Hello, I'm Dr. Stephen Hassan, and I'm absolutely delighted to have an old friend and colleague Frederick Clarkson with me today on the influence continuum.

Frederick has written about politics and religion for four decades.

His work has appeared in a wide range of publications from Mother

Jones, Church and State, Ms. Magazine to the Christian Science Monitor, salon.com, and

religion dispatches. He's worked as an investigative editor at Planned Parenthood Federation of America,

as communications director at the Institute for Democracy Studies,

and co-founded the group blog Talk to Action. He is the author, co-author, or editor of several books,

including Dispatches from the Religious Left, The Future of faith and politics in America, and my favorite

eternal hostility, the struggle between theocracy and democracy. He's currently a senior

research analyst that political research associates, a progressive think tank in Somerville,

Massachusetts. Frederick Clarkson, we go back decades, and I

think we talked maybe in the late 80s about the Moonies, maybe earlier, but you are so bright,

and you've spent so much time, especially researching the issue of religious freedom.

And it's especially important in 2022 to help the public, I think, and I think you do too,

to understand more about what's going on politically with the forces that are trying to move the conversation

away from pluralistic democratic traditions to something more extreme. And before I ask my first

question, I just want to thank you for all your help.

You helped me tremendously when I was researching the cult of Trump.

But you've also helped educate me about issues around religious freedom.

For example, when I was out of the Moonies talking about mind control and brainwashing and such, it was

you who said, you know, Steve, the Moonies really violated your religious freedom as a

Jew when they lied to you and said they weren't part of a religious group.

...