Episodes

In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi sits down with Congressman Jared Huffman to discuss his new book, No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism. Huffman shares his journey from growing up in a devout Mormon community to becoming a humanist and the only openly non-believing member of Congress, and explains how the rise of Trump and Christian nationalism pushed him to speak publicly about the dangers of religious extremism. They discuss the New A...

Steven Crowder recently released a video titled “We Need Fascism,” making an explicit argument for fascism rather than merely flirting with the idea. In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi and Dan Miller break down Crowder’s argument and ask what it reveals about the direction of the American right. The conversation connects Crowder’s rhetoric about communism, violence, and “disinfecting” the country to a broader political movement increasingly portraying opponents of MAG...

With Dan on vacation, we bring you one of the most popular episodes of It's In the Code: "Strong Handshakes" In this episode, Dan continues decoding a card from a church bulletin that outlines the features of a particular church. The focus this time is the promise of “strong handshakes.” There’s a lot to decode with this idea: What does it express about gender? About sexuality? About the family? About this church’s view of proper social order? Check it out to find the answers to these (and othe...

In this week's Axis Live Brad Onishi begins by breaking down a video posted by the US Department of State that showcases Marco Rubio's Christian nationalism and Western civilizationalism. Brad digs below the surface to decode the ways Rubio outlines a common good conservatism that seeks to impose order and virtue through family, church, and state. Brad then welcomes Rev. Adam Hamilton to the show. Hamilton is the Democratic nominee for Senate in Kansas who is attempting to end a 90-year drought...

What does the emerging religious left look like—and is it becoming a force in Democratic politics? In this Sunday interview, Leah Payne speaks with Associated Press religion and culture reporter Kyrsta Fauria about her reporting on progressive candidates and activists drawing on religious traditions to confront economic inequality, defend workers’ rights, and advocate for policies like universal health care. They discuss Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the interfaith coalition supporti...

In the Weekly Roundup, Brad Onishi examines how the American Right and MAGA are reacting to Abdul El-Sayed's victory in Michigan by calling him anti-American, communist, socialist, and more. As Brad explains, these rhetorical choices are strategies that correspond to a larger effort by the Trump administration to criminalize dissent. Brad traces the code words used by the American Right against Sayed, Mamdani, and others to NSPM7 and Project Esther. This is about more than one Senate race in Mi...

In this episode of It’s In the Code, Dan Miller tackles a question from a Jewish listener that cuts to the heart of Christian theology: if Jesus established a new covenant that fulfilled the Old Testament law, why do so many conservative Christians continue to rely on Old Testament verses to make moral arguments? Dan explores the New Testament's teaching on grace, the Apostle Paul’s insistence that Christians are no longer bound by the Jewish law, and the complicated relationship Christians have...

In this livestream of Straight White American Jesus (Axis Live), Matthew Taylor and Brad Onishi analyze three stories: 1. The meeting between Bibi Netanyahu and New Apostolic Reformation Leaders like Lance Wallnau 2. The emerging crop of Democratic candidates who are pastors and/or religious leaders 3. With Andrew Whitehead, the new evidence of how Christian nationalism is a predictor for opposition to income equality and a social safety net. https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/https://axi...

Brad Onishi interviews TJ Poortinga, author of Electric Orange, a darkly comic novel about memory, media, and the danger of being taken seriously. Part psychological mystery, part alternate history, it’s a portrait of a person—and a nation—that can’t distinguish madness from insight. When Pieter Verboom has a nervous breakdown on national television, the last thing he expects is to become a populist icon. But when his ironic rant is taken literally by America’s fringe, he’s hailed as the archite...

On the Weekly Roundup, Brad Onishi and Dan Miller breakdown three stories: 1. The GOP pursuit of Anthony Fauci over COVID era decisions and funding. 2. A new poll that shows 66% of MAGA supporters would continue to push for a candidate accused of sexual assault + Elon Musk's lawsuit against a law that bans nudifying AI. 3. The State Department's humiliating mistake in using an error-filled AI-generated map of Africa. The thesis: You can't have democracy without shared facts, shared reality, an...

Dan Miller continues his "Questions You Weren't Supposed to Ask in Church" series with a reflection on why only some biblical commands are to be taken literally, but others are not. The episode is based on an email from a listener named Matt, who writes: “If we as Christians are to love as Jesus loved (e.g., John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friend”), then why don’t conservative, 'Bible-believing' Christians, people who say they take the Bible “liter...

Elon Musk says he just wants “secure borders.” But is that really what his politics are about? In this episode of Axis Live, Brad Onishi breaks down Musk’s explosive interview with The Economist, where he accused its editor of being a “traitor to the West.” Brad explains why this language signals something much larger than immigration policy: the rise of Western civilizationalism, a political movement uniting Christian nationalists, authoritarian populists, tech elites, and the global far right...

