This week on State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s radio show and podcast, we’ll explore what the protests — and the varied reactions to them — tell us about the state of the nation. Host Rev. Welton Gaddy will be joined by Dr. Benjamin E. Zeller, assistant professor of religion at Lake Forest College in Illinois, who recently explored the religious and racial fault lines exposed by the controversy in a piece for Religion Dispatches, “#TAKEAKNEE: Race and Religious Violence at the Heart of Trump Attacks on Kaepernick/NFL.”
Last week, so-called “10 Commandments Judge” Roy Moore, who rejects church-state separation and LGBT rights, won the Republican primary in Alabama. He’s now on track to replace Jeff Sessions in the Senate. To better understand the threat to American democracy posed by people like Moore, Welton will speak with Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist whose past warnings about a theocratic takeover of the government seem frighteningly prescient now.
Finally, with the Religious Right enjoying unprecedented influence in our government and culture, a leading public scholar on religion and longtime evangelical theologian is stepping away from evangelicalism and public life. The Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee will discuss his latest book, Still Christian: Following Jesus Out of American Evangelicalism, and explain why, after three decades, he’ll no longer be writing his popular column.