"The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism" w/Tim Alberta

Will Wright (00:00.98) Hey, welcome back, Faithful Politics listeners and viewers, if you're watching us on  our YouTube channel. I am your political host, Will Wright, and I am joined with your faithful  host, Pastor Josh Bertram. How's it going? Josh (00:12.484) Doing well, thanks. Will Wright (00:14.16) And this week we have with us Tim Alberta. He's a staff writer for The Atlantic,  the former chief political correspondent for political and has written for dozens of other  publications like

The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and Vanity Fair.  But this week we are talking with him about a new book that he's got out called  The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory, American Evangelicals in an Age of  Extremism. So welcome to the show, Tim. tim (00:37.361) Thank you guys for having me. Will Wright (00:38.76) Yeah, it's our pleasure. And I have to say just at the top, I'm a big fan of  your work. I've been a regular reader of all the things you've written and especially the thin

gs  that you write about in the faith and politics space. So I'm just so happy that you can be here  to kind of chat with us for a little bit. But I do want to get into kind of your journey to write  this book. I mean, the book is just phenomenal. I mean, it really is. It's like with  everything from like the prologue. I mean, the prologue actually got me hooked, which  is sort of a weird thing when I read a lot of prologues. So maybe you can share with  us kind of your personal journey on how y

ou got to a place where you wanted to write a  book, The King and the Power and the Glory. tim (01:10.338) Thank you. Josh (01:18.98) Yeah, it was really good. tim (01:30.146) Yeah, well, you know, I didn't plan on writing this book. And in  many ways, I don't think I ever would have been comfortable trying to take on a project  like this otherwise. You know, I'm a Christian, and I was born and raised in an evangelical  family. My dad was an evangelical pastor. My mom was on staff at the church.

All of our  friends, our family, our whole community. was, you know, built around the evangelical  church. And, you know, I think like many people my age who were raised in that environment, as you  get older, you start to question certain things, you grow skeptical about certain things,  kind of relating to the institution more than anything else. Didn't really ever affect  my faith, but certainly you start to, you know, look at certain people, look at  certain issues differently. And All of t

hat said, I still never would have  thought to sort of step out and write any of this the way that I have, were it not  for kind of a personal tragedy in my life, which was actually right after I had published  my first book, which was about kind of the collapse of the post-George W. Bush Republican  Party and then Donald Trump's takeover of the Republican Party, right as that book  published, my dad very suddenly died. and the last time I saw him and yeah it  was it was just it was a one of the

se crazy things that can happen in life where  like the highest high is suddenly intercepts with the lowest low and leaves you just  reeling and in fact the last time I saw my dad was when he'd come out to Washington DC  for the book launch he and my mom drove out from our home in Michigan and we had a great  time together but it was interesting because Josh (02:59.22) So sorry. tim (03:25.958) all the way leading up to the book launch and then even there at  this Washington book party surrounde

d by all these like VIPs my dad is like needling me  and saying hey like Don't waste your whole life writing about these people. Don't waste  your whole life writing about politics Like, you know, there's so there are so many  more There are so many stories out there for you and god's given you these incredible  talents and don't waste them, you know on Um, think about what's eternally significant, right?  And that was you know, always his message for me Josh (03:41.354) Hahaha tim (03:56.298) W

ell, so then fast forward. Sorry if I give you the long version here, but  the short story is that when he dies suddenly right after that, I'm at our home church  in Michigan for the funeral activities. And because my book had been in the news, you know,  Trump was tweeting about it and Rush Limbaugh was kind of lighting me up on his show a little bit  and things were interesting for me at that time. I had people in our home congregation  at the funeral and at the viewing kind of confronting me

about politics, wanting  to litigate what I'd written in my book, wanting to argue about Trump. I mean, my dad's  in a box like 100 feet away and there are people who are wanting to argue about Trump. I mean,  yeah, it was. And there's like, I think we all have had these moments maybe where something that  had been sort of abstract becomes very concrete. Josh (04:42.392) That's crazy. tim (04:53.934) I had a sense because of the work I do, because of the faith community that I'm in,  that someth

ing was a little off, off its axis, I suppose, in sort of the evangelical world.  But that was really just the moment where it just kind of like a two by four over the head,  you know, I just like, there was no avoiding it, right. And, and as I thought and really reflected  and prayed about all of this, I just really felt Josh (05:14.105) Hmm. tim (05:22.838) this nudge and the nudge sort of almost became a shove that like this was this  was something that I was uniquely positioned to do that I

felt could hopefully help the church.  I know that there are going to be some people and there have been some people already when  they've heard about this project who I think are really anxious about it really worried that I'm  coming to sort of burn down the church. In fact, it's just the opposite. I really felt that there  was a moment here to press pause and try to. facilitate a dialogue about what's gone wrong, but also what is still right and how  we try to get this thing back on track. Jo

sh (06:01.232) I love that. I think that's so cool. I love the story at the beginning of the book where you  talk about in the prologue, this experience that you just relayed to us and almost relived in a  sense. So thank you for doing that. I'm sure it's a very difficult experience. I mean, I know you  wrote about it and everything, but I'm sure you wrote about it out of that difficulty and sitting  there like, if they're willing to come up to me. at this man's funeral that they so deeply  resp

ected and loved. And instead of showing respect, arguing with the son about politics,  then what is going on? What kind of hold does politics have on the people of the church?  And the more that I think about this, the more that I'm interviewing people that write these  amazing books, the more I read books like yours. I just get very, very concerned. I have  the, I wanna stick my head in the sand, kind of, you know, the ostrich  complex. That's what I prefer to do. But I don't think we can stick

