joining us today for the panel on religious a grip on politics. i didn't even notice that is the religious. is mckay coppins, robert jones

and tim alberta to let i made their introductions i'm going to make it sure it because some of you here's a k k if you buy their books is like tim's and he is robby jones and he is michael they have a very nice bio inside their books so you know don't take notes now you robby has a website you know you'll never get all that stuff down so just take that and i that they starting a new genre because for each of them the current book is very exciting and i read them and i love them but this is the second book on a related topic so this is a new genre like

politics, religion, culture going wrong and this is a follow up book which is brand new and very interesting thing with, if you like, gossip. i'll stop stop tim alberta tim alberta is in here. here is tim alberta. his book is the kingdom the power and the glory and for those of you recognized where comes from, good for you. these are you know it's amazing they're all atlantic staff writers. so this session might be called the atlantic staff reunion or maybe they'll title it next year in that way. his first book was, american carnage on the front lines, the

republican civil war and the rise of president trump, and that then he followed up with one the kingdom, the power, the glory. tim alberta is an evangel, the son of an evangelical pastor, and as he opens his book, he describes, his father, his father's passing, his returning to his congregation and realizing how different he was from the current congregation and the path he chose. so thank you very much for being here, mike wrote the definitive biography of romney. he had amazing access to romney's journals and as i mentioned earlier on mckay's key sharing for future is find a

terrific figure public figure an interesting background who wanted to write an autobiography and then decided not to and gives you everything. so you have a little homework homework and mckay's first book was the wilderness about the dysfunction in the republic. can part of you know how that worked out and i love this and i love the the gossipy tales robert jones is the hidden roots of white. i used to teach history and i didn't know anything about the doctrine of discovery and holy cow, what was i teaching? it was the establishment of racism and colonialism.

and it was done by the pope. so in 1493, when a christian found the country. holy cow, they took it over and. the people were their property. how did i miss that? and any rate, i have some questions. we'll start out with brief ones and then i'll them go into some deeper. so mckay. why don't i ask you? well, why don't you start with tim? tim. because i think i need to do tim's first. i want some brief context setting. so in a few words, can explain to us why evangelicals feel persecuted. sure. i'm glad you started with you. thank you all for being here.

first of all, thank you for those very interesting opening remarks remarks. so, yeah, sure. i will just i'll start i think we all the three of us spent a lot of time studying, dissecting analyzing, trying to better understand and sort of the unraveling of the right in different ways and i think much of the story they're setting aside donald trump as sort of a sui generis figure setting aside some of the political polarization and and some of the the economic fragmentation and parts of the country sort of getting left behind and all of the things that we've seen transpire in american life that have sort of upended our our system here in the last, you know, ten or 15 years. i think the key driver, least from where i stand and from the reporting i've is a sense of sort of cultural grievance, cultural resentment.

and i think from specifically an evangelical christian standpoint, it's important recognize that in the post-9-11 era. and really, i think you would even zoom fast forward just even a little bit more to sort of the end of the bush presidency and the beginning of the obama presidency. there was a feeling and this is a feeling sort of inextricable from. some of what robert has written about. i'll be interested, hear him sort of build on this. but a feeling that this country was becoming unrecognizable to them, that its judeo-christian heritage and values were under systematic attack, that and to be clear some of this rhetoric, some of this thinking is not new. this goes back several in fact, much of sort of modern evangelical as we know it today was sort of built this same persecution complex, jerry falwell senior and some of his allies in the 1970s onward.

this idea that christiane was under assault in america. but i think that those have intensified and have scaled in a way that we may not fully appreciate. we are not in that world. just to give a brief example, to help sort of put some meat on the there, i think it's important to recognize how quickly some of this social cultural change has happened and to understand that historically do tend to see a backlash. there is that sort of condense that social cultural change. so, for example, when barack obama runs for president in 2008, he is opposed to same sex marriage. he says that he believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. now, by the end of his eight years later, not only has obama become a full throated supporter of same sex marriage, but also the supreme court of the united states has to legalize same sex marriage nationally and any evangelical or christian who in 2016 holds the view that barack

obama held in 2008 is now regarded a bigot or worse and they are not welcome in polite company. they are they are a deplorable they are an irredeemable. they are someone who is on the wrong side of history and that they are part of the sort of demographic death spiral that once we get rid of them, we will be able to move into a new, enlightened era in america. and i think that as one example of many has fueled this sense of persecution, of marginalization and a feeling that these people, as donald trump likes to say in his speeches, he talks to evangelical audiences that they are under siege, that barbarians are at the gates and i think the clearest, most concise way to understand the relationship between trump and these people is effectively to realize that. once you believe barbarians are at the gates, then you decide that maybe, just maybe, need a barbarian to protect you. and that is donald trump to

these folks. and that why he has emerged as the unlikeliest but also in some ways sort of the obvious figure as a protector a guardian, a brawler, their behalf because they feel like something is being taken from them and that if they don't stop it now, they'll never get it back. thank you. not cheery, but inside well, thank you, mckay the evangelicals or maybe the most loyal democrat. that's a mormon muslim are republicans. and the mormons. maybe the second most loyal republicans to the mormons have this same view of trump as the political savior of the of their future and their religion. yeah, it's really interesting. the contrast between whitey evangelicals and mormons in this

country has been one of the i think the more interest political religious stories the last eight, ten years. the short answer is no. in fact, trump performed historic poorly with mormon. in the last two elections. so from throughout, from basically the late sixties on, mormons were actually most reliable republican religious group in the country until 2016. a typical republican presidential candidate nominee would get somewhere the range of 70 to 80% of mormon votes. donald trump. the best the best numbers i could see got about 50% of the mormon vote. and so why is that? so why? why did mormons kind of veer away from the republican party as donald trump took over while white evangelicals leaned into it, or at least many did?

