Culture, Faith and Politics with Pat Kahnke

Mark Greene at "Remaking Manhood" and "Walking Talking Men" joins Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson to talk about healthy masculinity vs. "Man Box" culture in this Thursday morning LIVE episode.

Ken Paxton — impeached, credibly accused of bribery, and caught lying to federal investigators — just became the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. And MAGA Christians helped make it happen. In this episode, I break down why MAGA Christians keep voting for Donald Trump's most corrupt lackeys, what it reveals about the debasement of the Christian conscience, and why "normie" Republicans are just as complicit. This isn't virtue signaling. It's VICE signaling — and the data from the 2024 primaries makes it impossible to ignore.

Mark Driscoll, Al Mohler, and a host of religious leaders share one common trait: they are men who fear women. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

Trump's $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" has been framed as a truth and justice initiative — but a careful theological examination reveals it as something far more dangerous: a corruption architecture designed to reward political violence and insulate power from accountability. In this episode, I analyze the fund through the lens of biblical justice — specifically the Hebrew concepts of mishpat (legal justice) and tzedek (moral righteousness) — and demonstrate how Donald Trump's proposal inverts both. This is not a policy debate. This is a character audit. And the fruit does not lie. We also examine how evangelical Christianity's 80% bloc vote for Trump made this moment possible — and why conservative Christian voters now bear direct moral responsibility for the pardoning of January 6th rioters, including those convicted of assaulting Capitol Police officers.

Journalist and Substack writer Mark Ramm joins Pat Kahnke to break down the architecture of the new Christian right: Catholic integralism, Reformed evangelical dominionism, and the Pentecostal New Apostolic Reformation -- three theologies that can't agree on baptism, eschatology, or church structure, but have built a shared infrastructure of funding, influence, and political power that is reshaping America.

Adam Swenson and Pat Kahnke continue their series of discussions on deconstruction - of both religious and political faith. Using Brian McLaren's four stages of faith as a jumping off point, this conversation focuses on the final stage: Harmony. Desmond Tutu is an example we'll talk about today.

Donald Trump now has a $1.776 billion settlement he plans to use to fund revenge for his political party. MAGA evangelicals held a MAGA cult worship service called Rededicate 250. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

This weekend, the Trump administration spent millions in federal funds on a 9-hour worship rally on the National Mall. The event was organized by the same company that ran Trump's January 6 Ellipse rally — on a largely no-bid government contract. Eric Metaxas invoked the Sinai Covenant from the stage. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to frame America's military posture in theological terms. And Trump sent a prerecorded Bible video.

Rick Pidcock, a journalist and theologian who attended Rededicate 250, joins Pat Kahnke for a full eyewitness account of how MAGA theology went national on America's 250th birthday.

Joni Lamb, co-founder of Daystar Television Network — America's 2nd largest Christian TV network — died this week estranged from her own son. What he says happened inside that billion-dollar ministry is a disturbing story about modern Christian media. Pat Kahnke and Amy Hawk examine the Daystar story: a $3.9 million PPP loan used to buy a private jet, seven homes valued at $11.7 million, a honeymoon allegedly charged to ministry donors, and — most seriously — allegations that an abuse claim inside the Lamb family was pressured into silence. Daystar is classified as a church by the IRS. That means no financial disclosures. No accountability. And a billion-dollar operation that nobody is allowed to question. This is what the Fruit Test (Matthew 7:16) looks like when applied to Christian media empires.

Today we're talking about Adam Swenson's article on Stage 3 of Christian faith: Perplexity. And we're using Nick Kristof's article "This Is What Happened When Trump Abandoned the World’s Poorest Children" as an example of what happens when the real world takes a wrecking ball to our assumptions.