Straight White American Jesus

Brad is joined by Dr. Joe Blankholm, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. They discuss his new book, the Secular Paradox: On the Religiosity of the Non-Religious.The Secular Paradox: https://nyupress.org/9781479809509/the-secular-paradox/Blankholm argues that, despite their desire to avoid religion, nonbelievers often seem religious because Christianity influences the culture around them so deeply. Relying on several years of ethnographic research among secular activists and organized nonbelievers in the United States, the volume explores how very secular people are ambivalent toward belief, community, ritual, conversion, and tradition. As they try to embrace what they share, secular people encounter, again and again, that they are becoming too religious. And as they reject religion, they feel they have lost too much. Trying to strike the right balance, secular people alternate between the two sides of their ambiguous condition: absolutely not religious and part of a religion-like secular tradition.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad and Dan begin this weekly roundup with takeaways from the J6 hearings. They focus on the ways the committee demonstrated how Trump and Eastman both knew the theory was illegal, but pushed it anyway. The question: Will it make a difference?Dan then provides a helpful explainer on the difference between a nation and a state in response to a new statement on Conservative nationalism signed by a bunch of MAGA superstars like Charlie Kirk and conservative thinkers like Rod Dreher. He and Brad decode the words "assimilation" and show how nationalism is incompatible with democracy. This leads to a demonstration of how Christian nationalist rhetoric is leading to violence against the LGBT+ community.In the final segment they dissect Lauren Boebert's AR-15 christology and the grave consequences it holds. Boebert claims that if Jesus had an AR-15 he wouldn't have been killed by the state. This brings dragging into light the incoherency of Christian nationalism in the face of a religious tradition centered on a crucified God.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On June 11, 2022 31 alleged members of Patriot Front were arrested near the Pride celebration in Coeur d'Alene Idaho. Brad speaks with two people who were at the event--Alicia Abbott of The Idaho 97 and Chad Schobert, who was born and raised in the region. They talk about how even before Patriot Front arrived there were armed militia members circling the Pride event, how all of this fits into the radicalization of the region during the Trump years, and the experience of living in a Christian nationalist, anti-government, wannabe theocratic state.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/The Idaho 97 Project: https://www.theidaho97.org/SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Building from the previous episode, Dan explores what’s going on when people say that Christianity is “a religion, not a relationship,” when salvation is understood as requiring a “personal relationship” with Jesus, and so on. Like so many other uses of popular religious language, this language tells us a great deal about the identity of those who talk this way, who the “real” Christian are, and who they aren’t.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In his recent article at Religion Dispatches, historian Thomas Lecaque writes: In the wake of every mass shooting in this country, we have a brief moment where we talk about the guns used and the need for gun control. And then rapidly, the gun lobby, conservative politicians, Second Amendment absolutists, and the rest find every conceivable other possible thing to focus on, starting with “thoughts and prayers” and moving on to hardening school buildings. The mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where the shooter used an AR-15-style weapon he’d purchased from the gun company Daniel Defense, has followed the same pattern—but with a recognition that the love of the AR-15 style weapon isn’t just about “freedom” or Second Amendment absolutism. It’s also about Christian Nationalism.https://religiondispatches.org/christian-nationalists-and-the-holy-gun-crusade/He speaks with Brad about this moment in our nation's history and what it means.Thomas Lecaque is an associate professor of history at Grand View University. Twitter: @tlecaque.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad is joined by guest co-host Dr. Leah Payne. They begin by discussing the first primetime hearing of the J6 Select Committee. Brad observes that they seemed to have two goals - first to show that Trump and Trump's team knew that there was no legal basis for contesting the election, whether via voting machines, vote counts, or anythign else. Two, that there was a months-long conspiracy to stop the certification of the election by the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.They then focus on Tucker Carlson's response to hearings. He had a White supremacist guest, Darren Beattie, on the show to put forth the conspiracy that J6 was an inside job conducted by the FBI.In the final segment, Leah zeroes in on some election results from the recent primaries in order to talk about whether or not the national headlines match local realities when it comes to criminal justice reform and other issues.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean when someone asks you if you’re “saved”? If you’re active in the life of a Christian church or tradition (of whatever kind), and someone says, “that’s fine, but are you saved,” what’s going on? In this first of paired episodes, Dan explores this question, decoding the different ideas of “salvation” and Christian identity that define and structure so much of the terrain of contemporary American religion.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad speaks with journalist Elle Hardy about her new book, Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity is Taking Over the World. How has a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the twentieth century by the son of freed slaves, become the fastest-growing religion on Earth? Pentecostalism has 600 million followers; by 2050, they’ll be one in ten people worldwide. This is the religion of the Holy Spirit, with believers directly experiencing God and His blessings: success for the mind, body, spirit and wallet.Pentecostalism is a social movement. It serves impoverished people in Africa and Latin America, and inspires anti-establishment leaders from Trump to Bolsonaro. In Australia, Europe and Korea, it throws itself into culture wars and social media, offering meaning and community to the rootless and marginalized in a fragmenting world.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Find Elle Hardy's book here: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/beyond-belief/To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad and Dan begin by discussing the mass shootings that took place this week at a funeral, a hospital, and more. They ask what can be done about gun violence in a country where one party has chosen to worship handheld killing machines (and the money it brings their leaders). Should laws be passed that allow for civil suits against gun owners responsible for violence and/or manufacturers?They then turn their attention to an op-ed at the New York Times that tries to downplay the GOP's Christian nationalism and present the party as the "nonreligious right." Brad and Dan dissect the analysis, showing how it rests on faulty metrics and erroneous assumptions.At the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/opinion/republicans-religion-conservatism.htmlThey end with a report about the "army" of GOP trained poll workers who plan to saturate voting places across the country in this year's midterms. At Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/01/gop-contest-elections-tapes-00035758Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean when a church declares itself to be “open and affirming?” How does this relate to churches that claim that “no matter where you are on your spiritual journey, you’re welcome here”? In this episode, Dan decodes these phrases to highlight their very different meanings, and suggests that they represent a significant resource for charting the terrain of American Christianity.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices