Congratulations. Lets try to situate but it is clear from the book you do you write this as the evangelical christian and as a conservative how do you define those terms . First conservativism is libertarian minded when it comes to less and less and the reason why im libertarian because i also feel a lot of kinship with conservative social values that are in line with evangelicals. Sometimes if im really feeling lucky i may be a conservative aryan. And as the evangelical and is a prominent feature i believe in the holy spirit guiding you the most of the things you find in Southern Baptist. Did you grow up Southern Baptist . Yes we went there for church in dallas texas. So you do have the evangelical pedigree and the conservative background and you make no bones about that in the book thats a position you are coming from to critique. So you start the book with several stories but one that caught my attention because you mention it as a window into how you feel of the evangelicals with donald trump during the primaries and the general election as well. So tell the story of 1984 when you are in dallas with your parents. You know where im going. Tell that story it is a great story and how that comes back with the election. Yes. My father sometime before i was born began reading apologetics and decided he wanted to spend his life pursuing the ability to teach apologetics and hebrew and other languages of the bible. And then we would go for Youth Opportunities where he was a youth pastor and then the local seminary. And then right around 1984 Jerry Falwell senior. Now the more famous one was leading a protest there were several that had playboy a magazine so they were protesting that. Summit was in my head and i had already know that junior had endorsed trump and i was already seeing the movement in the polls where the christian summit of leaders that trump spoke to and and then right behind him was the Playboy Magazine with trump on it. I say this in the book, it wasnt like we were excited about playboy but this was trump but this was the inheritor of his fathers legacy with falwell junior is now the leader of Liberty University, evangelical leader , even though hes not a pastor. To go from protesting to give a thumbsup was a striking contrast that didnt open. But you do have a take and analysis of that so you have a great chapter in the book so as i. The good news but the salvation or whatever it might be, you take that idea, that is the good news but then you go to your parents because that is at the American Bible Society produced but you will make mistakes and have flaws. And you can spend eternity with gods and that they are preaching the fact. This may not be original to you but i have seen that before. There is a real. What do you mean and that person thats the person you would expect them to use and that happened over and over in the bible. But where i feel that it has been morphed that anybody could do this for gods will that there comes an issue when people deciding that they have even done anything that they must be a vessel because it comports with their desires and the reason that is dangerous is because it makes anything that person does is an exhibition of the fact they are of that vessel and that is like co worship of a human how you hold somebody accountable doing gods will you decided what gods will was. Donald trump is a vessel for many evangelicals. And i would attend but then to appoint a person. Did you use with not just that they are a vessel of gods will that also why to this could have been considered is not like he needs to who told them not what to do. Then that would have been vital one invited the circumstances. So its not the case a vessel is a value judgment but a person could be committing evil but in this particular position at this moment. Given the position he occupies in the power involved will be hard to argue that god is not involved when obviously he is. I will not determine the motives much less look at what he does. Its not with the vessel but the way that those but there is none sometimes it boils down to but you can always answer the question what about this so we do what it does. We are on pre spin one cspan right now. s payment before we get to the next part but then to say 81 percent are buying into this but with conservative evangelicalism but to base it on the evangelical world and to have one traveling the country making a film but that is what appears more often against the most. And with the idea that they go to for 45 you can buy a coin and some of that is the filled as a result but then netanyahu went to the king talking about how thankful they were after having read it many times over i dont feel that netanyahu was calling trump a new king cyrus was simply saying it is as big of a moment for us as it was. What is the metaphor . King cyrus wanted the jewish people to bring the temple to their homeland and more importantly his doing this it was gods move and then doing his dash. Thats what be of but then with the isaiah 40 but those first numbers were not there when it was written. [laughter] with that was a chapter to the hebrews with the Christian Broadcast Network in a nonpolitical political way. They have roads. The Liberty University environment. That is what is out there. But i see them much more so one is the way that i evangelicals but the most understandable and the most for that urgency between politics and religion if at the appointment and this is classic commentator on fox news it is one thing to preach the gospel but the governments job is to protect us to compartmentalize and donald trump is protecting us and protecting our borders and is a strong man with the muslim threat it doesnt so how do you respond to that quick. Using that as an example that is a great example but he merges things conveniently in that moment that he needs to so asked would you rather have a candidate of those values and he replies no. Which is shocking with that idea to say and then morphs that into talking about what the United States does how it deals with another country as a government. Are excusing trump to say the reason is the government we are talking about demand what we have seen so far to say if you have a government