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- [00:01]
A
I was recently called for an incredible interview with the YouTube TV show what's Underneath in Los Angeles. It was a quick trip and just a couple days prior I had been gifted the book that was just released on August 5th, America's Best the Separation of Church and State by Dr. Randall Ballmer. I read it in one sitting. What unfolded was one of the most comprehensive but approachable readings about the history and critical importance of the American idea of the separation of church and state. It's a foundational tenet belief and a right that is now unfortunately under a lot of attack. And as soon as I was off the plane, I was emailing a mutual friend to connect me with Dr. Balmer to request an interview and he graciously accepted. Today we're going to talk about American history. Baptists as passionate fighters for religious freedom, the Founding Fathers reverence in preserving free exercise of religion and preventing state sponsored churches and schools, and the fight against Christian nationalism that we are experiencing today right here on Flipping Tables. Hello and welcome back to Flipping Tables. Just a couple quick announcements at the top of the hour. First of all, I want to thank everyone for your continued support on Patreon and all my socials, sharing my work. It has been truly incredible to be in this space. I have now a website that has been updated with all of the different things I'm doing and it is just my name, montemater.com that's m o n t e m a d e r dot com where you can find my podcasts, what I'm working on, updates about different projects that I'm involved in, as well as access to the Bible studies I've been teaching. And if you haven't heard me talk about those or seen those yet, these are scholarly studies that I'm doing bi weekly on Wednesdays to really discuss issues we've been told about the Bible or the history of the Bible and approach it from a very scholarly perspective in the sense that we talk about ancient history and linguistics and culture and how would the original reader have understood this? And my goal of it is to not, not to convert you to anything. I have no vested interest in that. I want you to be able to feel comfortable asking questions, be curious enough to dig deeper and then make up your own mind. One of my largest complaints with organized religion is that it teaches us to not trust our intuition. It often doesn't invite questions. This is the opposite of that. But you can find all the information about those studies and access to previous studies that we've done on my new website. Montymater.com Also, I have an updated email, so if you have stories that you'd like to send in about your experiences with occult or Christian fundamentalism or things you've struggled with or healed from, please email infomont. Com. You can also send in questions or even requested topics that you'd like to hear on the podcast. You can also just send me critiques or a nice note if you feel so inclined. I appreciate any and all of it, but all of my information is now going to be in one space on montemater.com and we're going to jump in today's interview, I'm going to give a little bit more of an introduction to Dr. Ballmer. He is the John Phillips professor of Religion at Dartmouth College and has authored over a dozen books including the Life of Jimmy Carter, Mine Eyes have Seen the A Journey into Evangelical Subculture, which was made into a PBS three part series called Bad the Rise of the Religious Right. And he was an expert witness in the Roy Moore case. When Roy Moore established a 2,000 pound granite Ten Commandments monument outside his courthouse. He was a witness in that case and has been studying and fighting for religious freedom for all Americans during his incredible career and writing a lot of books around these freedoms that we now enjoy. And he's going to join us today right now on flipping tables. Dr. Balmer, thank you so much for being here today on Flipping Tables and thank you for your work that you've done around this topic.
- [04:02]
B
Oh, you're very kind. I'm happy to be here. Thank you, Monte.
- [04:05]
A
So tell me how before we kind of dive into the book, give me a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up? How did you end up, you know, being an expert in religion and this type of history? How? Give us your story a little bit.
- [04:19]
B
I'll probably do the abridged version in the interest of time. I grew up in the Midwest. I was born in Chicago. Father was a minister in the Evangelical free Church for 40 years. And so we moved around a lot when I was a kid, from Chicago to Nebraska to rural southern Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, where I went to high school and then I went to college at Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, stayed on to do a master's degree at Trinity Divinity School and then to graduate school in, well, let's say deep into the last century, went to graduate school and my field. I, I think if I had to put myself on the couch, I would say that I became interested in American religious history out of a combination of factors. One was the Religion, of course, I grew up with, from my parents, growing up within what I call the evangelical subculture. But the other thing is that every year in June, as the annual conference for my father's denomination, the Evangelical Free Church, and it would be a different place all across the country, and we would pull pile into the sedan. He had an aversion to station wagons, and we would drive to wherever it was, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, or Green Lake, Wisconsin, or Seattle or Albuquerque, wherever it might be. And that would be our family vacation. And I just love those trips. I loved kind of seeing the scenery scroll by and watching the variations and taking in the different ways of life all throughout North America. So I. I think in many ways, my field allowed me to combine both of those things. So that's why I study American religious history.
- [06:05]
A
And when you went to divinity school, was there ever, you know, your dad's a minister. Was there ever a consideration of going into ministry? Or were you really just interested in the scholarship portion of it?
- [06:15]
B
My parents very much wanted me to go into the ministry and follow my father's footsteps. Put a great deal of pressure on me, actually, after I graduated from college to do that. And I didn't feel that was what I wanted to do, at least at that time. Later in life, I did become ordained. I'm an Episcopal priest. But it took a long time to get there. And I really wanted to pursue the life of the mind and scholarship. And I loved graduate school. I loved. I thought I wanted to get into teaching at the college level, mainly for the teaching and for trying to have the same kind of relationship that had so formed me at Trinity College. And when I got in graduate school, I found out I really loved doing research and writing as well. So I was able to combine the.
- [07:02]
A
Two things, which is pretty great. It's pretty great to be able to curate kind of the things you love and the topics you love. And what brought about America's best idea, the separation of church and state.
- [07:12]
B
Specifically, when I was in graduate school, my mentor was embarking on a long project, just the beginnings of a long project, studying church and state in America. And to be honest, I hadn't really thought much about the whole topic to that point, but I was an assistant on that project and I became very interested in it. And then, of course, studying American religious history, I understood the importance of religious diversity for understanding American history, but also understood the crucial nature that the First Amendment played in forming this religious culture in the United States, which I think is unmatched anywhere in the world. In terms of its energy and its vitality. And I think, I think it's precisely because of the First Amendment. So over the years, I've written about this in various times. I've written about not only the separation of church and state, which I think is foundational to who we are as a people. As I say, it's America's best idea, but also the importance of public education, which I think is crucial for the perpetuation of democracy in this country. And this is now being attacked, I think, as. No, as without precedent in American history. These notions are under attack.
- [08:31]
A
Well, and it's interesting that you and you bring up in the book that the separation of church and state is the reason we have this rich religious culture. Like, it's been of a great benefit to Christianity. But Christian nationalists will pitch it and say, well, it's because we're a Christian nation that we have this rich religious, you know, diversity and freedom, which is not the case. It's because they have the freedom to do so.
- [08:58]
B
Right? No, it's not the case at all. And to be honest, Monty, I'm genuinely flummoxed about this. This is not a show. I'm generally confused about this because I always like to say that the First Amendment is the best friend that religion ever had. And why you have these various individuals associated with religious right and now with the whole Christian nationalist movement trying to undermine the separation of church and state to me is just. It's counterintuitive. Why would you seek to undermine the very foundation of the faith? And I keep going back to Roger Williams. You know, the whole metaphor about the separation of church and state comes from Roger Williams. He wrote in 1644 that he wanted to separate the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world by means of a wall of separation. And that's the metaphor that, of course, the founders and Thomas Jefferson picked up as well. But I think what we, as 20th century or 21st century individuals miss about that metaphor is that Roger Williams and his contemporaries were not members of the Sierra Club. And what I mean by that is to say they understood wilderness as a place of darkness where evil lurked. And so when he's talking about shielding the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world by means of a wall of separation, his principal concern was maintaining the integrity of the faith lest it be compromised by too close an association with the state. And so, again, you know, I'm not posturing here. I'm genuinely baffled why these Christian nationalists and various other people in the religious right are trying to level this wall of separation between church and state because I think it's ruinous for the faith, but also I think it destroys the kind of free marketplace of religion that was set up by the First Amendment and the absence of an established church.
