The Bible Says So…or Does It?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Reveal – "The Bible Says So…or Does It?"

Date: December 24, 2025
Host: Al Letson
Guest: Dan McClellan (Bible scholar, author, TikTok creator)

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Overview of Episode Theme

This episode of Reveal dives into the persistent misinterpretations and politicizations of the Bible, the gap between scholarly understanding and public perception, and how those in power often use scripture for their own ends. Host Al Letson interviews Dan McClellan, author of "The Bible Says What We Get Right and Wrong About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues," whose TikTok fact-checks have made him a leading voice demystifying biblical texts in the digital age.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise of Christian Nationalism and Scriptural Abuse

• Dan McClellan highlights how scripture is seized by “Christian nationalists” to control government and justify harm.
  • Quote: “That's the hot new thing right now is to be a Christian nationalist…unfortunately, it means hurting an awful lot of people along the way.” (00:02 – Dan McClellan)

2. The Scholar’s Path: From Academia to Social Media

• Dan discusses feeling like an “academic failure” before finding his niche online, using TikTok to bridge the gap between scholarly biblical knowledge and everyday believers.
  • Quote: “There's a very big gap between…scholars and experts talk about the Bible and…folks on the street or in the pews... The more I learned…the more that gap bothered me.” (05:17 – Dan McClellan)
• He stresses that TikTok offered a platform for “calling balls and strikes,” combating misinformation without allegiance to dogma.
  • Quote: “I combat the spread of misinformation about the Bible and religion for a living. And I wouldn't take a university position right now if somebody offered me one.” (06:50 – Dan McClellan)

3. Making Scholarship Relatable

• Dan and Al share their pop-culture roots and how this accessibility appeals to broad audiences.
  • Quote: “There are an awful lot of folks out there who find my work relatable precisely because I do not come across as some stuffed shirt Ivory tower academic.” (08:14 – Dan McClellan)

4. Social Media’s Role in Spreading Scriptural Misinformation

• Al remarks on the power of social media in amplifying warped interpretations; Dan explains why the Bible is such a tempting tool for boundary-setting and justifying power.
  • Quote: “If you can leverage that [the Bible] in support of your identity... that is a very attractive instrument…[often] used as a tool against less powerful people and groups.” (09:13 – Dan McClellan)

5. “The Sin of Empathy” – A Modern Distortion

• Dan rebuts the current right-wing claim that empathy is sinful, explaining the Bible does not denounce empathy:
  • Quote: “There’s certainly no point where anyone says empathy is a sin, just in general…” (11:07 – Dan McClellan)
• He discusses how empathy can be used both positively (outward-looking) and negatively ("parochial empathy"—empathy only for one’s in-group), and how current claims about “the sin of empathy” confuse the two to protect privilege.
  • Quote: “The folks who talk about the sin of empathy are primarily defending the bad kind of empathy and criticizing the good kind of empathy. So I think they have it precisely backwards.” (13:57 – Dan McClellan)

6. The Bible as Story, Not Simple History

• Responding to Al, Dan explains the Bible is not a history book but a collection of ancient texts with diverse rhetorical and propagandistic goals.
  • Quote: “The Bible was certainly not written as a history book, and I think overwhelmingly the Bible is a collection of texts from that time period... intended to try to do certain things with the audiences.” (22:03 – Dan McClellan)

7. The “Wrathful God” of the Old Testament vs. the “Loving God” of the New Testament

• Al shares a common perception of God changing from wrathful (Old Testament) to loving (New Testament).
  • Dan clarifies there are both wrathful and loving depictions in each, and that such dichotomies can serve anti-Semitic narratives.
  • Quote: “You've got a mix of both in both sets of texts. And it's really your choice what you choose to emphasize…” (26:29 – Dan McClellan)
  • Memorable Moment: Dan recounts how a joke he once shared about "Old Testament Santa" was called out by Jewish scholars as problematic, which changed his perspective. (27:22)

