Nonfiction authors about their latest work. Congratulations on this book. It sounds like its out there now and i think you are making a statement about some things we really need to think about in here about especially about evangelicals and trauma. Congratulations. Lets try to situate you. I know we dont like labels but i think its clear from the book that you do write this book as both evangelical christian, self identified, and as a conservative. What do those two terms mean to you or how do you to find those two times in terms of your own story and how youre using them in the book . First with conservatism, i think of conservatism as having a libertarian minded heart when it comes to federalism, the government being involved in peoples lives, less, less, the reasons im a conservative though instead of libertarian is because i also feel a lot of kinship with conservative social values which are often in line with evangelical values. Sometimes im really feeling frosty i might call it conservative area because even though i hold the values of not a big fan of the government being the ones to make them happen. We will get into that. In terms of being an evangelical i believe the bible is inherent which i think is a prominent feature of evangelicalism. I believe in the holy spirit guiding you. I believe in most of the things you would find in Southern Baptist denominations. And the fact that i was southern helps. You grew up Southern Baptist . Yes. We went to Southern Baptist churches. So you certainly have the evangelical pedigree if you will. You have the conservative background company youve written for conservative outlet. You define yourself as a conservative. He make no bones about that in the book. Thats the position youre coming from when you are here to critique or writing to critique donald trump. You start the book with several stories but one really sort of caught my attention because i think you mentioned it as a kind of sort of a window into how you felt about the way evangelicals were flocking to donald trump, both in terms of the primaries but then of course the general election as well. Tell me the story again and for those watching, tell the story about 1984 you were in dallas at a protest with your parents, you know where im going with this. Tell us that story its a great story. And how it kind of came back again as the election was going on. My father sometime before i was born he began reading apologetics, norman geisler, titan, who passed away recently abnorman geiser, who passed away recently, he decided he wanted to spend his life pursuing the ability to teach apologetics and eventually hebrew and other languages from the bible. So we often were moving along with from state to state for church opportunities where he was first he was a pastor then youth pastor and then to attend dallas seminary. When we were living in dallas around 1984 Jerry Falwell, very famous evangelical leader. Senior. I still say more at this point but more famous. He was leading a protest that my parents brought me to that there were 711s that had Playboy Magazines that were two close like kids could get to them so they were protesting back. So the memory was somewhere in my head floating around. Its 2016 election and i had already known the very full junior had endorsed trumpet i was already seeing the movement in the polls porch but it was june there was a christian summit of leaders that trumps to and falwell tweeted a photo of himself giving a thumbs up with trumpet right behind him was a Playboy Magazine with trumpet on it. I say this in the book and i think it bears repeating here, i wasnt like, Playboy Magazine i wasnt, i know who trump is. It wasnt surprising at all. But this is the inheritor of his fathers legacy, jerry will Jerry Falwell junior. He is now the leader of Liberty University hes an evangelical leader even if hes not a pastor he still an evangelical leader and to go from protesting Playboy Magazine to giving a thumbs up in front of it was such a striking contrast that it really started opening my eyes to the idea that something had infected the evangelical movement. And want to come back to your abyou have sort of a take on it and nonsense, even a diagnosis. We will get to that in the second book you have this great chapter in the book where you talk about what you call the new good news. As i think about the term evangelical the core root word from the greek evangelists. The good news. The good news of the gospel. The good news of jesus christ for the salvation of souls. Whatever it may be. So you are taking the idea the good news, not in a journalistic way or anything but for those who may not know the evangelical language this means the good news of the gospel or some of you might be if you go to your parents shelf you might find a good news bible. Yes. But you have a chapter here. Usually like jesus opening the door. All the pictures the stencil pictures the pencil pictures. You talk about the new good news. I think i might be just answer the first question for you but in your mind whats the old good news . Before we get into the what the new good news was. The old good news is no matter how you live, who have you been, what youve done and even in a sense of what you will do because you will make mistakes, you will have flaws, that your sins have been paid for by jesus christ so you will get to spend eternity with god. What you are saying is relevant to local embrace of Trump Evangelicals are now preaching a new, you dont put good news. A new good news and you break it down. I just want to go through some of these and get your ask you to elaborate a little bit. First of all, part of the new good news is something that i dont think its original to you i think ive seen it before but this idea of vessel theology. What is vessel theology . Vessel theology is first of all, there is a real basis for the idea that god uses vessels. Throughout the bible. For those who might not what you mean by vessel . Human. Like a vessel would be somebody who got put in a particular position at a particular time in order to fulfill his will. That person theoretically and at times in the bible literally did not necessarily come across as the kind of person you would expect him to use. This happens over and over in the bible. But where i feel like it has been morphed is well anybody could be this sort of vessel for gods will, becomes an issue when it is people deciding, before this person has even done anything that they must be a vessel because it comports with their desires. The reason thats dangerous is because that makes it so that anything that person does is an exhibition of that fact that they are a vessel. And thats the fast track to basically cult worship of a human. How you hold somebody accountable thats doing gods will nevermind the fact that you are the one who decided what gods will was. Donald trump, you argue, is a vessel for money evangelicals. Assured. Just so we get the larger context, we can debate a number but a large number say 81 percent is a number you often hear comeau voted for donald trump in 2016. I would tend to agree i think some of them did see tromped as a divinely appointed person. I always wonder could you have the vessel theology where god is using a particular person like donald trump if you believe in the christian worldview which i think we both do, has using god using trump as a vessel to maybe punish the church or teach the church a lesson. I talked a little bit about this in the book too. The thing about trying to determine not just that someone is a vessel of gods will but also why, the problem with that is, judas could have been considered a vessel. Its not like god didnt know what he was going to do. In fact, jesus told him what he was going to do before it happened. Had he not done that, then that would alter the entire circumstances around the crucifixion. Its not the case that a vessel is a value judgment. In terms of good or evil. The person could be committing evil. Its about being in a particular position at any particular moment. Given his position it would be hard to me and believe that god is not involved, obviously a bit is vote and try to determine his motives much less look past things trump does because i think that. The problem is not with the vessel per se, its the way in which those on the christian right or those who support donald trump have kind of responded to this idea of trump being a vessel with such certainty that they know the plan of god. Right. I think a lot of times it really boils down to an easy answer. You can always answer the question what about this with, gods vessel will do what it does. We are on cspan right now im sure a lot of people have no idea this is completely crazy to them. Before we get to the next part of the new good news, in your sense, how representative are these vessel theologians or maybe some of the other things will talk about . Can we say all 81 percent are buying into this . Is it a significant number . Those who maybe are unfamiliar with this world of conservative evangelicalism. It is this theocratic attempt to take over the country . Or just a few crazies . Him. I would say i feel very confident that among the four different rationalizations that are used that they cover the gamut. That this is primarily primarily how people look at it. I base it on living in this world like living in the evangelical world in the south being as involved in politics as i am and traveling the country when i was making a film about trump in 2016 and then also statistics. In the way people are answering. Whether or not among those four do i think vessel is a primary . I would argue lesser evils is. But i would say that the danger is that vessel appears more often among the most vocal leadership in evangelicalism. Which i think is a big problem in and of itself. Related to the idea of vessel theology your next significant point of the new good news is king cyrus argument. I think it was one of these i call the core evangelicals, the evangelicals that come to the kings court and flatter him. One of these guys lance wall was recently on the jim baker show. Bet jim baker. He has a Television Show now. Pitching a king cyrus coin. I dont know if you saw that, for 45 you can buy a coin with king cyrus on it. Why king cyrus . What did that have to do with anything in terms of the way evangelicals talk to trump . Ive heard this and written about this they see him as a new king cyrus. Part of it they feel is fulfilled as a result of the embassy. Netanyahu actually mentioned king cyrus when he was talking about how thankful they were for tromped moving. I dont personally feel like having read it many times over i dont feel Like Netanyahu was calling trump a new king cyrus. I think he was simply saying, it is as big of a moment for us as it was when they were a whats the metaphor . King cyrus allowed the israelis for the jewish people to rebook their temple to go back into their homeland and more importantly, his doing this was something that had been prospect. This was gods move and god had made clear through his prophets this what what was happening. The comparison with trump ab certainly the same could be true of donald trump. Thats what separates the vessel theology is from the cyrus geologist is that these guys say literal prophecy. Rondeau and a few others have referred to it as the isaiah 44 president because one of the verses about cyrus is in