by Amy Goodman, The Unz Review: The Justice Department on Friday released an additional 3 million pages of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Trump administration says it was the final release of Epstein files, even though some 2 million more documents remain unreleased. The latest batch reveals new details […]

President Trump made an interesting comment about the methods used by ICE and Border Patrol agents. In a sit-down interview with NBC News, the 47th President said agents conducting deportation operations could have a “softer touch.” However, Trump didn’t stop there. He added that agents can’t be too soft, though, because, at the end of the day, they are dealing with mostly dangerous criminals. NBC News provided further details on Trump’s remarks: President Donald Trump told NBC News on Wednesday that he believes his administration could use “a softer touch” in its immigration enforcement operations after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis. “I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas. “We’re dealing with really hard criminals. But look, I’ve called the people. I’ve called the governor. I’ve called the mayor. Spoke to ‘em. Had great conversations with them. And then I see them ranting and raving out there. Literally as though a call wasn’t made.” Trump has been engaged in a weekslong feud with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, two Democrats who have been highly critical of his immigration crackdown in the city and condemned the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, in separate incidents in January. Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other high-ranking administration officials had been quick to blame the fatal shootings on Good and Pretti, at several points characterizing them without evidence as domestic terrorists. Trump’s remarks to NBC News on Wednesday reflect his continued shift in tone as national outrage over the killings takes hold. At a Jan. 20 White House briefing, Trump said that federal agents “make mistakes sometimes.” Watch Trump say it here: Trump says the lesson of Minneapolis is ‘Maybe we can use a little bit of a SOFTER TOUCH’ pic.twitter.com/l4RTj1Et1g — RT (@RT_com) February 4, 2026 Trump’s comments come just a couple of days after Border Czar Tom Homan announced hundreds of Federal agents would be pulled from Minnesota. AP reported on Homan’s remarks more closely: The Trump administration is reducing the number of immigration officers in Minnesota but will continue its enforcement operation that has sparked weeks of tensions and deadly confrontations, border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday. About 700 federal officers — roughly a quarter of the total deployed to Minnesota — will be withdrawn immediately after state and local officials agreed over the past week to cooperate by turning over arrested immigrants, Homan said. But he did not provide a timeline for when the administration might end the operation that has become a flashpoint in the debate over President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts since the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. About 2,000 officers will remain in the state after this week’s drawdown, Homan said. That’s roughly the same number sent to Minnesota in early January when the surge ramped up, kicking off what the Department of Homeland Security called its “ largest immigration enforcement operation ever.” Watch the moment Homan said it here: Tom Homan: "I have announced effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people effective today. 700 law enforcement personnel." pic.twitter.com/Vbylc3iIBd — CSPAN (@cspan) February 4, 2026

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Be inspired by these glimpses into the lives of Seven Christian Black women motivated by the truth of Scripture to impact change in the church and society.

