Complexified

By Institute of Religion Politics and Culture, Amanda Henderson, Iliff School of TheologySociety & Culture Religion & Spirituality Government

Complexified episodes

October 26 When Cruelty Stops Shocking Us
Russell Moore on the death penalty, sacred life and political belonging
In Texas, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad. Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced that his execution would be livestreamed. The backlash led to that proposal being withdrawn, leaving fresh questions about the death penalty—and what it means to make someone’s death a public spectacle.
Meanwhile, in Tennessee, Christa Pike survived a botched execution after two doses of a lethal drug failed to kill her. She was hospitalized and later returned to prison. Together, these cases bring questions about punishment, suffering and the value of human life into sharp focus.
Today on Complexified, we’re joined by public theologian Russell Moore, editor at large at Christianity Today, to explore how Christians understand justice, mercy and the sanctity of life—and what happens when their different answers become a test of who counts as Christian at all.

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44 min
October 20 Pastors, Pews and Power: Religion in the Midterms
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.

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27 min
October 12 The Very American Rise and Fall and Rise and Death of Jim Bakker
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.

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36 min
October 05 Spiritual Readiness, Pentagon-Style: Who Measures a Soldier’s Soul?
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?

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37 min
September 28 The Rise Of The Jim Crow Theobros
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.

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34 min
September 21 The Texas Sharia Panic: How a Rallying Cry Became a Curriculum
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

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36 min
September 14 Bratwurst and Beer: How the Far Right Replaced Germany's Churches
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.

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25 min
September 11 The 9/11 Generation: 25 Years Later
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.

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59 min
September 09 Erika Kirk’s Turning Point
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

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28 min
September 03 Saint, Sinner, Superstar: Dolly Parton’s Complicated Christianity
Dolly Parton was loved by evangelical Christians, queer fans, atheists and nearly everyone in between. Some saw her as a model of Christian living.
But Dolly’s own relationship with Christianity was more complicated. She once said she wasn’t a Christian, even as she called God her best friend.
Religion scholar Sarah Dees joins Amanda Henderson to explore Dolly’s Appalachian religious upbringing, the “Gospel of Dolly,” and how a country music superstar became a spiritual icon to people with radically different beliefs.

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31 min

About Complexified

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For too long we have avoided talking about religion and politics. But the truth is, religion and politics are about daily life. When we avoid the hard topics connected to religion and politics, we…