- [11:04]
A
Well, and what I can say from the Christian, again former Christian nationalist side is there's very much this idea of, well, if we're in power, we can force people play along and, and we'll just show them that they're wrong about the faith. And we can, we can make them believe this version of Jesus and this version of the faith that we've created. But what they don't realize is that. They don't realize that they're draining their own tires. They don't realize that what you're doing is actually going to set it up to where you'll never have the power that you have now ever again. But they don't. They don't see it that way. And for as much as they display Islamophobia and they talk about Sharia law, they want to establish the exact same theocracy we see in those dominant countries. It just has a different name.
- [11:47]
B
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And that it's, it's, it's not only dangerous for the faith, but it violates everything we are as Americans. You know, I, I consider myself a patriot. Not in the sense of waving flags or wearing silly red caps and things like that, but I'm a patriot in the sense that I think that we Americans always aspire to our highest ideals that are encoded into our charter documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And one of the foundational principles of these charter documents is the protection of the rights of minorities. Now, I hasten to add, we've been far too slow to guarantee those rights to all sorts of people in American history. Women, of course, people of color, obviously, Native Americans. That's a whole other story. But the arc of American history, I think, is a gradual embrace of those principles. And those principles are not majoritarian, as you were suggesting with your example a minute ago. That is to say, it's not as though, well, because a majority of Americans claim to be Christian, we should have a Christian country and we should revise and retool our laws and our criminal laws, civil law, according to what we consider to be Christian principles. That's not, that's not who we are as a people. That. That's a violation of our charter documents that always guarantee the rights of minorities. That's what makes me Patriotic. And that, frankly, is what disturbs me about the whole Christian nationalist boom right now, is that it's a violation of those principles.
- [13:39]
A
Well. And I find, and since the election, that I feel progressively more patriotic. And again, it's the same thing. I had this moment of, you don't get to take my flag and turn it into this fascist symbol. Like, I'm not gonna willingly let you do that. And one of the things that motivates me is growing up, you know, Christian nationalism is founded on this idea of American exceptionalism, that everything we've ever done is so great and so wonderful and so amazing. And because we're a Christian nation, that's why we've been blessed. And for me, part of my motivation now talking about the top that I do, is because I want America to be the nation I was told it was.
- [14:16]
B
Right?
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A
And that is, like, that's a huge motivator for me. And I don't think that people realize that even with this founding idea with Roger Williams, and for those of you that don't remember early American history, he's the founder of Rhode Island. He made those comments and founded Rhode island specifically for religious freedom because he was a victim of religious persecution. The Puritans were not tolerant people. They were not having it. And so, moving from Roger Williams, how does that idea start to show up even before the founding documents and then in the early Bill of Rights? How does that carry over?
- [14:52]
B
Well, I think that one of the things that we have to remember about the formation of this country and particularly the religious composition of the country, is the extraordinary religious diversity that was present at the time of the founding of the nation. When I teach my course in religion in North America, I. I project a slide of the. The Atlantic seaboard. And I asked the students to name for me the original settlers, the religious. The composition of the religious settlers, the kind of religion in each of these. Each of these colonies. And if you go through it, it's really, really quite remarkable because, you know, of course, you got the Puritans in New England, but you also have Pilgrims, which are different from the Puritans. And by the way, you mentioned the idea of the Puritans being intolerant. People often talk about Europeans and people from England coming to America for religious freedom. Yes, the Puritans did that, but they wanted to deny it to everybody.
- [15:53]
A
Yes, they wanted religion like freedom only for them. Only for Puritans, which.
- [15:58]
B
Which is. Which anticipates the whole Christian nationalist debate. But I'm wandering off the. The point here. Puritans Pilgrims in New England. You have Rhode island you just mentioned. Roger Williams is the founder of Rhode Island. He's also the founder of the Baptist tradition in America with these core principles not only of adult or believers, baptisms, but also liberty of conscience. And so in, in Rhode island, you have religious diversity. You head down to Connecticut, you've got a different band of Puritans in the New have come to the middle colonies. You got extraordinary diversity. You've got Dutch Reformed in New Amsterdam and New Netherland, Jews coming in 1654. You've got Huguenots who are French Protestants, you've got Quakers, you've got some Puritans, you got Lutherans, even Catholics in New York and New Netherlands. And then heading south, New Jersey, you've got Quakers, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed. Again, Pennsylvania is William Penn's holy experiment of religious toleration. So it's Quaker because he was a Quaker. But also you have these various smaller German groups, Amish, Mennonites, my favorite group, the Schwenkfelders, for example, in, in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Swedish Lutherans, you know, who knew? Maryland is English Catholics. And going to the south, you've got Church of England, but you also got Moravians. You've also got a lot of folk religious practices. And the point is that by the time that the founders were beginning to configure church and state for this new nation, they had to account for all these religious differences and diversity. And so they chose not to become involved in labeling one group as the state church. And that, I think, has been, you know, that's the foundation. That's the basis for the First Amendment, the separation of church and state. But also, as we said earlier, I think the, the foundation for the extraordinary religious life we have in America to this day.
- [17:56]
A
Yeah, and you brought up so New Netherland and New Amsterdam. And this was something I learned from your book that I didn't know before about Pieter Stuyvesant's attempt to try to suppress other religions other than Dutch Reformed. And this leads to the Flushing Remonstrance. What was that?
- [18:13]
B
Yeah, the Flushing Remonstrance was, was issued in December of 1657, and it was a protest against Peter Stuyvesant and his attempts to prefer only the Dutch Reform Church in Flushing, New York. And a group of 33 signatories, none of whom was a Quaker, banded together and produced this document that said, no, we think that in a sense, freedom of religion should prevail here in, in New Netherland. And they, they took their case. All the way to Peter Stuyvesant, but also eventually to the Dutch West India Company Company. And at that time, the Netherlands was the most tolerant society in Europe. And the Dutch West India Company came back and said no. They told Stuyvesant to stand down and to allow religious freedom and diversity in Flushing, New York. So the Flushing remonstrance is one of the first real articulations of religious diversity and religious freedom.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah. And when we get into like the Founding Fathers and the writing of the Bill of Rights, you know, James Madison kind of takes it on, even though he's worried about any, he's worried that any rights that aren't specifically named will be denied, which in some ways his fear has been actualized, that groups that aren't specifically named, you know, aren't guaranteed rights. But one of the things growing up in Christian nationalism, they use the faith of George Washington as a demonstration that we're a Christian nation. And they also use the word creator in the Declaration of Independence as a way of saying, see, we're a Christian nation. And how would you respond to those arguments?
- [19:55]
B
Well, creator is a pretty generic term.
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A
Yeah, it's pretty open.
- [20:00]
B
A lot of religious groups use creator. So I think that's, that kind of falls on its face. But yes, you're absolutely right. The whole Christian nationalist crowd probably led more than anyone else by David Barton, who is this faux historian out of, out of Texas, a graduate of Oral Roberts University, want to argue that George Washington and the founders were, were evangelical Christians. I mean, he says, if I'm not mistaken, he said 53 out of the 55 founders were evangelical Christians, which is just so ludicrous. Not even.
- [20:34]
A
And everything he said has been debunked and they still run with it. I mean, I grew up being forced to watch David Barton like he was, he was the authority. And it's. None of it is true.
- [20:45]
B
No, none of us. I mean, it's so bad that, you know, he had a, he had a book called the Jefferson Lies on the New York Times bestseller list, and it was so riddled with fabrications. I mean, he would just, not only would he wrench quotations out of context, he just made up quotations to support his argument. It was so bad that his very conservative publisher, Thomas Nelson out of Nashville, pulled this book from publication. And this was New York Times. But can you imagine what it takes for a publisher to pull a New York Times best selling book from the shelves? I mean, that, that, that really says something about the quality of his so called scholarship.
