Brad speaks with Dr. Philip Gorski, Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Yale University. They preview his new co-authored book (with Sam Perry) on the history and future of Christian nationalism in the United States. Professor Gorski illuminates how White Christian nationalism has been part of the American fabric since the Puritans. One of the reasons it is hard to combat is that its threads have become so embedded in our national narratives that we often don't see them. However, the...
May 10, 2021•10 min
Brad and Dan examine the competing ideals often put forth by the GOP: 1) Be an individualist who thinks for herself vs. 2) work to unite the country behind a common cause. They discuss how these ideals are often contradicted by the GOP's actions and policies. First, they look at the ouster of Liz Cheney for thinking for herself by opposing Trump's Big Lie. Put in her leadership place: Elise Stefanik, someone who went from freethinking moderate to Trumpian acolyte. Then there is Mitch McConnell, ...
May 07, 2021•10 min
Where is the GOP headed four months after an attempted coup? Even further down the rabbit hole of authoritarianism. In the wake of his jarring interview with Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz on fascism in rural America, Brad shows that these anti-democratic impulses are not limited to fringe pockets of the country. They are at the heart of the contemporary conservative movement and GOP. This portends even more anti-democratic maneuvers, threats of violence, and repeats of the 1/6 coup attempt, even as ...
May 05, 2021•9 min
Brad speaks with Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Recovering Truth Project (Arizona State University) about her recent article, "The Hybridity of Rural Fascism." She discusses the Evangelical converts to Orthodoxy in rural Appalachia, at least one of which self-identifies as a fascist. She explains how the group sees Trump as too conservative, and instead looks to Putin as the model leader for this--and any--country. As her and Brad explore, the community represents the extr...
May 03, 2021•10 min
Brad and Dan discuss how racism and patriarchy stem from a desire for power and control. They relate this to comments by Rick Santorum on Native American culture, American culture, and the history of the nation. They also apply it to statements from Lyndsey Graham, who said we can't be a racist nation because we elected Obama, and Tim Scott who gave the response to Pres. Biden's address a few days ago. They discuss patriarchy in relation to the revival of Promise Keepers as a way hetero-patriarc...
Apr 30, 2021•9 min
Brad speaks with Dr. Jill Hicks-Keeton, Associate Professor of Religion at Oklahoma University and co-editor of The Museum of the Bible: A Critical Introduction, about the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. Started by the Green family, who own the Hobby Lobby franchise, the Museum of the Bible is what happens when an evangelical megachurch tries to transform into a Smithsonian museum--it mixes Evangelical propaganda with Christian nationalist rhetoric and a supersessionist theology that sees ...
Apr 26, 2021•9 min
Brad and Dan connect the threads of the Chauvin murder conviction, the proposed America First caucus, and racialized violence across the country. They use historical instances from the Civil War, the 1920s, and other moments in the nation's history to explain how we are still living in two countries with two sets of rules. They conclude by examining how Sikh individuals were targeted in the Indianapolis mass shooting and use this instance to explain how religion is raced in the United States and...
Apr 24, 2021•9 min
In the wake of the conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, Brad argues that family values have been used for centuries as a vector for White supremacist Christianity. Not only are family values used today as a way to draw attention away from racial inequality and other systemic issues, but they have been used throughout American history to justify racism and white supremacy. There is a direct line connecting the concern for order, the vision of the famil...
Apr 21, 2021•10 min
Brad speaks with Andrew Seidel, constitutional lawyer at the Freedom From Religion Foundation and author of The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. He explains how the Arkansas state legislature's anti-trans bill and the bill to legalize teaching creationism in schools are linked. By inserting creationism into school curricula, Seidel explains, there is the possibility of codifying the idea that there are only two sexes and two genders, which in essence codifies the exclusio...
Apr 19, 2021•11 min
Brad and Dan discuss how returning to normal after the pandemic is tragic in contemporary America: from the murder of Daunte Wright during the Derek Chauvin murder trial to the propagation of White replacement theory by prominent pundits and politicians to the Evangelical reticence to get the vaccine. They draw on the work of James Baldwin and others to draw connections among these disheartening facets of American life. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access...
