Transcripts For CSPAN3 Evangelicals In Politics 20170814

We think of tragedies that have happened recently, attacks, and life of many citizens, we pray you would protect a life i pray that those of us who know you would live godly lives. I pray we would do that for your glory. We pray now that you would bless this discussion tonight that we might learn something that would make us more effective citizens. We ask this in christs name, amen. Before i introduce this evenings panelist, i want to take a few minutes and set the context and purpose for tonights discussion its my opinion that believers or evangelicals should engage in political activity on the basis of their faith commitments. I hold this opinion for a couple reasons opinion scripture assumes that a follower of christ will seek opportunities for influence. Its just one example, god instructs his people who are in exile to seek the peace or welfare of the city where ive caused you to be carried away as captives. And pray unto the lord for it. The peace or welfare there of shall you have peace. Its natural for evangelicals to seek opportunities to influence both people and social institution, including government, because we see that in scripture. Second, evangelicals engage in political activity as an outgrowth of their faith because faith is not simply part of a christians life but its central to his or her identity as a person. Evangelicals see themselves as citizens of two kingdoms, an earthly one and a heavenly one. We have responsibilities we render unto ceasar the things that are ceasars and seek those things which are above. As we carry out responsibilities in this earthly kingdom, we do so as followers of christ. The involvement of evangelicals in american politics should could come as no surprise. Knowing, however, the most appropriate ways to carry out this call to influence and to participate in our represented democracy is not always straightforward. Sadly, evangelicals have not always exercised this responsibility and wisdom, and in meekness. Sometimes were so enamored with the political power of this world that we become, in the words of cal thomas and ed dobson, blinded by might. In an era where evangelicals are increasingly pressured to keep their faith to their private life christians must understand how to carry out their civic responsibilities in meekness and wisdom. Its my hope that tonights forum will accomplish two ends. First, i hope your understanding of how evangelicals have engaged in the american experiment of selfgovernment will be expanded. And i hope well glean lessons from the missteps that are instructive for our lives today. Our format tonight is simple. After i introduce our panelists, ill ask them questions, and following those questions, well take time to answer some from the audience. If youre interested in asking a question, be sure you get a card from one of our volunteers, if youve not already done that. If you dont have one, maybe you can slip your hand up quickly. One of our volunteers who are here tonight can get you one of those cards. Tonight we have the privilege of hearing from four distinguished panelists, each bringing a unique perspective to our topic. Let me introduce each one of them to you. First of all carl abrams, who is on your far left. I dont mean anything political by that. I can assure you. Dr. Carl abrams, professor of modern and european history. Dr. Abrams is frequently sought by the media as an expert on religion and American Culture. Hes the author of two books selling the oldtime religion american fundamentalists and mass culture in 1920 and 1940 and conservative restraints, North Carolina and the new deal. Dr. Abrams holds three degrees in history. A b. A. From Bob Jones University, an m. A. From the North Carolina State University and a ph. D. From the university of maryland. In addition, he studied in paris and harvard vinity school. Dr. Jim guth who is on your far right is the william r. Ken an junior Political Science. He served as fuhrmans chair as the chair of the Political Science department. He initiated an Intern Program which has sent over 1,000 students to washington. As a specialist in american politics, he assessed the impact of religion on the electoral process and Public Policy in the clinton, bush and obama administrations. Dr. Guth holds a bachelor of science from the university of wisconsin and a ph. D. From harvard, university. And then in our center left we have dr. Tom mack, who joins our Forum Tonight from cedarville university, where he is the assistant Vice President of academics, professor of history and director of cedarvilles honors program. He teaches courses in United States history and world view integration. His Research Area is 19th century america, especially the political history of the American Civil War and the guilded age. He was selected to attend the American History seminar on the guilded age sponsored by the guilded lariman institute of history and the council of independent colleges hosted by stanford university. His Research Includes the role of ohio and its politicians in National Politics during the 19th century. Dr. Mack holds a b. A. From cedarville university. An m. A. From cleveland State University, and ph. D. From the university of akron. And finally, centerright, kellan funk. Hes a ph. D. His area of focus is 19th century american legal institutions. Both practice and theory, the development of a legal profession, the debates over the codification of the common law and the intersection of american law and american christianity. He recently assumed the position of law clerk for chief judge Lee Rosenthal at the u. S. District court for the Southern District of texas. Hes received legal history fellowships from yale law school, the hearst institute. The American Society for legal history, and also received a religious history fellowship from the center for the study of religion at princeton university. Mr. Funk holds a b. A. From bju and a j. D. From yale law school. Would you please welcome our panelists for tonights discussion. [ applause ] were going to begin tonight with a simple question, i thinkd definitions are important. Im going to direct this question to kellen and ask him to define what an evangelical is. How would you distinguish evangelicals from other religious groups . Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for the question, and hopefully well have about two minutes after ive answered it to have the rest of the panel. It does seem like a simple question. A good question to define the term were going to be talking about for this panel. It is also a cruel question. Historians debate rather furiously what evangelical means and who that label applies to. Part of the reason for that is the word evangelical means and who it applies to. Part of that is because the word evangelical didnt have much meaning until the 20th century. But clearly the evangelicals of the 20th century had their roots going back further. There were movements and groups in the 18th and 19th centuries known by all sorts of names, piotious, as new lights, new divinity, lots of new revivalists. Which had all different personalities and theologyists and aims and thinking about reform and politics. Clearly, there were emphasis and strands and things held in common among these groups. Historians debate whether the term evangelicalism is appropriate for these groups. So one historian named david bebington has offered four emphasis that mark what an evangelical is. And these criteria, nobody agrees with, everyone disagrees over whether these are actual emphasis, whether all four go together or there should be more than four. Probably other panelists will want to disagree with it. But because everyone talks about it, its a convenient benchmark to start with. So the four qualities that mark an evangelical. The first is as he calls it, biblicism. A high regard for the authority and sufficiency of the bible. The second he calls centrism. Which is a fancy way of saying the cross. And the theology of the atonement is central to evangelical identity. The third is conversion. The emphasis that individuals ought to be choosing belief and obedience in the gospel. The fourth category is activism. It means especially that the belief and conversion ought to change a persons life. And that a person ought to be active in changing their life, because they have converted and believe the gospel. These are the four emphasis that and a person ought to be active in changing their life because they have converted and believe the gospel. So these are the four emphasis on evangelical and i should emphasize that they are these a supposed to be the things that are at the center of evangelical identity as opposed to what a lot of 19th century historians would call liturgocals o or catholicism the way that survivalists did and are more interested in the sacramental life of the church and gathering around the sacraments of raising up families in the church and not so much going out and doing the sort of soul winning that the evangelicals have talked about. So let me sort of sketch a timeline of the 19th century to now, which will