  our head in the sand anymore. Like, it feels like my church that I grew up in and  love so dearly is just careening towards a. Josh (07:25.104) a canyon and it should have a fly off this cliff because  they don't, or at least a certain section of it, because they're basically deifying Trump to the  extent that you can deify someone in America. I mean, to say that someone is God's instrument is  basically the closest we can get to deification. in America, this isn't North Korea, you know,  we'r

e not, it's not a giant cult yet. I hope it never ever becomes that. But I got to take  a step back and you can, Tim, I got to say, I resonated so much with your book, with your  thought process, with the just feeling like things Josh (08:20.416) There's so many things that are about us so much, I can't recommend it highly  enough, and I'm excited we get to talk about it, and I want people to buy it and read it. But I  wanna take a step back and ask a process question, because I'm in a doctoral

program for a  doctorate in ministry, and I love ancient history and stuff like that, because I'm a  Bible guy, and I love looking at all that stuff. And so I'm kinda getting a sense of, how  do you figure out things from ancient history? right? You have the primary sources, all that. But  looking at data now, like they had to be selective every time they chose what they're doing, like  when they're writing ancient history, and they had access to a fraction of the information we  have access to.

And how was it trying to wade through the bewildering amount of information  that you had to go through? And then... Talk about the selection process. How did you  say, yeah, I wanna put this story in. Yeah, I wanna do this. Oh yeah, this one's good,  but it's not quite good enough. You know, real estate's expensive in the book. So we gotta  figure that out. How did you go through that? tim (09:34.698) Man, that's a really interesting question. You know, what I set out  to do first and foremost

was really just learn. I wanted to go places I hadn't been. I wanted  to spend time around different sorts of people, different settings, different church sizes,  different church traditions. I mean, again, we're not, and I make this clear at the  outside of the book, we're not casting. a net all the way across Christianity here. In  other words, this is not a book that's meant to sort of examine the historic black church  or the progressive church or the mainline Protestant tradition or the Ca

tholic. I  mean, this is really a book aimed at the conservative evangelical church in America.  Now, you're always gonna have some sort of definitional overlap and some, you know,  Venn diagramming happening, but basically, within that tradition, within the conservative  evangelical tradition of today, there is such a massive spectrum to explore that even  within that sort of narrower confine, I really wanted to make sure that I could safely  say that I had gotten kind of from one pole to the o

ther, that I had explored the entire thing  so that I wasn't caricaturing, so that I wasn't kind of giving disproportionate emphasis to  certain things, culturally or theologically or politically or otherwise. So I really spent like  three, three and a half years on the road. I mean, I was just, as you guys, yeah, as you  guys see like in the book, I mean, I basically every corner of the country, I mean,  I was, I actually did lose count at one point of the churches, but I mean, I was at well ov

er a  hundred churches, but then all kinds of like, Josh (11:09.868) Wow, that's remarkable. tim (11:23.542) kind of just ministries, nonprofits, college settings,  Christian schools, you know, you name it, right? And then I think the  culling process for me was, I was about halfway through that reporting journey when I  started to think very concretely about, okay, how do I organize this into something that makes  sense, right? And I had always, since I was a little kid, like I've always been f

ascinated  by the Lord's Prayer. We were looking for Just a funny aside, my mom and I  were looking through some like old photo bins and like childhood things  in my parents basement Not long ago, and I actually found this picture I drawn  of my dad I must have been in the pews as like a seven-year-old on a Sunday morning  And I drew a picture of my dad preaching and then wrote the Lord's Prayer underneath  it and underlined the kingdom the power and the glory So I started thinking about That  p

hrase the kingdom the power and the glory And it really started to click that, okay,  maybe this is particularly with the emphasis in the first part of the book on America  as a sort of counterfeit kingdom and as in some ways almost a competing kingdom for  too many Christians and That's when things started to fall into place. So process-wise  once I really Had that thematic Cornerstone in place then I could start to sort  through these different reporting trips I'd been on the different intervi

ews  the scenes the characters and try to figure out okay how did these puzzle pieces fit  and then once I was Then once a couple you get the big corner pieces into place and  suddenly it starts to make a lot more sense But there were a couple years there where it  was just like You know spaghetti at the wall and you're just like you're just you're just  seeing what's there Exactly. Yeah, exactly Josh (13:11.672) You're like, am I ever going to get this thing written? Will Wright (13:15.744) Tha

t's so funny, you know, I was gonna ask you about the title of the  book Because you know we speak to a lot of authors here and I'm always curious like  did you choose the name of the book? Or did your publisher so I'm curious because  it's because the Kingdom of the Parliament of Glory actually has some Significance  for you. Like did you choose that name? tim (13:35.434) I did, yeah, chose the name and chose the subtitle, which is American  Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. And yeah, it was

interesting because, you know, I'm writing  for a secular publisher, right? You know, this book is published by HarperCollins. It's edited  by a non-Christian. I think it was important to me to get feedback along the way. I've got a  very close friend of mine who's a believer. Will Wright (13:47.242) Mm-hmm. Josh (13:48.623) Yeah. tim (14:03.714) who I was shipping off chapters to get his feedback. And then I  ultimately asked my pastor to read it when the manuscript was done and he gave me som

