Unmasking Religious Extremism: Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck on Faithful America's Fight for Justice

In Oklahoma, religious extremism is reshaping public education, political rhetoric, and community life. In this episode, Faithful Politics hosts Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram sit down with Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck, the new Executive Director of Faithful America. Fleck discusses her journey from ministry to public advocacy, the rise of Christian nationalism in Oklahoma, and the battle against religious indoctrination in public schools. She also unpacks the implications of recent legislative moves, including a controversial social studies curriculum backed by religious right power players like Kevin Roberts, Dennis Prager, and David Barton. Fleck explains how the fight for true religious liberty is being reframed as a war on 'anti-Christian bias' and what it means for churches, schools, and marginalized communities across the nation.

Guest Bio:
Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck is the Executive Director of Faithful America, the largest online community of Christians advocating for social justice. Previously, she served as the head of the Oklahoma Faith Network, where she championed interfaith dialogue and public advocacy in a deeply conservative state. Fleck's work focuses on countering religious extremism and advocating for genuine religious liberty, especially in the context of public education and policy.

Resources & Links:
Faithful America: faithfulamerica.org
Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck’s Substack: https://substack.com/@smfleck

Transcript

0:17

Hey, welcome back, Faithful Politics listeners and watchers. I am your political host, Wright, and we are just so glad to have you with us. I'm joined, as always, by your faithful host, Pastor Josh Bertram. How's it going, Josh? doing great, thanks Will. And today joining us we have with us Shannon Fleck. She is a newly appointed executive director of Faithful America, one of the largest online communities of Christians organizing for social justice around the country. And before stepping into this role, she led the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, where she championed interfaith dialogue, public advocacy in a deeply conservative landscape and has a background in ministry, public Theology and a whole bunch of other stuff and we're just so happy to have her join us on for the program today So welcome to the show Shannon Thank very much, both of you. Yeah, thank you. And you happen to be in probably one of the hottest beds of religious activity in the country. And I want to talk about all of that. But before we do, for those that are unfamiliar with Faithful America, I feel like I did a really poor job explaining all the different things that they do. So maybe you can expand a little bit and what your experience is going to be bringing to the organization. Thank so much. Actually, you did a great job of describing Faithful America. has, yeah, excellent, excellent. It was birthed to be an online specific movement to counteract the rise of religious extremism that has been gaining power in our political structures and was really built to be that formal faith-based response to try and and pull us back from the brink that we're standing upon now. And it has been primarily online since its inception. And one of the things I'm excited to do as we get into a new fiscal year, new strategic planning for the organization with new leadership is learn how to really mobilize the structure that we have built because the organization has found great success in building its list and connecting across the country and we're ready to mobilize that more on the ground now and definitely in a grassroots way. That's really cool. So I'm curious, when did you get your passion for justice, passion for kind of being a counter force and counterbalance to religious extremism? And I'd also love to hear what you consider as religious extremism in America. yeah. You know, when it comes straight to what I would say what radicalized me into understanding that we were seeing a problem came from what I was seeing here in the state of Oklahoma. And in about 2015, I was serving in a local church and the pushback that was happening in the local congregation level started shifting very significantly. And it was really hard to put my finger on what was, but I remember one Sunday I preached a sermon out of, want to say, Gospel of Mark. I don't even remember, but I do remember that a member of the congregation approached me afterwards and said, why did I dare preach such a progressive liberal sermon? And it was quite literally the words of Jesus explicitly. And that woke me up to something that I started to try and pay more attention to. And when I left local church ministry and entered the nonprofit sector at what was then known as the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, but we did a rebrand in 2022 and became the Oklahoma Faith Network to be more inclusive of our membership. I really started to see first, firsthand how our legislature at the state level was really moving the line of religious rhetoric in their policy making, using faith-based rhetoric for hateful remarks against minority faiths from the standpoint of being loving Christians. And it really garnered my attention quickly. And I knew I had to start paying attention to whatever this rise was. And to answer your other question, I would define religious extremism as that point where, especially within Christianity, we've lost the message of Jesus Christ altogether. We can't even recognize the gospel message of what Jesus has said. So that moment of someone coming and saying, whoa, that was a liberal sermon. No, that was Jesus. And Jesus was neither liberal or conservative, certainly not Democrat or Republican. He was his own entity. so religious extremism has moved so far away from that core message. that it's no longer seeking communal agape love with neighbor, it's seeking power and control and dominance. I really love that origin story, if you will, for when you became more aware of what's happening. I mean, we have spoken to so many people. ah And it seems like everybody that's in this space has a, like an awakening moment, for the lack of a better word, where they're like, wait, something just doesn't seem right. whether it's... you know, when we talk to Catherine Stewart, ah you know, she talks about her experience at the school and her kids and like, you know, the good news club and, she's like, something just seems weird. And then, you know, you talk to Robbie Jones and he's like, yeah, like I was Southern Baptist. And then all of sudden it's like, Hey, wait a minute. The things I'm learning about isn't the things that I've been taught growing up. And, and for you, you know, it's just really, really great to kind of hear, hear that story. And I'd imagine in the state that you live in, There's probably a lot happening right now where folks are starting to recognize that why is my classroom curriculum looking different? know, who are these people that are, you know, on the school board making these decisions? So I would love for you just to kind of summarize for those that aren't closely following Oklahoma politics and, you know, school board stuff. Like what's happening in your state? Lord have mercy. Lord of mercy. there, yes, there's so much happening, but the focal piece that's getting the biggest headlines, and rightfully so, is our state superintendent of public education, Ryan Walters, who came on to the statewide scene as a nonprofit director in 2020. He was tapped to lead an organization called Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, or ECHO for short. And he, he garnered that position after being a public education teacher and from all respects seems to have been a fantastic teacher. His students loved him. He was a finalist for state teacher of the year. This was a great educator by all metrics, right? And he gets in this nonprofit role where he is then handed all of our gear funds in the state of Oklahoma. So that's all of the funds that we received through the pandemic to help with children's education here in the state. And of course, in retrospect, we now know that he misspent millions of dollars while he was in that position. He blames Class Wallet, which is who he contracted with, but honestly, millions were misspent, but... There was a promotion, if you will, from our governor, Governor Stitt, to Secretary of State and, or not Secretary of State, Lord, no, Secretary of Education. And he received that position in 2020, where he very quickly began putting out what I would now call propaganda videos. related specifically to nationalist ideology and then he started peppering that ideology with Christianity in very quick, severe ways. And he became known for the guy who was recording videos in his car, in his minivan. So all of his videos are him in the parking lot of I don't know where filming his dialogues and his propaganda. He ended up winning the state superintendent election, largely because he was propped up to do so by being in that secretary of Ed role, and immediately got to work. further destroying Oklahoma public schools. We were not in good shape when he came onto the scene. And certainly it's been a downward spiral ever since to the point now where we've got multimillion dollar budget requests to put Trump Bibles in every classroom. After President Trump was elected again in November, he sent out an email to all of our school districts requesting that They play this prayer that he had recorded sitting at his state superintendent's official desk, this prayer for Trump and Christianity in our country and said, it's optional. Your kids don't have to listen, but told our districts that they were expected to play it. my God. now we have a social studies curriculum that is attempting to be implemented here in the state that was written by a committee of people, including Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation, Dennis Prager from PragerU, David Barton, and other big names that we know are big figures on the religious right. And not just the religious right, but the hyper religious right, the power and control religious right. And that's not the normal procedure for writing school curriculum in the state of Oklahoma. The normal procedure is that a group of educators come together and they write the standards as a committee of public ed invested individuals. Brian Walters himself was on this committee to write standards as an educator in 2019. He knows that that's the strategy. Yeah. So last summer, this group of men came together and composed these social studies curriculum that promote ideas like the 2020 election was stolen and specifically implementing Bible specific lessons in grades one through 12, starting as young as first graders. It's very explicit. And they left all the public education professionals out of this process to the point where they were expected to sign NDAs and not talk about what was going on. It was very hush-hush. I know, it sounds like an episode of scandal because it is. know. And now the latest, the latest is that, uh you know, the big textbook manufacturers that exist in our country don't have this in their textbooks. They don't have this indoctrination that they've come up with. So now, you know, thank God, the Heritage Foundation and uh PragerU. have said to the state of Oklahoma, listen, we've got you. We will provide you with the textbooks, but we're gonna charge the state $33 million for these textbooks that now adhere to the curriculum we just wrote. So that's where things currently stand in public education in the state of Oklahoma and the blatant implementation of religious extremism as an element of reshaping an education narrative. eh Yeah, that's uh thoughts and prayers, I guess. I don't know. I mean, so you mentioned three names, and I think most people that listen to our show or watch our show will probably be familiar with Kevin Roberts. They'll probably be familiar with PragerU, but like David Barton, Tim Barton, like if folks aren't aware of who these folks are, I there's some pretty deep rabbit holes we can go down, but I'll just give one. because I just wrote about it in my sub-stack recently regarding the Barton's view of the three branches of government and how they think it's sort of like divinely inspired, like it's supposed to be kind like a Trinity model, you know? So like imagine, you know, that kind of being taught in your social studies class, which is, yeah, it's just really, really wild. I know Josh has a question, so, but I wanted to at least just add that. Yeah, I I'm curious, what is the content of these Bible lessons? When they're starting in first grade, what does that look like? And yeah, I'd love for you to explain that a little