8. Wealth in the Bible and the “Prosperity Gospel”

• Al recalls childhood church teachings: “it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven.”
• Dan debunks modern attempts to reinterpret this verse to excuse wealth; insists original context is clear that riches are seen as a genuine spiritual obstacle.
  • Quote: “It’s very rare that we have someone…in a position like that…think critically enough to realize, this is about me. This is saying that I am the problem…I better fix myself.” (30:59 – Dan McClellan)

9. Personal Faith vs. Academic Study

• Al asks Dan about balancing deep scholarship with personal belief. Dan is private, but describes how he compartmentalizes the academic and devotional approaches.
  • Quote: “I have always tried very, very hard... to ensure that I was compartmentalizing my academic approach to the Bible from my devotional approach to the Bible, keeping them firmly separate, which is not an easy thing to do…” (33:06 – Dan McClellan)
• Dan identifies as a member of the LDS Church but does not engage in pastoral work, focusing instead on presenting scholarly data.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think an awful lot of people spend an awful lot of time trying to read their own ideologies…into the text.” (09:13 – Dan McClellan)
• “Empathy is important to the survival of humanity...” (11:44 – Dan McClellan)
• [On social media distortions:] “Sometimes the image of Jesus... that comes in my mind is Jesus riding horseback on a Tyrannosaurus Rex.” (14:51 – Al Letson)
• [On his personal learning curve:] “I couldn't unsee it. Once I accepted that people with very different experiences…are going to feel differently…” (27:05 – Dan McClellan)
• [On prosperity gospel and privilege:] “What is far more common is for someone to bring their own experiences to the text and say, I was right all along.” (31:43 – Dan McClellan)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:02 – Opening on Christian nationalism and scriptural abuse
• 05:17 – Dan discusses the gap between academia and the public
• 09:13 – Social media’s amplification of biblical misinformation
• 11:07 – Addressing the “sin of empathy”
• 22:03 – The Bible: historical document or a collection of rhetorical stories?
• 24:33 – The alleged transformation of God between Testaments and anti-Semitism
• 27:05 – Dan’s personal lesson on the dangers of casual stereotypes
• 29:10 – Wealth, prosperity gospel, and the reinterpretation of "camel/eye of the needle"
• 33:06 – Balancing scholarship and faith

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Final Thoughts

This episode weaves reflections on scholarship, social dynamics, and personal growth with energetic, sometimes humorous conversation. Dan McClellan provides both data-driven insight and humility, and Al Letson’s relatable perspective helps unpack how beliefs about the Bible are shaped—not just by ancient words, but by modern motivations and social structures.

For more on this topic, check out the book The Bible Says What We Get Right and Wrong About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues and Dan McClellan’s TikTok for accessible myth-busting.

Transcript

[Dan McClellan]

That's the hot new thing right now is to be a Christian nationalist. And I think a lot of people are jumping at the opportunity to get on board this attempt to take over the government on the part of Christians. And unfortunately, it means hurting an awful lot of people along the way.

[Al Letson]

On this week's More to the Story, we bring you one of our favorite episodes from earlier this year. I sit down with religious scholar Dan McClelland to talk about what people get wrong about the Bible and how its teachings are often used and abused by people in power. Stay with us.

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[Al Letson]

Instead of taking a break from the news or joining any yuletide celebrations right now, you're choosing to listen to us and I thank you. We have a great opportunity for you, dear listeners. Until the strike of midnight on January 1, a board member will match your donation. Your gift will go twice as far to support critical investigative reporting in 2026. Just text the word give to 88857 reveal. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org 2026 thank you. And hey, if you're just here because you're taking a break from your mother in law's critique of your scalloped potatoes. I think they're delicious. You're welcome. This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson. We're bringing you a conversation recorded earlier this year, one of our favorites and one that we thought would be nice to revisit ahead of the holidays. Because it's all about the Bible, a book that's often quoted and referenced and often misinterpreted. Just ask Dan McClellan, author of the book the Bible says what We Get Right and Wrong about scripture's most controversial issues. He spent his life learning and relearning what the Bible and its authors were trying to tell us. After years of studying religion at universities like BYU and Oxford, he found his calling on TikTok, where he regularly debunks what he sees as misguided interpretations of the world's most argued over book. Dan, how are you?

[Dan McClellan]

I'm doing well. Things are busy these days, but I'm always happy to sit down and talk rather than write emails.