i think there are a couple different. and mitt romney is is kind of emblematic of this in interesting ways. but and we talked about this a lot, i think a lot of it has to do with the history. those two groups, mormons and i hoping we can talk more about this because i've been reading tim's book and it's excellent, fascinating. but one of the arguments he puts forward is that part the what we've seen in the radical ization of a segment at least of white evangelicals is that in tell if i'm paraphrasing you wrong but is that they've made america their religion they've replaced religion with america. what's interesting is that they're the. kind of entanglement of american with their theology and their religion has actually been a moderating influence on mormons. if you look at mormon history in the 19th century through, the middle of the 20th century,

mormons kind of defined themselves as people by trying to be welcomed into mainstream america. right. and from very beginning, mormon leaders, founding prophet of mormonism, joseph tried to make the case that mormonism was inextricably linked with the success of the american project. but most americans didn't buy it. and for the first hundred years of mormonism history, mormons were kind of chased from one state to another, driven into they established their kind of civilization in the desert because no other place would have. and so mormon ism kind of for most of its history, has defined itself by trying to be ideal. americans and well. and that's for better and worse, you know, a of the racism in the history of mormonism comes from mormons trying to reach for their place in the racial

hierarchy the way that white evangelicals kind of already had right white protestants at least. but there are also good that came out of that. mormons have, a kind of civic minded belief in social cohesion. they have high trust in institutions. they have kind of a a a very kind of simple patriotism that leads them to kind of be repelled by trump, you know, picking with gold star families, for instance, or denigrate of fallen soldiers. there's also an interesting immigration plays an interesting role here in to 16 there was some survey data that came out that showed that mormons were as likely as white evangelicals to say that america should welcome immigrants. and a lot of that has to do with mormon missionary experiences. a huge majority of of practicing

young mormon men served missions, many of them outside of the country for two years. and become you know that obviously an effect on how they view the immigration but also mormons see in their history a story of religious refugees people who basically were driven out of the country and had to find their own, their own place. and so when, for example, donald called for a man on a ban on muslim refugees, it was one of the only times church, the institutional church in, salt lake city, released a statement on on politics and explicitly condemned call for a ban on muslim refugees. so there are all different factors at play that have mormons much more skeptic, all of donald trump than other parts of the religious right. with all of that said, i do think that we we're starting to see you know, we're now eight

years into the trump era, right? nine years, really, if you count when donald started running and i think that some of the the kind of barrier of resistance are beginning to erode. and what i think is happening to mormons and i've been talking some people who study this is basically mormons as a whole are becoming less republican in the trump era. but who have stayed republican are becoming more extreme in their beliefs. they're becoming. yeah. and so there's kind of been this interesting political schism within american mormonism that i is going to be fascinating to watch play over the next the next kind of few election cycles and. i think a lot of it will have to do with whether the republican party is sort of becomes permanently a party of trumpism even when trump is gone or if it reverts back to some former version. and we don't know what's going to happen there. thank you well so that's intra

demographics splitting within a group robbie you've looked at democrats and republicans in terms cultural and political religious differences would you explain to the group some of the reason for the split in the party and the dysfunction in our government. sure. well you know, the the one term i think we don't often think about when think about american culture is it's a view race religion together. we didn't kind of think of them as separate. so talk about nationalism or we talk about white supremacist, we talk about the christian right, but we don't often pull all those categories together. and i would contend that like, that's blinded us to what's right in front of us here. that if we think about what's being protected with the maga movement and the kind his take over the republican party, it's an ethno religious vision of the

country right is a white christian nationalists as one way of thinking in recent parlance but is a you know, an older term. it's a white anglo-saxon protestant vision of the country, this being. so if you think back about the kkk right, many people think of them as, oh, were anti-black, but the kkk had a positive vision for the country. and if you weren't a member of the kkk, you had to show you were white, that you were anglo-saxon heritage, and that you were a protestant christian. right. that was the vision of america. it was an ethno religious vision of america that was being that's why they were anti-catholic and anti jewish. right. not just or anti-immigrant. right. that's how all that held together for them. but and that's really been the that's been operative and holding all this together and what's what's, i think, troubling in our current moment is that our two political parties have sorted themselves along ethno lines. right and so for example, the modern republican, we do public

opinion surveys typical stuff. republicans are 70% white and christian. the country is 42% white. and christian right. democrats are 25% white and christian right. so that right there tells you a about what's going on. right. there's been the sorting that's happened over time. one of the thing is just to connect some dots here, it is true that mormons were the only ones who moved in 2016 from their typical where they would typically be. they're the only that that moved at all in ways that were measurable and that includes white mainline protestants the not evangelical quote unquote liberal end of the white protestant world, voted about six and ten for trump white evangelicals, about eight in ten. but what's i think notable here is if we look at the history, how do we get here? how do we get to those two political parties? look at that. so i saw this in the last session. i grew in jackson, mississippi. my relatives all way back are from middle georgia. all of my grandparents.