bit more for us to understand what they're doing. Is it like going to Sunday school, like when I grew up, or is it something different than that? The younger grades, it's very much like a VBS curriculum. It is hyper-specific with the distinct scriptural references. So the talking point that they have given the public is that they want to be able to teach the Bible as a historical element of the founding of America. The argument is that the Bible was instrumental in the shaping of our country and should be taught as such in the classrooms. But this is not how you historically teach a document. This is Bible teaching. This is straight up scripture. So in the younger grades, the curriculum very much looks like VBS. It very much looks like the story of David and Goliath and learning about Moses and the Ten Commandments. As it gets older, as the as the students advance throughout the grades, they begin to get more of that Christian nationalist overlap. So they start to then link these scriptural and biblical Ideologies that they learned young into political systems and ideologies and that idea that these are all intertwined That political and civic life is rooted in the Bible historically It's everything that will just mentioned about the ideology of the Bartons that we see emerging in older grades so it's very much a pipeline if you will of indoctrination into a whole new idea of what America is and religion in America. um So your state also um made an appearance at the Supreme Court recently in a case, I'm going to butcher it. It's like St. Isidore's uh something rather. of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School. I got you. Yeah. Can you just give us kind of the background of that? I'm assuming it's something you're probably tracking pretty closely. if you listen to the oral arguments, what did you hear? What are your kind of thoughts? I'm actually going to have or we're going to have Rachel Lazar on next week. I think next week, just to kind of break it down a lot more. But I'd love for you just to kind of set the stage. What is that case? Yeah, it's one that everyone needs to be watching. And unfortunately, it hasn't gotten a lot of media attention that it really needed to have because we are kind of in a media chaos right now. So Saint Isidore Academy is a brainchild of the Catholic Archdiocese here in Oklahoma City, as well as the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. with the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which is a separate entity entirely. And they came together with a plan because in Oklahoma, charter schools, including virtual charter schools, are considered public schools. Therein, they receive public tax dollars. And for a very long time on the more conservative end of Catholicism, there's been this belief that public dollars should be able to be used in religious education and that has been a common desire for the church and so this was a mechanism to make that happen. I have been with this case since the very beginning. I was there at the little school board meeting, the little virtual school board meeting to make public comment in 2023 against this happening in defense of the establishment. clause and maintaining the separation of church and state. And mostly what I was saying is I'm fearful of what this would do to our churches, because as soon as we open a door over here, the snowball will roll down the hill and our congregations are going to feel effects of this at some point. Just think about this five to 10 years from now and what it will spiral into. So Obviously they decided to attempt to move forward with that school and then it was heard by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last summer. I did listen to those arguments. They sound very similar to the arguments that were then made again on April 30th at the United States Supreme Court. Of note here is that in Oklahoma, our Supreme Court voted in this case seven to one against this happening as unconcerned. constitutional. That is a heavy decision in a state like Oklahoma. That sends a message. And so here we were under the impression like, great job, Oklahoma Supreme Court. Yes. Like you got that one right. We're proud of you. Immediately cue the dark money campaign leading into that, leading into November to get the judges that were on the ballot removed specifically because of that vote. And they achieved that goal with one of our justices, actually the longest serving justice that we have had on our Supreme Court. They got her removed during that election. And then we, yeah. No, you're good. say dark money, what organizations were kind of pouring money into the state? There are multiple billionaires who are supporting these efforts and send their money through 501c4 organizations and PACs that funnel into the state through other 501c4s and PACs. One of the biggest being CPAC here in the state of Oklahoma. They are in the driver's seat of a lot of what we're seeing happening in terms of Christian nationalism and the rise of the religious right. They have monthly meetings and they publish them online. So if anyone's interested please feel free to check out their Rumble channel and get a dose of what they're talking about because that's where the money is coming into the state, also in various other sources. So, I mean, it's definitely coordinated and well-funded, very well-funded. And so our shock arrives when we hear at the top of the year that the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case that was so emphatically ruled against. That's an eye-opening thing. And the primary argument here, just to make it like summed up and pretty, is that people defending this school and wanting this to happen are using the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to bludgeon the establishment clause of the First Amendment as if those don't go together. So can you go into a little bit more detail on how the bludgeoning is taking place? Because I'm just thinking about what's going on with this court case in this school. And I'm also thinking with the 7 to 1, is that I know this is two questions, but these are just thoughts that were coming up. So you can answer them, however, and if you miss one, that's okay. But like, if you're thinking about like this seven to one court case, like does Supreme Court normally reject those cases if they're very like, they've been decided clearly or is it more like, I get, and you may not know that that's fine, but