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Welcome to the final episode of Season One of American Evangelicals A History Podcast.
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When we began this series, our goal wasn't to settle every debate or offer simple answers.
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It was to explore one of the most influential and most misunderstood movements in American history with the tools of historians, curiosity, nuance, and a commitment to understanding the past on its own terms.
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We've traced the stories, ideas, controversies, and people who have shaped evangelicalism in America.
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We've talked about revival and race, politics and theology, institutions and individuals.
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We've been reminded that history is rarely simple, and that's precisely what makes it so valuable.
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In this final conversation, the hosts step back from the individual stories to reflect on the series itself.
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What have we learned?
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How has the response from listeners shaped our thinking?
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Where might the study of evangelicalism be headed next?
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And why does a historical perspective still matter in a culture that often prefers certainty over complexity?
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Thank you for joining us on this journey.
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Whether you've listened from the very beginning or found us somewhere along the way, we're grateful you've been part of these conversations.
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Here are historians Maggie Capra, Dan Hummel, and John Fia.
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So here we are.
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We're on the final episode of this podcast series.
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And we want to do a few things in this episode.
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We want to start by just talking about some of the feedback we've received and what it's made us think about when we've heard that.
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And then we'll do a little very dangerous game of talking about contemporary evangelicalism and then do a little future casting, which is always really scary for historians to do.
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And then we'll end with talking a bit about history and this sort of historian's perspective that we think really helps this podcast run uh as it has so far.
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So with that, I'll just open it up, uh, John and Maggie.
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What are some what's some of the feedback you've gotten?
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I've been really encouraged by the feedback.
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People seem to like what we're doing uh here.
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I think there's something to say, which we'll talk a little bit about later, about with three historians in a room, emphasis on historians, right?
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And you know, how we're gonna approach this subject.
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My favorite listener, if you're listening, I know she is, is my uh sister-in-law, Thea, who never listens to podcasts.
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She doesn't even know how to access the podcast.
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She has to wait till I post it on my blog in order to listen to it.
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But she grew up in the evangelical community, and uh it's been fun listening to her kind of talk about how, you know, at one point she said, I think you guys are talking about my life here.
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You're kind of deconstructing, if you will, or interpreting my entire life in a kind of detached way.
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I think she really liked the episodes.
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Was it episode four that we had Vincent Corey on?
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Because they were talking in a much more kind of theological register as evangelicals as opposed to um kind of detached observers in the some ways that we are.
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Because I think she felt it made her see that the historical approach is, you know, we just approach the material a little bit differently.
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But uh yeah, shout out to Thea.
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Thanks for listening, Thea.
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And um, I hope you're not gonna be too mad at me for raising your your listenership.
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I think it's interesting.
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I mean, I haven't gotten a lot of feedback because I am a very non-networked person.
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I'm kind of in my little You have a sister-in-law, right?
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I mean that's fair.
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I've got a couple of people, but um, my mom listens and has enjoyed it.
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But uh similarly, she said almost the same thing.
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And of course, I've been doing this for about 20 years now, studying evangelicalism and talking to my mother about it ad nauseum.
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And she was like, you know, finally listening to it, I get what you mean when you talk about being a historian and looking at evangelicals as a historian.
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And that was both encouraging and discouraging because what have I been doing wrong for the past two decades that she didn't understand it before?
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But also really helpful that there's something about the way that we've been talking about it that helps her see how a historical perspective is a bit different.
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There is something that we can offer.
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Um, so hopefully our listeners are getting that kind of uh benefit as well.
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When I would talk to my sister-in-law about it, it took me back to sort of myself 30 something years ago or like in
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the late 80s when all of this evangelical right historiography was coming out, you know, Noel Marston, that whole big that whole big thing.
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And actually thinking, okay, this is my life, right?
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But this is also something I can think about as a historian in a kind of not this, I mean detached, yes, but not, you know, I mean, I I'm an insider, but also trying to be a historian.
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It brought me back to that, right?
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Like the the oh wow, okay, this is a I can actually talk about like growing up in an evangelical church and think about how this affected America or connected with other things that are beyond just my own personal experience.
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So uh yeah, I get that kind of response to it, especially if you haven't, you know, spent most of your time studying history.
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It's it's a very different way of thinking, which I think we want to reflect on a little more later in the episode.
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Yeah, I I've enjoyed uh some of the feedback over email from pastors, you know, in other states who are listening to it and seem to think it somehow helps them be better pastors or at least understand that's great.
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I mean that that's you know, I far be it from me to have any application, real word application for what we're talking about.
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So it's it's been fun to to see that and and to hear the way that a number of listeners have liked the story-based way we start the episodes.
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We of course put some work into that, both in writing and in producing those.
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And for a podcast that's mostly about conversation, it's it's fun to introduce some drama or at least storytelling into it.
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So that that feels like something that lets us pull back the curtain a little on the history part, is we're not just talking about stories, we're actually presenting some of them and really get at, you know, what one of the things that draws us all to this is there's just very compelling people, ideas, and stories uh around evangelicalism.
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So that feels like a a win that we're not only doing good conversation, but um introducing people to the interesting or uh forgotten characters uh in the past.
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And I hope listeners have enjoyed the conversational style.
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We come in with sort of ideas about what we might want to hit on a particular topic, but sometimes it just everyone just starts riffing and like you know, things come up that we never prepared for.
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And that's actually I've enjoyed that aspect probably of it the most in terms of just working with both Dan and Maggie and and kind of playing off each other.
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And people seem to like it.
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I don't know.
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Um they they seem to like the dynamic between the three of us.
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So uh speaking of riffing, maybe we can move to the next part of our conversation, which will be about sort of thinking about we were informally thinking about sort of the future of how to talk about evangelicalism or study it, but also more about the contemporary moment and the future.
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And one of the ways we we want to think about this is thinking about the field that we're all a part of, the field of of sort of American religious history or the subfield of American evangelical history.
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And where do we think that conversation is gonna go, scholarly conversation is gonna go what in the next few decades?
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I don't know.
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I don't I feel very tentative of projecting out that far.
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I certainly couldn't have projected exactly where it would have gone, say, from the year 2006 uh to 2026.
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But yeah, what what do we have thoughts about in terms of where the field's at, where it's going?
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I think we have to use those words historians always like to use, right?
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Perhaps.
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Maybe it's possible.
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I mean, those are all those are all key historical words whenever we talk about the future, because that's not what we what we necessarily do, right?
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I think um one thing just looking at the if you you know you want to think about what's happening in evangelicalism right now and then try to maybe think about it even historically, or you know, maybe think about the way the past informs the present or the future, you know, there's these demographic issues.
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And I'm thinking of like the rise of the in American religion generally, the sort of rise of the nuns.
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It strikes me that thinking historically about this, there has never been a time where evangelicals have had to encounter such a large number of unbelievers in the course of I'm talking about the course of the entire history of the United States, right?
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You know, it'll be interesting to see how evangelicalism or how evangelicals kind of engage with the nuns.
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And I I don't think the old type of like Josh McDowell evidence that demands a verdict kind of stuff is really gonna work.
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It doesn't work anymore, you know.
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So so what what might that look like as we're seeing a huge demographic shift?
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You know, I think there's also implications here for younger evangelicals, right?
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What
they're how they're gonna respond to that.
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So that's maybe something to think about.
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Well, I think it's it's it's even a bit more interesting than just the nuns.
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Uh there's a sociologist named Stephen Bolivant who wrote a book a couple years ago called Nonverts.
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And he makes the once you hear it, obvious point, that the vast majority of people in the nun category grew up Christian.
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That that won't always be the case, but right now that is still the case.
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And so they aren't uh, as you said, John, unbelievers in some type of they've never known what Christianity is, and you know, what what do evangelicals do about that?
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It's a lot of actually dealing with a much more complicated situation where you have a lot of people who did grow up in some type of Christian context, and overwhelmingly Christian, just given the demographics of the US.