- [21:27]
A
Well, and Also, they're, you know, especially being a conservative institution, it would be different if it was a pretty neutral publishing house or even a left leaning one. But for, you know, especially now, it's, it's unfortunate that I think we're in a culture where the book wouldn't get pulled, you know, that publishers would just leave it on the shelves. But so much of his work, Ken Ham, other people who have been spreading all this information that just isn't true is not really being, they're not being held accountable for what they're saying or for what they're lying. And as long as it aligns with the rhetoric, it's allowable, right?
- [22:02]
B
No, you're absolutely right. And you asked early in our conversation why I wrote that book, what motivated me. And that's part of the motivation. I think it's important for historians to stand up to this sort of nonsense that for example, the founders were evangelical Christians and that America was founded as a Christian nation. It's important for, to have countervailing voices that, that marshal historical arguments rather than simply making up whatever they think will fit their ideology. And so I don't have any, any illusions that I'm going to stop David Barton in his tracks. I, you know, he's, he's just much better, bigger network than I have or will ever have. But I think it's important for people to stand up to it and say, hey, this is, this is nonsense. And you know, let me put it in larger context. For me, I'm, I'm a scholar. I mean, I love what I do. I love research and writing. And you know, there are things I'd rather do than write a book like America's Best Idea. There are other projects that I find much more compelling and engaging and I'm doing them. But I had to set time aside from those projects and do what I consider a kind of civic responsibility and say, somebody's got to stand up to this. Somebody's got to set the record straight. I'd rather it wasn't me, but since not many other people are coming forward, I need to do that. And you know, I'm happy to do it, but like I say it, I'd rather be doing other things.
- [23:36]
A
Frankly, I feel the same way. So my, the platform that I have now has really only recently grown to the level that it is in the last six months. And you know, I grew up in Christian nationalism. My dad was an amateur American history and World War II history historian. So I was grilled on these my whole life. So the three Topics I know the most about are very relevant right now. But it's the same as I feel because of my unique perspective. Like, I was groomed by my dad for law school. He wanted me to be Amy Coney Barrett. He was like, I'm gonna get you on the Supreme Court. We're gonna overturn Roe. My dad, I met Dick Cheney when I was 10. And so like, it was just, this was the environment. So having this unique perspective, I'm like, I would love to not be talking about this. I would love to not have these conversations, but it would be irresponsible of me not to because I'm capable and because I know so much in and outside of the movement. And it's good for you. It's so much. It's so frustrating being where I'm at now and seeing all the lies. And I used to buy into them. I believed that after birth abortions were real until I was 23. I believed all these whitewashed American history. I didn't know anything about the Civil Rights movement because they just focused on the moral failings of Martin Luther King. And that's why we shouldn't listen to him. But now I see what the Trump administration is doing and the flip flop back and forth about the Epstein files and the clear distractions and the lies, and I see people buy into it, but that's what I did for 20 plus years. Because you're in the system and they just keep reinforcing it and you're bombarded with lies. Cause on the same token that we have, you know, the idea of, well, they mentioned Creator in the Declaration of Independence. So therefore we're a Christian nation. We have the Treaty of Tripoli that says America is in no way founded on the Christian religion. And can you give like a little bit of history around the Treaty of Tripoli and why that statement was so critical and so important?
- [25:34]
B
Well, it's. I mean, the context was that after the American Revolution, the United States did not have a navy. And so United States ships were being pirated upon. I can't think of a better word right now at that time by the. Some of the Barbary coast pirates. And so a treaty was negotiated between George Washington administration and the Barbary coast states to end the privateering. And this was, as I say, negotiated toward the end of the George Washington administration, sent to Congress to the Senate for ratification with the full endorsement of John Adams, who of course, was the second president, read aloud before the Senate and ratified unanimously. Ratified unanimously by the United States Senate on July 7th I think it's July or June, I forget which, but either July or June 7, 1797, Article 11, as you suggested a minute ago, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli reads in part as the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, then it goes on to say, but, you know, again, as the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. That's pretty clear. The founding generation had a very clear understanding of what the new nation was all about and what the Constitution said about the religious disposition or the religious alignment of the new nation, which is to say nothing. That's what the First Amendment is all about.
- [27:21]
A
Well, and even in the Constitution, the only time religion is mentioned is that you can't prohibit someone from serving in office based on their faith. It's the only time they met. They clearly didn't think it was something that, if, if they really thought that being a Christian, like not Christian, was exclusionary to service, they would have said that. But the only thing they say is you can't stop someone based on their faith.
- [27:43]
B
Right. Which became an issue, by the way, or it was invoked, at least when Mitt Romney was a Republican nomination nominee for president. People were, A lot of people were objecting to his Mormon beliefs. And he pointed quite rightly to that article and said that there was no religious test.
- [28:01]
A
Yeah. And it's actually illegal to do that. But that's not to say that there weren't Founding Fathers who were trying to establish Christianity as a religion, at least in part. Like Patrick Henry in Virginia tried to establish Christianity. And what was, what was the response? And who were these figures that were trying to establish a state religion?
- [28:21]
B
Well, the issue was in Virginia, as for the whole nation, if we're going to establish a religion, the larger question is which one. Right.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Are you going to be Baptist? Is it going to be congregational, like in New England? Is it going to be Anglican? Is it going to be Dutch Reformed? And you know, I like to say if, if Unitarianism were proposed, everybody will be angry.
- [28:43]
A
Exactly. Everyone be furious.
- [28:47]
B
And, but in, in Virginia, the, the governor, Patrick Henry, who was very popular, proposed simply, well, let's just designate generic Christianity as the religion of Virginia. And this was a bill headed for passage through the Virginia assembly, and James Madison wisely was able to delay it. And that's where he wrote his famous memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Establishment, and in which he argues that there should be no religious designation for any religion in Virginia, or by extension in the New nation. And quite unexpectedly, the Virginia assembly agreed. And that paved the way for Thomas Jefferson to write his bill for religious disestablishment in Virginia, which of course, became a model for James Madison and the First Amendment.
- [29:45]
A
And what do you. I mean, outside of, you know, we do have the letters, you know, from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, and we have these other kind of documented cases where some of the founding fathers are privately discussing how important it is that there's freedom of religion. What do you think are the clearest written demonstrations we have of that? Freedom of religion was the goal, not the establishment of Christianity.
- [30:10]
B
Yeah, I think part of it. One example would be George Washington's letter to the Jews in Newport, Rhode Island. And he makes a very important point, which, by the way, many other people in the founding generation make. And that is to say that. That the freedom of religion is not merely toleration. And he actually, John Leland, who's a early Baptist leader and a friend of Thomas Jefferson, makes this point as well. He's emphatic about this. Let's not talk about religious toleration because the notion of toleration suggests that I will kind of generously grant you your ability to believe what you want.
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A
Yeah, I'm going to tolerate your bad behavior.
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B
Exactly right. And, and, and what George Washington was arguing, John Leland and and others in the founding generation is that toleration isn't good enough. We have to allow complete freedom of religion. And that, I think, is a very different matter. It's a different, I mean, the, the effect may be the same, but the, the disposition, I think, is very different to say freedom as opposed to merely toleration. And again, I'll. And Washington was clear about that in his letter to the Jews in Newport.
- [31:27]
A
Rhode island, and they were expressing concern that they would be excluded or persecuted in some way because they weren't part of these Christian denominations.
- [31:37]
B
Again, this is the argument once again against majoritarianism. And so the Jews were very conscious of that.