I'm guessing like, what is the process? Like, why did this get to the Supreme Court and why is it so like surprising, I guess? Right, no, I think that's an excellent question. And that's one I had to go searching for answers to as well, because a constitutional lawyer, I am not. So I don't know what the normal process is. Yeah. And you'll have Rachel here, and she will nail all of these constitutionality questions. It, from what I have been told by asking people like Rachel, asking people who are Supreme Court engagers, this is relatively unheard of to have the United States Supreme Court take up a decision that was. pretty decidedly firm. And what I want to tell you is here on the ground in Oklahoma, we have known since 2023 that the entire purpose of this case was to get exactly where it is to the United States Supreme Court for the exact purpose of getting public dollars into religious institutions. It's funny because it's like, you you feel like on one hand, you're like, well, people are going to have strategies, right? The left has strategies. The right has strategies. They're all trying to get it to the courts that are going to be in their favor. It just kind of seems that way, right? then you're like, man, like strategies are great, but then there's something that feels wrong. right, about all this intentionality and it feels like somewhat deceptive and manipulative. And yet at the same time, like they're using their strategies and like both sides are doing it. right now, right, the right has won the day, the day, that's it, right? Because we have a lot, there's a lot more, you know, history to be had and we'll see how the next, you know, three. What is it? It's whatever four years minus 100 days as well. Can you tell me what that is? Or 102 or three? And we're just like, the roller coaster. I feel, is my heart gonna make it? Shannon, is your heart gonna make it? The up and down? It's like I take my kids to King's Dominion for a roller coaster, but all they gotta do is just watch the news and they'll see, or just watch Trump's tweets and truth. You ever read truth, a Trump truth? Nope. I'm not surprised by that answer. And so I guess my question is something you alluded to was like how this would affect the churches. And I would love for you as a pastor, I'm a pastor as well. I appreciate other uh clergy who are in the fight and in the grind of trying to do good ministry. So thank you for the work that you do, by the way. I think it's awesome. How is this going to affect I'm supposed to bring the conservative viewpoint, and I am pretty conservative. I'm not good at fighting. I don't like doing that, but I do like getting to the truth. And I would just really like to know, what do you imagine happening in churches as a result of this? The logical next step from a St. Isidore decision, if they approve public tax dollars going into the school, the next logical step for the tax paying public is to say, okay, church, you're gonna receive public tax dollars and you're not paying into that system at all. And as church pastors, we are very keenly aware of the rise in call for churches to be paying taxes. That is a prominent dialogue from people in all social locations. And so the debate is already afoot and has been for a long time whether or not churches are still providing that public service that garners them tax exempt status. If we now open this door and we start getting public dollars into a very sectarian entity, that's what I mean by the ball rolling down the hill. It is a slippery slope. And what I'm thinking about are like our local rural congregations in small town Oklahoma. who are the only community centers, the food pantry, the assistance givers, the center of social safety nets in their rural communities, and them having to close their doors because they are going to be expected to pay property taxes that they have never been able to afford. And they will shutter their doors all because this school wanted taxpayer dollars. That's what I'm concerned about. the idea, just to make sure I understand, the idea is that if it goes through and they're giving this school, which is very religious, clearly very religious, has one very specific view, and funds are going to start flowing into this school from a government that sets a precedent that essentially can then be used in other places for churches to get... tax dollars and then once churches get tax dollars, which again, I'm a very strong opponent of that because our reasons are probably similar, but my sense is that once you start doing that, you're beholden to the government for money and people are going to stop giving because you're getting money from the government. And so at that point, you know, they're going to be like, there's no incentive to give and the government, if they want you to stop, if Trump doesn't like your sermon, then they're gonna cut the funding to your church. You nailed it, Josh. You nailed it. Because what? But you know, because you're a pastor. Like, what do you as a, it would be terrible if you're a pastor and you're thinking about what it would mean and the implications of your existence as a faith community and your independence and your ability to practice your faith. As soon as the government money starts funding your work, You're beholden to the government. And look at what the government is now trying to do at the executive level by creating these national committees on anti-Christian bias and a new committee on religious liberty, right? They are already taking the steps to start politically defining what Christianity is. They are already on the move to build that very infrastructure. And so now if churches are going to buy into this governmental overlap, we're going to be handcuffed to a political administration, which is not at all what church is meant to be in the United States. I would love for you to maybe help our audience understand kind of like what the ultimate end is to all of this or what's kind of uh the larger strategy. Because I appreciated Josh mentioning about, hey, the government's on my stuff and they're giving me money. They're going to want to have a say. I was thinking, Bob Jones University was cool until they told You know until they're told you have to like integrate right like we're gonna take your tax status away ah so and and based on everything that you're saying it does kind of sound a little bit like You know this sort of aftermath of Brown v. Brown v. Board of Education where you got all these like Christian churches or Christian schools that became charter schools private schools in order to stay segregated so like is it is it your Is it your opinion or at least thought that this doesn't necessarily mean it's going to equal, you know, we're going to have segregated schools already, but there's a long history of Christian churches, you know, trying to have it their way, so to speak. What do you think? People consider me conspiracy theory sounding when I say this, but that therein is the exact goal will. This current flow of religious extremism can be tapped at Brown v. Board of Education and the federal desegregation of public education and the belief that white and black students should not have to be in school together, which, as you said, is exactly why private Christian schools began popping up and flourishing along with private Christian universities, because when you're private, you can discriminate. legally and that's what We're working back towards when when it said make America great again we are slowly walking ourselves back into a white male patriarchal dominance Period across the board Yeah, yeah, I mean we that's why that's why we're seeing this shove with religion and public education because it's the public education system that is the most threatening to unity, equity, inclusion. We're becoming we're on a journey of reconciliation that hopefully someday we're going to land in true reconciliation for the sins of our country's past. We have not come close yet. And the journey of the public school system and children of all backgrounds being in school together has put us on a on a highway towards acceptance and empathy towards one another as humans. And we got to stop that because as soon as that comes to fruition in its fullest, most beautiful capacity, white men have lost control and power of the entire country. And there has not been a single moment since this country was colonized that the white male has not had the entirety of the power. So I want to dig into that a little bit more because you you say conspiracy theory adjacent or whatever people think that you sound like conspiracy theorists and I've now heard this at several different places from several different people and I would love for you to dig more into that. Where is it coming from that and I'm not saying that in a accusatory way a curious way where is it coming from? that the idea is that we're gonna go back to a segregation, that we're gonna go back to a society that's essentially racist um and systematically racist. I know people will argue that it is now, and I'm open to those arguments, absolutely. But we're just, I'm setting that aside for a second and saying none of the progress, like all the progress we have made, it's essentially the idea is that it's being reversed and taken away to the point of even like bringing back segregation. Am I hearing that right? And if I am, I would love for you to go into more like where is that coming from? How do we know that that is their goal? um or whose goal exactly, guess. I'm trying, because that's not my goal, but I'm, you know, I'm like, and I'm a white male, but I'm also trying to think, I don't have that much power in terms of like the things I can, you know, do. I certainly have privilege, you know, and I've had that. I guess I'm just trying to, I'm trying to figure it out, because I know that my conservative friends that will hear this, We'll be like, whoa. Like, isn't obvious to them, right? And I'm not saying it's not true. It just isn't obvious to them. So yeah, help us understand. Absolutely. And listen, I live in Oklahoma and have conversations with conservatives all the time. Like, I get it. I understand that it is really, really hard when we have privilege to see the privilege. It is one of the biggest barriers that white people are gonna have to overcome. that Christians are going to have to overcome because we have immense religious privilege in this country. And when you have privilege, when school holidays are scheduled around your religion, but no one else's, when the stores are filled with your religious decor and no one else's except the end cap for Hanukkah, which isn't even one of the biggest Jewish holidays, but inclusivity, right? Like those are those are signs of immense privilege. That's right. Yes. Right. So I'm that is one evidence of how privilege exists. And if you are a Christian, I would like for you conservative, liberal, whatever, call upon that awareness in ourselves that we are a nation that proclaims religious freedom. And yet. We are also a nation that claims that we care about children's education and yet systems are being dismantled that have been put in place to protect children with disabilities. protect children from discrimination and civil rights abuses. When we talk about the dismantling of the Department of Ed, I think it's really important to understand why the Department of Education was created. And it was created to make sure that there was no civil rights violations or active discriminatory practices after the public schools were segregated. So if we remove the Department of at the federal level, these protections for our students of all backgrounds, faiths, races, orientations, identities, the protection goes back to the state. And in states like Oklahoma, there will be no protection. There will be no protection for students. That in and of itself is evidence of a removal of systems that have been put in place to protect the most marginalized among us, which as Christians, we need to be standing on their side of any argument, the most marginalized among us. So what I would say to people is we have to start looking past the language that's being used. When people are talking about religious liberty and parental choice, they're not really talking about those things. What they're really saying is religious liberty for Christians and now going so far as to try and define exactly what kind of Christian. And they mean parental choice to get your kid in a school that doesn't have to be with any kids that you're uncomfortable with. And so when we start having conversations like that and we look at the peeling away of these systemic entities, we have to understand what the goal of it is. It's being painted as states' rights. It's being painted as parental choice. That's great. We care about our children's future and we want religious diversification and options. We want to dismantle the