Dr. Megan Goodwin is the author of Abusing Religion, which explores how White Christians and their influence in our "secular" institutions have constructed religious outsiders as sexual predators as a pretext for persecution and othering. The American body politic is envisioned as a White Christian woman in need of protection from religious (and racial) foreigners who seek to infiltrate and contaminate her. According to Goodwin, this is mobilized through the "catholicization of public morality" ...
Jul 20, 2021•11 min
Brad and Dan begin with a discussion of the revelations from the new book, "I Alone Can Fix It," including General Mark Milley's preparing for Trump's Reichstag Moment, Pence's belief that his Secret Service detail was part of a Trumpian conspiracy, and the ways our democracy have been pushed to the limits before, during, and after 1/6. They then discuss what the Texas Dems self-exile to DC means for saving voting rights and how democracies often undergo autoimmune moments wherein democratic pro...
Jul 16, 2021•11 min
Brad discusses a new article at WaPo on the Trumpism and Christian nationalism of non-denominational churches. He points out that this is not a new phenomenon to anyone who has been paying attention He points out that the identity of non-denominational Christian might replace the Evangelical identity for some people--which helps make sense of recent data on a decline in Evangelical numbers across the country He spends the bulk of the episode explaining how non-denominational churches are ripe fo...
Jul 14, 2021•9 min
Brad speaks with Dr. Lucas Kwong of CUNY about the far-reaching implications of Christian xenophobia. They discuss the explicit White nationalism of AZ Representative Paul Gosar and far-right commentator Nick Fuentes (who was just banned from Twitter for his hateful content). They also touch on the more cunning versions of Christian xenophobia in pastors such as Tim Keller and Ralph Drollinger, the latter of whom taught a weekly Bible study at the White House throughout the Trump presidency, who...
Jul 12, 2021•8 min
"Whatever natural good was present in the piety and community of the pagan past is an infinitesimal fraction of the grace rendered unto those pagans’ descendants who have been received into the Church of Christ. Whatever sacrifices were exacted in pursuit of that grace—the suffocation of a noble pagan culture; an increase in disease and bodily death due to government negligence; even the sundering of natural families—is worth it." Declan Leary writing at the American Conservative Brad responds t...
Jul 09, 2021•8 min
Brad begins by responding to Pennsylvania Senate candidate Josh Mandel who claimed last week that the Bible and the Constitution were "not supposed to be separate." He then spends the bulk of this response episode dissecting the comments of conservative "theocratic fascist" Matt Walsh, who spent last week whining that the House voted to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol. Brad uses the metaphor of family and representation to demonstrate how bogus it is to maintain that any Confederates...
Jul 07, 2021•10 min
Dr. Benjamin E. Park is a historian who has become a national voice on issues related to religion and politics, particularly as they relate to the Church of Latter Day Saints. His work has appeared at the Washington Post, Newsweek, Houston Chronicle, Religion & Politics, Talking Points Memo, Religion Dispatches, Dallas Morning News, Salt Lake Tribune, Religion News Service, and Patheos. He speaks to Brad about the hidden histories of Christian nationalism and triumphalism in the LDS Church a...
Jul 05, 2021•11 min
Brad and Dan begin this 4th of July weekend episode with thoughts from James Baldwin, who discussed his love for America as a "lover's quarrel." They then lay out the evidence for the fact that the Cold Civil War is escalating--from Trump's Revenge Tour, to new data on how White Evangelicals voted in 2020, to Governor Kristi Noem turning the South Dakota National Guard into soldiers-for-hire, to the Oath Keepers admitting the armed conspiracy to prevent Biden from becoming president on 1/6. They...
Jul 02, 2021•11 min
Brad speaks with author and pastor Ruth Everhart about her new book, "The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church's Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct." They discuss the connections between rape culture and purity culture, how patriarchal theology contributes to toxic church environments. Link to Ruth Everhart The #MeToo Reckoning: https://www.ivpress.com/the-metoo-reckoning "The #MeToo movement has revealed sexual abuse and assault in every sphere of society, including the church. But victim...
Jun 30, 2021•9 min
The Catholic Church is officially against abortion. But there are millions of Catholics around the world--including President Joe Biden--who are pro-choice politically. Only the 2nd Catholic president in our history, one would think that the Church, especially the Conference of Bishops, would be ecstatic to have Biden in the White House. But in a vote that portends an escalating culture war, recently the American Bishops took a vote that many saw as the first step in denying Biden and other pro-...
