Are We Seeing a Religious Revival?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Are We Seeing a Religious Revival?"

Podcast: The Commentary Magazine Podcast
Date: September 22, 2025
Hosts/Participants:

• John Podhoretz (Host, Editor of Commentary)
• Abe Greenwald (Executive Editor)
• Matthew Continetti (Washington Columnist)
• Christine Rosen (Social Columnist)

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Overview

This episode addresses the question: Is America witnessing a new religious revival? Using the staggering turnout and explicitly Christian tone of Charlie Kirk’s recent funeral as a starting point, the Commentary panel explores the cultural, religious, and political implications of the event, interrogates the resonances with historic American revivalism, and considers whether current trends truly represent a return to faith. The second half of the discussion moves to the UN General Assembly’s recent symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state, examining its actual impact and the declining relevance of the UN in global politics.

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1. Charlie Kirk’s Funeral: Spectacle, Revival, or Turning Point?

(Main segment: 00:45–41:00)

Key Points and Insights

• Funeral as Christian Revival

  • The event was described as less a memorial and more a mass Christian revival, with speaker after speaker calling explicitly for religious renewal and salvation through Jesus (01:47–07:31).
  • Comparison to Billy Graham’s mid-20th-century tent revivals. An explicit return to this kind of mass, communal religiosity that once defined American evangelicalism (07:31–10:20).

• Performance vs. Authenticity

  • Christine Rosen points out the theatrical, almost Billy Sunday-style spectacle, blurring the lines between showmanship and spiritual call, incorporating both personal stories and overtly political themes (10:20–12:20).

• Erica Kirk’s Forgiveness and Power

  • The most powerful moment came from Erica Kirk, who publicly forgave her husband’s alleged killer, citing her Christian faith (12:24–15:24).
    • Quote: “Charlie was trying to save the lost boys of America, including…the young man who shot him. And she said, I forgive him.” —Abe Greenwald (07:31)
    • Her authenticity is credited with upstaging even Donald Trump.

• Trump’s Contrasted Approach

  • Trump directly contrasted himself with Erica, declaring, “She loves her enemies, not me. I hate my opponents…Maybe she could teach me and others how to love our opponents, but I hate our opponents.” (07:31–08:45)
  • Quote: “He was basically saying, you’re a better person than I am, and I might have something to learn from you.” —John Podhoretz (15:24)

• Tucker Carlson’s Controversial Remarks

  • Carlson likened Kirk’s death to the crucifixion, implying powerful forces schemed to kill him “while eating hummus” — a phrase widely interpreted as a veiled anti-Semitic dog whistle (07:31, 26:59–30:11).
  • Quote: “[Tucker] took his shot, he had his moment, and he used it to not so subtly implicate the Jews in Christ Jesus and Charlie’s death…I have to say…It was a real dissonant note.” —Abe Greenwald (01:47)

• Scale and Historic Comparison

  • The turnout — an NFL stadium filled with about 90,000 people — was compared to state funerals, highlighting Kirk’s invisible influence outside established intellectual circles (12:47–13:18).
  • “In historical perspective, it is akin to like a president dying or, you know, a state funeral type gathering.” —Matthew Continetti (12:55)

• Media and Cultural Impact

  • The panel wonders if this marks a watershed moment for a new religious movement, or if it will fade — with future metrics being church attendance, Republican voter registration among the young, and follow-on stadium revivals (38:24–39:43).

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Erica Kirk’s Eulogy:

  • “Delivered with dignity and courage…her message of no revenge but love…should be spread far and wide.” —Christine Rosen (12:20-13:20)

• On Revivalism:

  • “It’s a return to what made evangelicalism…a potent force in American life as in the post-war era…” —John Podhoretz (07:31)

• On Tucker Carlson:

  • “There was some weird revelation of the deep darkness and evil…inside Tucker’s soul…that this sound emerged naturally from his body as he was delivering this.” —John Podhoretz (27:52)

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2. Signs of a Religious Revival?

(Focused discussion: 39:43–48:15)

Key Points and Insights

• Plateau in Secularization

  • Data shows “the decline in religious belief has plateaued in recent years” (39:43). Young people are converting, with “huge spikes in conversions among young people” reported in Catholicism and traditional Judaism.

• Cultural Shift Away From Atheist Influencers

  • Public intellectuals from the New Atheist movement (e.g., Dawkins, Hitchens) have faded, while influential figures like Jordan Peterson advocate for reconsidering religion, especially among wayward young men (43:20–43:58).
    • “Jordan Peterson…became this massive sigma…telling wayward Western male young males, ‘consider God, consider religion. And by the way, don’t blame the Jews.’” —Abe Greenwald (43:47)

• Politics as “Replacement Faith”

  • The left’s embrace of “woke politics” is seen as an insufficient substitute for true meaning, possibly fueling today’s readiness to revive traditional religion (43:58–44:34).

• Warning: Possible Culture War Escalation

  • Podhoretz warns that if a “fourth religious awakening” is coming, the culture wars may get even uglier, as “the nuns are full of their own virtue and believe that the faithful are evil…That’s why Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk in the head.” (44:34–48:15)

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3. The UN, Recognition of Palestine, and the Waning of International Clout

(Transition & main segment: 50:13–59:03)

Key Points and Insights

• General Assembly Recognizes Palestinian State

  • Hundreds of nations at the UN voted to recognize a Palestinian state; the US, Germany, Italy, and Japan voted against (50:13).
  • The panel is largely unfazed, seeing the move as symbolic and toothless.

• Weakness of Recognizing States

  • The UK, France, and Canada are cited as diminished powers; popular opinion in these countries doesn’t favor the recognition of Palestinian statehood, revealing a disconnect between elites and their populations (52:32–55:09).
    • “It’s actually reassuring to see that the publics in these nations aren’t with the leadership on the question of the Palestinian state.” —Matthew Continetti (55:14)

• Speculation: US Pulling Out of the UN?

  • Potential for Trump to escalate and propose the US leave the organization (55:42–58:43).

• United Nations’ Moral Bankruptcy

  • Citing Antonio Guterres’ selectively moralizing statements about Gaza, the panel laments the organization’s continued delegitimization (55:42–57:53).