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Now, some of those so in in the nonverts book, he talks about the distinct ways people disaffiliate from mainline Protestantism, evangelicalism, Mormonism, and Catholicism, and that each of those, you know, ex-evangelical, ex-Catholic practice their nun spirituality differently based on what they're leaving.
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Interesting.
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So for example, Catholics will often continue to even if they stop going to church, will continue to baptize and bury their people in the Catholic Church because that's so culturally ingrained.
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Evangelicals tend to leave because of these political perceptions of political partisanship or scandal.
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In his take, you know, Mormons have been leaving in larger numbers because of sort of like intellectual questions about the origins of the church and and historical questions.
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And mainline Protestants, you know, young people have left for decades over those traditions because of a sense of a lack of deep investment or a sense he, as he calls it in the book, that it's basically a social club.
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So I might as well just join a more interesting social club.
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Yeah.
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But you can imagine leaving under all those different terms means you're a different type of nun, N-O-N-E.
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And that's something that's even more interesting than just saying, oh, there's 30% of Americans who are nuns.
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It's like, well, there's a lot of subgroups in there that uh evangelicals today and certainly in the future will have to figure out how to coexist with or how to try to reach out to.
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And we talk a lot about in our current media, ex-vangelicals, so evangelicals who leave.
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But that's just one type of American that's disaffiliating.
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Either way, though, whether they're nonverts, nuns, whatever they are, again, I I reach I want to stress this again.
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There's no historical I can't think of any historical precedent for American evangelicals to be in a situation like this where the growing number of kind of whatever you want to call them, unbelievers or something.
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That's a historical challenge that they, you know, or a challenge rooted in a kind of change over time, right, that's happened.
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Yeah, and I think you see evangelicalism shifting in reaction to some of these deep criticisms, right, that are causing these kinds of rifts, um, gender, sexuality, things like that.
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On one hand, you have the sort of liberalizing impulse, which we see hit historically, this is what happens, or you have a more conservative sort of inward-looking movement.
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And I think we see both of those in the contemporary landscape.
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And so I imagine future historians are going to be able to document that and see what's going on and uh look at those trends.
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One thing that I think is very clear in our past episodes, and just as I think about everything that we've talked about, is that evangelicalism is so profoundly diverse.
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You can have so many different things within evangelicalism, and it is still legitimately American evangelicalism.
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I'm talking like theologically, ethnically, racially, yeah, everything.
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Yeah.
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I I mean, uh, really there's certain labels that historians have put on certain groups that make them the core.
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And I think that that's fair and there's really good arguments for that.
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But one of the things that I really hope we've done in these episodes is show that you have to be really careful when you read a book or you say evangelicals to be a little more careful on qualifying what you mean by that, that there is going to be some kind of definition or some subcategory that will tell you more about what that topic is, what that perspective is.
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I think in some ways, like there's been, I think, and legitimately some pushback on talking about white male evangelicalism, for example, right?
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Because it's always used in a kind of critical way.
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But I think that's a helpful phrasing for some scholars to use because it tells you exactly which group of evangelicals they're talking about.
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And for some scholars, I think that is then their definition of evangelicalism.
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And I would push back on that.
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Because obviously I think it's it's much more than that.
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But that's something that I think with my students, for example, or even family members, when they're reading works of history, they can get really defensive because they're like, but this isn't what I mean, or this isn't who I am.
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And I would just encourage people to be like, well, who are the actual characters that are being discussed?
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Right?
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They might be in your tradition.
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That doesn't necessarily mean it's an attack on you, but also they they might be still qualified as evangelicals, but separate from you.
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And that doesn't discount their importance to the history.
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Or or they might be evangelicals who maybe identify theologically.
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We just had a conversation about this last month with some people who are here at Lumen, right?
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You know, and you may not like their politics or their views on gender, or I think some evangelicals, when they really think about it, might have more in common with those people than they do with someone who is does not believe, say, in the four four points of the Ebbington quadrilateral.
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One of the things that I think is relevant for that point is that in social media world, uh, one of the things that I see so much is that people just get siloed.
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And there's tons of academic work on this, that you get put in these echo chambers and you're gonna hear all these sorts of things.
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But easy definitions are key to that.
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You can't have really complicated definitions and nuance if you're trying to go viral.
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I believe that social media is trying to make money by getting us to hate each other.
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They're doing it very well.
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And I think part of this ex-evangelical and the rise of the nuns and all of that is also just a disdain for being lumped in with people that you disagree with on something.
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And I would just caution people to be a little bit more careful about the way they think about that, because you can be lumped in with people that you disagree with on so many different things.
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But the question is, what are you being lumped in around?
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Like what's that center issue?
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And I think that's just something that I try to get my students, particularly those who are within the evangelical world, to think about kind of carefully.
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Because I think the impulse is to just reject, like, I'll just I
just won't call myself evangelical anymore.
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And that's a personal decision, but I think that there are always so many things in history that can be redeemed that are actually really important precedents to be thought about and maybe even embraced that if you just jettison everything because of the criticism coming at you can be problematic.
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This leads to a big question, right?
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Which you've kind of been working around in your entire comments here, right?
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I'd love to get to both of your takes on this.
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So the word evangelical or evangelicalism.
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I think we've gone 12 episodes now, 11 episodes, without saying much about like is it still a useful word?
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Is it still something that do we want to think about those who uphold the Bevington quadrilateral with say another word?
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Or I know you've both thought about this.
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Like, where are you both at on this?
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Yeah, I I I continue to use the word in a lot of different ways, but I think I probably only to me have particular ways I use it.
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I mean you can't really just when you're talking explain all all the little nuances, but I definitely think there are evangelicals, and Ebbington's is a really good place to start to define them.
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I think I I get a little more hung up on evangelicalism, but I think and partly because I think there are many evangelicalisms.
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And so when you start saying evangelicalism responded this way or something, get into the problem that Maggie has talked about, which is the well, who are we talking about here?
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So I'm currently in a book project where I'm writing a lot about what we've called the neo-evangelicals or this podcast.
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I don't like that term for other reasons that are maybe even too academic for this conversation.
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At this point, it's a little really in the weeds.
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But what I've ch chosen to call that group, and this would be the Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Fuller Seminary type world, is post-war evangelicalism.
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And for me, the post-war is doing a lot of work for what I mean by that.
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But I'm fine using evangelicalism in that sense because I'm I'm I'm really bounding it.
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Um and I do think the ism part's doing work for me too, because there's a lot of assumptions that that group has about what they're all about, what methods they're gonna use to get their word get the word out, and how they're gonna sort of operate in the world.
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And so I'm fine using evangelicalism there,
but I've become much more skeptical or just frugal, I guess, with using the word to just sort of make a blanket statement about this group of people.
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I'm still happy to talk about evangelicals as like so-and-so is an evangelical if I think it meets the definition.
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And that that that's a little trickery or a little way that we all do this with different words where we're really when you spend you know hours, years sort of writing and thinking about this, you end up creating very fine distinctions that sometimes are only in your own notes and head, and then you gotta decide like, am I going to actually introduce this into what I'm writing?
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And if so, like how am I going to explain this in a way that people who haven't spent all this time are gonna get uh really quickly.
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So something like even what I just described, I'm not gonna bring a ton of attention to that in a like a published book because that's just too much.
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But when you're in academic settings or when you're writing for a more academic audience, those can be really helpful distinctions and things we argue uh a lot about.
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Anyway, that's where I've landed on it.
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Um so I will use all those terms, but I have a little, you know, sort of particular ways I want to use them.
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It's almost, it's almost uh, you know, as you were talking, Dan, I was thinking of like I was talking to my dad on the phone the other day, and he was in the uh the hospital waiting room waiting for somebody, and uh he tells me on the phone, you know, uh, I'm really having a good time here.
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I met a couple of born-again Christians and we're talking about, you know, this or that.
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Like he would never say, like, I met two evangelicals, you know, this is my my uneducated, you know, high school educated father who's a you know carpenter.