[Al Letson]

Yeah, so you got a new book out. But wait, before we get to that, before we get to that, I should tell my listeners that I am such a huge fan of your work. I've been following you for a while and I think I came across across your work because I am the son of a preacher man, grew up in the church and definitely have my own religious beliefs. But what I love about the work that you do is you are just kind of demystifying the Bible and putting it in context.

[Dan McClellan]

Hey, Everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. I'm a scholar of the Bible and religion and I thought I would introduce myself and my channel. For those of you who are America.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

If you've read Revelations is not in.

[Dan McClellan]

Revelations, the book title is Revelation, not Revelations, it's not plural, which many scholars.

[Al Letson]

Believe to be the earliest.

[Dan McClellan]

So any such scholars are going to be in the minority and at least for Gentiles, possibly also for Jews. So Gagnon here is misunderstanding me. Although I have been. The bones of Jesus Christ have been found in Israel. Uh, no, they haven't. I can't fucking believe it. It's on every news channel. No, it's not. And they were found in the most unusual of places. No, they weren't.

[Al Letson]

How did you end up doing this type of work? For lack of a better term, fact checking people's conception of the Bible on TikTok and Instagram.

[Dan McClellan]

Yeah, that was definitely not what I was aimed at when I started graduate school. In fact, I think from an academic point of view, my career looks more like a failure than anything else because I have taught at some universities, but never on a full time basis. I don't have a tenure track position or anything like that. But something that has always been a concern of mine, even when I was an undergraduate and then moving into graduate school was the fact that the way scholars and experts talk about the Bible and Think about the Bible is very, very different from the way the folks on the street or in the pews think and talk about the Bible. There's a very big gap between those two. And the more I learned about the Bible and an academic approach to the Bible, the more that gap bothered me and the more I wanted to be able to share that, the insights that come from that expertise with the folks on the street and in the pews, which is not an easy thing to do, not only because it requires packaging frequently very complex concepts into things that are more easily digestible, but also because there tends to be a lot of pushback from the streets and the pews. When you say actually that's not what the Bible is like, it's more like this because of how deeply embedded in, in their world views, their own understandings of the Bible are. And so I' tried to engage on social media in or with the discourse about the Bible and religion. And I've always tried to combat the spread of misinformation and speak out against hoaxes and, you know, fake artifacts that people try to pawn off as. As real. I've been doing this for a long time on blogs and on message boards and, and on Facebook and things like that. And, and the reach is just not that great on those channels. And then for whatever reason, I stumble across TikTok and suddenly I'm able to find an audience that is interested in someone who is there to call balls and strikes rather than to try to defend one dogma or one identity over and against the other. And I'm very happy to be in a position where I say that I combat the spread of misinformation about the Bible and religion for a living. And I wouldn't take a university position right now if somebody offered me one. So very happy to be in the than I am right now.

[Al Letson]

If any of our listeners have not seen you on TikTok or Instagram and they're just listening to this conversation and they're being introduced to you for the first time, I think they would be surprised to know that you are also a huge pop culture nerd like myself. A specific type of nerd, though. You're a comic book nerd. I mean, I'm sure you cover many nerdoms, but the one we definitely have in common is comic book nerdom, which makes your videos fun.

[Dan McClellan]

I think that's. From what I gather, there are an awful lot of folks out there who find my work relatable precisely because I do not come across as some stuffed shirt Ivory tower academic. I'm just another dude who likes to wear, you know, graphic tees and likes to, you know, read comic books and stuff like that. And so, I mean, how much better off could things be for me that the things that I enjoy are things that my audience enjoys and that I get to just riff about?

[Al Letson]

So when I think about you on TikTok, I mean, basically you're fact checking people who are bending the message of the Bible for their own purposes. I mean, people have been doing this since the Bible was written, but today with social media, those interpretations are now being delivered in a new and really effective way.

