Church & State 250: Reporting Religion in an Age of Christian Nationalism

What happens when journalists cover politics without understanding the religion shaping the story?

Brian Kaylor, president and editor-in-chief of Word&Way and the leader of A Public Witness, joins Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram to explain why religion reporting matters in an era of Christian nationalism, government-sponsored worship, and growing confusion about the role Christianity plays in American public life. Kaylor describes how political reporters can miss biblical references, theological claims, and denominational differences that are central to understanding events such as January 6, presidential elections, and the political influence of conservative Christianity.

The conversation then turns to Kaylor’s reporting on Christian worship services organized inside the Pentagon and other federal agencies. He explains the involvement of Pete Hegseth, Doug Wilson, Franklin Graham, Southern Baptist leaders, defense contractors, violent biblical rhetoric, and a prayer borrowed from Pulp Fiction. The episode also examines the constitutional difference between a private religious group using a government building and the government planning and hosting its own worship service.

The final episode of Church & State 250 returns to the principle at the center of the series: America’s most significant religious experiment was the decision to separate church and state. Kaylor argues that this separation protects religious minorities, government employees, and Christianity itself from the corrupting influence of political power.

Guest Bio
Brian Kaylor, PhD, is president and editor-in-chief of Word&Way, an independent Christian media organization founded in 1896, and the leader of A Public Witness, a publication covering religion, politics, and culture. A Baptist minister with a doctorate in political communication from the University of Missouri, Kaylor is an award-winning journalist, author, speaker, and scholar whose work focuses on Christian nationalism, political rhetoric, religious liberty, church-state separation, and the ways Christianity is used to support government power. He is the author or co-author of seven books, including Sacramental Politics, Baptizing America, and The Bible According to Christian Nationalists. His Government Worship Watch project documents worship services organized by the Pentagon and other federal agencies, making his reporting central to understanding the current relationship between Christianity and the federal government.

Books Mentioned
The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power by Brian Kaylor
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780827203501

Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780827203389


Relevant Links & Resources
Brian Kaylor Official Website
URL: https://briankaylor.com/

Brian Kaylor’s Word&Way Profile
URL: https://wordandway.org/brian-kaylor/

A Public Witness
URL: https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/

Government Worship Watch
URL: https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/government-worship-watch

Word&Way
URL: https://wordandway.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Mixing church and state is like mixing ice cream and manure. It doesn't hurt the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream. And that's kind of also the Roger Williams idea of separation of church and state that Thomas Jefferson was borrowing from. Roger Williams was concerned about the purity of the church, the garden. So he wanted a wall, a hedge, protecting it from the wilderness, the politics, right? And that was that's that we we'd seen hints of that. We've seen, you know, spikes of Christian nationalism throughout the years, throughout our history, as you all have been covering. But it it it was, we're at a whole different level now. I mean, this is a real problem, and we are losing entire generations because of this. I mean, this is you know, I think we might all be millennials. I'm I'm an old millennial. Our era, our generations have been have been growing up in this mixing of church and state and the Christian nationalism and are walking away from the churches, right? And the the evangelical and charismatic church embrace of Donald Trump is gonna leave a mark on a generation. I mean, we're gonna find ourselves essentially in a generational wilderness wandering before people are gonna trust the church again. And I that's that's what has really changed, is recognizing like, wow, like we have mixed the the ice cream and the manure here because we ourselves crapped all over it. Like we did this uh to the church's witness.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Hey, welcome back to our Church and State 250s series where we've been following the role of religion in America from the world that existed before 1776 through the founding, slavery, segregation, civil religion, the religious right, Christian nationalism, and the political movements that are still shaping the country today. We've spoken with historians, legal scholars, sociologists, theologians, and all kinds of experts who have helped us understand the essential truth behind the series, and that's you can't tell the story of America without talking about religion. So for our final episode, we are joined by Brian Kaler. He is one of our probably most frequented guests and a friend of ours, and he is here to help us look at where, well, where we've been, where we're going, and kind of what's the government up to with regards to religion and the government. So for a little introduction, Brian's the president editor in chief of Word and Way. It's an independent Christian media organization founded in 1896. He was a Baptist minister with a PhD in political communication from the University of Missouri. And is also the author and co-author of several books on religion and politics, including Sacramental Politics, Baptizing America and the Bible according to Christian nationalists. The only reason I have Sacramental Politics on there is because I pulled your book from my shelf.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Nice, nice. And I was thinking to myself that this is the only book of yours I have ever purchased. And it was purchased before I met you. And yeah. Wow. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

You're like, wow. I'm glad to know I met one of my 12 people who bought that book.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

So it's like a $120 book now.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

If you were to academic publishing.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

So, anyways, welcome back to the show, Brian. It's so good to have you.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yeah, it's always great to be with you all. And uh, I look forward to like wrapping up this episode so you all can take like a big long nap after your series.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's been a wild ride, and it's been very, very gosh, I mean, we have gotten a lot of really great comments and feedback. Our YouTube comment sections is like blowing up. People are like having like dialogues in it, which is really weird. Nobody's dropped an N-word yet or like you know, used anything that has caused YouTube to automatically like, you know, like I don't know, ban it or something. So it's going really good. But um, but I I I want to start first just by you know talking a little bit about your your career, because I think it's it's really, really interesting, and I think it's really relevant to this conversation because you know, we have spoken to darn near, I don't know, 400 some odd different people, guests, journalists all over the all over the place since we've started this podcast. You are a religion journalist, and I think that's important to distinguish. So, so help us help us better understand like what is a religion like journalist, religion reporter, um, and kind of like what's the role that they playing?