let me fill in a little bit more of this definition and then hopefully that sets the stage for us. Basically, in the 19th century, when youre thinking about evangelical involvement in politics, you find the people that historians would call evangelicals basically on every side of every issue on every side of every Political Party, maybe, maybe there are arguable emphasis that well get to. And there are evangelicals that support reforms and some that oppose the reforms. There are evangelicals that are antislavery and evangelicals that defend the institution of slavery. There are evangelicals that are democrats and republicans and progressives and populists and the whole parties that went through the 19th century. But there are certain generalizations that you can make and those generalizations run along the dominational lines where baptist evangelicals along with the catholics almost always reliably vote democratic into the late 19th century century d into, while a lot of methodist and presbyterian evangelicals, calvinists, kon calvinists, congregationallists and others vote for the whig party and later are involved in the Republican Party after the demise of the whigs. Thats a very different story from what happens in the 20th century. In the 20th century it is no longer that you can sort of divide evangelicals along denominational lines and sort of figure out whos politically active where and who is voting for whom. After the rise of liberal theology and the fundamentalists modernist controversy, after the fundamentalist movement gets started it is attracting people across the denominational boundaries. So that, for instance, a methodist fundamentalist could found a school with a lot of presbyterian fundamentalists on staff and a lot of baptist fundamentalists attending as students. What happens through anyone know the school im talking about . What happens through this fundamentalist movement is people realize that very often they have more in common with other fundamentalists across the denominational divide than they have with people in their own denomination. So a fundamentalist methodist has a lot more in common with a fundamentalist baptist than necessarily with a liberal methodist that is in his or her own denomination. Over the course of the 20th century what starts to happen is this same coalescence that crosses denominational boundaries culturally and socially with the different movements also starts to happen politically, where conservative evangelicals all sort of start to gather on one side of the political spectrum in a way that hadnt at all been true of evangelicals in the 19th century. This is this thesis is broadly referred to as the restructuring of american religion, which was coined by socialologists at princeton. That briefly leads me to define one more distinction, hopefully the stage has been set. What is the difference between a fundamentalist and an evangelical for purposeless of this discussion. The historian of american religion, george marzden, humerusly defines a fundamentalist as an evangelical who is angry about something, which he means it humorously, but it is a helpful definition in that it points to the fact that fundamentalists are if youre thinking through the historical label of evangelicalism, those four emphases i mentioned, it is basically a sub set of evangelicalism that has this added point of militancy. That he were dedicated to taking a stand for the gospel for those four emphases and willing to sund sunder ties, and also with other evangelicals who were not sunderring ties with the liberal theologians. So the term evangelicalism comes into actual history around the 1950s when a few people like billy graham and carl henry, the editor of christianity today, and they were using the term evangelical to sort of distance themselves from that militancy point. Sometimes people refer to it as new evangelicalism. I dont know that that title is very helpful or has any meaning because really evangelicalism and fundamentalism are both new in the 1950s and significantly in the same way that theyre also very old in the 1950s in significant ways. So what happens from that point onward is these different groups, fundamentalists and evangelicals, often use those labels to make sure you know that theyre not the other one, even though they all share those four emphases that i mentioned of what historically marks evangelicals. Now, to bring the story up to today, the political media and political pollsters have no kind of patience for this nuance, right . So there is no breakdown in polls between how fundamentalists vote and evangelicals vote and where pentecostal pentecostals fit on that scale. Evangelical today is often used to describe politically conservative christianity of any kind, and often that term is used interchangeably to talk about evangelicals, to talk about fundamentalists, even to talk about conservative roman catholics who in the 19th se century would not at all fit the category as historians use it. So a very long and meandering way to say ive not given you a precise definition because history does not give us a precise definition, but i think thats part of the helpfulness and usefulness of starting with a panel on the past and having these panelists here to think through what the change over time is, where the emphases are and why they matter to what is going on right now. Thank you again for inviting me. Im looking forward to hearing from the other panelists. As i said, what seems to be a simple question about just defining what an evangelical is, when you look at it from a Historical Perspective it is a little bit complicated. Kellen in his answer invited some discussion on this, so i want to throw out this next question perhaps to the entire panel, whoever might want to jump on it. I think kellen suggested his answer to the question, but when did evangelicals become recognized as a Political Force or as a Political Movement historically in the United States . We point to a particular time when either historians or political scientists have said that evangelicals should be recognized as some sort of a Political Force or some sort of a Political Movement. Anybody . I would just add sort of a working definition to simplify what kellen just laid out for us. For fundamentalists in the 1920s and 30s they had a very simple way as well of communicating what they meant, and they would talk about believing in supernatural christianity. That very quickly got to what they were really all about, which would include what kellen just elaborated on. One other thing that they would add, some of them i dont agree with them, but some would add premillennialism would be, and there was a big debate between is militants the answer or premillennialism, is that what the other were about. So there were shorthand words that were used. To get to your question, i would argue that and i was surprised by this. It is a very odd source to start with, but alexi de toqueville, when he came to america in the 1830s and went back and wrote his book, one of the biggest impressions he had about america was the importance of religion that he saw in americans. And the way he elaborated on it was in a very positive way, that religion and he called it as it was translated traditional religion, which suggests maybe evangelicalism hes not using that word obviously, but traditional religion, and it made americans less selfish. It made me more civicminded. It neutralized individualism. It made them better citizens across the board. So for someone, a foreigner to come to america and recognize that theres something traditional and different, maybe the 1830s is a little early, but he saw something even if americans were not conscious of that identity. He was aware of it apparently for them. When you think about what is going on politically, this is he was here during the jacksonian presidency, and despite that he still thought some very positive things about religion. So youre adding more precisely to what kellen said, that an evangelical would be somebody who believes in the supernatural, the new birth specifically, contrasted perhaps with somebody of a mainline christian denomination, that thats a distinguishing characteristic of an evangelical. Tom, i want to point the next question to you. Were going to trace this a bit historically now, and toms expertise as i mentioned in the introduction is in 19th century u. S. History. So how did evangelicals of the 19th century involve themselves in politics, and what were perhaps some of the significant social or political issues that were important to them, programs even some of the key figures that were involved . So theres a lot that i could talk about. I want to focus in on the doctrine that dr. Abrams raised which is the 1820s, 30s and 40s. In that time we see the second great awakening as historians refer tot. I want to talk about the theological roots of the second great awakening, which is many and varied. Some historians have argued tlas a link going all the way back to the first great awakening in the theology of jonathan edwards. I think theres compelling evidence to suggest it is correct. Edwards theres a