USC Sets Up A Hotline, Trump Shuts One Down & Student Journalist Deported
Plus:Social Media Is News Now & Vance Boelter’s Christian Education
Friends! When “God’s Good News About Politics” was developed, we talked about starting points. And based on history, data and experience, we often start off from different places when approaching how we view education, politics and faith. As the temperature around so many issues rises – immigration, war, genocide, mental health, sexuality, budget bills, etc. – may we pursue an orientation around the Prince of Peace, the preacher of the Beatitudes, and author of our salvation, Jesus. He will see us through.
Here are 5 things we believe are worth your time:
SCRIPTURE AND PRAYER
Vance Boelter claimed to be a follower of Jesus, was educated at Christ for the Nations in Dallas, TX and preached passionately in the Congo. Last week in Minnesota, he assassinated a democratic lawmaker and her spouse and shot another legislator and his spouse. He also stalked and visited two other lawmakers that night without incident but certainly had bad intentions and was found with a kill list of dozens of democratic targets. So how did he get there? I think that the intersection of faith, politics and education is where we can begin to answer that question and best-selling author Jeff Sharlet writes plainly and honestly about the faith we profess and where toxic formation can lead. Specifically, one of Boelter’s disciplers believed in a theology of “violent prayer” and it is incumbent on anyone claiming to know and follow Jesus to reflect on if we are being shaped to take up arms or arm ourselves with kindness.
STATISTICS
Nieman Lab reports that for the first time in the history of the United States more people get their news from social media than any other source. The Reuters Institute and Oxford University released the Digital News Report for 2025. This means that influencers on instagram, podcasts, and tiktok are reaching more people than news websites and television for the first time ever. This includes people that are uneducated, harder to reach and less politically engaged and informed. Twitter or X has sustained its reach while Facebook and YouTube are growing. Sadly though, in an age of gross mis and disinformation only ⅓ of people verify what they see and the disparities between levels of education and checking facts are troubling. There are differences between news, analysis, opinion, research, entertainment, and education. May God give us wisdom in community to lovingly engage.
STORIES
Alistair Kitchen’s story is now in The New Yorker. He was an international student from Australia and thought that no one was reading his blog. But the US government did. So when he reached Los Angeles last week on a 14 hr flight from Melbourne, he was pulled into an interrogation room, questioned for hours, and then sent back. Alistair wrote about student protests independently while studying for his MFA at Columbia. He didn’t work with any groups and tried to give an honest account of what he was seeing. He was detained with others with no power, no plan, no promises, and a mounting sense of dark possibilities. The surveillance, searching, and solitude paints a clear picture of what being an international student who dares to tell the truth as they see it is tragic and troubling.
USC Sets Up immigration hotline
This week in Los Angeles, “A group of volunteers based out of a USC Dornsife program established a free hotline to help those with in-person immigration hearings file motions to move their appointments online”. Sunday to Wednesday, more than 1000 phone calls came into a new immigration hotline to help migrants fulfil their legal responsibilities virtually. Many are rightfully afraid of ICE agents' new policy of doing sweeps at legal court proceedings. Agents of Change is a pioneering program at the University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Officially known as the Agents of Change: Civil Rights Advocacy Initiative, it is the first experiential undergraduate civil rights clinic in the United States. The initiative is designed to immerse undergraduate students in real-world civil rights advocacy through hands-on work in three key areas: community activism, government policy and legal advocacy.
Trump Shuts Down LGBTQIA+ Suicide Prevention
The LGBTQIA+ youth population is one of the most at-risk population for suicide and self-harm. They are 4x more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers. More than 1 million people have selected this option while calling in to a service authorized by the first Trump administration. 988, the overall hotline will still exist but the option for this specialized care is gone. There is still time to reverse the decision and advocacy from groups like the Trevor Project is underway in earnest.
We live in uncertain times but serve a God in whom we can certainly place our hope and trust. And while that is true, our faith is personal, not private. Following Jesus, never happens alone. So I want to encourage you to find at least 3 other people that can go on this journey with you. They may be in your faith community, family, or neighbors you need to invite to coffee or tea. Or if you don’t have that place and those people, please use this platform as a doorway toward creating that. Subscribe and let’s get to know each other!
Let me know what you think! I look forward to the conversation and comments because our screens make us into lonely consumers but God made us to be a vibrant community.
In Christ and for His Glory,
jonathan
PS. PS. Pre-order your copy of “Beauty and Resistance: Spiritual Rhythms for Formation and Repair” to be released on November 11, 2025.