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4. Media Coverage and Political Violence—A Note on Motives and Spin

(Final discussion: 60:27–63:16)

Key Points and Insights

• Media Downplays Political/Identity Motivation
  • The aftermath of the Kirk assassination and a separate New Hampshire shooting featured media reluctance to frame events as ideologically motivated, especially when perpetrators are connected to marginalized identities (60:27–63:16).
    • “The effort continues in the media…saying we shouldn’t talk about the trans aspect because that’s a threat to trans people.” —Christine Rosen (63:01)

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5. Notable Quotes and Takeaways

Erica Kirk’s Oratory

“I forgive him.” (07:31) —Erica Kirk (via Abe)

Trump’s Authentic Admission

“I hate my opponents… maybe [Erica] can teach us something about how to behave better. I’m sorry.” (15:24) —Donald Trump (via John)

On Tucker Carlson

“There was some weird revelation of the deep darkness and evil…inside Tucker’s soul…that this sound emerged naturally from his body...” (27:52) —John Podhoretz

On Revivalism’s Return

“It’s a return to what made evangelicalism a potent force in American life as in the postwar era…” (07:31) —John Podhoretz

On Possible Culture War Escalation

“If America does actually go through like a fourth religious awakening, that is not going to happen easily…” (48:15) —John Podhoretz

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6. Timestamps for Key Segments

• Charlie Kirk’s funeral recap and analysis: 00:45–21:17
• Erica Kirk’s remarks and authenticity vs. performance: 12:24–21:17
• Tucker Carlson controversy and antisemitism discussion: 26:58–37:44
• Is this a real religious revival? Data and history: 39:43–48:15
• UN, Palestine, and Western decline: 50:13–59:03
• Media framing of violence and identity: 60:27–63:16

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Conclusion

The episode offers an in-depth reflection on the spectacle and meaning of Charlie Kirk’s funeral – as both a sign of spiritual hunger and a staging ground for renewed American religiosity. The panel identifies both opportunities for societal healing through forgiveness and love, and hazards posed by new forms of extremism and revived antisemitic tropes. The broader context — political, religious, and cultural — is understood as tumultuous and revolutionary, with much to watch in terms of social trends and the possible further intensification of the culture war. The discussion of the UN’s recent move closes the episode with a sense of historic institutions’ declining authority and the persistent challenge of finding credible, authentic leadership.

Transcript

[A]

Hope for the best, Expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect.

[B]

The worst Hope for the best.

[A]

Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Monday, September 22, 2025. I'm John Pottericz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[B]

Hi, John.

[A]

Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt. Hi, John. And social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[C]

Hi, John.

[A]

We have two big topics today. We have to discuss the remarkable funeral of Charlie Kirk. And we need to discuss the UN General Assemblies and then the various Western countries decision to recognize a Palestinian state that has no borders, no capital, no government, no governance, no form, no leader. It's like recognizing Laputa in Gulliver's Travels, which is a non existent company that flies and it's flying in the air, but it's an important moment nonetheless. But maybe we should start with Charlie Kirk's funeral. I will confess that I was driving all yesterday afternoon and was unable to watch any of it. I read a little bit about it. But Abe, you, you were, you were there for the, you were there not in Arizona, but you were there in front of my tv. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I was there for pretty much the entirety of it. I, I missed the, my feed the prayers, opening prayer before the speaker started coming on. But I was there once, like Stephen Miller and Susie Wiles kick things off. So I have a few takeaways because it's a lot to encapsulate. It was hours and hours and hours overwhelmingly this Christian revival, they said as much, speaker after speaker described it as. That didn't feel terribly much like a memorial service for an individual in that sense, with exceptions that I'll get to. But you know, there was a lot of. And I. It's hard to even remember who said what, but I think it was J.D. vance who said we are all now in Charlie's church. And I also think it was Vance that said he spoke about that he himself, Vance spoke, has spoken about Jesus more since Charlie died than he has in the entirety of his public life before. And it was Stephen Miller made reference to how Charlie's cause will be stronger than ever now. And we need more God and more, more people to come to Jesus. And there will be much more of this, particularly among young men in the wake of Charlie's death. The exceptions to me were because it was many hours of that. Tucker Carlson, of course, got out there and he spoke about how Charlie's Death reminds him of how the powerful people in Jerusalem thousands of years ago schemed in a dark candlelit room while eating hummus and decided that they had to kill Jesus because he was challenging them in power. And then he. Then he gave off his sinister cackle. So this was his blatant. He took his shot, he had his moment, and he used it to not so subtly implicate the Jews in Christ Jesus and Charlie's death. I have to say, I think he's so out there on a limb, I mean, emotionally, in his presentation, that I don't know how he finds purchase with this. It was a real dissonant note, to be honest, amid everything else, that was one exception. Another exception to the proceedings was Erica Kirk's remarkable. She actually, when she spoke, it felt for the first time to me like a memorial service of a human being. She spoke about him, about their love, about their marriage, what kept it strong. They wrote each other love notes. And then she, of course, had this incredible moment where she invoked Jesus and said, charlie was charged trying to save the lost boys of America, including, like, the. Like the young man who shot him. And she said, I forgive him. She forgives the alleged shooter of her husband. That was as powerful as anything you could ever see yesterday or on any other day. That was really remarkable. And then Trump, Donald Trump came up and weirdly, almost undid some of that in saying, you know, Erica's amazing. She loves her enemies, not me. I hate my opponents. Maybe she could teach me and others how to love our opponents, but I hate our opponents. And he went into a very long several sort of political tributaries. I think the one that got the most attention was his announcing that today the Trump administration will be making some revelations about autism, about its causes and its treatments. Talked about how Charlie, one of the last things he had said to him was that, sir, you've got to clean up Chicago, and we're going to do that. And he made that quite political. He sort of ended the whole thing on this big MAGA note. Somewhere in there, Don Jr. Before that, made a kind of offer to Non Maga America, which I thought was a little interesting, saying, you know, if you're not with us, but if you're sick of crime, if you're sick of open borders, if you're saying, you know, we welcome you, there's room or whatever, join us. The overall impression was that this was one big religious revival, one big giant Christian revival.