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Yeah, and I think that's a that is a great question because there's obviously a lot of reporters that are writing about religion at some point, regardless of the beat that they're on. So you might have, you know, we'll talk about some stuff with the Pentagon. You might have a Pentagon reporter has to write about the religion sometimes. An environmental reporter might, you know, deal with a church group. An economic reporter might, you know, get in with something related to religion. All those things kind of happen. But a religion reporter is starting with the religion angle as the forefront. And a religion reporter might end up having to write about healthcare or politics or a whole number of other things, but they're starting with the framework of this is the most important part of the story that I'm wanting to cover, as opposed to say a political reporter, starting with the political angle, even when they cover something religious. And I think that's that's really significant. And I've brought that background as someone who has pastored a church and worked for a number of religious organizations. I've also taught at a university, including media classes. And so I have that kind of dual world of the background. I mean, you heard that in my bio, a Baptist minister of a PhD in political communication. So I do get into those other worlds, but writing for a religious publication, even about a political event, is different than writing for a political publication about that same event.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense to me. And, you know, this whole series we've been in, we've been trying to really explain and explore particularly the role of Christianity, but you could think of even broader the role of religion in American politics. Of course, we've focused on Christianity in the America 250. And, you know, obviously, America has a very complicated relationship with Christianity. It has one where it's not one Christianity, it's Christianities, although I know you can put them under one umbrella in terms of some beliefs. There's so much diversity within it. And so it's I imagine for a reporter coming up to this and trying to journalist looking at religion, it can be pretty a couple things, either bewildering, not even knowing where to start, or maybe you can just, oh, I know exactly what's going on. It's all Christianity, it's all this, it's all that. And you can either like get so confused or you can get so confident that you know exactly what it is based on previous assumptions. And I guess like when you're looking at your job and you're thinking about the role of journalists in what we're doing and in our our nation in particular, how how how should someone who's a journalist approach Christianity and religion in a way in how is it really shaped journalism in America that you understand? Like how do how does someone who is a journalist right now, how should they approach religion today as we're as we're facing our current situation?

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Yeah, that's a great question. And there's really, I think there's two big problems that I that I have seen in the way religion is covered, particularly when we're looking at religion in public life, you know, which would be political reporting and and and other type of kind of like public reporting. And one of those is the lack of biblical literacy. So that's that's one thing. One thing that happens is that a lot of reporters just miss the biblical references or the meaning of the references. And let me give you, I'll give you an example of this. So earlier this year, Doug Wilson, who is a significant figure, you've you all have talked about him. He gets a lot of attention. He was just, you know, had a big long interview with NPR a couple of weeks ago. He leads the found the denomination that Pete Heggseth is part of. So that's one of the reasons why he gets a lot of attention. So he preached at the Pentagon back in February. I actually broke that story because I watched these services live every month, as you all know. And so I was the first one to write that he had been in there. But then once that came out, once the news was out that Wilson had done it, a number of other political reporters went back and were writing about the service as well. And I noticed something that happened. Nah, there was a quote there was a quote where he talks about the Pentagon services. He talks about them as a sign that God he said, we should know by now what God likes to do is to take the most unlikely materials and do something glorious with it. Take a prayer meeting at the Pentagon for a possible example. Many stranger things have happened. God is great. And if you look at the quotes in a number of the mainstream news organizations, that's where the quote stops. Now, my earlier report that came out actually continued because he went immediately from saying God is great to quoting Acts 431, which is about the day of Pentecost. And I thought that was so significant. It's actually literally in the headline of my piece that he I said, Doug Wilson preaches at Pentagon, compare services to day of Pentecost. Like I thought that quote was so important. I put it in the headline, and yet all of the other the mainstream news organizations, they they stopped the exact same quote right before the day of Pentecost Bible verse. And I think it's because they didn't get it, right? They didn't understand the significance of what was happening there because he didn't say explicitly, but it was very clear what he was doing. So that's that's the first thing that I think we need from reporters is an awareness of of what they don't know. And and what I mean by that is then they they they have to reach out to somebody to figure out, hey, what does this mean? And there are a lot of reporters that are doing great work in this. I've had conversations with with many trying to explain some of the religious meaning of various Bible verses that are being used by administration figures and so forth. And I know some reporters reach out to other scholars and and pastors and so forth to get that kind of doing some of the background work that you know you all are doing more publicly with your series here, right? There are some reporters that are doing that, but a lot of them are not. Maybe they don't know what they don't know, right? And so that's that's the one area that I think we have a problem is the lack of biblical literacy. The the second thing is, though, is I think a lot of reporters also have a kind of flattened or limited view of what it means to talk about religion or especially Christianity in politics today. And so what that means is that basically it's well, that's conservative right-wing evangelicals. And we might throw in some Catholics while we're at it, too, right? And that that's what it means to talk about Christianity in politics today. And that is it's a really outdated vision and understanding of what's happening in the world of religion and politics today. They'll often justify it by talking about, you know, how big of a voting block evangelicals are. But the numbers they're using are usually like 20 years out of date. Like they're like we're stuck stuck in the George W. Bush administration in thinking about the influence of evangelicals in politics today. And I mean, we we we see this every election cycle. We went through this in 2024. There was all the news attention, all the articles, you know, can can Kamala Harris win evangelicals? No, and it doesn't matter, right? Because they mean they were this this is the most solid religious block for Trump. Uh, we see this cycle after cycle. They weren't going to work, they weren't going to win them over, and also didn't matter because they don't, they're not even the leading voting bloc religiously in the swing states. Like if you want to know why Joe Biden won in 2020 and why over, you know, Clinton and Harris's, you know, losses. And just to clarify, yes, Biden did win in 2020. All right. So, anyways, just you know, we always have to make that make that why did he win, right? There's a number of reasons, but if you want to look religiously, the answer is you can you can look at the religious demographics in the polling that Biden did better in in 2020 versus what the Democrats did in 2016 and 2024. And that he had a he had a nice spike in those that are religiously unaffiliated. He did better among Catholics, and that was really significant, and part of that is his own Catholic faith. And he did better among white mainline Protestants. And it's those two numbers, particularly the Catholics and white mainline Protestants, that explains why Biden won in 2020 when Democrats failed in the other two elections. And yet that wasn't what the media focuses on. It was the question was over and over, you know, can Biden in 2020 win white evangelicals? Can Harrison 2024 win white evangelicals? No, and it doesn't matter. Like that was not really what the election was about. And so that's that limited view that we continue to see. Uh, you know, for instance, even just thinking about in my world of Baptists, Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination, deserves a lot of attention, but it gets way more attention than it actually deserves. Southern Baptists are less than half of Baptists in the United States. But they get a whole lot more coverage than that. And so what happens, if you think about what that means, is if you if you make the average Baptist, the the only vision of Baptists, Southern Baptists, Baptists turn out to be more Trumpian, more right wing, whiter and more southern in rule than Baptists overall. And and especially than Christians overall. So we get this distorted image of Christianity in general as well as Christianity in public life and politics. I mean, you know, Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Lee leader Jeffries are both Baptists. And if that doesn't tell you that there's some diversity there in the tradition that needs to be unpacked a little bit more, then we're we're really missing the whole s the whole story here.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah. Is is there a is there a sense or uh a fear, you think, from you know, I guess uh secular reporters, I'm not really quite sure like how to define them, but is there a fear to just talk about Christianity in their in their reporting? I mean, because it seems like especially during COVID, right? Lockdowns, all kinds of other stuff. I mean, I didn't see a lot of like Christian connected news to some of these churches protests, you know, or whatever. And and I mean, like obviously those that are writing about it, like you and others, you know, that are in this space, but but it seems like that should have been a much bigger deal. So, like, like, d do you think there's like a fear or hesitation to want to really, you know, spotlight Christianity in a negative light?