[Dan McClellan]

Yeah, I think the Bible for a long time has been viewed as, as the highest authority. And, and particularly after the, the Reformation when, you know, a lot of Christians got rid of everything else and now all we have is the Bible. But if you have something, a text that is supposed to be God's very word and inspired and inerrant, and that is the ultimate authority, if you can leverage that in support of your identity markers, in support of your rhetorical goals and a powerful tool in structuring power and values and boundaries, and so it becomes kind of the, that's the Holy Grail. That's what you need to have on your side. But because it's a text, it has no inherent meaning. It, it has to be interpreted, which then means whoever best interprets the text in support of their ideologies is, is going to be able to leverage that ultimate authority. And so I think an awful lot of people spend an awful lot of time trying to read their own ideologies and their own identity politics into the text, because that is a very attractive instrument that, that they can then leverage to serve their own ends. And unfortunately, far too often that means powerful people using that as a tool against less powerful people and groups. And I think that's particularly true today.

[Al Letson]

A couple months ago, the thing that I was hearing a lot on social media, specifically from right wing religious folks, is the idea that there's the sin of empathy. And on its surface I thought it was laughable. But I just, I have you here now. So my question is, is there anywhere in the Bible that talks about the sin of empathy?

[Dan McClellan]

Certainly not. There are, there are certainly times when in narratives God will say, show no mercy or something like that. Like there are. And, and these are particularly problematic passages where God says, you will go through the town and you will kill everything that breathes, men, women, children, the suckling baby. Show no mercy. And so I, I think you could, you could Interpret that to mean there are times when God does not want you to be empathetic. At are times when the narrative calls for that. But I think we can, we can point out that's a bad narrative and that's a, that's a bad message. There's certainly no point where anyone says empathy is a sin, just in. In general. And, and the notion of the sin of empathy is, Is just an attempt to try to overturn the fact that we're, we're social creatures and we are evolutionarily and experientially predisposed to feel what other people are feeling. That is what allows us to cooperate. That's what allows us to build larger and more complex social groups without things breaking down. Like, empathy is important to the survival of humanity, but it has a negative byproduct because we all understand ourselves according to specific sets of social identities. And if you have a social identity, you have an in group and then you an out group. And so empathy can be problematic. When we empathize with the in group, to the degree that we then become antagonistic toward the out group, we call that parochial empathy. If you are empathetic toward the people you identify with to the degree that you then antagonize and harm the out group, that can be harmful. But I don't think that's what people are talking about when, when they are talking about the sin of empathy. Because those are the people who are overwhelmingly trying to defend prec. Parochial empathy because they're trying to convince others. It's bad for us to empathize with undocumented immigrants. It's bad for us to empathize with people from other nations. It's bad for us to empathize with, you know, either conservatives or liberals. I think empathy that is outward looking is good. Empathy that is parochial. I mean, it serves a purpose. Smaller groups that are threatened, that are vulnerable, in order for those identities to survive, they have to kind of circle the wagons and you have to kind of be a little protective of your identity. You know, this is what the Judeans and the Jewish folks throughout history have had to do. And that's necessary, I think, in certain contexts for the survival and the protection of vulnerable identities. But once you become the oppressor, once you become the empire, once you become the dominant group, to then say the out group is bad and to exercise that parochial empathy, I think that becomes phenomenally harmful. And so ironically, there can be a way that empathy is bad. And the folks who talk about the sin of empathy are primarily defending the bad kind of empathy and criticizing the good kind of empathy. So I think they have it precisely backwards, and I think all they're trying to do is protect their own privilege and power.

[Al Letson]

Yeah, I mean, I think they have it backwards, but I think they have it backwards purposefully. So I think that there are a lot of people who don't know any better, and they say things based in their ignorance. But I also think there are a lot of people who interpret the text in a way that justifies the things that they already believe to be right. It's good for them to. You know, I mean, sometimes when I'm listening to some folks talk about the Bible and Jesus, the image of Jesus that comes in my mind is Jesus, you know, riding horseback on a Tyrannosaurus Rex with two hands in his hand. Yeah, exactly like. It's like, that's not the Jesus that I see. But I understand how some people can twist their beliefs to. To fit that image.

[Dan McClellan]

Yeah. And you do. Anytime you have these. These movements, you know, you've got a lot of people who are there along for the ride. They're. They're convinced of things. And. But a lot of the thought leaders and a lot of the people who are driving the car are conscious of what they're doing are very intentionally doing it.