right. all baptists, all white all democrat. my grandparents. right now. that's kind of weird and way to think. we used to talk about the solid democratic south right in this country. so what happened? and there's a story that white evangelical like to tell about themselves and about ourself, as i should say. and that is that all about abortion, right. and that it was roe v wade that was the. but it's not true. the southern baptist convention, the largest expression of white protestantism in the country praised the roe v wade decision in 1973. it wasn't till. 1979 that they got around to opposing abortion because they saw it as a catholic issue like. we're not dealing we're not upset about birth control or the catholic thing. right. it wasn't till we get paul weyrich, falwell and the kennedys, marriage of the kind of political movement that their what it was the real genesis that kind of gets falwell off

the sidelines. falwell also used to preach about the the thing that preachers need to do, stay in the pulpit and not be out in the streets. but what made him say he was preaching against martin luther king, that's he said that the place for preachers is in the pulpit, not out in the streets. he was directly talking about king's activism in the pulpits. and, in fact, the thing that organizes the religious right, randall bomber's documented this really well is a book bad faith. this really great. he was actually in the room. but essentially what motivated them was to get to get organized was bob jones university threatening to get its tax status removed because had a policy against interracial dating on campus. right. that's the thing that got them motivated and there's a great book, another book called the rise of republican south the documents, the marker that you can see, the exodus white evangelical christians from the democratic party to the republican party is the 1964. voting rights act, followed by

the 1965 civil rights act. and that's the fuel, right? the begins. and so if you think about longer history of kind of protecting this idea of a white anglo-saxon protestant country, that makes a lot more sense of how we got this movement of the christian out. and in fact, when you hear the rhetoric around the maga movement that it's not too far off, you still hear this, right? it's our religion. those kind of words used. and what they mean is white evangelical protestant religion. that's really who we're talking about where you set the groundwork for a scary landscape. so let's go right into the landscape the talk now by the trump administration is the establishment of a christian government as opposed to a constant fusion of government. will each of you give a glimpse as to what a christian government might look like in the us.

probably. i think a similar so so is interesting that that robert just ended off there by talking our religion, which is in fact a phrase that trump himself has been using in recent months at some of his campaign rallies, in the context of saying that maybe when he's president again, we won't let anyone immigrate to this country unless they are a christian. they are part of our religion. now, donald trump, he of the famous two corinthians and, the having having boasted of never needing to ask god's forgiveness and other things when he says our religion, you are tempted to. ask him what religion exactly are we talking about? now i'm saying that to be cute because i think, as mckay was alluding to earlier, much of the argument i'm making my book

based on many years of reporting and, based on a lifetime inside this subculture, is that, you know as john calvin used to used to say, said rather the heart is an idol factory. the idea being that people are designed deep within themselves to want to worship something right. and i think what we see in the maga movement think what we see in the ethno religious christian nationalist, we can call it a couple of different things and i think it would be helpful for us to put some hard definitions on that, to make sure we're all singing from the same hymnal here, no pun intended. i think what you see in those movements, effectively a substitute religion or at the very least it is a that is now competing with what we would traditionally understand to be christianity and the groundwork has been laid over many decades

for that in this country i think we as the american public have become somewhat and certainly i think in recent years somewhat descent to the rhetoric and to the idea, you know, trump sort of spouting off and well that, you know, he's just, you know, even if you even if you loathe the man i think, you know, you might not take him that literally at times i think well that's a mistake the bigger mistake would be to assign these ideas these intentions these designs to trump himself. what we know very clearly from trump's first four years in office is that is not a man of of sort of hardened worldview, hardened concrete, well thought out ideology, but he will in this second term, unlike the first term, be surrounding himself with people who are true believers, people who really do have a concrete vision for how

sort of recon statute this country and a component of that as i report in the book. there's been some other good reporting on this recently is to effectively as best they can to merge church and state without officially merging church and but there are any number of very creative ways in which starting with that sort, an immigration policy of screening religious litmus test for anyone coming the country. but i have had conversations, people who are close to the president, who would be in a position to advocate for and affect some of these policies in a second. trump administration, who have talked about a declan ration, at least an executive order, even if it's purely symbolic, a declan of christianity as america's official religion right. this is something that think just a few years ago we all would have rolled our eyes and said, yeah, right. i mean, there are guardrails in place against sort of thing, but there aren't. i mean, we should we should that

you know, what we saw in the aftermath of the 2020 election without going deep, the rabbit hole here is that, you know, the institutions and the guardrails that we in place are only as strong as the people manning them. and you know what, donald would effectively have entering second term is a team of committed yes men and, yes women around him who when it comes to some of these really sensitive, polarizing debates around a whole host of things, but including the idea of of sort of infusing christianity into our public policy making process, there would be no real resistance institutionally. and so this is something that is not just abstract theory, it's something that we're just sort of spitballing about. there are people who would be, i would say two or three of the most influential people in the trump white house who are laying the groundwork to try to. i would add one more thing here, because it's something that i think a lot of people are

