BEST OF: Tim Alberta on Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

Summary

The Al Franken Podcast: BEST OF: Tim Alberta on Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

Release Date: April 20, 2025
Host: Al Franken (ASF Productions)
Guest: Tim Alberta, Author of The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Al Franken Podcast, host Al Franken engages in an in-depth conversation with Tim Alberta, a renowned author known for his insightful analysis of American Evangelicals. Alberta's latest work, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, delves into the intricate relationship between evangelicalism and contemporary political extremism. This episode offers listeners a thorough exploration of Alberta's perspectives, underpinned by personal anecdotes and historical context.

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Personal Background of Tim Alberta

Tim Alberta provides a personal lens through which he examines evangelicalism. Growing up in a Southern Baptist church in South Carolina, Alberta shares his formative experiences and the pivotal moment that led him to distance himself from his faith community.

Notable Quote:
"I told my parents, I said, I won't go here anymore. I'm not going to this church. I'm not going to be a part of this church." (06:10)

Alberta recounts how a heated sermon following the assassination of Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider, at the age of fourteen catalyzed his departure from the Southern Baptist community. Despite his early rebellion, Alberta remained connected to the church, attending his father's funeral years later, which set the stage for his critical examination in his latest book.

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The Rise of Evangelicals in Politics

Alberta traces the historical alliance between evangelicalism and the Republican Party, highlighting the formation of influential groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. He discusses how Jerry Falwell Sr. and his successors strategically mobilized evangelical Christians to support conservative political agendas.

Notable Quote:
"The Moral Majority was really the birth of it, and it was those four years between ‘76 and ‘80 where not only the Moral Majority was created and mobilized..." (21:14)

This section underscores the pivotal role evangelicals have played in shaping conservative politics, emphasizing their transition from spiritual leaders to significant political actors.

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Extremism Among Evangelicals

Alberta addresses the alarming shift within evangelical communities towards extremist ideologies, where political opposition is framed as a battle between good and evil. He explores the concept of Christian nationalism and its implications for democracy and social cohesion.

Notable Quote:
"It's no longer red versus blue. It's no longer conservative versus liberal. It is good versus evil." (30:10)

Alberta explains how this binary worldview exacerbates divisions, leading to uncompromising stances and fostering an environment ripe for extremism.

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Impact of Information Subcultures

The conversation delves into how evangelicals consume information through specific media channels, including radio shows and podcasts tailored to their beliefs. Alberta highlights the creation of echo chambers that reinforce extremist views and misinformation.

Notable Quote:
"There is an information subculture that a lot of folks are plugged into that we don't appreciate." (33:35)

He illustrates how these information ecosystems contribute to the persistence of conspiracy theories and the undermining of factual discourse within evangelical circles.

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The Influence of Jerry Falwell and Liberty University

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Jerry Falwell Sr.'s legacy, particularly his establishment of Liberty University. Alberta examines how Falwell's strategies in education and media amplified evangelical influence in politics.

Notable Quote:
"Falwell, he really shrewdly senses that there is an appetite in the Christian right... to push back on the secularization and the liberal trends in higher education." (49:13)

Alberta explains how Liberty University became a central hub for cultivating evangelical leaders and integrating religious ideology with political activism.

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The Legacy and Current State of Evangelicals

Alberta delves into the internal struggles within evangelical institutions, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, grappling with their historical ties to slavery and ongoing racial tensions. He discusses recent efforts to address racism and the resistance encountered within these communities.

Notable Quote:
"The Southern Baptists have undergone a really painful period and are continuing in the midst of this very painful period where... many black congregants and black pastors have left the SBC." (47:59)

This section highlights the enduring impact of historical injustices on contemporary evangelical dynamics and the challenges in fostering racial reconciliation.

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Conclusions and Hope for Change

In the concluding segment, Alberta offers a message of hope, advocating for dialogue and understanding as pathways to healing and transformation within evangelical communities. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on shared values and the central teachings of Christianity to bridge divides.

Notable Quote:
"I think there is still hope for that... a little bit of love and a little bit of goodwill goes a long way." (59:14)

Alberta encourages both evangelicals and those outside the movement to engage respectfully, fostering an environment where common ground can be discovered and preserved.

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Al Franken Podcast serves as a critical examination of evangelicalism's role in modern American politics. Through Tim Alberta's expert insights and personal experiences, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the complexities and challenges facing evangelical communities in an era marked by extremism and polarization. The conversation underscores the necessity of empathy, open dialogue, and a reaffirmation of foundational values to navigate and mitigate the deep-seated divisions within society.

Notable Quote to End:
"God does not bite his fingernails. He never has and he never will." (61:50)

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Produced by: Peter Ogburn
Music by: Leo Kotke

Transcript

[Al Franken]

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[Al Franken]

Hey everybody, we got a great one today.

[Tim Alberta]

And this time, this time I finally mean it because it's a best of Tim Alberto of the Atlantic on his bestseller the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. This is a great discussion of a great book. But before I get into today's show, a word about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration acknowledges was wrongly sent to a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled down to El Salvador and was able to meet with Garcia at what appeared to be Van Hollen's hotel. After the meeting, Garcia was returned to the prison. Garcia clearly should be returned to the United States, as should all the 200 some prisoners who also went to this prison without due process. This is a travesty which I am praying gets resolved by these men getting the due process they deserve back in the usa, after which the ones who are determined to be violent gang members can be returned to El Salvador. Now back to Tim Alberta and his book the Kingdom, the Power and the American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. I did not know a lot about evangelicals before I read this book, but it knocked my socks off. Tim is an evangelical. His father was a beloved evangelical minister in a Presbyterian church in the suburbs of Detroit. And at the beginning of his book, his father has just passed away and Tim comes back to the church he grew up in to mourn his dad. And Tim has just had a bestseller, American Carnage, which as you might guess, was critical of Donald Trump, whom many members of this evangelical church idolize. And Tim comes back to Detroit, where he grew up, to his childhood home for his father's funeral at this church and a few of the members of the congregation get heated with him in a room where his father lays dead in his Coffin. So that's the opening of this book. As I said, Tim is an evangelical himself. He grew up in this church and loved his father and has taken Christ, Jesus Christ as his savior. You'll hear more about what that means. Anyway, this is a riveting episode and this is definitely Peter's favorite episode ever. You know Peter, my engineer and the executive producer of the podcast. It's just me and Peter who do this podcast. Isn't that right, Peter?

