Nonfiction authors about their latest work. Congratulations on this book. It sounds like its out there now and i think you are making a statement about some things we really need to think about in here about especially about evangelicals and trauma. Congratulations. Lets try to situate you. I know we dont like labels but i think its clear from the book that you do write this book as both evangelical christian, self identified, and as a conservative. What do those two terms mean to you or how do you to find those two times in terms of your own story and how youre using them in the book . First with conservatism, i think of conservatism as having a libertarian minded heart when it comes to federalism, the government being involved in peoples lives, less, less, the reasons im a conservative though instead of libertarian is because i also feel a lot of kinship with conservative social values which are often in line with evangelical values. Sometimes im really feeling frosty i might call it conservative area because even though i hold the values of not a big fan of the government being the ones to make them happen. We will get into that. In terms of being an evangelical i believe the bible is inherent which i think is a prominent feature of evangelicalism. I believe in the holy spirit guiding you. I believe in most of the things you would find in Southern Baptist denominations. And the fact that i was southern helps. You grew up Southern Baptist . Yes. We went to Southern Baptist churches. So you certainly have the evangelical pedigree if you will. You have the conservative background company youve written for conservative outlet. You define yourself as a conservative. He make no bones about that in the book. Thats the position youre coming from when you are here to critique or writing to critique donald trump. You start the book with several stories but one really sort of caught my attention because i think you mentioned it as a kind of sort of a window into how you felt about the way evangelicals were flocking to donald trump, both in terms of the primaries but then of course the general election as well. Tell me the story again and for those watching, tell the story about 1984 you were in dallas at a protest with your parents, you know where im going with this. Tell us that story its a great story. And how it kind of came back again as the election was going on. My father sometime before i was born he began reading apologetics, norman geisler, titan, who passed away recently abnorman geiser, who passed away recently, he decided he wanted to spend his life pursuing the ability to teach apologetics and eventually hebrew and other languages from the bible. So we often were moving along with from state to state for church opportunities where he was first he was a pastor then youth pastor and then to attend dallas seminary. When we were living in dallas around 1984 Jerry Falwell, very famous evangelical leader. Senior. I still say more at this point but more famous. He was leading a protest that my parents brought me to that there were 711s that had Playboy Magazines that were two close like kids could get to them so they were protesting back. So the memory was somewhere in my head floating around. Its 2016 election and i had already known the very full junior had endorsed trumpet i was already seeing the movement in the polls porch but it was june there was a christian summit of leaders that trumps to and falwell tweeted a photo of himself giving a thumbs up with trumpet right behind him was a Playboy Magazine with trumpet on it. I say this in the book and i think it bears repeating here, i wasnt like, Playboy Magazine i wasnt, i know who trump is. It wasnt surprising at all. But this is the inheritor of his fathers legacy, jerry will Jerry Falwell junior. He is now the leader of Liberty University hes an evangelical leader even if hes not a pastor he still an evangelical leader and to go from protesting Playboy Magazine to giving a thumbs up in front of it was such a striking contrast that it really started opening my eyes to the idea that something had infected the evangelical movement. And want to come back to your abyou have sort of a take on it and nonsense, even a diagnosis. We will get to that in the second book you have this great chapter in the book where you talk about what you call the new good news. As i think about the term evangelical the core root word from the greek evangelists. The good news. The good news of the gospel. The good news of jesus christ for the salvation of souls. Whatever it may be. So you are taking the idea the good news, not in a journalistic way or anything but for those who may not know the evangelical language this means the good news of the gospel or some of you might be if you go to your parents shelf you might find a good news bible. Yes. But you have a chapter here. Usually like jesus opening the door. All the pictures the stencil pictures the pencil pictures. You talk about the new good news. I think i might be just answer the first question for you but in your mind whats the old good news . Before we get into the what the new good news was. The old good news is no matter how you live, who have you been, what youve done and even in a sense of what you will do because you will make mistakes, you will have flaws, that your sins have been paid for by jesus christ so you will get to spend eternity with god. What you are saying is relevant to local embrace of Trump Evangelicals are now preaching a new, you dont put good news. A new good news and you break it down. I just want to go through some of these and get your ask you to elaborate a little bit. First of all, part of the new good news is something that i dont think its original to you i think ive seen it before but this idea of vessel theology. What is vessel theology . Vessel theology is first of all, there is a real basis for the idea that god uses vessels. Throughout the bible. For those who might not what you mean by vessel . Human. Like a vessel would be somebody who got put in a particular position at a particular time in order to fulfill his will. That person theoretically and at times in the bible