e really  good feedback. I told him, I said, look, man, I've got fact checkers, I've got copy editors,  but I don't have like a theological backstop here. So like if I've gotten something dead  wrong theologically, I don't wanna look like a fool. So he saved me from some embarrassment  there. But ultimately, yeah, it was a bit of a. Will Wright (14:10.976) Hmm. Will Wright (14:21.501) Yeah. tim (14:31.85) It was a bit of an interesting process just in that sense of writing an unapologetically  C

hristian book for a secular publisher. There's a bit of a needle threading there, but they've  been great. And I think hopefully we'll be able to introduce it to a bigger market than  would typically be receiving this sort of book. Will Wright (14:51.844) Yeah, you know, one thing I think I really appreciate about you  writing this book specifically is that we've spoken to a number of people that  have written phenomenal books. I mean... Andrew Whitehead wrote a book kind  of almost similar, Ame

rican Idolatry, which is really good. He's a sociologist  professor. We've spoken to like Robert Jones from PRI and a number of  other authors that write about stuff in this space. You are probably  the first journalist that has written... Josh (15:18.017) That's great. Will Wright (15:31.94) a book of this magnitude and I'm excited about the reach of this book. But  because of sort of your professional background, I think that you have an insight  about the American state of mind, especially in

this space. Like you have an  understanding that most people don't have. And I would be interested to hear how you think that,  you know, the relationship between evangelicals evangelical Christians and their pursuit of  power has changed since you kind of started this journey. I mean, there's like the  religious rite, many, many decades ago, and that was sort of like one data point,  but a lot has sort of happened in between, so I'd love to kind of get your thoughts on that. tim (16:19.35) Yea

h, wow. It's a big subject to tackle. I think the thing that I would emphasize, and this  really became clear to me in my own reporting, one of the big differences between the rise of  the religious right, talking mid to late 1970s, Jerry Falwell, moral majority, the whole deal,  relative to 50 years later where we are now. There are some similarities, obviously, in terms  of how they talk about things. Actually, there are some really striking similarities in how they  talk about public educatio

n, how they talk about this kind of secularizing society, how they talk  about government coming after religion, things like that. What's really striking as a difference  when you think about those similarities, I think the big difference is that, you know, 50 years  ago, most of the people involved in that movement who were really sowing a deep fear in  the minds of Christians in this country, they didn't really believe what  they were selling. In other words, they were saying that the  apocaly

pse is nigh, that... Beware, this country is about to collapse.  The secular humanist progressives are gonna take us over and they're gonna banish  the almighty from public life and you and your family and your church aren't safe.  They said those things to gain influence, to gain political power, to raise a lot of  money, to build a bigger and bigger platform. But most of them didn't actually believe their  own rhetoric. I mean, we know that from... Uh contemporaneous statements, we know it  fr

om interviews after the fact. We know it from memoirs that have been written Uh,  i've talked with people who were involved in that movement who you know, it was all  just sort of a It was a bit of a ruse, right? If you fast forward 50 years I do  think that today A lot of folks really do believe it and that helps to explain  the trump phenomenon in a way because tim (18:32.202) This talk of, you know, the barbarians are at the gates and America is  on its last legs and desperate times call for

desperate measures and the ends justify the means.  Well, suddenly, if that's the way you're thinking, then it starts to make sense how someone like  Donald Trump could become the champion of this movement that he has nothing in common  with. I mean, in fact, I have, you know, I quote people in the book, Mike Huckabee and  Robert Jeffress and others who talk about how The reason that Trump became their  champion was because he didn't play by their rules. He didn't read their sacred  texts. He wa

sn't restrained by their same, you know, kind of religious strictures,  if you will. And that freed him to fight for their community, their under siege  community, as they would describe it, in ways that nobody else could. And to  me, that is like the great tipping point. in this relationship between the evangelical  community and our political culture, and specifically this alliance that has been,  several generations strong between Republican party politics and between white evangelical  Chris

tians. You really see how what was once an alliance that just sort of made sense in  certain respects, some shared priorities. has really almost turned into something  that is built on existential stakes and tremendous fear. And that's a  dangerous place to be, I think, for a lot of us who, regardless of where  you stand politically, believers are told again and again and again and again, Genesis  through Revelation, fear not, right? Like, Will Wright (20:12.003) Yeah tim (20:26.09) Like that fe

ar is deeply unhealthy anywhere in society, but it is especially  unhealthy inside the church. And I think that fear has in many ways provided the ammunition  for some of these forces outside of the church. Josh (20:42.972) I love what you said in the book. You said there's two words, and I'm gonna butcher it, I'm  gonna get them wrong, but basically under duress or under stress, like basically what actually  explains Donald Trump and it is the fact that, like how did he capture the evangelical

heart and  mind? It's because evangelicals felt like martyrs? They felt attacked. And under the Obama  years, especially, I just remember just getting really starting, even looking into  politics. Obama got elected when I had just graduated. I remember going to one of his  rallies, and I was literally sitting there, and I'm in college at the time, in  Pennsylvania. He was on a train tour. And he came in and I saw Obama speak.  And I was like, I gotta do this. Like if he's the first black preside

nt, I need  to be there. I need to see it. I need to, you know, be a part of it. And he's  speaking. And I was chanting, no, like, I was like, no more Bush. No more Bush.  I'm like, all right, fine. Everyone else is doing it. No more Bush. So it was, you know,  and it was electrifying and all that stuff. Now I didn't end up voting for Obama. That's  just, that's just because I'm white probably. So I didn't end up voting for Obama. It was  just the way that, you know, white Republicans, you know,

were. So the whole reason I'm putting  all that out there is that this has been happening for a long time and, and Trump seems like he's  someone who is capitalizing on a situation, right? That there is a strong contingent  of voters who feel like they're martyrs, who have a lot of money and  they have a lot of power. And if you can get them activated,  and American history has shown, when you get evangelicals activated, at  least in the second part of the 20th century, they can get things done

, right? And move things  forward. And if you get them with a cosmic battle, then now it's good and evil. Then it's  not, then I'll die for it, right? Then I will become a martyr for it. Like that kind of,  and I've heard people talk about that. I've... Josh (23:09.484) heard people talking about it for a long time. It's deeply concerning to me.  People tell me, hey, you know Sandy Hook was, I had a church member tell me, you know  Sandy Hook was made up, right? They made all that up. They're ju

st trying to take away  our guns. And so, and this was years ago, before Trump was even, right? Sandy Hook during  Trump, no, that was during Obama. So it was before Trump was even like, you know, there, like in  terms of like really seriously a contender. tim (23:30.19) You're always there, Obama, yeah. Josh (23:38.848) So it's been around for a long time. And I've been yacking, just  giving context for this question. Definitions are so important. And I feel like we walk  around, and if I say C

hristian nationalism, I have good friends that say, there's nothing  wrong with that, I'm patriotic. They think Christian nationalism is I'm patriotic, and  I'm a Christian, and I'm really patriotic. I don't want our country to go down the toilet,  neither do I. So I'm patriotic and God is gonna bless this country and whatever. So help us  understand from your personal experience. We've had scholars on here explaining what Christian  nationalism from a philosophical point of view, you had a guy

who wrote the case  for Christian nationalism on our podcast to talk about it. So we've had  all those things, but what has been What has been your experience of what Christian  nationalism is on the folk level, on the level of the normal people walking through this, telling  people that Sandy Hook is made up and that COVID's not real. What is Christian nationalism in that  context? Help us understand it and define it. tim (24:50.678) You know, yeah, look, it's a, it's a really important questio

n because  definitions are important to your point. And, um, and we can really, we do a  disservice to the dialogue we all need to be having when we throw  around terms haphazardly for me, I think about this in pretty simple terms,  right? My, I view my national identity. through the lens of my faith identity,  right? But I think for a lot of folks that has flipped and they view their faith identity  through the lens of their national identity, right? And that's dangerous. It's dangerous for  an

y number of reasons. I think when you start to get into this talk of Christian nationalism, we're  talking about something more than just, well. Josh (25:28.696) Yes. tim (25:49.642) we need to have a country governed by Christian laws, right? And we should  declare Christianity state religion as some people wanna do, or we should impose a religious  test on immigrants coming to this country, like Trump floated a couple of weeks ago  on the campaign trail. It gets beyond that specific thing. I t

hink, although  those are obviously components of it or symptoms of the sickness, I think  what we're dealing with at its... is a question of idolatry, right? We  are talking about people who feel as though America is in covenant with God. And  when you believe that something is blessed, consecrated in that way, that thing can become  an object of obsession, of worship, of idolatry. And you feel as though, you know, as the  pastor who succeeded my dad at my home church, he explains this better t

han I ever could  in chapter one of the book, but he says, look, once you get to that point, you believe  that fighting for America is fighting for God, and that you have to fight for America  as though salvation hangs in the balance, right? And that is a complete misreading of  Scripture. And I think we have to just... We have to say this plainly, right? There's a  difference between, in my view, folks who have just sort of gotten their priorities mixed up  a little bit and who, you know, the e

motion of the moment has gotten to them in recent years, you  know, COVID-19, George Floyd, Trump's reelection, January 6th, right? There's been a lot going  on. It's a crazy time in America, right? There are some people who I think  really mean well and who they've just, they've strayed a little bit. They've gotten  those priorities mixed up. There are others, however, who I think have really just brazenly and shamelessly hijacked Christianity and tried  to weaponize the gospel of Jesus Christ

for tim (28:15.49) ends that are entirely abiblical and they're Simultaneously telling every  other Christian that if you're not doing this then you're a coward you're weak you're just like the  Germans who didn't stand up to Hitler, right and That is I would say sort of Christian nationalist  in its purest form is Is is Christian nationalism? is sort of seizing Christianity, the concept  of Christianity, and wielding it as a weapon to advance a nationalist ideal. And again,  there are varying d

egrees of this. It's a bit of a spectrum that we can unpack.  But there are certain folks who have done that in ways that are profoundly,  profoundly damaging. And I think that's. That's where we, as a body of believers, we are  called, you know, the New Testament model is, which we in America have completely turned  on its head. The New Testament model is, you know, grace for the outsiders. They  don't know better. They don't know God. We are to treat them with grace. But real  strict accountab

ility for the insiders, those in our tribe, those inside the  church, we are to hold them accountable. And it feels as though the time has come for  a bit of a reckoning in the church when it comes to this question specifically of, of  Christian nationalism. Because if, if you, if you, you know, Philippians three 20 says,  you know, our, our citizenship is in heaven. Um, and there's, it becomes, there are  certain things in scripture that are, you know, a bit ambiguous. They  can be interpreted

different ways. But this question of the kingdom to which we are  called and how God makes it clear and Jesus makes it clear that there is no competition here,  that they will not tolerate competition. So we either belong to that kingdom to which  we are called or we belong to this kingdom ultimately, but it can't be both. There's no dual  citizenship here. It's just, it's not an option. Will Wright (30:43.732) Wow. Um, so you're in your book, you, you discuss, um, obviously the  significant sup