- [31:46]
A
And with Thomas Jefferson, I mean, Thomas Jefferson contributed so much to this idea. Even with the Jefferson Bible, you know, rewriting Jesus's story essentially without these implications of divinity, taking out all the miracles, like what is the doctrine? And Thomas Jefferson, he's like, I'm a true Christian in the sense that I adhere to the doctrine of Christ, which I just love that. That's exactly how I feel. And I just love that statement. But just kind of a little fun rabbit trail, because again, this was something I had remembered reading about it years ago. I want to Talk about the mammoth cheese. Because that story is so funny to me. And I was reading, I read your book and I was like, oh, I forgot all about this, but please tell us about Thomas Jefferson and the mammoth cheese.
- [32:34]
B
Well, this is John Leland, the guy that I was just mentioning that who talked about the toleration wasn't adequate that we have to. To extend full freedom of religion. John Leland was, he befriended Thomas Jefferson when Leland was a Baptist minister in, in Virginia. And then he took a congregation up in, in Massachusetts, in, in Cheshire, Massachusetts, which of course was federalist territory, not Jeffersonian, not kind to Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1800. And he wanted to demonstrate to Thomas Jefferson that he had some supporters up in. In Massachusetts. So he set out and sent out a call to the people of Cheshire, Massachusetts, most of whom were Baptists, and he wanted them to form a huge, huge wheel of cheese that they would send down to Jefferson. So they used a cider press actually for this wheel of cheese which weighed something like twelve hundred pounds.
- [33:33]
A
Oh my God.
- [33:34]
B
He also specified that no federalist cows be allowed to contribute milk to this cheese lest ruined the, the. The flavor somehow. And so after they made that cheese, which, and then they, they inscribed something to Thomas Jefferson on, on the, on the wheel of the cheese, on the, on the rind. And then they transported it down to Washington by sled down the Hudson river, then again my sled to, to over to Washington. And it arrived in the White House on New Year's Day 18 2. And Jefferson, you know, received it with gratitude. But that's the same day, the very same day that he drafted his letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut. And I think there's probably some. Not a coincidence that he was thinking about it on that day. And that's where he famously said that, that I regard with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people that calls for the separation of church and state thereby or calls for no establishment of religion thereby. In his words, Jefferson's words providing for the separation of church and state. And that's where the phrase come from. Now David Barton and all these Christian nationalists want to make a big deal out of the fact that the Constitution itself does not not contain the phrase separation of church and state. And I'm willing to grant them that point. They're absolutely right about that. The Constitution itself does not specify separation of church and state. But I think it's pretty important to understand what the founders themselves understood as the interpretation of the First Amendment. And Jefferson is very clear that the First Amendment called for the separation of church and state. By the way, these Christian nationalists, as you know very well, Monty, are big on originalism in approaching Constitution, First Republic. It seems to me that they should be interested in the originalism of Thomas Jefferson and his interpretation of the First Amendment.
- [35:45]
A
Well, and it's interesting. These are the people that wrote it and voted on it and established it, and they are saying, this is what we meant. Christian nationalists are like, nope, you didn't put the phrase in there, so that's obviously not what you meant. And you have establishments, Heritage foundation and sub genres, if you will, of Christian fundamentalism that want to, because of this First Republic originalism idea, erase every amendment after the Bill of Rights because they consider everything else to be a violation of what the Constitution was meant. But that's where we do enter the weeds of James Madison's fear. And granted, they were not talking about women when they established, you know, all men are created equal. So that had to be added to the Constitution. But the Heritage foundation and places like that want to remove that intentionally because they do not want those protections. And it's this intentional ignorance of. It's the difference, in my opinion, between scholarship and apologetics. Apologetics. I'm going to come at something and I'm going to find every talking point I can to beat someone in a debate or reinforce my argument. I'm not actually interested in what the truth is. And then you have scholarship that approaches these texts and says, well, we have all this evidence from their letters, their diaries, notes from the Constitutional Congress, and the documents themselves that really show us what they wanted and what they meant, because they knew how important it was. And many of them were spiritualists. They had a very different view of what religion is and a more flexible mindset. But we do have these periods in history, which is both encouraging and discouraging, where this. This intention of forcing the United States to be a Christian nation repeatedly pops up. And I think about the Civil War, where the Confederates, you know, claimed, well, the north is gonna fall because you're not Christian. And while our Constitution doesn't have a lot of conversation, any conversation about religion other than preventing you from discriminating based on it, the Confederate Constitution is laced with that. And I would love to talk about that a little more and how that affected how the north approached their policies.
- [37:55]
B
Sure. No, Absolutely. No. It's. It was a great crisis for a lot of people in the north because the Confederacy made a big point, as you said. And writing. Writing God into their. Into their Constitution.
- [38:07]
A
How convenient. God Told us we can own people.
- [38:12]
B
And so what happens is that there's a movement that develops in the north during the Civil War that goes by various names, but it's eventually called the National Reform Association. I guess you can call it an early form of the nra, but it's not the same organization, National Reform association, that proposes to amend the Constitution to write in all of this Christian language into the preamble of the Constitution, for example. And that was precisely, they said, their point, point to say, we acknowledge Jesus as the ruler of the nations. And, and all of this stuff, all this very Christian language. And this was a movement that, that gained a good bit of traction during the Civil War in part because, as you know, during the early years of the Civil War, the Union cause was not doing very well. And so a lot of people thought this was God's judgment against the United States for not writing God into the Constitution. And so a lot of Protestant ministers signed on to this. And the leader of that movement was a man named William Strong, who was a justice on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, later elevated to the U.S. supreme Court by Ulysses S. Grant. In 1870. They took their amendment to Abraham Lincoln in the White House, who wisely temporized and said, in effect, I'll get back to you about this. They never did that. And he said something of the fact that the work of amending the Constitution should not be undertaken lightly. And so he was able to put them off. But that was the. The first of, it turns out, many attempts throughout American history to amend the Constitution to make it into an explicitly Christian document. But that, again, goes back to our earlier point in our conversation. And do you think that they would feel the need to do so if they thought the Constitution itself was a Christian document?
- [40:06]
A
Right. If it was so clear, then you.
- [40:08]
B
Wouldn'T need to add it. Right.
- [40:10]
A
Interesting how that works.
- [40:12]
B
So that, you know, that argues against David Barton and his ilk as well, in addition to all the other overwhelming evidence.
- [40:19]
A
Well, and then we, you know, getting into. Into the 20th century, we get into the 1950s, where, you know, well, in God We Trust formally gets added to currency and under God gets added to the Pledge of Allegiance. And that's another huge argument point for Christian nationalists saying, well, see, we're under God. Now, granted, again, God is a very broad term. Which, which God do you mean? But what was the historical significance of adding that in the 1950s, like, long after original establishment?
- [40:48]
B
Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, it's a Cold War thing. It's a Cold War construct And, you know, and, and, but in the 1950s, Americans wanted to differentiate themselves from the Soviet Union. I mean, we were not godless communists. And so you see this huge spike in church attendance in the 1950s, and I think it's probably no accident, especially with Dwight Eisenhower as President, that you would have these two actions, 1954, adding under God into the Pledge of Allegiance, and then in 1956, replacing the national motto E pluribus unum, out of many one with one nation under God, which then of course is emblazoned on our currency and our coins, as Stephen Colbert says. Right where it belongs.
- [41:34]
A
Exactly. And growing up, and you're in education and so much of the Christian nationalist rhetoric revolves around protect the kids. Colleges are indoctrinating people. And one of the things that I grew up with was that America was my dad's phrase, going to hell in a handbasket, because they had taken prayer and the Bible out of schools. And I kind of want to talk about that moment in history, why those decisions were made and how that's impacting us now, because now we've got Texas and Oklahoma putting the Ten Commandments back in. They're forcing study of the Bible as curriculum. They're forcing prayer regardless of what a student's religion is, which Japan just deemed that forcing religion on a child, especially under fear of hell, is child abuse. So it's, it's a, it's a very, with like a huge span of ideas around this. But this was a core tenet of my upbringing was that the, the left, the liberals, the Democrats, whoever you want to put in there, was attacking God because they took the Bible and prayer out of schools.