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Yeah, I think there is a little bit of that fear. And also, I think it does come back to just the you know the lack of literacy. I mean, you know, so the opening example that I have, the opening story that I tell in my my newest book, The The Bible according to Christian Nationalist, is I was I was attending what was billed as a prayer rally for gerrymandering. And we could we could put all the side all the implications of that because I I've looked through the whole Bible and I haven't found anything about gerrymandering in there. But, anyways, it was this prayer event for gerrymandering, and it was billed as that, right? But it also had several state, this is in Ms. In the Missouri Capitol, had several state politicians were speaking at it. Uh, I wrote about it at the time, and then I reflect on it in the book, because then there were also a couple of political reporters that showed up at the event. And in their reporting, there was zero reference to prayer, zero reference to the Bible verses that were used, zero references at all to Christianity. Like if you read that of their reporting, it was just a normal political rally about gerrymandering. And I thought that that completely misses like the whole point and the uniqueness of the rally, and particularly from a religious perspective, the just outright heresies that were involved in it, right? And so, yeah, I don't know if that was a complete lack of biblical literacy, a fear of, you know, misquoting or miswriting about religion and angering and having or critique. I mean, sometimes I think that you know, the right-wing evangelicals have done a little bit of the working the ref strategy and have kind of scared off reporters from from critiquing and writing about negative.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

It was interesting when we first like not first, that that's not what I mean. But we went, I guess when we were first getting people on to talk about Germany 6 is what I meant to say. One of the the people that came on, I'm forgetting their names, but they essentially did a project that that talked about the religious imagery on January 6th. Yeah, on civil religion. So they in and it was fascinating because they showed all the very explicit Christian imagery there. And then maybe we even talked to you, Brian, just about uh I don't remember, we talked to maybe you and other people about the report that came out about it from Congress and essentially mentioned very little.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Yeah, completely Christian. I mean, there were references in the in the in the report, the January 6th Select Committee, House Select Committee on January 6th. There are as many references to Islamic terrorism, which had literally nothing to do with January 6th, as there are to Christian nationalism, right? And you cannot understand what happened on January 6th, how we got to it, and thus prevent it from happening again in the future without unpacking and we know this from the reporting, why there's that blind spot. I actually will, I think this is exactly your question, although this was a politician as opposed to a reporter. But Bo Bo underwood when I talked about this in Baptizing America, but representative, then representative Liz Cheney, who who deserves lots of praise, lots of accolades for her profiles and courage in and willing to end her career by standing up for what was what she believed was right. But one area where I would critique her is the fact that apparently, as the the vice chair of this committee, she was absolutely adamant that they have nothing in the report that could be seen as criticizing conservative, patriotic American Christians, right? And so then the report ignores all of the religious symbols, all the religious rhetoric, all the Christian nationalist extremism that helped fuel this fire that we saw on January 6th. And so, like I said, that means we're not prepared to prevent it from happening again or to prevent, you know, a second term of Donald Trump, right? Because we didn't really address the problem of how we got here in the first place, out of fear of upsetting some people. But I mean, as a Christian, right? And you know, I have no problem critiquing Christian nationalism and the violence that it brought on January 6. Like critiquing the the Christian nationalism of January 6 is not inherently an attack on Christians. But I think that's what Representative Cheney saw. I think that's what some journalists are fearful as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

And so where do you think that that comes from, the sense that they're so afraid to say anything about it because they're gonna get I mean, I I guess like when this issue is is significant, right? Because you do you do see kind of a willingness to talk about radical Islam in certain in certain ways, and then you have certain people critiqued, you know, the left, quote unquote, for not, you know, for being in bed with Islam or something like that. I've heard that kind of thing. Like, how can you, you know, care so much about Islam? Don't you know their values are so antithetical to liberal progressive values? And in some ways that may be true, you know, depending on a quite conservative versus progressive uh Muslim. But it's like you you look at this and you see this willingness to critique, and you don't see a willingness necessarily to critique Christianity in some of these circles here, and yet it feels like there is like a mocking of Christianity or a willingness to critique it. I guess I'm trying to suss out like, is it just when it's a political thing, when there could be political like ramifications in your mind that there's this kind of concealment of Christianity's culpability when it comes to what's happening? Or is it like, I guess, how how have you kind of understood that? If the question makes sense, I could try to if it doesn't make sense, I'll try to have more clarity. But I'm just trying to kind of dig in deeper to why what what is behind this omission?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

I mean, yeah, I think there is, in addition to things that we've already talked about, I mean, there is a a well-funded, well-established, you know, outrage machine. And so, you know, any criticism of right-wing evangelicals or right-wing Catholics can quickly spark on social media and in big media platforms, you know, the criticism that you're anti-Christian. I mean, and and these things can take off without any proof, or even when it's clearly not true. I mean, let me just give you like one little example. Again, I'll give you a political example because it's something something I'm sure everyone's heard about, but uh as opposed to like a journalism example. But there was a lot of attention, a lot of outrage and you know, attention to to Harris during the 2024 campaign when supposedly the story went, that someone in the in the uh in one of her crowds yelled that Jesus is Lord, and she said, Oh, you're at the wrong rally. Turns out that's not actually what happened, right? But the outrage machine was prepared and prompt to create this big narrative that she was the anti-Christian candidate, even though she was the only of candidate of the two in that race that actually is a member of a church and actually attends church, right? You know, but she was somehow the anti-Christian church, but that's actually not what she was responding to at all. She was responding to someone who was shouting something else. And the video was manipulated. That's completely in a different place that she's not, that she doesn't hear that comment. And you can, I mean, you can go through the audio evidence and the video evidence, and you can find that's not what she heard and that's not what she's responding to. And yet that's now accepted as just common fact, right? So, you know, there is this real danger, and reporters know this. They know that they can get hit with the online mob. And it particularly, you know, can happen, you know, it's problematic when we have, you know, platforms like X, which has been completely destroyed by a white supremacist. And you know what I mean? Like these platforms are now geared to create the outrage towards reporters.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

I want to get into some of your your reporting inside the Pentagon and and a lot of the the stuff that we're gonna be talking about will probably be a little bit heavy. So I want to start first with with a more lighthearted question, if you could. And I'll wait till you're okay. I I wanted to wait till you're done sipping your coffee just.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Oh you did one day, John Stewart like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