literally did not necessarily come across as the kind of person you would expect him to use. This happens over and over in the bible. But where i feel like it has been morphed is well anybody could be this sort of vessel for gods will, becomes an issue when it is people deciding, before this person has even done anything that they must be a vessel because it comports with their desires. The reason thats dangerous is because that makes it so that anything that person does is an exhibition of that fact that they are a vessel. And thats the fast track to basically cult worship of a human. How you hold somebody accountable thats doing gods will nevermind the fact that you are the one who decided what gods will was. Donald trump, you argue, is a vessel for money evangelicals. Assured. Just so we get the larger context, we can debate a number but a large number say 81 percent is a number you often hear comeau voted for donald trump in 2016. I would tend to agree i think some of them did see tromped as a divinely appointed person. I always wonder could you have the vessel theology where god is using a particular person like donald trump if you believe in the christian worldview which i think we both do, has using god using trump as a vessel to maybe punish the church or teach the church a lesson. I talked a little bit about this in the book too. The thing about trying to determine not just that someone is a vessel of gods will but also why, the problem with that is, judas could have been considered a vessel. Its not like god didnt know what he was going to do. In fact, jesus told him what he was going to do before it happened. Had he not done that, then that would alter the entire circumstances around the crucifixion. Its not the case that a vessel is a value judgment. In terms of good or evil. The person could be committing evil. Its about being in a particular position at any particular moment. Given his position it would be hard to me and believe that god is not involved, obviously a bit is vote and try to determine his motives much less look past things trump does because i think that. The problem is not with the vessel per se, its the way in which those on the christian right or those who support donald trump have kind of responded to this idea of trump being a vessel with such certainty that they know the plan of god. Right. I think a lot of times it really boils down to an easy answer. You can always answer the question what about this with, gods vessel will do what it does. We are on cspan right now im sure a lot of people have no idea this is completely crazy to them. Before we get to the next part of the new good news, in your sense, how representative are these vessel theologians or maybe some of the other things will talk about . Can we say all 81 percent are buying into this . Is it a significant number . Those who maybe are unfamiliar with this world of conservative evangelicalism. It is this theocratic attempt to take over the country . Or just a few crazies . Him. I would say i feel very confident that among the four different rationalizations that are used that they cover the gamut. That this is primarily primarily how people look at it. I base it on living in this world like living in the evangelical world in the south being as involved in politics as i am and traveling the country when i was making a film about trump in 2016 and then also statistics. In the way people are answering. Whether or not among those four do i think vessel is a primary . I would argue lesser evils is. But i would say that the danger is that vessel appears more often among the most vocal leadership in evangelicalism. Which i think is a big problem in and of itself. Related to the idea of vessel theology your next significant point of the new good news is king cyrus argument. I think it was one of these i call the core evangelicals, the evangelicals that come to the kings court and flatter him. One of these guys lance wall was recently on the jim baker show. Bet jim baker. He has a Television Show now. Pitching a king cyrus coin. I dont know if you saw that, for 45 you can buy a coin with king cyrus on it. Why king cyrus . What did that have to do with anything in terms of the way evangelicals talk to trump . Ive heard this and written about this they see him as a new king cyrus. Part of it they feel is fulfilled as a result of the embassy. Netanyahu actually mentioned king cyrus when he was talking about how thankful they were for tromped moving. I dont personally feel like having read it many times over i dont feel Like Netanyahu was calling trump a new king cyrus. I think he was simply saying, it is as big of a moment for us as it was when they were a whats the metaphor . King cyrus allowed the israelis for the jewish people to rebook their temple to go back into their homeland and more importantly, his doing this was something that had been prospect. This was gods move and god had made clear through his prophets this what what was happening. The comparison with trump ab certainly the same could be true of donald trump. Thats what separates the vessel theology is from the cyrus geologist is that these guys say literal prophecy. Rondeau and a few others have referred to it as the isaiah 44 president because one of the verses about cyrus is in isaiah 45. Which is interesting because i dont know if you notice the verse numbers werent there when it was written. There were no chapters. [laughter] i could go in and renumber it. This is definitely a more fringe aspect of it and yet it still embraced to a degree. It was talked about in a book called the faith of Donald J Trump written by some premainstream evangelicals. abdavid brody. And scott lam. They talk about it not in, in a noncritical way. They present it as, who knows, could be. According to 10 and others, trump was fine with it, which doesnt surprise me. Then there is a guy, whose name i cant recall at the moment, made a movie about it. Liberty university filmmaker. Yes. This vessel theology, king cyrus, that stuff is out there. It almost seems french. Vessel only to the extent that people define it without knowing thats what they are doing. They will