Welcome to Tomorrow’s Edge at mackenzian.com.
Last time I published from my home on the web, I was living uptown in New York in a terribly managed apartment complex and the 45th US president had just finished his first year as Commander-in-Chief.
I couldn’t have known then: we were a few springs away from a global pandemic and years of mass grief. Four winters away from a coup in the Capitol and gallows on the Mall. Seven Novembers from a second round with 45/47: crisis, chaos, and grift.
This year finds me back at Base Camp in central Maryland. Here, though state-level politics somewhat buffers my family from the rollercoaster that is the USA at 250, we’re still in the capital region blast radius. And here, in the shadow of Mordor, we feed seniors and walk them as often as they can stand it. We sip tea and coffee, care for the animals, listen to music, or watch sports. I read, edit, and paint. I write.
I write about the stories that help us make sense of our individual and collective lives: religious, social, and personal. I write about history and how we got here; about justice movements that have tried to bend the moral arc; and about how else we might reorder the worlds of experience and meaning we’ve inherited.
Read: Pluralism Chapter at Oxford UP
The attempted coup in 2021 made Christian nationalism more of a mainstream keyword, but it’s been a main character in the United States all along. In the 1880s, as today, some Christians wanted to use the law to squeeze people with different beliefs out of public life. Not everyone then believed that people of all faiths and none have an equal stake in a society that works for everyone. It’s still a position people argue about now.
Several groups of religious and civic leaders, lawyers, and organizers have tried and failed to free the US from discriminatory law and culture. I worked with one such group at the height of the pandemic, and my latest book chapter, “In Medias Res,” describes the inclusive vision that we used to draw and keep a very, very diverse coalition at the common table.
You can read how it went in Modeling Pluralism: Cultivating Religious Equity in Today’s World (Oxford UP, 2026). My chapter is chapter 5. Our editor was Simran Jeet Singh.
Listen: Building A Moral Economy at Anam Cara
I recently spoke to Revs. Jason Chesnut and Tuhina Rasche from Anam Cara Community (ELCA) about Building a Moral Economy and the origin stories of early Christianity. How did the first generation of Christians handle their resources in the shadow of empire? What can we learn from them as we manage and share our wealth today?
The miracle of editing is that you can pour the best of an hour into 18 minutes.
Listen to our conversation, Doing Good and Doing Well in an Economy That’s Neither, at Anam Cara or read my unofficial transcript below.
Doing Good and Doing Well in an Economy That’s Neither
Jason Chesnut & Tuhina Rasche (Hosts); Keisha E. McKenzie (Guest) | Hashcast (May 17, 2026)
Keisha E. McKenzie: [00:00:00] The moral imagination that has set up this world is one that has always devalued certain kinds of life and certain kinds of knowledge and certain kinds of people. Like, that was the world in which these disciples did share everything together because the Roman Empire also was based on enslavement and endless war, and endless war that framed itself as peace and civilizing.
Tuhina Rasche: The, the Pax Romana.
Jason Chesnut: The Pax, Pax Ro-
Keisha E. McKenzie: Precisely. So the Pax Romana and the Pax Americana are very, very similar, not in scale, but in type. and these are the contexts in which we share with those early disciples an overshadowing imagination shaped by an imperial culture that doesn’t value life and doesn’t see good as infinite.
But the scriptures teach us that there is always bread, and there is always fish, and there is always, if our hearts [00:01:00] are in the right place, a willingness to share that with those who need.
Jason Chesnut: Welcome to Hashcast, a podcast where preachers hash out their sermons together. This episode, it was an absolute joy and delight to welcome the brilliant, the thoughtful, the lovely Keisha McKenzie.
About my favorite car
Keisha E. McKenzie: It is very much a stereotype. It was my partner’s car, and it was a Subaru Outback.
And I loved that car. It had heated seats and a wooden steering wheel.
Jason Chesnut: Mm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And it was incredibly reliable, and it never let us down except for one summer when something about the AC compressor went out.
Jason Chesnut: Mm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And we live [00:02:00] in the DC Metro: swamp country.
Jason Chesnut: Swamp.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah, so the summer, the summer was very intense, and I prayed every day not for heatstroke.
But other than that- Right … I would buy a Subaru again in a hot minute. This is not a sponsored piece of content.
Jason Chesnut: Did you name, did, did your partner name it? Did y’all name it?
Keisha E. McKenzie: Um, not officially. Okay But I unofficially called it George.
Tuhina Rasche: George.
Keisha E. McKenzie: My name’s Keisha McKenzie. I live in central Maryland with my partner, five elders, three cats, a dog, and my mother-in-law, and I’m a technical communicator.
