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Things Fell Apart

S1. Ep 3: A Miracle

Things Fell Apart

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.61.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s the early 1980s and a hugely popular television evangelist is having a crisis of conscience. She wants Christian evangelism to be less bigoted. And so, to the horror of her peers, she invites a very unexpected guest onto her TV show…

Written and presented by Jon Ronson Produced by Sarah Shebbeare Original music by Phil Channell

Archive from the PTL network's 'Tammy's House Party' and the 'PTL Club'.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in.

0:04.0

I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC.

0:08.0

My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career.

0:12.0

That's the thing I love about podcasts.

0:14.4

You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes.

0:18.4

And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories

0:21.9

while developing the most unique audio talent.

0:24.8

So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC Sounds.

0:31.6

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:35.0

From BBC Radio 4, this is Things Fell Apart.

0:39.0

Strange Tales from the culture wars. I'm John Ronson, a writer living in America, the land where culture wars begin.

0:53.0

And by culture wars, I mean almost everything that people yell at each other about on social media.

0:59.0

We want to take mass off our children.

1:01.0

That should be our choice. You are a white privileged male. You husband

1:05.4

have. I was born like this. I'm not saying that people should not be allowed to go through that procedure.

1:15.2

What I'm saying is it doesn't make them a woman.

1:17.0

It happens to be an opinion.

1:19.0

These wars can obsess us.

1:21.0

It can consume our lives and tear families apart. I was curious to learn how things

1:28.2

fell apart and so I went back in history to find the origin stories, the pebbles thrown in the pond, creating the ripples.

1:36.1

I had no idea what I would find, but I've uncovered some strange and unexpected tales of real consequence.

1:50.0

This story is about a rare watershed moment of harmony in a brutal culture war.

...

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