Between Bread and Empire

In this first Sunday of Lent, we walk with Jesus into the wilderness and listen closely to the tempter’s three offers: economic control, religious spectacle, and global power. Rather than treating them as abstract spiritual tests, we track how each one has a modern institutional form, from churches obsessed with metrics and “growth” to ministries that gamble with people’s lives in the name of faith, to movements that wrap empire and nationalism in the language of Christ. Drawing on the older figure of ha-satan and the fully weaponized Satan of Matthew’s Gospel, we name the false gods at work in these temptations: Mammon, Mars, Moloch, and Thanatos. Then we follow how imperial Christianity merged with them, turning the Church from a wilderness people into a chaplaincy for power. The episode’s heart is the question of allegiance: what it means, in practice, to worship the Creator of Truth, the Spirit of Peace, Yahweh of Justice, and Jesus of Love when that worship requires turning down the deals that keep institutions safe. Finally, we return to one line: “One does not live by bread alone.” From there we explore what it might look like for communities to refuse to turn people into fuel, to choose being small and truthful over being mighty and compromised, and to trust that, on the far side of refusal, angels still come and real bread still appears. You are welcome here. Protected Speech | Views My Own Between Bread and Stone © 2026 Stephen Brewer. All rights reserved. Podcast audio and full text may be quoted for noncommercial purposes with attribution. Gospel text from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Get full access to Drawing the Line at percival84.substack.com/subscribe