lot to edwards theology and i dont pretend to be an expert on it, but i know he focused on a key phrase that as human beings have a natural ability but moral inability. By that he meant human beings have natural ability to do anything, they can sin, they can do positive things and good work, but their struggle is in their will, their motive. Only god can correct that. The reason thats significant is the influence that that had not only at the time, because he was addressing concerns about which his response was after you come to know christ, after your justification you have to live out the faith. It must be evident in how you live your life. He was also responding to armenianism which he would suggest gives far too much credit to role of the individual in the justification process. Kellen referred to one of the many new divinities, and they include people like bell annie and hopkins and a number of others and took it a step further. This is where i see the connection to the second great awakening. They talked about something called disinterested benevolence. In it what they suggest is that in order to really demonstrate that you understand who god is, that you have an appreciation for who he really is, you demonstrate love simply because of who he is, not because hes going to save you or prevent you from going to heel or bless yr bless you in thisethly life, that you recognize who he is. In the new divinity theologians took it one step further and said in your Christian Life you should do good words, but they referred to it as disinterested benevolence. You dont do good because of the benefit to you. You do it because of demonstrating the love of god, because the benefit somebody else receives from it. To me that epitomizes a great deal of the impact of the second great awakening. I will hayesen to add theres much more to the second great awakening. Theres an armenian strain to the second great awakening, certainly on the focus of the role of the human in the justification process, in the ability to choose, to accept and believe. For many it was relieving the anxiety of trying to figure out if im one of those chosen by god. Sometimes it is referred to as entire sanctification, the belief that after justification you can arrive at a state of relative perfection. That meant doing good works, trying to improve society. You see the logical step to the third area, which is millennialism, the belief that the church is bringing in the kingdom of god. For some of them well get to it later perhaps the belief that this nation is a chosen nation of god to help bring in that my lenan, this being the United States. It is an interesting topic and runs through the countrys history. Revivalism is the method. Thats the framework. Out of the second great awakening it is interesting, gets to your question, is how do they get involved politically. It launched what historians called the age of reform, sometimes referred to as the benevolent empire which takes us back to disinterested benevolence. You see individuals like Charles Finney and his disciple Theodore Dwight will, focused on things like temperance and abstinence. You see beacher and lyman and his son, who were involved in temperance but involved in trying to improve the American Society we live in, with a goal of bringing gods law to bear in the community in which they live. That manifests itself in things i talked about, temperance, asylum reform, even in education reform. Their goal is to create a better society. What i think is intriguing, coming from this time period because i think ow÷ you listen o him you will see how much they apply to our current moment. Finney said this on social and political involvement. The promotion and public order and happiness is one of the indispensable means of saving souls. In finneys mind improving society was not just bringing in the kingdom or ben he have lenlt works, but creating an atmosphere in which the gospel could go forth. I want to emphasize that piece to much of the social and political involvement following the second great awakening. It was driven by the gospel. Secondly, and it is more telling for our time period i think, from henry cowells. Men are put in nomination for president. How few talking about the votes. How few care to inquire whether they are for virtue or no virtue, for moral purity or no moral purity. It is a small fare for most voters. It is intriguing because i think as evangelicals in this time period they would reflect upon the character of the president ial candidate, and it is a question i think that is coming up quite a bit in our current election. Very helpful. Carl, if you could expand from that, moving into the 20th century, again, what were how did evangelicals involve themselves in the early 20th century in the political scene and what were some of the key issues or methods of political involvement that we saw among evangelicals . I think probably the most obvious one is prohibition, getting the 18th amendment. It is almost like if you think about it rationally, it is such a bizarre story that you could get threefourths of the states to stop the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, but it happened by 1920 with the 18th amendment. The key there is now, this is part of the historical misunderstanding. A lot of people think it was just billy sunday and the evangelicals, but it really3w wasnt. There the evangelicals i guess along with the Antislavery Campaign basically were part of the mainstream thinking of the day and, again, you sort of have to use your historical imagination and get back into the early 20th century. Most americans thought alcohol and drunkenness was a problem. It wasnt just evangelicals. Businesspeople didnt like it because it affected the health of their workers, problems with absenteeism and so forth, and the violence that came with it. If you think about things like i think in new york city in the year 1900 there were 10,000 saloons, which we now call bars. So alcohol was such a big problem that evangelicals actually were part of Middle America and getting the Political Support to get the amendment passed. The problem came in the 1920s when you tried to what was call the noble experiment, to enforce it. Enforcement was the problem, or they thought it was a problem. There i think a lot of the evangelicals and the fundamentalists lost that broadbase of support which you would need to sustain it. But theres also and i think this is more sort of counterintuitive, something i discovered maybe a couple of years ago, that if you look at the 20s and 30s evangelicals slowly are becoming the greatest supporters of american jews, and not just in america but also in places like germany. It shouldnt be that strange when you think about it because theyre better informed than most americans about the polite of jews, for example, in germany through missionaries and also through the periodicals. The polite of jews in germany, i think american evangelicals are even more aware of it than most americans are aware of it at the time. Sadly, some of the support is not because they are enlightened on racial views. Unfortunately, many evangelicals were antisemitic. There were a couple especially thats dying down, what really generates a lot of the enthusiasm and support for jews is the idea that israel has to be rebuilt. It is part of premillennialism, it is part of their eschatology. You have to think about it. It is before 1948, the prophecy that there will be an israel. And then when that is done, in that timetable christ will return. So part of the enthusiastic support for the jews is to help facilitate that timetable, so lets protect them, lets help them. Zionism is popular among evangelicals at a time when it is not generally known about or strongly supported. Lets move now toward the mid 20th century and perhaps late 20th century, and for some of us it is a little bit interesting to be talking about that from the Historical Perspective because some of us actually lived this time period. So how did evangelicals in the mid 20th century, perhaps up to the late 20th century thinking to the 1980s, how did evangelicals involve themselves in politics and social issues at that time . Perhaps who were some of the key figures involved in that era . Okay. Well, moving right along as we say all the time, if you think theres a lot of discussion as some pointed out about how to define evangelicals among scholars, the role of evangelical involvement in politics beginning in the 60s and 70s and especially into the 1980s with the socalled new christian right is subject to a great deal of disagreement. What was it or who was it and what was it that brought evangelicals into the political process . Theres an old saying among those of us that study religion and politics, if you have four political scientists in the room and ask them that question, there will be at least nine different answers on what actually did it. Im going to give you briefly some of the answers that the scholars have suggested. Unfortunately, people tend to be mono causal. They tend to see one factor as being the prime or the definitive answer to why evangelicals became more