that is functioning a morally related to other countries then you need a person that represents us with the same immorality. You would think that would be odd coming from a pastors mouth but we do have the amoral president. Where do you stand . Theres others on the right makes the tweets and so forth and others on capitol hill and others who are casting aspersions on trump for his character. But most of them lined up pretty closely how do you parse that out . To make theres nothing wrong with the idea that it is a transactional leadership you have expectations of the person to fulfill your objective not difficult to support. Thats not what happened with trump. The reason. Absolutely but hes not actually getting anything he would burden. In fact he is so used to throwing people under the bus and then how he treats the and then they become a credit cannot afford enemy and pretend everything he did and working in this industry for as long as i have, i hate to even call it industry but they have angst about this and how difficult he makes it for them and im always suggesting it doesnt have to be difficult for you can say you should not do this. So for an example to say Franklin Graham who is quiet about the separating families at the border because then he loses the larger issue. So this is a voice and as a result. Not getting too deep into this but they were fighting something similar of how this operates because using the example more who has been a critic did Say Something about that. And trump getting criticisms already called out and already said hes dead to the Political Movement and he is a bad guy so falwell jumps up just like the sun and this is how i have struggled with so i have a lot of empathy how difficult it can be. They are the only two options one is bad when is worse if you want to be rational. So be specific 2016 Hillary Clinton is prochoice appointing judges you will not like it will not protect religious liberty but raise taxes everything you dont dont want as a christian or conservative trump brings all the baggage and problems with him but will do things that you like. This is bad but this is worse. Lead is your critique . I hear this all the time i cannot vote for hillary and then the big thing is if you vote for either you throw your vote away. So how do you answer that . Especially when the evangelicals bring it. So it does seem important and that which really fuels life. Why wouldnt you . The entire idea of faith was once i establish that with a person if theres something higher to answer to it is a question of how much do you really trust god that he is limited to the twoparty system. Thats a small god you are describing he cannot fulfill his will unless you vote for republicans . That is tempting but dangerous and contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out and it is an easy way to bring bangladesh bring inside like evangelicals and to use that as a way to get votes. So rather than being captive so is it fair to say that many evangelicals have been replaced theology with a world and then now is so much bigger than trum trump. And thats the thing but i could live with that but thats not what i hear about. When i talk to people and they understand up until yesterday or two days ago how he curses in his speech. They are lucky he is real. And i get perfectly well it is very tempting. This kind of trump is going to fight for us. Weve been victimized by the left. I get the sense in the book you are maybe not as much critical yes they are being victimized, you believe that the response to how one is victimized guest how do you respond when you were victimized . A lot of this that is extremely unpopular because im the one hand absolutely i am saying people have been unfairly maligned. Theyve been shouted down and silenced at times, kicked out of entire industries. Thereve been all these reasons but even beyond their response in interesting thing happened as expectedly when i came out against trump suddenly they liked me a lot. I didnt change my views, but they were nice to me and as a result, i started to get the same heat from the way that maybe they had been getting and what i discovered is they all do it and guess all those things people feel victimized on on the right, yes. Are there versions of what the right does to the left, absolutely. Some of thso, the problem is ths trying to believe this thing that happened to an individual at this particular situation is unfair and its even fine to feel as if the entire right has been mistreated by what argue there are things that the right culturally speaking has power over such as christianity which the last time i checked is still a powerful. Certain industries and they wield is often in ways i find unjustifiable and just as horrible as the things calling out here but my interest was talking where my home is. Host the way that you describe the progressives, you dont seem like a person that worries too much but do you wonder once you pull trump out of the equation you go back to the conservative evangelical again and there is no point of connection. One of the first things i will note this for a while because i wouldnt change how i felt about certain issues and at times there would be people who would come after me for it. But i started discovering as i guess you could say i had this opportunity to talk to people whod always been my adversary they suddenly had a reason to be nice to me and it was a narrative reason i wouldnt completely conform to what they wanted from me but i didnt get mad. I talked and tried to bridge the gap. Youve put people i in a positin to not be in front of thousands of people arguing. Everything the bible says about how to talk to people worked. It just does. Host youve not taken the advice you are giving us right now. Host there seems to be almost like a confessional. I was a jerk and heres what ive learned without getting too deep into the weeds. Guest theres two reasons i put it in the book. One, i despise the idea as you can see why having read the book i think we all fall short. But we cant not talk about morality. Part of it is to connect to the audience and say i get it into the other part went to street credibility this is a tough topic that people are