Primarily known today as a rebellious German intellectual, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was first recognized in his own time as a highly gifted classical philologist: a scholar who studies ancient languages and texts. Beyond academics, he enjoyed the arts, loved music, and maintained a famous love-hate friendship with the composer Richard Wagner. After beginning his studies in theology at the University of Bonn, he shifted to classical philology at the University of Leipzig. Then, at just 24 years old, he joined the faculty of the University of Basel as chair of classical philology. This academic background matters for one key reason: Nietzsche’s philology shaped his philosophy. Understanding how he approached language and ancient texts helps us understand the philosophical goals he later pursued. Before moving further, it helps to clarify the term “philology.” A philologist studies how language develops over time—how words originate, how they change, and how cultures shape their meaning. In today’s terms, philology is like doing “ancestry testing” on words: By examining them closely, we can trace their origins and the cultural histories they carry. In the 19th century, philology was a rapidly growing field that captured the imagination of many German scholars. It connected naturally with new academic methods such as source criticism, redaction criticism, and historical-grammatical analysis, all of which used language to reconstruct the past. Using these tools, Nietzsche attempted something bold: to break apart the foundations of Western moral history, which he believed had been distorted by Christianity, and then propose an alternative. Morality’s ‘Big Bang’ Throughout the 1880s, Nietzsche worked to overturn long-standing Greek and Christian ideas to imagine a new future for Europe. Earlier Enlightenment thinkers tried to rethink morality without Christianity, but Nietzsche went further. He tried to build a new moral world from the ground up. To do this, he believed Europeans needed new categories to describe themselves as they entered what he saw as a new cultural era. This is where philology takes center stage. Nietzsche attempted to break apart the foundations of Western moral history, which he believed had been distorted by Christianity, and then propose an alternative. As he studied Western moral pairs such as “good and bad” or “love and hate,” Nietzsche asked a simple but radical question that formed the central tension in On the Genealogy of Morals: Where did these ideas come from, and who created them? For Nietzsche, these moral concepts aren’t universal truths. Instead, they have specific historical and cultural origins—what he called their “genealogy.” Thus, morality itself has an origin story, an ethical “big bang.” According to Nietzsche, the terms “good” and “bad” trace back to Jewish and Christian communities. He read the Old Testament, especially the exodus story, as a case study in how moral values emerge through power struggles. Nietzsche argued that the Hebrews, observing their oppression in Egypt, developed deep resentment. This bitterness didn’t fade but grew into a deliberate moral reversal: the powerless rebranded the traits of the strong as “evil” and their own traits as “good.” Christianity, in his view, inherited and spread this value reversal across Europe. For Nietzsche, this inversion is more than a shift in moral language; it reshapes cultural psychology. Ressentiment, which Nietzsche understood to be a psychological angst that grows in the powerless and flips moral categories, fuels a mindset that distrusts strength and prizes weakness as a virtue. He argued that Christian morality promises “life” but actually drains vitality by turning people’s hopes away from earthly flourishing and toward an imagined afterlife. As a result, he believed, European culture has been slowly weakened by Christian morality (and in his context, German Lutheran Pietism) that denies physical life instead of affirming it. Instead, he insisted that life strives for expansion, intensity, and overcoming, or what he called the “will to power.” Engaging critically with Charles Darwin and Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche rejected the idea that mere survival drives life. The will is the basic instinct to transcend limits, shape one’s character, and impose creative order on the world. Charles Taylor notes that Nietzsche saw the will to power not simply as dominance but as the pursuit of higher human potential. Thus, Nietzsche urged people—especially those shaped by Christian morality—to break free from inherited values, create new ones, and prepare the way for the Übermensch: an ideal of humanity courageous enough to affirm life with creativity and authenticity. It’s a massive understatement to say that Nietzsche’s thoughts on creativity and authenticity have haunted our anthropologies and moralities for the past 125 years since his death. He continues to cast a long, disruptive shadow over our sense of self and morality. It’s Nietzschean Air We Breathe Alasdair MacIntyre once called Nietzsche the most important moral thinker of our age, going so far as to say that we live, move, and have our being in a Nietzschean age. Even without reading Nietzsche, many modern people reflect his influence (and that of other figures in modernity): doubting God, celebrating the “true self,” searching for identity within, and viewing Christian morality with suspicion. Nietzsche continues