unaware of. a number of these people who i'm talking about they signed on to a document about months ago or so coming out of the national conservatism conference. and this document was sort of a manifesto. their beliefs about the role of, among other things, religion and public life. and this manifesto said and one of its bullet points very, very explicitly it said, we believe that minorities should be from religious coercion in their prior that lives and inside their homes. notice the language there or in their private lives and inside their homes. right. and you know, that that that declaration was not signed by a bunch of fringe crackpots who are on the internet in their mom's basement. this was signed by number of very prominent movement conservatives, people who are close to the president who form a president who will have ear in a second administration. so i think we should be taking very seriously that threat. yeah, i, i would just add, you

know, when we talk about christian nationalism and i agree that that's a term that there's a risk like a lot of these political terms, that they become overly broad their definitions. and so it doesn't it a specific ideology that i think we should talk about and maybe robby can define it for us. but actually, why don't you define it for us and then we'll go from there? because i just want to say i, feel like there's sometimes a risk with terms that they become so easily weaponized. our rhetoric that they sort of lose meaning. so tell us what it actually and i think been a robust and healthy debate about what these terms mean what are the parameters of them. so i'll give you kind of two ways of thinking about it. the easiest way i think about it is kind of what i've writing in you in the last book was it is this idea that the was intended by god to be a promise land for european christians. it has that ethnic tone to it. whenever you see people making things about, you know, this is a christian country, right? they don't mean the african

methodist episcopal church. right when they're saying this is a christian country, they have something very different in mind when when they say that the other way to, thinking about it is that there's been a lot of really good work in political science. right, to define as probably the tightest definitions, because if you're going to do a public opinion survey, you actually have to define your terms. if you're going to ask people what are you agreeing to? and so there are people like sam perry whitehead, phil gorski, yale, others who've done a lot of work. and we in my day job, i direct the public religion research institute, pri. we did survey a year ago with the brookings institution saying out to define this building on their we basically defined it with a set five questions but i think the key to it is it is this idea of dominion right christian dominion right so think in our questions were things like the us should declare itself to be a christian nation u.s. law should be based on christian values right if if we get away from our christian values, we won't have a country anymore. there were like five questions

like that and. it turns out all these questions actually, you can actually how well these work we tend to use a measure scale chromebox alpha basically is a thing from 0 to 1, a perfect correlation between five questions would be one, right? a kind of dissonance would be like zero. these five questions correlate at .91, right? so if you answer one way on one, you're very likely to answer one way or the other. and we ran all kinds of other analysis to make sure there's not more than one factor that, in other words, you're orthogonal like this, but they actually all move in one vector direction. so it's a pretty reliable scale. i mentioned the last session. we used that scale. it's about three in ten americans who qualify as either christian nationalism adherents. those are people who completely agree with all five of those questions right. or sympathizers who are people who mostly agree. maybe not completely agree, but they mostly agree with about three in ten americans who fit that that category. but it is a majority of republicans 55% of republicans. and is two thirds of white

evangelical protestants. right. who qualify as either adherents or are sympathizers. so what strikes me about that that definition is that how much of the country left out of that vision of of a christian nation right. it's not just i yes. muslims -- atheists hindu is all you know, all kinds of religious minorities are left out. much of the black church is out right. religious groups would consider themselves christian like mormons would probably be left, too. and i think that that is this is an argument i've been having kind of a running conversation i've had with a number of in my life who are kind of tempted by the ideas christian nationalism, because you know latter day saints think of themselves as fully christian people. you know, many, many christians not think of mormons as christian. they think of them as, you know, basically heretics. heretics.

there's a story in in my book about romney kind of grappling with these attitude when he first started to run for president in 2008, he had this idea, you know, he had been governor of massachusetts and then he was setting in iowa and south carolina to try to court evangelicals voters. and he had this idea that he would be able to win them over on policy. right. he could say, we agree on all these things. i know you don't you don't agree with mormon theology, but that's fine. let's just table that you that i would be a good and i'm with you on x, y, z and he he described a meeting had early on with a group a small group of evangelical faith leaders south carolina. and he was making his pitch to them and saying, look, look at my life. i'm a good family man. i've been mayor. i married my high school sweetheart, raised five sons. we go to church, you know, we're good people.

so we have all of these things in common and one of the the the ministers from south carolina was there, raised his hand and said, look, mitt seem like a good guy. i'm just going to level with i can never your candidacy because if you become president, more people go to hell and he's kind of taken evacuated. he was like, well, can you explain what you mean. and is that. yeah, look if become mormon, i think more people will be become president. i think more people will become mormon and those people are all going to go to hell. and my job is to get people to heaven. i can't i can't vote for you. and this was one of many, many, many conversation ins he had throughout both of his presidential, where it was kind of repeatedly driven home for him that mormons are not kind of part the vision that a certain segment of kind christian nationalists have now. they, the religious right, would welcome them and mormon voters and often did a lot of these you know, evangelical conservative

candidates benefit mormon voters turning out for them. but are not included in the christian vision and neither are many, many other people of faith in country. and so i think that's just important to to realize, can i just can i please. yeah, just just one thing that i think is important to tack on to this, because anywhere i've gone, any conversation i've been a part of, when people want to try and define christian nationalism i think robert did a very good job it's is sort of a complicated social science question in some sense. but to me it can really be distilled down to something that's sort of simpler is that in many ways christian is found at the intersection, bad history and bad theology. and one one very much depends on the other, right? so so if you believe that fact, the founders did form this nation to be not just a nation sort, not just a nation that was