involved in american politics, especially three the through 70s and 1980s. One of the first and it is a little before the period is a theory that has a lot of support from a few historians and some political scientists, and i might summarize this by labelling the theory the cold war did it. That especially the confrontation between the United States and the soviet union t godless communist, were something that got conservative christians concerned about the future of the United States and the future of the world. In that period you saw the appearance of a whole series of organizations like, just to name one, Fred Schwartz and christian anticommunism crusade. I mention that because i used to go to the crusade meetings when they appeared in milwaukee, wisconsin where i lived. Those meetings were attended by a lot of conservative christians. There were a variety of other organizations as well. Some historians saw it as an extension of the mccarthy era of the early 1950s, and you see in the press today some journalists have revived the notion that richard ho richard hoffsteader, the famous historian, that evangelicals and other christians had a paranoid style, that they saw enemies everywhere and especially the soviet union was an important enemy, both religiously and politically. Some people argue the paranoid style in that period again among americans, especially among some religious groups, they use it to explain for example the level of evangelical support donald trump has had. Now the enemy is islam or perhaps mexicans or perhaps immigrants from elsewhere, but in any case the notion is that somehow it is defining and opponent that has really activated evangelicals over the years. Sometimes it is the enemies of israel, as carl pointed out how important israel was in the political thinking in the 1940s and 1950s. I remember in my Little Church in wisconsin back in the 1950s how excited everyone was with the establishment of the state of israel and how much that got in fact, i started watching a program called report from the u. N. In the early 1950s because it was always dealing with the arabisrae arabisraeli cries in one way or another. This goes back to the blind man and the elephant or maybe it is the blind scholar and the elephant, but the trunk is the cold war did it. Then the attack on Christian Schools did it. During the 1960s there was proliferation in many parts of the country, not just the south but also where, of Christian Schools. In the beginning of the Carter Administration the irs began to investigate many of these schools, determining whether or not they were simply segregation academies, as the phrase went, and the Carter Administration and then later the Reagan Administration took steps to withdraw tax exemptions. Everybody here is very familiar with that effort. A lot of scholars argue that that was really the sort of the tripping point for the creation of new christian right organizations. Theres some truth to that. A lot of christian right organizations, were Christian School administrators and others who had a stake in christian education. So another partial piece, if you will. Other scholars go in a different direction, and they argue and this is probably an idea not new to many of you, that it was really roe versus wade in 1973 that was the motivating force for a great many evangelicals to get involved in politics. Of course, evangelicals werent the first to move on that. The Catholic Church reacted much faster and with much more force initially, but over time evangelicals did respond and respond in great numbers. By the 1980s, of course, tihe issue of abortion would become a major one, a matter of concern to a great many christians and has remained so until the present day. Another theety raeltory that is to the third one is that it was the sexual revolution of the 1960s that was the most important factor in mobilizing evangelicals. In the 1960s on theres a steady increase of groups around the country addressing issues of controlling pornography, trying to prevent prostitution, prohibit o prohibit ordinances recognizing guy rights, and more recently mobilizing opposing same sex marriage. The final theory that i will mention is the Republican Party base that the rep party and the activists associated with the r the Republican Party saw had a lower level of voting turnout than other religious groups, who shared conservative social values that could be activated by republican politicians, and that republican activists and officials rather cynically in the minds of most of these collars used evangelical prot t protestants as cannon fodder in the electoral war with the democrats. I think each of these theories has some truth to them. If you look at each of them, you find some evangelicals were concerned with each of these sets of issues. There were some others as well, but i think the basic underlying factor is not so much any of these specific questions or these specific issues or even the specific strategy of republican politicians, which after all have to have something to work with, but rather the real sense among conservative christians that American Culture has moved away from their values. I think this is a general feeling that underlies many of these more specific concerns which are often determined by where you just happen to be at a particular point in time, what local issues are, which things you are most sensitive to, and in one way or another i think the same kinds of concerns underlie some of the contrary discontent with the way in which our National Institutions are functioning, that were really moving away from or dislocating from the historic values that evangelical christians and others have held for a great many years. Thats a start, and well get into it a little bit more later on. So i think thats a very compelling overview in the time that we have of tracing evangelical participation in politics going back to the 19th century. So, jim, at the end of your answer you suggested something along the lines i have in mind for the next question, and that is, is there a common theme across these many years of evangelical participation in politics or has it been quite diverse . Has there been an ebb and flow to it depending upon the era or the issues that the nation was facing . How does that relate to affiliation with particular Political Parties . Has there been an ebb and flow to that . What do yall think about that, in terms of evangelicals in their involvement in politics and social issues or has there been a significant amount of diversity to that. Tom . Im interested in the doctors comments, i agree with you. What i was thinking as he was speaking is that in the 19th century after the second great awakening we do see among some of those involved in the Reform Movement is sort of the opinion that the United States is this chosen nation by god to bring progress and democracy and freedom to the world. Were going to it is sort of a continuation of the pure tita that we can be a model to the rest of the world, we can be a christian nation and demonstrate how the world ought to function, even to the point of some suggesting remember a great 19th historian by the name of james bancroft, though not an evangelical by any stretch, portrayed American History as a godordained Movement Toward democracy. The great end all of mankind was democracy. Certainly there were excellent qualities to democracy, but it was almost as if there was a divine appointment for america to head in this direction. I do think theres a consistency among some evangelicals through American History of this theme. Now, while i would critique that, because there is certainly a recognition, we ought to recognize that america as a western civilization is certain predicated upon judeochristian values. We can debate a christian nation all night, and we dont need to do it, but certainly we were a country at least fluenced by christian thought and biblical principle, and i think evangelicals latched on to that and rightly wanted to participate in the system and bring biblical principle to bear in the public square. I also believe that evangelical also driven by their thinking believe that my faith ought to have public out working and i have the opportunity to express biblical principle, and since it is truth it would be best for our nation to operate based on it so why dont i pursue it in the public square. I think theres been some consistency there, even as the issues change and even as evangelicals ebbed and flowed in terms of their actual involvement, sometimes theyve withdrawn, but that has been some consist enency. To look at data i have analyzed recently, if you ask americans as a whole whether or not they think the United States has some special role in the world you dont mention god in connection with it, but whether they have a special role, or is the United States just like everybody else and just another nation, you know, whatever, in the world of politics or whatever the case may be, evangelicals above all other religious groups are still more likely to say that the United States has a special role to play in the world. You know, i cant based on survey data