The Shepherd Boy & the Sling

Taking on Goliath

My logo has been a shepherd boy with a sling since 2012, when I was a grad student doing research into governing narratives toward a Ph.D. in Public Administration. Understanding my relationship to that symbol is the key to understanding this campaign.

Not a Preacher. A Pragmatist.

I am not coming to your church as a preacher. I am a spiritual person who has been marginalized in some of the worst possible ways by “weaponized” Christianity. But I am firmly planted on reframing Christianity as a foundational touchstone for small rural towns.

Christianity and religion will only be “unredeemable” if we have a failure of imagination in what religion actually was before it was weaponized by the “masters of extraction.”

That phrase — masters of extraction — is not a metaphor. It’s the title of the nonfiction book that documents the history: how powerful interests used early settlers as the means of extraction, and how they built a web of deceit so that, as democracy bloomed in the New World, voters could be convinced to vote against their own best interest.

Masters of Extraction — How the Powerful Harvest Consent from the Communities They Abandon Masters of Extraction — available now →

How the Single-Issue Voter Was Manufactured

Pope Francis saw it before almost anyone else. For years, Cardinal Burke and his allies had reduced the moral complexity of Catholic social teaching to a single issue — abortion — and in doing so, transformed millions of faithful Catholics into reliable Republican voters who asked no further questions. It didn’t matter what else was on the platform. It didn’t matter that Catholic social teaching speaks with equal force about the dignity of migrants, the rights of workers, the obligation to care for the poor, and the pursuit of peace. None of that mattered, because Burke had convinced his flock that one issue eclipsed all others, and that electing even a deeply imperfect man was justified if it meant reshaping the Supreme Court.

And it worked.

But Francis understood what Burke either couldn’t see or wouldn’t admit: that Burke had never been steering the Church — he had been steered. He was a tool of an American elite who had no interest in building a Christian society, and when those elites got what they wanted, they didn’t deliver a theocracy. They delivered something far worse — a consolidation of power so brazen that it resembles dictatorship more than democracy, let alone anything Christ would recognize.

Three Popes. Three Moves.

Act I · Resistance

Burke wanted to steer the Church backward.

Cardinal Burke reduced Catholic social teaching to a single political instrument. “Family values” became a narrative monopoly — a phrase everyone rallied behind that nobody defined the same way. It was never about theology. It was about power.

Act II · Reform

Francis shifted it into gear.

Pope Francis gave Cardinal Burke the boot — and in doing so, signaled that the Church would no longer be a tool of American partisan politics. The United Methodist Church made a parallel move: pragmatic about the direction that the majority of their members hoped to take the church in the United States. Disruptive, yes. But churches that have survived centuries — even millennia — don’t do it by remaining dogmatic in the face of change.

Act III · Escalation

Leo turbocharged it into the public square.

Now Pope Leo has stepped into this moment with a moral clarity that has electrified Catholic congregations across the United States, especially among young men who had been drifting away from the Church entirely. An American pope publicly telling an American president to find an “off-ramp” while the Pentagon invokes the Avignon Papacy as a threat. No one predicted this. And standing up to the bigotry of Donald Trump is paying off already — Catholic growth is up to 25%.

The pendulum has swung, and what it reveals is simple and devastating: a single-issue voter was never a soldier for God. They were a dull instrument for the powerful, discarded the moment they were no longer useful, and none of it — none of it — ever had anything to do with Christianity.

The Lesson for NW Illinois

Voters in NW Illinois need to learn this lesson. The same forces that manufactured the single-issue Catholic voter have done identical work in rural Protestant congregations — and the consequences are visible in every uncontested election, every gerrymandered district line, every incumbent who goes back to Springfield without ever having to face her constituents.

The 50+ rural churches across House District #89 have a window of opportunity right now — before May 24th — to put a name on the ballot who will passionately vocalize how wrong it is to allow Christianity to be silenced, or worse yet, weaponized as a tool of division and cruelty.

The Ideograph Circle — Francis vs. Burke

The Ideograph Circle: how “family values” functioned as a narrative monopoly

Christian VIYOBIs — Pope Leo vs. Trump

Christian VIYOBIs: the Pope Leo moment as a WWJD opportunity

This Is Our WWJD Moment

The window closes May 24th. Help put a shepherd boy on the ballot.

Download campaign resources → SaveRuralChurches.org →