It’s one thing to lose faith in your country. It’s another to lose it in your church. This week on Punching Up, Maya May welcomes back ex-preacher and current comedian Jeremy Alder to unpack what happens when Christianity is weaponized — and whether anything redemptive is left behind.
Jeremy grew up deep in the evangelical war machine, homeschooled on Rush Limbaugh and taught to win America back for Christ. Now he’s using comedy to expose the rot — and highlight the few Christians still fighting for the vulnerable instead of cosplaying moral superiority. His series Christians Who Don’t Suck isn’t a call to conversion; it’s a middle finger to the people who turned “love thy neighbor” into ICE raids and sanctuary sweeps.
That’s the kind of spiritual whiplash we’re living with — where the clearest voice of Christian ethics might come from a guy in black eyeliner screaming over a guitar riff. Take Ozzy Osbourne. We think of him as the guy who bit the head off a bat, not someone who might’ve understood the Gospel better than half the U.S. Senate. But as Jeremy points out, War Pigs isn’t just a metal classic — it’s a searing anti-imperialist anthem that sounds a hell of a lot more Christ-like than anything Mike Johnson has ever muttered into a microphone.
Call it irony, divine or otherwise: The Satanic Panic scapegoat was preaching justice, while today’s so-called Christian leaders are cosigning cruelty — and citing the Bible. Which is why we laugh — not because it’s funny, but because if we don’t, we’ll drown in the silence left by every church that stayed quiet when ICE kicked in the door.
This isn’t about saving Christianity. It’s about saving each other — from the systems that claim moral authority while committing moral crimes. And if that means reading the Bible between comedy sets, well… let's make sure we have the King James version; not Trump’s — which includes copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, as well as a handwritten chorus of God Bless the U.S.A … (God Help the U.S.A.)
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