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He would never use the term evangelical, but if he was talking about like support for Trump or something, he'd use it as a political term, but not to describe his own deeply held spiritual convictions.
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I think we do need to be aware that it has become a very politically charged word, especially in the contemporary sense.
00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:19.599
I'm kind of in the camp that it's like, I don't want just people of a certain political bent to own the term.
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:23.119
I think that's unfair to all of those who have come before us.
00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:28.880
I do call myself an evangelical, and in my own work, I certainly try my very best.
00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:33.200
I, you know, take a shot at it to define evangelicalism using the work of others.
00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:37.279
I also think that Bebington's theological commitments are a good starting place.
00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:38.799
I think I've mentioned this before.
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:42.160
I'm really a big fan of Tim Smith's kaleidoscope theory.
00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:50.319
And I just, it works because it changes over time and that there are different impulses that sweep through the evangelical world.
00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:58.720
And I think I use that phrase more than evangelicalism, is like the evangelical landscape, the evangelical world, because there's variety within it.
00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:06.960
And you're going to be attracted to certain teachings or theologies or charismatic leaders in a generation.
00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:09.920
And that is going to change the shape of things.
00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:16.480
That's sort of my view of it, is there's core theological commitments, but there's going to be room for a lot of disagreement.
00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:19.599
And I think that's still true in today's world.
00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:29.119
But that there's a lot of incentive to just make it a political term and then to use it as a way to turn people against each other in a lot of ways.
00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:32.559
And I try to combat that, but I also understand it.
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:34.480
Yeah, I agree with both of you.
00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:38.559
I I'm not too big on the word evangelicalism anymore.
00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:43.200
Um, I I like I like the idea of evangelical as an adjective.
00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:45.519
You used it several times as an adjective.
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:48.640
I don't know if you noticed that when you were talking about evangelical this or that.
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:56.799
I think there's a particular type of Christian that would privilege certain things that come under the Bemington quadrilateral or something.
00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:58.880
That that is an evangelical Christian.
00:21:59.119 --> 00:21:59.759
I guess I would use.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:05.119
The term as a noun, too, in some cases, but I prefer the adjective.
00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:06.559
But I'm like you, Maggie.
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:08.799
I I don't know the good news, right?
00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:12.079
It's evangelical, the good news of the gospel.
00:22:12.160 --> 00:22:14.480
Like I guess I I often I want that word back.
00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:17.519
You know, it's been taken away and I I want it back.
00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:20.319
I want it so I call myself an evangelical.
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:27.119
In terms of the whole debate about like nuancing it and giving 150 different caveats whenever you say the word evangelical.
00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:28.000
Well, I'm this, I'm that.
00:22:28.480 --> 00:22:29.119
I get that.
00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:30.880
And I've thought a lot about that.
00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:41.200
And this is unique to me, but as someone who does a lot of speaking about evangelicals or identifying as evangelicals in public life, I just say I'm an
evangelical Christian.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:46.799
And then, you know, let's talk about religion and the founders or something else.
00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:51.680
And and and usually people are be like, oh, but you're still an evangelical Christian, right?
00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:53.839
You don't believe America was founded as a Christian nation.
00:22:54.079 --> 00:23:07.440
So, you know, for people I think who are out there speaking about this as evangelicals, you know, I just identify as an evangelical and then I say, let's have a discussion about whatever, and I'm going to tell you how I see it historically, and then you can decide.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:22.319
And then usually people will say later, like, oh, that wasn't MAGA, or, you know, and their stereotype is immediately busted by simply being true to, in my case, the historical record, or, you know, whatever, whatever happens to be.
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:32.079
Because that's that's the way I've always approached it, as opposed to like saying, like, I'm an evangelical Christian, but I'm this, I'm not this, I'm this, I'm this, you know, constantly kind of explaining away.
00:23:32.559 --> 00:23:35.920
But I think your your distinction there that I mean, I think it would be different.
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:45.599
It's different to say I'm an evangelical Christian and something like I am a subscriber to evangelicalism, or I'm a follower of evangelicalism.
00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:47.039
Yeah, I don't know if I've ever said that.
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:47.599
Right, right.
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:49.359
It's an awkward thing to say.
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:53.200
But if you did say that, you would be signaling, I think something a bit different.
00:23:53.359 --> 00:23:54.400
People might hear it differently.
00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:55.680
Again, maybe I'm making the new option.
00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:58.000
I think only scholars would hear it differently, though, right?
00:23:58.400 --> 00:23:59.599
Because I have a high bar for isms.
00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:04.319
Um, and maybe that's because I'm an intellectual historian, but like you don't just go around and say everything is an ism.
00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:10.640
An ism has sort of a continuity, a set of ideas that are animating it.
00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:23.759
And this is where I think I wonder, I mean, we've all expressed our appreciation repeatedly for the scholarship, starting with Bedmington himself, but people like Joel Carpenter and George Mars and Mark Knoll.
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:39.680
But in the stronger version of their project, their historiographical project, they were really asserting, I think, an evangelicalism that was at the heart of what American Christianity was about since the colonial period.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:43.759
And again, I want to commend a lot of their work.
00:24:43.920 --> 00:25:11.119
But I think I'm I I've been affected by the conversations in the last couple decades enough to say I don't know if I
believe in the strong version of that story, where there is this sort of more amorphous ism, this evangelical ethos or whatever other way we're going to talk about a more robust thing, than a very diverse set of groups that have you know loose affiliation and commitments sort of at the center of the story of American Christianity.
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:15.920
And that's where a lot of the nuance comes in, is because I don't want to entirely get rid of that entire framework.
00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:17.680
But a kind of through line, right?
00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:18.720
That you still would have.
00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:28.640
There is a through line, but it's maybe not as thick and bold and obvious as the work if we ended 25 years ago would have made you think.
00:25:28.799 --> 00:25:34.559
And some of that is the political moment we're in and the way the scholarship has talked about it.
00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:45.200
I think some of it is also just there's been a development in the research and conceptualization of American Christianity to say that it's a little more complicated.
00:25:45.359 --> 00:25:53.759
And I came at this writing about dispensationalism, something that in that older generation of historiography was pretty marginal.
00:25:53.920 --> 00:26:05.759
It was seen as an extreme expression or an apocalypticism that was sort of part of the scandal of the evangelical mind, as as Mark Knoll talked about in that book of dis about dispensationalism.
00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:08.480
And I've I just became convinced, like, that's not actually true.
00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:16.160
It's actually part of the center, or it's actually for at least one big chunk of it, but that actually doesn't counter what Mark Knoll was writing about.
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:30.480
So, you know, those things exist side by side, and so that's where something like the evangelical world maggie or or something that's a little looser, and ism to me, again, I'm I'm holding this up to like communism or fascism, like things that we can really precisely define in the dictionary.
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:31.839
That's not what we're dealing with here.
00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:39.119
We're dealing with something a little more diffuse than that, and so for that reason, I'm a little more hesitant to use that stronger sense of evangelicalism.
00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:42.319
Would you say though that that through line though is defined by the Bebington?
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:43.839
You would argue and debates around it.
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:48.480
So this is why I like like Molly Worthing's book, Apostles of Reason, from what, 10 years ago now, more.
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:57.680
She really wants to center question or a perennial set of debates around these questions, as really at the heart of what it means to be an evangelical.
00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:03.440
And so for her, it's sort of the head versus the heart, the crisis of authority, um, which is in her subtitle.
00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:12.079
So, you know, there's people who take different positions on those questions, but the fact that they're all debating it and seeing that the stakes that's what makes them.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:16.400
I think that's a historical, that's also a historical way of thinking about it, right?
00:27:16.480 --> 00:27:20.240
You know, you're you're you're seeing it as you it's development, right?
00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:21.279
It's change over time.
00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:31.119
It's the you know, you're this is not just some fixed thing that, you know, evangelicalism was born in the first great awakening and it's always the same or whatever.