isaiah 45. Which is interesting because i dont know if you notice the verse numbers werent there when it was written. There were no chapters. [laughter] i could go in and renumber it. This is definitely a more fringe aspect of it and yet it still embraced to a degree. It was talked about in a book called the faith of Donald J Trump written by some premainstream evangelicals. abdavid brody. And scott lam. They talk about it not in, in a noncritical way. They present it as, who knows, could be. According to 10 and others, trump was fine with it, which doesnt surprise me. Then there is a guy, whose name i cant recall at the moment, made a movie about it. Liberty university filmmaker. Yes. This vessel theology, king cyrus, that stuff is out there. It almost seems french. Vessel only to the extent that people define it without knowing thats what they are doing. They will answer questions as they did prior to the election with god can use anyone. The issue with saying god can use anyone as an answer to a problem with trump is that if you are not also saying that thats true about hillary, youre kind of defining vessel theology even if its not what you think you are doing. The other two parts of the new good news i think are sort of much more, i see them much more prevalent. One is the way evangelicals, at least Trump Evangelicals, have compartmentalized. Compartmentalization, what you mean by that . The last two we are talking about they are not only the most common, they are the most understandable and most rational but still used in compartmentalization is a good part of that. I compartmentalized if im picking which way the toilet paper roll goes to the bathroom i dont necessarily need to bring religion into the issue. Its fine to compartmentalize at that moment. What a lot of christians do and in a lot of elections, not with just donald trump, is they look at what they think is the most urgent issue between politics and religion and if at the moment the more urgent issue is the politics and whatever religious consideration they had prior are still there, they are going to pick this more urgent thing because this doesnt really have to do it this so they until they need it to. Robert jeffries First BaptistChurch Pastor showed a good example of how that works when he wouldnt endorse mitt romney in the primaries and spent a lot of time saying that they had to do whatever they could to stop romney on spiritual grounds until he was the nominee and then suddenly it was fine. Thats compartmentalization. What you say to it. I get asked this a lot too. What you say to the person who says, this is classic robert jeffries. He is a commentator on fox news. I hear him saying this all the time. The churchs responsibility is one thing to preach the gospel and so forth. But the governments job is to protect us. Thats a sense of compartmentalizing and donald trump is protecting us hes protecting our borders. Hes a strong man who is going to fight the muslim threat. In other words, it doesnt quite matter, we know he is a sinner, we did hire a pastor in chief. How do you respond to that . Using jeffers as the example because hes such a great example, the first problem is, he merges things sort of conveniently at whatever given moment he needs to. He was asked about the sermon on the mount, would you rather have a candidate who represented the values of the sermon on the mount. He replied, heck no, i would run from that person as fast as i could. Which is shocking. The idea that he saying if you see somebody like jesus, run. And then he morphed into talking about what the United States does and how it deals with perhaps another country like as a government. So what hes doing is excusing trumps behavior as despite no matter how far away it is from being christlike and saying that the reason is because the government isnt a person. We were talking about the man. From what i have seen of him so far, it seems as though what hes really saying is if youre going to have a government that functions somewhat a morally, as it records to other countries is not an entity and not a person you need a person who somehow represents the same type of amorality. Which i would think would be an odd thing come from the pastors mouth is the best thing we could have as an amoral president. Where you stand on some of these, you hear people critique trump people like david french and others for his character, what hes doing to the office. His tweets and so forth. And you have other people on capitol hill people like ben sass and others who are casting the aspersions on trump for his character issues. But most of them lined up provably closely to trump in terms of policy. How do you parse that out . The first thing is that i dont think theres necessarily anything wrong with the idea or concept of a transactional relationship with the president. I think the way a transaction would work you would have expectations of the person to fulfill your objective to not make it difficult for you to support them and in return they get your support. Thats not what happens with trump though. The reason is not transactional even though he doesnt want to do things that people would like. In some things with which you agree. Certainly. Absolutely. The issue is hes not actually getting any anything in return. Hes not making it easy for anybody to support him. In fact, because he is so prone to throwing people under the bus if they speak ill of him its mafia like in the way he treats the friends of the family it puts people in a position where they either become a critic and therefore enemy or they pretend everything he does is great. A lot of people and wanted to keep the transactional relationship alive and talking way beyond