I’m an author. I’m a caregiver. I’m a intermediate weightlifter just trying to get back into my body after a decade and a half of brain work and looking to the next chapter of my life.
About Building a Moral Economy
Jason Chesnut: Tuhina and I sat down with Keisha to talk about building a moral [00:03:00] economy while in another system, neither moral nor an economy.
Keisha E. McKenzie: So for the last year and a half, I’ve been working on this book project called Building a Moral Economy with Cynthia Moe-Lobeda. It’s a six-book series, multi-authors, uh, published by Fortress.
Jason Chesnut: Yes.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Cynthia’s introduction frames a moral economy around what is more, uh, equitable, more ecologically sustainable, and more democratic, and just that anchor alone kinda helps me pull up from the usual ideological debates between capitalism and socialism and all the other isms.
Not to say that those aren’t important and clarifying, but my question, as I dig into what the religious roots of such an economy could be-
Tuhina Rasche: Mm-hmm …
Keisha E. McKenzie: Or what are the spiritual values motivating the people doing this work for change to make it more equitable, make it more-
Tuhina Rasche: Yeah
Keisha E. McKenzie: …sustainable, make it more democratic, and care for people in practical ways?
So that, that’s [00:04:00] like my interest in what’s the, what’s the nourishing underpinning, what are the roots that could help us produce this outcome?
Tuhina Rasche: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And not even in a direct, you put this ingredients in, this piece of bread comes out, but more… you seed the soil with as much good as you can.
Tuhina Rasche: Yes.
Jason Chesnut: Mm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And then you trust God for the increase.
Tuhina Rasche: Yes.
Keisha E. McKenzie: That’s my orientation to it. … because I have found in the wider work of social transformation, a lot of the direct action does not work because it produces resistance, and it’s the implicit action, changing the climate around people, making folks feel psychologically safe-
Tuhina Rasche: Mm-hmm
Keisha E. McKenzie: um, giving them a new kind of story to hang onto that then cascades through their life. That’s what helps to influence change, and it’s very slow.
Tuhina Rasche: It’s, yeah, it’s-
Keisha E. McKenzie: It’s very slow …
Tuhina Rasche: it’s generational slow.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Exactly.
Tuhina Rasche: Oftentimes with direct action, we see like the short term and have, because of course, what is time?
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm.
Tuhina Rasche: Um, with [00:05:00] direct action, we have the ex- the immediate expectation, and I think it’s very hard when we live in a world that has like this increased notion of immediate gratification.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm.
Tuhina Rasche: And I feel weird using immediate gratification w- coming to using words like direct action, but- Yes … I think part of this is looking at a reframe of oikonomia.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm.
Tuhina Rasche: And what does it look like to do long-term generational work as opposed to exhausting oneself and communities with direct action after direct action after direct action after direct action?
Organizing as a long game
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah. And maybe my organizer heresy is around directly confronting the powers. I have had experiences with the powers both in terms of government and law and in terms of the progressive organizations that claim they’re opposed to the powers.
Jason Chesnut: Listen. [00:06:00]
Keisha E. McKenzie: Right. So inside, inside the fold and outside the fold, I’ve experienced the powers.
Tuhina Rasche: Wow.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And there is an exhaustion, a moral and spiritual exhaustion that comes from directly confronting those powers. It has its moments.
Tuhina Rasche: Mm-hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Like Jesus did with the hinderer in the wilderness. There was some direct conversation there, some opposition.
Jason Chesnut: Ooh, the hinderer. Some- I like that …
Keisha E. McKenzie: yeah, some- Yeah, yeah, yeah … some resistance there.
Jason Chesnut: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah. But, but that was not the bulk of his work in those three and a half years. It was more shifting the climate and atmosphere and giving people alternative experiences other than empire and, and showing them the abundance of God, like, in the form of loaves and fishes and, um- Expanding the table around which they thought that loaf and fish could be shared
Tuhina Rasche: Well, and if you think about Jesus playing the long game, Jesus played the long game because we’re [00:07:00] here.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Longest, yes. Longest game ever.
Jason Chesnut: Yeah, and he, he created-
Keisha E. McKenzie: Overtime
Jason Chesnut: … a, a deep, like you were saying Keisha, he created the context in which-
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm
Jason Chesnut: … um, we could flourish.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah. Yeah.
Tuhina Rasche: And also gave us the reframes- … with the parables.
The example of the earliest Christians
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm. When I was thinking about what a moral economy can look like, and I zoomed it down to small scale, I, I went back to the early church and, and the first couple chapters of Acts.