I like that mug though. I I like that mug.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

So so I'd love for you just to tell me what what what do these three things have in common? Samuel Jackson, Ezekiel, and the Department of War.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Yeah. I knew that's where you were going. Oh yes. I mean by now everyone knows, right? That at the April uh prayer service at the Pentagon, Pete Hagsath offered a prayer that he said that had been prayed by a group in the military, and that was coming from Ezekiel 2517 and was still only slightly edited, but basically a monologue that some y'all Jackson gives in the movie Pulp Fiction. And I mean, you know, you can't make this stuff up. I mean, literally, so I was, you know, like with the Doug Wilson service, this was a couple months later. I was the only reporter apparently watching the service live. We break the news. Uh it was a Wednesday, they're usually on Wednesday. We had the service the report came out a couple hours afterwards, Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday evening, there was a couple, there was a big news outlet in Australia, and I think the New York New Yorker both had a piece about the service, but both citing us for having discovered it. And then it was Thursday morning that it just like blew up. And by Thursday night, Stephen Colbert is making jokes about it. I mean, it was just like bucket list item of like wrote a piece that inspired a Colbert monologue, and then also Saturday Night Live, of course, had fun with it. I mean, just all kinds of things. All because I mean, honestly, to say, if like if I wasn't watching the service, I'm not sure we would know that he hadn't used this pulp fiction prayer, right? That's what's still stunning to me is that no one else is watching these services. No one's else reporting what's happening, and it's so significant to I think we need to be doing this. But yeah, I mean, weird, still weird moment that I can't believe. So when I first reported it, my first post on social media was I promise, I think I wrote something like, I promise I'm not writing for the onion now. But you know, this just happened because I just like I still can't believe it's a real thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah, yeah. I'm uh I'm I'm curious if you can just go into detail about like what what are these services you know that are happening at the Pentagon? Assume that you're talking to somebody that hasn't seen your other 5,000 appearances on Faithful Politics. And and just just talk about like, I mean, is that is it normal to have services at the Pentagon? Is it you know, like what what makes what Pete Hagseth is doing so unique or or just out of out there?

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Yeah, I mean we were just talking about SNL. Do you all have like like a five-timers club or like a 10? I don't know, I'm not sure about 10 yet, but I think I should be in like the five-timers club.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

You definitely need like a robe. We've talked about robes, we've talked about t-shirts, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

So, yes. And it's funny. So I've written a bunch of pieces. I'll watch these every month because I've made poor life decisions apparently. And occupational hazard. But and every month we report them. There's always some comment on social media of a worship service at the Pentagon? That shouldn't exist. Like, like people, like I like to me, like it feels like everyone should know about this by now, but obviously, you know, like people are still discovering it. And so because there's just so much, I mean, there's just so much stuff. There's too much stuff happening in the world to keep track of everything right now. So let's start first with uh you know and thinking of your all series of historically, what does this mean? Like this is unprecedented. So I think that's the first part before I talk about like what is happening. The idea of the federal government or an agency of the federal government organizing, planning, hosting a Christian worship service has very little precedent at all. I mean, the the really the one example that we have prior to the Trump administration is that Richard Nixon did this in the White House some. And Nixon did it on Sunday mornings as like an alternative to church. And he did it because, and we know this from his own, you know, diaries and writings and so forth. He he did this because he was he was afraid of of reporters catching him doing something stupid in church, right? So he wanted to control, he wanted to control church. Uh he had two, he had two he had two fears. One, he was, he was afraid that like he might be caught, you know, not knowing the words to a hymn or something, uh, which is you know a great fear, right? Where there's with a clip going around of Donald Trump clearly not knowing the Lord's Prayer at Lindsey Graham's funeral, right? I mean, that's exactly the type of moment. Uh you can see, you know, JD Vance and a couple other cabinet members are are are like clearly mouthing the Lord's Prayer. They clearly know it. And Donald Trump is like saying like every like fifth, moving his mouth like every like fifth or sixth word, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:53

And I'm sorry, he's saying any of the words correctly, but he's like clearly he's ever moved that his mouth that infrequently.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. He clearly doesn't know it, right? And so that's like the moment Nixon was afraid of. Like he didn't want to get caught like that. And then he also was afraid that a pastor would take the opportunity with the president sitting in the sanctuary to to mouth off on something political, right? And I mean, that's also that's something that has happened to a number of pastors. A number of presidents have actually had been kind of sabotaged by or hit, you know, ambushed by a by a pastor. And it did happen later one time, actually to Nixon, when he did actually, he thought he had a safe pastor. He'd gone to the church on vacation in Florida multiple times, and the pastor did hit him on something uh one time. And so, like, and it was a big media firestorm, right? So that was the whole reason he created these services. He had them like once a month. It was pretty infrequent, uh, you know, which is, you know, still better church attendance than a lot of a lot of presidents have have had, other than like Carter and uh and Biden. But he so that he could he could control the service. What was who who who prayed, who preached, even who was invited for the VIP. I mean, this was all planned. Sometimes when they had big votes happening in Congress, they would pick which members of Congress they needed to persuade on a vote. So they would invite them to come get to this, come to the White House church service. And and and and I I've read through the sermons, the transcripts of these, of these, and and and the pastors all they all backed away. Like they, they fit, they they got there was even a couple in their diaries that had had written a different sermon and were planning to like go in there and preach, you know, truth to power, and then they couldn't do it. They were wowed by being in the White House in the presence of Richard Nixon and cabinet members and members of Congress, right? So it worked. This is what he wanted to do. And so that's like the one example we have. And then what's happening now is it starts in the Pentagon with Pete Heggseth in May of 2025. He launched what he said would be monthly worship services, and they have been monthly. Even in October with the government shutdown, there was still a worship service in the Pentagon. But these are these are different in a couple of key ways. They're they're the it's less about Heggseth trying to control religion because he's fearful of being used against him. It's more about him establishing his brand of religion on the Pentagon. So these are not Sunday, these are not like alternatives to churches because he's going to a church in Doug Wilson's denomination on many, many Sundays. And we know this because there are always protesters outside that church in DC every week. And so sometimes we see footage of Heggseth and his family going in and out as protesters are yelling at him. And so this is so it's not on Sunday, it's it's during the work hours. During the work week, usually Wednesday. It's often they say, you know, the noon, they try to say it's it's during lunch, so it's it's voluntary, but it's not always. So the one this week actually was an hour later. It got bumped. It got pushed back to 1 p.m. That's happened a couple other times. So it's not always, you know, during lunch, if you will. And and so this is a way of him trying to establish his version of Christianity in the Pentagon. So there have been 15 of these monthly services. I've tracked on who has preached all of them. And with one exception, and then we'll talk about him in a moment, because he's not much of an exception, but in with one exception, 14 of the services, the sermon has been preached by a right-wing evangelical, patriarchal Christian. Uh, and the other one is a right-wing Fox News host who used to be a Catholic priest and then left the less the priesthood to get married and have a family. And so they're all right-wing Christians. Fourteen of the sermons have been by evangelicals, one by a Catholic former colleague of Heg Seth at Fox News. A lot of them have personal connections. Wilson has preached once. His personal pastor in Wilson's congregation denomination has preached now three times, including the one this week. There have been seven services with a Southern Baptist, uh, two members of the Graham family, Franklin Graham and one of his sons. And so this is the type of so it's not a diversity of Christianity, let alone other religious traditions in the Pentagon. It is Heggseth is establishing his brand, his version of Christianity. And the services follow a pretty traditional format, a traditional for them. Like there's been 15 of these now. They most of them have the kind of the basic format. A chaplain or somebody in the military will introduce the service, welcome everyone to come, basically do what you do in a church service, Josh, right? The first person gets up there is like get everyone to quit quit talking, start listening, and say an opening prayer, right? That's that's usually the opening.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