port of Donald Trump from a lot of evangelical voters and, and it's,  it's something that is bewildering to me. Um, even to this day and we were blessed to  be able to speak with Stephen Hassan, who wrote a book called The Cult of Trump, which  is really, really good and answered a lot of questions I think I had about people in the faith.  But I'm curious to kind of get your thoughts. top three reasons why evangelicals have  flocked to Trump because I'll be honest, like sometimes I have to do ki

nd of like a  self-check because I'm as a Christian myself, I'm like, there are more Christians  in this country that support Trump than not. And you know, am I  making the right decision not? necessarily like idolizing  or supporting Trump. I mean, I, I can summarize. So somewhat of a baby  Christian, I came to the faith back in 2008. Um, so I don't profess that I have all the answers and  you know, and if there's some scripture that says, yeah, you know, if you're not, if not, if you're  not w

orshiping at the altar of the golden Trump, then you're going to hell. You know, so,  so what are, what are, what are some of the arguments that you're hearing for, for  why evangelicals have flocked to Trump? tim (32:09.718) Well, look, I think if you go back to 2016, there were real deep seated doubts among not just  the evangelical rank and file, but among some of the most prominent evangelical leaders in this  country, many of whom have since become, you know, Trump acolytes. But you know, t

hey privately and  even publicly in certain instances were really. just explicit in saying that they  didn't trust this guy, that they, you know, he'd spent his entire life as a, you  know, a skirt chasing Manhattan billionaire, pro-choice, planned parenthood supporting,  Democrat donating liberal, right? So like, you know, why would they trust him?  What's interesting though is that, and we kind of flicked at this earlier in  the conversation, but Trump has excellent. political instincts. I thi

nk that is consistently  misunderstood about him that he really does get this in ways that a lot of people don't  understand. And to the point that you guys made earlier about, you know, what a huge  voting block white evangelicals are and how what, you know, history tells us as far as when that  voting block really gets engaged and mobilized, things happen because of it. So Trump  recognized that. So what does he do? He starts talking about specific  things. He makes a promise to uh to so you a

sked for three and this will  this will actually I think give a good window into that so first he uh promises  pro-life supreme court justices right he issues a list and he gives names which is  something that had never been done before and he said look you can hold me to it this  is the list i'm going to pick one of these pro-choice supreme court justices right and  then of course he winds up choosing three later on and roe v wade comes down because  of it we can get into that number two he sta

rts talking about the Johnson amendment. Now,  for those of you listening who grew up outside of the evangelical bubble, this idea of the Johnson  amendment might sound completely foreign. The idea basically is that, you know, for many generations,  there's been a fear in the evangelical community that this amendment signed into law under  Lyndon Baines Johnson in his presidency. tim (34:31.426) would allow the government to come after churches that  engage in political speech from the pulpit, r

ight? And even though we have a huge body  of evidence to show that the government has never done anything of that sort and really  doesn't even have any interest in doing, I mean, there are churches that have basically  made it their mission to dare the government to come after them by engaging in the most  explicit political activity possible, and the IRS still hasn't lifted a finger just  because it's not something they're going to do. Will Wright (34:52.619) That's true. tim (35:02.238) But

so the abortion issue, the big government is coming after us  issue. And then I think the third thing, he chose Mike Pence. And that was, I think,  symbolically really interesting because one of the things that really freaked out evangelical  Christians about Trump was his personal history. It was very difficult for a lot of these people  to try to square, well, hold on a second. I. I told my kids that morality matters in public  life, that character is essential in our public leaders. And my pa

rents threw a viewing  party for George W. Bush's inauguration, not because they loved Bush, but because  they were so disgusted by Bill Clinton and his scandals in office, right? So  it was difficult for evangelicals to reconcile that position with then voting for  Trump. So when Trump brings onto the ticket, Josh (35:47.489) Hmm. tim (35:59.714) the guy who, you know, drinks milk with dinner every night and  who won't go out to any sort of an outing without his wife present and who is like  a

model of Christian virtue. And he is, I mean, listen, I can disagree with Pence  and criticize him on a number of fronts, but he is a very decent man who's committed  to his family and who lives out his values, right? And I think that was Trump signaling to  a lot of these people, look, if you vote for me, Will Wright (36:18.652) Mm-hmm. Yep. tim (36:27.066) I'm not going to backslide into the sort of depraved, you know, Playboy  channel cameo Donald Trump that you used to know. Right. Um, and I

think that was sufficient  in the 2016 election to give these folks. A reason to suspend their skepticism and say, you know  what? I'm still a little bit uneasy about this, but the alternative is Hillary Clinton. The  alternative is, you know, one or two or three. pro-choice Supreme Court justices, and I'm  willing to take this chance on this guy. I think that was a completely defensible  position for a lot of evangelicals to take. And I say in the book that, you know, I  know lots of people wh

o took that vote. Yeah, I mean, it's... In 2016, I think the  argument becomes altogether different and much less convincing by the time you get  to 2020. And then now, looking ahead to 2024, Josh (37:09.902) and that was me. In 2016 it was. tim (37:26.358) Boy, oh boy, I mean, this guy is out on the stump saying things, calling his opponent  vermin, and really calling anybody who disagrees with him vermin and saying that they should be run  out of the country and talking about not letting any n

