the Christian nationalists had their way. But Trump and his team are just incompetent. They are making things worse, not better.
\\
Media Matters, Payton Armstrong, 15 Apr 2026: Right-wing Christian media double down on supporting Trump’s Iran war, subtitled “King David himself did this when he found himself dealing with a nation that was barbaric”
Once again, they resort to support from the OT, Old Testament, a model for barbaric primitive tribalism, and ignore anything Jesus might have said in the NT. (Not, just to mention, that I endorse everything Jesus said! Far from it. Will get to that. The blog is an ongoing exploration.)
\\
On one level, this is hilarious. First, because this guy used to be on Trump’s side.
JMG, today: Tucker Carlson Suggests That Trump Is The Antichrist
And second, because when you think that demons infest the world, you see them everywhere. Psychology.
\\\
And as I write this post I’m listening to this soundtrack. I have the 1993 CD. As often with movie soundtracks, it has a great opening theme, which reappears a couple times, and much filler music. Yet in this case a lot of the filler music is quite beautiful too. This won him an Oscar. And it’s one of the few movie soundtracks that has become a concert staple, along with IIRC, Zimmer’s Gladiator.