They're saying it nicely, right? Yes. Welcome, thanks for coming. That's the that's the code for it. Now you all need to stop talking because I'm at the microphone. Shut up, we're at the microphone. And then X eth will come up and offer some remarks. He usually reads a bit of scripture and does a prayer. So that's how the Pulp Fiction thing happens early in the service as he's as he's as he's doing his opening remarks, scripture reading and prayer. And he often reads from a psalm. He likes, but he particularly likes the war passages of the Bible, the war psalms. And then, yeah, and then and then there'll be the guest preacher who'll come up. He'll introduce the guest preacher. They'll come up. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

America. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

I'll work on that uh before the next episode. And then and then they'll sing a couple songs. And there's been a couple times they've had a guest contemporary Christian musician to come, but it's usually someone in the military or the pastor. So like his own pastor just leads the singing himself at the end of his sermons. They always end with the doxology, they always say the Lord's Prayer together, they always end with the doxology before the person that was there at the beginning usually comes up and does the quick benediction and dismissal, right? So that's a pretty standard, that's how the Pentagon services look. And Hexet's effort has inspired similar services now in other federal agencies. So the Department of Labor had, I think, five different months. And I was the only one who watched those and wrote about those. And they ended when the former secretary, Lori Chavez Zurimer, was ousted among various financial and sexual scandals. And so they have not restarted yet, although we'll see if the if the acting director is confirmed if he'll bring them back or not. And there's been at least one service at the Small Business Administration. There have been a couple of different services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They just had one in May that they're promising they're going to now try to do it quarterly. They previously announced they were going to do it monthly, but they, I guess it was too much work. And so now they're going to try to do it quarterly. We'll see if they actually get it off the ground. And those ones are all a little bit more private. They're not as they're not so the the mil the Pentagon is it's live streamed, but it's not like on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

It's on a you know a site that is used-very specific site you have to have a link to that kind of stuff, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. So it's hard to find. I have figured out how to find them every month. They don't advertise when they're gonna be. So I have to kind of manually figure out when the service is gonna be so that I can watch it. I think that's one reason why no other reporters are covering it, is because they don't know how to find it. And one of the few other reports that's actually happened from a live viewing this year is because I helped the reporter, you know, tune in and view it by giving them the link. And so, but then the other ones have been more either not live streamed or have been more privately live streamed for like employees, like the Department of Labor one is supposed to only be for employees. So that's what's been happening. And this is unprecedented, it's crazy. And this is, I mean, it's a massive First Amendment violation. This is members of the cabinet trying to establish their faith on their federal employees as if if you work for the government, you are a right-wing Christian. Like, like that's like and if you're not, then now you're being othered in your own place of work, that you're not fully American, you're not fully a member of the Pentagon or fully a member of the Department of Labor or whatever. You're being othered. And and we know from anonymous comments from people, particularly in the Pentagon, that people are fearful that if they don't show up, that it could hurt their career if they don't have that FaceTime. The Pentagon will tell you that it's voluntary and they're not they're not keeping track of who's there. Although uh on their live streams, they it's not just like they just zoom in on the stage. They have like four or five different camber angles and they're panning. I mean, it's quite a it's quite a quite a production. And at some point, they will show every single person in the audience. So if they want to know who's there, uh they do have a record of who is actually there. And both defense contractors and members of the military have said they feel pressure, they feel an expectation that they're not there, it could hurt them.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Defense contractors.

SPEAKER_03 35:25

So yeah, so they're not just inviting the military, they're also sending out these invites to defense contractors. And if you're a defense contractor and you're not a Christian, uh, I mean, if you're a defense contractor and you are a Christian, we might need to have a conversation. But if you're a defense contractor, you know, repentance and no more. But if you're a defense contractor and you're not a Christian, you're like, well, if I don't show up, will this cost me a billion-dollar contract? Okay, fine, I'll go, I'll go sit through a church service.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

What if the other guy shows up? Yeah. So the competitor shows up. They're gonna give them a chance. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Exactly. So you sit through 35 minutes of uh worship service because you want to make some more money.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yeah, you know, you should we should just start a defense contracting company called Integrity Defense, you know, or some like Dove or some spiritual name, you know, you know, and then and then we'll be like set from like the beginning. So let me put on my David Barton. Let me put on my David Barton. I hate to say it, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna put on my David Barton hat, wall builder's hat, and I'm gonna say, Brian, what about Thomas Jefferson and the worship services in the Capitol? What about those? Great question. What what and well yeah, so so obviously those happen, so you know, whatever Barton, he would he would take that and then interpret it as Brian just said David Barton had a great question.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Yeah, I didn't say he had a great answer to it, though.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

That's true. Hey, yeah, you're right. But I put on so what is it David Barton or is it me channeling David Barton? I I don't know, I gotta figure this out. But what so I uh really what I'm trying to get at, right? So we have Thomas Jefferson, you have Nixon, right? And so you have some people say, hey, people if they want to have a worship service, whatever. They're not forcing people to be there, right? I'm assuming it doesn't say you have to attend. No, if it does, maybe that's there, right? So, but you know, they're forcing people. I'm just what I'm trying to do, Brian, is I'm thinking about the arguments of people I know and love and what they're gonna think. Well, they're having worship services in the Department of Defense, so what? Wins lunch, you know. I don't care. But why is this so bad? This is always what I'm trying to get at. Like, it's violating norms, unprecedented, like you said, right? Constitutional limits and issues, it's creating tensions. But let's let's even dig deeper into this. Like, we have some of these uh examples. So, why is this one so egregious as compared to say Nixon or even some of these like very early examples? And of course, you know, that the the the people will go to that to try to show, well, don't you know they prayed and Benjamin Franklin's prayer meeting and all the things we've covered in this in this 250 series, by the way. So go back and look at all that and see the actual historical facts around it. But what what what is your response when someone brings that as nice as you can be? What's your response when someone brings these things in their in the and they're questioning in that line?

