Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus · The Sophia Society

And Justice For All w/ Kalie May Hargrove

·37 min·2 clips

Kalie May Hargrove says people are being sacrificed in Gaza so Americans avoid reframing empire.

1. Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus centers on a discussion of resistance, liberation, and empire. 2. Host Gary Allen Taylor interviews writer, theologian, and ordained minister Kalie May Hargrove, who works with the Center for Prophetic Imagination in Atlanta and speaks from experience as a trans Christian leader. 3. The episode asks what faith is for when Christians are surrounded by militarism, nationalism, and colonial power. 4. Taylor links the conversation to Gaza, Christian nationalism, and a four-part typology of perpetrator, victim, bystander, and liberator. 5. Hargrove describes the Center for Prophetic Imagination as a place that fosters discernment about social context and challenges power structures that cause harm. 6. She says the group's manifesto aims to subvert the existing social order through deep discernment and creative action. 7. Hargrove reads the gospel story as God choosing victimhood over earthly authority in Jesus. 8. She argues that the crucifixion shows a God who refuses power and instead exposes hierarchical systems. 9. Taylor presses her on empire, and Hargrove says many exvangelicals still hold on to American exceptionalism. 10. She connects that loyalty to current political choices, colonization, and the refusal to change systems that protect privilege. 11. Hargrove says people are willing to sacrifice Palestinians in Gaza rather than rethink how America works. 12. She argues that deconstructing faith without decolonizing it leaves the underlying system intact. 13. Her personal story enters when she describes being outed as trans and receiving a letter giving her the choice to drop out of seminary or face discipline. 14. She says she left school while paying with the GI Bill after nine years in the military. 15. Hargrove says that experience pushed her to stop arguing for queer inclusion and to start doing queer theology instead. 16. She also explains that religious institutions can claim Title IX compliance while using religious exemptions to discriminate. 17. She names the Religious Exemption Accountability Project and the Hunter v. Board of Education lawsuit as part of the fight over those exemptions. 18. The tone stays conversational and direct, with Taylor asking long framing questions and Hargrove answering in extended theological and legal explanations. 19. Listeners interested in queer theology, Christian nationalism, and deconstruction will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a light church-life chat or a brief devotional will probably skip it.

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