Avoiding Babylon

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You can feel it after this election: the old scripts are breaking. We sit down with Stephen Cox to talk through the fallout, the fury aimed at Catholics who refuse to “just press R,” and the deeper issue underneath the internet drama. When political identity becomes a substitute for moral reasoning, even serious Catholics start excusing what they used to call evil, as long as it comes packaged as conservative.

We dig into the heart of the argument: the “lesser of two evils” approach has trained generations to normalize corruption, foreign policy disasters, and moral compromise while calling it prudence. We walk through Catholic moral theology in plain language, including material cooperation with evil, proportionate reasons, and why scandal matters when you publicly back candidates who keep moving the line. Along the way we challenge talking points on abortion politics, abortion pills, IVF, and contraception, and we ask why so many leaders treat “pro life” as branding rather than policy.

The conversation also turns to how certain historical and religious debates become taboo, how edited texts and social penalties shape what Catholics feel safe discussing, and why media narratives can control a movement without ever winning an argument. We close with what all this means for the next few years: immigration pressure, war politics, growing distrust of establishment figures, and the search for a coherent Catholic public witness.

If this hit a nerve, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. Where do you draw the line between prudence and compromise?
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Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
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That new trailer moment where Christian TV starts to look like superhero cinema is the kind of thing that makes us pause and ask a serious question: are we being entertained into believing the wrong things about Jesus? We react to The Chosen’s latest direction and explain why “creative liberties” stop being harmless when a show puts brand-new words in Christ’s mouth, dodges His divinity, or frames Him like a reluctant hero who needs help finding His confidence. If you care about the Gospels, Catholic teaching, or just honest storytelling, this is a conversation worth having.

From there we branch out into the wider culture and the way institutions bend under pressure. A Ryan Long comedy clip about women priests turns into a blunt, practical discussion about confession, secrecy, and why some ideas fail not only theologically but humanly. Then we pivot into geopolitics, where the loudest headline is often the least important detail. We talk foreign aid to Israel, what “leverage” really looks like, and why focusing on a single dollar figure can miss the deeper machinery behind policy and war.

We close by connecting the uneasy “pre-COVID” vibe a lot of people feel right now to real vulnerabilities: cyber disruptions, smart devices, AI surveillance, inflation that outpaces wages, and the creeping pressure toward digital money control. Our most grounded takeaway is also the least glamorous: build community now, know your neighbors, and don’t let the next crisis script isolate you again. If this hit a nerve, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave us a review with your take on where all of this is heading.
Support the show

Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1
https://www.avoidingbabylon.com
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Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!
A single word can flip a villain into a victim, and that’s what sent us down a rabbit hole after watching the Elizabeth Holmes documentary. What bothered us wasn’t just Theranos or Holmes’ “character,” but the feeling that the film is actively working on the viewer. Once you see the fingerprints of narrative framing, you start asking a different question: who is manipulating whom, and why does it work so well?

To make sense of it, we trace the logic back to Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal and his obsession with controlled reality, reenactment, and perception management. From there, the conversation gets uncomfortably personal: we take the same idea into everyday life, where two people can attend the same party and walk away with totally different stories of what happened. That gap between intent and interpretation is where most arguments live, and it’s also where media narratives thrive.

Then we hit the deeper problem: memory. A Kathy Bates clip becomes the perfect illustration of how confidently wrong a person can be for decades, which forces hard questions about how we process long-ago events, public accusations, and “what I remember” as a substitute for evidence. Finally, we zoom out to the bigger anxieties of the moment: Pentagon guidance on 90-day self-sufficient military bases, governments nudging citizens toward emergency supplies, AI-driven cybersecurity incidents, and what a real power or internet disruption would do to modern life.

If this made you rethink how you trust stories, memory, and “official narratives,” subscribe for more, share this with a friend who loves media breakdowns, and leave a review with the moment that stuck with you most.
Support the show

Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1
https://www.avoidingbabylon.com
Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com
Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com
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Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!
A packed auditorium, a national candidate, and one question that made the whole room squirm: when politicians say “God,” who do they mean? We sit down with Alex (American Reform), now writing with Integrity Magazine, to break down the viral Charlie Kirk tour clip where he confronts Vivek Ramaswamy on faith, public language, and the temptation to hide behind safe, generic spirituality. The moment is bigger than one Q and A. It’s a window into how American civil religion works, why audiences reward vagueness, and how “Christian values” can become a substitute for actually naming Jesus Christ.

From there we zoom out to the deeper framework: the founding story, Thomas Jefferson, and why deism and religious indifferentism still shape modern conservative politics. We talk about the Jefferson Bible, the way founders get treated like secular saints, and why Catholics who care about political theology can’t ignore the moral assumptions baked into the system. If your instincts tell you something feels off when faith gets reduced to a campaign aesthetic, we put real words and examples to that feeling.

We also wrestle with the practical question everyone dreads at election time: what do you do when the choices are bad? We discuss the “lesser of two evils” argument, principled abstention, and how voting blocs actually gain leverage when parties stop taking them for granted. Along the way we touch on libertarian framing around culture issues and why the “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone” standard can’t carry a society.

Follow Alex’s work at Integrity Magazine and the Journal of American Reform, then stick with us on Locals for the extended aftershow. Subscribe, share this with a friend who argues politics like theology doesn’t matter, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.
Support the show

Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1
https://www.avoidingbabylon.com
Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com
Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com
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Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!
France is burning on your timeline and it’s hard to look away, not because it’s “foreign news,” but because it feels like a preview. We bring on Adrian from Sips with Sarah to talk through the France riots, the copycat unrest spreading across Europe, and the sickening vulnerability of churches, cathedrals, and historic landmarks when the state hesitates and mobs realize there’s no consequence. We keep coming back to a concrete question: what does real, non-vigilante resistance look like when sacred places and public order are on the line? 

From there, we get into the bigger drivers people don’t want to name: European immigration policy, the collapse of assimilation expectations, and a cultural formation pipeline that can teach both natives and newcomers to despise the very place they live. We also unpack why so many officials seem frozen, including the idea that the post-war moral framework treats “racism” as the ultimate heresy, making leaders qualify everything while cities burn. Adrian adds a Catholic lens, including what older Catholic teaching says about borders, obligations to the common good, and the duty to respect a nation’s religious heritage. 

The conversation doesn’t stay purely political. We talk about why watching formerly Catholic countries drift from their roots feels like a spiritual wound, what the Church’s leadership gets wrong when it defaults to dialogue alone, and whether any recovery requires something like a Nineveh-level return to God. If you care about Europe, Christianity, mass migration, assimilation, and the future of Western civilization, this one will challenge you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your take: are you hopeful or bracing for worse?
Support the show

Get 10% off an amazing Black Monk Rosary by going to https://www.blackmonkrosaries.com/?ref=AVOIDINGBABYLON and using code AVOIDINGBABYLON at checkout!
Check out our sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!
Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1
https://www.avoidingbabylon.com
Merchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.com
Locals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.com
Full Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribe
RSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss