On a double episode, Dan and Brad first discuss the re-emergence of the Religious Left in the Trump Era, what it means for the 2020 election, and if it can continue after the Trump years. Then, Brad talks to Dr. Benjamin Rolsky about his new book, "The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left," which focuses on Norman Lear and his media empire in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
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AXIS MUNDY AXIS MUNDY Hello, and welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
I'm your host, Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
And as always, I'm joined by my co-host, Brad Onishi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College.
Good to see you, Brad.
Yeah, good to see you too, Dan.
Sorry.
We have a long-distance relationship, so listeners, you have to bear with us.
Sometimes, you know, we start talking and catching up, and we get carried away.
So, all right.
Dan, we are talking about the re-emergence of the religious left, and over the last two episodes, we have basically traced a history of the religious left that is, in some ways, I think, illuminating, but also maybe depressing, right?
Last episode, we talked about Cultural victories when it came to values like interfaith dialogue and tolerance and equality and diversity.
We saw that in movements like early and mid 20th century gay liberation movements.
We talked about the civil rights movement and so on and so forth.
However, there's no doubt that mainline Protestants have seen institutional decline.
And what we mean by that is people have left the church.
There are lower numbers.
And there's also lower visibility.
There's a branding war that the evangelicals have won when it comes to Protestantism.
Today we want to sort of talk about what's happening now.
We've traced the history.
So what's happening in 2019?
And one of the things we want to talk about is the fact that since the election of Donald Trump, there has been a reemergence of the religious left.
There's been a reassertion to sort of put the values of mainline Protestantism in the public square.
One way to think about this is the religious right was formed because people felt like they were losing their country and their culture, right?
And whether or not that that perception was accurate in any way is something we've talked about a lot in this podcast.
However, the religious left, I think, felt something very similar.
When Donald Trump was elected and when 81% of white evangelicals voted for him, there was this sense that they see a kind of A loss of the values that they fought so hard to institute in our culture, and then a renewed determination to sort of organize and to counter many of Trump's policies.
So what we're seeing is over issues like immigration and refugees, broad coalitions are forming on the religious left between Jewish and Muslim and Christian groups.
on issues like the Muslim ban.
We are seeing, we saw like very coherent and cohesive coalitions against it.
Reverend Dr. Barber and others have restarted the Poor People's Campaign, which is meant to sort of highlight economic inequality and to assert that caring for the most vulnerable is a value that should be held in the public square, and it comes directly from the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.
So we are seeing a kind of like reorganization and reassertion of the religious left, Dan.
And one of the things you and I've talked about is this kind of fits in with your own story.
I mean, you have been part of many different kinds of churches in your life.
But one of the things that you found unexpectedly was the election of Trump really sort of brought you back into the fold of Christianity.
Let's talk about that.
What happened?
Where do you want to start?
Why do you think that happened?
What's going on there?
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