- [42:42]
B
Yeah, well, and the issue is not prayer in public schools. It's prescribed prayer in public schools or mandatory reading of the Bible in, in public schools. And the court ruled, I think correctly, that that represented a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Now when that, that first decision was handed down, John Kennedy, of course, was the first Roman Catholic president, was asked about this as a news conference, and I think he very wisely replied, hey, this should serve as a reminder. First of all, we're not going to, we're not going to challenge the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, although these days I'm inclined to do that same. We're not going to challenge the legitimacy of this ruling from the Supreme Court, but this is a reminder for us to engage much more fully in prayer in our private, private lives. Right. You know, we can have prayer, you know, before 9 o' clock in the morning. And after 3 o' clock in the afternoon with our kids, anytime we want to the you I mentioned, other projects I'm working on. I'm trying to finish a biography of Mark Hatfield, who was an evangelical, a Baptist, and for 30 years the US Senator from Oregon and a person of deep faith. And when one of these amendments to allow prayer in public schools came up before the Senate, he got up before the Senate and said, listen, I'm a person of faith. You know, I believe in prayer. Prayer is a very important part of my life. And he said, I prayed in public school all the time, especially before math examinations. Right. Nothing in the Constitution, nothing in the Supreme Court ruling ruling prohibits prayer in school. The issue is prescribed prayer in public education. And the court ruled correctly that having prayer, prescribed prayer in public schools is a violation of the First Amendment. I remember years ago I was on some kind of debate or some sort of panel with somebody, you know, a religious right person who said, well, well, the way to avoid any difficulty in that is that we'll have a Christian do a prayer on or a Protestant do a prayer on Monday in school. Then we'll have Catholic on Tuesday, a Jew on Thursday, Wednesday, Hindu on Thursday and so forth. You know, like, well, let's just do kind of a smorgasbord of prayer. And that way it won't violate the First Amendment, you know. And again, I think I go back to Roger Williams and his worry about protecting the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world. And his concern was to protect the faith from being trivialized and fetishized. And I think that sort of approach trivializes the faith. I remember also some years ago when there was a controversy, a court case actually, that called for doing away with In God we Trust on our honor, our currency in the interests of. Of disestablishment. And I think, you know, there's a case to be made for that, frankly. But one of the people arguing against that was saying, you know, come on, nobody pays attention to this anyway. And what does that say as exactly as an argument? Nobody pays attention. You know, that's trivialization, it seems to me. I'll do one more example here. I may be getting far afield from Europe.
- [46:14]
A
Oh, no go. This is, this is your hour. Please do.
- [46:20]
B
You know, again, Roger Williams wanting to protect the garden of the church to protect the integrity of the faith. I was one of the expert witnesses in the Alabama Ten Commandments case many years ago when Roy Moore, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, plopped this two and a half Ton granite monument in the lobby of the Judicial Building in Montgomery, Alabama, emblazoned with the Ten Commandments. And when Judge Thompson ruled correctly that that represented a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and ordered the monument removed, one of the protesters screamed, get your hands off my God. And I think Montego agree that one of those commandments says something about graven images. Yes, and that was precisely Roger Williams point about shielding the faith, faith, the garden of the church, from the wilderness of the world. And I think that's a perfect example of that sort of thing. And then we also. I'm sorry, keep going. I'm filibustering here. I'm sorry, but you also mentioned the Ten Commandments. Now in what? Texas, Now Oklahoma. And someplace else recently, I forget where, Arkansas. I guess this is being pushed by the Christian nationalists. Let's think about that for a minute. These are people who want to declare that the United States is and always has been a Christian nation. Why the Ten Commandments? How about the Beatitudes? Better articulation seems to me of Christian principle. Or how about Matthew 25, when Jesus tells us to care for the widow and the orphan? Detroit treat the foreigner as one of our own, to care for the least of these. You know, if I'm a Christian nationalist and I was really serious about trying to put Christian principles in front of children or whoever it might be, I'd probably go for Matthew 25 over the, over the Ten Commandments. Just my thought.
- [48:26]
A
Well, they like Old Testament, judgment, God. They don't like the red words that much. It's interesting.
- [48:30]
B
Yeah, Leviticus is big because talking when.
- [48:32]
A
I, when I, because I do like, like biblical responses to certain comments and I'll pull out my Bible and just read it and I will have so many people in my comments and it's happened to other creators saying, you're attacking our religion. I'm like, I literally just read the words of Christ to you all. I did. And I think about with this, especially with school prayer and the Ten Commandments and this idea of nobody is like Christians think if I do not have an advantage and I'm not superior to, I am therefore being persecuted. And the persecution complex allows them to avoid accountability. Oh, you're pushing back on me because you hate Christ. No, I'm pushing back on you because you're trying to violate the religious freedom of other people. And there's this idea of, you know, on the one hand, they're defunding public education, teachers and professors are the devil and they're Doing indoctrination, when teachers and professors are just trying to, to help you learn and get through the course and understand it, like that's all they're trying to do. At the same token, those same teachers and professors are supposed to be responsible for the religious health of my child. That is your job as a parent, first of all, if that is something you want to impart to your child. But I also think of Jesus's command where he's like, but when you pray, go into your room and close the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Jesus was very clear about this private, internal, honest faith that wasn't done to be performative or get praise from people, which Christian nationalism. If you're ignoring all of the teachings of Christ, it's just performance, then all you're doing is trying to impress your, you know, cult of personality, so to speak. And now we have Christian nationalists talking about taking away voting, you know, again, openly talking about taking away voting rights for women and sending state interracial marriage back to the states.
- [50:30]
B
Yeah, it's insane. That's right. But this thing about praying privately or in your closet, didn't the Supreme Court say that we should be praying on the 50 yard line? I think that's, that was the, the effect of that recent decision, the Kennedy decision.
- [50:45]
A
Yep.
- [50:46]
B
And again, I don't, you know, I, I'm not trying to be facetious here. Maybe I sound facetious, but I'm not. I mean, you know, Jesus said, you know, performative prayer is not genuine prayer, essentially is what he's saying. And then you have these people taking this case to the Supreme Court where this coach out in Bremerton, Washington wants to lead his players in prayer on the 50 yard line after the, after their high school football. And the Supreme Court says, yeah, we're fine with that. I'm not.
- [51:15]
A
I'm not either. Again, especially when it's compulsory, you know, exactly like you. That is just such a intentional overstep. And again, it's this idea of I need culture, the government, public institutions to enforce my faith. And you don't get a choice in it. And you don't get to tell me, no, I have no issue with the Bible being in schools as part of a study of religion where you're looking at ancient texts and you're looking at the Quran and the origin of the Book of Mormon. I study religion all the time because I think it's amazing. I mean, I'm deep in a folk tradition and shamanism study era of my life. But this idea of. And the other thing to me is that if your faith is so compelling, if it's so good, you shouldn't have to exert force.
- [52:06]
B
Yeah.
- [52:06]
A
To.
- [52:06]
B
Exactly.
- [52:07]
A
To kind of promote this faith to people.
- [52:10]
B
Yeah. I don't know of anyone who's. Who's been coerced into the kingdom of God.
- [52:15]
A
I don't either.