[A]

It's an interesting thing for you to call it a revival, because in the late 1940s the real birth of, I would say of Mass American evangelicalism came with the revival meetings which had been a feature of American life for 100 years before that, but with these mass revival meetings led by Billy Graham, who toured the country and basically said, come and accept Christ into your heart and you will be saved. And he became, for many decades he was the most respected and popular figure in the United States among people outside of the megalopolis bubble, you know, outside of the Washington to Boston bubble. I mean his, the size of his fame, the courtship of him by presidents, all of that. And until the 1980s when everything became political, he was a resolutely non political figure. Billy Graham. And his purpose was to save soul, to bring souls to Jesus in this personal relationship with God. There's been weirdly very little of this on a mass scale since that time. I mean, I think evangelicalism found, became a mess movement in the United States. And I think more people, aside from Catholicism, more people sort of like I think define themselves as evangelical than any other kind of faith in the United States. But this would have been a familiar sight to Americans in a previous era having a mass meeting where there were 10,000, this was 60, 70, 80,000 people. But you know, tens of thousands of people would come to these tents that Billy Graham, you know, put up outside major cities and, and do this scene. So it's, it's, it's a, in some sense it's a, it's a return to what made evangelicalism. Is that the right word? Because you wouldn't say evangelism, right? Or I mean evangelicalism. Yes, evangelicalism. What made it a potent force in American life as in the post war era as Americans were graduate were, you know, urbanizing, leaving the farm, having these more sort of mass living in cities, living in suburbs and losing their connection to the church, the churches that they grew up in, in small towns and stuff like that, and finding this new form of, of, of, of being able to achieve your faith in a more personal way.

[C]

But Billy Graham, in a way you could see him as an exception to the rule of how revivals went. And I actually thought the Charlie Kirk Memorial was more like Billy Sunday, more performance, more kind of wide range of non theological, quasi, obviously quasi political in the case of Trump, but more performative spectacle which I think we do have the tent revivals. You know, you think of Amy Semple McPherson and all these people in American history who actually were performative about bringing people to faith. But actually that also had a sort of very large tent idea of what that could look like, Anyone could come in. Anyone could dedicate themselves to Christ. And so there. I felt like there was a lot of that. I agree with Abe that it really did have that revival tone, but also had a lot of performance. I will say that. Tucker. I agree with you about Tucker, Abe, and I hope you're correct in diagnosing him as being an outlier. It reminded me, I mean, he's coming across now like some like bad bastard child of, you know, Father Coughlin. And a. Would be Instagram. Instagram. I mean, he's just, he's just so. It's horrible. And this like hummus whistle, I guess that's the new dog whistle. It's like, I won't say Jews, but you all know, wink, wink what I'm talking about. I do hope that's an outlier. Erica Kirk's remarks should be spread far and wide. The dignity and courage with which she delivered them, the fact that this whole memorial was all put together now she's the head of this organization that her husband founded and her message of no revenge but love, forgiveness and love and hate. No hate. I think Tulsi Gabbard also gave a good defense of free speech in her remarks. I heard a little bit of those. So there were some really powerful themes. And Trump himself talking about defending Christians and what Charlie did to defend Christians and Jews on college campuses. So there were some really powerful strands there. It will be interesting to see how those are processed by people who aren't of that world or have disdain for that world.

[D]

I think. I mean, don't you think the headline will be Erica Kirk though? I mean, she.

[A]

So yeah, yeah.

[D]

I mean, I think that was just an incredible piece of oratory that she delivered yesterday. You know, I can't quite wrap my head around the enormity of the proceedings. It was extremely large. They filled the NFL stadium. There was overflow crowd of many, many people who.

[A]

So Turning Point USA says 90,000 people attended between the crowd in the stadium and the crowd outside the stadium.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And so, you know, and just in historical perspective, it is akin to like a president dying or, you know, a state funeral type gathering. I think that the largest public memorial was in American history or modern American history was Martin Luther King Jr's funeral that had several hundred thousand people. But this is approaching that.

[A]

Right.

[D]

For a 31 year old who was clearly touching millions of people in a way that was invisible to much of intellectual America and the college elite. So. So there's the scale, Justin Shear numbers. Then there's the scale of the speakers, which is to say, you know, you had half the Trump administration there. It's clear this whole kind of political dimension to it. He wasn't part of the administration, but he clearly was a central figure in the MAGA universe and in, I think, advising the administration from the outside. And then finally, you had this religious cultural dimension, which is super political. It's even larger than the politics of it. And that's why I think Erica Kirk was so amazing. It's the first time I've ever seen a speaker upstage Donald Trump to think about that. And I think what. And I think the key is she is just as authentic as Trump, but the authenticity is doing something different than Trump. And that contrast that Abe mentioned between love your enemies, hate your enemies was fascinating because they're both being completely honest. She is being completely honest to herself, to her understanding of the Christian faith, when she said those remarkable words. And then when Trump follows her and says, you know, Charlie said, love your enemies. I hate my enemies. And he did it smart, you know, with a half smile, as he always does. That's also how we completely understand that that's who Trump is. And so this kind of currency of authenticity, I think, is the biggest thing you can have in America, American culture and society today. And I think that's why Erica Kirk will be far more influential than. Than Tucker.

[A]

