Brad speaks with journalist Anne Nelson whose book Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right outlines in vivid detail the network of organizations, media empires, and churches that sync the Radical...
Brad and Dan begin by drawing on a famous speech by Frederick Douglass in order to put the nail in the coffin on the idea that it is the Democrats' job to reach across the aisle. They then explain why Republicans think it is ...
Brad speaks with Sarah Posner, author of Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump. They discuss how Trump is the result of strategies used by GOP operatives in other countries. The approach is simpl...
Dan begins by explaining why Biden didn't underperform and why emotionally this should feel like a big win He and Brad also discuss the White religious voters who fled Trump for Biden and why it is/and is not a big deal They ...
In his new book, The Brown Church, Robert Chao Romero speaks from spiritual borderlands. As a Latino pastor and scholar trained in critical race theory, he speaks to those managing what many times feel like mutually exclusive identities. In the process his book has something essential to teach all …
As we process the unfolding events related to the election, Brad and Dan discuss: why Tuesday night felt so dismaying, despite knowing it would be a long road the disappointing turnout for Trumpism and the need to reckon with...
In an episode recorded as part of a public lecture at Skidmore College, Brad speak with Dr. Richard Newton about his new book, Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures. They discuss how Haley's book Roots and the ensuing TV mini-series marked a new chapter in telling the sto…
In the week before the election, Brad and Dan begin with another chapter of Falwell's Follies. Dan then explains why the polls are similar, but different from 2016 and how Trump's surrender to COVID has hurt his reelection ch...
Dan speaks with Dr. David Gushee, Professor of Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. The former president of the American Academy of Religion, he is a prolific author who writes ...
Opener : Brad and Dan each get 2 minutes uninterrupted on the last debate Explainer: Hunter Biden non-scandal mularkey Explainer : Pope announces he is in favor of same-sex couples having civil unions (but not marriages?) Dee...
The episode that started it all! On one of our very first shows, we went to the historical record to quote all the evangelical leaders who did everything possible to decry Bill Clinton after his sex scandal/impeachment. They ...
Dan briefs us on the dueling presidential town halls before he and Brad explain the tenets of Constitutional Originalism, a legal philosophy Amy Coney Barrett claims to hold. They compare it to a separate, but related issue--...
Brad speaks with Sarah Levin, the Co-Chair of the DNC's Interfaith Committee and the Founder of Secular Strategies, a firm dedicated to mobilizing secular voters. They discuss the values that matter to non-religious voters an...
Some major announcements! We are now a proud partner of the Capps Center at UCSB! Capps is dedicated to ethics, religion, and public life in a way that matches up seamlessly with our approach on SWAJ. Check out their new seri...
Brad speaks to Professor Anthea Butler, a captain in the Biden campaign's "Catholics for Biden" initiative, and chair of the Religious Studies department at the University of Pennsylvania. They discuss the details of Trump's ...
Brad explores the alliance between the alt-right and the Religious Right in and through Trump's presidency. In tracing this story, he uncovers how and why the Religious Right now looks to Putin's Russia, Orban's Hungary, and ...
On an abbreviated Weekly Roundup Brad discusses the first presidential debate, the media's inability to call out Trump's threats of violence and election delegitimization, the ways White Catholics and young Evangelicals might...
Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. In her book, Behold, America ( Bloomsbury 2018 ) she explores the...
Brad and Dan discuss four main stories on this week's roundup: 1. The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has led to Amy Coney Barrett as the frontrunner to replace her. Brad outlines the history and contours of the charismatic Ca...
Brad speaks with historian Ricard Steigmann-Gall, author of the Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity 1919-1945 . They discuss how the Nazi party used a Christian social identity as a way to signal who the true and goo...
Brad and Dan discuss a coterie of stories at the intersection of race, nation, and religion. First, they dissect the president's announcement of a new commission on "patriotic education" as a thoroughly Christian nationalist ...
Brad speaks with Dr. Sara Moslener, author of Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence from Oxford University Press. Dr. Moslener outlines the history of purity culture from the 19th century to the present, highl...
Brad and Dan begin by discussing how 9/11 is an event marked by acts of civil religion--ceremonies, rituals, and symbols that enable the nation to remember and mourn. Brad asks why we haven't had such things implemented to he...
During the first half of this episode Brad and Dan trace the racist and nationalistic origins of white evangelical politics. On the second half, Brad talks with Dartmouth scholar Randall Balmer, who is perhaps the world's lea...