tell you what they think that role as being obviously, but nevertheless theres still that specially de that we can be a model or that we have a responsibility for what happens in our world. So the notion of american exceptionalism strongest among evangelicals. Right. I think of Ronald Reagan and one of the image also s or phrases known for was america being that shining city on a hill, that particular notion. Kellen, maybe turn to you next again on legal matters. Among evangelicals today, of course, there is a lot of focus and concern about Court Decisions and legal matters. Could you talk to us a bit about what particular legal issues have been important to evangelicals from a Historical Perspective . Are there any particular that stand out to you that would demonstrate that that perhaps was not unique to the day in which we live right now . Everything. As a legal historian it is my professional duty to say that law is everywhere, and thats particularly true in the things that weve been talking about. You cant really discuss antislavery or prohibition or Christian Schools and tax policy without thinking about the legal dimensions of the legislation, the regulation and the court cases that inevitably come out of these types of Reform Movements. To blend some of this answer with the previous question, as a historian im generally inclined to look at the 19th century as a lost world or a foreign country. They do things different there. Im less inclined to see some of the strong continuities that maybe others are more willing to see. I think churchstate relations might be one of those places where the 19th century remains a lost world. In some ways, it is an undiscovered world. I think one of the most fascinating issues in church state law coming from the 19th century people dont recognize today is that churches in early American History looked very much like states. Cant go through every denomination so i will focus particularly on the baptists. The baptists ran their own court system through the mechanism of having Church Discipline. So up until, say, around the 1820s, in kentucky if you were a baptist you would go to church on sunday and on saturday or every other saturday you would then meet for the discipline session. Members would bring forth accusations. They would say brother soandso cursed this week, sister soandso gossiped. The deacons and elders would hear the accusations, examine the accused. Did you curse, brother soandso and they would get an admission. After examining the evidence they would levy fines which would then be paid into the support of the church. If it was a dispute between the church members, they would mediate, they would reconcile the parties until the parties were ready to sit down at communion together with each other, and baptist discipline became so famous for its justice and its sufficiency that even nonmembers, instead of taking their civil suits over property and contracts to the territorial courts of the United States would take them to the local Baptist Church to get adjudication and would even, you know, pay in fines for the support of the churches that were being run. So in light of this, you know, one of the leading points of evangelical baptist political theology was always the question of jurisdiction. Who is best equipped and able and competent to be enacting given social reform or another . A lot of evangelical you know, a lot of evangelicals who were not baptists, who were on the whig side were working in benevolent societies, were sending in petitions to congress to get things done through congress. A lot of evangelicals on the baptist side were rejecting that kind of approach and saying if you want to get social reform done, the way that you do it is convert people, bring them into the church, and then the Church Discipline processes will work their way out into temperance, antislavery or all of these various reforms that youre trying to get at. Just to briefly survey why did these things go away, part is american diversity, the diversity of evangelicals that are out there, especially when the disciples of christ come to kentucky. They are very much like baptists but they dont run these discipline sessions. So if youre brother soandso with a cursing problem you can go next door, or sometimes in the same building and worship with the disciples of christ and escape the discipline system. Then it is no longer a matter of evangelizing the people to bring them into the church because the disciples of christ are evangelicals and the people are converted, and then you have a difficult question of how do you reach them, whats the proper mechanism for getting social reform across. Thats when you see a lot of evangelicals increasingly turn to states or federal levels of power to try to overcome these problems with excess. I would say, you know, that feature of the 19th century of churches as their own site of governance is an important part of the history that i think starts to fade away over time. It is also especially important for probably the largest subgroup of evangelicalness ts country which are black evangelicals who are either slaved men before the civil war or freed afterwards. A lot of the Political Engagement weve been talking about was not open to them until after the civil rights revolution. The type of governance i have just surveyed often was, because if you owned your own church, you had your own incorporation, very often black evangelicals who could not sue in their own name in the court because they were blacks could sue as a church because the church had a legal identity. So the church itself could collect on debts or enforce Property Rights that black christians otherwise could not even assert in the courts or assert in the legislature or in these other political arenas. I think thats an important part of the history of how law and governance have related within evangelical politics over time. Well, we have focussed on the past, and our next forum coming up will focus on the present, but i want us to take a few minutes before we have questions from the audience to think about how this the past, how this history relates to the present. So programs we can spend a few minutes talking about how the involvement of evangelicals today in politics, whether it be through the legal branch, the legal realm or otherwise, how involvement today perhaps differs from the past. What would the evangelicals of the past but surprised about today in terms of how evangelicals go about their civic responsibilities in the public sphere . Who wants to take the first stab at that one . I think probably someone like William Jennings bryan would think hes in the lost century probably. If you start looking at the profile of who is obviously a fundamental hero at the spokes trial, if you start digging into his background i think he is one of the most fascinating characters which make us, drives us to use our selfimagination to figure out how he could be all of these things. He was a passivist, a fundamentalist, evangelical. He was a progressive, which for that day would be the word liberal that we would use now. He was antiimperialist, and how in his mind he could put all of those things together. My take on it is that he was probably in terms of eschatology po postmillennial. So you reform the world and things get better and better and then christ comes back after the millennium. So you engage in all of those things war doesnt work with the millennium so you have to be antiwar. Alcohol doesnt work with the millennium, so you want to get that as a reform, and you do all of these things. So i think just looking at his life is a lesson in how complex evangelicals can be. I think the nonevangelicals who often look at us as monolithic, but we are not. Theres great variety, sometimes within the individual even. So you would suggest that that complexity even exists today . It may look a little different yes, even today, in the current 2016 climate even dont expect monolithic views because they arent there typically. Tom . With the Baptist Church operating the way it did, and in the 19th century, and to me it reminded me how important a church was in society as an institution. It was an institution of it was respected. Was an institution that the church functioned in a fashion that society appreciated. You know, you see other evidences of this in the 19th century, as we head towards the civil war era because one of the institutions that ties this country together are the churches. As they begin to split over the institution of slavery, the ties that bind the nation together seems to go into good work on this topic, but begin to break. Henry clay, who was senator from kentucky in that time frame, said if the pastors cant get together how do you expect us politicians to get along on this issue . He makes a significant point. Certainly clay is no evangelical. His reputation was anything but, but he makes an important point for the time period that resonated with people. It seems to me if we were to bring some evangelicals in the 19th century to this point in time they would look at evangelicals today and ask, how is it that your faith, what you