I think, by the way, what's interesting about that dynamic between what Trump said and what Erica Kirk said, and you're saying that. That she upstaged him was that he bowed to her. I mean, if you think about what he said, he said, you know, Erica says we should love our enemies. I hate my opponents. Maybe she can teach us something about how to behave better. When has Trump ever spoken words, anything remotely like that? Like, he was basically saying, you're a better person than I am, and I might have something to learn from you. I'm sorry. He said. He said, I hate my opponents. I'm sorry, but I do. And that's a weird. The words I'm sorry do not come out of his mouth for a very deliberate reason. And so you have these two faces, right, of how to deal with this cultural moment, which is, I hate my opponents. I want to destroy them. They want to destroy me. I want to destroy them. Erica Kirk says Charlie wanted to save young men. One way to save this young man is to provide him love and forgiveness. I forgive him. What that reminds me of is the Pope with Mehmet Ali Ajah, who was his assassin. The Pope went to a prison in Italy and sat with Ajah, Pope John Paul II, John Paul II in 1982. He was shot in 1981, and Aja was convicted, and he went to visit him in prison and hold his hand and pray with him. And Ajah sobbed and wept and asked for the Pope's forgiveness for his actions. And that, more than anything else, I believe, historically brought the. What we've been calling the assassination era to an end. That scene of the Pope forgiving the man who shot and nearly killed him did something to the. I don't know, the emotional ether that. That ended this period of nearly 20 years in which there was a kind of ongoing effort across the globe to kill leaders, assassinate leaders for political reasons. I don't imagine that this is a comparable circumstance, but it is very hauntingly similar. And I, for one, speaking from my own faith tradition, I'm not closer to Trump because Trump is talking about making this a political matter. Jews on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the days of awe in which we reflect on our actions and sins, or we do not respond to murder as Erica Kirk did, or as this, you know, we say, may God avenge their blood. That is the prayer that you say for someone who has been murdered. You say different or you say something else. To a family that's had a person die, you say, may. May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion in Jerusalem. But we say, may God avenge their blood. It is considered just to punish the perpetrator. Now, you can still punish Tyler Robinson, you know, find him guilty in a court, by the way. You could even give him the death penalty punished. Forgiveness is in the heart. And I suppose any human being can find that power within them. It's a very rare phenomenon for anybody I've ever known who's had a family member murdered. That murder is an ongoing wound that never goes away and never heals in a way that a death, a natural death, or even an accidental death can heal. How she. What she means by it, how she proceeds with her life. I hope that she hasn't overburdened herself in a weird way with this power that she asserted yesterday, this kind of moral power. Because she is 36 years old, she does have two small children, and this absolutely horrendous thing has been. Has been done to her. And I mean, not to be patronizing, but she kind of needs to process it or cope with it or find a way to live through it. And obviously, this two weeks of unprecedented public private national mourning, anger, fights, all this means that she probably hasn't had an opportunity or a chance to do that. She's just living in a whirlwind. Right.

[D]

I mean, don't you think, though? I mean, she's clearly stepped up to the, to the moment. I think she's met the moment. I mean, if you think about her.

[A]

I mean, in her soul. I'm not really. I mean, maybe that's why I say maybe. It sounds patronizing and I shouldn't know. I don't know her and I don't know anything about her life or anything like that. But sometimes people assume these mantles and then they're very heavy. The burden is very heavy because it's also a way of not quite pushing, pushing the pushing the thing you need to resolve. Not that it's resolvable to one side, that that's, that's all I'm referring to. I don't. Right. Well, I would just say more than met the moment. I mean, she's, she's now become a major national figure in 10 days time or however long it's been.

[D]

You know, that's right. And I was going to say that. And there's three main communications she's given since the assassination. There was the message she gave next to his chair on the show. There was an interview, a lengthy interview with Robert Draper in the New York Times yesterday. And then there was the eulogy remarks at the memorial service yesterday afternoon. And all three of them have been really remarkable. So just considering this whirlwind that she's been sucked into, I think that she's more than meeting the challenge. And I understand you're saying something about the personal, the inner side. I just want to make one more point about Trump and Erica Kirk. My, my wife informed me recently that Erica Kirk was on a reality show and Donald Trump is the reality TV master. And so I just am mulling over this paradox that the most authentic speakers yesterday and at large come from the most factitious medium. What is it? It's something about that reality tv, somehow it teaches or informs authenticity, which then clearly is. Some people are able to communicate through, through television much better than others.

[A]

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[E]

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[F]

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[E]

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[E]

My understanding, having reported this, is that the Pentagon protested to CNN and tried to effectively exile the CNN producer. And when the moment calls for it, we've got some hot takes. I just think Brad Pitt, honestly, he kind of seems a little washed up.

[F]

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[A]

That is a very interesting observation. It's like, you know, Survivor, which is really the show that gave birth to reality tv. The moment that fixed reality TV forever was this moment at the end of the first season of Survivor when the tribe voted against this woman whose last name was Hawk and in favor of this guy who then ended up going to prison for tax evasion and tax fraud. And she delivered this weird speech out of nowhere about snakes and Who's a snake and who's trustworthy and who's not trustworthy. That was one of the most jaw dropping moments ever in the history of television because it broke through that weird inauthenticity. It broke even though Survivor was here. You saw them doing all this stuff in the woods and everything. But as this guy who once said, it's a game. It's a game and we're all playing the game. And I figured out how to play the game and win. And she's like, no, no. Human beings aren't supposed to behave this way toward one another. This is not how society works. You're not allowed to say one thing to my face and then go behind my back and say something else. So there may be the contrast between the factitiousness and these moments of candor or true. Or true. That elevates and heightens the truth that it emerges from this cesspool of falsity.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know. Culturally. Yeah. Struck me. Yeah. I want to talk about Tucker Carlson for a minute because I didn't watch the whole speech, but of course I saw this minute, the minute of the. You know, it reminds me of this time 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. And when he finished, when he said, and these people sitting around eating hummus and they're like, let's kill him, let's kill him. And he famously has this cackle. Right. Like on the show where you see him sort of laugh. That was like a horror movie moment. That was like a jump scare. His laugh. That wasn't sort of like. It was first of all glaringly inappropriate.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He's in the middle of delivering a memorial to somebody else and it didn't sound assassinated.

[C]

So like joking about. Yeah.

[A]

And it didn't sound like the other the, like Tucker cackle. I mean, I say this like, like there was something demonic in it. And in that sense I agree with. I hope you're right, Abe, that this is not, you know, he's not the future. And that Erica Kirk or some version of the more pacific of going forward is. Is the future. But I think there was some weird revelation of the deep darkness and evil. And I say that unqualifiedly evil inside Tucker soul, that this sound emerged naturally from his body as he was delivering this, you know, as though Vatican II never happened. Condemnation. You know, what this reminds me of is that the Jews kill Christ in a slightly. Which, you know, Catholics, of course, are no longer. Not that he's a Catholic, but I mean, the Catholics are no longer theologically supposed to accept that, you know, Jews killed Christ, Jews killed Jews killed Charlie Kirk. And the other weird part about this is this. This effort to connect Jews to this assassination is really. Tyler Robinson was raised Mormon. He's a furry with a transgender boyfriend who says he just wanted to end the hate. Where are the Jews in any of this?