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:46.240
It's a you know, it's like the country, you know, it's constantly there's a set of ideals or values, I mean then quadrilateral, you know, or whatever, and we're always debating them and discussing them and what they mean, but I'm not necessarily sure we're ever rejecting them.
00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:49.200
To reject them means You're sort of leaving the movement.
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:50.799
Yeah, you're leaving the movement, right?
00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:56.000
Yeah, and again, I I'm I when I I want to qualify this as like the strong version of that.
00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:04.319
So, you know, I think Nathan Hatch would be very nuanced in how he'd he wouldn't just insist, well, it we democratized in the early 19th century and then it hasn't changed since then or something.
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:18.079
But there is a so I'm sort of caricaturing the strong version of that, but that that's all just to say, like I think there are ways that I've nuanced how I think about it beyond where that scholarship is sort of developed when I got into grad school, frankly.
00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:21.359
Um I think I think Noel would probably at this point agree with you.
00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:29.359
I mean, I know he wrote these books on like the 18th century, calling it the Age of Evangelicalism, where he's talking about John Wesley and so forth.
00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:37.680
I think if yeah, I don't want to speak for Mark Knoll, but I think some of the things he's written lately might suggest that he's in agreement with you on that.
00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:38.400
Yeah.
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:47.599
Before we get back to it, a quick thank you to everyone who's been listening along with us this season.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:49.759
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Now, back to the episode.
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:29.759
Well, one other topic that we can get in trouble with by talking about a little is politics, which of course is at the heart of some of the things we've been talking about around the definition of evangelicalism.
00:29:29.839 --> 00:29:31.599
How much is it just a political definition now?
00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:36.000
But John, I'll throw it to you since this is something you think a lot about and write a lot about.
00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:40.480
How do you think the field's gonna talk about evangelicals and politics?
00:29:40.799 --> 00:29:50.880
I've always sort of thought about evangelicals and politics and maybe a second topic, evangelical intellectual life, right?
00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:56.079
I mean, you know, Noel wrote this book in '94, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:09.680
And I think the scandal of the evangelical mind shows up perhaps more in any other place than the failure of evangelicals to develop any kind of political theology.
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.400
You know, there are some really good evangelicals who borrow from other traditions.
00:30:14.720 --> 00:30:19.519
Catholic social teaching, uh, the Dutch Reformed tradition, um, you know, so forth.
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:23.200
Exactly, exactly.
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:23.759
Yeah.
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:26.720
And and they're, I think, doing really, really good work.
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:39.839
But over the last decade or so, or even earlier than that, maybe the last 50 years, conservative evangelicals especially have really failed to think deeply about what a Christian view of politics is.
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:50.880
And I think they've drawn heavily from others have said this, it's not new what I'm about to say, but they've drawn heavily from sort of American values or nationalistic ideas and so forth.
00:30:51.119 --> 00:31:10.240
And I think as we look at the political landscape right now, without getting into specifics, I do think the question is, how long will American politics, especially over the last 50 years, be driven by a kind of pursuit of power as a way to change the world, so to speak, to quote, you know, Hunter.
00:31:10.640 --> 00:31:12.720
You know, how long are we going to look at politics?
00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:15.839
Are evangelicals going to look at the pursuit of power?
00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:25.920
Um, and when I say power, I mean winning elections, getting the right candidates in office, getting the right people on the Supreme Court, you know, so forth as the way to do politics.
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:36.240
And then of course, very little has changed in terms of the issues that many can, especially conservative evangelicals, and we
can point to more moderate and more progressive evangelicals.
00:31:36.319 --> 00:31:37.359
I get that, right?
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:44.720
But, you know, when 81% of evangelical voters, you know, are voting a particular way, and it's not just Trump.
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:46.720
I mean, this goes back to like George W.
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:47.599
Bush, right?
00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:48.799
It was the same numbers.
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:50.640
There's no significant change.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:56.079
You want to start asking questions about to what extent have we been defined by power.
00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:57.440
And we have been for a long time.
00:31:57.599 --> 00:31:58.799
Don't get me wrong, right?
00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:05.440
America, the fate of the church and the fate of the nation have always been tied together since the beginning of the Republic.
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:07.839
I think it's a long-standing problem.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:16.240
But I think when we look at future historians writing about this period, I think there's something really unique about the Trump era and the way evangelicals have turned to him.
00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:18.960
I wrote a book about this a few years ago.
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:26.480
But I do think that this is just the logical extension of what's been happening since like the 1970s, late 1970s.
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:28.799
Yeah, there's a there's a continuity.
00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:44.480
I think there's change that has happened in the last 10 years, you know, with the way evangelicals have flocked to Trump and have found themselves in positions of power, especially people who've never been in power before, like new apostolic reformation people or prosperity gospel type people.
00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:48.079
I know there's an overlap between those two, those two groups.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:50.000
There's also been continuity.
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:59.279
I think after the 1960s, you know, evangelicals no longer control the culture, uh, or at least Christians no longer control the culture broadly defined.
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:02.640
So we're in we're in a really interesting place right now in terms of that.
00:33:03.119 --> 00:33:08.799
I think you're right that evangelicals don't have a very defining political theology.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:13.680
That would actually be surprising, I think, to some outsiders, to the historical profession.
00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:21.599
Because there's a number of books, you know, and there's a new one coming out really soon, on either Dominionism or Reconstructionism.
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:30.240
These are two different forms of very Christian dominant theonomy type views of how a Christian should engage with politics.
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:32.240
And those are political theologies in a sense.
00:33:32.559 --> 00:33:34.400
Well, I'm tipping my hand here, right?
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:39.119
You know, I'm I'm basically saying, you know, the kind of political theology I'd like to see.
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:39.680
Right, right.
00:33:39.759 --> 00:33:39.920
Okay.
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:40.640
So that's a different question.
00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:41.680
To be fair, right?
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:45.279
You're you're thinking about this rightly so historically.
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:53.599
I followed Noel on this, who who does see the way in which evangelicals engage politically as a kind of scandal, but that's not a historical argument.
00:33:53.680 --> 00:33:54.000
So yeah.
00:33:54.640 --> 00:33:54.960
Fair enough.
00:33:55.039 --> 00:33:55.359
Fair enough.
00:33:55.680 --> 00:34:03.599
I think but you I think you can critique that and say, I've certainly felt this, that those books do the thing that Maggie said is not good to do.
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:07.920
Sometimes not intentionally, sometimes intentionally, which is to say, and this is evangelicalism.
00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:18.159
Like I'm gonna write a book about RJ Rashdooney and his reconstructionist views, and then suddenly if you're an evangelical, that's now who you're sort of linked up to.
00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:27.280
And you know, for I mean, we know from this from studying this, that is a significant but very minority group that would even recognize that name.
00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:34.079
I mean, if you asked a hundred evangelicals who is RJ Rushdone, uh maybe one of them would know who that is.
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:57.119
So that's a question to me is right now, partly because of the political moment, there's a lot of research on these types of I don't want to say extreme because that gives away my perspective too, but these types of very clear and organized, small groups that have political theology as a way to say, you know, this is where the evangelicalism is about politics.
00:34:57.280 --> 00:35:08.960
I think you're right that actually most evangelicals don't subscribe to those either by knowing or not knowing what they are, and are a lot more they're casting about for exactly how to engage with politics.
00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:13.039
But I wonder if there will be historians, hopefully, you know, you'll be part of that too, John.
00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:16.719
Who actually like you're writing stuff right now.
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:32.000
Um, who actually unpack that in a significant way that like actually a lot of the evangelics who've gotten into politics don't really have a a master plan in in the sense that if you are a dominionist or something, like there is this real big robust sense of what you're doing.
00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:38.719
And it's much been much more reactive or much more as a culture war type thing where you feel like you're losing something, so you're gonna jump in.
00:35:39.119 --> 00:35:46.559
I hope that's where the scholarship goes, is we get a little more of those types of studies than yet more exposes on Dominionism.