[Peter Ogburn]

That's it.

[Tim Alberta]

So first of all, how great is Tim?

[Al Franken]

Alberta?

[Peter Ogburn]

So, so good. I had been looking forward to this interview for a long time when we first aired it, and he really delivered.

[Al Franken]

Okay, now you grew up in South Carolina.

[Peter Ogburn]

Yep.

[Al Franken]

And your family went to an evangelical church, Southern Baptist.

[Tim Alberta]

Southern Baptist, yeah, that's his.

[Al Franken]

And Southern Baptists were created in like 1840s or 1850s, I think.

[Peter Ogburn]

Don't Google or look up why the Southern Baptist Church was founded.

[Tim Alberta]

Okay.

[Al Franken]

And if, if you Google that, you'll find out that they were just kind.

[Tim Alberta]

Of in support of slavery, right?

[Peter Ogburn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Al Franken]

Well, you know, you. Now you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You. You left the church, didn't you?

[Peter Ogburn]

I did, yeah. I left the church when I was about 14 years old.

[Tim Alberta]

Okay.

[Al Franken]

You've told me this. There was a sermon given by your minister, is that right?

[Peter Ogburn]

Yeah, yeah. So in 1993, some people might remember this story. There was a doctor by the name of David Gunn. He was in Florida and he provided abortions. He was an abortion doctor and someone shot him and killed him. And that was. That was in March of 1993. And it was a big story at the time. It made kind of national news. And there was a sermon at my church and the pastor stood up and said, I know a lot of people are talking about this doctor, the abortion doctor that was killed. And I'm sure his family is very sad, but we have to think about and we have to remember the number of lives that were saved by him being killed.

[Al Franken]

Okay, so 14 year old you.

[Peter Ogburn]

I told my parents, I said, I won't go here anymore. I'm not going to this church. I'm not going to be a part of this church. And they were very upset with me. They were very upset with me. And they, they thought about it for a while and finally we. They had their talk with me and they said, as long as you live in this house, you will go to a church. And you don't have to go to this church, but you have to go to a church.

[Al Franken]

That sounds like your parents were wise. It was a good compromise.

[Peter Ogburn]

It was a good compromise, I guess.

[Al Franken]

I mean, it was, wasn't it?

[Tim Alberta]

You know?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

I mean, because you did that, didn't you?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

I did.

[Peter Ogburn]

I went to a Methodist church. I went to a Methodist church which also made them very up because I don't know, they thought the Methodists were a little too loose with their rules. I went to one youth group function and there was a dance, a co ed dance for the teenage boys and girls. And the concept of seeing that happen in real time as a 15 year old kid growing up in a Southern Baptist church blew my mind. I couldn't believe that I was watching girls dance with boys at a church function.

[Tim Alberta]

It's crazy.

[Al Franken]

Boy, it's very different from my reformed Jewish upbringing in Minneapolis.

[Peter Ogburn]

I can imagine.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

So.

[Peter Ogburn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Al Franken]

So it all worked out.

[Peter Ogburn]

It all worked out.

[Al Franken]

I know you're a great son. And so they came up with a good compromise.

[Peter Ogburn]

That was the compromise. And you know, they stayed with the church. They stayed going to that church which was a little bit of a. Create a little bit of a rift in our relationship as I got older.

[Al Franken]

Now let me ask you, because I had always thought that, and I think I say this to Tim in our interview, that I had always thought being evangelical was about baptism.

[Peter Ogburn]

Right, right.

[Al Franken]

And not baptism as a baby, which the Catholics do, but baptism where you go out and you get your head dunked. Right?

[Peter Ogburn]

Yeah, I got my head dunked. I was young, I was probably eight, maybe nine, something like that. So, you know, you have to factor in a lot of the external forces pushing you in that direction.

[Al Franken]

Right, but. But basically what that is is you're turning your. Basically turning your life to Jesus, which is what being an evangelical is. Right?

[Peter Ogburn]

Yeah. I think Tim hit on this in the interview and, and yes, you and I talked about this.

[Al Franken]

We should get to that right away.

[Peter Ogburn]

We'll get to it. We'll get to it. You and I talked, but before we interviewed Tim and you asked me about the definition of an evange, couldn't quite give you one, but I think he hits on it when he says, kind of you remove the middleman and you have a personal relationship with God and Jesus and you speak, when you pray, you pray directly to God.

[Al Franken]

And to do that you have to sort of accept whatever God is telling you.

[Peter Ogburn]

You make a public pronouncement that you have asked God to come into your life and you turn your life over to him. And when you pray, you pray directly to him.

[Al Franken]

And sort of what's very Interesting about this book is it's about evangelicalism in the age of extremism. And there's this story. He talks, he opens with. His dad was an evangelical minister in a church in Detroit, in the suburbs. And his father dies. And he comes back and he has written a book called American Carnage about Trump. And it's just been out, and he's been on TV about it, and he comes back in the room with his dad's casket, you know, for the wake. These parishioners come and start yelling at him. And that's part of this interview. So it's a. I really love this one.

[Peter Ogburn]

This one is fantastic. And I know that a lot of our listeners are probably outside of the evangelical bubble. And if you are, I'm not calling our listeners all sinners. I'm just saying they probably don't.

[Al Franken]

They probably know you are.

[Peter Ogburn]

This one is a really informative, really smart look at how politics involves a lot of religion. And I'm really glad that we are replaying this one.

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[Al Franken]

I have a confession.

[Tim Alberta]

I'm Jewish.