Apr 16, 2021•9 min
Brad's second (and hopefully final) response to Timothy Keller. Brad discusses Keller's reductionist view of modern conceptions of selfhood; the problematic approach he takes to criticisms that his sexual ethic erases queer people--and creates the context for violence against them; and the ways Keller uses academic and theoretical sources (Taylor, Asad, Foucault) to cover over what are classic evangelical maneuvers: reduce sexual identity to choice, label those who don't fit the heterosexual fol...
Apr 15, 2021•9 min
Brad's second (and hopefully final) response to Timothy Keller. Brad discusses Keller's reductionist view of modern conceptions of selfhood; the problematic approach he takes to criticisms that his sexual ethic erases queer people--and creates the context for violence against them; and the ways Keller uses academic and theoretical sources (Taylor, Asad, Foucault) to cover over what are classic evangelical maneuvers: reduce sexual identity to choice, label those who don't fit the heterosexual fol...
Apr 14, 2021•8 min
Brad and Dan draw on Sophie Bjork-James' new book, the Divine Institution, to demonstrate how Evangelicals use the nuclear family in order to both attack members of the LGBTQ+ community and draw attention away from systemic issues related to race and other public health threats. In particular, they discuss a) the trans bill and healthcare for trans children in Arkansas b) Biden's executive order on gun control and the issue of gun violence as a public health threat c) the CDC's labeling of racis...
Apr 09, 2021•8 min
Brad is joined by Dr. Susannah Crockford, author of "Thank God for the greatest country on earth: white supremacy, vigilantes, and survivalists in the struggle to define the American nation," an article in which she shares her ethnographic field work from the Arizona desert, near the US-Mexico border. Her work illuminates how Christian nationalism works in the minds of those who see defending the border as the most pressing issue in maintaining the greatness of the USA. She also explores how cer...
Apr 07, 2021•10 min
Brad responds to a Twitter thread by Timothy Keller, pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Keller argues for sex in a lifelong covenant marked by deep permanent union. He calls this biblical. Brad points out that the only biblical soulmate story we have of this kind is between God and Israel, which is a problematic example since God is both Israel's Husband AND maker. How do you have consent and symmetry if your spouse is your creator? He then shows that the soulmate myth Keller is advancing c...
Apr 05, 2021•9 min
Brad and Dan are happy to announce that SWAJ is joining the Irreverent Media Group--a collective of podcasts that offers content on deconstruction, rediscovery, and everything in between. We outline the details at the top of the episode. Check out irreverent.fm for more details! We spend the major segment discussing the 82 anti-trans bills up for vote across the country. Dan shares analysis about how and why the trans body is so disruptive to the Christian nationalist vision of the USA. By using...
Apr 02, 2021•9 min
TEDx speaker and author Asha Dahya is the Creator and Editor in Chief of GIRLTALKHQ. She was born in the UK, raised in Australia, and now lives in the USA. Of Indian descent, Asha grew up in Evangelical churches and was imbued with the teachings of purity culture. She discusses how it shaped her understanding of love, embodiment, and relationships, and why it prevented her from seeking the proper help when her marriage turned abusive. She also discusses how being a woman of color in the United S...
Mar 31, 2021•10 min
Brad’s response to Focus on the Family head Jim Daly, who mentioned him in a recent article. In the article Daly tried to deflect the analyses that connect the Atlanta shooter with Evangelicalism and purity culture. Brad dissects Daly’s argument that: The Atlanta shooter’s actions were born from insanity, and thus warrant no further investigation This is unfair to Christianity Purity culture = healthy Marriage is for procreation = biblical He concludes by extolling Daly to focus on his own famil...
Mar 29, 2021•9 min
Dan provides a detailed rebuttal to a piece claiming that there the concern about Christian nationalism is an overblown conspiracy by liberals and celebrities. Brad links this to the draconian voter-suppression law signed in Georgia last night. The law was bankrolled by Christian nationalists organizations and is a direct reaction to Black women and POC organizing to flip the state Blue. It even makes it illegal to give people in line to vote a glass of water. Talk about freedom, eh? They finish...
Mar 26, 2021•7 min
Brad talks with Adrian Gibbs, co-host of the Dirty Rotten Church Kids and an ex-evangelical of Filipino descent, about the connections between Ravi Zacharias' abuse of spa workers of Asian descent and the killing of six Asian women of Asian descent at day spas near Atlanta next week. They discuss the themes of misogyny, racial otherness, and purity culture as ways to understand why both cases involve Evangelical men carrying out violence against women of color. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get...
