Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. My name is Brad O'Neeshy, Associate Professor

of Religious Studies at Skidmore College. Our show is hosted in partnership with the

Cap Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And I am joined today by Dr. Ruth

Brownstein, who is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, the University

of Connecticut. And an affiliate fellow at Princeton University Center for the Study

of Religion. We had Dr. Brownstein on to talk earlier on our show about her book, Profits

and Patriots Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide. And we're excited to invite

her back today for a discussion of her new article in the right history, religion, race,

and nostalgic stories of Christian America. So, Dr. Brownstein, thanks for being here.

Thanks so much for having me.

I saw the article as soon as you posted on Twitter, Reddit, was enthralled, and I'm really

happy that you had the time to come back and talk to us about it. My first question

is this, your goal here seems to be to help us understand how religions play an important

role in right wing movements that are not explicitly religious. So, you're talking about,

you know, in your work, you, you, of course, explore Christian nationalism, you explore

the religious right. These are areas in which you are an expert and you've written extensively

about. In this article, though, you're really trying to help us see how religion is sort

of pervasive, even in places where it's not explicitly part of the identity or the symbol

making or the myth making. And that's something, Dan and I talk about all the time, that if

we look at what happened on January 6th, religion was everywhere. If we look at other groups

that are on the political right in this country, religion is everywhere. Even if you can't

see it at first glance, or even if your metrics you're using are showing you that, oh, this

...