federal agency that protects children that might be different. We want to funnel public tax dollars meant to uplift and support an equitable education system. into religious entities that are allowed to discriminate. So I hope that that maybe at least starts to paint a picture of what this looks like when we talk about the dismantling of systems. It's the stripping away. And let's not get into the depth of Roe v. Wade, but that is also stripping away of rights. in an effort to control population and to ensure that babies are being born. Yeah. uh Apparently, I think there's a like $5,000 tax credit being proposed for people to have more kids. I know, I know. I mean, unless ah like, so this might be TMI, but you know, my both of my kids were born naturally. God bless my wife. And Our second one was actually born in our house, actually just right downstairs from where I'm sitting. And the entire bill was only like, like $2,000. I think maybe it could have been $3,000. We decided to use a, ah well, we had a doula, but we used like an herbalist or something as well. My wife and I are a bunch of hippies. like, ah but it was super inexpensive. You know, I was like, there was that part of me where I was like, we had a kid at our house. Like, what if, what if we didn't, you know, register him and he could become like a super spy? You know, like, I mean, I'm a guy, right? But, but, you know, I, I, I am, I am curious about something you said earlier regarding anti-Christian bias. So there was a task force that was put together. uh It was led by attorney general, Pam Bondi. I, I also wrote a sub stack about, about that. Cause I mean, just for the listeners that aren't subscribed to my sub stack, like, like take anything I write with a grain of salt. Cause I'm not an expert, but I talked to a lot of experts. So, so anyways, in her, in her opening statement, she listed off reasons for why the anti-Christian bias task force existed. Um, some of the. some of the more, I don't know, catchy things that might get people activated would be, you know, 900 attacks on churches or something. uh Or, you know, the Biden uh intentionally uh dedicating, you know, trans visibility day on Easter, which this year fell on Hitler's birthday. So make of that what you made. You know, I'm curious on like, is this anti-Christian bias uh coming from? I mean, the research I've done didn't really show a lot, but you know, I'm not plugged in probably as much as you are. So tell us about how you're being discriminated against. not. We are not. There is no widespread anti-Christian hate in this country. It is being fabricated fully. Now, I'm not saying there isn't any anti-Christian bias in existence at all. Like, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that this is not a problem at such a scale that we need a whole committee in our federal government devoted to dealing with it. Not at all. Christianity is not experiencing discrimination in this country. Quite the opposite. Yeah, and I should probably say the 900 attacks against the churches that was brought up. I'm speculating here, but I think that they grabbed those numbers from the Family Research Council report that came out. I think it was 23 or 24. They had like 900 different instances of attacks on churches. thank God for AI, because I took their PDF and put it in there and just asked it to classify them. And a lot of the attacks on churches, I mean, they weren't lying. But a lot of the attacks were on like black churches a lot of a lot of mosque a lot of tearing tearing down of like pro-choice or LGBT affirming type stuff on on churches so, know, it's it is weird that you know, they are focusing on anti-christian bias But it's like like whose version of Christianity and whose faith? Which would just seems really really weird, but also they created a religious liberty commission. So maybe you could talk to us a little bit about our own religious liberty. What's happening there? Nothing. ah What is happening there is being brought on by this movement. What is happening there, the attacks to religious liberty are coming in the form of the St. Isidore's of the country. The attacks on religious liberty are coming from this distinct attempt to eliminate the establishment clause. When I have visited with politicians, faith leaders of all walks, when I visit with Republicans, and guess what? They visit with me because I'm not, I'm not a partisan entity here. uh I'm a faith leader. And I have been looked in my face time and time again in the Oklahoma State Capitol where the free exercise clause is the only argument. There is no awareness of anything else. And the fact that, I'm gonna say religious extremists because it's not conservative Christians. There's conservative Christians that are not in this camp. But the argument that my free exercise of religion or religious liberty is being discriminated against because I'm not allowed to go into the public schools and teach it. because I'm not allowed to make the students join me in prayer, because I'm not allowed to implement and enforce my specific faith throughout the country. That's the attack on religious liberty from this perspective, is that that's the bias and the attacking and the religious liberty infractions is that the establishment clause is holding. Because religious liberty is about each and every individual being able to practice their religion of choice and to engage in their faith tradition that is personal and intimate to them. And my religious liberty and freedoms run right up until yours begin. And if my religious liberty is smacking yours, then we don't have religious liberty anymore. But that's the lens from which these entities are being created. This devout awareness, go back to the Barton ideology, this devout awareness that this has to be a Christian country and if it's not moving towards that, then religious liberty is in danger. You know, it makes me think, like, what exactly, like, how exactly would we figure out whether or not a bias exists? uh And what I mean is, what method would we use? How would we, you know, we have a lot, like, um... You know, I don't feel persecuted. I'm actually a little bit more afraid personally right now of not being conservative enough. If I'm just totally honest, that's what I kind of feel like, even though I am conservative. But that doesn't mean, like my feelings don't mean that that's reality. And what I'm trying to figure out, and what I love for you to like, just