[C]

Well, and it should also be added that you've mentioned Catholics, but in evangelical culture, the Jews kill Jesus stuff is really not present. That is an anti Semitic trope that exists, unfortunately, on both sides of the aisle, but it is not. I mean, Vatican II did actually remove that sort of quasi endorsement of the idea, you know, from Catholics perspectives. But even evangelicals tend to be philosemitic, like they are. They're the opposite of that. And so he's not even expressing a view that is in keeping with the people gathered at that ceremony.

[D]

But you know that there's a war raging within evangelicalism over Israel.

[C]

Right.

[D]

And the status of the Hebrew Bible within the Christian faith. And Tucker has planted his flag with the view that, you know, the New Covenant, Jesus's covenant, superseded all the covenants that God made with the Jews. And that's happening, and he knows it. And so this assassination has been pulled into that fight. That's what's happening within American evangelicalism. And then the fight more broadly over Israel and the Hamas war. But that it's done so strategically and so quickly, it's clearly, again, points to foreign operators who are, you know, manipulating the algorithm in order to plant these seeds of conspiracy and then watch them flower online. And that's that. That's the petri dish where Tucker Carlson and his podcast cronies reside.

[A]

I think it's also important to point out that Tucker Carlson is not an evangelical Christian. He's an Episcopalian. He grew up an Episcopalian. He went to an Episcopalian school. He is married to the daughter of an Episcopalian minister who was the headmaster of the school that he attended. I know. I mean, I haven't spoken to him about this in decades. But as people may or may not know, like, I was Tucker's editor for two years. I was one of the people who hired him at the Weekly Standard and began. Began his career, assigned him many of the articles that helped make him famous in the world of opinion writing. And he had views that were very, interestingly heterodox at the time for a very, you know, he was very conservative in many ways, very libertarian and others. He had written a book for the Heritage foundation on policing that he then refused to Publish or gave back the money that they had paid him because he had decided when he was done with it that it was. He was morally opposed to the argument that his own book made about how the need for tough policing because that was too empowering to authorities. Pro life, very pro life. But he was in all other respects of conventional Episcopalian. The stuff that he is now peddling, has been peddling now for a couple of years, is some kind of weird, sick stew of Pentecostalist ideas about, you know, demonic possessions. And there's parapsychology and, and there's, you know, and all this. And then this direct anti Semitism which he will even bring in the idea that Charlie Kirk is Jesus or Charlie Kirk is the modern Jesus and therefore he was probably killed by the same people who killed Jesus to be fine with me, because the Romans killed Jesus. But, you know, if he wants to blame the ancient Romans, you know, if you want us to blame Etruscans for killing Jesus, I don't even know if there are any of them who are still right. Good luck to you. But of course, that's not what he's, what he's about. This is a political program. And as I say, I think that the laugh at the end, if you were watching, thinking, where do I go in this conversation? That would have been at least a way of saying, I don't like that guy. Like, what the hell was that noise that came out of his mouth? Thought it was very revealing, you know, not only that he couldn't control himself, but that almost like a reverse of the story of Balaam's ass in the, in the Bible. The, the, the priest who, the, the, the gentile prophet who is sent out to curse the Jews and ends up praising them because God fills his mouth. It's almost as though the devil filled Tucker Carlson's mouth or God filled Tucker Carlson's mouth with a demonic noise to let you know that what he had just said was not to be heeded.

[B]

I think that's.

[A]

Well, maybe I'm being sentimental here, but.

[B]

I don't know, it was totally jarring. And I think in only a slightly better world would have been a career ender, given the context. You had people in the audience weeping, you know, broad swaths of them, you know, at various points, and then suddenly he's up there like the joker, you know, making this, this, this crazy accusation. It was like he was injected into this and where was the hook to, to, you know, get him off?

[A]

Hummus, by the way, is not a Jewish food. I Just would like to say it's not even an Israeli food exactly. Like hummus is one of the dishes that, that, that Jews began to eat in the Middle east because they moved, you know, in with the various, you know, immigrations into the Holy Land. They began to eat because it was like, it was like a native thing that they could learn how to make easily out of chickpeas. There are three. There are almost 400,000 Arabs who live in Jerusalem proper. They ate a lot of hummus. Maybe he was talking about the Arabs.

[D]

Killed the Middle Eastern Jews who migrated to Israel after all the Arab governments expelled them.

[A]

Right. But I mean, as I say, there are 400,000 Arabs who live in Jerusalem. So when he said there was a bunch of. They're eating hummus there at the, you know, in the, in the. I don't know what he, what this meeting was. Was it supposed to be the, the Sanhedrin or, you know, then they decide to kill him and they're eating hummus. Well, that, you know, that could have been, that could have been Arabs, I suppose. I mean, the fact that he has found that he found this image in his head of the hummus eater, I guess is better than saying they were sitting around, you know, with their, with their yarmulkes on, you know, praying over a Hebrew book and then saying we should kill him. But it was pretty close. And I wouldn't make too much of this except that for the fight that Matt's talking. So Matt's talking about a fight, fight within evangelical Christianity over the, the place of the, you know, of the Old Testament and the superseding question of the New Testament. Tucker emerges out of a right wing world that is not all that faith driven. I mean, if he's the woke, right, or the dark web, whatever you want, those people are very secular. The ones where a lot of this kind of modern anti Semitism are emerging about how, you know, Israel is dragging America into. The Jews are dragging America into the world into, you know, into conflicts they should not be involved in and all of that. Like these guys, Curtis Garvin and Daryl Cooper and all that. They're not religious people, they're anti religious people.

[C]

But like Candace Owens is, that's the whole Christ is king signaling that she does. But he, but that's actually perhaps the reason why they've embraced so zealously the anti Semitism. It is a replacement faith for them at this point. It is what they pursue with the kind of zeal and unhinged clarity and oversimplification. I Think that's the story he was trying to pass along and signal to people like him, you know, who were listening. It's, oh, well, of course it's a conspiracy where people got around and said, this guy's too powerful, we'll kill him. And they did the same thing to Charlie.

[A]

So.

[C]

So that is his world now. He is completely sunk in this secular faith of conspiracy theory and antisemitism.