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Yeah, it is a really important distinction. It is a good question. Here's the answer that's different than what Barton will give you, though, his bad answer. So and then the difference here, these are government worship services. And and I use that language very intentionally. As I mentioned earlier, like this is unprecedented to have federal agencies that are organizing, planning, hosting worship services. So we've been tracking all these, by the way, public witness. So if people want to follow, if you go to publicwitness.wardenway.org, up at the top you will see government worship watch. We have about two dozen services now between all these agencies that I just mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Is that next to the donate button, Brian? Is that next to the donate? Yeah, no, no, but there's somewhere around the button.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Yeah, so while you're there, be sure to hit subscribe as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Make sure you donate, guys. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Yeah, that's yeah, that's good. That's good. But like you can read the page for free. But government worship watch, that's so that's that's the key difference here. These are government run worship services. And and that should raise the the cynicism, the fears of all of us. You know, the idea that the government is planning and creating worship services. So, what Thomas Jefferson goes to is not a government worship service. It's a worship service it's a church worship service that happened to be held in a government building. And part of the reason for that is that there really weren't any other buildings yet in DC. I mean, we talk about drain the swamp. Well, back then they were like draining the swamp to build buildings, create land and build buildings, right? And so they they were essentially, you know, needing space. And this is not unusual. Like we're all familiar with this. There are churches that start all the time in, say, like a public school. And I have no problem with a church renting a school cafeteria and coming, you know, and and and if you've been a part of one of those church plants, like it's a lot of work because you yeah, you have to get, you know, show up and set set up for service, and you have to tear down for service, especially during the school year. Like there's there's not a whole lot of grace coming if we you leave a mess before, right? That is not justification, though, for then the school like planning during school hours a worship service for students to come attend to. Those are completely different things. And and the reason why is because this is a it's a public building and it's open for other groups to rent as well, as long as school isn't happening, as long as you're not interfering with the classroom time. And so that's what's happening with the service Jefferson attends. He's essentially attending a service that's you know rented in a public school today, as opposed to the public school creating its own worship service, which is what Heggseth is doing. So that's a really significant uh distinction here. And really, like I said, other than Nixon, we don't have a good parallel. And Nixon is different a little bit because it's on Sunday mornings, and so it's it's not during the work day in all these, you know, you know, these various federal agencies. And also, if like your only precedent for doing something is Richard Nixon, I mean, we might want to rethink that.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

It's so true. Yeah, you know, Nixon's my hero. I mean, like all of us can have tattoos of Nixon on our backs, you know, like like Roger Stone. Yeah, Roger Still. But you know, um we we one thing we didn't talk about, but I but I think it's important because I I do still want to actually talk about some of your reporting just from this week, but but I want to talk about kind of the the denominations that are represented in the Pentagon worship services, because I I think that's important because for somebody that may not know who Doug Wilson is or have never heard of like the CREC or you know, like and kind of like what these viewpoints represent, I think it would be a different story. Because if if if Obama was holding, you know, Muslim whatever like services in the White House, people would hate that because or the the religious right would hate that because of like they're saying, oh, the ideology is you know this or that. So so what's the ideology that's actually being represented in these worship services?

SPEAKER_03 42:12

Yeah. And so like I like I said, about half of the services have had a Southern Baptist preacher, which is already in saying something. And we're talking about, you know, far to the right of the political and religious spectrum. And you know, they don't don't allow women to preach, they'll kick women out, you know, holding a pretty hard line on a lot of things. And so most people are probably fairly familiar, at least with like the Southern Baptist Convention. So if you use that as like your base point, and these are the the moderate preachers, if you will. I mean, right? Are they these are the the less extreme preachers that have been showing up? Because you're gonna have to jump to the right of that to get to Franklin Graham and and his son. I mean, Franklin Graham does the Christmas service, which by the way is the bizarre, most bizarre Christmas service I've ever I've ever watched in my life, as he talks about a God of war and then reads a passage of genocide in the Old Testament and tells the military that they need to be willing to follow God in doing that too, right? Happy birthday, Jesus. And so, like, like so we're now we're moving, we're moving now even further to right to get the CREC, the nomination that Doug Wilson started. And so Wilson has preached once, Brooke Wilson uh Brooks Pottiger has preached three times, so that's four of the 15 services are coming from these two people in that denomination. This is Doug Wilson wants to repeal the 19th Amendment, which means he doesn't think women should be allowed to vote. He has defended slavery and you know, said it really wasn't that bad, right? I mean, so like like we're talking about the I would say the fringe, except for the fringe is now like the whole rug. The fringe is mainstream now, but like historically a fringe figure and the far, far right of American Christianity, and that's who's getting platformed, uh, particularly in the Pentagon. The Pentagon services have been more extreme than the others. And it's it's like I said, there's no, there's no diversity here. I I would I would have a problem with it if there was, if these were Christian worship services and there was the the the full breadth of Christianity, right? Like you you bring in, you know, a middle of the road United Methodist preacher one one month, and then you know, you have your Southern Baptist preacher. And then you have a liberal Episcopalian. You know, I mean, like, like I would have a problem with Heg Seth creating these kind of government worship services, but there's not even diversity within Christianity. There's really not even diversity among like right of center Christianity. I mean, like this is really going to one extreme.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Yeah, that um it it's very problematic, you know, and I I definitely understand why it's so problematic, like looking at the government, which is supposed to be a neutral, essentially a neutral organization, institution, as uh when it concerns its citizens, a neutral and religion, right? Certainly a neutral organization, and that that seems to be pretty far from the truth right now in terms of any kind of real neutrality. And you know, you've been doing some reporting. I I'd love for you to kind of talk through some of your recent reporting that you've done on this and and what trends are you noticing? Is it getting uh better, worse, or what do you see the uh future holding? We got some midterms coming up. And so do you think that do the is the preaching gonna get more about, you know, some mid-term-y kind of stuff, or is it gonna stay, you know, that kind of stuff? Uh what uh where do you see this moving?