on-Christian migrants in. Like, it becomes  very difficult to rationalize at this stage. Josh (37:27.897) Yeah. Josh (37:50.224) Yeah, that makes so much sense. Sorry, I blanked there for a second. Let me mark that. Let me mark  that, Will, so we can get that. No, dude, it was so good. Well, what happened was like, you made  me think of something. And so I went and I looked at it. I'm like, oh, maybe I can look this up  real quick. And then you were done. I'm like, oh crap. And Will said, hey, i

t's you. And so I was  like, oh no. So let's go to COVID-19 for a second. Will Wright (37:53.408) Hahaha! tim (37:58.434) Sorry, I went on such a tangent there. Josh (38:19.68) Okay, so when COVID-19 came out, all of us, right, we're just in this, almost  like this, we're in a different world kind of thing. What is this place? Like why, in India,  you could see the sky again because no one was driving and so there was no pollution.  And so they literally could see the clouds again for a few days

because of the lack of  pollution and all this stuff and everything. And so that's maybe a nice part, but then we're  all freaked out. We don't know what's going on. But it never once occurred to me that it wasn't  a real thing and that it wasn't a real virus, that it wasn't a real disease, manufactured  or not. I have no problem with saying that, you know, we could manufacture something and  right, you know, it came out in Wuhan and where they're doing laboratory tests on those exact  kind of

viruses. So I don't think it's super. a stretch to say that it escaped or maybe  even purposefully, I don't know. Show me the evidence and we'll figure that out. But  never once did I think it wasn't real. Never once did I think that, you know, you know,  I, we had governor Northam here, super, you know, liberal government governor  here in Virginia and before Yonkin and, um, I thought he did a great job handling it. I  thought that, I mean, personally, I thought that You know, all things were g

ood, right?  The reason I'm bringing it up because in the book you talk about how people came  to say it's made up, the government's trying to control us. They're just trying  to get Donald Trump out, which it's like, he's the guy who like did operation warp speed  or whatever it was called and, and had this thing took away all the red tape to get this thing  going. So with the COVID-19 and it's his person. tim (40:05.846) Right, right, right. Josh (40:16.08) because there's so many people that

I saw leave good churches  and go to churches that just had someone who was less careful, charismatic, whatever. And you  talk about this, the church that goes from 100, floodgate or whatever, that goes from  100 to thousands or whatever it was, 1500 people now attending this church. And  I've seen that is not a, that is not... tim (40:35.918) Mm-hmm. Josh (40:46.772) an exception, right? That's that has been happening over  and over and over and over again in every single major city in this cou

ntry. And how do  you feel like the response of the evangelical church and movement, what do you, how  do you feel like its response to the pandemic kind of reflected the values  and the priorities that were really Like how did it expose our  idols essentially? How did it? tim (41:19.618) You know, it's a great question because I think in a lot of ways, and  sometimes people are surprised if I say this, but I think in a lot of ways, COVID-19  did more to expose these schisms in the church than e

ven Trump did. You know,  because think about this. I mean, with what I had said earlier about the  kind of generations long, low simmering Josh (41:35.853) Absolutely. tim (41:46.222) panic about the government coming for us and secular progressives are going to shut down your  churches, they're not going to let you worship, they're going to persecute Christianity, it's  happening overseas, it's going to come to America, right? In some ways, COVID-19 was like the  fulfillment of that prophecy,

right? If you've been marinating in that message for decades, and  suddenly, the governor of your blue state says, hey, you're not allowed to go to worship  this Sunday. Now keep in mind, you know, Josh (42:14.873) Yeah, man. tim (42:16.318) Like, okay, well, now if there was a gas leak in your church, right, and there was a fire truck out  front on Sunday morning and they said, hey, sorry, there's a gas leak, it's dangerous to your health,  you can't go in there. Would people have viewed that a

s a, you know, as big government trying  to, you know, shut down Christianity? I doubt it. Will Wright (42:38.63) I guess it all depends if somebody believes that the gas leak was real. tim (42:42.87) Right, that's fair enough. That's a good point. But you know, it's like in some  sense I think all of this kind of crazy rhetoric around Christianity under siege and we're being  persecuted which by the way like just completely like we almost Obscure the fact that like time  and time and time again

, you know Jesus Peter Paul, they're all like, yes, persecution,  bring it on. Like that's like, you want a recipe for going closer to God and becoming a  better Christian, be persecuted, right? Like, but that's a separate podcast. But so we're all  getting so fired up and kind of bent out of shape around this idea of, you know, the church  being in the crosshairs of big government that I think it gave a lot of Christians  permission, they felt, to talk and behave. Josh (43:13.077) Hahaha tim (4

3:37.662) in ways that they never would have otherwise. You've got people  coming after pastors in the middle of COVID calling them Marxists because they closed their  doors for like three or four Sundays. Like, what are we doing here? What are we talking about,  right? Or if they said, hey, we're gonna do some social distancing in the pews, or hey, we've got  a large elderly population, could you please wear masks? And people would go in refusing to wear  them, refusing, saying, no, faith over

fear. I'm not wearing a mask. Like, I'm  sorry, but again, there's a, like, this is a psychological phenomenon that I think  we've barely began to unpack here because, and I think it's gonna be something  studied in the church for a long time. I think you're gonna have seminary  students who haven't even been born yet, who are one day going to learn about  this period of church history because It wasn't just the reshuffling from one  congregation to the next that you described, pastor, although