[A]

One thing I wanted to ask you, Matt, is I think what's interesting about this moment and how unprecedented it seems and the fact that, you know, 90,000 people show up in Arizona to go to this funeral and millions are affected. And I keep hearing anecdotal stories of, from people who I, you know, friends who have kids on large college campuses that this is a very big deal at Michigan, at Ohio State, in ways that you would not expect. There are going to be ways to measure whether this is. Has a real world effect or whether it's a sort of another moment in the world of which, you know, issues like big things flare up and seem to take blot out the sun and then six months later you don't remember that they even happened. Which is, will there be a lot of registrations of Republican voters among the young over the next year? Will church attendance increase in certain types of play? Like these are things that we're going to be able to see and measure. And, you know, I think people should sort of hold their, you know, should they. They should, they should be cautious about assuming that this is a revolutionary moment. But it could.

[D]

Well, you know, I mean, my thought is that it's like you begin to see some of the submerged part of the iceberg. And, you know, there's some hints that have been going on that were in the beginnings of a religious revival. The Pew Survey center found that the decline in religious belief has plateaued in recent years. The Catholic Church in America noticed a huge spike in conversions among young people. And that's, I think, at the church, broadly, too globally. There's, of course in Judaism, much smaller population, but there's also turn toward much more traditional Judaism. Intellectually, you have a whole spate of books now making rationalist cases for religious belief, whether that's Ross Douthat's book Believe. Charles Murray has a book coming out in October on taking religion seriously. Jonathan Rauch is more of a liberal, but he makes a case in a recent book too that religion is essential for liberal democracy. I happen to agree with him. And then you have this moment and you have again, it's political but this is not about voter registration. When I look at it, I think there's something much deeper going on, and it's reflected in Erica Kirk's remarks. And so I think one of the tests will, you know, will be what. What does the Turning point revival look like? Does she. Are they going to try to fill up another NFL stadium somewhere else in the country and get young people to pronounce their Christian faith? Which is what happened earlier in the day. There was a moment, an altar call that was delivered by. By Charlie Kirk's minister, who is there. I think that will be what I'm looking for. You know, the political aspect, it just seems to me is small compared with the religious cultural dimension here, which. Which is clearly, there's a vacuum. There's been a vacuum for at least 10 years, probably longer, among. Among young people in particular. Lack of meaning, lack of purpose, no connection to the fundamental social institutions of family and religion. And we're beginning to see it addressed. And I think that the Kirk assassination was something of a catalyst for that.

[B]

You know, this. I want. This gets slightly on an adjacent topic. I don't want to spend too long on it, but it's so interesting that this moment has come about at all. I'm talking about this sort of plateauing of the nones of the N O N E, the non believers in anything, and this hunger for faith or something to believe in among the young. Part of what happened also here is that there was this generation of extraordinarily successful atheist influencers, and they're gone. They're either just sort of faded from the scene. Some have died, like Christopher Hitchens, and they were replaced by believing influencers or.

[D]

They switched to consider Ion. Right. And now Richard Dawkins, of all people, is calling himself a cultural Christian.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

In response to what's happening in the United Kingdom. So. Yes. And then you do. Atheists are no more.

[B]

And I have to say, you know, Jordan Peterson, you could think whatever you want of him, but who, you know, sort of like became this, this. This. This massive sigma.

[D]

The leading edge.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Leading edge in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Telling wayward Western male. Young males, like, consider God, you know, consider religion. And by the way, don't blame the Jews.

[C]

Well, in the addition and alongside that, perhaps, I hope, an exhaustion among that young population with what was their replacement faith for the past 10 years, which was politics, woke politics in particular, I think the unhappiness levels we see among the young are a reflection of the fact that they do have a sense of purposelessness. And you know meaning in their lives and that the idea which was sold, I would say by some of our politicians, that politics was an appropriate replacement for that search for meaning has proven to them in their own experience to be not true.

[A]

There are two things I want to bring up and then we can, we can move on. One is that the epistemic bubble problem of the left and the right, we're saying, you know, new atheists are gone and all of that, the decline of faith has plateaued. The epistemic bubble of the world of people for whom religion plays no role is still there and still real. And it has many generations of roots. I mean, for example, the most famous news magazine cover in American history which came out I think in 1965 was times is God Dead? Right. Time magazine put this Is God Dead on the COVID It was like a huge new story. I don't know that there's ever been anything quite, quite like it. But it was, you know, are people moving away from religion? Has science disproven the miraculous? And, and, and, and all of that? And it, it, it emerged just at the moment at which American society, which had been being managed on very rationalist principles, pretty much from Woodrow Wilson on through the New Deal and through the sort of managerial Johnson administration, Robert McNamara. All this stuff that seemed to be drained of moral meaning at this moment of God is Dead came was also the moment at which Martin Luther King was bringing his message to the world. Where this revivalism that we began, the podcast with Billy Graham's revivalism, was starting to sink real roots into the United States and into the less urban places in the United States, giving birth to a hundred different kind of religious leaders in the world of evangelicalism who would start forming this informal network of people who started to dip their toe into politics to save their. Because politics was dipping its toe into morality, like, you know, like legalizing abortion, thus raising this eternal question of what is life and who, and who, who is responsible for life? Where does life come from? And all of that like an amazingly ill timed moment for this conversation because like 14 years later, the Moral Majority would play a key role in helping elect Ronald Reagan. And now I think this war will be even more, will be even uglier because the, the nuns are full of their own virtue and believe that the faithful are evil, not that they're being thrown into the dustbin of history, which was the idea of the nuns of a previous era. It's just like, well, this is all very backward and it's all going to go away. I Mean, my grandmother believed this stuff, but I don't believe this stuff anymore. And they're fighting back. That's why Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk in the head. I mean, this is a real thing that could get very, very ugly. I mean, it's already gotten ugly. I don't mean that it hasn't gotten ugly. I just mean that, you know, if America does actually go through like a fourth religious awakening, that is not going to happen easily. Like, there is going to be real resistance.

