I am a practicing Catholic, not an evangelical Christian, but in

Host: The diner sat on the edge of a quiet highway, the kind where time seemed to slow under the hum of neon lights and the distant whisper of trucks passing in the night. The air smelled of coffee, fried onions, and the faint melancholy of America after midnight.

Outside, a worn flag fluttered lazily in the wind. Inside, a radio murmured an old country song no one was listening to.

Jack sat in a booth near the window, his face half-lit by the buzzing neon sign that read “OPEN 24 HOURS.” Across from him, Jeeny stirred her coffee slowly, eyes thoughtful, as the rain began to tap gently on the glass.

There was a heaviness in the air — not of anger, but of questions.

Jeeny: “You ever read what Rachel Campos-Duffy said back in 2016? ‘I am a practicing Catholic, not an evangelical Christian, but in 2016 I stood with millions of evangelicals who decided that Donald Trump would be the best person to fight for our religious liberty.’”

Host: Jack looked up, his grey eyes tired but sharp, the faint reflection of the neon light flickering in them like restless fire.

Jack: “Yeah. I remember. A lot of people stood behind that line — religious liberty. It became the new flag, didn’t it?”

Jeeny: “It’s more than a slogan, Jack. For some people, it’s the line between faith and fear. They felt their beliefs were being pushed out — mocked, dismissed. That they had to stand up, even if it meant standing with someone… complicated.”

Jack: “Complicated.” (He laughed, dryly.) “That’s a polite word for it.”

Host: The waitress passed by, refilling their cups, the faint steam rising like ghosts between them.

Jack leaned forward.

Jack: “I’ll tell you what I think, Jeeny. Religion used to be about humility — about grace, forgiveness, service. But when it becomes a political weapon, it stops being faith and starts being strategy.”

Jeeny: “You think faith and politics can’t coexist?”

Jack: “Not when one’s being used to justify the other. When you start choosing your leaders based on who you think will ‘protect your beliefs,’ what you’re really saying is — you don’t trust your faith to survive without power.”

Jeeny: “That’s unfair. Faith has always needed defenders. Look at history — Constantine, Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Romero. Sometimes you need power to protect what’s sacred.”

Host: The rain outside grew heavier, tapping rhythmically against the window like a heartbeat.

Jack: “But there’s a difference between protecting faith and politicizing it. King used faith to confront power. These people use power to fortify faith — and that’s not the same thing.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But it comes from fear, Jack. You call it politics — I call it desperation. People saw the culture shifting beneath their feet. They saw prayer leaving schools, crosses taken down, churches closing. To them, Trump wasn’t a savior. He was a wall — a line drawn in panic.”

Jack: “And fear makes strange saints.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But it also makes people cling to what they know. They weren’t defending politics — they were defending identity.”

Host: Jack sighed, rubbing his temples. The clock above the counter ticked softly, each second echoing like an accusation.

Jack: “Identity built on fear doesn’t hold, Jeeny. It just divides. Every time religion wraps itself around politics, it loses a little of its soul. Remember the Crusades? The Inquisition? Same story — faith mixed with power, truth drowned in blood.”

Jeeny: “But faith without engagement becomes invisible. Baldwin said that to be conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage — maybe to be faithful is to be in a constant state of resistance.”

Jack: “Resistance to what? The world? Or yourself?”

Jeeny: “To apathy. To silence. People like Campos-Duffy saw the world changing faster than their hearts could adapt. They thought, ‘If we don’t act now, our way of life will vanish.’ Can you blame them for wanting a defender?”

Host: The lights flickered once as thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. Jack stared at his reflection in the window — two versions of himself: the man inside, and the ghost looking out.

Jack: “You know what the irony is? Jesus never fought for religious liberty. He fought for compassion. He stood with the powerless, not the powerful. And yet somehow, people invoke his name to defend their side of the fence.”

Jeeny: “But maybe that’s just what faith looks like now — trying to survive in a world that’s stopped believing.”

Jack: “Faith doesn’t need survival strategies. It needs truth. If your faith depends on who sits in office, maybe it’s not faith at all — maybe it’s fear dressed as righteousness.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes glistened. Not from anger — from the ache of remembering. She looked down at her hands, tracing the rim of her cup.

Jeeny: “You talk like belief is clean. It’s not. It’s messy. It’s human. It’s fear, love, contradiction, and hope all tangled together. People vote not for holiness, but for protection. They saw someone who said he’d fight for them — and that felt like faith, even if it wasn’t.”

Jack: “But at what cost? They gave faith a face that sneered, mocked, divided. How do you defend love with anger? How do you protect God by worshipping power?”

Jeeny: “Because people confuse power with security. They confuse loudness with conviction. And in that confusion, they forget that Christ’s greatest sermon wasn’t shouted — it was whispered, on a cross.”

Host: The room fell into silence. Only the rain spoke — a steady rhythm against the glass, like penance.

Jack: “You still go to church?”

Jeeny: “Every Sunday. And every Sunday I sit there wondering if we’ve lost the plot — if faith’s become a team sport instead of a search for truth.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s the real excavation Baldwin talked about — digging through all the noise to find the beating heart of what we once believed.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s the writer’s burden, Jack — to remind us that faith isn’t something you vote for. It’s something you live through.”

Host: The thunder softened, fading into distant rumble. Jack leaned back, his eyes distant, as if measuring the weight of belief against the silence of the night.

Jack: “Maybe Campos-Duffy wasn’t wrong to stand with them. Maybe she was just standing where she thought the light still was.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But light isn’t owned by any one camp. It burns where truth is, not where power points.”

Jack: “You sound like a preacher.”

Jeeny: “I sound like someone who still believes in decency — even when belief itself is confused.”

Host: The neon outside buzzed, flickered, then steadied — a pulse in the night.

Jack: “You think faith and politics will ever part ways again?”

Jeeny: “Only when we stop mistaking noise for meaning.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly, the first real smile of the night. The rain had slowed, and the diner glowed warm against the dark outside — like a small sanctuary on a vast, uncertain road.

Jeeny finished her coffee and looked out the window, her reflection mingling with his.

Jeeny: “Maybe faith’s not about who we stand with, Jack. Maybe it’s about what we stand for.”

Jack: “And maybe liberty isn’t something you fight for with ballots — maybe it’s something you build quietly, one honest act at a time.”

Host: They sat in silence again — two souls in a flickering booth, surrounded by coffee cups, raindrops, and questions older than history.

Outside, the storm cleared, revealing a thin line of dawn creeping over the horizon — pale, uncertain, but promising.

Jeeny whispered softly, almost to herself:

Jeeny: “Maybe the truest faith is learning to stand in that dawn — not on one side or the other, but in the light itself.”

Host: Jack looked at her, then at the fragile morning breaking through the window.

And for a moment — brief, breathless — faith, politics, and the soul stood still, listening to the same quiet song: the sound of a world still trying, however imperfectly, to believe.