obviously there was a ton  of that and I've documented a lot of it myself. It was also the behavioral changes  that people suddenly felt free to Again, it kind of goes back to the question around like  wielding Christianity as a weapon. And viewing Josh (44:51.076) Hmm tim (45:05.846) the church as like a battlefield to be conquered instead of a bride  to be loved. That's what it felt like is that churches suddenly were becoming battlefields.  Uh, and the, the fighting was no longer over doctrin

e over theology. I mean, those were  like the good old days, right? And now it's, you know, are you a Marxist? Uh, uh, are you a,  are you a woke progressive? Are you practicing? critical race theory, if you preach about  racial reconciliation. But all of that, I think in a way, really does trace back to  those first few weeks of the COVID outbreak and the decisions that some pastors made, especially  pastors in blue states where you had democratic governors imposing restrictions. Those wounds 

have not healed in these churches. And in fact, I've been talking with some of these pastors  just in the last couple of weeks who I keep up with and I think the fear obviously is you  know with Trump on the ballot again with a Biden Trump rematch looking very likely  in 2024 Whatever peace and harmony has been visible at surface level Maybe over  the last couple of years as people have tried to bind up these wounds it could this  thing could really fall right back apart and turn even uglier in

some ways than it had been. Josh (46:34.192) What happened to the good old days of being able to ex-communicate someone just for sexual  sin? Now we have to... I mean, I'm just kidding. Will Wright (46:34.236) Yeah. tim (46:38.99) Yeah. Will Wright (46:44.594) We have to make church great again, Josh. That's your job. tim (46:47.362) May church... Josh (46:49.104) Dude, that is the new platform. Make MCCA, no MCGA  doesn't have the same. Muga. tim (46:54.758) MCGA, yeah. Now. Will Wright (46:54.

764) Yeah, yeah, it doesn't really roll off the tongue very, very well.  Yeah, yeah, but you know, so, so Tim, I'm curious, you've spoken to a  ton of people just kind of about you know, various faith related matters. And, and  it's really easy to kind of just focus on all the, like, it's easy to focus on the downfall of  American Christianity, um, because there's just so much material, but like, can you, can you give  us a story and experience and interview or just, you know, some interaction y

ou've had with, um,  people that you've gone, gone about the country, you know, that, that can kind of,  I don't know, re-instill some hope. into, you know, me as a Christian.  And because I mean, I'm sure you've heard tons of people leaving the church,  right? For a variety of different reasons, probably the most common reason I hear from  people is like, yeah, Christians are just crazy. So so help me, you know, regain some  confidence or hope in American evangelicals. tim (48:04.438) You know,

I would say a couple of things. The first being that What breaks my heart and a big part of  the reason that I wanted to write this book is that I think the non-believing world  has judged the church, understandably so, based on its worst attributes,  based on its ugliest behaviors and its... And that's hard. I think  it's hard when you think about... kind of sweeping characterizations of any  movement, any institution, but it's especially hard when it comes to the church because as John  Dixon

, the Australian theologian who teaches at Wheaton College, he writes in one of his books  about how Christ wrote this perfect symphony, like the most beautiful symphony the world has ever  heard, every note flawless, just perfect, and you can't even, you don't even know how to process it,  it's so beautiful. And then a bunch of us, Joe's, on the street pick up our tubas and our  trombones and ours and we try to play it and it sounds terrible. And people listening  say, well, that symphony is te

rrible. That symphony stinks. And you're like, well, no, hold  on. It's just that I'm not any good at playing it, right? Don't judge the symphony, judge me.  And I think making that distinction between Josh (49:21.9) Hmm. Josh (49:29.399) Mmm. tim (49:40.726) those of us who are not always musically gifted versus  the conductor and versus the symphony is really important. And so what I've  tried to do with the book and what I see a lot of people in my generation doing,  and this will be my secon

d point in a moment, but trying to make that distinction and trying  to present to the outside world. Like look. Ultimately, this book is trying to shine a light  into the darkness, right? And when you shine a light into darkness, it exposes what is wrong and  what is false, and that can be very unpleasant, but it also illuminates what is right. And what is  true. You know, CS Lewis said that we know what a crooked line looks like only because we know what  a straight line looks like. And I thin

k exposing. on the one hand, but also illuminating, is just  really important. And that's the work that I see a lot of Christians recommitting themselves  to, because whatever's gone wrong in the church, they recognize that ultimately, the best thing  for the church is the same thing that's the best thing for the broader culture, which is Jesus,  right? And so how do we turn the emphasis back to Jesus? How do we focus on the symphony  and not on the people trying to play it? And so I would add t

o that, the great source  of hope for me in this project has been young people. Because I'll tell you, these, I  refer to them at one point in the book as the children of the moral majority, and I would  kind of consider myself in that camp, you know, my parents, that was their generation.  And the children of the moral majority, we process this stuff a lot,  just in a very different way. Josh (51:26.484) Absolutely. tim (51:36.77) For example, I think where so many of the threats were externali

zed to the  moral majority, right? The government is coming for us and they're gonna shut down our churches.  It's the secularists. It's all from the outside, this threat. I think many younger Christians, when  they think about the threat posed to Christianity, they start inside the church. It is  an internalized conversation. It is how did we get this so wrong? How do we  clean it up? How can we better witness? to our neighbors, right? And one of the places I  saw that most readily was at Liber

ty University, where in some ways, Liberty has become like a  poster child of the corruption of the evangelical movement, right? And yet within that, you've  got tens of thousands of young people on that campus, young conservative evangelical  Christians who they want nothing to do. Josh (52:22.349) Yeah. tim (52:33.298) with the Trump movement. They want nothing to do with  the MAGA movement. They don't find their identity in American politics. And that is  a significant generational break from

