Ted Olsen

@tedolsen

Amateur Christian. Formerly: Associate Publisher and Editorial Director for Media and Trade Books, @ivpress.bsky.social; Executive Editor (etc) at @christianitytoday.com

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Ted Olsen@tedolsen· 16d

If they’re trying to avoid Trump supporters, I’m not sure Mainline congregations suffice prri.org/spotlight/tr...

In September 2025, most white evangelical Protestants (72%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (55%), and white Catholics (54%) viewed Trump favorably. Since the beginning of 2024, Trump’s favorability has risen by around 10 points within each of these groups (up from 63%, 42%, and 43%, respectively). In comparison, around one in four Christians of color and religiously unaffiliated Americans viewed Trump favorably.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· 18d

Is this your read on the Little House reboot? Admittedly I've only seen the first few eps., but Independence seems like a place you're going to starve to death, constantly face violence (incl. sexual violence), and at best find yourself a land thief. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/o...

The show [the Little House on the Prairie reboot] also appears, perhaps inevitably, like an infomercial for the tradwife lifestyle, set to a soundtrack of whinnying horses and chirring bugs. The Ingalls girls wash their clothes in pristine streams, stoke fires while sucking peppermint sticks and slumber under patchwork quilts. Who wouldn’t yearn for this life?

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· 20d

I dig the new one at Fitzgerald’s, too

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· 21d

First I’d heard of her. Apparently “girl evangelists” were a thing back then and she was the most prominent. Also the most enduring—she stayed an evangelist through her adult life. (Via fromthevault.wheaton.edu/2026/01/06/n...)

The September 1929 issue of The Betty Weakland Magazine

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· 25d

Agreed.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· 27d

Definitely feeling this at the moment.

Air Quality Index is 395 on a 500-point scale. Well into the "Hazardous" range.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Jul 4

The last 24 hours of lightning here has been crazy

A map of Chicagoland on lightningmaps.org, showing thousands of dots representing lightning over last 24 hours

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Jun 24

Psalm 10:12-16
Rise up, O Lord;
lift up your hand, O God; *
do not forget the afflicted.
Why should the wicked revile God? *
why should they say in their heart, “You do not care”?
Surely, you behold trouble and misery; *
you see it and take it into your own hand.
The helpless commit themselves to you, *
for you are the helper of orphans.
Break the power of the wicked and evil; *
search out their wickedness until you find none.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Jun 22

"What we did in the South was change ourselves from people who could be segregated into people who could no longer be segregated." - Diane Nash. (I highly recommend Ricks's history)

From that extraordinary act of strategic self-definition flowed the necessary tactics. “We were going to be rid of segregation,” [Diane Nash] later said. “One of the things that I have learned over the years is that you really can’t change anyone but yourself and what we did in the South was change ourselves from people who could be segregated into people who could no longer be segregated. The attitude became ‘well kill us if that’s what you’re going to do, but you cannot segregate us any longer’ and once you change yourself the world has to fit up against the new you.”
From "Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement," by Thomas E. Ricks

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Jun 13

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Mar 24

9.B.C.: "... the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the gospel for the world that came by reason of him." A.D. 30 onward: the term "gospel" is largely associated with Christianity 2026: (via www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...)

Israel’s offensive in Gaza included an AI-assisted target-creation platform called 'the Gospel' which produces potential targets so fast some Israeli officers have compared it to a “mass assassination factory”.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Mar 21

Project Hail Mary (2026)

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Mar 18

Sorry, @mattvella.bsky.social, but this is when I stopped trusting the article.

Financial Times: "Eventually, Jennifer would feel an immense sense of relief every time she saw Frodo throw the One Ring — an unbearable relic only he can carry — into the fires of Mount Doom." (Frodo does not, in fact, throw the One Ring into Mount Doom.)

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Nov 25

2025: When book spines became book covers

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Nov 17

Probably related, but woes tpday over at Curio.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Oct 13

To clarify: No new "free speech zones" are opening. Broadview is closing the one on 25th Street, immediately off of I-290, where many of the protests have been. 1/

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Oct 11

Scenes from today's (Saturday's) Eucharistic procession to the Broadview ICE facility (different from yesterday's Communion service outside the facility!) 🧵 1/

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Oct 10

Instagram post from yesterday by David Black, the Presbyterian Church (USA) minister who went viral for being repeatedly targeted by ICE with chemical munitions. www.instagram.com/p/DPnOQIODFP4/

Tomorrow morning, Christian clergy will be holding a communion service in front of the ICE Detention center in Broadview, IL. In our liturgies, we say that “they will come from north and south, east and west to sit together at the table in the Kingdom of God.” The communion table is a welcome table. All are invited.

A nation which prohibits the movement of the peoples to gather at that table is by definition obstructing our religious practice and infringing on our right to practice our Christian faith freely.

All are invited to join in this ancient ritual, which acknowledges the violence which an empire visited upon our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet his death and resurrection inaugurated the world we yearn for. The truth is that the Beloved Community is here—I see it gathering outside Broadview week after week to demand and exhort the release of our captive neighbors and their restoration to our communities, so that the Welcome Table of this Eucharist might be made whole. I hope you will join us.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Oct 10

Scenes from today's Communion service outside the Broadview ICE facility. 🧵

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Oct 10

Je suis 2018 Hawaii

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Oct 4

‘Grandma, my skin’s burning.’ www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/03/i...

“My grandbabies, they said, ‘Grandma, my skin’s burning,’” the woman recalled.

The woman said she turned off the air conditioning to try to keep the chemicals from coming through the vents.

Days later, she could not describe the smell of the gas. Just that “it burns” and that it made her chest hurt.

She couldn’t be sure, though, whether the pain was from the chemicals or the fear.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 25

Can you describe the cover? Here are a few I've been eyeing:

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 24

Always grateful for Jay Kim’s wisdom www.wsj.com/tech/peter-t...

Jay Kim, the lead pastor at WestGate Church in the Bay Area, who has had a front-row seat to the new attention to Christianity emerging in Silicon Valley, said Thiel’s focus on the Antichrist is misplaced.

“My best understanding is that the New Testament writers focus very little, if at all, on pointing followers of Jesus towards spending their energy on accurately identifying the Antichrist,” he said. “To give all your energy into thinking about all that, to me, feels like a pretty futile endeavor.”

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 22

Grateful for the interview! Did the photo that went viral get too expensive to use?

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 21

Syncretism is always pretty popular.

2 Kings 17:32-33, 41:
They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. …
Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 21

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

NYT: "at the [VIP area of the] memorial service for Charlie Kirk … Kyle Rittenhouse, who was embraced by the right after fatally shooting two people during protests in Wisconsin in 2020, posed for photos."

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 21

David Black, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, is sprayed directly in the face with tear gas at the ICE processing facility in Broadview. Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 21

David Black, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, is sprayed directly in the face by a masked ICE agent during protests outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois. Photo by Ashlee Rezin of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ted Olsen@tedolsen· Sep 19

The Atlantic's @kokogiak.bsky.social is brilliant in how he connects each photo in "Photos of the Week" to its neighbors. (Even better than NYT's Connections game!) Amused by this clever juxtaposition in last week's: children in danger → RFK Jr vaccines testimony → More children in danger