Two Vineyards

The Francis most of us inherited is harmless: a garden statue, a bird on his shoulder, and pets lined up for a blessing. The man himself was considerably more dangerous to imperial Christianity. Francis renounced property, refused the logic of possession, called creation his kin, and told his brothers to live as strangers and pilgrims. Within years of his death, the Church began setting those instructions aside. Centuries later, men wearing his habit came to California, built missions on Indigenous land, confined the people they baptized, and placed Francis’s own name over the door. This episode asks what happens when we reclaim the saint from the institution that inverted him. For Californians, that question is not academic. His name is still on our cities, missions, schools, roads, and monuments. The history underneath those names is still present too. We follow Francis back past the garden statue, past Serra, and past the imperial version of Christianity that used his habit while abandoning his instructions. What emerges is a Francis much harder to possess, and perhaps much more useful for the work that remains. 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