Jun 28, 2021•9 min
Brad and Dan do close readings of statements made by Insurrectionist Senator Josh Hawley and Representative Matt Gaetz in order to deconstruct the logic of their attacks on CRT, their resistance to facing the inconvenient truths of American history, and their rage against investigating the 1/6 Coup. Both of them use binary thinking, false dilemmas, and straw man arguments to mount attacks that amount to nothing more than what Dan calls "toddler epistemology." They then turn to the remarks made b...
Jun 25, 2021•10 min
We are thrilled to announce Straight White American Jesus's first affiliate podcast: Out of the Closet and Into the Pews, a show by Rachael Borthwick that asks what it means for religion to be a vehicle for liberation and freedom for queer people. Rachael is a burgeoning scholar of religion at the University of Pennsylvania who has written on queer communities of faith in the USA and beyond, served as a research assistant to our show, and worked as a campus activist. Out of the Closet and Into t...
Jun 23, 2021•9 min
Brad speaks with Kyle J. Howard, a theologian and counselor trained at a Southern Baptist Seminary. He discusses his conversion at 18 at a Black Church in Georgia, his journey to ministry as a counselor of racial and spiritual trauma, and his insider perspective of the calculation made by leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention. It goes like this: Demonize Critical Race Theory in order to divert attention from the sexual abuse scandal. Anticipate losing a number of Black pastors and churches,...
Jun 21, 2021•9 min
Brad asks Dan to explain how the Southern Baptist Convention is a barometer for White American Christianity and what it means moving forward. They then discuss how the White panic over CRT has led to dangerous legislation and lawsuits. In AZ, a new law stipulates that teachers will be fined 5k if they discuss divisive topics without giving time to "both sides." In PA, a family is suing a school district for teaching about White privilege and BLM because is supposedly infringes on their "majority...
Jun 19, 2021•10 min
Brad speaks again with journalist Jonathan Krohn who is covering the Southern Baptist Convention for the New Republic. Krohn takes Brad through all the major events at the convention: From an SBC presidential candidate leaving a sexual abuse survivor and activist in tears to the war on CRT and the surprise victory of Ed Litton in the presidential election. While the Southern Baptist Convention is a niche topic, Brad argues that what is happening in the country's largest Protestant denomination i...
Jun 16, 2021•9 min
Brad talks with Dr. Matthew Boedy, Associate Professor of English at the University of North Georgia, about the rising young star of Christian nationalist circles and the GOP writ large--Charlie Kirk. Dr. Boedy traces Kirk's "conversion" from young conservative to staunch Christian nationalist. According to him, one of the reasons Kirk has become America's Christian nationalist youth pastor is his marriage of traditional conservative talking points with apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding the fate ...
Jun 14, 2021•11 min
Brad and Dan begin with insight from Prof. Jason Stanley: “History shows that propaganda can make a dominant group mad with panic and fear about the threat of a small minority subjugating them, supposedly by seizing the institutions and doing things to their children.” They use this idea to explore the myths that are inciting panic and fear in White Americans, including White Christian nationalists, across the nation: the Big Lie, the propaganda against Critical Race Theory, the GOP's Myth of th...
Jun 11, 2021•11 min
Brad speaks with Jonathan Krohn ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting. Jonathan is an investigative journalist and essayist whose work has appeared at Mother Jones, the Washington Post, and many other outlets. He also grew up in the SBC and was once considered a teenager star in the denomination. He will be covering the annual meeting for the New Republic. He and Brad discuss what he expects will happen at the convention. It appears that the USA's largest Protestant denominat...
Jun 09, 2021•11 min
Brad speak with R.L. Stollar, a writer and advocate for homeschooled children. As someone homescholed from Kindergarten to high school graduation, Stollar knows firsthand how homeschool parents are radicalized into extremist Christian nationalist ideologies. He discusses why homeschool spaces open the doors for authoritarian personalities and abusive figures to operate without oversight. He also explains how White Christian nationalists are working to export these programs all over the globe. Th...
Jun 07, 2021•12 min
Brad makes a big announcement regarding the show and a new direction in his professional life . . . with Dan on vacation he then discusses the long list of cases wherein Trump and Trump allies signal their desire to overthrow the democratic process in order to stage a coup. From General Flynn welcoming a Myanmar-style coup to Paul Gosar conspiring with the Proud Boys to Louie Gohmert speaking at a QAnon conference to an Oregon Rep letting militia in the side door to attack the state legislature....