believe is impacting how youre looking at these issues . First of all, why isnt the church a major player in the conversation, in the societal conversation . Second of all, how is it that what you believe allows you to arrive at the position that youve come to with regard to whatever political issue you want to achieve . With the second great awakening these werent pursuing a governmental solution to their problems. They were going out and trying to solve them on their own as private institutions. We talked about how that transitioned to government perspective, but they would probably react to that. I think more importantly they would ask, what is it that the bible teaches that allows you to arrive at this conclusion . I think there would be some questions. Very interesting. On something that carl was suggesting, and i guess this is not something thats easy to do, but he used the example of prohibition. One of the things that most of the historical literature talks about what, you know, a glorious failure it was in a sense, but if you look at the kinds of evidence about american drink and the social and physical and other ills that were attendant on that, it was an obvious target. I think that tells us that, you know, be careful of obvious targets. Sometimes the obvious target is one you shouldnt shoot at maybe for a variety of reasons. Another example coming again out of prohibition is the only reason it was successful was because of wide Cooperation Among evangelical protestants and also other folks. Sometimes evangelical protestants are not inclined to cooperate with other people who have a different background or tradition. You know, those things kind of, i guess, urge us to be humble about our choices of issues, our choices of allies, or we ought to look at our allies and say, are these the kinds of allies who we want to be associated with or not. Those are tough questions. Theyre not easy questions. We often think of them as being far too easy, something we can just make up our minds in a day. Issues are easy targets, and who were going to work with is another easy decision to make, and theyre not easy. And you have i didnt mean to cut you off if you had something to say there, kellen. Jim, with your response there, you have anticipated the question that i wanted to end with before we go to the audience. That is, what lessons are there from history for evangelicals today . Because my sense is and we can point specifically to the president ial election. We heard a lot of questions among evangelicals because of the at least until very recent elections, very strong affiliation with the Republican Party and almost the inevitability of voting or supporting the republican candidate. There has been lot of questions about what to do in this particular president ial election. All of that to say, what lessons are there from the past in evangelicals participation in politics for today, whether it involves specifically this president ial election or the general Political Landscape . What lesson should we take from evangelicals and their approach in the past for today, whether that be based upon missteps theyve taken in the past or successes theyve taken in the past . What wonderful advice do you have for our aud yns out here. Ill start out. As citizens we all make choices, we have to make choices. We have to evangelicals in recent years have voted republican, about 80 of evangelicals have voted republican over the last several president ial elections, which raises, you know, the question about are you evangelical or are you a republican, or both. But i think one of the real risks we run is idolatry. We come to see candidates of a particular Political Party or a particul particular candidate who we identify as having the right value, maybe the right religious affiliation or the right policies. We come to get too close and we identify that candidate with the cause of christ, which i think is a fundamental error in christian politics. And with that particular answer and for any students i have out here, this probably will come as no surprise to them, i alluded to it earlier in the opening remarks. But if you are a student, if you are a citizen and you have not read cal thomass book and ed dobsons book, ed dobson by the way being a graduate of Bob Jones University here entitled blinded by might and theyre recounting their leadership roles in the moral majority of the 1980s, i highly recommend that book to you because they get into this very issue of the tendency among some evangelicals to make involvement in politics and perhaps even supporting particular candidates particularly or seeking particular offices as a form of idolatry. So i would highly commend that book to you. What other lessons . At the end of the day, some of the basic things we still need to remember is freedom of speech is very important when you think about preaching the gospel. We take it for granted, but the continuity in American History i think 19th century, 20th century to today, the important issues, and freedom of speech and religious liberty, continuing to focus on that. Again, thats so obvious but sometimes we forget. Right. Along those line, im often reminded in todays world that the First Amendment particularly does not simply protect the right to hold certain beliefs but actually to behave, to act upon them. It deals with the exercising of religion and not just holding a particular belief. So the freedoms that are afforded in this country, which we would want protected for people of diverse viewpoints, is very important. I think going back to my previous statement about evangelicals in the 19th century, evaluating evangelicals in the 20th, 21st century, i think that they would want to encourage evangelicals in this country to reassert the role that the church once played. The way thats done is not by societal culture, it is by providing something distinctive within the country culture. The point i was getting at earlier was maintaining the theological evaluation of the issues that matter in a nation in the 21st century. Maintaining a truly christian approach to them. I think that goes to dr. Guths comment as well. A lot of students have asked me recently, you know, how do you evaluate candidates in this particular election . A recent pew survey showed if you compare the evangelical vote from the previous election, 15, 17 voted for president obama. Most of them voted in favor of him as opposed to antiromney. A recent pew survey had 15 of what evangelicals saying they would vote for secretary clinton. 12 said it was an antitrump vote. My i understand that. My perspective, my suggestion to them is you do need to Pay Attention to what the parties stand for. We have a two party system in this country for a reason. It doesnt mean that the candidates themselves matter, but when you have candidates that have issues on both sides, to put it kindly, problems on both sides, the platforms matter. Thankfully, we have a system where the president isnt an absolute dictator, theres some boundaries left. Hopefully the parties can help keep them accountable to the platforms they stand for, so there is room to at least consider the platforms, and i definitely encourage people to vote even when theyre frustrated. Yeah, you know, as i listen to what you have to say, tom, i think that we have we had an era of partycentered politics that shifted more to candidatecentered politics, and today i would suggest we have probably moved toward a culturecentered politics. So the whole notion of the importance of parties i think is really good advice. Kellen, sounds like you have the last word, at least for this part. As an officer of a federal court i am thankfully relieved of being able to say anything about the present politics. Afar ba as far back as we appreciate that disclaimer. Here is the neat thing about the 19th century. Some of the legal issues that weve talked about with antislavery and stemperance an the decision whether these sorts of reforms can be carried out through ee advantage limp and Church Discipline or whether you need a state mechanism to reach them, the reason a lot of evangelicals in the 19th century turned to the state mechanisms and the cases in which theyre successful is often a very clear antislavery logic behind the turn to politics. That one of the reasons the sort of baptist argument that you go out and ee advantavangeliz and e in the church, one of the reasons slavery failed is that you could not evangelize the slave without permission of the slave master, and you had a hard time evangelize the slave master with the restrictions put on mailing tracts to his life, with the difficulties of travel after emancipation. If you were a good evangelical in massachusetts that felt guilty about the sin of slavery in your country because you recognized your clothes were manufactured through slave labor, your industry was funded and your tariffs were all supported by slave labor, there wasnt anything you could do to reach that even through evangelical means. This is sort of the formation of an antislavery politics, to find a way that that can cure this problem of exit, that people can always leave and