Happy New Year all. It's Michelle Cottle. Our Mary Moo band will be back next week with brand new episodes. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a conversation from Friend of the Pod and opinion columnist David French. David often writes and talks about his faith as a lifelong evangelical,

and he recently did an interview with Jonathan Roush for our fellow podcast, The Opinions.

Now, I've known Jonathan for years. He is a big brain on all kinds of topics. He is also an

atheist and recently wrote a book about how much a role Christianity

plays in redeeming and supporting American democracy. I grew up Southern Baptist. I have done

my time in the trenches, and Jonathan and I have talked about faith issues over the years.

So, both of these guys are fantastic on faith topics. I highly recommend checking it out. So enjoy,

and as always, thanks for listening.

I'm David French, and I'm an opinion columnist for The New York Times.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking about American democracy and the role Christianity plays on our political systems.

As a lifelong evangelical and political conservative, I was alarmed and very surprised, quite honestly, that white evangelicals have followed Donald Trump with

such passion and intensity. But I've also wondered why I was surprised. After all, I grew up in

evangelical America. I have been a churchgoer my entire life. I was a pro-life activist in evangelical America. I was a religious

liberty attorney in evangelical America, and I did not see this embrace of Donald Trump coming.

And now we finished a third consecutive presidential election when evangelicals voted overwhelmingly

for one of the most immoral and cruel

men ever to run for president. This experience taught me something, and it taught me that sometimes

critics outside a community can see the community more clearly in some ways than those who live

inside. They can see its virtues, how it interacts with the rest of the public in ways that we would admire and want to emulate, and we can also see the flaws that can demonstrate moral failings. And so this has all led me to Jonathan Roush, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an author of the upcoming book,

Cross Purpurposes, Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy. I've talked with John a lot

over the last several years, and I've been struck by his commitment to understanding the

role that Christianity plays in our politics, even though he's not a Christian. His work has taught me things, and I think

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