#216 Faith in Freedom w/ Andrew Polk
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2021
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Faith has played an important role in American history, but not always in the ways we'd expect.
In this episode, Andy Polk joins Bob and Ben to explain how politicians, advertising executives and public relations experts bypassed America's religious leaders, ignored theological debates, and dismissed historical evidence to fabricate and sell a story of America's religious origins that served their own political needs. That story remains with us today so, to quote the title of Andy's recent op-ed in The Tennessean: "When you hear 'In God We Trust', pay attention to what comes next."
Dr. Andrew R. Polk is Associate Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University and the author of the new book, Faith In Freedom: Propaganda, Presidential Politics, and the Making of an American Religion (Cornell University Press, December 2021).
Get your hardback copy of Faith In Freedom directly from Cornell University Press and save 30% off the cover price with promo code 09Flyer! Click here for more information.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I've been Sawyer. |
| 0:06.4 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:07.7 | And this is the road to now. |
| 0:10.6 | Bob Crawford, this holiday's coming up, man. |
| 0:12.9 | It is where the road is coming to an end. |
| 0:16.2 | It's so weird how our lives are set up with the holiday season and then New Year. And it's like, this is like, this is like a cutoff point, right? Yeah. But it really isn't. I know. It's like, what's like when you said the end is near, I was like, what? What? I mean, we're like, you know, I'm scheduling things in my life for January. We all are. We're all like, okay, well then after the hot, and it seems like this is going to be this great divide between, you know, Christmas and New years and then what comes next, but really just a couple weeks, a couple weeks away, you know, it's not a big deal. Something that is coming up that I'd like to mention is the, this hoodie I'm wearing that you can't see if you're listening, |
| 0:56.0 | but maybe you can see on YouTube. |
| 0:57.3 | It's got a tree on it. |
| 0:57.8 | If we put it, put this, it's got a tree on it. |
| 0:59.8 | But this is the fourth annual press on fundraiser put on by the Avet Brothers fans. |
| 1:10.1 | And I guess you can go on Facebook and search, I'm not on Facebook. |
| 1:15.0 | This is the only thing worth seeing on Facebook because I am anti, unapologetically, anti-Facebook. |
| 1:23.0 | But it's the fourth annual unofficial Avet fan New Year's Eve fundraiser for press on fund. And you search |
| 1:31.0 | that out on Facebook. And then you can order, this is the hoodie. And they didn't just like, |
| 1:36.8 | hey, let's send some merch to the Crawfords. They didn't do this. No, we saw this posted online. |
| 1:41.9 | And we purchased a bunch for our friends and family and for ourselves and I just |
| 1:46.9 | this is like Mr. Rogers a sweater vest for me. I get up in the morning or come home and I put |
| 1:53.7 | this thing on and I'm just relaxed and comfortable for the rest of the day. So everybody should go |
| 2:00.8 | online. Avet fan, unofficial New |
| 2:04.7 | Year's Eve fundraiser for press on fund. Check it out. The merchandise this year, |
| 2:09.1 | it's always great, but it's really beautifully designed and very comfortable apparel. |
| 2:15.0 | Yes, Bob, I just want to clarify here. Bob said this is like Mr. Rogers' house vest |
... |
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