That seems like exactly what I ran into yesterday as well. Hallucinating references.

It was indeed. At a top specialty journal no less. Became obvious because the citations were kinda obscure & when I looked them up the reference details were wrong. So this person had just asked ChatGPT for studies on X area, it gave them slop, & they used it. Wild they thought no one would notice.

I reviewed one yesterday that I’m fairly certain owed much of the background section to ChatGPT. And said so.

Front cover of The Christian Past that Wasn't book

Back cover of The Christian Past that Wasn't book

Congrats to @wthrockmorton.bsky.social on the release of his new book, "The Christian Past that Wasn't: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths that Hijack History."

I blurbed this book b/c I believe in the work. He dismantles 7 key myths. Check it out!

www.broadleafbooks.com/store/produc...

Cover of the business of racism: labor and environment in Brazil's racial Capitalism by Ian Carrillo

The Introduction of my book is currently free to read.

assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/f7ca9afb-82c...

Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon called for harsh punishment of BLM protesters while defending January 6th rioters as "Patriots."

Is this inconsistency? Or does it reveal something deeper about how Christian nationalism shapes views on crime and punishment? 🧵 #polisci #religionandpolitics

How interesting that 'the pope' of American apocalyptic white Christian nationalism never goes to church on Sunday morning but instead picks that time to tweet out genocidal threats to kill millions of people

Screenshotted excerpt from linked article reading as follows: "In public, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has cultivated a reputation for care and caution. The papers reveal a different side of him. At a critical moment for the country and the court, the papers show, he acted as a bulldozer in pushing to stop Mr. Obama’s plan to address the global climate crisis. When colleagues warned the chief justice that he was proposing an unprecedented move, he was dismissive. “I recognize that the posture of this stay request is not typical,” he wrote. But he argued that the Obama plan, which aimed to regulate coal-fired plants, was “the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the power sector,” and too big, costly and consequential for the court not to act immediately."

OOP

New York Times got receipts on John Roberts being like, 'I know this isn't how anything works, but a Democratic president is about to implement a policy!!'

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

I will never not watch Shawshank Redemption when it is on TV.

Standard disclaimer about some theological beliefs exercising independent influences, blah, blah, blah. But theology's mostly not doing that because it's mostly used to give accounts, justify actions and situations, explain things intelligibly, etc.

Notice how the Protestant Bible-only crowd suddenly become huge fans of the Catholic "just war" tradition when they can't cite Jesus or Paul in justifying killing national enemies.

Theological disputes are rider-talk in the service of elephants. IOW, it's deployed to justify in-group commitments.

Oh sorry, so religion and politics should be separate? Is that what you're saying? bsky.app/profile/atru...

I'm not surprised that Vance would tell the Pope he's wrong on theology. Vance's theology is whatever his *real* reference group tells him is right.

Nor am I surprised that evangelicals adjust Bible translations to get them to say what they think the Bible *should* say (what their group believes).

Thing is, Christians don't get their theology from Popes or even Bibles. They get theology from communities. This includes evangelicals who claim to get everything from reading the Bible.

So when the Pope or the Bible tells us something our community disagrees with, too bad for the Pope or Bible.

It's the classic Mel Gibson and Jesus meme where Mel is on set in normal clothes casually chatting to a very bloody Jesus (for those of you who don't know it).

Mel Gibson pictured with his doctor in 2004

Confession: I used to want to publish a book with Crossway. All the big time Reformed preachers and writers did.

I believed it would be a sign I had “made it.”

I’ve been doing some writing and taking a painful look at my past in white evangelical Reformed circles.

I’ve come a mighty long way!

Sure Crossway. The President who has been supported by >80% of evangelicals for 10 years is posting pics of himself as Jesus, but you should spam email Christians to warn them about “critical theory.“ Cuz that’s the issue in American Christianity.

Every time I read Pat Buchanan I feel like my soul needs a bath.

I don't give a damn if every conservative Christian on twitter calls Trump's post blasphemy and demands he repent. Y'all still chose him over every other GOP candidate in 2016 and 2024 and voted for him three times. Your criticisms are worthless.

Cardinal Cupich: "We're dehumanizing the victims of war by turning the suffering of people & killing of children & our own soldiers into entertainment. To splice together movie cuts w/ actual bombings & targeting of people for purposes of entertainment is sickening. This is not who we are."

Exhibit A.

Joel Berry the human is almost totally gone at this point. Pretty much all that's left is Trump apologist and troll-provocateur.

Used to read that to my kiddos all the time. Love Mo Willems books.

And yeah, that's a subtweet. Not gonna draw attention to the article or scholar that provoked it. But just know that claims to tackle "Christian identity politics" without calling out 1) the white supremacy that's virtually always implied & 2) that the claims to persecution are BS = crap analysis.

You cannot tackle "Christian identity politics" without explicitly recognizing that 1) it's inextricable from white supremacy & 2) it's founded on a lie: that (White) Christians are somehow minoritized in the US.

American Christianity is NOT race neutral, especially when it comes to politics.

Literally the first comment. Also, the fact that authoritarians *can* lose elections in some systems does not mean democracy is unaffected. Would Cowen prefer to live in an illiberal democracy or competitive authoritarian state? Are they really the same as, say, Canada?

Don't think I've ever heard an American Christian leader publicly work through the theological implications of America's racist history. Cuz it really does devastate arguments that more Christianity = better nation. Gotta grapple with that w/out just saying "Well, slavers weren't really Christians."

Hungary for the win.

Keeping Hungary in my thoughts today.

Hoping for a resounding bellwether referendum on authoritarian populism.

Right. Whatever bad Neil identifies coming from CN, it’s ultimately the fault of leftists.