Nat Danger

Might fuck around and learn to trust myself.

We got serious about Jesus and went to a Christian college and prayferully studied the Bible, and everyone talks like we abandoned the faith when it was our very faithfulness that brought us out. 2/2

The thing that makes Deconstruction and its fallout so much more heartbreaking is that it our more conservative worldviews fell apart specifically BECAUSE we did all the right things. 1/2

Pretty much every economic expert says the new tariffs are going to be a disaster, but some dude I went to high school with posted a meme where Trump looked super badass, so I’m torn.

Evangelicals love to dismiss Deconstruction as “just people rationalizing their own sin” as if their own emphasis on personal purity at the expense of any sense of communal obligation isn’t the exact kind of hypocrisy Jesus warned against.

@petebuttigieg.bsky.social it’s ya boi Nat from MAKE SOUTH BEND! The TENTH Rebel Art Fest is this year, June 1 at Potawatomi Park.

You wanna come? And maybe get us some fireworks?

16 years ago today, I finally told a cute artsy girl I liked her. She shook my hand—a gesture that I’ve only just learned meant, “welcome to the party, pal.”

That willow isn’t there anymore, but we are.

Great party, @shellydawn.bsky.social Let’s keep it rolling.

I don’t know what might work, but I know what isn’t. Unfortunately, the only way I got out was through experiences that contradicted my rigid worldview, and seeing how the things I believed were harming myself and others. That’s not a seminar you can package up. end/🧵

They don’t take contrary evidence in good faith or have good defenses for their own points because they are arrows against which they must defend their fervor—and the cost is Hell.
7/🧵

As a result, the wildest figments of divine intervention are taken as gospel, and any attempt to weigh those divine messages are attempts to lead them astray.
6/🧵

Righteousness was worth sacrificing myself for, especially when God himself told me so. It’s not that we’re taught that God speaks to us but evangelical churches do not offer any sort of priority on testing those experiences against any other markers.
5/🧵

As self destructive as my worldview was though, there isn’t a thing anyone could have said to make me realize I was so far off. I was so convinced that God had confirmed things for me that I felt like any attempt to get me to see reason was a temptation from the Devil. 4/🧵

It was an impossible struggle where merely noticing my own girlfriend’s breasts was a sin worthy of eternal damnation.

To no surprise, I was fraught with self loathing and insecurity.
3/🧵

When I was a senior in high school, I was the poster boy for Purity Culture. I was an absolute zealot. I attended an Every Young Man’s Battle book study grouo. My girlfriend and I committed to not even hold hands before marriage. I went almost two full calendar years without masturbating. 2/🧵

The reason it’s so difficult to debate conservative evangelicals is because they place such a high value on personal, unverifiable divine experiences.

Storytime.

1/🧵

Across Luke 4, we see the crowd shift from admiration for Jesus to trying to throw him off a cliff. What happened to change their minds so quickly?

He asked them to show mercy to the poor and do justice to the oppressed.

Violence has always been the response to mercy.

I was eating breakfast with my two year old and at one point I smiled at her and she said “me too daddy”

Message me somewhere who you are as i have no clue

Real curious how anyone can expect to treat others the way you’d want to be treated or love your neighbor as yourself without committing the horrible, awful sin of empathy.

But isn’t blue sky entirely public? I’m not sure I’d want to be as forthcoming as my Facebook posts

We were going to give away a tape when we got to 1 k followers but I'm feeling crazy so we're going to do two giveaways. One vinyl record and one cassette to random followers when we get there. Let's go.

Reminds me of Lift to Experience

The thing that strikes me about the outrage over Bishop Budde’s remarks is that she didn’t even say Trump was going to hurt anyone. She just said people are afraid—which is undeniable.

Trying to find a way to preserve my online community and local goings on while relying less on the social media services who will be kowtowing to Trump for special treatment. I like Threads but Meta is the worst. Guess I’ll give this a fairer shot.

Anyone found anything else they like?

I wish there was a way to monetize looking for my water bottle.

Today is the Second day of Advent, when we remember the Voice Calling Out in the Wilderness testifying that the Christ was coming to set All Things to right.

But to hear a lot of Evangelicals talk, that promise was strictly spiritual with no relevance to the physical realities of our world.

You love to see it

It was just Cryptograms by Deerhunter

And it is not entirely unlike the fire in my heart around 2007 when I had to explain to everyone that Green Day was NOT EMO.

The biggest pivot I’ve felt in myself lately is a new zeal in my faith and a deep urge to take the name Christian back from the exclusionary fundies and nationalists who have eschewed Jesus for dogma. It is a renewed love for the diversity of the Church Universal that many dismiss as too progressive