answer questions as they did prior to the election with god can use anyone. The issue with saying god can use anyone as an answer to a problem with trump is that if you are not also saying that thats true about hillary, youre kind of defining vessel theology even if its not what you think you are doing. The other two parts of the new good news i think are sort of much more, i see them much more prevalent. One is the way evangelicals, at least Trump Evangelicals, have compartmentalized. Compartmentalization, what you mean by that . The last two we are talking about they are not only the most common, they are the most understandable and most rational but still used in compartmentalization is a good part of that. I compartmentalized if im picking which way the toilet paper roll goes to the bathroom i dont necessarily need to bring religion into the issue. Its fine to compartmentalize at that moment. What a lot of christians do and in a lot of elections, not with just donald trump, is they look at what they think is the most urgent issue between politics and religion and if at the moment the more urgent issue is the politics and whatever religious consideration they had prior are still there, they are going to pick this more urgent thing because this doesnt really have to do it this so they until they need it to. Robert jeffries First BaptistChurch Pastor showed a good example of how that works when he wouldnt endorse mitt romney in the primaries and spent a lot of time saying that they had to do whatever they could to stop romney on spiritual grounds until he was the nominee and then suddenly it was fine. Thats compartmentalization. What you say to it. I get asked this a lot too. What you say to the person who says, this is classic robert jeffries. He is a commentator on fox news. I hear him saying this all the time. The churchs responsibility is one thing to preach the gospel and so forth. But the governments job is to protect us. Thats a sense of compartmentalizing and donald trump is protecting us hes protecting our borders. Hes a strong man who is going to fight the muslim threat. In other words, it doesnt quite matter, we know he is a sinner, we did hire a pastor in chief. How do you respond to that . Using jeffers as the example because hes such a great example, the first problem is, he merges things sort of conveniently at whatever given moment he needs to. He was asked about the sermon on the mount, would you rather have a candidate who represented the values of the sermon on the mount. He replied, heck no, i would run from that person as fast as i could. Which is shocking. The idea that he saying if you see somebody like jesus, run. And then he morphed into talking about what the United States does and how it deals with perhaps another country like as a government. So what hes doing is excusing trumps behavior as despite no matter how far away it is from being christlike and saying that the reason is because the government isnt a person. We were talking about the man. From what i have seen of him so far, it seems as though what hes really saying is if youre going to have a government that functions somewhat a morally, as it records to other countries is not an entity and not a person you need a person who somehow represents the same type of amorality. Which i would think would be an odd thing come from the pastors mouth is the best thing we could have as an amoral president. Where you stand on some of these, you hear people critique trump people like david french and others for his character, what hes doing to the office. His tweets and so forth. And you have other people on capitol hill people like ben sass and others who are casting the aspersions on trump for his character issues. But most of them lined up provably closely to trump in terms of policy. How do you parse that out . The first thing is that i dont think theres necessarily anything wrong with the idea or concept of a transactional relationship with the president. I think the way a transaction would work you would have expectations of the person to fulfill your objective to not make it difficult for you to support them and in return they get your support. Thats not what happens with trump though. The reason is not transactional even though he doesnt want to do things that people would like. In some things with which you agree. Certainly. Absolutely. The issue is hes not actually getting any anything in return. Hes not making it easy for anybody to support him. In fact, because he is so prone to throwing people under the bus if they speak ill of him its mafia like in the way he treats the friends of the family it puts people in a position where they either become a critic and therefore enemy or they pretend everything he does is great. A lot of people and wanted to keep the transactional relationship alive and talking way beyond evangelicals everybody on the right. What ends up happening is they are more concerned about getting their policy objectives so they end up living a lot of times a lie knowing as many people as they do that work in the industry have been in the industry for as long as i have i hate even calling it an industry. Privately they have angst about this about how difficult he makes it for them. Im always suggesting to them it doesnt have to be difficult. You can say that he shouldnt do this. This would be an example of this say Franklin Graham, whose quiet about trump separating families at the border because if he were to speak out strongly against that he loses the larger issue. He loses his prophetic voice in some way. In some ways the church suffers as a result. I met a psychologist so i dont want to get too deep into this but i will say that so much of it is frightening similar to how narcissists operate because if you notice, using the example you gave about separating children at the border, Russell Moore whos been a critic of trump, he did Say Something about that. Trump, having gotten criticism from Russell Moore, he headed the baptist convention, he already called out russell. Hes already said that hes dead to the Republican Movement and evangelicals. Hes a bad guy. What is Jerry Falwell junior do . H