One of the stranger stories to come out of the 2024 presidential elections is the story of Peanut the squirrel and Dave the raccoon. In case you haven’t heard here’s the short version: in upstate New York, early one morning, the government sent agents to the house of Mark Longo, a man who ran a non-profit animal shelter. Mark also had a popular Instagram account featuring a squirrel named Peanut that he had rescued seven years before and kept at his home. According to the man, the Department of Environmental Conservation raided his home with ten to twelve agents. They searched the home for five hours while they detained him. Finally, they took Peanut and a raccoon. They said that Peanut bit an officer, so they killed them both.

While this story is very strange, it apparently struck a nerve with many people with support for either Mark and Peanut or the government fracturing along partisan lines. In this episode we want to look at the ways these issues reveal different details about American culture, politics, and the influence of the church.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson