Blake Chastain

intro post for the Xiles - i'm the author of the book Exvangelical & Beyond; i'm the writer of The Post-Evangelical Post newsletter; i'm the host of the Exvangelical podcast. here's the link to my book: bookshop.org/a/11130/9780...

Happy second birthday to EXVANGELICAL AND BEYOND by @brchastain.social! The first book I edited at PRH, and I am still very proud of it. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/747796...

www.blakechastain.com/10-years-of-...

I hate Illinois Nazis. And all the rest of them. Absolutely the fuck not with this KKK bullshit no. The white supremacists do not get to win this time / any time.

goddammit i hope so. the 2026 version of me who's spent almost a decade beating this drum needs to be able to tell the 1999 version of me working in a Christian bookstore where we played this for customers that things have improved. #exvangelical

Please join journalist Gareth Gore, researcher Rachel Tabachnick, professor Julie Ingersoll and me. Thursday, May 14 at 1pm EDT for a groundbreaking conversation about rifts on the Christian Right and how opposing groups can strategically respond. Register here politicalresearch.org/2026/04/28/c...

If I lived in Kansas City I'd start a Spanish-language learning group for gringos just so I could call it Claro KC

hello Europe and Oz, thanks for listening

New interview is up with B.K. O'Connor, author of Eve: A Novel. Here is a snippet. youtube.com/shorts/0BdwD...

The shows on TV at the gym today: NCIS, a history channel show about exorcism, GMA, and ads for the gym I’m already in.

It's Trans Day of Visibility, so we've made our special series about being trans on the internet completely free to read for everyone, forever. www.theverge.com/cs/features/... Here are a few stories from the collection:

Huge result here - the idea that social platforms can be defective products that cause harm is going to send shockwaves through an industry that has claimed essentially blanket protection from liability by saying everything is speech

I'm just messing around with this, to see if it's a good tool for this sort of thing (and I'm a sucker for new web tools in general).

why do we even need AI at all when base-level reality is so absurd that the conspiracy theories for a real headline like "Charlie Kirk's mentor dies in freak pickleball accident" write themselves

It was such a delight and honor to be with the fantastic @brchastain.social again! We talked, whew, Israel/Palestine, antisemitism, what it means to live like your life is a sacred text, the philosopher that makes me think this gif all the time, and much more...

New episode, with @theradr.bsky.social, on YouTube and hitting podcast feeds: youtu.be/3eSVZ16ezoY (I made a n00b mistake and my audio recorded from the wrong device, but the conversation remains great!)

$200 billion could entirely repeal the SNAP cuts with money leftover $200 billion could fund the ACA Premium Tax Credits and help lower health care costs for 6 years with money leftover $200 billion could permanently expand Medicaid coverage to people in states that have refused to expand coverage

they literally renamed the entire company after this

"We started a war of aggression for no reason & commenced it by accidentally bombing an elementary school & killing over 100 kids." That simple fact is so horrific that it's just kind of bouncing on the surface of our collective consciousness. We can't absorb its full implications & significance.

The guy pardoned from a 22 year sentence for sedition. The coup succeeded.

For several days in a row, the White House has posted videos on X of the U.S.’s strikes on Iran spliced with footage taken from video games and action movies, in a dystopic form of propaganda that treats the war like a game or like social media content to be mined.

NY area folks: come see me and three other authors, Josiah Hesse, Mattie Jo Cowsert, and B.K. O'Connor, in Brooklyn this Sunday: www.urbanebrooklyn.com/event-detail... #exvangelical

Check out the first episode of “A Trick of State,” a new occasional series from Dangerous Dogma investigating underexplored issues at the intersection of church and state that expose the false promises of Christian Nationalism.

When I beat WordleBot I consider that a win for all humanity against AI. anyway, the horrors

My gallows humor contribution: if I were a headline editor/Onion writer yesterday, I’d have been tempted to use the title ‘79-Year-Old Man Kills 86-Year-Old Man In Most Destructive Way Possible’

1/9. In 2020 Iran did try to interfere with the presidential election.

NEW: We obtained 911 audio from the Texas detention center housing hundreds of immigrant kids and their parents. Since mid-September, EMS crews have been dispatched to Dilley at least 11 times to treat children in medical distress. Burning fevers. Low oxygen. Seizures. A broken leg. My report:

This really feels like an Orban/Erdogan situation in which the aspiring dictator is making sure his friendly oligarchs control as much media as possible www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/w...

“Jack Dorsey Thinks It’s A Good Idea” is basically the kiss of death. You had a good run, AI bubble www.theverge.com/tech/885710/...

i thought the whole point of Kalshi and Polymarket was to *enable* things like insider trading? www.wired.com/story/kalshi...

Sing it with me: 5G & honor Glory, cell towers Be unto the Ancient of Days Cov'ring the nation, All of Creation, 5G is a form of praise Every tongue in heaven & earth Crystal clear reception Apps that need all 5 bars to work Shall have them You will be exalted oh God & T-Mobile shall not pass..

I wonder if it will have Covenant Eyes built-in

Just saying: if, to create the appearance of engagement of X, a genuine celebrity needs both (a) the algorithmic boost for pro-MAGA content plus (b) a huge bot farm, then what chance do non-celebrity non-MAGA posters have? X has less genuine "reach" than holding up a poster on a sidewalk.

An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump. n.pr/4qTItsU

New from me: www.blakechastain.com/white-americ...

As a talking head in a streaming documentary series in 2024, I wasn’t allowed (by the streamer; director similarly constrained) to mention Trump. Back in 2019, Netflix PR told me to avoid politics & religion in interviews about THE FAMILY, which is about politics & religion.

The life of this 59yo Cambodian refugee whose circumstances of death have *not been disclosed* matters.