Jun 04, 2021•12 min
Brad is joined on a special Wednesday episode by co-host Dan Miller to discuss a question that many will be hearing at BBQs and on social media: Why is the 1/6 insurrection bad but you have nothing to say about the BLM protests? Those protests led to property damage and violence. Aren't 1/6 and the BLM events the same? Dan draws on his expertise in populism and material from his new book, Queer Democracy, to explain why the very premise of the comparison is bad, how these movements represent two...
Jun 02, 2021•10 min
Brad speaks with Dr. Jill Hicks Keeton about her critical review of Beth Allison Barr's popular new book "The Making of Biblical Womanhood." Here is an excerpt of the article: "Barr is certainly right that patriarchy is socially constructed and not a given or natural framework for organizing society. But one of the tasks of the historian, I think, is to make visible the work that has gone into making the contingent seem natural. Yet when it comes to the sacred anchor of Barr’s evangelical tradit...
May 31, 2021•11 min
Brad and Dan begin this Memorial Day episode by discussing the theme of memory and erasure. They point out that there are some things we can't stop remembering--that's how trauma works. The replay of certain events plays on repeat even when we want it to stop. Other things are put under the banner of erasure--from the Tulsa Massacre 100 years ago to the Insurrection of 1/6 a few months ago. They then tie this to the concerted efforts to block a 1/6 Commission by GOP leaders and what this means f...
May 28, 2021•10 min
In a re-release from 2019, Dan and Brad discuss how evangelicalism is a fundamentalist worldview. They draw on scholarship on global fundamentalisms in order to explain why evangelicals are so prone to nostalgia and so resistant to societal and political change. They also illuminate why fundamentalists are willing to use symbolic and physical violence to advance their cause. This episode is especially pertinent given the ongoing vitality of the Big Lie and Evangelical reluctance to take the COVI...
May 26, 2021•7 min
Brad speaks with Dr. Charles McKinney, a historian of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Church in the South. Dr. McKinney puts the conservative war on Critical Race Theory in historical perspective, explaining how it works as a deflective strategy to demonize racial justice phenomena without directly demonizing Black people and other people of color. They finish by analyzing how White Christians have framed Rafael Warnock as neither a real Christian, nor a real American--the same tact used...
May 24, 2021•10 min
Brad and Dan discuss the GOP's opposition to 1/6 commission and how the GOP is doing myth making in real time to change the perception and memory of the Insurrection. They then discuss SCOTUS' decision to hear a case about abortion that could lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The episode wraps with a discussion of the Ur-Christian Nationalist, Billy Graham, and the new PBS doc about his life; as well as a brief back and forth on Biden's decision to approve a sale of arms to Israel. Subscri...
May 21, 2021•8 min
In light of the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case that could lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we are re-releasing Dan's interview with Professor R. Marie Griffith, author of Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics. Professor Griffith explains that evangelicals were once moderate on the whole on the issue of abortion. In the 60s, 90% of Texas Baptists approved of abortion in some form. But, then politics changed . . . Dan and Prof. Griffith dis...
May 19, 2021•9 min
Dr. Audrey Clare Farley stops by to discuss her article, "The Eugenics Roots of Evangelical Family Values," which outlines how the family values discourse so prevalent in Evangelical culture has its origins in eugenics. Eugenics was a junk-science movement started in the early 20th century that tried to show the genealogical and biological superiority of Whites over other racial groups. It was used in tragic ways to justify forced sterilizations and other unwanted procedures on Black Americans, ...
May 17, 2021•9 min
Brad and Dan demonstrate how the only standard of Republican orthodoxy left is whether or not one supports Trump's Big Lie. Through examples from Liz Cheney, to Kevin McCarthy, to Internet-trolls-turned-congresspeople such as Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert--one thing is clear: if you don't believe in and support the Big Lie, you will be ousted from the GOP. This portends a scary future wherein democratic processes are eroded at every turn. It also means that January 6th i...
May 14, 2021•8 min
Brad discusses something that has been bothering him since his Twitter spat with Timothy Keller: Why are all the Reformed Theo-Bros always talking about worldviews. Brad unpacks the buzz words they use to uncover the will to power, the righteous arrogance, and the relativism at the heart of this theological system. After listening to this you will understand why Reformed pastors and theologians--John MacArthur, Timothy Keller, John Piper--often consider themselves the most intellectual, the most...
May 13, 2021•8 min
