33. The Separation of Church and State- w/ Dr. Randall Balmer
Flipping Tables
Monte Mader
5.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I am SO SORRY. In the wake of traveling and working in DC I completely forgot to post last weeks episode. I'm a human and I apologize sincerely. It means a lot to me to stay on top of this work and education the best I can.
That said, YOU GET TWO EPISODES THIS WEEK
The first is the most comprehensive conversation I've had to date. Dr. Randall Balmer is a prize winning historian and Emmy Award nominee and holds the John Phillips Chair in religion at Dartmouth which is the oldest endowed professorship at the school. He is an expert in Religion in North America and Evangelicalism in America and his recent book "America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church & Hate" is the best top to bottom explanation on why 1. Separation is so important and 2. NO we are not a "Christian Nation" but one founded on religious liberty.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was recently called for an incredible interview with the YouTube TV show What's Underneath in Los Angeles. |
| 0:06.7 | It was a quick trip, and just a couple days prior, I had been gifted the book that was just released on August 5th, America's Best Idea, The Separation of Church and State, by Dr. Randall Balmer. |
| 0:17.6 | I read it in one sitting. |
| 0:20.2 | What unfolded was one of the most comprehensive, |
| 0:22.9 | but approachable readings about the history and critical importance of the American idea of the |
| 0:28.3 | separation of church and state. It's a foundational tenant, belief, and a right that is now, |
| 0:33.6 | unfortunately, under a lot of attack. And as soon as I was off the plane, I was emailing a mutual |
| 0:38.4 | friend to connect me with Dr. Balmer to request an interview and he graciously accepted. |
| 0:44.0 | Today we're going to talk about American history, Baptists as passionate fighters for religious |
| 0:48.8 | freedom, the founding father's reverence in preserving free exercise of religion and preventing |
| 0:53.9 | state-sponsored churches |
| 0:55.2 | and schools and the fight against Christian nationalism that we are experiencing today |
| 1:00.2 | right here on flipping tables. |
| 1:08.3 | Hello and welcome back to flipping tables. Just a couple quick announcements at the top of the hour. |
| 1:14.2 | First of all, I want to thank everyone for your continued support on Patreon and all my social, sharing my work. |
| 1:20.2 | It has been truly incredible to be in this space. I have now a website that has been updated with all of the different things I'm doing, |
| 1:29.4 | and it is just my name, monte maeter.com, that's M-O-N-T-E-M-A-D-E-R dot com, where you can find my |
| 1:37.0 | podcasts, what I'm working on, updates about different projects that I'm involved in, as well as access |
| 1:43.3 | to the Bible studies I've been |
| 1:45.2 | teaching. And if you haven't heard me talk about those or seen those yet, these are scholarly |
| 1:49.4 | studies that I'm doing biweekly on Wednesdays to really discuss issues we've been told about |
| 1:55.3 | the Bible or the history of the Bible and approach it from a very scholarly perspective in the |
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