inspired by or informed by judeo-christian and values, but, in fact, that did intend to form this nation to be an explicitly nation, and that they just kind of couldn't put into writing that way. but they were doing one elaborate wink and nod at you. and that really and this is this sort of project put together by some prominent people who have big, big money and big followings and big audiences david barton, among others, who have basically tried to, if you want to talk about indoctrination. they have tried to convince and have very successful millions, millions of americans that actually this was founded to be a christian nation, that this was a nation that was founded in covenant with god, much like the old testament nation of israel. and that is what creates this sort of permissions structure then from that bad history to then use bad to justify actions, political and otherwise. so when you will hear the former

vice president, for example, mike, among others, who have essentially bastardize scripture and have taken either out of context or or actually switched around the wording of certain precious passages, old testament and new to make the case for america as effectively being god's sovereign here on earth, all bets are off at this point. right. and i think it's important to recognize that there is nothing in the bible written about the united states of america. i mean, that's just to be clear right. this is this is there's not there's there's there's it's really i think, to recognize that from a from a from a reformed christian doctrinal standpoint that the old testament nation of israel failed in the eyes of god and that their covenant was broken

and that the new covenant of jesus christ is by grace, through faith for all nations, all tongues all tribes, all ethnicities. that that is the promise. the new testament and and and what made that so incredibly in the first century. roman was that all of these -- had been waiting and hundreds of years for their promised messiah who was going to ride in a chariot with a sword, slay the romans, and make israel great again. that's what they were expecting. everyone of them. and so along comes this vagrant preacher from the ghettos of nazareth who tells them that you are to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you and turn the other cheek, and that to gain your life, you must lose it. and really one of the bedrock teachings of christ there are really two promise is that a company faith in jesus. one is eternal life in, heaven with your creator and the is persecution, marginalization and

perhaps even martyrdom in. this world, you are told not only to that, but to embrace it, and that if are truly to follow christ, think about his his right hand man. sorry, it's sundown and appreciate you. just for one more minute. if you think about the apostle to jesus, peter who on the night of jesus's arrest reaches for his sword in the garden of the army and slashes off the ear of high priest when jesus is being arrested. and what does jesus do? he rebukes him and says, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. this same guy, peter, the hothead ed, who was always reaching for the sword, who always ready to rumble with anybody. this same guy years later, writing from house arrest in rome, where about to be executed, is writing to christians all around their part of the world, instructing them to show love and and kindness and unconditional grace to the people who are torturing and

persecuting and killing you what could have possibly changed that man to go from the sword to the cross. this is the fundamental teaching of christ. yet because of the bad that has been, that has been sort of laid as a groundwork in this country in this moment, that desperate call for desperate measures, the barbarians are at the gates. they've stolen something from us, and we must take it back. it is not christianity. it is a it is a it is not even a perversion of christianity it is a completely different religion and it should be called as such it can i just jump in with it. all right. has the danger of two people of theological training on the desk at one time. so. but i'm to put on my sociologist hat actually to just have a little caveat here. so i agree. so we're david barton. for those who don't know he's, like this, like quack guy set himself up as historian has been

going around like he's written all kinds of crazy books that one that got thomas nelson pulled because so full of errors. but he is like a mainstay in many evangelical churches like saying that this is a christian nation. right. kind of saying that the founders said this is a christian nation. so he's total fraud. charles in and all of that. i'm going to complicate it a little bit. i'm going to submit that. yes. david barton, bad history trying to do that. what what i'm going to submit also is that there's actually some actual history that christians are drawing on here, too. and i will say amen, amen to the sermon. absolute but there is another christian that they are actually drawing on that i as a source sociologist, kind of lean to historian a little bit, want to say we need to take seriously enough to say, oh, no, that's christian. and that's actually the problem. right? it's not that this is christian to admit to my mind, i think it's better us to say, actually

is authentic christianity. and yeah, this has been authentic christianity, too. right. and i say that from somebody grew up in the southern baptist convention. right. who again, the large expression of protestant christianity still today in america founded. 1845 on the fundamental principle that enslaving of the people on the basis of the color of their skin was completely with the gospel of jesus christ. that is the founding of the largest expression of protestant christianity still today in this country. southern baptist convention, right. and i kind of want to say, like, do i agree with that? and i know like i think they got it really wrong, but like, i'm a little uncovered. what we're saying, it's not christianity because i actually think we ought to deal with it right as a as a kind of christianity that got it wrong. and that's actually important for us to kind of hold on to here and to say like this this and that tradition goes back right christians don't hold on to that vision for more than a couple of hundred years. right. we get constantine in 300.