[Al Letson]

When we come back, Dan talks about a time when his own perspective of the Bible was challenged after he posted something on.

[Dan McClellan]

And I was like, aha. And I shared this, and some of my Jewish scholar friends immediately were like, bad form. Here's why this is bad. And then, you know, I couldn't unsee it.

[Al Letson]

But before we get to that, it's the end of the year, and that means it's time for reflection. And I know that one of the highlights for me was working with the team of More to the Story and bringing those conversations to you.

[Dan McClellan]

You.

[Al Letson]

I've really enjoyed reading your comments on our favorite podcast apps, and I've been sharing them with the team, and I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts from the entire team. All the ratings and reviews that you've given us has really helped move the show forward, and we really appreciate you. We're going to be doing some great work in 2026, so please stick around. Okay? We'll be back soon with more from Dan McCloud.

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[Al Letson]

Hey, it's Al again. And before we get back to the show, I'm just following up on my request from earlier. You know, the one about how we need your donations before December 31st to ensure that we can keep bringing you investigations like this in 2026. We need you, please. Before you grab another cup of coffee or start scrolling on your phone, just text the word give to 888-57-REVEAL. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org and thank you. This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson and I'm back with Bible scholar Dan McClellan. So tell me about your book. Why'd you write it? All the things.

[Dan McClellan]

All the things. It's called the Bible says. So what we get right and wrong about scripture's most controversial issues. The framing that I came up with is the Bible says. So because one of the most common things that I'm confronting in social media is the notion that the Bible says X, Y and Z. And so that was the genesis of this manuscript that turned into this book which has 18 different chapters, an intro, and then I give a little broad level view of how we got the bible, but then 18 different chapters, each one addresses a different claim about what the Bible says. So the Bible says homosexuality is an abomination. The Bible says God created the universe out of nothing. The Bible says, you should beat your kids. A lot of different claims about what the Bible says. And in each chapter, I try to go through and share what the data actually indicate about what the authors and earliest audiences of these biblical texts understood the text to be doing and to be saying where normally when people say the Bible says X, Y, or Z, they're sharing what makes the Bible meaningful and useful to them in their specific circumstances. And what I do is try to say, I'm going to set that aside and I'm going to try to understand what would have made this text meaningful and useful to its authors and earliest audiences, irrespective of how meaningful and useful that may make it to us. And so I try to share what we think the authors were trying to say when they wrote whatever they did right in the Bible.

[Al Letson]

All of your studies that you've. And you've gone deep into all of this, is it fair to look at the Bible as a historical document? Or do you see the Bible more as a collection of stories and that try to teach people, specifically people of that time, how to live their lives, like how to be safe, how to create community, all of those things.

[Dan McClellan]

I think there's a degree to which many parts of the Bible are historical, but I think that's incidental. The Bible was certainly not written as a history book, and I think overwhelmingly the Bible is a collection of texts from that time period that were intended to try to do certain things with the audiences. It wasn't also always necessarily about how to live right. I think a lot of the times it's about trying to establish who's in control and what kind of understanding of our identity we should have and things like that. So there are. There are a lot of different rhetorical goals going on. And sometimes, you know, one set of authors might be arguing against another set of authors. You see that particularly between Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, like, you have a lot of things being changed because the editors of Chronicles were like, I don't like the way you do it. I'm going to do it this other way. And they're trying to make different points. But, yeah, they're definitely rhetorical texts. They're definitely to some degree, propagandistic texts, and particularly a lot of the historical texts having to do with the Kings and things like that in the. In the Hebrew Bible. Once we get into the New Testament, I think it's probably a little more in line with, you know, texts intended to help people understand how to live According to the opinion of the authors.

[Al Letson]

Tell me if this categorization is fair. The God of the Old Testament is. My dad would kill me if he heard me say this. But the God of the Old Testament feels very much a God of get off my lawn, kids. And very much an angry, wrathful God, like, you step in line with me or I will smite you. I will burn whole cities down. And if you turn around and look at those cities, I will turn you into pillars of salt. Like, I don't mess around. There's no mercy. Then after Jesus is born and Jesus lives his life, the God we meet there is a much more generous and loving God. The God who hung out with tax collectors, who hung out with prostitutes, who told you to love your neighbor as you would love yourself. All of these things that are like a much more softer and loving deity than what we see in the Old Testament. Would you agree that that's true?