evangelicals everybody on the right. What ends up happening is they are more concerned about getting their policy objectives so they end up living a lot of times a lie knowing as many people as they do that work in the industry have been in the industry for as long as i have i hate even calling it an industry. Privately they have angst about this about how difficult he makes it for them. Im always suggesting to them it doesnt have to be difficult. You can say that he shouldnt do this. This would be an example of this say Franklin Graham, whose quiet about trump separating families at the border because if he were to speak out strongly against that he loses the larger issue. He loses his prophetic voice in some way. In some ways the church suffers as a result. I met a psychologist so i dont want to get too deep into this but i will say that so much of it is frightening similar to how narcissists operate because if you notice, using the example you gave about separating children at the border, Russell Moore whos been a critic of trump, he did Say Something about that. Trump, having gotten criticism from Russell Moore, he headed the baptist convention, he already called out russell. Hes already said that hes dead to the Republican Movement and evangelicals. Hes a bad guy. What is Jerry Falwell junior do . He jumps up despite that, just like the song who wants to narcissists dads attention. Russell moore almost lost his job over that. The last issue in your new good news which to me is the most interesting one. The new good news is associated with the lesser of two evils, what you mean by that . This is to me the broadest one. The one that i would say ive even struggled with. And its easy to struggle with and i have a lot of empathy for how it could be come a lesser evils essentially means, youve got two options the only two options you got one is bad, what is worse if youre going to be rational about it you choose bad or worse. Be specific to thousand 16. 2016 Marie Clinton is prochoice will appoint judges you dont like she will not protect religious liberty she will raise taxes and do all the things you dont want as a christian or conservative. Trump brings all the baggage and problems but he will do things you like this is bad this is worse. How do you, what is your critique of that . I hear this all the time, ive heard this all the time the lesser of two evils i cant vote for hillary and then the big thing is, if you vote for neither, you are throwing your vote away. How do you answer that . Especially from and evangelicals bring it to you . Its very important that a lot of times its very important that im talking to somebody of some sort of faith because i will say that if there was no greater moral truth in our universe if there was truth was something we all agreed on as opposed to something that really fuels life, which i believe it is, pragmatically sure. Why would you do that . Once i establish that with the person, is there something higher to answer to . It starts to become a question of how much do you really trust god if you think that god is limited to the twoparty system . Its a small god you are describing. He cant fulfill his will on earth unless you vote for the republican . I think the lesser evil argument is tempting but dangerous high think it contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out of the system and i think it also is an easy way to bring in Something Like evangelicalism or any other faith and use that as a way to get votes which seems to be about the worst possible way you could. Rather than being captive, i mean this in a good way, rather than being captive to evangelical theology, a big god who cares for his people, who you trust and who has your back so to speak. Is it fair to say that many evangelicals then have instead replaced that kind of theology with a worldview defined by american politics . Or twoparty system . Which ive written a lot about that. And fear that we need a strong man. Some kind of person like trump to help us and save us while we have someone so much bigger than trump. A god who cares and loves us. Thats the thing. You could have, i say this in the book at one point. You couldve got into the voting booth and had a completely clean cautious and didnt believe any accusations made by trump and believe hes a redemptive figure. If you believe all of that, i may think you are ignorant of some information i may want to discuss it but i dont think its a poor decision. You made a decision you think is in line with their relationship with god thats not what im hearing. When i talk to people about it, especially when i talk about in 2016, the line wasnt holding my nose for these reasons. They actually have a lot of respect for my position at the time. And you have felt bashed in the head while holding on to a higher it of values that your opponent doesnt have to hold himself to, revenge probably feels pretty sweet. But if you wanted to design a test for christians, i cant think of a better one than putting you in a position to get revenge and not take it. But they decided to take it. Host lets talk briefly, are evangelicals, are they right to feel victimized, in your opinion . I mean, is this a legitimate feeling that they have . Because you hear this, you know, this kind of trump is going to fight for us, weve been victimized by the left. You know, i get the sense in the book that youre maybe not as much critical of the fact that, yes, they are being victimized, you believe that, but the response to how ones victimized is where you how do you respond where youre victimized is where you have a problem. Help me parse that out. Guest a lot of what i think about this is extremely unpopular, because on the one