Jason Chesnut: Yes.
Tuhina Rasche: Mm-hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: So say Acts 2 to 6-ish.
Tuhina Rasche: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Um, and I was reading them again yesterday.
Jason Chesnut: Sharing everything in common.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah, sharing everything in common, um, selling their stuff and pooling the proceeds, uh, which I am absolutely not ready for that. We, we can, uh, we can delay that step another couple another couple years.
Um, but, but this-
Jason Chesnut: I think it’s telling the church to do that, actually. Not, not the world. I wanna hear what more what you say about that, but
Keisha E. McKenzie: yeah. Yeah. I mean, but th- this is [00:08:00] the… I, I laughed when I read it again yesterday because I was like, oh, the, the part in, in chapter two where they’re like- “All who believed were together and had all things in common” and “distribute the proceeds to all” when they sold stuff.
Um, “day after day, they spent much time in the temple. They broke bread at home. They ate food with gladness and generous hearts.” I was like, this is the PR version of what actually happened. Yeah. Uh-huh. And then when you, when you turn the page a couple pages to, um, chapters four and five, then you kinda see what the, the meeting notes might have been.
‘Cause you get this case study contrast between Barnabas and Ananias and Sapphira.
Jason Chesnut: Listen. Whoa.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And I, I kind of love that too, because as I say, like, when you work in organizations or you get your hands dirty in movement, then it’s not just the nice idea of whatever those communities came together to do, but it’s also the raw and ugly practice of humans being [00:09:00] human together.
And sometimes people are generous literally out of the goodness of their hearts, and sometimes they’re generous because they see what it can buy them.
Jason Chesnut: I mean, look at the, you know, the, the, those in power, the current president, everything’s tran- transactional, right? Like, I, I, I can’t give you something unless you give me something, otherwise I’m a loser.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah.
Jason Chesnut: Which none of that makes sense in oikonomia- in, in, in oikonomia, right? Like-
Tuhina Rasche: And also thinking about, like, a baseline organizer question of who benefits.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm. I also love that the meeting notes describe this.
Tuhina Rasche: I love “the meeting notes.”
Keisha E. McKenzie: The meeting notes describe this conflict between the Greek-speaking widows and the Aramaic-speaking widows.
Jason Chesnut: Mm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And how, how those early believers tried to resolve this disparity of access, um, this disparity of, of resource.
And I, I love that despite the fact that the PR agents were really motivated to shape these [00:10:00] stories in a certain direction, you have the apostles saying, “We’re too busy to fix this. Let’s make up a new role and call it a deacon, and the deacons will fix it.”
Jason Chesnut: Hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And I love it because it shows, like, in less than a year after Jesus, they’ve already forgotten, like, the criteria on which he judges your morality. And, like, in Matthew 25, he says, “The difference between the sheep and the goats is around the practical ways you manage these resources and take care of people who are vulnerable.”
And within less than a year, they’re like, “I’m, I, I don’t wanna do all that. I’m gonna go read a, read a scroll and, um, talk to people instead.” I, I kinda love it.[00:11:00]
The power of imagination
Jason Chesnut: The holy imagination that you’re encouraging Keisha just makes me think of Octavia Butler and how she would imagine worlds where the same broken, complicated, beautiful humanity was like put in-
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm
Jason Chesnut: … and said, you know. And so oftentimes, or a, a lot of times when she would talk about it later, she’d be like, “I’m just putting people in these situations and saying, ‘Here’s one possibility.'”
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm.
Jason Chesnut: “Here’s one thing that we could do together.” Mm. “But here’s another thing that m- that could happen.”
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah.
Jason Chesnut: I find a lot of hope in that.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I have, um, beside me… Often when I talk to people like this, I have a couple of books beside me because osmosis is a thing.
Jason Chesnut: Yeah, right.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And so one of the books that’s beside me is Imagination by Ruha Benjamin.
Yeah, it’s a small little book, because she writes about Afrofuturism and imagination in the [00:12:00] context of technology, which, you know, I’m a nerd, so we, we do that in my house. Um-
Jason Chesnut: Uh, it takes one to know one. Yeah, that’s why you’re here.
Tuhina Rasche: See the books?
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yes, indeed, indeed. So, so in, in Imagination, one of the things she points out is that sometimes when people talk about imagination, they assume it only is a positive outcome, right?
Jason Chesnut: Mm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: But, but the imperial imagination shaped our world.
Jason Chesnut: Mm-hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And so you-
Jason Chesnut: Shapes our world.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Shapes.