- [52:16]
B
It just doesn't. I don't. It just doesn't work. I don't think. I don't think it works. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, you know, I'll try to put my historian's hat on. Well, it's never off, but try to put in historical content, I think, just to try to understand what you're saying. Because you're absolutely right in that characterization. I think what's happened over the last 50, 60 years, in part it's a reaction to the counterculture. I think that helps to explain the rise of the religious right, although the precise roots are in the defense of segregation, as I'm sure you know. But also I think one of the real foundational moments in American society over the last, again, 50, 60 years was the Immigration act of 1965 that did away with immigration quotas and welcomed immigrants from. Particularly from South Asia, Southeast Asia and so forth. And that really did. And I've seen it in my lifetime, it really did change the religious landscape of the United States. And so all of a sudden, these folks are saying, wait a minute, we may not be in the majority any longer. They're wrong. They are still in the majority, but they feel as though their cultural influence is waning. And the leaders of the religious right were very savvy and picking up on this and how the way they responded was to engage in this rhetoric of victimization and marginalization. Nationality. We're under attack. Our values are being challenged by all of these, you know, people of color, clearly immigrants and, And. And, you know, people engage in shamanism. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, Hindus or. Or Shinto or whoever it might be. And so I. I think what. One way to understand the religious right is that they are trying to now rejig the rules of engagement in their favor. That is to say, to undermine the First Amendment, which. The metaphor I'd like to use is free marketplace. The First Amendment set up a free marketplace for religion where religious entrepreneurs, to continue the metaphor, compete with one another for popular followings. Now, that is lent in a vibrancy and an energy to religious life in America that I think is unmatched anywhere in the world. But it's that competition that makes a lot of people on the religious right uneasy. That is to say that for most of American history, they've been winning that competition in part because I like to say that evangelicals know how to speak the idiom of the culture. Culture. They know how to, to communicate. And you go all the way back to George Whitfield and the open air preaching in the 18th century, the. The circuit riders and the colporters in the 19th century, and you're riding the rail lines, you know, planting Sunday schools, selling tracts and Bibles and so forth. The urban evangelism of people like Billy Sunday and Billy Graham in the 20th century, the, the suburban style mega churches, more recent vintage. Evangelicals have always been able to speak the idiom of the culture, and they know how to do so. They do so beautifully, brilliantly so. They've always been prevailing in that marketplace. But I think after 1965, they feel as though we're losing our hegemony over the culture. So we want to change the rules to our advantage. And one of the strategies is that we've been talking about, about to assert this Christian nationalism, to say, well, you know, America is and always has been a Christian nation and we need to embrace that once again. And if we do, then everything will be fine. But it's that victimization, that rhetoric of victimization that I think is key to that, to the energy of that movement. And I'll add parenthetically, I think one of the reasons that Donald Trump has captured, you know, four out of five white evangelicals in the past three presidential elections is that he speaks the rhetoric of victimization.
- [56:46]
A
He's better at it than anyone ever.
- [56:49]
B
Anyone I've ever heard. It's always about him. He's the victim, of course, but I think there's some kind of visceral way in which white evangelicals identify with that vocabulary, with that language of victimization. And that I think, helps to explain, doesn't explain entirely, but it helps to explain why white evangelicals would embrace, you know, thrice married, former casino operator and self.
- [57:12]
A
But don't, you know, morality is important for the president, don't you?
- [57:15]
B
Yeah, morality is really important.
- [57:17]
A
Well, and it is.
- [57:18]
B
Character matters.
- [57:19]
A
Character, exactly. I mean, I was born in the 90s, you know, grew, and I don't remember Clinton's presidency, but I remember, like being told over and over, characters important in the pres. And it is. They're so good at painting this idea of victimization when you're in your, you know, in your religion. Every major holiday celebration in your religion is a national holiday. What are you talking about? That you're under attack. They took, you know, taking the Christ out of Christmas. No, it's just that. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Kwanzaa, Blessed Yule. Doesn't fit on the banner Happy Holidays. It's easier and more cost effective. Like, it just. It's so excessive. But they're so good at this victimization. And growing up in this culture, it was very much, you know, again, the government's gonna come after you and they're gonna hold you at gunpoint and they're gonna tell you that. They're gonna ask you if you believe in God and it's your responsibility to die for your faith. And I grew up in Wyoming, so I was in Wyoming when Columbine happened. And so the story of Cassie Bernal, that gets taken and it's a lie, was thrown up into the ether. She said, yes. And you develop this whole culture of teens who are fantasizing about victimhood and martyrdom. And it was really ingrained in the culture of that time. And of course, Columbine has then spawned so many other, like, especially far right mass shootings. But they were very, very good at every. Like I. Except for Cassie Bernal and Rachel Scott. I don't even know the name of any of the other victims in Columbine. They were erased by this victim conversation of. She was targeted for her beliefs. No, she was targeted because these were sociopaths that wanted to kill people and they just chose people.
- [59:06]
B
She was there.
- [59:07]
A
She was there. And so it is this conversation of this victimhood that I think, based on what I'm reading in this rhetoric, really came into play after Watergate, when the new religious right was established. We are the victims. They're attacking us. And then back to your point of this is all about segregation. If you trace all the lines back, the attack on gay rights, the attack on women, everything leads back to, how dare you tell us we can't have segregation academies? And you wrote the Life of Jimmy Carter, and I would love to talk about his role in that. That the reason Jimmy Carter, who was a true believer, a true Christian, is so demonized by the religious right is because he took a stance on their racial prejudice.
- [59:59]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was. No, he. He. That was a big thing to him. His. His support for equal rights was a huge, huge part of who he was, and he refused to back down on it. Now, I think it's also true that he was kind of blindsided by this. I remember when my. One of our conversations, I asked him when he became aware that people like Jerry Falwell and others were against him. He says, my bro, My sister. His sister was a Pentecostal evangelist, Ruth Carter Stapleton, and sister talked to him one day and said, you know, Jerry Falwell and all these people are saying terrible things about you. And Kurt said, really? Why befuddled? Because he was, as you said he was. Was. He was trying to govern. And I think he did govern, frankly, according to his understanding of the scriptures, of the mandate of Jesus to care for the least of these and so forth. He's very careful not to. Not to traverse that line of separation between church and state. Because he was a true Baptist. Yes, he left today. There are not many left Baptists, real Baptists left any longer since 1979 with the Southern Baptist takeover. But he was trying to. To live that way. I mean, everything from the renegotiation of the Panama Canal treaties, because he realized that if the United States was to have any meaningful relationship with Latin American countries, we had to abandon our colonialism. And, you know, that was very important to him. The. The emphasis on. Emphasis on human rights. I know we're not talking about Jimmy Carter here now. I'll get off this in a minute here. But the. The abandonment of Jimmy Carter for Ronald Reagan in 1980, I think remains a real pivotal turning point in the history of American, both religion and politics over the last century.
- [61:52]
A
And it's, you know, it became such a symbol of how they were able to, you know, especially with the Southern Baptist Convention supporting Roe openly, repeatedly until the late 70s when Jerry Falwell, Paul Ryrich, all these people realized we have to galvanize the evangelical vote. But it was really the IRS and Jimmy Carter saying, hey, it's against the law for you to discriminate against black students. I mean, Bob Jones didn't get rid of their ban on interracial dating until 2000, you know, and it was really that. That they, you know, they realize, oh, you're gonna hold us accountable. We can't sequester ourselves and just ignore these laws, you know, because Nixon had no scruples except for power and victory. And so he had no motivation to enforce that law. Cause. Cause Greene versus Connolly was passed in 71. He had no need to do that. He wanted the evangelical backing. And Jimmy Carter had enough integrity to say, no, this is not like we're not doing this. And to see that the switch of how they. And the same way they weaponize Reagan. Reagan was not a deeply religious person. He had to be coached on scriptural text. And he didn't know it, but they created again and again another actor, TV person that they were able to coach, that they were able to coach into saying the right things at the right time. And you, that's, you know, you see this marriage of religion and politics happen there where this idea of if you're a Republican or if you're a Christian, you have to vote Republican.
