Weekly Roundup: Falwell's Fall and America's Backlash

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

News, Politics

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2022

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brad and Dan begin this episode with a discussion of the new profile of Jerry Falwell Jr. at Vanity Fair. In their view, Falwell is a type for contemporary Christian nationalism. He describes himself as not particularly religious while subscribing to a vision of the United States wherein White Christian men hold power. He was formed politically by Rush Limbaugh. He lavished praise on Donald Trump. For Dan, it's a perfect example of how Christian nationalism is a religious-political-cultural identity that often time has little to do with persona religious practice. They then segue into analysis of a new piece by sociologist Ruth Braunstein that investigates the backlash against the Religious Right and White Evangelicals. Braunstein examines the rise of the Nones--those unaffiliated with religion--but also looks at how the Religious Left and the "spiritual but not religious" also represent a backlash to conservative American Protestants. In the final segment Brad goes through the history of SCOTUS picks based on identity. Dan argues that identity politics are always at play and that there are no objectively best candidates for SCOTUS. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an irreverent podcast.
0:03.7	Visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators.
0:20.2	Welcome to St. White American Jesus.
0:22.2	My name is Brad Nishie faculty at the University of San Francisco.
0:25.9	I'm also associated a partnership with the Cap Center at UCSB and I'm here today with my co-host.
0:31.9	I'm Dan Miller, associate professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
0:36.9	Good to see you, Brad, as we explore all the nuances of doing this in this bicostal way,
0:41.9	where it's early for you and later for me, but your weather's fine,
0:45.9	and I'm supposed to get like a foot of snow, so it's nice to sort of fit this into our day.
0:51.9	Yeah, we do have good weather. We're also coming up on a really dry period here in California anyway.
0:57.9	I don't want to bother everyone with the weather, but I am worried about water.
1:01.9	So it's funny how you have way too much water and we have not nearly enough.
1:06.9	It is worrying, so anyway.
1:08.9	Alright, Dan, today we want to talk about a couple of things.
1:12.9	A huge new profile of Jerry Falwell in Vanity Fair that is incredibly revealing
1:17.9	and it's interesting just for the intrigue, but I think it also exemplifies kind of the waywardness,
1:26.9	the waywardness is the wrong term, but then I'll just say issues for now with evangelicalism and Christian nationalism over the five years.
1:33.9	So if you're listening like, I'm done with Jerry Falwell, I don't need more Jerry Falwell.
1:37.9	What I would say is stay with us because I think it actually illustrates kind of evangelicalism and Christian nationalism as a whole,
1:45.9	as it has been developing over the last couple of decades, especially in the Trump era.
1:51.9	We'll then talk about a great piece by the sociologist Ruth Bronstein about the backlash against evangelicalism
1:57.9	and what's feeling that and what it looks like in terms of the American religious landscape.
	...

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