SPEAKER_03 45:32

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I think in these, I think in these agencies, I'm not sure they're gonna necessarily get they haven't gotten real partisan yet, but they have gotten very much of like, we're a Christian nation. We, you know, God has called you to do this work in this agency, and this we see this in multiple agencies, not just in the Pentagon. Uh, and you know, that this expectation then that the best government employees are gonna be Christians who are doing God's will in their job. Like that, that rhetoric is really strong in the Pentagon ones. A lot of it has intensified since the the war in Iran in justifying that. I mean, that's where the like that's where the pulp fiction thing is coming from. He's he's saying that prayer, by the way, this prayer of uh vengeance and wrath, right, uh great fury. He he's saying that as a prayer for the war in Iran. And so, which which, you know, again, you know, if you know anything about the movie, that the that that that when when Samuel Jackson is giving that that monologue, the the the key time in the in the movie, he does it multiple times, he's first doing it right before he just unloads on an unarmed guy, right? And so that's a little bit of a weird kind of like justification for the Iran War uh type moment. And then I guess Hegzeth is no better at reading Ezekiel than he is actually watching Pulp Fiction because he must not have made it to the end of the movie where Samuel L. Jackson has like a conversion experience and realizes that he's been reading the passage and implying it completely incorrect. And rather than being the righteous good guy, he's actually the evil with his violence, right? So that's a real irony. Like, you can't not only can you not read the Bible correctly, you can't even watch the movie correctly. I mean, that's like I would normally say to someone like that, like, don't quit your day job, but like, actually, please do. Like, go do more biblical and movie interpretation without being uh in your day job. Uh so I think it's gotten more extreme in that regard. I mean, that's kind of like the crazy peak of it, but like honestly, his month, his prayer the month before that was the most violent prayer that I have like ever heard, other than maybe like Mark Twain's war prayer, which was satire and brilliant, brilliant, brilliant satire at that. But like, I don't know how you even satirize now Hegseth like violent prayers in the Pentagon now because he's he he he's doing it like as if it's it's it's reality, as if you know this is what God would want. And and and and and the preachers are doing it too. Like I said, I mentioned Franklin Graham preaching about gen, you know, preaching genocide and talking about a god of war. This week, Hegseth's pastor, Brooks Ponager, praised the US military as uh a means of God's grace. And so this this blessing and the sanctification of of you know the violence and the death. I mean, you know, here we are illegally blowing up boats of fishermen and and by one report, even human trafficking victims in the boats. We're blowing up these boats in the in in the Caribbean and Atlantic Pacific around Colombia and Venezuela, and that's a means of God's grace. I mean, we're we're we're blowing up uh a school of Iranian girls. And not only is that a means of God's grace, but at his first sermon, Brooks Pottager claimed that, hey, wherever a tomahawk missile or Minuteman missile falls, that's all God's plan. And this was before the school talk. So it's not Hexas' fault that we blew up a school, it's what God wanted. I mean, that's that's the rhetoric we're getting here. And that's why I think the Pentagon service is one, they've gotten more attention, not just the Pulp Fiction one, when we report on them. Um, but I also I think that is because they are more alarming. Like, I I think it's bad the Department of Labor was holding monthly services. I think it's bad that USDA and and SBA are have have been holding some services, but like they don't have a military behind them. Like when the Pentagon is embracing Christian nationalism, and especially this violent version of Christian nationalism, it's a whole lot more dangerous, not just to like people, not just to the nation and to the world. It's also more dangerous to our faith, like the corruption here. To take a faith, to take a book that is mostly written by and to people living at the margins and the edges of empire that are being being hunted down and oppressed by empire, and then flipping that to instead make this about blessing the empire of the world. Because, I mean, let's just be honest, like we are Egypt of Exodus, we are Babylon of Daniel, we are Rome of the Gospels, and so like the bastardization that is happening here of our holy text is even more problematic and alarming when it's happening in the Pentagon than, say, like the Department of Labor.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

You know, I'm I was sitting here thinking we've we we've kind of joked a few times about how often you've been on the show, but every time you come on, there's always something new. Like, and and like and we we we clearly don't have enough time to get into like all the social media posts and the Bible verses, but you know, really recommend for folks to to check those episodes out. But but my my my question to you is it's a bit more reflective and it sort of taps into kind of like your years of experience of covering this stuff. I'd I'd love to know if let's see if I can get this. If the Brian from this book getting so young and innocent.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Look at that guy.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

Not jaded or cynical yet.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Like, like, like how what what's the evolution of religion and politics from the Brian from that picture to to the Brian that that's sitting here in front of us?

SPEAKER_03 51:02

Yeah, so if I remember right, the book came out like 2015. So pre pre-Trump rise. So yeah, that I mean, boy, have things changed then. Yeah, I think I mean I think the main the main difference is a lot of the concerns are no longer theoretical. I mean, you know even back then, and I don't remember if it was in that book or a different book, but even back then, like I I I enjoyed always sharing, I've I've probably done on a previous episode with y'all, my favorite quote on thinking about you know mixing church and state, which is from the now late author and and pastor and pro and professor Tony Campolo, that mixing church and state is like mixing ice cream and manure. It doesn't hurt the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream. And that's kind of also the Roger Williams idea of separation of church and state that Thomas Jefferson was borrowing from. Roger Williams was concerned about the purity of the church, the garden. So he wanted a wall, a hedge, protecting it from the wilderness, the politics, right? And that was that's that we've we'd seen hints of that. We've seen, you know, spikes of Christian nationalism throughout the years, throughout our history, as you all have been covering. But it it it was we're at a whole different level now. I mean, we're so deep in the manure now that like, I mean, it it's it we're all sick of it. We're tired of it, yes, but like we're also we're stuck in it and we can't seem to wash it off. And I think that's that's what the biggest change has been is that I mean, this is a real problem, and we are losing entire generations because of this. I mean, this is you know, I think we might all be millennials. I'm I'm an old millennial. Uh, some of us millennials are getting really old. I'm born in like the second week of the millennial generation, according to Pew. So like some of us are getting old, but like millennials and younger generations, like like our era, our generations have been have been growing up in this mixing of church and state and the Christian nationalism and are walking away from the churches, right? And the the evangelical and charismatic church embrace of Donald Trump is gonna leave a mark on a generation. I mean, we're gonna find ourselves essentially in a in a generational wilderness wandering before people are gonna trust the church again. And I that's that's what has really changed is recognizing like, wow, like we have mixed the ice cream and the manure here because we ourselves crapped all over it. Like we did this to the church's witness.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Yeah, man, that's it's it's really tough. It's and I definitely I agree with you, man. We we have done a real disservice to the gospel by mixing it with Caesar.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