[Al Franken]

Is that okay?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

A confession is a good way to start the podcast. Yes. Yes, that is okay. Okay. I think I knew that anyway, but yes, that is okay.

[Al Franken]

Do you have confession in evangelical churches? Because I can think of that as Catholic.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

That is a Catholic ritual. Protestants, we have a direct line to.

God, so We do not need the.

Middleman of the priest to serve in the confession capacity.

[Al Franken]

And is that because you have a personal relationship with God?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, the idea is in. In the sort of. Obviously borrowing from Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers here, but the idea is that.

Yes, that.

That Jesus was, in fact, fully God and fully man. And that the entire idea of messianic salvation was that Jesus served as a mediator between a broken humanity and a perfect God. And that once we have accepted Jesus.

And invited him into our lives and.

That we have a relationship and faith.

In him, that we no longer need.

A mediator between us and God so.

That we are able to communicate with.

God directly because of our relationship with Jesus.

[Al Franken]

And is there an act that does that? Is a baptism the act? If you get baptized, does that solidify your path to God?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

No, not necessarily. I don't want to diminish the importance of baptism. I think, really, baptism is best understood as sort of an outward demonstration of.

An inward transformation that has already taken place.

[Al Franken]

Okay.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

You know, I'm looking right now in.

My home office at a painting called.

The Light of the World, which I write about at the end of my book. It's hung in my house as a child from the time I was very young. And it depicts Jesus standing in sort of a dark, wooded scene, standing outside of a door that is kind of overgrown with some weeds and thorns, and he's just knocking. The idea is that there is no. As you can. If you.

If you were looking at the painting.

You would see that there is no.

Handle on the outside of the door, that it can only be opened from the inside.

And so the idea is that Jesus is knocking on the door of our.

Hearts, and that once we invite him.

In, then because he is dwelling within us, and we have sort of made ourselves subservient to his will for our lives, and that we have kind of removed ourselves from the throne, if you.

Will, and allowed him to be the king of our lives. That that inward transformation will then manifest.

Itself in all other ways in our.

Lives, and that people will recognize that transformation, whether we've been baptized, whether we.

Say fancy prayers out loud for people.

To hear, whether we wear big G cross necklaces.

I mean, that stuff is really. Those outward things are less important than the inward transformation.

[Al Franken]

And so let's be clear here. You are an evangelical.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, I struggle with the term evangelical as I write in the book. You know, back in the day, like, you know, when I was a kid, which is not all that long ago, my dad was was a pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. And so we grew up evangelicals. But there was always a very common understanding that, you know, to be an evangelical, that the word was only really as good as your actions. In other words, the label there evangelical.

In that word was a verb which was to evangelize.

Right.

And so I'm not sure in the.

Modern context that you can be an.

Effective evangelical because many people who hear that term want nothing to do with you.

And they think it has everything to do with political opportunism and political tribalism. And, you know, they think that you're basically a conservative maga trumper, and it really has no theological connotation beyond that. So I don't know that I am comfortable identifying with the term anymore because I fear that it does more harm than good.

[Al Franken]

I see. But you actually are an evangelical from the first definition you gave me. And it sounds like you worry about it being misunderstood, because as reading this, it's very clear that you take very seriously the teachings of Christ and the history of him, that you're a student of that history. The title is Taken from the kingdom, the power and the glory is from what is that from Matthew?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, it is from the Lord's Prayer. And that is when Jesus is teaching his disciples, who are kind of a motley crew, not. Not to go down the rabbit hole.

But it's sort of hilarious that Jesus.

Actually has to teach his disciples. These 12 people who are now, of course, looked back upon as the.

The leaders of the early church and.

The saints and these guys who we revere were really kind of almost like kind of kind of bumbling and incoherent at times.

And they really didn't know what to do.

And so Jesus sort of had to teach them, okay, well, this is how you pray, among many other things that Jesus had to sort of teach them how to do. And so at the end of that prayer, the traditional doxology at the end.

Of the prayer is to say, and for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

[Al Franken]

And what does that mean to thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. If you accept me, if you accept my teachings, then you'll have the power and the glory and the kingdom of heaven.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, I think it means a couple of things. I talked a minute ago about this idea of, as a Christian, removing oneself from the throne and.

And putting Jesus there and allowing him to be the. The Lord of your life.

The idea of saying, of praying to God and saying for thine, the Possessive.

Thine is the kingdom and the power.

And the glory forever. I think the, maybe the better way.

To, to even say it or hear.

It is to say, for thine is.

The kingdom and the power and the glory.

In other words, there are earthly counterfeits.

For each of those things.

That's how I try to structure the.

Book, writing about the kingdom of God that we are promised as believers a kingdom of heaven that is eternal and.

That cannot be defeated and that has already been secured by Jesus's work on the cross.

That kingdom is there for us, and.

Yet we have become consumed with a.

Kingdom here on earth, a kingdom of.

America, a kingdom that is sort of defined by the conquering of our enemies in the culture and of, of sort.

Of dominating the world around us with our values and doing it with a.

Sort of bloodthirsty, you know, militant way that actually betrays the teachings of Christ.

[Al Franken]

That's where you're talking about the extremism, the age of extremism. And you, you had written a book, American Carnage, a best selling New York Times book, before this book, and basically that was about how Trump took over the party. Is that it?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, the first book, it was sort of a wide lens examination of the collapse of the post George W. Bush Republican Party and the rise of Trump and Trump style populist nativist politics that came to then sort of hijack the old guard of the Republican Party.

[Al Franken]

And he did it incredibly successfully. You know, it's funny, when I think of evangelicals, I think of Jimmy Carter. So that was my first blush with what's an evangelical? And Jimmy Carter was so, so clearly devout and so clearly lived those values, especially after he left the presidency and did all this work in Africa and all that stuff. I thought, okay, that's what's an evangelical. What percentage of the evangelical vote did Jimmy Carter get in his 76 race?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

In his 70? I have to go back and look. But it was a majority. You know, suffice it to say it.