so christians. don't hang on to this vision very long until it gets wrapped up in empire in hundred. right. and then we're and then we've got trajectories. we had these reform movements to try to bring it back. and but there is this what want to say is like an authentic and, problematic strand. and that goes almost all the way back, right? at least it goes back to 300. at least that is about power and dominion and dominance and oppression and like, you know, i want to it's big enough that to say we're going to that we're going to dismiss like a of christian history, right. i would give a rebuttal but we. you know, i'm watching your hand on the microphone here, so i know you're ready to do a rebuttal. let me try to steer in to two directions, if i might. number one, people who want to ask questions, i'm going to steer you to the microphones and you can move in that now. and the panel, i want to steer

you in a positive direction because i'm feeling depressed. so would you would you share with us the proper role of religion in in the public square in a democracy tell us what we should be doing right. oh, i'll start there. and i don't i cannot claim to have a cohesive vision of exactly how religion should interact with politics, but i'll start by just taking a slight issue with the title. our panel today, which is religions grip on politics. the only reason i take issue is that i think it's probably unrealized stick to believe that religion and you that religious beliefs and religious values would have no influence on. even in an ideal society because

religious values and religious teachings and ideology and doctrine are a large segment of americans. make sense of the most difficult moral questions that we face. and politics is about practically implementing solutions or compromises to those moral problems, right? so it's really not realistic. we would ask people of faith in this country to set everything that they have learned in church or scripture when they're making decisions, when they vote right now, of course, that you know, i don't believe that church, you know, leaders should be doubling political surrogates for candidates. i think that's toxic actually more toxic for religion than it is for politics. that's a separate conversation. but i do believe that at its best, religion cause us to grapple with those difficult questions and cause us to reach for the best version of

ourselves and, the best version of what our country can be in in in how we treat each other and what owe to each other right. and, you know, it's interesting setting. 2 to 2 in credible thinkers who have been brought up in evangelical christianity. i'm both inspired their their faith and also realizing that, you know, the some of the distinction between my own religious upbringing and theirs are not so so dramatic right at the end of the day, you know pastor alberta here has his sermon, i believe everything that he said about about what true christianity calls on us to do. i also i also know what what robby means when he says not so easy to disentangle christianity from the worst versions its of its of manifestation. but you know i will just say that the actual of jesus christ

the actual or the core the words in the bible i do not call us to a doctrine of political power. certainly not call us to persecution. they call us to compassion. and i think that is that's the that's the true ideal role that religion should play in politics. all right. i'll be brief and make sure we some questions. so i'm going to take it down to a small comment. i think one of the biggest things we are missing is this kind of moral you know, we christianity around this moral outrage around issues. right. and we picked the non-negotiable issue, whatever what we're missing, i think and this is, again, a historical question. i mean, you know, christianity wasn't designed to live in a pluralistic democracy. that's not its history. it's not of the world religions history. right. had to adapt it to our current context. and i think that's the job in front of us. and we just haven't done a good

enough job of really developing a version of christianity that lives in a healthy in a pluralistic democracy. like we spent a lot of time mapping out, like, you know, let's man the ramparts over this issue or that issue because it's the ongoing thing and everybody else who believes otherwise is evil. but what about like democratic theology of citizens ship, right? and how do we think about our citizens and things like generosity, hospitality, thinking the best of other people, people who are acting in goodwill like a robust christianity that kind of shores up those kinds of civic virtues. i think we're is sorely needed today. oh, boy. i will try to be brief, too. there's a lot say on this question. i just want to say a couple of things. first, i have done missionary work overseas. i have friends who are doing missionary overseas right now. my mother just got back doing missionary work overseas. we support lot of missionaries overseas. this is a uniquely american problem. it has to be understood, right? there are pastors in the underground church in china have been thrown in jail repeatedly

and had their lives threatened and they are the happiest you would ever meet in your life. why? because they understand that christian ity as conceived out of the church was meant to exist. the margins. it was not meant, as mckay said, to be a political power play. it was not designed to subjugate your fellow citizens and to dominate the world. you that's just not what the orthodox understanding of christianity has ever been. the second thing i would say is i have a friend, curtis chang, who has put together this that that he and russell, david french and some others have tried to get into to some colleges in some churches. and the thrust of their of their argument is that for christians the question when it comes to political engagement is not the what what policies do you support? it's not who who are you voting for? it is the how how do you engage faithfully as a christian with

people around you with whom you often might disagree, maybe even disagree vehemently? because the funny thing is scripture have a lot to say about the what or, the who. it has a lot to say about the how. right. and those those teachings are quite unambiguous. final thing, i would say there has been this false choice and it has been a criticism leveled at me from people who i would call bad faith actors, this space saying that, well, this is saying we shouldn't be involved in politics at all, that christians have to be separatists. and that's nonsense. this is a false choice between. you either march on the capitol with a cross january six or you stay in your basement. you decide to never vote again. right. that is a false choice. the old testament prophet jeremiah, probably my favorite figure from the old testament talks about this idea. when you go into exile right. rather than longing for this kingdom that been taken away from that, when you go into exile, that you should plant trees, that you should families, that you should pray for the welfare of your city. we as christians are exiles we

are taught unambiguously that our citizenship is in heaven and that this is a transient place for us. and so if you believe that and i know some of you are thinking that sounds pretty whacked out, i'm not sure i believe that that's okay. right. but i will tell you that that is the understanding of the christians citizenship is not. and if, in fact, you are in exile and that this is a metaphorical babylon that we are living in now, your job is to be faithful to that citizenship that you have in with christ. it is not to try to dominate the country around you and to try to remake to try to use christianity as a cudgel as a weapon to defeat your enemies. that's just not biblical. thank you. yeah. why don't we i'll get to you first. thank you. you're touching on my question. which is how, do we articulate

it today a really separation of church and state for people who are faithful and for those who are not. so i i'm going to here's what i would say. i don't think i mean, this one thing that i came to with with the book is that i think many well-meaning liberal christians think they're part of this problem. right. and one of the kind of striking things is stuck inside of like episcopalian. right? this is right. not just baptists or pentecostal or nazarene or whatever, but episcopal lions and high church presbyterians and and that's why we've got like, for example the episcopalian church, the anglican church in england just this week announced, a $1.27 billion reparations fund for

