Chatter: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, with Tim Alberta
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2024
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Alberta is an American journalist and author, and son of an evangelical pastor. Following his father’s death in 2019, Alberta began a four year journey, talking to American evangelicals ranging from megachurch pastors who preach to thousands to pastors at churches with a few dozen congregants to understand the schism occurring in the American evangelical community. His book “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism,” puts American evangelicalism under a microscope as Alberta grapples with how the community he grew up in has changed.
Lawfare Associate Editor Anna Hickey spoke to Alberta about what led him to write this book, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the evangelical community, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, what Croatian theologist Miroslav Volf warns about creeping totalitarianism that results from religion, how evangelicals talk about Christian nationalism, and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
- The book, “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism,” by Tim Alberta
- Reporting in The Atlantic by Jennifer Senior
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was recorded by Noam Osband and produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | Welcome to Chatter. I'm Anna Hecky. This week author and journalist Tim Alberta on his book, |
| 0:39.0 | The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, American Evangelicals in an age of extremism. |
| 0:46.0 | For anyone listening who is not a Christian |
| 0:48.0 | who may think that this is somehow normal, |
| 0:51.0 | it is not normal and it is not Christian. It in no way resembles the |
| 0:57.4 | sermon on the mount. It in no way resembles the beatitudes or the basic |
| 1:01.7 | teachings of Christ to love your enemy, to pray for those who |
| 1:04.8 | persecute you. |
| 1:07.4 | Much of the language is hyperbolic and almost comically hyperbolic in nature and it's conspiracy-laden and it's something that you wouldn't take so seriously |
| 1:18.1 | if it weren't for the fact that thousands and thousands of |
| 1:25.0 | thousands and thousands of people are turning out to these events around the country. |
| 1:26.0 | Those of us who are American Christians, |
| 1:28.0 | we are of all the people who should be best equipped to put a stop to this thinking. |
| 1:34.5 | We are instead, in many cases, the people who are actively fanning the flames. Tim Alberta, welcome to Chatter this week. |
| 1:47.0 | Hi, thanks for having me. |
| 1:49.0 | So to kick up the conversation, I found your book, Kingdom the Power and the Glory to be just a |
| 1:54.4 | fascinating look at American evangelicals and wanted to ask you know I believe it took you |
| 1:59.6 | about four years of this book and kind of what led you to decide to start this project and how did it |
... |
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