Brad and Dan discuss a coterie of stories at the intersection of race, nation, and religion. First, they dissect the president's announcement of a new commission on "patriotic education" as a thoroughly Christian nationalist move. They then turn to William Barr's comments about how COVID shutdowns are the worst annulation of civil liberties in American history except for slavery. They link both these things to the "1619 Project," clarifying how this is a struggle over who gets to tell the story of the United States and what it means for our implications in it. This leads to a discussion of the many White folks who are recognizing that they can no longer identify with the GOP or the term evangelical because those groups are unwilling to face the realities--and responsibilities--of the American narrative. Finally, they reveal the hypocrisy of pro-life groups silent on the mass hysterectomies reportedly taking place at ICE detention centers.
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- Axis Mundi. - Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, associate professor of religious studies, Skidmore College, and here with my co-host, Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Good to see you, Brad.
I'm glad that the very real wildfires that are ravaging the West have not displaced you further.
Yeah, it's, you know, yesterday honestly was our first day of clear air, and we took a walk, and I cannot explain to you how Amazing it was to take a walk and to breathe.
It's your lefty East and West Coast elites who want your clean air and your sunshine.
It's just that.
It's just elite conspiracy.
Wanting to go to the store and not, you know, feel as if there's a virus raging through the world.
Anyway, yeah, that's a lot.
I know it's a lot.
All right, Dan, we're going to talk today about a bunch of interrelated stories.
Race in American history, white Christians and their attitudes toward racism, and What's happening with all of that and voters and Biden and Trump and all of that.
So we're going to jump into a lot of Christian nationalism today.
A lot of, you know, comments on patriotic education.
I will say to start, there is a new story about the Falwells.
Falwells Follies is our running segment.
And I want to just say at the front here, Dan, I don't want Our comments here to seem as if we're making fun because what I'm going to talk about is actually, I think, pretty serious.
So it seems as if in the last days of August, police were called to Jerry Falwell's home.
It seems as if his wife, Becky, called because he was bleeding heavily.
He had fallen down the stairs.
This is all from HuffPost.
So this was posted yesterday.
When she got home, Becky Falwell found the doors locked.
And she had to use a chair to break through the back door.
The dispatcher asked whether her husband had been drinking alcohol.
She said yes.
When asked if he had been drinking heavily, she said, I'm not going to answer that question.
So the article goes on to sort of describe how she really did not want to tell him their name because of who they were.
So all that to say, Dan, it seems as if Jerry Falwell's in somewhat predictable ways fallen into a kind of a crisis.
Again, I'm not here to make fun of him for having an issue with alcohol or something like that.
It's news because obviously he's been the head of the largest evangelical university in the country for a long time.
And when you make your name on a certain moral high ground and judge others and expel others and et cetera, and then make millions of dollars in the process, if it turns out you're not living like you say you are, it's news.
And And none of that means we have to make fun of someone for having a problem with alcohol or addiction.
So, anyway.
The only thing I'd add to that is, you know, you're right about all that sort of double standard thing, but there's another piece of this.
I think it's simplistic sometimes when people assume that, like, every religious person who voices opposition to something is, like, secretly into that something, right?
For example, I don't think that all homophobic people are, like, closeted gay people who can't face their own sexuality or whatever.
Having said that, I think there is a sense in which you just wonder, like, and I don't know what's going on with Jerry Falwell, if he's on some sort of spiral or what.
I mean, this seems pretty self-destructive, these things that are kind of happening to him in the last few months.
But you have to wonder, I have to wonder, I'm not a psychologist, you're not a psychologist, but I have to wonder if like you, if you had a moral It's a program that at least allowed for moderation, right?
That allowed for, you know, not this, this all or nothing, right?
It's no sex until you're married or you're defiled for life.
It's no alcohol or you know, I don't, you'll fall off the deep end or it's, you know, you're only straight or you have to be at best celibate or at worst you're just broken.
I just always wonder when I hear these stories of somebody who either gets caught with like, you know, they're anti-LGBTQ and they get caught with like male prostitutes or they've been opposed to these things and it turns out that they use alcohol heavily or they're super opposed to abortion and it turns out that their partner has had three or whatever it is.
I don't know, it just always makes you wonder how these stories might be different if people had had A religious worldview that allowed for a more moderating and frankly more forgiving kind of ethos.
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