[Dan McClellan]

I would agree that that's a very common interpretation. And I would agree that on the surface, if we're not looking incredibly closely, it can seem like that. But I think there's a problem with that perspective. And there are a few things going on here because you have an angry, vindictive God in the New Testament as well. But it's isolated to only a couple places and primarily, like the book of Revelation, represents a deity that will bathe its sword in the blood of victims. And you also find a phenomenally merciful and long suffering God in different parts of the Hebrew Bible. And this is one of the reasons that I've tried to point out there's no one God of the Bible. You have numerous different divine profiles being represented throughout both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Different authors are going to represent God in whatever ways serve their own rhetorical interests and goals. But there is a chronological trajectory as well. As things are changing in the world. In societies, you go from far more warfare, far more conflict between societies, to a time period when there's still war and conflict, but there's a lot more advocacy for peace. And it's not the division between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament where that pivots. It's actually before the end of the Hebrew Bible. I think that dichotomy of the vindictive and violent God of the Hebrew Bible and the loving merciful God of the New Testament also is problematic from an anti Semitism point of view because that is taken up frequently to frame the God of the Jewish people as evil and the God of Christianity as good. And that Facilitates or it historically has facilitated a lot of problems. So I try to help people understand that you've got a mix of both in both sets of texts. And it's really your choice what you choose to emphasize, give priority to and center.

[Al Letson]

This is exactly why I love your videos because I have a long held belief that I've thought about over years and then you come along and you blow it all up. You blow it up. Not only do you blow it up, you point out the places where that belief is problematic. Because until you said it, I never would have thought of it in the frame of anti Semitic. I just, it's the blind spot. Like, I don't see it like, like that. But when you frame it in that way, like I get it, I get why, like that thinking is totally problematic. And I think that's the power of what you do on social media.

[Dan McClellan]

And, and that's something that. It's a lesson I had to learn myself as well because I, you know, I used to. I saw somebody posted on Twitter many years ago a picture of Santa Claus in, in somebody's living room, but he was like angry and had an ax or something and there's a little kid on the stairs looking around the corner and says, oh no, it's Old Testament Santa. And I was like, aha. And. And I shared this. And some of my Jewish scholar friends immediately were like, bad form. Here's why this is bad. And it had never occurred to me either. And then, and then, you know, I couldn't unsee it. Once I, once I accepted that people with very different experiences are going to feel very differently about the joke and what's being expressed there. I couldn't unsee that.

[Al Letson]

It's interesting to me, growing up in the Baptist church, that when I was in church and in the church that I went to, the Bible verse that I heard more than anything was that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the gates of heaven. And that was kind of a thing in the church that I was in and most of the churches that I went to, that wealth did not equate that you were a pious and good person. It was more the opposite. That wealth meant that your actions had to be more because it was going to be hard for you to get through the gates of heaven. And it seems that that Bible verse is completely forgotten by, well, a, like a lot of these Christian nationalists or preachers who engage in the prosperity gospel.

[Dan McClellan]