Was the high water mark for any Democrat in the last half century.

[Al Franken]

And then things flipped. I mean, it completely flipped. And that period is interesting because Reagan obviously took the evangelicals and people like Falwell were creating things like the Moral Majority. Falwell was a very, very strong right winger and started the Moral Majority. What's the difference between the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition? It was just who ran them or what?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, the Christian Coalition came later. It was sort of a successor group.

The Moral Majority was really the first.

Iteration of what we now have is like an entire constellation of these kind.

Of activist groups that sort of fundraise.

Off of, you know, restoring our Judeo.

Christian values and basically holding up Jesus as an avatar for the Republican Party.

Like that, that is, that has become kind of a cottage industry.

But the moral mater Majority was really the birth of it.

And you're right, I mean, it was. It was those four years between 76 and 80, the, the four years of Carter's presidency where not only the Moral.

Majority was created and, and, and mobilized.

But also this kind of entire movement around kind of merging conservative political identity.

With conservative theology with conservative cultural values.

I mean, this was an incredibly formative.

Four years in the life of this country, and we're still, I think, dealing.

With the fallout of it.

And it is really ironic, as you.

Say, that it happened on the watch of the Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher.

Jimmy Carter, who was personally more devout.

Than almost any of these folks, I would say.

[Al Franken]

I don't know if you could be more devout than Jimmy Carter. He still teaches or taught Sunday school until he went in the hospice. I think I'm sort of interested in that period. But also I want to go back to your father, and your father dying of a heart attack. And you went back to your church. Had you left the church then? Were you still living in Michigan or.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

No, I moved away. So I'd been gone for probably 12 years or so at that point, living in Washington, covering politics, but I was still going back home probably three or four times a year. And when I did, I would go to church. And, you know, my family is basically, our identity as a family was almost inextricable from the church. And that was just the community that.

We were raised in and all of.

Our friends and, you know, the people that we knew were there. So I still very much felt like I was a part of the church.

Even though I wasn't living there.

[Al Franken]

So you go back for your dad's funeral. You had written American Carnage, which I haven't read, but I assume is very critical of Trump and Trump supporters. And when you get there and have arrived to see your dad, you start getting chastised.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, it was, I suppose, from the perspective of some people who had beef with me over the things I'd written or maybe things I'd said on, you know, on cable TV or wherever, they might not get another crack at me. You know, I don't live there, and maybe they, you know, they don't see me all that often, and so they.

Just couldn't help themselves in that moment.

I think the timing, too, Al, like.

That book I'd written had just come.

Out less than two weeks before my dad died. And so I, you know, the book.

Was in the news.

A lot of people were talking about it, especially, you know, people in kind.

Of right wing media circles.

Rush Limbaugh and others were talking about it. And.

[Al Franken]

Not favorable.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Not favorably. No, not favorably.

And I was very critical of Trump in the book.

And so, yeah, I mean, there I am at the, at the visitation, at the, at the wake, one person after another just, you know, kind of took.

The opportunity right then and there to.

Kind of have it out with me and give me a piece of their mind. And obviously it was, it was pretty upsetting, but it was also, I think it was just really eye opening at the same time to understand the depth.

Of the problem here that, that I was kind of aware of already.

I mean, I was aware of the problem and, and I think I was.

Probably even aware of, like, the scale of the problem.

But I think the depth and the scale are two different things. And the depth being demonstrated at that moment by people confronting a morning son over politics, you know, with his dad in a box 50ft away.

[Al Franken]

Your dad is beloved at the church, and one would think that the son is beloved by your father. It just seems inconceivable that this would happen. Jews can be edgy, but I don't see this, you know. And you were shocked by it.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, in part because of what you just said. I mean, we, you know, I'd been at this church since I was. My family moved there when I was five years old. And so I, you know, I'd spent my entire life there, and my dad was beloved. And so you figure that even if they hate my guts, just out of.

Kind of respect for him and reverence.

For him, that they would hold back a little bit. As I try to explain in the book, I think this is not excusing it, it's maybe just sort of trying to make sense of these sorts of behaviors, that there's this doomsday mentality for an awful lot of folks in this who, who are swimming in the circles that, that I came up in, where they believe that the walls are closing in and that the enemy is about to conquer them.

It leads them to do things and say things and ally themselves with people.

That they never would otherwise.

[Al Franken]

And this basically becomes the second book, which is. You're now going to look at all these evangelical churches around the country, right?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

That's right. Just Trying to. Again, as I said, I already knew from my pretty extensive reporting during the, you know, pre Trump years, then into the Trump years, like I was pretty.

Well acquainted with the evangelical movement and.

I understood what was, what was going on. What I really felt inspired, if you.

Want to use that word.

It was a weird inspiration. But what I did feel inspired to do was to try and take on this question in a more intimate way, I guess, which is to say that, you know, as a reporter you're typically not kind of injecting yourself into the story, but in a case like, like this, you know, my faith identity is my ultimate identity.

It's, it's certainly more important than my.

Identity as a journalist. And so both as a journalist and as a Christian, I felt sort of an obligation to take a really hard.

And uncomfortable look at my own community.

And to try to explain to people on the outside, but maybe also to people on the inside, because I know I'm not the only one who's been left just slack jawed by all this. Just explain what's going on and why.

[Al Franken]

Well, let's explain it. When I think of Falwell, you don't write very kindly of Falwell. And you say basically he was a good businessman, but certainly not a great preacher. Do you remember what he said after 9 11?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, I do.

[Al Franken]

I wrote it down, but I think I almost have it memorized. This is after 9 11. He's on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson and he says, I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the.

[Tim Alberta]

Lesbians who are actively trying to make.

[Al Franken]

That an alternative lifestyle, the aclu, People.

[Tim Alberta]

For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point my finger in their face.

[Al Franken]

And say, you help this happen. And then Robertson said I totally concurrently. That says a lot to me about what you must have been focused on.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

A lot to unpack.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

A lot to unpack. And I mean, part of the reason I'm chuckling Al, is because, I mean, believe it or not, those were almost the good old days, you know.

[Al Franken]

Okay, yeah, yeah, I remember that. Oh, that's hilarious.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, like I, you know, there's a, there's a scene somewhere in the middle of the book where I recount how at one of these successor groups I talked earlier about, you know, the Christian Coalition being kind of a successor of the Moral Majority.

So then another group that's a successor.

Of the Christian Coalition is the Faith and Freedom Coalition. They get together every year and they parade, you know, a couple dozen Republican politicians to the lectern and they do the fire and brimstone thing and everybody gets all worked up and they raise some money off of it.

Talk about unholy alliances.

It's. But, but I will say, you know.

I had attended events like that for many years.

They were always exaggerated and it was a lot of hyperbole and. But, but there was also always sort of some like winking and nodding and kind of an acknowledgement that they were in on the joke, more or less.

But the last few years, it's taken this very, very serious dark turn where.

It'S no longer like the Democrats have.

Policies that are hurting this country.

It's the Democrats are demons and the Democratic Party is the tool of Satan.

And this is no longer red versus blue. It's no longer conservative versus liberal. It is good versus evil. And evil cannot be negotiated with.

And I describe in detail what that.

Looks like at some of these events in the book. But when you conjure up falwell there post 9 11.

And it's funny because, like, at the time, of course, everyone is completely aghast at hearing him say that sort of thing. And yet today, I don't know that we even bat an eye. I mean, it's gotten way worse and I think that we've become somewhat desensitized to it.

[Al Franken]

We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with Tim. Alberta.

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[Al Franken]

So you write this book about evangelicals and before that about Trump. You're a political writer and now you're back to writing for Atlantic Monthly. What are you seeing happen? We now have, It's Trump and Biden, right? Is this evangelical base going to come out in big numbers? And where do they get their information? And why? Are they convinced, for example, that he actually won the election? Or is that a silly question?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, no, it's not a silly question. I, I think where they get their information is, that's a really important kind of sub category or sub genre that we could spend an entire podcast talking about. But I think that there is an.

Information subculture that a lot of folks.

Are plugged into that we don't appreciate. And it's, and it goes beyond just, oh well, they watch Fox News at night, like, you know, sure, some.

[Al Franken]

It's a lot of radio, isn't it?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, it's their radio, it's their podcasts that, I mean, that was one of the things again, without going deep down the rabbit hole. But I, I was really interested in.

My travels over a period of years when I would be encountering folks in.

A lot of these just kind of small, medium sized churches around the country. And I'd say, you know, we'd be in conversation for a while and I'd.

Say, hey, you know, what kind of podcast do you listen to?

Let me see. And they would, they'd run me through.

You know, five, six podcasts that they.

Listen to every day and I'd never heard of them or, or the same.

Would go for their, their social media, subscribe to certain influencers or newsletters or blogs or whatever that were just things.

That I hadn't been familiar with previously.

And then you come to learn that.

These things actually have pretty good followings.

And they get passed around at Kind of a grassroots level.

And so that's a piece of it, I think, certainly is the, Is the information consumption.

[Al Franken]

And we get ours from our information, but we like to think of ours as being slightly more objective. Like, we think that Biden won the election.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, well, to be clear, we all.

Live in our little information subcultures, and.

We all want to think that ours.

Are more accurate and more legitimate.

This is one of those sort of.

Relativist meets reality moments where the relative.

Truthiness, as Colbert might have said back in the day, was between what some.

Liberal reads or some conservative reads.

Like, you know, you can kind of.

Go around on that.

But, like, when it comes to it, just objective truth of, like, did, did, did Donald Trump carry the state of Michigan, yes or no? Can you look at the. The trail of evidence that was examined.

By the Republicans who run the legislature in Michigan and who issued a really.

Thorough, comprehensive report authored by Trump, supporting.

Michigan Republican senators who say that, no, Trump did not win Michigan. Here's all the evidence, and here's all the debunked conspiracies, and here's all the research we did. And it is very clear. Trump, Michigan.

And yet you go into all these.

Churches in Michigan, where I am from and where I live now, you will still run into people who are not.

Only. Who not only believe that Trump won Michigan, but they believe it with a sort of spiritual conviction. And I think that is, obviously, that's. That is the bigger problem. It's not just in my view anyway.

Al, and this is the view of a Christian here.

So it may not be the view.

Of, of you or of others listening.

But I think the problem is not just one, for purposes of sustaining a.

Pluralistic, democratic society where rule of law matters and where peaceful transition of power.

Matters and where some common, shared baseline.

Of objective truth matters.

But I think it's an even bigger.

Problem, in my view, for the credibility of the gospel of Jesus Christ, when people who profess to believe in him.

And who swear that their theology and.

Their doctrine is sound and true will turn around and in the next breath swear that this other thing is sound and true, one, thereby sabotaging the other.

I, I think that there, there's sort of a dual crisis here within the church.

[Al Franken]

You know, the first day of the Trump presidency, he had the inaugural, and then the next morning, Sean Spicer went out and said that Trump's crowd was bigger than either of Obama's, which was demonstrably not true, by a mile. And then Kellyanne Conway was on Meet the Press the next day. And she said, well, you see, there are these things called alternative facts. Alternative facts. And I laughed at that. But then I kind of got to realize that, well, Trump was saying there's fake news, and that's from liberals, and fake news is putting out fake facts, and that's why we have to have alternative facts. And it's kind of flooding the zone with shit, which is what Steve Bannon said. So there's so much out there, and you just kind of take the information from the people that you side with, and as a result, we have a complete different universe of information and knowledge held by two sides.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And you can see just in communities how that fractures relationships and how it fractures, you know, church bodies. You know, it's funny, I remember having this conversation some years ago with John Boehner, the former speaker of the House.

I had spent many months with him.

Shortly after he retired, writing what became sort of the definitive magazine profile where he kind of looked back on his.