Mar 25, 2021•10 min
Brad was featured in a NYT article about purity culture and its affect on the Atlanta shooter along with other academics and advocates including Sam Perry, Joshua Grubbs, and Rachael Denhollander. Soon thereafter Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, derided the article and our comments on his podcast. This is Brad's response. He touches on the selective literalism of Evangelical readings of the Bible, queer theologies and lives from the Bible to the present, and...
Mar 22, 2021•11 min
Brad and Dan discuss the various threads connecting the massacre in Atlanta: from the history of anti-Asian racism, to the various dimensions of purity culture, to the cover Christian nationalism provides to acts of violence. They then discuss the Vatican's statement on why the Church can't bless same-sex unions. To Brad and Dan this is an instance of the hurtful "loving the sinner, hating the sin" ideal used in Evangelical spaces. They conclude with a segment on Russian interference in our elec...
Mar 20, 2021•11 min
In the wake of the mass shooting of 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women, Brad ties together the threads of anti-Asian hate, purity culture, and Christian nationalism. Killing half a dozen Asian women and attributing it to sex addiction, not racism, is Christian nationalism in a nutshell: "Purity culture made me feel bad about my sexual needs, so I eliminated the temptation. What does race have to do with that?" (Hint: everything) Purity culture is not simply about sexual "purity." Sexual ethics...
Mar 17, 2021•10 min
Brad explains how evangelicalism destroys faith, because it destroys any sense of uncertainty and unpredictability. By working in a register of moral, political, and theological certainty, evangelicalism becomes the anti-thesis of faith. Brad calls this disenchanted theology. By contrast, he argues that as a secular person he has become a person of faith in ways he never experienced as an evangelicals. For him, even as a non-religious person, the world is enchanted--full of unknowability and unp...
Mar 16, 2021•7 min
Voter suppression laws are Christian nationalist policy. They are part of a long lineage of movements that see White Protestants as the only legitimate power brokers in the American landscape. The 253 voter suppression bills put forth by the GOP over the last month are the result of the belief that not everyone should be able to vote and thus not everyone should be able to govern. After this first segment, we turn to Beth Moore's departure from the SBC, and discuss why it is and is not a big dea...
Mar 12, 2021•7 min
This is a re-release of an episode from last year. Brad talks to journalist Katherine Stewart, author of the Power Worshipers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Her reporting takes us inside the world of Christian nationalism on the level of lived-experience. She conveys what she has seen at BBQs, political rallies, and even revival meetings at the Trump Hotel in DC. What emerges is a frightening picture of the mechanics of MAGA Nation and its religious communities. Subscribe f...
Mar 10, 2021•9 min
Sam Kestenbaum is an award-winning freelance journalist who regularly contributes to the New York Times. He recently wrote a feature on Godspeak, a Calvary Chapel church in Ventura County, CA. At Godspeak, Sam writes, defiance to COVID mandates takes on a holy aura. It is the reason business is booming--attendance has tripled during the pandemic and the head pastor, Rob McCoy, is a rising star in the Right-Wing influencer world. Sam shares his experiences reporting on Godspeak and how it is a ne...
Mar 09, 2021•9 min
Brad compares the current moment to other times in American history when crisis and conflict led to a new normal. What will be our new normal after COVID? Will myth or policy drive us forward? On one hand, the Dems are tepidly putting forward legislation on COVID relief, voting rights, and protections for the LGBTQIA+ community. On the other, the GOP is driving the Big Lie forward, along with culture war items like Dr. Seuss and Potato Head. Which story--and which future--will prevail? Brad and ...
Mar 05, 2021•6 min
"Conversion therapy" is a discredited practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Lucas Wilson is a Liberty University grad who took part in the university's ongoing "conversion therapy" program. Now a writer and scholar, he shares his experiences and those of others who endured the efforts to change their sexual orientation. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, ...
Mar 02, 2021•9 min
At CPAC this week, there is a golden calf, um, statue of Trump making the rounds. Brad and Dan explore how this emblematizes Trump's continuing reign over the GOP. A majority of Republicans view him as a true patriot. Almost half say they would defect if he started a new party. Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan say Trump is the figurehead of the GOP and will be for the indefinite future. This means, we believe, that the type of violence seen on 1/6 will happen again. In the second segment we discuss...
Feb 26, 2021•10 min