to cast a long, disruptive shadow over our sense of self and morality. His ideas of ressentiment and the will to power help explain this shift. Nietzsche had a particular disdain for those who call strong “bad” and weakness “good.” As an alternative, Nietzsche proposed the will to power, the drive of the self to rise above its cultural limitations to create one’s own individualistic values. Even a modern story like Wicked echoes these themes through a quasi-Nietzschean genealogy. The musical (and its movie) “reconstructs” the familiar Wizard of Oz to reveal the characters’ pasts, showing that their conflicts stem from jealousy, insecurity, and resentment—not simple good versus evil as first portrayed in the 1939 film. Elphaba and the Wizard clash out of mutual fear and misunderstanding, while Boq’s bitterness urges him to lead a mob against Elphaba for his “tinned” situation (sorry for the spoiler). The story resonates with so many Nietzschean themes: genealogy, resentment, and how the pursuit of power shapes communities in similar categories to what Nietzsche described. Beyond entertainment, we see similar patterns in American culture today. Many groups claim moral superiority by presenting themselves as victims and labeling opponents as “oppressors,” fueling identity battles where resentment often replaces dialogue and hospitality. Out-Narrating Nietzsche The challenge, I believe, isn’t merely critique but narrative capacity: Whose story can truly hold the weight of human longing and cultural meaning? As Chris Watkin aptly clarifies, “Out-narrating is not about telling the better story in the sense of being the most gripping or necessarily satisfying; it is about telling the bigger story, the story within which all other stories find their place.” Even though Nietzschean categories of genealogy, power, authenticity, and endless self-creation are adopted and adapted nowadays, I’m convinced the Scriptures still out-narrate Nietzsche. Nietzsche rejected Christianity yet repurposed its narrative framework for his own ideas: Dionysus (and the self) becomes the god figure, humans are always in flux, morality emerges from social revolt, Zarathustra speaks prophetically, and the Übermensch embodies a future messianic ideal. Nietzsche still included Scripture’s narrative framework: a god, a fall, a prophetic expectancy, a messiah, and an ushered-in eschaton. Though he sought to move beyond Christianity, he depended on the creation–fall–redemption–new creation structure, tacitly affirming Scripture’s narrative power even as he opposed it. Though Nietzsche seeks to move beyond Christianity, he depends on the creation–fall–redemption–new creation structure, tacitly affirming Scripture’s narrative power even as he opposes it. This engagement with Nietzsche serves as a case study for how the church might interact with contemporary cultural stories and philosophies. We can attend to these alternative narratives, hearing their longings and anxieties, while recognizing the gospel’s greater depth and breadth. Through Christ’s cross and resurrection, God absorbs the world’s anger, fear, resentment, and desire for control, dismantling their power through self-giving love. To participate in Christ is to be carried by a narrative capacious enough to engage the world’s desires without surrendering to them and discerning enough to redeem culture without baptizing any Nietzschean illusions.

The call for justice reverberates from the Bible. Yet many Christian activists see their advocacy for justice as more significant than maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy. It doesn’t have to be this way. Unless orthodoxy is maintained, orthopraxy won’t last. Christians need to find a path through cultural conflicts that maintains concern for biblical justice in the public square and biblical orthodoxy in the church. In Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us out of the Culture War, Justin E. Giboney, an attorney and founder of the AND Campaign, challenges readers to retrieve the black church’s history as a way to help Christians hold on to justice and truth with both hands. He argues that a robust Christianity includes a political witness that takes more than “verbalizing conviction.” It also includes “the application of our convictions” (7). Though political quietism is a perpetual temptation, it isn’t a viable option. Giboney writes, “A faithful public witness summons our creativity to serve the Creator and partake in his divine masterpiece. You can hear it in the abolitionist’s petition against the slave trader or the righteous prosecutor’s indictment of the sex trafficker” (6). Christians must enter the public square. The black ecclesial tradition offers a historical example of faithful social engagement that flows from a distinctly Christian moral imagination. Develop Moral Imagination As the fight for civil rights unfolded in the United States during the Reconstruction era, around 2,000 African Americans held office. Many were recognized for their excellent oratory, which sounded like the preaching they heard or did on Sundays. As Giboney notes, “Their rhetorical techniques were soulful. It’s as if they’d taken the sacred desk and a Hammond organ, placed it in parliament, and made it their own” (8). It wasn’t just the form and cadence of their speeches that were shaped by the church. Each week, African American Christians were immersed in scriptural imagery through the Bible and gospel songs that helped them navigate oppression, division, and vitriol during the long fight for civil rights. The content of their vision for society relied on moral imaginations saturated with Scripture. Our moral imagination is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves. According to Giboney, “Moral imagination is the ability to see not simply what has been historically, what is in the present moment, or what’s likely to be in the future. It’s the ability to see what ought to be and what will be based on God’s capacity, character, and promises” (156). Unless we keep up our guard, our culture’s stories about freedom and individualism influence us in ways we don’t recognize. That’s why every generation has blind spots. What one generation assumes is good and right about race, wealth, or politics may be forgotten by the next generation. Unless we keep up our guard, our culture’s stories about freedom and individualism influence us in ways we don’t recognize. A well-informed moral imagination “prevents us from being enslaved by the moment” (163). It can help us see alternatives to the dichotomies about social issues that our culture often presents. But that only works if our moral imaginations are conformed to something beyond the confines of our cultural moment—something like the orthodox Christian faith. Explore Pluralism’s Potential Giboney’s preferred approach to political engagement is civic pluralism, which he defines as “the recognition that we live in a diverse democracy, where people are free to speak their minds and live according to their convictions.” A commitment to civic pluralism also includes “protecting others’ right to advocate for beliefs that contradict the core of our value systems and self-perceptions” (107). There are legitimate examples of civic pluralism from the black church tradition. However, we have to carefully examine how cultural conditions have changed. When we look back at the civil rights era, Americans of every race shared many more basic assumptions that tended to align with a Judeo-Christian moral consensus. That consensus is crumbling. Furthermore, civic pluralism tends toward proceduralism that requires protecting “the agency of others not only in disputes about how the national anthem should be sung, but also in conflicts regarding when life begins and how it should end” (107–8). Yet these examples aren’t morally equivalent. Choosing whether or not to sing the national anthem is a minor concession. However, a version of civic pluralism that refuses to outlaw elective abortion or euthanasia presumes a particular understanding of the value of human life, effectively marginalizing a robustly Christian vision for the public square. It’s clear that Giboney opposes abortion, but it isn’t clear how that works out in legislative terms. Giboney’s preference for civic pluralism is understandable as calls for authoritarianism rise from the right and the left. Still, American society would greatly benefit from a principled pluralism instead. Principled pluralism advocates for equal treatment of different faith communities in both public and private life, despite significant differences in moral imagination. For example, Abraham Kuyper’s principled pluralism promoted a Christian worldview as the guide for a political framework without unduly marginalizing minority viewpoints. Retrieve the Black Church’s History Giboney’s basic argument is correct that recovering the black ecclesial tradition would benefit contemporary Christians caught up in the culture war. Throughout most of its history, the black church tradition has pursued both public justice and orthodoxy without apology. Every tradition has nuances and outliers. However, as Walter Strickland argues in Swing Low, four theological anchors have held black Christians to doctrinal orthodoxy amid their social activism: (1) God’s bigness and ability to do great things; (2) the example of Jesus’s life, including his suffering; (3) the importance of conversion and walking in the Spirit; and (4) the Bible as the “Good Book” that informs and motivates both doctrine and practice. Throughout most of its history, the black church tradition has pursued both public justice and orthodoxy without apology. In Giboney’s account, the orthodoxy of the black ecclesial tradition is largely assumed rather than argued. That assumption leads to questions about the way a shared theology shapes a moral imagination that results in different approaches to activism in the public square. For example, in 1961, the Progressive National Baptist Convention split from the National Baptist Convention over disagreements about political engagement by the church. Though Giboney doesn’t present the black ecclesial tradition as a monolith, these sorts of contours are flattened in his account. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that many civil rights activists like Willie Faye (Giboney’s grandmother) and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson were formed to pursue public justice by the black church tradition. Giboney has done Christians a service by bringing the faithful witness of these black women into focus along with the broader black ecclesial tradition. As Christians navigate an increasingly polarized culture, the black church tradition reminds us that good ethics come from true theology. In Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around, Giboney encourages Christians to pursue biblical justice without compromising on orthodox theology.