In this Sunday interview, Leah Payne speaks with Dr. LeRone Martin, author of Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr., about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. before he became the civil rights icon we know today. They explore King's teenage years as an agnostic, his struggles with racism and academic challenges, his love of basketball, and the parents, teachers, mentors, and communities that helped shape his faith, intellect, courage, and commitment to justice. Dr. Martin reveals the y...

Brad Onishi and Dan Miller explore the American right’s furious reaction to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and what the controversy reveals about race, representation, gender, sexuality, and the politics of “Western civilization.” From outrage over Black actors and queer representation in contemporary adaptations to the right’s insistence that certain stories, traditions, and cultural identities belong exclusively to white people, the conversation examines why the boundaries of “the West” are c...

In this special episode, I’m sharing the prologue to my forthcoming book, American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy, which will be published on September 15, 2026. The story begins with my own experience as a teenager in evangelical Christianity—and with the way my understanding of Jesus, America, and the role of Christians in public life has changed over the past three decades. From the “missional” church movement of the 1990s to the rise of Christian nat...

How much love is enough? In this episode of It’s In the Code, part of the series “Questions I Wasn’t Supposed to Ask in Church,” we examine one of the most influential teachings in conservative Christianity: that Christians must love God or Jesus more than anyone and anything else. What happens when this teaching becomes an impossible demand? Drawing on a listener’s powerful experience, we explore the connection between the love of God, religious trauma, Christian deconstruction, and the damagin...

Trump’s war with Iran is exposing a growing fracture inside the MAGA coalition. As the conflict continues, young America First voices—including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes—are increasingly at odds with the Christian nationalist and Christian Zionist establishment that continues to support Israel and the war. Brad Onishi, Matthew D. Taylor, and Holly Berkley Fletcher discuss the expanding Iran conflict, the Strait of Hormuz, the threat of a wider regional war, and why the con...

This week on the Straight White American Jesus Sunday Interview, host Annika Brockschmidt sits down with extremism researcher Ivana Leidig, author of The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization, for an in-depth conversation about the women reshaping today's far-right movement. Together they explore how female influencers have become some of the movement's most effective communicators, using lifestyle content, tradwife aesthetics, motherhood, religion, and socia...

In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi sits down with renowned scholar, author, and television producer Reza Aslan for a wide-ranging conversation about America's religious past—and why that history matters more than ever. Drawing on Aslan's new podcast series, Our Seven Neighbors, they unpack the myths surrounding "one nation under God," the long struggle for genuine religious freedom, and the forgotten stories of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Catholics, Indigenous peoples, a...

In this episode of It's In the Code, host Dan Miller tackles one of the most provocative questions a believer can ask: Did God lie in the Garden of Eden? Beginning with a listener's question about Genesis and God's warning that Adam and Eve would die if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Dan takes a close look at the biblical text itself rather than the assumptions many Christians bring to it. Along the way, he explores how later theological traditions—including original s...

In this episode of Axis Live, Brad Onishi and Matthew D. Taylor examine the political and religious legacy of Lindsey Graham following his death, asking how a senator once known for challenging Donald Trump ultimately became one of Trump's most loyal defenders. They explore Graham's transformation through the lens of white evangelical politics, Christian nationalism, and the pursuit of political power, while also discussing the contradictions between the Religious Right's "pro-life" identity and...

In this Sunday Interview, Brad Onishi sits down with historian and former CIA Africa analyst Holly Berkley Fletcher, author of The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism. Drawing on her experience growing up as a Southern Baptist missionary kid in Kenya, Fletcher explores how the evangelical missionary movement became intertwined with American exceptionalism, racial hierarchy, patriarchy, and Christian nationalism. Together, they examine why missionary culture often functio...

Doug Wilson's recent NPR interview offers a revealing look at how Christian nationalism has moved from the political fringe into the mainstream. In this episode, Brad Onishi and Dan Miller unpack Wilson's arguments about household voting, patriarchy, and the Constitution, showing why his vision represents a fundamental challenge to liberal democracy. They also discuss Ken Paxton's latest controversy, the GOP's continued push to restrict birthright citizenship, and why these stories reveal a broa...

Why did God allow Satan to punish the biblical character Job, if he was a faithful and righteous man? This is a question that has been asked by Bible readers for centuries. But it’s a question that biblicists and high-control religionists get defensive about. Why? And why does the biblical Book of Job make this question even harder to answer? What does it show us about the shortcomings of high-control religion? Join Dan for this week’s episode to find out! Subscribe to Axis Mundi Media: ⁠htt...