Charlie Kirk was definitely a "martyr," his life and death testified to a truth, but in his truth I do not recognize Christ.
Entitlement Religion is the sworn enemy of order, justice, and compassion written into the operating system of Creation. youtu.be/fjT3Q1cKCww
Entitlement Religion is the sworn enemy of order, justice, and compassion written into the operating system of Creation. youtu.be/fjT3Q1cKCww
GruntGod ep.5 with Rebekah Eklund
YouTube video by Grunt Works
youtu.be
September 17, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Charlie Kirk was definitely a "martyr," his life and death testified to a truth, but in his truth I do not recognize Christ.
Entitlement Religion is the sworn enemy of order, justice, and compassion written into the operating system of Creation. youtu.be/fjT3Q1cKCww
Entitlement Religion is the sworn enemy of order, justice, and compassion written into the operating system of Creation. youtu.be/fjT3Q1cKCww
In 2020 I was pitching #GruntGod — #veterans and faith, an underserved market. My agent submitted to #StanGundry, SVP at Zondervan. He questioned whether my Zondervan credits were real. Called it "a curious situation." Rejected the proposal. (He's rejected every vet-author I've spoken to...)
ECPA honors Stan Gundry with the industry’s Lifetime Achievement Award - Rush To Press
Gundry recognized for his 40+ years of leadership and impact on the Christian publishing industry as publisher, author, theologian, and professor Tempe, Ariz., Nov. 18, 2020 – On behalf of the Christi...
rushtopress.org
February 21, 2026 at 12:10 AM
In 2020 I was pitching #GruntGod — #veterans and faith, an underserved market. My agent submitted to #StanGundry, SVP at Zondervan. He questioned whether my Zondervan credits were real. Called it "a curious situation." Rejected the proposal. (He's rejected every vet-author I've spoken to...)
English Bibles routinely fail the consistency test, translating the same Greek word as "authority-bearing ruler" in one chapter and "helper" four chapters later, entirely dependent on the #gender of the person being described. 🤔
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.11.4: Phoebe Was a Commander — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
…Not a Casserole Committee This is drawn from the revision of the Joan chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 27, 2026 at 7:47 PM
English Bibles routinely fail the consistency test, translating the same Greek word as "authority-bearing ruler" in one chapter and "helper" four chapters later, entirely dependent on the #gender of the person being described. 🤔
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
if God's #gender is only allegorical… then every gender-based restriction on who gets to lead in God's name has to find its justification somewhere other than "because God is a man and wants men in charge."
GruntGod 2.11.1: Does God Have Lady-Sperm? — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
What Hebrew Grammar Actually Says This is drawn from the revision of the Joan chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 25, 2026 at 12:42 AM
if God's #gender is only allegorical… then every gender-based restriction on who gets to lead in God's name has to find its justification somewhere other than "because God is a man and wants men in charge."
The Stations, as we know them, are what a displaced religious order built when the actual #pilgrimage became physically impossible.
The Franciscans returned to Jerusalem in 1347, but the in-church version they'd improvised during exile didn't disappear, it spread.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
The Franciscans returned to Jerusalem in 1347, but the in-church version they'd improvised during exile didn't disappear, it spread.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.10.3: Stations of the Cross — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
(Re)introducing An Exilic Invention This is drawn from the revision of the Francis chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 19, 2026 at 11:50 PM
The Stations, as we know them, are what a displaced religious order built when the actual #pilgrimage became physically impossible.
The Franciscans returned to Jerusalem in 1347, but the in-church version they'd improvised during exile didn't disappear, it spread.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
The Franciscans returned to Jerusalem in 1347, but the in-church version they'd improvised during exile didn't disappear, it spread.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
The Hebrew #Bible doesn't grade its commanders on #gender. Deborah is competent and righteous; Athaliah is competent and monstrous. #Scripture simply isn't organizing its moral evaluation of leadership around #sex. We are the ones who added that filter later, and then read it back into the text.