hand, absolutely, im saying people have been unfairly maligned, they have been shouted down, they have been silenced at times, theyve been kicked out of entire industries. There have been all these reasons for people to be upset. But even beyond their response, an interesting thing happened as, expectedly when i came out against trump, a lot of democrats and liberals suddenly liked me a lot, you know . Now, i didnt change my views, but they were nice to me. And as a result of being nice to me, i started to get the same heat from the right that maybe they had been getting. And what i discovered was they all do it. And, yes, all those things that people feel victimized on the right, yes, are there versions of that, of what the right does to the left . Absolutely. And so the problem is its fine to believe that this thing that happened to an individual or this particular situation was unfair, and its even fine p to feel as if the entire right has been mistreated. But i would argue that there are things that the right, culturally speaking, have power over such as christianity which is, last time i checked, still pretty powerful. Certain industries they have power over just like the left. And the left wields theirs often in ways that i find unjustifiable and just as horrible as the things im calling out here. But my interest was in talking to the right because thats where my home is. Host yeah. Im really intrigued by the way you describe people on the left, progressives as suddenly liking you. Its kind of scary, you dont seem like a person that worries too much, so im not going to use that term [laughter] but do you wonder, once you pull trump out of the equation, right, you go back to just being a kind of conservative evangelical again, and theres no point of connection. Do you see a kind of, you know, return to, you know, do you lose those friends . Guest well, one of the first things is that for a while that is what was because i would not change how i felt about certain issues. Host yeah. Guest and at times there would be people who would come after me for it, you know, i thought you were one of the good ones. Im like, you mean you thought i was a democrat . Because i never is said i was a democrat. But what i discovered, i guess you could say it was kind of spiritual, which was i had this opportunity to talk to people who had always been my adversary. They suddennenly had a reason to be nice to me. And it was not, you know, it was a part of the reason. It was a narrative reason. They could use me narratively. Host right. Guest i wouldnt completely conform to what they wanted from me narratively, but i didnt get mad, i talked. And i tried to bridge the gap. I wouldnt say i convinced people to be conservative, but i did get people to be okay with it. And so to me, it was so instructive that you put people in a position to not be in front of thousands of people arguing and actually find some common humanity, everything the bible says about how to talk to people works. It just does. Host yeah. Let me get into this a little bit more because youre pretty open in the book about some places in the past where you have kind of not taken the advice youre giving us right now. Guest absolutely. Which, by the way, an existing problem. Host well, there seems to be this book in some places almost kind of reads like a confessional, you know . I was a jerk [laughter] and heres what ive learned, you know . Without getting too deep into the weeds, can you talk about this kind of change of heart or this, you know, your journey . Guest first of all, theres two reasons that i put it in the book. One is because i despise the idea of a moralist. As you can, as you can see by having read the book, i believe we all fall short, you know . Nobodys in a position to be the moral authority, so to speak, but we cant not talk about morality, or no one could, because no ones perfect. So part of it is just to connect to my audience and say, i get it, we all make mistakes. Host yeah. Guest the other part went straight to credibility. This is a tough topic that people are very sensitive about. Religion is the other subject that youre not supposed to talk about at the dinner table. Im talking about both religion and politics. Host right. Guest so i know its sensitive. And what i didnt want was for evangelicals who read this book to think i was an outsider. I was there. I was in the tea party, i was carrying the signs, i was giving speeches, i had every client in conservative politics in my Video Production company, i went on tv to talk about it. Host yeah. Guest ive been a republican all my life, you know, i am one of you. I really am. And then for the readers who were not as connected to that world, i needed to give them an insight into what animates that mentality. Like, for instance, when i wrote about my firstever post was right after barack obama won the presidency, and i had been so tired of being maligned and called a nazi and everything else. Because people forget that happened while bush was president. Host yeah. Guest this isnt new to the trump era. But i with was so upset about it, and then when i saw a bunch of actors suddenly being willing to talk, suddenly being willing to be friends, it kind of enraged me. It was like, where have you been for the last eight years . You were so busy calling me a nazi, now you want to be friends . Because, one, if theres going to be a conversation, if were going to get to that point, there has to be some understanding of where people came from, why got to this why they got to this point. I dont make excuses for what the evangelical right or what the conservative right does on a lot of things these days. I dont make excuses for it. But knowing how they got to