think out loud for me, help me work through. Like, how would we figure out? like the statement, um there's no religious liberty issues with Christianity. I'm not saying, I don't know if that's exactly what you said. I'm paraphrasing. So you can just talk about what you said, not what I'm saying you said. how would you know whether it was happening or not? I guess even working through the reasoning of We know Christians aren't being persecuted because of this. Here are the reasons. And you've alluded to it. And the reason I go into this is because I just I know so many people in conservative circles that they're it's it's so deeply embedded in them to feel like this is like like America is their country. Right. They love it. uh They also feel like, you know, they did feel persecuted, whether they were or not, right? That's the big question, right? They did feel persecuted. They felt persecuted under Obama. They felt persecuted under Biden. Should they have? Well, obviously, a lot of people are going to think they shouldn't. A lot of people are thinking, of course they should. You think of bakers, um you know, making cakes for same-sex marriages. You think of, and those kinds of cases, websites, whatever it is. being spread out over the country. And those are the things that get highlighted, and people are afraid, and we're being persecuted, and stuff like that. Walk me through the reasoning. How would we know if they are being persecuted? And how do we know that they're not, if that makes sense? does make sense. It's a great question and one that we're going to be on a journey with together. I would challenge, yeah, I would challenge a little bit these stories like you mentioned the bakery and the wedding cakes and all of these, I would say, like incendiary opportunities, right? Would... Would there be a possibility that those were uplifted, highlighted, created, amplified in order to drum up awareness of an issue that was previously never an issue because of the separation of church and state? We cannot let the media off the hook in this dialogue. The media culture has done a sensational job of... Yeah. Yes. fake New York Times or the or the real media like blaze and uh What's the other one on Newsmax or whatever? oh am talking about the amplifying and the politicization of news, which was a turning point in our more recent history when news started shifting more into entertainment than facts. um So it's all that old parrach. Yes. Feel free to use it in your pulpit, Josh. Get it. I love it. happy. Yes, I love when I can do that. But the media has become an instrument of growing animosities. The media has done a really great job of finding the headline, finding the clicks, finding the thing that is going to get people the most outraged. And they've done it. beautifully because the mere fact that we are able to name these instances like you just named is indicative of an uptick in something that was never a thing before it was politicized. And what we're linking is gay marriage, right? So we're talking about the legislation of moral thought around whether you know, the homosexual community can engage in the legal status of marriage and how you are allowed to legally respond to that. That becomes legislating morality. And that is the line. And so when we look at news media and what they have done to fan the flames of, oh, discrimination, discriminatory, look at that. That is a problem over there. Okay, yeah, but that's a problem of your own making because we aren't standing on the line of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clause. We're allowing that line to slowly blur away with the help of talking points that confirm our opinions. Right? So we have this circle now. We have Christian nationalist pastors going to conferences put on by a lot of these organizations we've referenced, given talking points that they then take to their pulpits, where they preach to a congregation of people who listen to maybe a certain type of media, who then counterfeeds the talking points. fans the flame and throws gasoline on the fire of dissent and anger. And the ability to see that systemic creation is really important as we begin the work of walking away from what is shaping up to be a really scary situation when it comes to our religious freedoms. And I understand that this is challenging and hard. And I understand that. And how do we know if there's going to be bias? I really want to watch this committee and how they define it. Because as we've just discussed, they created this committee based on reports of what I'm hearing to be hate primarily to progressive Christians. Right? I mean, those were the points that I heard you bring up, Will, is the cases of discrimination were on more progressive spaces. So how is this committee going to define bias? And then how does that track with actual religious diversity, the allowance of diversity of religious thought in this country? We are going to have to be on the defense when it comes to the government's narration of what religion should be. Yeah, you know, so one part of the research I did was I utilized the same um FBI uh data that they used to develop statistics to kind of determine like where, you know, they're going to focus their time and energy. I was unaware of this. Apparently there's like a whole database of just like crimes against like churches and people of religious affiliations uh and uh you know this probably won't surprise you uh but you know obviously like uh Jewish like buildings was vandalized and higher frequencies and like vastly higher than any other it's like over like a thousand percent more uh Muslims were like next black churches and obviously like you know all the other so If there is a attack on a, uh like say black church, somebody spray paints KKK or whatever the case on it. uh It doesn't necessarily become like a property damage thing. It becomes like a civil rights thing. So like accounting for like racist attacks on churches almost like never gets counted because like they're always like, you know, race race field. So like there's a, there's a, uh you know, inconsistency in the counting. or the method to count, which is just really fascinating. ah But I want to get back to just one other thing and then have you kind of maybe give us some hope. Maybe. When it comes to, especially like the media, I just finished ah Sarah Posner's book on holy. ah Great book for anybody that's looking to kind of get. Yeah, it's so good. Like