Career and how the party had changed.

And how Washington had changed and all of this. And I said to him at one.

Point, I said, well, what was the.

Biggest change, you know, from the time.

That you came to Congress in 1990.

Till the time you left in 2015? So that's 25 years. What's.

What's the single biggest change in our politics or in the system or whatever? And he didn't even, like, hesitate.

He said, well, it's the media. It's all the media. It's the information system. I said, well, what do you mean?

And he said, well, in 1990, you know, me and my neighbor who, you.

Know, guy next door who was a.

Democrat, and we disagreed on a lot of politics.

Like, every morning we both got the.

Cincinnati Enquirer dropped off on our front lawn, and we listened to some of.

The same radio stuff as we drove.

Around in our cars at work, taking.

Kids to school and whatnot. And then we came home and we watched the same 6:30 telecast. And then when we'd be outside drinking a beer at night over the fence, we'd be arguing about the same stuff.

That we heard, but we'd be arguing.

From a shared baseline of facts, you know, that. That we. We'd been tuned into the same thing. And he said, by the time I'm.

Leaving office, he said, most of my constituent calls during the day, and he's the speaker, so he's got a whole.

Staff of people who, you know, as, you know, you know, you guys, senators and members of Congress, member of the House. You know, you guys have staff who.

Are just dedicated to answering calls.

But, but the Speaker's got an even.

[Al Franken]

Bigger staff, a lot of whom I hear say, I'm sorry to hear you say that, sir. That's a very common thing coming from them.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

They're like, they're like, they're like grief counselors. Right. And Boehner is explaining, he's saying, you know, like, I've got a whole staff.

Of people who are answering phones for.

Me all day long and all they're hearing is just like, nonsense. It's just like all this kind of right wing conspiracy stuff that's through the.

Blogosphere and through the social media and.

Through Fox News and talk radio. And he's saying, you know, like, they're not even calling to complain about some.

Bill that we're pushing. They're not calling to complain about some vote that I took. They're calling to complain about something that they swear is happening, that actually isn't happening.

Right. And so how do you, how do you deal with that?

[Al Franken]

Like a QAnon rumor or something?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Sure, yeah.

I mean, you know, it's a flavor.

Of the month, Right.

It's constant. But there's, you know, if it's Trump.

Being cheated or it's the deep state.

Or it's QAnon or it's, you know, the invasion of it's, you know, migrants.

Being legalized that Democrats can take power. It's the great replacement theory.

I mean, you name it, Right?

[Al Franken]

We're just divided, Is that it?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, well, look, I mean, being divided, I think, is nothing new. Obviously, you know, your history and the.

Country'S been divided for a long time.

Over a lot of different things. What I try to get at in the book is when those divisions take on kind of these greater existential, spiritual.

Cosmic stakes where you no longer think.

It'S just we're fighting over immigration policy or we're fighting over abortion policy or fighting over foreign policy, because those are our policy differences. And there's going to be a partisan.

Dispute here and there's going to be a winner and a loser, and then.

We kind of move on to the next election and then we do it all over again. There's much more now, this sense on the right broadly, but I think specifically.

In the evangelical movement, where there is.

A kind of a blood and soil, God and country, us versus them, good.

Versus evil mentality, as I described it earlier.

[Al Franken]

What does blood and soil mean?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, in that context, what I'm getting at is a belief that this is a holy land, that this is a nation that is consecrated in the eyes of God, that any of these pagan secularists who wanted to create the idea.

Of a separation of church and state, that they really have done so to try and eliminate Christianity from public life. And look how successful they've been, by the way. Right? They kicked prayer out of public schools.

They'Ve indoctrinated our kids, they've turned people against the church, and we see membership declining because of it. Therefore, they've declared war on God in.

America and the only response for us.

As Christians is to declare war on them.

[Al Franken]

Do they realize that the First Amendment starts with freedom of religion? They're would be nothing to stop the formation of religion and nothing to interfere with its exercise as the First Amendment.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

You know, let's not let legal language get in the way here, Al, of.

What we're trying to do.

[Al Franken]

The First Amendment by, of the Bill of Rights, written by our founding fathers. That should have some wait.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, it should. But it's interesting. I introduce readers in the book to a guy named David Barton.

If people don't know who he is.

They should, and they should pay more.

Attention to what he's doing. But basically, he is the conservative movement and the evangelical movement.

He is their favorite historian, and I'm putting historian in air quotes here. Basically, David Barton has spent the last number of years perfecting, you know, Kellyanne.

Conway has her alternative facts, then David Barton has his alternative history.

And central to his alternative history is this idea that. No, no, no, no, really, the founders.

Did mean to create a Christian nation, and they sort of spoke in code at times with some of these founding texts. But really, there's no question that they created us to be a Christian nation.

And they intended Christianity to kind of.

Infuse all of our institutions and our society and our communities.

And that the secularists have defeated that, that the secularists have changed the identity.

Of this, of this nation to its core. And so therefore we are now called to reclaim it.

That is, you know, when you read.

About or hear about the Christian nationalist movement or the Christian nationalism as kind.

Of a new fad ideology, that is.

Very much what we're talking about here.

[Al Franken]

How, how racist is Christian nationalism?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, it's, I think, inherently racist in, in some sense, because what you're talking about reclaiming, if you believe that the idea here is to reclaim something that's been lost.

What they want to reclaim, in part.

Is the white dominant Christian culture. White dominant, patriarchal, throwback, post World War II Christian Male.

[Al Franken]

Male, yeah.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Where.

Where everybody else just sort of stayed in their lanes and did what they were told. I mean, that's. That's obviously not even getting into some of the ugly history of racism in sort of mainstream American Protestantism, which we're still dealing with today, by the way.

[Al Franken]

Let's talk about the Southern Baptists. Yeah. When were they founded?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

So the Southern Baptists were founded mid 19th century, and they were founded explicitly as a splinter away from the mainline Baptists who were supportive of the abolitionist movements in the US and so the Southern Baptist Convention was formed as an.

