Welcome to the not old better show. I'm your host Paul Vogel Singh and this is

episode number 308.

As part of our Smithsonian Associates Art of Living Interview Series, we are going to be talking

today about a favorite topic of mine and from your emails over the last few months a

favorite topic of our not old better show audience that topic of course religion

politics and evangelicalism with Joseph Slaughter Professor of History.

Every election cycle and this last one follow the same pattern.

American evangelicals are heavy hitters on the demographic scene of force to be reckoned with for

journalists, pundits, politicians, and political strategists.

But it was not always so.

Who exactly are the evangelicals? Where do they come from? How

fragmented is evangelicalism. The divisions among evangelicals based on age and ethnicity.

And what is the term evangelicals even mean?

Evangelicalism is obviously extremely fragmented.

For one thing, when most people are talking about it and a lot of the polls that are done and that

sort of thing, they're not really including African American, Asian American, Hispanics that

would fit that definition.

To say nothing of the evangelical church,

which is exploding in what we call the global south.

And within even sort of what oftentimes colloquially is referred to as

evangelicalism, white evangelicalism here in America, there is increasing fragmentation and

there always has been fragmentation.

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