00:35:46.880 --> 00:35:48.320
I'm reading a book right now.
00:35:48.400
--> 00:35:52.079
Um it's by a socialist press verso books.
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:53.840
It's written by a guy named A.J.
00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:54.159
A.
00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:57.360
Woods, who there'd be no reason any of us would know who he was.
00:35:57.679 --> 00:36:04.960
But it's called The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy, why the right blames the Frankfurt School for the decline of the West.
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:10.880
And it is fascinating, and this gets to your point about thinking historically about this.
00:36:11.119 --> 00:36:22.079
It shows the way in which the Christian right embraced the new right, the political rights, kind of critique of what they call cultural Marxism.
00:36:22.320 --> 00:36:28.960
Now you hear that term everywhere, but it's it's people like Lyndon LaRouche, uh, who ran for president several times.
00:36:29.039 --> 00:36:31.920
He was a former communist, turned libertarian.
00:36:32.159 --> 00:36:39.039
It's uh the New Congress Foundation, which was run by a guy named Paul Weirich, who was very involved in the Christian right.
00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:42.400
But it is uh, you know, back to the anti-intellectual question.
00:36:42.559 --> 00:36:47.119
I mean, they are making like very deep intellectual arguments.
00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:52.719
Again, we could we could debate whether they're good ones, you know, and that's I have my opinions on that.
00:36:53.199 --> 00:37:03.280
It is an in a political theology, at least as it's embraced by, you know, the sh though he shows the way in which the Christian right leaders embrace these kinds of kind of new rape.
00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:04.480
So yeah, so fair enough.
00:37:04.639 --> 00:37:09.440
I mean, I think there are Christian attempts to create a political theology.
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:17.119
This then would lead to a debate outside of the historical discipline of this is why we have political scientists.
00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:19.360
Uh so fair enough.
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:22.480
Yeah, I I like the way you I like the way you came back at me on that, Dan.
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:23.760
I agree with it.
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:24.079
Yeah.
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:25.840
Any thoughts about politics, Maggie?
00:37:26.159 --> 00:37:33.440
I teach on culture wars, and so I think because of that, I have a tendency to view our current moment as a very culture war moment.
00:37:33.599 --> 00:37:37.119
We're so extremely polarized uh and divided.
00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:49.280
And again, like I've already said, I think social media and technology has so much to do with that that it's really stripped away people's attention spans to pay attention to nuance, but even the opportunity to present nuance.
00:37:49.599 --> 00:37:58.320
I also grew up in a much more separatist world that was very cautious of any kind of political involvement whatsoever, right?
00:37:58.400 --> 00:38:00.639
Um, I was home churched, I was homeschooled.
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:06.159
We at one point went to a church where you were not allowed to say the pledge of allegiance kind of thing.
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:15.280
And so, you know, that's also part of evangelicalism, those that uh think that we need to say completely out of politics.
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:21.760
I think that's shifted somewhat in our current political moment as well, even from the people I know from those groups.
00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:31.679
But it still is, I think, relevant to keep in mind that you're going to have, and this is just maybe I'll become the skeptical one on this episode, John.
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:32.320
Cynical.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:32.880
Cynical.
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:33.599
Okay, the cynical one.
00:38:33.679 --> 00:38:34.079
I'll be the case.
00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:34.960
It doesn't bother me at all.
00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:35.360
Okay, all right.
00:38:35.519 --> 00:38:36.800
I can't remember the exact words.
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:37.679
It's cynical.
00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:40.480
I'll be the I'll be the cynical one in this episode.
00:38:40.800 --> 00:38:44.639
I think politics and power is a corruptive force.
00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:54.559
And I think it makes a lot of sense that it would be problematic or evangelicals when they try to use politics for sway.
00:38:54.800 --> 00:39:02.719
Doesn't mean that I think it's wrong for a believer to get involved in politics, but I I do think that it is something to be done with a lot of care and caution.
00:39:02.960 --> 00:39:05.760
There's a a faculty member here at UW Madison.
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:24.320
We were talking once about teaching logic and reasoning to students, particularly the importance of that in kind of framing really controversial topics, because you need something on which to like gauge a discussion that isn't opinion, because otherwise you can't talk about anything difficult.
00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:33.440
What he said to me was that sometimes I worry that by teaching students how to reason well, I'm talking them out of politics as a career.
00:39:33.679 --> 00:39:34.800
And that worries me.
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:38.559
And that has nothing to do with evangelicalism, that just has to do with our current political moment.
00:39:38.719 --> 00:39:40.639
But that's that's my commentary on politics.
00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:55.760
I don't bring politics into the classroom.
00:39:55.840 --> 00:39:56.559
I never have.
00:39:56.639 --> 00:40:02.320
I refuse to, you know, unless there's some kind of way it merges with the discipline of history.
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:10.239
But this I had a student who came up to me and afterwards and said, like, in light of all of your saying all of what you're saying, he was a first-year student.
00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:11.760
I'm a politics major.
00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:16.719
I wanted to go into politics, but you know, if America is not a Christian nation, like what's the point?
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:19.599
I said, What do you want to go into
politics for?
00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:26.400
And he said, Well, I want to fight for pro-life issues, I want to fight for traditional values, I want to blah, blah, blah.
00:40:26.639 --> 00:40:28.000
I go, you can still do that.
00:40:28.239 --> 00:40:31.519
America doesn't have to be founded as a Christian nation for you to do that.
00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:33.760
It was, it was like a light bulb went off.
00:40:33.920 --> 00:40:38.400
You know, so I think this gets to another point about politics and evangelical politics.
00:40:38.480 --> 00:40:43.440
It's so wed to a particular understanding of of American history.
00:40:44.079 --> 00:40:49.519
You can fight for pro-life issues, whether we're a Christian nation or not, right?
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:52.079
So it that just struck me when you said that.
00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:55.280
You almost convinced the student not to go into politics.
00:40:55.679 --> 00:40:56.800
I mean, it is one of those things.
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:03.519
But it's also, I think, and again, this is just a commentary on the status of where we're at right now.
00:41:03.679 --> 00:41:09.840
But we also have a pretty fragile perspective of what it means to do something, right?
00:41:09.920 --> 00:41:12.000
Like if you're not going to succeed in a career.
00:41:12.079 --> 00:41:19.280
So for that student, perhaps, if I can't succeed as a pro-life politician because it's not a Christian nation, right?
00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:23.119
Like I'll lose elections on that, then maybe it's not worth it for me.
00:41:23.360 --> 00:41:33.920
There's also that I see it a lot, that idea that having something they have to work very, very hard and very long for and perhaps not actually thrive or flourish.
00:41:34.159 --> 00:41:37.519
That that seems to be, and I mean, it makes sense.
00:41:37.599 --> 00:41:45.440
We have a very leisure-focused society where that wouldn't be particularly attractive to young people, but I think that's part of that dynamic as well.
00:41:51.199 --> 00:41:54.480
Well, maybe these last couple comments, they've been on education.
00:41:54.639 --> 00:42:07.119
Uh, maybe the last sort of topic we can talk about in terms of where it's at and where it might go, is thinking about evangelical institutions, particularly institutions of higher education, seminaries, uh, colleges.
00:42:07.360 --> 00:42:18.880
And one way I think about that is sort of this is meta to us as historians, but think about where is the scholarship going to come from in future generations about American evangelicalism.
00:42:19.039 --> 00:42:27.760
And including up to this point, a lot of it has been produced by faculty at Christian colleges and universities, including you, John, for most of your career.
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:40.960
And that sector has fallen on tougher times in recent decades, and it, you know, who knows where it'll go, but it doesn't seem like it'll return to the heyday of the 70s and 80s or 90s or whenever um there was a lot of
growth in that area.
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:49.280
And one of the effects of that is there's just less historians working than there were in previous decades on some of these questions.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:43:01.039
Now, of course, there's R1 universities like UW Madison, but we know in general the humanities are in decline, and so it's certainly looking like this whole part of the academy is getting smaller rather than bigger.