that point is important if you ever expect to speak to them or find common ground. Host yeah, yeah. Your credentials in that world, both worlds of evangelicalism, conservativism, the points where those two words come together two world whos come together is strong, and that gives you a much more powerful voice, i think, when you critique these things. Lets go back to, again, why evangelicals vote for trump. You know, the common narrative, right, is abortion, you know, its usually abortion plus one other thing depending on the election. Research or religious liberty or gay marriage guest right. Host you know . You make the case and you, you know, its not really you, youre elaborating on some polling data, right . You make the case that none of those things motivated primarily motivated evangelicals to vote for trump. But, rather, it was, for lack of a better term, selfinterest. Guest yeah. Im going to try an analogy out host did i get that right . Guest yeah. Host okay. Guest im going to try an analogy i havent tried before to try to make sense of this. Imagine youre with your friends, and you all are going to go out to dinner. And one of the guys thats there has an ex that hes not over and Everybody Knows hes not over, and that ex works at a restaurant, and this guys like, lets go to that restaurant. And everybodys like, come on, you want to go there to see your exgirlfriend. And hes like, no, no, no, its about this Seafood Platter, i dont care about the exgirlfriend. Its the seafood plater, thats the reason i want to go. Everybody kind of knows. Okay, well in politics and evangelical politics, the girlfriend that hes pretending to not want to see is economic policies and lower taxes and lower regulation, typical republicans. But it has more to do with an individuals life, you know . And the Seafood Platter in the analogy is abortion. Host yeah. Guest polling shows that the top concerns for evangelicals and, by the way, for other republicans as well, but it was more relevant in this instance because abortion was so often cited as the one issue that mattered. Host right. Guest but the truth is it fell below things like immigration, education, economic issues, regulation. It, the only thing that it beat out were, that abortion beat out were treatment of minorities or lgbtq community, you know . So basically the things that would be most relatable to a christian whos thinking about their christianity treating other people decently, arguably immigration policy and, of course, abortion and religious liberty they were all at the bottom of their list. And that includes when they could write in their answer. Host yeah. My response to that is im not arguing with the data guest sure. Host but historically, you know, id have to go back and look at this, i dont know if you have. Id like to compare that poll with 2012, 2008, 2004, you know, where, you know, as a historian of the christian right it does again, this is just anecdotally it does seem like the moral issues were and are the most important. But, you know, we can, if we had more time, we could debate that and how guest yeah. I will say that one of the reasons that i think it would be easier to believe in some of the previous elections is because they were voting for president lets say these were all during president ial years they were voting for republican president s who more easily aligned with what you would picture a evangelical to support. When trump comes into the picture, it just changes the calculus. Host yeah, yeah. Really interesting. Isso what how do we move, how do evangelicals, again, our times running out here, how do evangelicals kind of move . Whats their next step . What is the state of evangelicalism in terms of relationship to politics . Do you hear cries, you know, a lot of evangelicals kind of abandoning the term, abandoning the movement, you know . It has been so coopted by politics, gop politics usually, right . The that its, it has no power to shape the culture anymore. Even the churches are weakening, the gospel is being damaged. Whats your, where do you come down on that . I mean, you still use the term evangelical to describe yourself . Guest i do. Host why and, you know, what is the state of this movement that you have adhered to . And i identify as evangelical myself, that i adhere to, right . But youre the one being interviewed, so [laughter] guest well, okay. So, first, why do i keep the name evangelical. I love the idea of evangelizing. I think that its important, and it should be it should sound like a good thing. Host yeah. Guest when youre talking about evangelizing, you know, you can use that word in other contexts, it shouldnt have a negative connotation, but i think it does. And that bothers me to the point that i would really like to rescue it. I would rather not throw this word away. I would rather it continue to be rehabbed, okay . I think part of that happening is going to be not a separation of religion and politics necessarily. I think it would be kind of strange to think that god is the veteran of the universe and that hes not going to have anything to do with your decision in the voting booth, but i think it should be a more individual decision, less influenced by people specifically in power within the church. And i think also and this one is something ive given a lot of thought to i think weve got a mega Church Problem in this country. Host yeah. Guest you know, there were 12 disciples. Ive always thought thats a good number, you know . [laughter] its many times, many churches have said their internal statistics show that the people who are happiest that go to church have a bible study, they have a small group that they go to, they have a life group, whatever you want