I have a list too. Yeah. talked to so many authors and we get so many advanced copies and I'm like trying to flip through and when I get like free time, I'm like, you know, this one's on my list. This is the next one, you know? ah So hers, I just finished. ah She says something in her book that I wrote down that I want to just read, just to kind of describe about this media environment. ah And this is a strategy that's been like sort of, I don't know, implicit in just the way that the religious right does stuff. She says, amplify. a single local flare up into a national issue emblematic of elite liberal orthodoxy run amok. Basically use that as sort of like the template, you know, to to blow things up into a national crisis to rally rally support. So, you know, I mean, it's it's it's like all these things. So I included that sort of as the basis of my first of my first. blog series called like weight worthy oppressed ones. I'm now on like part three. But every time I see like instances where the religious right is using that, I'm like, I'm going to blog about that because I'm going to apply like this sort of like methodology that she came up with into stuff we're seeing to kind of help bring awareness to these types of issues. knowing that we've got all that kind of working against us, like help us, I don't know, sleep better at night ah because You know, one of the things I think Josh and I often talk about is like, like, how do we fix this? Is it even worth fixing? Like, can you fix it? And how do we find hope? Because we have so many people that are deconstructing, you know, or becoming ex-sangels for one reason or another, and everybody has their own reason. But probably the most consistent reason I hear is like, you Christians are crazy. And I've been I've been sold. uh a bill of lies my entire life and I'm finally starting to wake up and I'm like I don't even know if this faith is what I signed up for. I didn't even sign up for it. My parents are Christians, you know, and they're conservative and they raised me. So help us feel better about ourselves. coming to you from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Okay. uh It's important to recognize that I know. Don't you feel better? Yeah. But I say that just to kind of set that baseline of I'm in the middle of it, as you said. And here's what I see. I see a whole state of people waking up. I see a whole state of people who are seeing things that are offensive and are touching their lives now because our public schools are being degraded. Kids are not getting the support and help they need. That affects families of all. It touches everybody. We're seeing millions being misappropriated and our school systems plummeting to the bottom. and people are waking up. People who have been in a deep sleep, not seeing any of the things that we have talked about today. And so the fact that we are even having these dialogues, the fact that books have been written and documentaries are being made and podcast interviews are happening and the dialogue is engaging and growing. is so hopeful because I have lived in the silence of this for a long time. And to see the awakening is the most hopeful thing I have ever seen. Seeing people wake up is the most beautiful. So I said, I'm coming to you from Oklahoma City, but I'm coming to you filled to the brim with hope. Hmm. of what I am seeing. And I know that what's happening at the national level now, that's been our reality here for a long time. So what I know is that the nation is primed to also awaken to what has been for so long incredibly broken, filled with hope. I love that. That's great. How can people get into contact with you or get more information on your organization and what projects are up next for you? Well, obviously, you know, yesterday became Pope Day and none of us were prepared for that. So we kind of had to do a lot of maneuvering around. Oh, OK, we got to figure this out. So the the first project out of the gate when I took over was bringing amplification to St. Isidore. And I will continue to be doing that work because it is so vital. We are doing the work of calling attention to all of these entities that we have been discussing, the Office of Anti-Christian Bias, this new religious liberty commission. Additionally, we're out in the states. We are a fully remote office. Sorry, my phone just started ringing. We are a fully remote office, and we pay attention to Christian nationalism and religious extremism. throughout the country and highlight it. And we're about to start mobilizing. So what I would tell people is if that sounds like something you wanna get in on and we want you in on it, go to faithfulamerica.org and sign up because we're about to start moving. It's been primarily online. We're going to continue to make online moves and grow that, but we're going to start organizing and mobilizing too. So we need you with us. for me, know, Faithful America is on all social media platforms with exception to Substack. That might come. I am on Substack as an individual, though. So if you're interested in hearing more from me on these topics and what I'm seeing, please find me, Reverend Dr. Shannon Fleck on I am also individually on all of the social media platforms, so you can find me anywhere. I'd love to connect. I most enjoy hearing from people throughout the country and being able to instill this hope while also stoking the fire of awareness and movement. That's really really cool man reverend Thank you so much for coming on the program with us and sharing your heart in your time It's been a real pleasure and an honor Thank you, both of you so much. This has been great. Absolutely. And to our viewers, make sure that you go check out all of the links. We're going to provide them in the show notes. So go check it out. Make sure you check out Reverend Flex's sub stack and Faithful America. And you're signing up and you're checking and looking into these issues, no matter where you fall in this. Make sure you're paying attention. Make sure you're paying attention. That's the biggest thing. Because ignorance, that's how they get us is ignorance. So don't be ignorant. Look at it, pay attention, figure it out for your own heart. And thank you guys for joining us. Make sure you like, subscribe, do the things that hack the algorithm so we can get this great content out to you. And until next time, guys, take care, God bless, and keep your conversations in that right or left. But up.