00:43:01.119 --> 00:43:06.719
So I don't know if either of you have thoughts on how that larger there's a sort of a larger higher ed problem.
00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:17.519
There's a problem that's particular to the evangelical world within that, and then there's this question of scholarship and how that is going to be even produced and adjudicated in the future.
00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:22.960
Yeah, I could spend multiple episodes of a podcast talking about this question.
00:43:23.119 --> 00:43:46.400
It is clear to me that there are no longer if there ever were, but there at least I I think there were at times, sort of at least centers where the intellectual life and I'm talking here about the liberal arts, humanities, these kinds of things, the Christian intellectual life, Christian humanism seems to be a topic people like to talk about these days.
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:52.239
Where those things were deeply valued by Christian colleges, by evangelical educational institutions.
00:43:52.800 --> 00:43:59.760
And I'm not talking here about Bible colleges, you know, they have another whole set of different kind of mission or even seminaries to that matter.
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:15.599
But I mean the Christian, the Christian college, I think they were valued a little bit more because it was in these disciplines like philosophy, like literature, like history, where the central questions of what made a college Christian were to be found, right?
00:44:15.760 --> 00:44:20.239
This is, you know, ethics or, you know, moral, moral philosophy or whatever.
00:44:20.559 --> 00:44:24.719
But most evangelical Christians do not attend Christian colleges.
00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:27.760
They attend places like UW Madison, right?
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:33.679
Or they they go to big universities or regional universities or community colleges, right?
00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:39.679
Places they can afford, especially as Christian colleges, their tuitions go higher and higher through the roof.
00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:53.920
So in order to keep these Christian colleges open, you have to cater to the consumer demand, which is mostly they become kind of advanced professional schools, you know, where you get a little smattering of liberal arts.
00:44:54.000 --> 00:45:14.480
So I've said this publicly before, but I'm not convinced that the future of evangelical thinking and evangelical, maybe even scholarship to some extent, can come from the Christian colleges anymore, because the questions that keep this kind of scholarship alive are no longer being valued and invested in by evangelical institutions.
00:45:14.719 --> 00:45:15.840
There's exceptions.
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:19.760
I think of like a Wheaton College, for example, which has kind of held the line.
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:24.800
But even if you talk to Wheaton Profs, they would say this is happening, probably to a different level.
00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:27.119
So that raises like all kinds of questions.
00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:38.559
It's what's the future of like evangelical scholarship, evangelical intellectual life, and and where are the physical spaces, if they even are physical spaces, where that will be housed, right?
00:45:38.719 --> 00:45:39.920
Where will this happen?
00:45:40.079 --> 00:45:42.480
You know, I think we're sitting here in a Christian study center.
00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:58.559
I mean, one of the reasons I moved here to be part of this work, especially the Lumen Center, is I I truly believe that evangelical scholarship, evangelical thinking is going to be fostered in much more effective ways in places like this than in the traditional Christian college.
00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:02.480
So again, like I said, I could go on a soapbox forever about this topic.
00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:07.840
Um I'm actually thinking of if I ever get a chance of writing a book about it, but I'll stop there.
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:09.760
I mean, I think pretty similar.
00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:22.000
I'm at a different point, but like looking at just, for example, the the job field that's out there, like the potential for jobs if you want to study evangelical history, it's pretty dire out there.
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:22.480
Yeah.
00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:35.519
There's the Christian world where people are losing jobs more than I think getting them, and you are in competition with people that are actually extraordinarily experienced because they're coming out of schools that are closing down.
00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:37.280
And so that's not great.
00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:47.039
And then when you look at the world of just research universities, for example, and Dan, you know this, UW Madison doesn't really have anyone who studies American religion.
00:46:47.199 --> 00:46:48.000
That's crazy.
00:46:48.480 --> 00:46:55.920
It always baffled me that, like, you know, universities, 25% at a high estimate of the population.
00:46:56.159 --> 00:46:57.760
Forget about just a professor teaching.
00:46:57.920 --> 00:47:06.800
It should be like an endowed chair in uh 25% of the population, and you don't have anybody on the staff on the department in the department studying it.
00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:11.440
You would never say that about like, I don't know, Muslim studies or Jewish studies.
00:47:11.519 --> 00:47:15.199
And I'm not, you know, I'm just trying to, I'm speaking purely academic terms here.
00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:19.199
Uh it it is, it is, it is shocking at times, you know.
00:47:19.360 --> 00:47:19.519
Yeah.
00:47:20.320 --> 00:47:30.079
I
think that's is one of the reasons why we see scholars trying to justify their work so much with the political focus, is because that does get people's attention.
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:36.639
Like suddenly evangelicals are politically powerful, and then it's like, oh, we need to pay attention to them because we don't understand that.
00:47:36.800 --> 00:47:43.519
They can't explain the Trump election suddenly, it matters where evangelicals are coming from.
00:47:43.760 --> 00:47:59.760
And so there is that kind of relationship between political power and scholarship and the academic world that I think explains in some small way all of the works that we have on evangelicals and political power versus other topics that I think evangelicals themselves are like, why doesn't anyone write about X, Y, and Z?
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:05.760
When it is written about in certain sectors, you could have someone who studies American evangelicalism.
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:18.159
And, you know, I've said this before, evangelicalism becomes merely they're not studying it to try to fully understand the movement, but rather evangelicalism becomes a topic to better explain.
00:48:18.559 --> 00:48:22.400
It can't be true faith or religion or that these people actually believe this.
00:48:22.559 --> 00:48:26.159
It must be race or patriarchy or class.
00:48:26.480 --> 00:48:33.599
You know, I was brought up at a time where we were taught to teach, you know, this I think this was Henry May's essay, he wrote it back in 1964, right?
00:48:33.760 --> 00:48:45.440
Taking religion as a serious category of analysis in scholarship, as opposed to just the, you know, old Marxian kind of like, you know, it's the opiate of the masses or something like that.
00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:48.480
But to take it very seriously as a subject of discussion.
00:48:48.639 --> 00:48:59.039
So I think there's a lot, I, you know, not to disagree with you, Dan, but I think there's a lot of work being written about evangelicalism, but not as a kind of actual religious movement.
00:48:59.199 --> 00:49:02.400
It's more about evangelicalism is this.
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:04.559
It's really this.
00:49:05.039 --> 00:49:13.679
So, you know, uh, the person who studies gender history will write a book about evangelicalism because they're really interested in patriarchy.
00:49:13.760 --> 00:49:14.400
Or right.
00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:18.480
So uh I think that's a real issue here, the way it's being thought about.
00:49:18.800 --> 00:49:37.039
Yeah, and just to give my two cents, this is possibly self-interested reasoning because it justifies things like where I work, but I do think we're in a moment where there are there's declining and then new experimentation around institution types, and certainly not the first time in evangel American evangelical history that that's happened.
00:49:37.199 --> 00:49:43.360
All the Christian colleges that are now seem really old and established were all quite new a hundred
years ago.
00:49:43.519 --> 00:49:45.360
Many of them didn't even exist a hundred years ago.
00:49:45.519 --> 00:49:56.000
And that was, I would put you know, put sort of the turn of the century as another of these experimental moments where because of the Industrial Revolution, there were a lot of new rethinking of what does education mean?
00:49:56.320 --> 00:50:01.199
There were, you know, desires to do global missions, and so they create Bible institutes and all that.
00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:06.320
So we're in a much different moment in terms of what we care about than in 1900.
00:50:06.400 --> 00:50:23.440
But in another sense, there's a lot of continuity in this idea that this is a part of the evangelical world, is there's a lot of institution building and declining all the time as it's so decentered, and there's massive downsides to that too, personality-based and all that kind of stuff as well.
00:50:23.599 --> 00:50:42.239
But I do think that's you know, something we'll be looking at in the next 20, 30 years is will there be new successful institutional types that emerge that fill the gap of whatever's being lost in the curriculum of these Christian colleges or in their just disappearance for some of them.