[D]

Well, nothing, nothing's happening easily these days. And I think it's part of this kind of historical moment we're in that, you know, can rightly be called revolutionary. And it's sometimes hard to figure out, are we in a counter revolution right now with the Trump countering the revolution that took place over the last 10 years with the Great Awokening, or we in the beginning of the revolution and we have all this, we have all this terminological confusion because five years ago all the statues were taken down, all the names are changed to be woke. And now statues are going back up. Robert E. Lee is going back up at West Point, but we're also changing names. Gulf of America, Department of War, Mount McKinley. So which is it? Say it's a moment. It's just this complete maelstrom. And that's why I think that the deeper causes are these religious and spiritual ones. That is kind of behind the political activity of both the woke and the awake.

[G]

I'm Mark Alper and I want to let you know that two Way Tonight, the destination for the best political news and analysis anywhere, is now available as an audio podcast. Each weekday I'll be joined by special guests from the worlds of news, politics and the media, along with members of the two way community for conversations like no other. It's the best way to stay informed at the end of your day or first thing in the morning every weekday. It's a show like no other because we involve the community. We hear from people from around the country, around the world. They're part of a conversation. There is no other platform like this, and I hope you will find it to be not only different than everything else, but more meaningful as you become part of a special community around the program. So listen and follow two WAY tonight with Mark Alperin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other major streaming platform.

[A]

So to move on to the UN the UN meeting this week and on the. On the eve of the UN meeting this week, the UN General assembly voting to recognize a power Palestinian state which it's kind of done before, by the way, in the 1980s or something like that. There was some kind of weird procedural vote, I guess, that allowed the Palestinians to exist as a voting member, a member of the UN General Assembly. But hundreds of nations voting to recognize a Palestinian state, 12 nations, including the United States, voting against it. Interestingly enough, as a, as a, as a friend of mine pointed out yesterday, three nations that voted against recognition of Palestinian state were the Axis nations of World War II. Japan, Germany and Italy voted against the recognition of a Palestinian state. This is an interesting, weird detail because the Allies, of course, Britain, France, Canada are now participants in the, in the creation of a Palestinian state. I'm struck by the fact that I'm not panicked by this or consider it terrifying or like that this is some kind of, like, development that, you know, is like the Zionism is racism resolution 50 years ago that one needs, one needs a Pam Moynian to stand up and, you know, scream no and thunder and like, harness the moral objections of, of the world. It just seems like more nonsense and ugliness. And I really wish it weren't happening, but it doesn't seem to really have any real world. I'm not sure what the conceivable real world consequences will be from it. Maybe it's even a way of letting off steam such that they voted for, for it and now they don't have to, you know, do an economic boycott because of the evil of Israel and Gaza or something. And so we voted for the Palestinian state so we can, we can end there. We've made our little gesture, you know, we've given you your Oscar for best documentary and now you can leave us alone. But maybe I'm, I'm whistling past the graveyard and this is the worst thing that's ever happened.

[D]

Well, I think one thing you're responding to is just the weakness of the states that made news and in recognizing the state of Palestine. So, you know, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, they're not, they're not what they once were. They don't have power. It's a gesture and no one takes seriously that there will be a Palestinian state ever. As Elliot Abrams, I thought, put it so well in an essay for Mosaic this month. That's the first thing. The second thing I noticed, and Amit Sehgal reported on this yesterday, is that this is an unpopular decision in the countries that are recognizing the state of Palestine. And I think actually another example of that type of epistemic closure you're talking about in a different context, just A moment ago that the kind of laptop class elites throughout the west in these kind of impoverished, you know, impoverished countries, they've just. England in particular and Canada have really sacrificed their economies on the altar of the Green New Deal. They're no longer serious military powers to the extent that they once were. They don't have much diplomatic clout any longer. They're always appealing to the United States to do more. And they think that this is the most pressing moral demand of the time. Whereas the populations in these countries.

[A]

Have.

[D]

Moral clarity and common sense, unlike their leadership. And so Canadian politics, you know, until Trump started Talking about the 51st state, those conservatives were on their way to trouncing the Liberals. British politics. We've talked before about how the weird nature of the British electoral system meant that Starmer has this huge majority, he's incredibly unpopular and in fact, Nigel Farage, the British Trump is just ascending with each passing day. And then look at France. I think, you know, being the French Prime Minister these days is like being the drummer in Spinal Tap. You have a very short life. You know, I think, I think Macron is on his fourth or fifth.

[A]

Someone was just the President, which is. Right, the President and then head of.

[D]

Prime Minister, the National Assembly.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[D]

And that place is ready for a crack up as well. So I think the same one, they're weak and so it doesn't matter and two, they're both weak within their polities. And it's actually reassuring to see that the publics in these nations aren't with the leadership on the question of the Palestinian state.

[A]

One last point to bring up here. The Trump is a, is a believer in the, you know, grand wild gesture and I think if this goes on much longer, there might be something where in the last two years of his administration or something, he announces that the U.S. should pull out of the U.N. something that you know, has been a, has been a talking point in some circles for half a century just as he, you know, decided to move the embassy to Jerusalem. It all depends on. But I mean, you know, the, the Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN said yesterday that that or the other day that the war, the situation in Gaza, the war in Gaza is the worst loss of life and the worst war that he's seen in his tenure at the UN and there is a war going on right now. South Sudan. Sudan. Where is it? 450000 people have been killed. It's there when the Syrian civil war was going on.

[D]

Warren.

[A]

None. Right. War in Ukraine, which is like A million people have died. This nonsense is coming out of his mouth and it's delegitimizing. You know, if the UN, if UNRWA is a, basically an arm of Hamas, if the UN Human Rights Council is an arm of, you know, anti Semitism and all of that, the United States doesn't have to participate in this United States doesn't have to house the U.N. the U.N. does a lot of things that we, we, we offload onto it so that we don't have to bother with it. But Trump doesn't believe that we should be doing any of that, a lot of that stuff anyway. And I would watch this space. I'm not saying I've heard anything from anybody about it, but he doesn't care.

[C]

Well, they've denied, they denied visas for some of the people who've wanted to come to this week's meeting, which I think is a very, which is a step in the direction you're describing and a good thing like preventing those folks from actually coming to the United States.

[A]

Nothing wrong with that anyway. I'm just saying like if he, if he's going to invent Space Force and he's going to, you know, seize Greenland and stuff like that, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility now, you know what 27 acres at the UN that we could really have a, you know, if you can develop Mara Gaza, you could develop Mara UN riverfront property there on the.