very sensitive about. Religion is the other subject youre not supposed to talk about at the dinner table and im talking about religion and politics, so i know its sensitive. But i didnt want us for evangelicals to read the book to think that i was an outsider. I was there carrying the science writing at red state. A red state. I have every client in my Video Production company, i went on tv to talk about it. Then for the readers that were not as connected to that world, i needed to get them an insight into what animates this mentality like for instance when i wrote about my firstever post a right after barack obama won the presidency and i have been so tired of being maligned and called a nazi. This isnt new to the trump era that i was so upset about it and when i saw a bunch of actors suddenly willing to talk, suddenly willing to be friends come its kind of an enraged me like where have you been for the last eight years. If theres going to be a conversation i dont make excuses for what the evangelical right over the conservative right does a lot of things 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. So the point is strong and a much more powerful voice. Lets go back to the way they spoke for trump. Its usually a portion plus one other thing. You make the case and you are collaborating on some polling data that none of those things motivated the evangelicals to vote for trump but rather it was the selfinterest imagine you are with your friends and you all are going to go out to dinner and one of the guys that is their as an ex that he isnt over and Everybody Knows and she works at a restaurant and hes like lets go to that restaurant and everybody is like come on, and you want to go there to see her and he says no, no the Seafood Platter is why i want to go. In the evangelical politics to girlfriend hes pretending not to want to see is the low regulation and does it have more to do with an individuals life you. It was more relevant in this instance because abortion was often cited as the one issue that mattered but the truth is that fell below things like immigration, education, economic issues, regulation. The only things that it eats out was treatment of minorities or so basically the things that would be most relatable to a christian who is thinking about their christianity, treating other people decently, arguably immigration policy they were all at the bottom of their list and that includes what they could write their answer. My response to that historically i would have to go back and look at this. I dont know if you have. I would like to compare that with tiny 12 where as a historian of the christian right it does seem like these moral issues are the most important. Guest one of the reasons i think it would be easier to believe in the previous election is because they were voting for president would say these were altering president ial years they were voting for the republican n president s who were easily aligned with what you would picture and evangelical to support. Host soap, how do you evangelicals move, what is the state in terms of relationship to politics kind of abandoning the term and the movement, its been coopted by politics and it has no power to shape the culture anymore and even the churches are weakening and the gospel is being damaged. What is the state of this movement and i identify as evangelical as well but you are the one being interviewed. [laughter] guest i love the idea of evangelizing. It should sound like a good thing. You can use that word in other contexts it shouldnt have a negative connotation but it is and that bothers me to the point i would like to rescue it. Id rather not throw this word away. I would rather it continued to be rehabbed. I think part of that happening is going to be not a separation of religion and politics necessarily. It would be kind of strange to think that god is the center of the universe and he wont have anything to do with your decision in the voting booth but it should be a more individual decision was influenced by people specifically in power within the church and this one is something ive given a lot of thought to we have a megachurch problem in this country, there were 12 disciples. Many times many churches have he said that internal statistics show people that are happiest that go to church have a bible study, a small group they g gro, life group, whatever you want to call it where people are not just listening but they are living with each other and holding each other accountable. And i think that there is far too little of that these days you ive been wrestling with that for a while. The size of the church could be okay if there was more emphasis on the smaller groups. I hope people dont read too much into this but i think about jesus and the gospel talking about the narrow road. You want the nonbelievers to come, but there is a disconnect. Guest theres also a bit of a i do get it where its like why do a lot of churches especially the bigger churches, again i go to church like that. I like the music. But i think you may agree with what im about to say they are very connected to today which is great. You want people to feel that connection. I have a lot of understanding about theology because this was something he emphasized and put on my heart and helped me. It was put in the bible for a reason. For smaller more personal federalism of the church. Host do you think if we do move to a smaller more committed group of people that that may help solve some of our political evangelicals, political problems were guest there needs to be another aspect which is it needs to hold their leaders accountable. Franklin graham had disappointed me, but Jerry Falwell junior they are not discussing politics from a religiou religious anglee discussing it from a political angle. We both work in a world where im never going to read things ive written and whether or not they accept that is a big responsibility if you are not careful with your words someone can take it and they have more responsibility than they are acting like they have. Theres no central authority. I thought of that kind of abandoning the word evangelical. Where do you send the letter. Guest i went to a church that is presbyterian than they