00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:54.320
And you know, I was just reminded that we had an event last night and uh we were with Tim Mackey from the Bible Project, and he talked about that's a donor-based, you know, YouTube content production studio.
00:50:54.559 --> 00:50:58.400
And he talked about how it's a patron-based thing he does.
00:50:58.480 --> 00:50:59.760
Now it's a bunch of patrons.
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:01.760
And here we're patron-based too.
00:51:01.840 --> 00:51:06.880
We're we're funded by a foundation that's named after somebody, the Stephen Lowell Brown Foundation.
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:16.239
And one of Tim's points was that for the vast majority of Christian history, patronage-based scholarship was the norm.
00:51:16.880 --> 00:51:28.639
The actual oddity is the last few hundred years when we've created these universities, and and you know, there's so much good that's come from that, and we wouldn't even have our discipline without that development.
00:51:28.880 --> 00:51:37.599
But there's also something about like, well, Christians thought deeply about the past before there were universities, and they will continue if all the universities go away.
00:51:37.760 --> 00:51:42.480
Now, we here tend to do a different type of history than most Christian historians have done.
00:51:42.559 --> 00:51:50.880
We don't do church history or or sort of um, well, that would be what it used to be called, which is sort of like almost apologetic history for your version of Christianity.
00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:58.159
But we do do history, and that's something that's been around for a very long time, and and you know, Christians have cared about history for a very long time.
00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:20.480
And I'm I'm just interested to see will
there be sort of new patron models that emerge in in the near future that in some ways will be worse in certain ways than a university where you have academic freedom and uh all these other things, but it might be in other ways we allow Christians to ask or scholars to ask new questions about Christianity, about evangelicalism.
00:52:20.800 --> 00:52:22.960
I mean that's sort of what Substack is.
00:52:23.599 --> 00:52:24.880
In a weird way, right?
00:52:25.039 --> 00:52:27.519
You're crowdsourcing your own scholarship.
00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:31.679
Yeah, and that's a lot of our media culture now is is sort of moving to that model.
00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:34.320
Well, this is moving away from the educational stuff.
00:52:34.480 --> 00:52:39.920
But as I listen to you talk, Dan, I was thinking institutions are under attack right now.
00:52:40.159 --> 00:52:46.480
They're always under attack when a kind of populism is sort of dominating the political landscape.
00:52:46.639 --> 00:52:57.280
But then tying this into, you know, one thing we haven't talked about here is like tech, digital media, podcasting, Substack, you just mentioned Maggie, AI.
00:52:57.440 --> 00:53:07.119
To what extent is evangelicalism or evangelical, to what extent does it no longer exist in institutions, but it exists like online?
00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:15.119
Like literally, you have like Gavin Ortland, who is a staff member of his church doing YouTube videos.
00:53:15.280 --> 00:53:19.199
That's he's a YouTuber, and that's a position on the church staff.
00:53:19.360 --> 00:53:30.800
The debates that we have over complementarianism or politics or things are all happening on social media platforms or they're on they're on podcasts, right?
00:53:30.960 --> 00:53:37.360
So so what does this also mean for like the future of like the actual institution of the church?
00:53:37.599 --> 00:53:39.280
What is evangelicalism?
00:53:39.440 --> 00:53:48.239
It seems like now just an array of uh that's too strong, but it seems like a lot of evangelicalism is an array of digital media.
00:53:48.559 --> 00:53:53.840
Yeah, well, that that's been one of these definitions we've played around is yeah, it's largely a pattern of consumption, right?
00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:57.280
Yes, yes, mm defines evangelicals.
00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:07.440
Well, maybe we'll end with a couple reflections on history and the way a historical approach can benefit us.
00:54:07.599 --> 00:54:24.480
One of the things we've all noticed from the comments that we've received from listeners is people love the substance, they love you know the facts and learning about the past, but they've also given us very kind compliments on just the way we talk about evangelical history.
00:54:24.800 --> 00:54:32.079
Meggie, you mentioned this with people in your family finally understanding what what you what you're inter why you're interested in this, I guess, and and how you do it.
00:54:32.320 --> 00:54:48.880
What are our sort of
concluding thoughts on why, you know, with our case for why a historical approach to evangelicalism or evangelicals is useful for today when there are many, many people weighing in on this, what can history bring that other ways of talking about evangelicals can't?
00:54:49.199 --> 00:55:00.239
Well, I think we all struggled with this episode because it's a very it these producers asked us to talk about the future or you know where the where the movement's going, which is a great exercise, don't get me wrong.
00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:04.079
But I think we all put kind of our cards a little bit on the table today.
00:55:04.159 --> 00:55:20.079
If you haven't figured it out already, we are evangelicals, we're thinking about our own movement, but we're not thinking about it theologically, we're not thinking about it politically, we're thinking about it historically, and that requires a certain degree of detachment, which some of our viewers and people who sent us comments have mentioned.
00:55:20.400 --> 00:55:22.960
We talked about a little bit about this at the beginning of the episode.
00:55:23.119 --> 00:55:24.639
You know, why aren't you weighing in?
00:55:24.800 --> 00:55:29.760
But I think history is a sort of bedrock, bedrock way of thinking, right?
00:55:29.920 --> 00:55:44.719
You can't really weigh in, you can't really offer opinions, you can't really offer kind of, you know, right or wrong kind of things until you really understand the movement and all its nuances and all its complexities, right?
00:55:44.880 --> 00:55:58.639
You know, I'm sure, I hope, I would love it if people listen to our podcast and then like met in a small group and like debated the points, like and had knocked down, drag out arguments over this, you know, these kinds of things.
00:55:58.719 --> 00:56:00.320
But email us if you do.
00:56:00.480 --> 00:56:02.559
That would be Yeah, we'd love to hear about it.
00:56:02.719 --> 00:56:04.719
But you know, that's not what we're doing here.
00:56:04.800 --> 00:56:06.320
We're trying to lay a foundation.
00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:10.079
And I think that's why, uh, that's why some people, who are these people?
00:56:10.239 --> 00:56:12.239
Why are they are they evangelicals themselves?
00:56:12.400 --> 00:56:14.719
Why are they talking in such a detached way?
00:56:14.960 --> 00:56:20.880
And and it's not that we're, you know, we all go to church, we all are, you know, we're working at a Christian study center.
00:56:21.039 --> 00:56:22.559
It's not like we're trying to shy away from it.
00:56:22.719 --> 00:56:29.440
It's just like we are we have a particular discipline, and that is a way of thinking about the past and the present.
00:56:29.679 --> 00:56:34.639
We could debate about the future, which we tried to do a little bit today, but that's a way of thinking.
00:56:34.719 --> 00:56:37.679
It's a way of of being in the world, of understanding the world.
00:56:37.840 --> 00:56:42.800
And it's it's not better than other ways
of thinking, but it's it's a unique discipline, I think, that we bring.
00:56:42.880 --> 00:56:46.960
So I think it's important that this is a history podcast, right?
00:56:47.039 --> 00:56:50.719
It's not a podcast about sort of evangelicalism broadly.
00:56:51.199 --> 00:56:53.280
I like saying dispassionate more than detached.
00:56:53.599 --> 00:56:54.880
All right, detach- yeah, dispassionate.
00:56:55.760 --> 00:56:56.559
I'm very attached.
00:56:56.639 --> 00:57:04.079
Um, I'm very, but dispassion is sort of like a purposeful attempt to remove the passion or the emotion from the discussion.
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:05.199
Or the opinion, yeah.
00:57:05.280 --> 00:57:05.920
Yeah, right.
00:57:06.159 --> 00:57:07.360
It's an interesting perspective.
00:57:07.440 --> 00:57:14.880
And I think the reason I was drawn to history was that I don't love having debates over things that I don't know enough about.
00:57:15.039 --> 00:57:17.119
And I think that's relatable to most people.