GruntGod 2.11.2: Judges without the Sunday School Treatment — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Joan chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 25, 2026 at 4:48 PM
The Hebrew #Bible doesn't grade its commanders on #gender. Deborah is competent and righteous; Athaliah is competent and monstrous. #Scripture simply isn't organizing its moral evaluation of leadership around #sex. We are the ones who added that filter later, and then read it back into the text.
After I posted this link I realized I forgot to edit it as fully as I try to. I have since updated the essay with links as well as creepily pertinent imagery from Silence of the Lambs. See for yourself, and, come hell or high water, it does NOT put the lotion on the skin!
GruntGod 2.11.1: Does God Have Lady-Sperm? — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
What Hebrew Grammar Actually Says This is drawn from the revision of the Joan chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 25, 2026 at 10:17 PM
After I posted this link I realized I forgot to edit it as fully as I try to. I have since updated the essay with links as well as creepily pertinent imagery from Silence of the Lambs. See for yourself, and, come hell or high water, it does NOT put the lotion on the skin!
Civilians built a whole diagnosis from silence, because a clean story feels better than an "unclean" one.
Most #soldiers haven't done anything that requires that story. And the #veterans carrying something real don't need civilians writing the ending for them before they've said a word.
#GruntGod
Most #soldiers haven't done anything that requires that story. And the #veterans carrying something real don't need civilians writing the ending for them before they've said a word.
#GruntGod
Safety Brief: Closing Out the GruntGod Season Pass
Fourteen saints, one epilogue, and a question I still can't answer cleanly.
Every Friday, before grunts get cut loose for liberty, somebody with rank has to stand up and give the safety brief. Don't ...
www.loganmartinisaac.com
September 21, 2026 at 7:13 PM
At her father's encouragement, PFC Keys took the bus company to court, represented by CPT Roundtree Johnson, whose bus-terminal humiliation nine years earlier had put her on the road to becoming one of the first women fully ordained in the AME Church and, not coincidentally, a lawyer. #GIJustice
GruntGod 2.13.5: (Black) GIs Wrote the Legal Playbook — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
From Irene Morgan to Brown v. Board This is drawn from the revision of the Ralph chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 11, 2026 at 10:49 PM
At her father's encouragement, PFC Keys took the bus company to court, represented by CPT Roundtree Johnson, whose bus-terminal humiliation nine years earlier had put her on the road to becoming one of the first women fully ordained in the AME Church and, not coincidentally, a lawyer. #GIJustice
Fifty years after Resurrection City, William Barber, @liztheoharis.kairoscenter.org, & @wilsonhartgrove.bsky.social revived the name and the framework for their “Campaign.”
What they didn't revive is the specific commitment to #veterans that ran through its predecessors. #GIJustice #civilianbias
What they didn't revive is the specific commitment to #veterans that ran through its predecessors. #GIJustice #civilianbias
GruntGod 2.13.4: The Poor (Military) People's Campaign — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Ralph chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 10, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Fifty years after Resurrection City, William Barber, @liztheoharis.kairoscenter.org, & @wilsonhartgrove.bsky.social revived the name and the framework for their “Campaign.”
What they didn't revive is the specific commitment to #veterans that ran through its predecessors. #GIJustice #civilianbias
What they didn't revive is the specific commitment to #veterans that ran through its predecessors. #GIJustice #civilianbias
Butler took an ancient exile's vow never to forget a lost homeland and repurposed it as a promise never to forget the dead he'd failed to bring home. That repurposing is worth sitting with theologically, because it tells you something about what remembrance is actually for.
GruntGod 2.13.3: Butler's Oath (or, Not Forgetting the Dead) — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
“Let My Right Hand Forget Its Cunning” This is drawn from the revision of the Ralph chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 9, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Butler took an ancient exile's vow never to forget a lost homeland and repurposed it as a promise never to forget the dead he'd failed to bring home. That repurposing is worth sitting with theologically, because it tells you something about what remembrance is actually for.
The whole problem with the rights-obligation trade-off is the people setting the terms of the trade never have to pay into it themselves. [ #Civilians] got to define whose #sacrifice counted as currency and whose didn't, from a position that had never required any sacrifice of [them] at all.
GruntGod 2.13.2: Chief Justice Taney Never Served — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Ralph chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 8, 2026 at 5:12 PM
The whole problem with the rights-obligation trade-off is the people setting the terms of the trade never have to pay into it themselves. [ #Civilians] got to define whose #sacrifice counted as currency and whose didn't, from a position that had never required any sacrifice of [them] at all.
A muscle you don't use doesn't just fail to grow. It shrinks. Every generation that assumes the #republic will hold itself together without their #labor is a generation watching the muscle of democracy atrophy in real time.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.13.1: The Muscle of Democracy — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
Use it or lose it 🤷 This is drawn from the revision of the Ralph chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 8, 2026 at 12:05 AM
A muscle you don't use doesn't just fail to grow. It shrinks. Every generation that assumes the #republic will hold itself together without their #labor is a generation watching the muscle of democracy atrophy in real time.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
The founding vocabulary of the #Jesuits is martial from top to bottom, not merely inspired by #military metaphor but built directly out of it, by a man who had actually served and actually bled before he ever picked up the Exercises.
@jesuits.bluesky.social
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
@jesuits.bluesky.social
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.12.5: Fellow Soldiers — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
What 2 Timothy 2:4 Actually Says This is drawn from the revision of the Ignatius chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 4, 2026 at 3:47 PM
The founding vocabulary of the #Jesuits is martial from top to bottom, not merely inspired by #military metaphor but built directly out of it, by a man who had actually served and actually bled before he ever picked up the Exercises.
@jesuits.bluesky.social
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
@jesuits.bluesky.social
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
The #Crusades ground on… not because the original mission (retake Jerusalem) remained viable, but because the machinery had proven too useful, and too profitable, to dismantle.
This is the world Cervantes would later satirize through Don Quixote.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
This is the world Cervantes would later satirize through Don Quixote.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.12.4: Crusade by Any Other Name — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Ignatius chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 3, 2026 at 3:46 PM
The #Crusades ground on… not because the original mission (retake Jerusalem) remained viable, but because the machinery had proven too useful, and too profitable, to dismantle.
This is the world Cervantes would later satirize through Don Quixote.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
This is the world Cervantes would later satirize through Don Quixote.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
“Pulp” (non)fiction is the same move that lets a Vietnam-era war paperback or a Full Metal Jacket quote function as genuine liturgy for a #veteran who never set foot in seminary. The genre isn't the obstacle to faith formation. It's very often the on-ramp.
GruntGod 2.12.3: The Pulp Fiction That Made a Saint — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Ignatius chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 3, 2026 at 12:08 AM
“Pulp” (non)fiction is the same move that lets a Vietnam-era war paperback or a Full Metal Jacket quote function as genuine liturgy for a #veteran who never set foot in seminary. The genre isn't the obstacle to faith formation. It's very often the on-ramp.
The question was never whether your #service to God looks formal or informal, scripted or spontaneous. The question was always whether it's actually service — whether it costs you something and continues past the point where anyone's watching — or whether it's #performative.
GruntGod 2.12.2: The Word We Translated Into Meaninglessness — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
On Leitourgia This is drawn from the revision of the Ignatius chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
September 2, 2026 at 5:00 PM
The question was never whether your #service to God looks formal or informal, scripted or spontaneous. The question was always whether it's actually service — whether it costs you something and continues past the point where anyone's watching — or whether it's #performative.
First Formation doesn't check whether you're in the mood before it starts. The habit came first. The meaning came from showing up to the habit, not the other way around… pick an hour. Show up to it. Every day. Whether you feel like it or not.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.12.1: Praying by the Clock — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
The Lost Jewish Rhythm Behind Christian Prayer I'm knee-deep in revisions on the Ignatius chapter for the second edition of God Is a Grunt right now, and I had to cut something I didn't want to cut....
pewpewhq.com
August 31, 2026 at 6:33 PM
First Formation doesn't check whether you're in the mood before it starts. The habit came first. The meaning came from showing up to the habit, not the other way around… pick an hour. Show up to it. Every day. Whether you feel like it or not.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
When #Joan was a #girl, legends had circulated widely enough that when she mustered for #war calling herself La Pucelle, she wasn't inventing a myth about herself from scratch. She was stepping into one that had been under construction for two hundred years and multiple national borders.
GruntGod 2.11.5: From Welsh Wizard to French Battlefield — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
A 500-Year-Old Prophecy Finds Joan of Arc This is drawn from the revision of the Joan chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 28, 2026 at 3:49 PM
“Lydia and Priscilla weren't exceptions the early church tolerated. They were the infrastructure — the hosts, the funders, the teachers — that made the early Christian movement functionally possible in Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus.”
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.11.3: The Women Who Founded Your Church — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
…and Got Written Out of the Org Chart This is drawn from the revision of the Joan chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 26, 2026 at 3:53 PM
“Lydia and Priscilla weren't exceptions the early church tolerated. They were the infrastructure — the hosts, the funders, the teachers — that made the early Christian movement functionally possible in Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus.”
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
Augustine's Confessions doesn't hide his youth, Perpetua's martyrdom account doesn't sanitize her fear. What #hagiography refuses to do is let the damage become the whole interpretive frame. The genre insists that a life organized around #virtue can absorb #trauma without being reducible to it.
GruntGod 2.10.5: Calling Francis 'Broken' Is Lazy Scholarship — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Francis chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 21, 2026 at 3:05 PM
Augustine's Confessions doesn't hide his youth, Perpetua's martyrdom account doesn't sanitize her fear. What #hagiography refuses to do is let the damage become the whole interpretive frame. The genre insists that a life organized around #virtue can absorb #trauma without being reducible to it.
if Christ is going to tell his followers, across three separate Synoptic passages, to take up their own cross and follow him — Matthew 16:24, Matthew 19:21, Luke 9:23 — then John's version makes sure he isn't asking for something he dodged himself.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.10.4: Why Christ Had to Carry His Own Cross — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Francis chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 20, 2026 at 5:17 PM
if Christ is going to tell his followers, across three separate Synoptic passages, to take up their own cross and follow him — Matthew 16:24, Matthew 19:21, Luke 9:23 — then John's version makes sure he isn't asking for something he dodged himself.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
Crusaders “called themselves pilgrims wearing the cross, and that's precisely the branding problem. The word for the ritual (taking up the cross) and the word Joshua+ used for discipleship (taking up your cross) were now identical, and kings, not theologians, controlled which meaning won.”
GruntGod 2.10.2: How ‘Taking up the Cross’ got Weaponized — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Francis chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 18, 2026 at 3:08 PM
Crusaders “called themselves pilgrims wearing the cross, and that's precisely the branding problem. The word for the ritual (taking up the cross) and the word Joshua+ used for discipleship (taking up your cross) were now identical, and kings, not theologians, controlled which meaning won.”
The ritual physically resembles what's happening conceptually in Deuteronomy and Joshua: movement without a straight line, holiness as an orbit rather than a destination you arrive at and check off.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.10.1: What Circling Has to Do with Following — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
This is drawn from the revision of the Francis chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 17, 2026 at 5:39 PM
The ritual physically resembles what's happening conceptually in Deuteronomy and Joshua: movement without a straight line, holiness as an orbit rather than a destination you arrive at and check off.
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
"The church is not short on theological resources for engaging its #military members faithfully. It is short on the will to use them, and short on the honesty to admit why. Martin's story is one of those resources. His feast day is one of those moments."
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
GruntGod 2.9.5: November 11th — Grunt Works | Human dignity for rank and file beleivers
What the Church Forgot It Was Celebrating This is drawn from the revision of the Martin chapter in the second edition of God Is a Grunt.
pewpewhq.com
August 14, 2026 at 6:19 PM
"The church is not short on theological resources for engaging its #military members faithfully. It is short on the will to use them, and short on the honesty to admit why. Martin's story is one of those resources. His feast day is one of those moments."
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...
pewpewhq.com/blog/gruntgo...