their role in the transatlantic slave trade. right. and how they profited as a church for the transatlantic slave trade. right. so and this is the anglican the episcopal church in the u.s. have been doing $27 million so far in similar of reparations because they were after all jefferson davis, robert e lee episcopalians right now, baptist. so know. and so i think i want i want to say is like it's a broader question then i think just as we often think of of church and state as you know, just this kind of establishment of a church or but i think it's a much it's seeped the dna of christianity in ways i think we all all of us claim that tradition have got some real soul searching to do. yeah. so i. am. oh, there we go. so i'm going to ask for a policy a policy prescription kind of tag. on to the last question is there

would you recommend we oppose as in like from the left could we actually basically some of the tax breaks that some of these churches enjoy when when they're getting too deep into politics? is there an opportunity that is it wise or is there an opportunity to perhaps manipulate? can we manipulate it to get more a larger child tax break or something like that? so any policy prescriptions that way that the left could use, i would just say something that might be surprising or counterintuitive. if you read, through the history of christianity dating back to the first century, you know, obviously the point about constantine in fourth century, sort of the effective merger of church and state and the reaching beginning of that reach for the sword as solution to our problems there is a really complicated history of christianity. it's worth understanding that for every crusade there has been, the establishment of the

medical system, for every inquisition and there has been the establishment of orphanages. the christian history is very complicated, but the reason that tax exemptions exists for churches is because of the enormous contribution to the social welfare that comes from houses of worship and. one of the things that has been consistently surprising pleasantly so to me is that even when i have visited some churches that have really lost the plot where the pastor has turned sunday morning worship into like a low rent fox news segment. those those churches are still taking millions of dollars every year that come into their plates. they are feeding the poor in their community they are clothing. they are they are taking care of the orphan. they are taking care of the they are doing good in their communities. and i think it's important to recognize that that that that oftentimes we can paint with an overly broad brush and and there's no question that there are some bad actors in this space who have who have skirted

the rules and who have turned their churches into, you know, partizan pep rallies on sundays. that is, of course, in direct violation of their their status. 501c 523 for but i would be very reluctant to throw the baby out with the bathwater here because i think anyone who spent time around some of these churches would the enormous social good that can still come from them. one more, please, that you, each of you present a very vivid and terrifying of christian nationalism how donald trump fits into that as a jewish democrat, a lot of republicans very patronizingly say me, donald trump is the best thing that's ever happened to --. he has a, you know, a jewish son in law. he's moved the capital to israel. but clearly you've mentioned --

and muslims and the black church and that are going to be left out. so how would you respond to? the idea that that trump is the best thing that's ever happened to the --? i personally feel qualified to comment on it as a non --, though, i would be very skeptical of that assessment. i mean, i guess what i would say is and i'd go back to my comment earlier about the, you know, trump himself, and i think this is important to understand. you know, very obviously is not a person. faith also really does not about religion at all, except as tool of power. right. and a few years ago i wrote a piece for the atlantic where. i spoke to a bunch of people who had been in his life throughout, you know, over the years. and wrote a piece about all the things he says about people of faith in private. right. and be shocked to learn that he had talked very disparagingly

about people of faith, all right. he says, you know, he talks about the, you know, popular christian pastors are all hucksters. it's all a racket. and but he also kind of respects hustle, you know, because i how how successful they are getting money out of them he he makes jewish jokes he makes mormon jokes in private all the time. so this is not a man has any respect for faith of any denomination but he does recognize the power the power in it and the ability to wield it himself. and so i would just be i would be cautious and i think i would say this whether, you know, anybody, whether somebody's trying to make the case he that trump has been really good for x religious group and i would say this is true for conservative evangelicals. do donald does not care about your religious group. he does not care about your religion he does not care about your belief system. all he wants is for you to do

what he wants you to do. he wants to help him get and maintain power and. you know, anything that he seems to be doing to help your religious group is incidental to that. and you cannot count on him as an ally. so the panel raised, the question and i need a point of information from whosever directing this this is the last session in this room. we still have some people with question. so if we go over to we get arrested. is this a violation of the first amendment, which probably have sponsored this session? could someone inform me on that you all right, let's yeah, let's take two more. okay. i think you are next. is that right? i think so. oh, okay. okay, great. well, first off, thank you all

very much for your presence, for taking the time to talk with us is really illuminating, enlightening and really, really appreciate you doing so. so mr. alberta tim, something you talk about and discuss in your book is kinds of pastors who are leading and in different capacities. mr. i haven't read your book on romney. it's my reading list, but something i admired about about romney, his integrity when he when he encounters certain areas a lot of journalists have talk about how he pays $5,000 a day to keep family safe and keep themselves safe. and it seems like much of the challenges that are faced today i'm sorry, this is a long wait up to the question we have with people and forms of, leadership, pastors, political leaders otherwise is this lack of either accountability or structure that kind of incentivizes behavior, incentivizes some of the fanatics in those spaces, kind of taking a bit more control. and i'm curious, are there ways in which in which we in our

communities, people who have who have access to the people who have access to power, are there ways to maintain some level of accountability? and what might that look like specifically in the context of the sort of mingling of politics and religion? does that question make sense? yeah. i mean, i can take a quick crack at it. so i wrote a passage somewhat provocatively intentionally so in my book about how in the post-9-11 era there was this search for where are the moderate muslims, right? where are the moderate muslims to push back against jihad, spreading the globe? and why can't we elevate of those voices to try to restore some some accountability to islam having sort of you lost its way. right. and the question ask in the book is where, are the same evangelicals? where are the people who are willing to stand up and reclaim their faith, tradition that is being hijacked from the fringes? this is not to compare body counts between osama bin laden, jerry falwell jr. that's not the point.