Tuhina Rasche: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yes. Continues.
Jason Chesnut: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Um, the vision of the technocrats is that humanity does not exist in fleshly form, that we merge with the machine, that consciousness is uploaded and expelled into space. That’s the imagination that’s dominating our planet.
Which is why healthcare doesn’t matter, which is why-
Tuhina Rasche: Right
Keisha E. McKenzie: … reproductive care doesn’t matter.
Jason Chesnut: Nothing, nothing matters because, because that, that’s gonna save everything, right? Especially those who own [00:13:00] the AI produ- or, you know, the, the computer products.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So, so in order to counter that, in order to…
I, again, not thinking about countering so much as designing it out. I like to design things out. I like the stone to smash the statue.
Jason Chesnut: Mm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: So if we’re designing that out, um, crowding it out, then the imagination that we need has to include kind of embodied and relational and fleshly and practical and personal and inefficient, and all the things that don’t play well in a one-year grant-funded project with definely- setly defined outcomes and-
Tuhina Rasche: Say that again.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Um
Tuhina Rasche: Say, can, how many times can you say that?
Keisha E. McKenzie: Proof of concept and, um, I will say it as many times as I need to because I’m working out my trauma.
Tuhina Rasche: Well, and isn’t that really part of the extraction economy?
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yes.
Tuhina Rasche: That [00:14:00] we have to chase grants, and they’re not long-term, they’re not looking at the long game.
They’re the direct impact grant that’s gonna have a Newtonian reaction.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yes, within one year.
Tuhina Rasche: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah.
Tuhina Rasche: Just thinking about how, you know, philanthropos, that we’re, you know, philanthropy-
Keisha E. McKenzie: The love of humanity …
Tuhina Rasche: And that we’ve, yet again, because it’s, it’s the twisted economy- Mm-hmm … of extraction.
Keisha E. McKenzie: From that pivot point.
Tuhina Rasche: Yeah. As opposed to the spatialness of oikonomia.
Recognizing our wealth
Keisha E. McKenzie: Mm-hmm. And that, that’s why, again, I love, I love the model of Barnabas, um, because he, he’s not even from there. He’s from Cyprus. Um, but he sells his land, and he voluntarily gives it to the early community, all of it.
Jason Chesnut: Hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And- Yeah … that gift: It’s [00:15:00] not that it buys him a place in the story, but it earns him the trust of the people.
And that earned trust then means that he then goes on to partner with the, the later Apostle Paul, and go around the region and, and help to shape what then becomes the church that we’ve inherited.
Tuhina Rasche: Planting the seeds, tilling the soil.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Yeah. It’s absolutely a positive model for people of, of means. Um, and I say that with some perspective, given that globally w- we on this call are people of means.
Jason Chesnut: Right.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Which is bananas, ’cause I do not feel like that.
Jason Chesnut: Right, right, right.
Keisha E. McKenzie: I do not feel like a person of means, but, but globally I am.
Jason Chesnut: Yeah.
Keisha E. McKenzie: And I have to acknowledge that.
Jason Chesnut: And peak vulture capitalism doesn’t- Yeah … want you to think that, right?
Keisha E. McKenzie: Like- Right. Yeah … right.
Jason Chesnut: It distorts the reality. Sorry, I interrupted.
Keisha E. McKenzie: Well, no, but I think you’re, I think you’re right that there are reasons why I don’t feel wealthy, even though [00:16:00] technically I am. Um, and there are reasons why certain kinds of wealth that are not fiscal are devalued.
Jason Chesnut: Mm-hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: I get that. And so part of my, uh, part of my repentance from being part of this empire has to be reframing my own concept of the wealth that I have, and the gift that I can therefore bring to the collective.
Jason Chesnut: Hmm.
Keisha E. McKenzie: So that, that’s, that’s gotta be part of my journey as a person living in the United States of America, profiting from what the United States of America does, and shaped by American culture. Like, I have to reform my sense of resource and my relationship to others who may need that resource.[00:17:00]
Jason Chesnut: This Hashcast is brought to you by a moral economy, a reformation of resources, an economy where the question isn’t who owes who, but rather how can we love each other? An economy where it’s not about your liquidity, it’s about your humanity. An economy where all are cared for, not just a precious few.
Sounds like gospel to me. May it be done on Earth as it most certainly is in heaven.
Thank you for doing this. You’re amazing.
Keisha E. McKenzie: I, I love you both.
Jason Chesnut: Love you too, Keisha.
Hashcast is one of the constellation of offerings of the Anam Cara community. Rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
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