[D]

Yeah, now might be the time to go get your US out of UN Bumper sticker from the Birchers on ebay that was extremely popular in the 60s to have on the back of your car.

[A]

And of course you have to add UN out of the US that's, that's what's important. That that's what will appeal to Trump is yeah, like there's a development site just sitting right there. You know, whole build it crappy, crappy mid century building. You know, get rid of it. Put up some nice golden glass tower.

[D]

Once, once, you know, once this tick tock feels settled, once he can move.

[A]

On to, to the next to the.

[C]

Next deal which once again he's punted on unconstitutionally defying what Congress has passed in the Supreme Court. I'm sorry, it is my hobby whatever this deal is. Also China is saying nothing about agreeing to what he is claiming, claiming on in Western media. We there's no deal. There's no deal yet.

[A]

We don't even know what the deal is. Like the last thing I heard is that like Larry Ellison is going to, of Oracle is going to, you know, take over the algorithm. But like it only take the Murdoch if they give you the formula to the algorithm.

[C]

No, it's the information that that would still flow to the ccp. That's why the legislation passed by Congress is very clear. It had to be a divestment from bike.

[D]

I think it's kind of like that terrible movie. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world where everyone just starts chasing the. I forget even what the McGuffin is in that movie, but it's like a.

[A]

Suitcase full of money. Right.

[D]

So more and more people start chasing the suitcase over time and you know, because the list of potential business partners in this deal just grows with each passing day.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And of course the government would have a board seat which is part of the Trump economic strategy at every company he acquires. And yet we're not really any closer to getting that suitcase, are we?

[A]

It is outrageous. It's just outrageous. And make one more point in the morosity thing before I go to my is, is this shooting at this country club in New Hampshire on Saturday night with which was invaded by a guy who started yelling Free Palestine and shooting. And what was interesting about this, first of all the fact that now it not even doesn't have to be like a target of any particular meaning. If you want to express Free Palestine, you go into a country club and shoot there as opposed to shooting Charlie Kirk or even doing, you know, that basically now any event, anything where there are people standing could be a moment for a mass killing. Is a pretty frightening development. And even more frightening was the response of the sheriff of the county in New Hampshire who said, well, I think he was just yelling random things to cause chaos.

[B]

Yes. And so the, if you, if you'll note the accounts now in the press, they've started dropping it. They've started leaving out the Free Palestine call because the, the sheriff said this right. So now, now they're, now they're making it seem as if, oh, this is just a crazy ex employee with no, no political motivation here watching that.

[A]

Yeah, well, sort of what happened the day after, after the Kirk assassination when all the information came out about who, who Tyler Robinson was and then it was like, yeah, this is all made up. There's no, no one can prove that it was on the bullets. And he did the. His who said someone just made up that his boyfriend was trans and all of that. And then, and then all the news stories dropped at the Wall Street Journal pulled the details from its like revised its article that was correct to remove this incendiary information. And then of course, Tuesday morning, even after Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, had alluded to these details in, in a press conference. And then we waited till Tuesday morning when the prosecutor came out and basically read the text message chain and, you know, presented the evidence that had been found. And then it was like, okay, well, there's really not much we can.

[C]

But that effort continues in the media. There have been stories and people talking about how, oh, you know, the right wing is going to weaponize the fact that he was trans or his boyfriend was trans and saying we shouldn't talk about the trans aspect because that's a threat to trans people. So I've seen threads of that.

[A]

Lydia Polgreen said in a column in the New York Times that the suggestions of a trans connection to this are evil. So I went on Twitter and said, I'm not suggesting it, I'm stating it outright. There's a trans connection to this, to this assassination. Prove me wrong, as Charlie Kirk would say. He said, I was sick of the hate. My love to Lance Twigs, his, his trans boyfriend. So, you know, is there a connection? It's like, it's a connection the way, you know, the way a Lego connects to another Lego. It's a. And then it's hard to pull them apart. So that is pretty dark. Okay, I'm gonna recommend a pretty dark but really remarkable book. A friend of mine, our listener, John M. Said to me, I'm reading this writer from the 50s and 60s named Margaret Millar and I'm obsessed with her and I never heard of her. And then I bought this Library of America collection of suspense fiction and one of her books, the Fiend was one of the books in it and it was amazing. And now I'm reading all her work. Turns out she was the wife of Ross MacDonald who, who became a much more famous mystery writer, wrote the Harper Mysteries. Although in the early in their career she was in the 50s, she was more successful than he had the name Millar, which was his real name, and he changed his name to Ross McDonald so that he would not look like he was riding on his wife's best selling coattails. So as has often happened, she has been sort of lost in the mists of of history. The book that my friend John read is called the Fiend. And I read it over the last week and it's a very small and unbelievably unnerving and powerful story about a 32 year old guy in a small town in Northern California who has returned, who is Working, you know, in a sort of a steady job, living with his brother, having returned from a mental institution where as we figure out, he was put after an accusation that he had molested in some fashion or other a small girl on a playground. And we meet him and his brother and this librarian who decides she's in love with him. And then these couples who have couple that has a daughter, daughter's best friend is the, is the daughter of a woman who is divorcing her husband and thinks her husband is going to kidnap her child. And in the course of this book, these marriages, these relationships, who this guy actually is, what he actually did, whether he is this monster, whether he is the fiend of the title, or whether somebody else in this book is the fiend of the title. It's one of the most powerful things I've read in a very long time. It's not supernatural, it's not even really a suspense book per se, but it gets you on every page. This kind of leafy American mid century. There's a lot of darkness behind these bucolic looking houses in this lovely little town in Northern California. You know, once you go inside and go to the barbecue and go to the dinner party, there's a lot of action going on under the surface. It's really a remarkable book. I bought it on, you know, Kindle for $4. It's short and it's. And it really packs a huge punch. So that's Margaret Millar's the Fiend. We will not be podcasting over the next two days as it is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. So we'll be back on on Thursday. To all who celebrate Shema, Tovah, Umetuka, have a sweet and wonderful new year. And we will be back during the period called Cholomoed. That's the in between time between Rosh Hashanah and the, and the, and the, the day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, which happens, happens next week. So for Christine, Matt and Abe, I'm John Pothor. It's Keep the Cat Hammerbird.