And I I mean Caesar is I mean his best example. I mean, we have never seen a political figure in 250 years in the United States that is more Caesaran than like we're living with a guy who's putting his face on gold coins. Everything. I mean, render under Caesar, like I mean, like you can't make this stuff off.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Mixed Caesar and the gospel. You know, we've exchanged the gospel of Jesus for a gospel of Trump, a gospel of empire, essentially. I mean, that's always the bib, the Bible always offers empire versus Yahweh.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

And it's never gone well. It's never gone well when we mixed with empire. South, South Africa, Nazi Germany, South African apartheid, not Nazi Germany, Constantine, like it is it has always destroyed the witness of the church. Anytime we've gotten in bed with empire.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

And Yahweh is always, and God, the God of the Bible that I look at right then, ultimately represented in Jesus, has has never uh has always been against empire. Always from the very beginning. If you look at it and you understand the text and context, it is an anti-imperial text from the beginning. And it's hard for Americans to see that. I mean, it's just really hard because when you are in the empire, it's very difficult for you to see and and accept anti-imperial texts. It's it's just really hard. And but but it's necessary, and it's the challenge. It's the challenge all of us who are Christians and are trying to push back against and and are getting the kind of vitriol that we receive. It's because of the idol, it's because of the thing that we are attacking, it's the safety, security, and the things that people have invested their lives into. And I just think we have to understand that it's not gonna be easy. Idols don't leave easily, they they fight. And so I'm gonna keep praying for that, and I really appreciate the work that you're doing. And you know, we've asked every guest this, Brian, uh, on the series. Uh and and the question is we just had the 250th anniversary of the United States, right? We're in that year, the year of the 250th year. And so the question is, I guess it'll be 250 to 251. Yeah, so the 250th. Um, what does this mean for you? Like, what is what is the significance of this date, and what are your prayers and hopes uh for the next 250 years, so to speak?

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Well, I mean, you know, let's not make the assumption that the American Empire will last another 250 years because most you know, all empires fall at some point, so they do eventually, yes. Yeah, praise God, all empires fall. There we go. So uh so yeah, I think that's the and that's actually the first thing. Like like July 5th of 2026 was a Sunday, right? And my encouragement for the last couple of years is I've been you know around churches and denominational groups and warning that this year was going to be a spike of Christian nationalism, because Bow and I found a spike in 1976 with a bicentennial. We've talked about that in Baptizing America, so I've been warning people for a couple of years, it was so much worse than I expected. Uh, I mean, I've been warning people hard enough, but I've been saying, hey, you're gonna see a spike with the 250th anniversary. And but my also my my my I would always say, well, like, well, January, uh July 5th of 2026, uh Sunday, the day after you know the 250th, is just another Sunday. Because the 4th of July is not a liturgical holiday. And so that's why I've been trying to encourage people. So I think that's that's my first answer here. Like, what does the 250th mean? Well, as a as a Christian, it doesn't really mean anything. It's just another Sunday. It's just, it's just another year. And we're called to be faithful in whatever context we find ourselves in. And like, like, it's easy to be like, I don't want to be in this kind of context. And then, you know, that's like, you know, Frodo, like, I wish I didn't have this ring. And Gandalf says, like, no one who lives in such times, I'm gonna paraphrase, but no one who lives in such times uh wants this, but we don't get to pick the times we live in. It's just like, will we be faithful in in this time? And that's that's like that's unfortunately, this is the moment that we're in. But my my second my second thing that I I think this year has meant is I I I want us to get back, and you all have helped do this with the series, to what is truly worth celebrating and is remarkable about the American experiment. And it's not that we were founded as a Christian nation because we weren't. It's that we were the first nation to try this experiment of separating church and state. And it's a remarkable thing that had occurred. It's remarkable that that we have these men, because they don't let the women in, but they have these men who lived in a Christian nation, they knew what a Christian nation was, they knew what a Christian nation was like, and they knew how to create a Christian nation and could have said so in a constitution. They knew what a Christian nation looked like and decided, let's try something different. Like let's not only try a radical political experiment and say no king, no Caesar, but let's also try a radical experiment and say no state church, no state religion. It's a remarkable experiment. And this is how remarkable it is. There's a story of in 1776 of a group of Baptists going to the leaders of Massachusetts and wanting to disestablish the congregational church, because at this point, with a couple of exceptions, all the colonies w had a state church. And they eventually all get rid of them. But they're going to Massachusetts, which is like the really the worst colony when it comes to church. I mean, Massachusetts was a Christian national state. They kicked out Roger Williams, that's why he went and started Rhode Island, the first colony that had absolute freedom. They hung Quakers for being Quakers. And if you know anything about Quakers, if you're hanging Quakers because you can't get along with them, that really says more about you than it does them. So Massachusetts is this hotbed of Christian nationalism. And this group of Baptists go and they want to disestablish them. So they disestablish the Congregational Church. And John Adams, the future president, uh retorts that it's not gonna happen, and that there is more likely to be a change in the solar system than a separation of church and state. Now, I don't know on that day in 1776 if if John Adams went outside and carefully studied the stars. Because not only did that change in the solar system occur, it happened in his lifetime. Not only did he see the founding of the nation with a separation of church and state in the First Amendment and Article 6, but also every single state would eventually disestablish church and state, including Massachusetts, which was the last one, but they finally did it all in John Adams' lifetime. That's how radical of a shift this was, that he didn't think it was even possible, and then it happened. So that's to me what this year is about. And I'm afraid that we have we have lost so much of that vision and what it can mean and how the separation of church and state is good for both.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

That is a phenomenal place to uh to leave it, Brian. Thank you so much for for everything for your work. Make sure you guys check out Word and Way, Public Witness. It will be well worth your time. And thank you for sticking around with us for this whole series. Make sure you catch up on the episodes you haven't had a chance to. We'll make sure we have all the you know links and stuff on our website and uh in the show notes. But but definitely check it out because there is a total of 16 episodes of some of the smartest people that talk about this stuff. You won't find this anywhere. So so you might as well check it out here on Faith of Politics. And as always, make sure you keep your conversations not right or left, but up. We'll see you next time. Take care.