- [63:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. That really starts, I think, in with that 1980 presidential election where, you know, evangelical becomes synonymous with the Republican. That's the, that's when the religious right starts to become really the principal constituency of the Republican Party in 1980. And you know, again, on the face of it, you have Jimmy Carter, who's a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher. Right. Family. Right.
- [63:52]
A
No scandals, no affairs, no multiple women, no nothing.
- [63:57]
B
And, you know, he, he wins the presidency in the post Watergate area era by promising, I will never knowingly lie to the American people. And no one has ever credibly accused him of breaking that promise. He never did. And that's, you know, that's quite remarkable. Especially the 45th president who I won't name, but you figure out, according to the Washington Post, evaluating his statements over the course of a 44 year presidency issued 30,573 false or misleading statements. 30,573. And these are the same people who want to post the ten Commandments on the schoolroom walls.
- [64:40]
A
Yep. The hypocrisy smells, it stinks. And I don't like. It's just, and, and even, you know, I, I saw a video yesterday. So they have. Democratic Representative Nicole Collier in Texas is being locked, she's been locked in Texas chambers and she's being held there till Wednesday because she won't sign a permission slip to have a police escort, like take her home, stay outside her house, bring her back to chambers. And she's like, I'm not signing away my freedom like that. You don't have the legal right to do that. But that's what Republicans are deciding. But as I was reading about her statement, they have a picture of her, she's sleeping on the chairs. It's so I can't. But Greg Abbott, Gavin Newsom has been increasing his resistance and his social media team has been quite spectacular the last week. But Greg Abbott comes out and gives this speech about what Gavin Newsom is doing is immoral and illegal and we're gonna challenge it. And I was like, excuse me, sir, do you hear yourself? Because you are doing the exact same thing. And the only reason that Gavin Newsom is responding is in an effort to try to keep things equitable, he's not taking as many seats as he could because he could just do it. He's putting it to a vote and only for the number of seats they need to offset Texas's gerrymandering. The hypocrisy is just so overwhelming and insane.
- [66:04]
B
It is.
- [66:05]
A
And you know, what are you thinking about? Because you mentioned like right away in our interview, you know, this, we do have this war on education. Why do you think that that is happening and what do we do against it? Because with these school voucher programs we're gonna have, public schools are gonna be defunded, which is such a critical piece of having a middle class. It's a critical piece of freedom. An uneducated population is much easier to abuse and misuse. Like, why do you think it's happening now and what do we do to push back on that, in your opinion?
- [66:40]
B
Well, it's, it's a really cynical thing that's happening in, in a lot of these states. And it starts with a failure on the part of these legislatures that, you know, I have to say it for what it is, Republican dominated legislatures with a Republican governor. And I, you know, I don't say that happily, but it's, it's descriptively, they, they starve public schools of funding, underpay the teachers, and then they circle back two, three, four, five, six years later and say, oh, look, our schools are failing. We can't, we can't allow parents to send their children to schools like that. We have to provide vouchers to let them attend private and religious schools. So this is, I mean, it's a very, very cynical thing that they're doing. And you know, getting back to the whole notion of, of the First Amendment and the separation of church and state, one of the bright lines throughout American history has been the use of taxpayer money for religious education. Now, in the 19th century, there was an attempt in the, in the, in the, in Congress to pass what became known as the Blaine Amendment, which was sponsored by a Republican politician from Maine, James Blaine, to forbid the use of taxpayer money for religious schools. Now this was directed against Catholic parochial schools, and we have to be clear about that. So the, you know, the origins of that are, you know, you know, a little bit dicey, and I acknowledge that, but I think it was nevertheless a good principle. It did not pass the Senate. It Passed the house, but not the Senate, but 37 states adopted some version of the Blaine amendment that forbade the use of public funds for religious or private education. What's happening now, as you suggested, is that with the complicity of the supreme court, and I often say I wish the supreme court had half as much deference to the first amendment and the separation of church and state as it does to the second amendment rights, the right to carry fire, firearms. You know, we, the. The supreme Court is steadily eroding this wall of separation between church and state. And now what we have is all these states passing these so called voucher bills that allow for the use of public funds for religious education. I think this is a terrible idea. I am a passionate defender of public education. I'm a product of public schools myself and I'm very proud of that. That. But I think that public schools is the only. Public schools are the only place in our society where you have children from different religious backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, coming together in the classroom, on the playground, learning about what they have in common, learning to explore their differences and getting along with each other. No, I recognize that's an idealistic version. It hasn't always happened that way. It hasn't always lived up those ideas. I recognize that. But I don't think we as a society can afford to give up on that ideal. I think if we care about the future of democracy, we have to care about public education. And I. This is the probably the thing that makes me most despondent these days. And there's a lot depressed out going on in our society right now. But this systematic undermining of public schools and public education is what probably worries me more than anything else.
- [70:37]
A
I feel the same way because I understand that education is freedom. Education is the great equalizer because it is your way out for a lot of people. And with the rollback of dei, which DEI benefited white women more than any other group, you know, it's the reason that I was able to go to colleges because of dei. And you know, you see as well like the. In the big ugly bill, they're now limiting how much you can borrow for school. So that's going to limit how many people can be lawyers and doctors and get high paying jobs, become a professor and scientists, you know, we're cutting research and I see it as twofold. Is, you know, growing up in Christian nationalism, They're very careful to control their, the circle of your knowledge. Like they control what you watch, what you can listen to, who you can listen to. Because it's easier to buy into the dogma if you're only hearing one thing. If you learn how to critically think and you study these issues for yourself, the dogma falls apart pretty rapidly. So I see it as a direct attack on women because women are outpacing men in college. They're outscoring men. They're getting better jobs now. And I also think it's really falling in line with their ideal of creating this Christian theocracy that it's just so much easier to control if you can indoctrinate people. And not having access to education and knowledge is. And it's the idea of sending tax dollars to a school, sending public funds to a school that doesn't have to take the public.
- [72:09]
B
Right.
- [72:09]
A
They don't have. They get to pick their students while accepting public funds, and they are not subject to audits.
- [72:16]
B
Right. No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's really cynical. It really is. And, and, you know, and, and I think what you were just articulating is exactly why you have the, you know, this nutcase out in, in Idaho who's saying that 19th Amendment should be, should be repealed. You say it's, it's, it's, you know, you can't, you can't control the way we. Early in my career, when I was at Columbia, I taught Columbia for 27 years. We did a, a departmental project among the faculty trying to study fundamentalism, trying to understand what fundamental was. And we did so, you know, Jewish fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism, all these different forms of fundamentalism, not simply Christian fundamentalism. But what we determined that was the. Was the one unifying characteristic of fundamentalism across these various religious traditions was the attempt to control women. That's what made them all fundamentalists.
- [73:16]
A
Yep. And what better way to do that than to say, than to take your ideals and your prejudice and your misogyny and say, well, God said, yeah, like, no, he didn't. Because, I mean, you look at Paul's sexual ethic. Paul said, remain unmarried, don't have kids, serve God. You know, so, like, which part of the Bible are we talking? It's just, it's all a lie, but it really is about, you know, impregnating women at a much younger age, limiting their access to education and resources, which limits their freedom. And also we have Republicans who push, who have pushed, especially the last two years, to maintain child marriage, which then if you marry someone under 18, they can't vote by default. So by default, you're creating this head of household voting is what they call it. And it's so incredibly sinister. And to me, nothing says I'm insecure quite like I have to dominate everyone around me because if they compete with me, I might lose.
- [74:10]
B
Right.
- [74:11]
A
Like, it's just.