to call it, where people arent just listening, theyre living it with each other and holding each other accountable. And i think theres far too late of that these too little of that these days, and thats somebody who literally attends a satellite church of a mega church, okay . [laughter] ive been sort of wrestling with that for a while. I think that the sizes of the church could be okay if there was more emphasis put on these smaller groups. Host yeah, yeah. I always think when i drive past a mega church on the highway or something, you know, often and again, i hope people dont read too much into this, what im about to say, but i think about jesus in the gospel talking about the narrow road, and, like, everybodys there. I know you want unbelievers to come guest right. Host you know . But something says theres a disconnect there. [laughter] guest well, theres also a bit of a its, and i get it, i do get it where its like why do a lot of churches, especially the bigger churches with the rock and roll beforehand again, i go to a church like that, i like the music, but i think that you may agree with what im about to say which is this feels like a giant therapy session. Yeah. Guest and theyre very connected to today the, which is great, right . You want people to feel that connection. But its wearing. Whereas i grew up in the home, i did not get an official deal off the train like my father, and yet i have a lot of understanding about theology because this was something he emphasized and put on my heart, and it has helped me. And i feel like churches these days need to think about how to start infusing that back. It was put in the bible for a reason. They have these passages making these things clear. Its not filler. Sort of smaller, more personal. I mean, honestly, federalism of the church, you know . Host do you think that if they, if we do kind of move to a smaller, more committed group of people, that that may help solve some of our political, evangelicals political problems . Guest i think theres got to be another aspect of it which is it needs to hold leaders accountable host yeah. Guest you know, Franklin Graham disappointedded me, but disappointed me, but jerry e falwell jr. And robert feoff rest and others, theyre not jeff rest and others, theyre discussing religion from a political angle. Host yeah. Guest and given the size of their influence and, you know, we both work in a world where people are never going to read things that ive written host right. Guest and whether or not these guys accept that, thats a big responsibility. If you are careful with your words, somebody can take it in completely they have much more responsibility than they are acting like they have. Host theres no authority. Theres no central authority. Sometimes that can be a bad thing too, right . But there is no one to hold these evangelicalism is not a denomination. Guest right. Host there are no bishops. I thought about kind of abandoning the word with, right, evangelical. Im no longer an evangelical. Where do you send the letter, right . [laughter] you know, how do you do that . Guest it gets difficult because, you know, i went to a church that was presbyterian and like, you know, that was their denomination. Then they wanted to become nondenominational, except they disagreed with the way the Presbyterian Church was doing things but still considered themselves presbyterian host thats the problem of protestantism, put the bible in the hands of the people, and youll have thousands. Guest right. Which is why the smaller for the individual that goes, the better. Host we have a couple minutes left, and theres so much more of this book i would like to talk to you about. I love this idea of moral welfare. You have some great thoughts about the altright and the way theyve been sort of coopted in many ways by trump. These a are all things we could spend another hour talking about, but in the last two minutes here and im sure youre getting this question a lot 2020, evangelicals. You know, i know youre not a prophet, you know . Whats your take . Where, you know, first of all, will they you know, i think its pretty obvious theyre going to rally around trump again. Guest there wasnt yeah. One thing im very interested in seeing which is they have consistently been putting out 26 of the electorate in the election, but interestingly, the number of people who identify as evangelical has been going down at the same time. Host yeah. Guest which i ec trap late to mean extrapolate to mean theyre doubling down on their enthusiasm with less people. Host right. Guest doubling down on enthusiasm when it comes to the right these days is mostly injections of fear just like, just like injecting it straight into the veins. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Weve got the immigration issues, weve got a lot of angles for fear. Part of what is going to dictate, in my opinion, whats going to ultimately happen with where do evangelicals go is who the candidate is, you know . If its Kamala Harris or bernie sanders, i think youll see the biggest evangelical turnout that youve ever seen, and its going to have much more uniformity even than 81 . If its biden, i till think the evangelical i still think the evangelical vote will overwhelmingly go for trump, but i dont think itll be quite as bad. But as for the question of simply will they vote for him . Absolutely. Absolutely. Host yeah. Ben howe, author of the immoral majority. Its been great talking to you, thanks for taking some time. Guest absolutely. Thanks for having me. Host great. This program is available as a podcast. All after words programs can be viewed on our web site at booktv. Org. [applause] good afternoon. This ought to be interesting. N