David French on How the Confederacy Still Shapes America

Good Faith

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

What Does the Confederacy's Legacy Mean for the Modern South and Christian America?

Host Curtis Chang and New York Times columnist, and Good Faith podcast "founding friend," David French confront the enduring power of the Confederate myth. David reflects on growing up as a white Southerner in a culture shaped by Confederate symbols, revisionist history, racial injustice, and a deeply rooted shame-and-honor code. Curtis, a Chinese American immigrant, brings an outsider's perspective that challenges familiar assumptions about heritage, memory, and belonging. Together, they examine Confederate monuments, the theological defenses of slavery, the meaning of "heritage, not hate," and whether honest historical reckoning can lead to redemption and reconciliation.

02:51 - Curtis Congratulates David on the Birth of His Latest Grandchild

05:54 - Why Does the Confederacy Still Matter?

10:12 - The South's Distinct Cultural Cohesion

22:19 - "Heritage, Not Hate": A White Southern Perspective

29:52 - Race, Religion, and Revisionism in the South

42:13 - The Resurgence of Explicit Racism

47:20 - What to Do with Confederate Memorials

56:32 - Repenting of Southern Shame-Honor Culture

01:01:32 - Institutions Founded on Injustice Can Carry Spiritual Darkness

Mentioned in This Episode:

Learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre
Learn about The Great Migration
Watch MLK50 Conference (video)
More about General George H. Thomas
More about the Southern Baptist Convention and slavery
What is Kinism
More about the South's resistance to Reconstruction
Read the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Watch: Selma and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (video)

Scriptures:

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Southern man's self-regard lives in the gaze of the other. In other words, show me respect,
0:09.3	respect me, honor me, respect me. And you still have this to a very high degree in the South.
0:16.3	And so if you have a shame, honor of you, you need to respect me. You need to honor me. And you see this all
0:22.3	over right wing media, which again, because politically the heart of power is the South, right
0:28.1	wing media is going to be southern coded. It's a very southern coded culture. So much, look what
0:34.4	they mean thing they said to you. Look what bad thing they do to you.
0:38.0	They don't like you.
0:39.2	They look down on you.
0:40.7	That is a constant, constant, constant refrain.
0:44.2	You know, those elitists, those elitists, those elitists, those elitists, that is dealing
0:48.1	with shame on her culture.
0:49.8	And shame on her culture in many ways is very antithetical to the last shall be first. Those who gain their
0:56.2	life have to lose their life.
0:57.5	Welcome to the Good Faith podcast where friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world.
1:18.7	I'm your host, Curtis Chang. This podcast is produced by a nonpartisan 501c3 organization.
1:26.4	One of the things I value about my friendship with David French is just how
1:31.7	different our backgrounds are. I was born in Taiwan and grew up in Chicago as a Chinese-American
1:38.3	immigrant. David was born in Alabama and grew up in Kentucky as a white southerner.
1:45.0	In my conversations with David over the years in our friendship,
1:49.0	I've learned so much about his background, about the South in particular,
1:54.0	and its outsized influence on American politics and the American church.
1:59.0	One key aspect that David has taught me is that the region's
	...

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