- [74:13]
B
Yeah. But we were talking about Jimmy Carter before, and Jimmy Carter, of course, was very much at odds with the Southern Baptist Convention after the Southern. After the conservative take takeover in 1979. But one of his points about women's ordination was that, yes, it's possible to go through the Bible and cherry pick verses and that suggests that women should be subordinate to men. But you know, I think, well, first of all, you have to deal with Galatians 3. 28 with Paul, that in Christ there's neither male nor female, saved, slave nor free, junior Greek and so forth. But also, I think you look at the way that Jesus treated women. Jesus was never condescending to women Jesus. And especially in the context of very patriarchal society in first century Palestine, he was very accommodating and very understanding of women. And I think his example flies in the face of what a lot of these people are trying to argue now with women being subordinate and as Doug Wilson says, only good for, for producing babies, which is not including that sort of thing.
- [75:18]
A
I was so enraged and I was like, I know that this is what you people think because I remember hearing it growing up, but I am so angry. And it's just, it is. And it's just this deep seated insecurity that they've dressed in Bible drag, they've stamped Jesus name on it, and it has nothing to do with scripture or the heart of scripture. You look at Jesus kind of changing the divorce paradigm in an effort to protect women and give women a more equal standing with men in their marriages. And you see Jesus not condemning the woman who committed adultery and unironically, the man who was committing it with her was not brought before him. The longest recorded conversation Jesus has is with the Samaritan woman who was a different race, a different religion. She'd been married five times. Zero condemnation, none. And I don't think that you can take an honest look at the life of Christ and say that that subjugating women is a Christian tenet. And not in all honesty, no, there's.
- [76:16]
B
No evidence for that at all.
- [76:18]
A
And one of the things I will say about like, so my following, I do a lot of reading recommendations. I have one of the. My challenge to my followers is don't take my word for it. Fact check me. Be eternally curious don't let people tell you what to believe. Discover the truth. Do you have any books that you. Was that you think are just critical reading for people, especially during this time?
- [76:42]
B
Oh, goodness. I, you know, I mean, there are a lot of Katherine Stewart's book, the Power Worshipers, Tim Albertus Alberti, is it Alberta. Alberta, I think would be an important book to read. Kristen demay's book on Jesus and John Wayne, I think, you know, I, I, yeah, it, it, it's, you know, I have some qualms with it, but I think that's an important book. I'd be remiss if I didn't include America's Best Idea.
- [77:15]
A
That's why we're here.
- [77:18]
B
And, and also, I mean, you know, I actually have been. Last few books have been very slim volumes. So, as you know, America's Best Idea is a slim volume. But also, since we were talking about it before, Bad Faith, Faith, Race and the Rise of Religious Right. Looking at the real origins of the religious right, as you, as you noted, what I try to do in that book is destroy what I call the abortion myth, the fiction that evangelicals organized politically in the 1970s in opposition to abortion. And it's simply not true. There's just no evidence for it at all. So, actually, ironically, the first prominent evangelical to oppose abortion after the Roe v. Wade ruling was the guy I'm writing about, Mark Hatfield, the Republican senator from Oregon.
- [78:04]
A
Really?
- [78:05]
B
Yeah. His first one. First one, yeah.
- [78:08]
A
Was it, was this as part of the movement or was this just strictly his principle?
- [78:13]
B
No, that was him. That was him. He was, he was, he was years ahead of people like Falwell and, and Wyrick and James Dobson. Years ahead of any of these people.
- [78:23]
A
I'm preparing a full length podcast episode on James Dobson and all the tomfoolery that goes on there. And the fact that he was mentored by a white supremacist eugenicist who was an atheist.
- [78:35]
B
I did not know that.
- [78:36]
A
Yeah. Paul Popeno. Yeah. So James Dobson worked for him as an intern. He was mentored by him before he branched off to establish focus on the family. Because Paul Popeno is the father of Christian marriage counsel. Because when eugenics fell out of favor after World War II, his marriage counseling ideas were white women should never marry outside their race. They should never take birth control. They need to have as many kids as possible. They can't leave their husbands. And the only people that would really latch on to how extreme his views were were evangelical pastors. So he started mentoring evangelical pastors to Teach that in marriage counseling. And that was how Christian marriage counseling got established. So now you have this tradition in the church of, of if your husband's abusive or he cheats on you, well, you just need to submit more. You need to stay with him. But if the inverse happens, the woman gets kicked out of the church. But it all comes from Paul Popeno, who was a very like, dominant, proud eugenicist Pre World War II, and then just kind of changed his flavor a little bit afterwards.
- [79:37]
B
Well, and your follow up on that is Dobson's protege, Tony Perkins, and his ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
- [79:45]
A
Yep. And so, you know, again, it's. It's almost like. It's almost like the morality isn't a big deal for them. It's almost like there's a lot of skeletons in the closet. So where can I would love please give some of the books that you've written that people can find. I don't know if you have any. A substack or a blog that you write on anywhere people can find what you're working on or support your work.
- [80:06]
B
Yeah, I keep a website, randallbalmer.com. all one word. Randall2L's ballmer.com. i try to keep up with that. I, I do a lot of op eds for newspapers. I know that's very much old school, 20th century sort of communication, but I'm an old guy, so that's, that's my idea of, of how to. To get the word out. But this, this latest book, America's Best Idea, Bad Faith. I did another little book called Saving Faith. How American Christianity can Recover its. Its Prophetic Voice, Reclaim its Prophetic Voice. So that's a recent book. I don't know. Go back to. Oh, well, the biography of Jimmy Carter Redeemer, I think is certainly relevant to our conversation and into these issues. So I'll just, I'll leave it there.
- [81:00]
A
Yeah. And all this. I'll be. Have this in the show notes so people can find your work. Thank you for taking the time. I. I know I kind of bombarded you as soon as I read your book on a flight to la. I immediately got up and was emailing saying I need to talk to you. Because I think that you have done such a. One, it's maybe the most important conversation I think that we can have right now. And you did it in such a beautifully thorough but approachable way that this is something I do gift boxes for some supporters I have every three months. And this is gonna be the book that I send them. Cause I Send them a book with each gift box. But thank you for putting in the time and the effort to have that conversation and teach people. It's so important and I'm just, I'm so grateful.
- [81:46]
B
Oh well, thank you for what you do as well. I, I, I, I don't know a whole lot about it but what I've heard is it's very, very good and very impressive.
- [81:55]
A
So thank you.
- [81:56]
B
Keep faith.
- [81:57]
A
Trying, trying. I do know that I, I remind, I keep myself hopeful by reminding myself that empires for and I'm like this is an extinction burst. It's a moment in history that's life changing. We're making history right now and I appreciate that. When you're faced with things that are so clearly fascist, so clearly wrong, the choice gets really simple. Like the choice is you fight it, you resist it. There's no other option and the only option is forward. So again everyone I would encourage you to go to Professor Ballmer's website, randallbalmer.com and read his book America's Best Idea, the Separation of Church and State. And thank you for your work and for your voice.
- [82:41]
B
Thank you. I appreciate it.
- [82:43]
A
Thank you again so much to all my Patreon supporters. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the podcast. Please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It is the number one thing that helps me in this particular creative forum. Also check out my YouTube as there's going to be more mid level content as far as about 10 to 25 minutes coming out on YouTube channel. You can just do YouTube Monty Mater and right now I'm going to give some of my Patreon shout outs for those who have chosen to sponsor my page as part of their perks. And I'm going to read the names as they appear on the signup. Thank you Heather for your support. Deb Lawrence, Anthony, Corallo T Ham, Candace S, Lisa, Graham Bush, Christie Benjamin, Mai Crystals Part 2 Yankee Veg, Pinky David Casimirs, Jane Fergus, Jesse Howard, Kelly, Priya Jacob, Amy Link, Dana Samples and Tara Willingham. Thank you so much for your support. I am giving myself a template to remind myself to do all these things for the podcast. Thank you for having the courage to be curious and to learn a little bit more each week and I will see you next week on Flipping Tables.
- [83:52]
B
Sam.