go find a church that will support what theyre doing. And if you look at the other regulations that grow out of evangelical reform in the 19th century, the ones that are most successful follow on this same logic, which is prohibition is likened to a slave holder, that alcohol is the slave master, and you can never actually appropriately reach someone with the gospel if they are enslaved to alcohol and never have that capacity for choice that was talked about earlier, you know, arising in the second great awakening and in the theology of edward, and prostitution, antigambling measures follow along the same logic. People often have the misimpression that the 19th century was this time when christians in america were making the law of god the law of the land and thats just how it worked and thats what christians were doing and ought to be doing, but there are quite quite a lot of sins that dont end up in the legislature. You know, adultery and blasphemy and these kind of things were regulated very highly in the colonial era, but those regulations fall off the board in the 19th century, partly because they dont have this antislavery logic to thechlt you know, if you commit adultery it is evident that you have choice. You are making poor choices, you have that volition, you are not enslaved, so there doesnt need to be a politics or law that will free you from anything. You just need to stop making bad choices. Whereas things like prostitution, gambling, slavery are all sort of tied to this idea of either metaphorical slavery through addiction or literal slavery through slaveholding, that there has to be some temporal power that can break those chains in order for the gospel to go out. So i guess the question is how much of that sort of logic has hung on into the 20th and 21st century or what is the logic that drives evangelical reform. It is a question i get to ask without answering. All right. We will take some questions from the audience. So if you can pass them to the aisles, and well have some individuals pick them up. We will take about 10 or 15 minutes to answer some of these questions. All right. We will start with this particular question. It was one that i thought might come up. That is, why do you believe evangelical political groups like the moral majority and the Christian Coalition were so strong at one point and then headed into virtual extinction . I think dr. Guth might be a good person to start well, i think there are several answers to that. The first answer is that they were too personality centered. They were started by falwell, robertson. And personality centered organizations usually dont survive the political or the real demise of the founder. Its very hard to make that sociological transition from first generation to Second Generation leadership. All those organizations also, because of their association with recognized leaders of particular segments of the evangelical community didnt have much attraction for the other segments of the evangelical community. Jerry falwell basically attracted the baptist bible fundamentalists. And this was it as far as organization. Had lots of people on his mailing list but it really never was much of an organization nationally. Pat robertson attracted mostly pentecostals and didnt extend far in any other direction. It tends to be a pattern. Since these organizations depend on the voluntary subscriptions of individuals and contributions of individuals, one of the things that many of these organizations, like organizations on the left, have to do is take relatively extreme positions in order to raise money. We know that direct mail fundraising, for example, tends to emphasize divisive, highly combustible kind of rhetoric. And, if you do that, you are going to limit your appeal across the broader community. And also, youre likely to wear out your welcome even with the enthusiasts who initially support you. There are a whole variety of things like that. If you are doing that, by the way, you also tend to attract the hostile attention of the media and groups on the other side of the political spectrum, and thats not usually helpful either. Very good. Dr. Guth mentioned the court case roe v wade as motivation for some evangelicals. Could other liberal supreme Court Decisions be thought to have similar effects such as prayer and bible reading decisions of the 1960s or just a similar liberal court blanket idea . Why are you all looking at me . [ laughter ] so, one of the fascinating things about the School Prayer and bible reading decisions in the 1960s is that this was these were actually a pair of decisions that evangelicals were in fact all over the map on. Part of that just has to do with the particulars of the case. So the prayer that was struck down in the 1960some year School Prayer decision was this writtenout, prescribed prayer in new york. So it wasnt a spontaneous, from the heart prayer that teachers were permitted to offer. It was this sort of card they read to the benevolent creator of life that was not prayed in the name of jesus or anything. When the Supreme Court struck it down, Carl Mcintyre, chief of fundamentalists at the time, rejoiced and said, this was no prayer at all, get this out of the schools and we dont need to have it. The tide swiftly turned when the same sort of logic was then applied to striking down bible reading. Which, again, was very restricted in most schools where it was reading a passage, often of the king james bible, without no or comment, was supposed to be how it was implemented. If any of you remember bible reading in the schools, your memory may vary on how it was carried out in different localities. Even there there were evangelicals debated on whether that did any good to read the bible without interpretation, to believe it, whether it actually constituted an act of worship or not. Though it tended to be that conservative evangelicals, and in this case Carl Mcintyre was not a fan of the decision because unlike the regents prayer in new york the bible is in fact the bible and the word of god, so that did mobilize evangelicals, i think, probably more than roe v wade would. That one tended to have consequences that rolled out later down the road, but justice black, who was instrumental in these 1960s opinions was receiving hundreds of Death Threats a day from people upset about these decisions, and then also just lots of critical mail from evangelicals who didnt necessarily commit Death Threats. But mailing anything to the Supreme Court is incredibly rare. Jggui u ey do not get mail. So to get hundreds of letters about a decision every day was unimaginable before it happened. I lived in massachusetts at the time of the decision, and the bible read there in the Public Schools was the dewey version of the bible. So catholics were reading their own version. And i have done some work on the public support or opposition to that. And evangelicals were not very distinctive. Mainline protestants and catholics everybody was opposed in terms of the mass public. I am not sure how much it distinguished evangelicals from other christians at that time. I have a little bit more nuanced view, i think, on how much it really got things going. Weve got several good questions here. Here is a very, very thoughtful one. To make us stop and think. How essential should we view freedom of religion and freedom of speech to the vitality of american evangelicalism given that the greatest growth of christianity is growing in countries where those freedoms are nonexistent. Tom or carl, want to dive in on that one . [ laughter ] there is no question that persecution, god works in lands of persecution to prosper his church. My view on this has always been that the American Church and the liberties that it has has allowed it to evangelize and share the gospel in ways that the persecuted church cannot. Its to our detriment that we have not valued the freedoms that we have in ways that have allowed the church to grow and prosper the way we see in some persecuted countries. But i think we have to be good stewards of what we have at the moment. Its difficult for me to encourage the church to sit by and watch as freedoms dissipate and not seek to prevent that from happening because of the benefits that they do provide to us in sharing the gospel, not only here but around the world. So i get the point. Absolutely. God works in all circumstances and, remarkably, in times of persecution. But i would pray that the American Church do what it ought to be doing even in time of freedom and liberty and as that day as those freedoms seem to be closing in on us, with the opportunities i am a big believer in the concept that, in a republican system which we have, the dictates the scripture about the role of government in some ways apply to us. If romans 13 suggests, for example, that we have a role in justice, a role in our government, there is a certain stewardship responsibility for us to maintain what the governing documents maintain which is the constitution and maintains the opportunity for us to have religious liberty. To me its not only a preference, a belief to whom much is given much is required, its a stewardship