00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:20.239
And in history, your goal is to know a lot about it.
00:57:20.320 --> 00:57:20.480
Yeah.
00:57:20.559 --> 00:57:20.800
Right.
00:57:20.880 --> 00:57:23.199
Like that's in and of itself the goal.
00:57:23.440 --> 00:57:29.840
And not necessarily to have a like, and this is right, this is wrong, but to know a lot about it.
00:57:30.159 --> 00:57:33.199
And I think people are looking for that.
00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:48.320
Um, and history is at least ostensibly a field where you should make bias clear, but also try to eliminate it as much as possible because we are trying to be ethical and responsible in the way that we present the past.
00:57:48.480 --> 00:57:52.239
And that's something that I just don't think comes from a lot of corners right now.
00:57:52.480 --> 00:58:00.639
And it is very important because I mean, we can go out there and try and shape people's minds and opinions to mimic our own, but that's disingenuous.
00:58:00.880 --> 00:58:03.679
And it also isn't going to be long-lived.
00:58:03.840 --> 00:58:05.760
There's not a strong foundation there.
00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:10.639
And I think that this is true of churches and religion as much as anything else.
00:58:10.800 --> 00:58:22.400
Like you want faith to be real, and I want people's opinions to be real and therefore based on a reality that's not going to change when they go and look something up themselves.
00:58:22.639 --> 00:58:34.719
And so having this kind of conversation where we're clear on this might be my bias, or this is what I've seen with my kind of research, et cetera, that is very relevant.
00:58:34.800 --> 00:58:52.159
And I think something that is what I look for when I'm looking into podcasts or books and things like that, because I want to be well informed and I don't just want someone to tell me that I should feel guilty about thinking one way versus another, or that I have to feel this way, or I'm not a good enough Christian, et cetera.
00:58:52.320 --> 00:58:56.719
And so that I think is something that the field of history can very easily offer.
00:58:56.880 --> 00:58:59.280
Now, importantly, not all historians think that.
00:58:59.519 --> 00:59:06.480
Some historians think that history is a very politically active, like you are an activist if you are a historian.
00:59:06.719 --> 00:59:07.760
So just know that.
00:59:07.840 --> 00:59:18.800
I think all three of us come from the kind of other school of thought, that it's not necessarily political activism that is inherent to the field of history, but just so people know that does exist out there.
00:59:18.880 --> 00:59:21.199
There are people who think that history is political.
00:59:21.599 --> 00:59:23.519
I think it's an issue oftentimes of integrity.
00:59:23.760 --> 00:59:26.320
You know, we've been tasked with trying to understand the past.
00:59:26.800 --> 00:59:37.679
I would feel very uncomfortable if we spent 12 episodes either praising how great evangelicalism has been, and or if we spent 12 episodes like trashing it.
00:59:37.840 --> 00:59:40.960
Oh, it gets theological here since this is the last episode.
00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:42.559
Take my history hat off.
00:59:42.639 --> 00:59:53.519
You know, if you if you do believe that human sin is a real thing, if you do believe that all human beings are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth, you're gonna get a messy story.
00:59:54.559 --> 00:59:54.880
Right?
00:59:55.360 --> 01:00:03.280
You're gonna have people doing heroic things, people doing villainous things, your heroes are gonna suddenly fall, your villains are gonna be redeemed.
01:00:03.519 --> 01:00:03.760
Right?
01:00:03.840 --> 01:00:10.079
You know, and so so again, that's a theological spin, but it's about the nuance, the complexity, and so forth.
01:00:10.400 --> 01:00:27.840
And then thinking about the complex stories that we tell when we speak about the past as it relates to the present, I think is so important because there's such a great danger to kind of cherry pick just the things we want to advance whatever agenda we want to advance in the present.
01:00:27.920 --> 01:00:30.000
And uh I don't think we tried to do that in this.
01:00:30.320 --> 01:00:34.079
I think we try to do it the best we can, right, with our biases, right?
01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:44.320
With integrity, try to understand this movement that I think we have all affiliated with, maybe even love, but also are very much aware of its flaws too.
01:00:44.880 --> 01:01:02.000
The the the dispassionate mode for me also it does what Maggie mentioned, which is try to get out of a what others have called presentism mindset, the a sense of you're really trying to sort of move people to do something with your history, which makes you tell your history in a certain way.
01:01:02.480 --> 01:01:14.800
I also think that I mean this may be a not a good way to to end the podcast, but I also think the stakes are pretty low in what we're doing here,
in a way that means we can talk a little more dispassionately.
01:01:15.119 --> 01:01:22.960
There's a famous quote I attributed to Henry Kissinger among others that the debates in academia are so vicious because the stakes are so low.
01:01:23.519 --> 01:01:26.559
So you can get, you know, really radical and it's like it doesn't cost you anything.
01:01:26.639 --> 01:01:35.199
And I've always I've always agreed with the second half of that, which is the stakes are pretty low in terms of real-world effects for a podcast, right?
01:01:35.280 --> 01:01:44.880
Like that I think things go off the rails when you start thinking that your podcast or your article is going to be the spearhead of the revolution.
01:01:45.280 --> 01:01:50.320
And so you need to, you know, pour all your your zealous energy into it.
01:01:50.800 --> 01:02:03.920
And so that dispassionate approach is a tend to try to calm that and say when it does come time to do things, it's gonna you're gonna be better equipped, you're gonna be better prepared if you have clear thinking and clear understanding.
01:02:04.159 --> 01:02:07.119
And that is only gonna come in a moment when you're not like that.
01:02:07.280 --> 01:02:08.800
Like you can't be worked up.
01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:17.440
It's very hard for humans or probably any creature to assess a situation clearly if they are worked up in the moment that they're trying to assess it.
01:02:17.599 --> 01:02:26.639
So I think that is something like the dispassion is like an intentional way of moving into a topic, whether it's history or something else, to say the stakes are pretty low right here.
01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:38.480
Like right here, we can just play with ideas, learn from each other, rethink things, actually change our minds, because there's nothing truly at stake in the sense that there's no winning or losing this conversation.
01:02:38.639 --> 01:02:42.000
There's no great crowd to inspire or something like that.
01:02:42.320 --> 01:02:47.679
I mean, that that's sort of a weird way to think about your work is it's it's actually not that important or not that stakes are high.
01:02:47.760 --> 01:02:48.320
I think it's important.
01:02:48.400 --> 01:02:58.400
I just don't think the stakes are very high for these types of conversations, which lets us talk about them in a way where we can talk about pretty horrible things that have happened in the past, but but with an eye toward understanding.
01:02:58.559 --> 01:03:04.639
And same with really good things without getting into that trap of praising or just trashing in sort of blanket ways.
01:03:05.119 --> 01:03:15.280
We're recording this at a week or so after the death of uh one of the greatest, I think, American historians of all time, Gordon Wood, died at the age of 92.
01:03:15.360 --> 01:03:18.639
And he has a famous quote: You'll see it on memes sometimes.
01:03:18.719 --> 01:03:23.760
He'll say, Um, if there's one thing you learn about from studying history, it's humility.
01:03:24.079 --> 01:03:28.559
I hope we were able to reflect that over the course of these 12 episodes.
01:03:31.920 --> 01:03:39.119
As we close this final episode of season one of American Evangelicals a History Podcast, we want to say thank you.
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Thank you for listening, for sharing the podcast, for sending thoughtful questions and comments, and for joining us in taking history seriously.
01:03:48.239 --> 01:03:59.360
Your engagement has reminded us that these conversations matter, not because they provide easy conclusions, but because they help us better understand ourselves, our communities, and our past.
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While this is the end of this 12-part series, we hope it isn't the end of the conversations that is inspired.
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History has a way of reminding us that every ending is also part of a much larger story.
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On behalf of all of us at the Lumen Center and SLBF Studio, keep asking good questions, keep listening well, and never stop learning from the past.
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To find other podcast offerings, visit SLBF.orgslash studio.