Explicitly anti abolitionist, pro slavery entity. You know, that. That's a tough. That's a tough history to shake.

[Al Franken]

There are Southern Baptists, there are black churches that are Southern Baptist. Right?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

I mean, this is an evolution from then.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, well. And this is the struggle within the Southern Baptist Convention. I think it's also the struggle within American Christianity and maybe even American life more broadly there. You know, the.

If you believe that the original sin.

Of this country was in fact, slavery, there's something, I think, deeply profound and.

Spiritual, maybe even the lowercase s spiritual.

About kind of understanding the way in which race and racism, racial hatred, racial demagoguery continues to fracture the nation today.

And continues to fracture the church today.

So, yeah, you have, inside the Southern Baptist Convention itself, you have seen just in the last five or six years, like this massive flashpoint, kind of a reckoning over the question of race.

And are we finally going to address.

This elephant in the room, which many.

Of us have just sort of chosen not to for a very long time.

Because, well, things have gotten better, haven't they? You know, we do have. Have black congregants in our.

In our churches now.

We do have black preachers in some.

Of our churches now.

We do have majority black churches in the sbc.

So isn't it okay now?

Haven't we sort of moved past this?

We elected a black president, didn't we?

Do we.

Do we really have to?

But then every time you have an episode like you had with the. The killing of George Floyd in. In 2020, it flares right back up.

It's like this wound that just won't stay closed.

And so the Southern Baptists have undergone.

A really painful period and are continuing in the midst of this very painful.

Period where, in fact, a lot of black congregants and black pastors have left the SBC because of kind of the backlash to the backlash, if you will, and an unwillingness to have some of.

The hardest conversations around Race and religion and how they commingle in American Christianity.

[Al Franken]

Now, tell me about Liberty University, if you will. It was started by Falwell, and he was a very good businessman, right?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah, he was. He was a brilliant businessman and kind.

Of a master manipulator who knew what.

Got people worked up and then knew how to take advantage of it. So, you know, Liberty University is a really fascinating story.

I could have written an entire book just about Liberty.

But basically, what you have to understand is that Jerry Falwell Sr.

Built out an empire that changed American.

Christianity, and it changed American life. And that empire consisted of three parts, three cogs to the machine, if you will.

The first was his mega church, which.

Was in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Thomas Road Baptist is the name of.

The church, and it's still there today.

His. His son, one of his sons, Jonathan.

Falwell, is the pastor.

[Al Franken]

Right.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Huge church.

[Al Franken]

His other son kind of blew it.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

The other son? Yeah, yeah. The other. Right.

[Tim Alberta]

Junior.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Well, yeah. So he's got.

He's got two sons.

He's got two sons, of course, Jerry Falwell Jr. Who became sort of most known for his affiliation with Donald Trump and then kind of spectacular fall from grace with a sex scandal and the pool boy and all of that. And then Jonathan Falwell, who is the pastor, who is, I think, kind of regarded as the one who got it right, who didn't stray.

The megachurch is one piece of it, and then, of course, the Moral Majority is the final piece of it. That comes later, comes towards the late 1970s, but really the key piece in the middle of it that is underappreciated.

Is this little college that he starts in Lynchburg, Virginia.

It's called initially Lynchburg Baptist College, and nobody's heard of it. It's got an enrollment of like 1200 kids. It's, you know, it's in the middle of nowhere.

And Falwell, after the school's been in business for a few years, it's not even clear that the school can stay open.

They're not making any money, and they have no facilities.

It's just kind of a pet project almost. But Falwell, he really shrewdly senses that.

There is an appetite in the kind of on the Christian right, in the.

The nascent movement of sort of Christian conservatives, that there's an appetite in academia to sort of push back on the.

Secularization and the liberal trends in. In higher education that are being seen.

Around the country and that are being.

Written about a lot of the time.

[Al Franken]

Sure.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

And so he kind of capitalizes on that.

And he changes to coincide with the.

Bicentennial in 1976, he changes the school's.

Name to Liberty University and he changes the colors. They were gold and green and he changes them to red, white and blue.

And they embark on this, this kind.

Of big fundraising tour around the country.

Where they basically say that the liberals.

And the secularists have declared war on God in America. And we at Liberty University are going.

To take it past back, we're going to take this country back and we're going to, we're going to restore God's place in American life.

All the rest. And you know, you've heard all the rhetoric, but it's impossible to overstate Al, just how important and how influential this was at that moment with again, you.

Know, Carter is in office and people are really freaking out and you know, a lot of folks suddenly they're, they're worried. Do you know, can we send our.

Kids to a college where they won't be indoctrinated? Are they still going to go to church once they've left our. Like there's this kind of moral panic setting in for portions of the, of the American public.

And so Liberty really starts to grow and become more and more influential.

And of course now looking back, it.

Has become, I think the dominant Christian university, both in terms of its, its size, its influence, but also in terms of its place in the sort of right wing ecosystem.

It is a, it is a, a massively important, important force both at a.

Political and at a cultural level.

[Al Franken]

Where does it relate to like Bob Jones University? I remember when my son was applying to college, I was very curious about Bob Jones because they didn't let male students date female students or obviously male students date male students. There was no touching. There was.

[Tim Alberta]

My son was applying to college so.

[Al Franken]

I, I had him like make inquiries into Bob Jones because I wanted to hear what they said. And I kind of did it without my son's permission. And one day he got a call from a co ed at Bob Jones who wanted to know where he went to church in New York. And my son, dad, don't do this. And I ended up when I was writing lies and lying liars tell them a fair and balanced look at the right. I brought a student who looked young enough from Harvard and we went there for the day and everybody was very nice, I must say, but that we were kind of, somebody recognized me and we were found out so we had to kind of run away. But I noticed they had all this art. It's all this renaissance, all this art of sacred art. And I thought, oh, man, Bob Jones, whatever, the second or something, had gotten this art in Germany in the 30s. And I felt like, oh, man, this is really evil. Is Bob Jones. That's an evangelical song school, right?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Yeah. Bob Jones was sort of, during that.