i think we have to recognize that there is a danger to a pluralistic society when massive institutional forces of evangelical ism like the southern baptist convention go unchecked and that accountability is probably never going to truly from within, at least not from within those institutions, as we've seen the sbc and their abuse scandals that continue to cascade, you people who credible and who have to influence within their own spheres, and you need a critical mass of those people. and i think if there's one source of optimism for me in all of my reporting that took me all around the country and even that there is a bit of an awakening happening in the evangelical world now where more and more people are recognizing that that inauthentic. i will stick to that that inauthentic expression of christianity must be confronted and must be neutralized if for no other reason than it is doing.

trump and this damage to the gospel of jesus christ. not only is it dangerous to the sustainability of a pluralistic society, but it is dangerous to and delegitimizing of the gospel of jesus christ and basically the question can i'm going to say 1/32 co to this. i mean, one other accountability that's happening is an exodus that's happening from these churches. right. and i mentioned the early session, white evangelicals going from a quarter of the population b 13.7% of the population, the southern baptist convention has lost more than 2 million members in last ten years. so that's five to. yeah. yep. so i'm getting the hook. let's, let's do the questions quickly in the answers as quickly as we can and try to get them in the way. i talk about it, talk out loud enough. you got we got we got. okay. i've been to three marvelous panel discussions with many of you also have everything said

right is history. it's the past i want to know about the future i want to know i don't want to to to say just hope alive or vote. what the hell can we do now? let's go ahead. make. i like your religious vocabulary. yeah. no, i mean, i know that it's frustrating to say, but you this the state of affairs that we're in right now is not no silver bullet. there's no there's no quick turnaround. what there is an opportunity for system engaged citizenship and the way to fix things. and you i think all of our books actually have some prescriptions. i addressing this and so i would encourage of you to go directly to ten and buy all three. that's the first and most important thing you can do.

but no, but i mean, look, what we need are who are earnest, idealistic and willing to do the hard work of citizenship every day. and so the way we things is all of you stay engaged, right? try to see the best in your political opponents. don't vilify, demonize them, but fight them in the political arena in another other arenas and try to maintain a love for your neighbor while also trying to remake country and as the best version of itself, it can be a ten second coda. the number of people who have approached me and said my -- evangelical brother in law is such nut. i can't deal with him anymore. i said, well, hold on, isn't that sort part of the problem? like, in other words, you you are not treating them with sort of love and mercy and graciousness that, you know, that they're not treating people with right. it has to start with you. so whether or not you, a

christian, love your neighbor is an awfully good place to start. the healing process here we. two more questions. okay, go ahead. how does a christian country, someone who's broken every commandment as their leader? yeah, that's a that's a very fair question. you want to go and collect the other one and then. yeah. and why don't you give us the other the last question. we'll take. i was preceded by another member of my jewish tribe because this session was termed religion's grip on politics. and obviously it's christians grip on politics and i and another thing i've always heard termed evangelicals as who try to convert you as some mormons have to -- but i just following

on that you know mccain you spent just 5 minutes a few minutes ago demonizing trump we all have done but and we you know, it's hard to embrace him and his work so and there are plenty of my rabbis and in synagogues who are stand on social and social action. so they're involved. so i agree with so much of what you've all said and i love talking religion. do you have a question i'm sorry, i just i know we're actually in a time. i know. so i i'm confirming that you think that we will continue in this mode of religion being a part of politics. you all think that. well, i'll. i'll jump in. i'm just recall one of the things that i think kind of goes to solutions and kind of where

do we go in this mix of religion and, politics. so one of the things that we haven't talked about all in the second half of the title, the book is the path to a shared american future. right. and what i did, i think we get mired. we if we stay at the national level, it does look a bit hopeless, right. if we just read the national headlines, we stay way up here. we look at two parties at the national level and see them locked up as one. things i did in the book as i to minnesota, to mississippi and oklahoma. and look at what people were doing on the ground right? not just in mississippi, but tallahatchie county, mississippi, in the delta poor area. and just to give like one example, there's a group of people there, black and white descendants, enslaved people, descendants of enslavers who got together to tell the truth about emmett till, many of them motivated by their religion and their faith on different sides of the political aisle. and yet they wanted to tell the truth about what happened to emmett till in their in their story. and they want to apologize for

the till to the till family, for the injustice that got out there and that superseded a lot of these divisions and i think there's models like that at the you were saying get involved i think at the community level right there is many more opportunities to kind do some things here and that will actually matter. we kind of do things at the local level that if we stay up here, it's i think it's just to heart is we're too locked in. but i think at the local level there are still surprising ways. i think that if again, act with some goodwill and some and some faith, we actually can make some difference that i think hopefully will build up from bottom. i really think that's the only way we're going to do it is to build it from the bottom up a