responsibility that i think scripture gives to us. Its a thoughtful question, perhaps based upon your answer its almost implying a false choice between the two involved there. I would just add, probably, the best answer would be a theological one, not necessarily a political one that its something that we this generation doesnt want to hear but there is grace in suffering, and going through the experience of suffering, religious persecution, can be a means of grace, which would allow you by gods grace to be more fervent in your practice of religion. And in an evangelical world view, gods power far surpasses any human power in terms of limitations that might be artificially placed upon the gospel. Yeah. So you look at Church History and you see good examples. Mmhmm. First century onward. Mmhmm. Has the philosophy of mills of utilitarianism adversely affected the development of evangelical political values . Did the greatest good argument allow evangelicals to ignore the moral failings of candidates that they support . I think this gets into the theme of these forums of balancing piety and pragmatism. Does pragmatism play a role in an evangelicals participation as a citizen of two different kingdoms . Quick comment. Not a complete thought. Matthew 10 refers to being wise as serpents and gentle as doves. This institution involves human beings who have fallen. There will not be perfect solutions. We are put in a solution where we have to make difficult choices. Sometimes we have to use shrewdness. I use that word other than compromise but our political system is predicated on the notion of compromise. The challenge as christians is to recognize that there are some absolute principles upon which we are not willing to compromise. That makes being involved in the system rather challenging for us. My grandfather used to say moderation in everything. Its not a biblical principle. But a there is some application to our political system. We have to make difficult choices or completely remove ourself from the system. And i dont find that i find that challenging with regard to biblical principle and applying it to our lives. So, sometimes that means voting for individuals that we know are fallen. [ chuckling ] i think in the history of evangelicals, something remarkable happened in the 20s, a lot of evangelicals as fundamentalists were very, very anticatholic. And by the late 1930s, they figured something out and the catholics figured something out so that they had a common enemy, it was communism. This was before the cold war. So the common denominator of anticommunism drove fundamentalists and catholics to work together, people that would not a decade before would speak to each other. So, in the greater good of fighting something that was antireligious and atheistic and violent, the differences between the two different types of christians didnt seem quite as important. I think its been a theme throughout history of evangelicals in Christian Ministry guarding the purity of the gospel but then looking for areas where there might be cooperation, appropriate cooperation, in societal kinds of issues. It would be somewhat easy to end right now since we really only have two minutes left, but this is a really good question. And maybe its a little bit of a dicey one to end on. Can you comment on the term liberalism . What is religious liberalism . Is it the same as political liberalism . Are the two related . You have 30 seconds. [ laughter ] anybody want to tackle that question . I will try to give an empirical answer to it. Religious liberalism is, of course, a phenomenon were probably familiar with. Its deviation from traditional orthodoxy, if you will. Is it related to political liberalism . Its not the same thing, but is it related . Yes, it is, in american politics. Religious liberals are more likely to be political liberals, as we conventionally define those terms. Now, the connection is not always clear. Why it is a particular set political choices. It may be that they simply go together because they represent some underlying bigger phenomenon of liberalism of all sorts, if you will. But in one part of the restructuring that kellen talked about before is the conformity of religious orthodoxy with more conservative political positions and religious liberalism with more liberal political positions as conventionally defined. There are lots of people who violate those rules but those are what we call central tendencies in Political Science. Anything to add, kellen . I would say you can have a similar discussion about the word conservative and whether there has been a conflation of conservative theology with conservative politics, and if there actually is a necessary logical relation between them. The history of evangelicalism in the 19th century was that there wasnt necessarily a relation between those two. As we heard with William Jennings bryan who had very different conservative views politically even though he was conservative theologically. Where was i going with this . [ chuckling ] so i guess that is one question of history that moves from the 19th century into the 20th century, is how did it become the way that a conservative theology would become tied to what at the time was known as a conservative politics. Kellen, you get the last word for us this evening. We would you please join me in thanking our panelists. [ applause ] i want to thank each one of you for being here tonight. I encourage you to come back october the 13th at 7 00 right here on Stratton Hall for the next panel on the focus of the present. The panelists we will have, linda abrams, a professor here. Charles dunn who i believe is here tonight who is a retired professor from clemson university, also Regent University and Grove City College and finally danielle vincent, a professor at furman. Thank you for being here tonight. You are dismissed. American history tv is in primetime all week with on cspan 3 with recent civil war conferences. Tonight symposiums on the battle of gettysburg and the siege of vicksburg. American history tv in primetime begins at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. This week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, on monday, former National Security advisers who served the last two president s. Including stephen hadley, former National Security adviser for president george w. Bush. Im a little worried. I think were in a dangerous period with russia. I think putin has decided that americans are antirussia as his am bos do Ambassador Says all of the time. And hes basically saying, if you think im an enemy. Im going to show you what its like to have an enemy. Were talking about how certain platforms seem to provide people with information that reaffirms what they already think. But its not like facebook said, hey, you ear a conservative, im going to keep showing you conservative content. They said im going to show you things from the people you know and content from the pages you like. And when you start clicking on those things, im going to figure out whose content you like and keep showing you more of that. If facebook hadnt have done that, we wouldnt have this wfr conversation. Heres eduardo pies, former mayor of rio rio de janeiro. I think cities will play a major role. I see this and the way accepts change democracies, a Great Machine to change whats going on. Thursday, an indepth look at the opioid endemic including the Ohio Attorney general suing several Drug Companies for their marketing of painkillers. What is different about this drug problem we have is how pervasive it is, its everywhere, in your small communities, our cities and most affluent suburbs. Friday, a conversation with Supreme Court Justice Elena kagan youb said at the beginning of our conversation were not a pure democracy, a constitutional democracy. And that means that the judiciary has an Important Role to play in policing the boundaries of all of the other branches and that can make the judiciary an unpopular set of people when they say, to a governor or a president or congress, know, you cant do that because its just not within your constitutional powers. Watch this week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan and cspan. Org. Listen using the free cspan radio app. Now historian and author Elizabeth Cobbs talks about the women who served overseas as telephone operators in the u. S. Army signal corps during world war i. The National Archives in washington, d. C. , hosted this event. Its just under an hour. After the United States entered world war i. Women as well as men eagerly volunteered to serve their country. Though women were prohibited from joining the army or navy they found ways to contribute. Often taking up jobs once performed by men now going overseas. One group of women, however, possessed a skill much needed by the army, fighting a war required Reliable Communications network but more than two and a half years of war had devastated the french telephone system. General john pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary forces called on the expertise of women telephone operators. More than 1700 women applied and just over 200 serve the