Episodi

  • Pastors, Pews and Power: Religion in the Midterms

    Pastors, Pews and Power: Religion in the Midterms
    Oct 20 2026
    Religion has always been part of American politics. What changes from cycle to cycle is where it shows up and what it looks like. This year it’s turning up in some unexpected places: seminarians running for Senate, a president feuding with the pope, and Black churches organizing marches to the polls after the Voting Rights Act was gutted. I’m joined for an election midterm roundtable by three of the reporters who’ve been covering all things religion and politics for Religion News Service. With us today are national reporter Jack Jenkins, whose recent reporting examines faith leaders on the ballot; national reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain, who has covered abortion measures on midterm ballots; and projects editor and national reporter Adelle M. Banks, who has reported on the March on Washington and the continuing fight for voting rights. Adelle is also the coauthor of Becoming a Future-Ready Church: 8 Shifts to Encourage and Empower the Next Generation of Leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    27 min
  • The Very American Rise and Fall and Rise and Death of Jim Bakker

    The Very American Rise and Fall and Rise and Death of Jim Bakker
    Oct 12 2026
    Televangelist Jim Bakker is dead at 86. And whatever else can be said about him, he was a true American original. In the ’70s and ’80s, millions of Americans welcomed Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker into their living rooms every day. They laughed with them, prayed with them and sent them money—enough money to build a television network and a Christian theme park. He was also a convicted fraudster whose empire collapsed amid revelations of deception, sexual misconduct allegations and spectacularly bad judgment. His was a life of faith and fame, of innovation and swindlery. And his legacy is everywhere. So today’s question: How did Jim Bakker turn religious intimacy into an American empire? My guest is Dr. Leah Payne, a historian of American religion at Portland Seminary and author of God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music. She studies where faith, politics and pop culture meet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    35 min
  • Spiritual Readiness, Pentagon-Style: Who Measures a Soldier’s Soul?

    Spiritual Readiness, Pentagon-Style: Who Measures a Soldier’s Soul?
    Oct 5 2026
    Soldiers are trained for physical combat. But war also confronts them with death, killing, grief, guilt and questions of meaning. The military has long employed chaplains to care for those needs—across religious traditions and for service members with no religion at all. Now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that system needs more power. He has created an Office of Religious Affairs with what he calls “real teeth.” Its director will report directly to him, oversee funding and policy, and develop tools to assess the spiritual readiness of the force. Hegseth has made own conservative Christianity a prominent part of his leadership of the military. At the speech where he announced the new office, he explained why. Today, RNS national reporter Jack Jenkins joins us to examine what Hegseth is building. Will this office help service members draw strength from their own deepest beliefs? Or will the Pentagon decide which beliefs make someone spiritually fit to serve? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    36 min
  • The Rise Of The Jim Crow Theobros

    The Rise Of The Jim Crow Theobros
    Sep 28 2026
    Across YouTube, podcasts and church conferences, a new group of pastors and influencers is promoting an openly racist and baldly antisemitic vision of Christian America. They present themselves not as extremists, but as respectable religious leaders defending truths that others are afraid to say. Today, RNS reporter Bob Smietana takes us inside this emerging movement—who these men are, what they believe, and why these old ideas are finding new life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    33 min
  • The Texas Sharia Panic: How a Rallying Cry Became a Curriculum

    The Texas Sharia Panic: How a Rallying Cry Became a Curriculum
    Sep 21 2026
    Republican leaders across Texas are repeatedly warning that Sharia is an urgent threat to the state- making it a rallying cry as we head into the midterm elections. The Muslim community, who has long stayed quiet, is now organizing and speaking out. Today: how the drumbeat of Islamophobic language became school curriculum, and how the small population of Muslim Texans begins to use American strategies- to work for their place in Texas. To understand what is happening in Texas we are joined by RNS journalists Fiona André and Ulaa Kuziez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    35 min
  • Bratwurst and Beer: How the Far Right Replaced Germany's Churches

    Bratwurst and Beer: How the Far Right Replaced Germany's Churches
    Sep 14 2026
    A state in Germany has seen the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party win nearly 44% of the vote—making it the state’s largest party and bringing it within three seats of a governing majority. While Catholic and Protestant churches had been prominent opponents of AfD in this election - their influence failed to stem the tide of the growing far-right, nationalist movement. How did this happen in a place where churches once birthed the Protestant Reformation and contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    25 min
  • The 9/11 Generation: 25 Years Later

    The 9/11 Generation: 25 Years Later
    Sep 11 2026
    Twenty-five years after 9/11, the attacks' aftershocks — surveillance, suspicion, identity — continued to shape how young Muslim Americans saw themselves and their country. With Zohran Mamdani sworn in as New York City's first Muslim mayor, that history collided with a new political moment. On Sept. 11, 2001, Haroon Moghul was president of NYU's Muslim Student Association. Today, he is a chaplain at Xavier University in Cincinnati. During this live journalism event, Moghul and Asad Dandia, Brooklyn's official borough historian and an early advisor on Mamdani's mayoral campaign, traced that arc — from the shadow of 9/11 to the present moment. As a teenager, Dandia was surveilled by the NYPD as part of its post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program; he later joined — and won — a class-action lawsuit against the department. In conversation with Religion News Service Events Host Niala Boodhoo and Islam reporter Ulaa Kuziez, the panelists unpacked what a quarter-century of living post-9/11 meant for Muslim American identity, faith, and belonging — and what the future might look like for a community that had just seen one of its own elected to lead America's largest city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 min
  • Erika Kirk’s Turning Point

    Erika Kirk’s Turning Point
    Sep 9 2026
    One year after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, his widow, Erika, is leading Turning Point USA — appealing to young women through a message of faith, forgiveness and biblical womanhood. Can her vision hold together the movement he left behind? RNS reporter Kathryn Post has followed that transformation. RELATED: At TPUSA’s women’s summit, Christian influencers say feminism threatens motherhood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    28 min