Era especially, probably even better understood as.

Kind of a fundamentalist school.

[Al Franken]

What's the difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

That's a great question. I mean, basically, without putting you to sleep here, Falwell himself had come from the fundamentalist tradition, and fundamentalists really believed.

For a long time. I suppose some probably still do, although.

These folks would be dying off at this point, but really believed. And Falwell used to preach that, like, their kingdom is not in this world, and therefore they should be almost separatists from this world.

So Falwell, early in his career would preach against any sort of civic involvement, civic engagement. He used to denounce other preachers who.

Were getting involved with, like, the civil rights movement movement, not. Not on ideological grounds per se and not explicitly, but just basically saying, that's.

Not our job as pastors. He had this famous line where he.

Said, you know, pastors are called to be soul winners, not, you know, political movers and shakers, basically.

[Al Franken]

Ironic.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Ironic, yes, quite ironic because of the.

The arc that he would then follow.

But that the fundamentalism, among other things, really was very strict in its applications around, like, no, you don't. You don't have any business sullying your Christian identity with the sort of nasty, sordid political stuff.

[Al Franken]

So very different from the evangelicals that you profile.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

That's right. Well, and. And, you know, by the way, like, there's almost something, you know, now, knowing what we know now, there's almost something refreshing about that fundamental doctrine where. Where you're just almost going to err.

On the side of not engaging with.

This stuff at all because it's, you.

Know, could so defile your soul.

Like, obviously, it's an extreme. It's an extreme proposition, but there's something almost. Almost curiously appealing about it for someone.

Like me who's sort of seen up.

Close the, you know, what the other side of it looks like. But, you know, Bob Jones was in many ways just circling back to kind of put a bow on the conversation around race and kind of the culture.

Wars and the rise of the Moral Majority during that time.

Bob Jones was a flashpoint because they would not allow black students in the mid-1970s, or I think up until the mid-1970s, if you recall.

There was a real intense public debate around the irs.

[Al Franken]

Oh, that's right.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Threatening Bob Jones and some other Christian.

Universities, smaller Christian universities who were receiving federal funds or who had students who were getting federal loans and basically threatening to shut it down because they were.

Practicing race based discrimination. And Falwell Sr. And some of his allies were very opportunistic in kind of pouncing on that and saying, you see, here's the government weaponizing to come after Christianity.

Here's the government, here's the secular government coming after Christians, persecuting Christians in America for our beliefs.

When I think anybody who is honest was looking at that and saying, well, that's not, there's no secular plot.

[Al Franken]

That's the government saying you can't segregate your schools and that we won't.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

Exactly. Right.

There's a difference here.

And yet that's the sort of thing that one, once that narrative got into.

The bloodstream, there was no getting it out. And they were very effective at getting.

It into the bloodstream.

[Al Franken]

So what do you want your readers to draw from this in terms of where we are and where we're going? 1. Just to be aware of it. But how do we address these people? And is it hopeless? I mean, in terms of, of they're just not listening to our stuff, they're not reading our stuff, they're not watching our stuff?

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

No, I don't think it's hopeless. And you know, when we talk about these people, I mean, even if you're.

Thinking about like some of the hardcore.

Folks who, to be clear, as I state on like the second or third.

Page of the book, there's. There's a real vast spectrum here in.

Terms of who these folks are and, and their behaviors and their attitudes and why they do the things they do.

And I'm not out to caricature or stereotype any of them.

I want to make that clear. But I think even when we're dealing with the folks who you might want to caricature, the really extreme set of folks, I think the best remedy to all of this.

And by the way, it's the same.

Thing that I would preach to the evangelical who is trying to come up with answers to, okay, well, how do I engage my liberal neighbor who, who believes in none of the stuff that.

I believe in, socially, culturally, theologically, how.

Am I supposed to engage with them? I'd say the exact same thing, which is like, you know, a little bit of love and a little bit of goodwill goes a long way. And if that sounds, you know, Phone phony or corny, I don't particularly care. I've been in some. I've had some amazing conversations in the last couple of months out, you know.

On tour promoting this book.

I've been in sett with people who have almost nothing in common at all in terms of their biography and their beliefs and all of it. And yet they share a common love for this country and for their community.

And a willingness to perhaps set aside some of those things that do divide.

Them and focus on sort of the bigger picture. And that is, you know, can we.

As Americans, as neighbors, can we hold on to this thing that we, we've inherited? Can we survive?

Can we.

Can this experiment endure? And if so, what is required of us to do that?

And I think there is still hope.

For that, at least in my view.

But, but, you know, there, there has.

To be a recognition of the dangers that exist.

And one of the dangers is, does exist at this kind of intersection of hard right maga, kind of militant politics and the religious justification drawn from misreadings of scripture and bad theology and bad.

History and how that can create this.

Kind of toxic brew that we've seen.

Here that I'm writing about in the book.

But I would just want to be clear, Al, like, as a Christian, as.

Someone who believes that God is sovereign over all of this and that, that.

As my dad used to say from.

The pulpit, that God does not bite his fingernails. He never has and he never will.

[Al Franken]

He's not nervous.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

He's not nervous over this. And I'm not, I can't be nervous either if I'm being faithful. And so my job is to be faithful. And it's to try and influence people.

Around me to take their eyes off.

Of the petty partisan disputes of the day and put their eyes back towards Jesus.

And once they do that, once they're reminded.

Of what? Of the, of the central teachings of loving your neighbor and of loving your enemy and of praying for those who.

Persecute you and turning the other cheek.

And, and trying to embrace those around us and show them what the love of Jesus really means. Like that.

That's going to go a long way.

Just in my own community towards solving these problems.

[Al Franken]

Well, I, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by, by Leo Kotke, the great Leo Kotke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.

[Ryan Reynolds]

If you like the Al Franken Podcast.

[Unnamed Evangelical Speaker]

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