where their parents have been. And the thing that I  really notice about them, these young people, when they talk to their parents about it, they're  not judgemental, they're not mean-spirited, they're not condescending, they're  loving. They're trying to bring back Josh (52:35.297) Yeah. tim (53:02.55) these folks who have maybe lost the plot a little bit, who have  maybe gotten their priorities a little bit mixed up. I think this next generation  of evangelicals, they have their eyes wide ope

n and they can see this for what  it is and that gives me tremendous hope. Josh (53:18.064) That's so good. I really appreciate you sharing that, Tim. So we're a  podcast that's called Faithful Politics. I'm very good at observations and stating the obvious. And  so when we have Faithful Politics, the work we're trying to do in connecting people with people who  think differently to be able to talk about it, to be able to work through some of these issues  to not stray away from difficult questi

ons. What would you say or even recommend to even a  podcast like us on how to implement the spirit Maybe the methods, but even more importantly,  the spirit behind what you're trying to get out in this book. How can we be a part of that  light, that hope, and that light that continues, even though maybe sometimes it looks  small or whatever. There are people, there's always a remnant, right? Like  God told Elijah when he was not happy about his life and wishing for  death. He said there's a...

tim (54:29.016) Yeah. Josh (54:39.288) there's a remnant. So what do you say to the remnant?  What are they supposed to do? tim (54:44.738) You know, look, I would just say this. A friend of mine, Curtis  Chang, I don't know if you guys know Curtis, but he's affiliated with the Duke Divinity  program. He was a pastor himself. He now works as a consultant, but very involved  in evangelical spaces. And he has helped to launch this project called The After  Party, which is really aimed at rethinkin

g how Christians engage with politics. And  one of the things that Curtis has said from the jump that really strikes me is that,  listen, when we read scripture as believers, there is some wiggle room on questions of  who we vote for, what policies we support, right? But there's no wiggle room at all on the  question of how. How are we to conduct ourselves? And so if you just use the how as a  benchmark, you know, if you read the gospels and you listen to the ways that Jesus  instructs his disci

ples and his followers to interface with people that disagree with  them, with people who treat them terribly, with people who outright persecute them and want  them dead. The how in that is so straightforward. There's no ambiguity. It's love, it's grace,  it's forgiveness. And I feel like the great irony in this whole conversation around the sort  of unraveling of the evangelical movement and this sort of idolatry complex taking hold and this  barbarians at the gate mentality that gives... perm

ission structure for us to treat people  terribly and abandon all Christ-likeness that we have learned. The answer  to all of that is right there in scripture. We don't have to look far and  we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Read the Gospel of John. If you get in your  car for an hour-long ride and you pull out your Bible app and just listen to the  Gospel of John. It is so striking how... tim (57:10.798) clear that message is. And it feels like if we get back to a place where guys like yours

elves,  who disagree on some of these political issues, but who agree entirely on the how, and you treat  one another in a certain way because it is how you are commanded to treat one another, boy that  would be a big step in the right direction. Will Wright (57:34.132) Wow, that's so cool. There's this Christian guy who runs this homeless  community in Texas somewhere. And he was interviewed by somebody a couple  of years ago and he said, yeah, even though we're a Christian base, we don't  allo

w proselytizing at all within the center. He's like, but I do think  that we should evangelize and we should preach the gospel on a daily basis, but only in unique circumstances should we use  words. And and I think that like what you've. done with the writing of this book and just sort  of, you know, I don't know if you want to call it a ministry, but just out there talking  to people, I think really, really captures the essence of what he said, because I think that  you're doing more for the C

hristian faith by one, exposing maybe just like bad behavior,  and then two, just showing that God... can love in ways that may not necessarily be  representative of what we see on TV or we hear on you know certain news channels or whatnot. So  I just want to really just thank you for all the you know all the work that you put into this book.  I'm sure it was really difficult and yeah and I just you know I guess I guess moving forward  like how can people get a hold of your book? tim (59:02.974)

Yeah, you know, I appreciate you saying that. Well, I do. I  really do. And, you know, I'm to be clear, I'm, I'm the worst of all the sinners and there's  nothing special about me. There's something really special about, about Jesus though. And to the  extent that I can try and, be like him and share that with people. That's, that's my mission.  That's my ministry. You can find the book. Josh (59:28.228) That's so good. tim (59:29.514) Yeah, you can find the book wherever, man. You can find it

on Amazon or Harper  Collins or at local bookstores near you. And I have a website by timalberta.com. People  can read my emails on there. I'm happy to, you know, people wanna shout at me or pray for  me or both. That's cool. I like to hear from folks. So I'm an easy guy to find and I'd be  really blessed if folks would consider picking up a copy or sharing it with somebody that  they love because I think that we're at a... Will Wright (59:44.634) Yeah. tim (59:58.134) We're at a pretty interest

ing crossroads here, and I just hope that we can at least have a  dialogue about why and where we go from here. Josh (01:00:02.178) Yeah, we are. Will Wright (01:00:06.652) Awesome. Well, thank you so much to Alberta. The book is The  Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, American Evangelicals in the in  an age of extremism. And yeah, make sure you go out and buy the book. So  thanks again, Tim, for everything. All right. tim (01:00:20.802) Thank you, gentlemen. Bless you. Appreciate you having me.

Josh (01:00:21.42) Yeah, thanks.