Yeah, it's a big issue. And I Mean, there are ways that people try to get around that verse. They say that, oh, eye of the needle doesn't mean an actual sewing needle. It refers to what's called a wicket gate, a little door that is inside of the main door of the city gate. And so it just means that you have to open the little door and the pack has to be taken off the camel and they have to shimmy through on their knees. And. And I don't think these people have ever seen a camel in real life who are saying this, because camels are not going to do that. But there were no such gates anywhere in, around or near Jerusalem, anywhere near the time of the composition of the New Testament. And. And this is very clearly hyperbole that is coming at the end of a story about a rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, I've kept all the commandments since my youth. What do I have to do to inherit the kingdom of God? And Jesus says, sell everything you own and give it to the poor. And then it says, the man went away sad because he had a lot of possessions. And that's where Jesus goes, tsk, tsk, you know, it's gonna be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. And then gives this hyperbolic notion of a camel passing through the eye of a needle. And, you know, for people who try to endorse a prosperity Gospel interpretation of this, like, not only is it incredibly hard to do, and it's never really convincing unless you are already there and just need to be made to feel like it's not impossible. But like everywhere else in the Gospels, Jesus says, you know, you cannot serve God and mammon. And Jesus says, blessed are the poor. And, you know, you can look in the. The Sermon on the mountain in Matthew 5, and it says, blessed are the poor in spirit. And so people say, aha. It doesn't say, that's not about economic poverty. That's about humility. But you can then go to the sermon on the plane in the Gospel of Luke, and it just says, blessed are the poor, full stop. Which very clearly is referring to economic poverty. As I said before, the Bible is a text. It has no inherent meaning. We create meaning in negotiation with the text, which means we're bringing our experiences and our understanding to the text, and that's what's generating the meaning. And if you have experienced privilege and wealth your whole life, you're going to interpret the Bible in a way that makes that okay. It's very rare that we have someone in a position like that. Who comes to the text and can think critically enough to realize, this is about me. This is saying that I am the problem. I better fix myself. That's phenomenally rare. What is far more common is for someone to bring their own experiences to the text and say, I was right all along. The problem is everybody else. The problem is not me. I can find endorsement or validation of my own worldviews and my own perspectives and my own hatred and my own bigotry in the text. And that authorizes and validates it. And that's what we see going on overwhelmingly in public discourse about the Bible.

[Al Letson]

Tough question that you've probably been asked a million times before. But the fact that you are doing such deep research on the Bible, how does that affect your religious belief? And I think for a long time I assumed that you were an atheist, that you didn't believe in God. But then you did a video and you talked about being a Mormon, and I was like, wow, okay, that's a wrinkle. That's something there. So, yeah, talk to me about that. How do you balance the two things?

[Dan McClellan]

Well, and this is something I've for a long time said. I don't talk about my personal beliefs on social media, so that's a boundary that I try to maintain. But what I will say is that I have always tried very, very hard, ever since I started formally studying the Bible, to ensure that I was compartmentalizing my academic approach to the Bible from my devotional approach to the Bible, keeping them firmly separate, which is not an easy thing to do because I was raised more or less without religion. And like I mentioned earlier, I joined the LDS Church as an adult. I was 20 years old. I didn't really have much that I had to deconstruct when I started studying the Bible academically. So I would say that a lot of people reach out to me for help with deconstruction, for help with trying to understand these things through a prism of faith. And that's where I say that's above my pay grade. I don't take a pastoral approach to this. I'm not here to hold anybody's hand through faith crises and things like that. There are content creators out there who do that kind of thing. I'm just here to try to present the data. And my own personal grappling with that is something that is private. So I do keep that separate.

[Al Letson]

Dr. Dan McClelland, thank you so much for coming to talk to me. This has been great.

[Dan McClellan]

Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. And I appreciate your time as well.

[Al Letson]

That was Dan McClellan, religious scholar and author of the book the Bible says. So you can find him on TikTok at McClellan. That's M A K L E L A N. If you like this episode, you should check out the reveal episode in God We Vote. It's about a small but growing religious movement that believes Christians are called by God to control the government and that Donald Trump has been divinely chosen as president. Lastly, just a reminder, we are listener supported. So that means listeners like you, you can help us thrive by making a gift today. Just go to revealnews.org gift again, that's revealnews.org gift and thank you. This episode was produced by Josh sanburn and Carl McGurk. Allison Brett Meyers edited today's show theme music and engineering, helped by Fernando, my man, Yo Arrudo and Jay Breezy. Mr. Jim Briggs. I'm Al Letson. And you know, let's do this again next week. This is more to the story. Okay, so the credits are over and you're still here. I bet it's because you're hoping for that phone number that you know will allow you to donate to your favorite investigative journalism podcast with your favorite investigative journalism host. Well, my friend, here you are. Just text the word give to 88857 reveal. That's 8885773832 or visit revealnews.org 2026. Your support really does make a difference and your favorite investigative journalism podcast host thanks you. From prx.