An Atheist Rethinks Secular & Christian America

Good Faith

News, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What is the hidden influence of Christianity in American society—and what happens if it disappears?

Host Curtis Chang sits down with Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and author of Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, to explore how Judeo-Christian values have shaped democracy and what their decline means for our political and social landscape. They discuss the rise of fear within the evangelical church, political polarization, and make the case for Christian virtues as a stabilizing force at the heart of the American republic. Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, it’s important to understand why Christianity’s influence extends far beyond the church—and why its disappearance could reshape the future of democracy.

Send written questions or voice memos for “Ask Curtis” episodes to: [email protected]

Get a 25% discount when you buy The Art of Disagreeing by Gavin Ortland at thegoodbook.com with code: GOODFAITH

Resources from this episode:

Jonathan Rauch’s 2003 The Atlantic article Let It Be
Jonathan Rauch’s Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy
The rise of the AfD in Germany
France holds off the far right
Pew Research: Modeling the Future of Religion in America
James Madison and religious freedom
Can the Religious Right Be Saved? by Dr. Russell Moore
Dr. Timothy Keller: Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?
Learn more about The After Party

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We haven't shown enough curiosity about faith.
0:03.2	We haven't asked ourselves, what can we learn from this?
0:05.8	How can we cherish it and welcome it?
0:07.7	So Christianity is, it's a load-bearing wall in our democracy, and it's caving in, and it's
0:12.3	causing all kinds of ancillary problems. Welcome to the Good Faith podcast.
0:31.7	I'm your host, Curtis Chang.
0:33.9	Now, this is the point in the podcast where I usually say the good faith podcast is we're friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world.
0:44.1	Well, I'm going to propose an edit to that tagline, at least for this episode, because good faith is also a place where friends who don't necessarily follow Jesus still help the rest of us make
0:56.8	sense of the world. I have actually quite a bit of listeners who fit that profile, and this episode
1:02.8	in particular is illustrative of why these kinds of cross-faith relationships are so important
1:09.7	because one such friend for me is Jonathan
1:12.9	Rausch. Jonathan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and the author of some very important
1:18.1	books, including the Constitution of Knowledge, which I highly recommend to our audience.
1:23.6	He describes himself, I've heard him say this, as an atheistic gay Jew, but I've described him as my brilliant friend who helps me think more clearly about my faith and its place in the world.
1:35.4	And his latest book is called Cross Purposes, Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy.
1:42.5	And it's a wonderful illustration of precisely why those of us who follow Jesus need to have friends like Jonathan to help us understand our place in the world. Jonathan, I'm going to call you John. Welcome to the Good Faith podcast. Curtis, I couldn't be more happy to be here. And I'm so grateful for the help and guidance and
2:03.2	inspiration that you gave me in writing this book. I don't think it could have been the same
2:07.3	book without you. Oh, thank you. I should say from the outset, I do appear in the book.
2:13.0	And actually, numerous friendships that you have with Christians up here in the book.
2:19.3	And I want to get into the substance of your argument, which is really important in a moment,
2:24.5	but set the backdrop for why these friendships were so important in writing the book,
2:28.6	because you actually open the book with a very touching story of one such friendship,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Good Faith, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Good Faith and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.