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Billy Graham, the famous evangelist, was good friends with Richard Nixon. The two played golf and gave each other advice. Graham was the person who encouraged Nixon to run for president a second time. He also encouraged Nixon to regularly attend church, so Nixon started the first regular church service in the White House, only to make it another "it" place to be seen. But when Nixon's crimes were made public, Graham continued to support him, commenting only on the strong language used by the president.

What does it mean for Christian leaders to stand behind a corrupt president? In this episode, Chris interviews David Bruce, a historian at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

NOTE: I thought it was especially important to outline the many crimes of the Nixon administration. Today these crimes are downplayed by bad actors wishing to rewrite history. It is important to emphasize that not only were there immoral acts of shenanigans, there were real crimes perpetrated against individuals, organizations, and the American people.

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Harold Ockenga was a famous fundamentalist(ish) pastor from Boston. And he had a problem. Liberal Christians had the ear of the government. That meant that military chaplain positions and free radio time were going to liberals, not conservatives. Why shouldn't conservatives have access to the radio waves like theologically liberal Christians? But that would take unity among evangelicals, or, what he called neo-evangelicals.

Neo-evangelicals were evangelicals who didn't separate from the world. In Ockenga's case, this meant maybe going to the movies or an opera. So he, along with other preachers like Billy Graham, founded the National Association of Evangelicals with the hope of uniting neo-evangelicals under one banner.

It didn't work.

The real story, though, sometimes gets lost. The was a big boom in evangelism in the 1940s as WWII wrapped up. Evangelists targeted the youth with organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ springing up left and right. This boom meant that churches swelled in the 1950s, only to begin their long slide a few decades later.

In this episode, Chris speaks with Joel Carpenter, a senior research fellow at Calvin College and author of "Revive Us Again".

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Thomas McIntyre stood before the US Congress to deliver a moving speech. The man was being hounded by a fringe movement known as the New Right. The movement came from the work of men like Paul Weyrich, Howard Phillips, and Richard Viguerie. Their goal was to disrupt the Republican Party. They wanted to do away with much of the federal government and program to help the poor while simultaneously cutting taxes and increasing the military. They hoped to accomplish this by controlling direct mail. Direct mail! It sounds silly, but by inundating voters and congressional offices with bulk mail they could control the story.

Men like McIntyre and Senator Mark Hatfield didn't know what to do with this influx of petty politics. Someone had even gone so far as to question Hatfield's Christian salvation just because of how we was going to vote on the Panama Canal treaty. What does giving the Panama Canal back to Panama have to do with salvation? Almost nothing.

Today, we're going to explore this wacky phenomenon where we call something "Christian" or "biblical" if it fits out politics not if it is addressed in the Bible. How are we being manipulated by propaganda like this? And what can we do about it?

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In this special bonus episode, Truce host Chris Staron walks you through a day in the life of a podcast host. He works about 11 hours per day between this show and his full-time job driving a school bus. Imagine what he could do if he were doing this show full-time!!!!

Chris has worked on Truce for 6 1/2 years and is ready to make the show his main focus. We could make that happen if every listener gave $15 per year!

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Season six is almost here! This season we're exploring the backstory of why so many evangelicals turned to the Republican Party in the 1970s and 80s. It's a huge story that involves murder, corruption, greed, taxes, school choice, racism, and a lot of big questions. Special guests include Rick Perlstein, Frances Fitzgerald, Marjorie Spruill, Jesse Eisinger, and so many more.

Subscribe to Truce wherever you get your podcasts, or listen at trucepodcast.com

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Season six is coming along nicely! I'm super busy trying to get it all put together before I start releasing episodes. But I want to also make everyone aware that I'm looking for more advertisers for the show. Want to participate? Visit www.trucepodcast.com/advertise to get started!

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Joseph McCarthy was an unexceptional junior congressman from Wisconsin. He grew up brawling in the streets, playing cards, and embellishing his stories. Then, during a Lincoln Day address in 1950, Joseph McCarthy told an audience that he had a list of 205 communists working in the government. Within days, he was a household name.

McCarthy started "investigating" suspected communists in the American government, focusing on the US State Department. Along the way, he brought in a young lawyer named Roy Cohn. Cohn was already known for his work sending Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair. Now, he and McCarthy bullied and cajoled during private hearings. Being labeled a communist, or even a suspected communist could ruin a person's career. People committed suicide rather than face their scrutiny.

Their reign lasted four years, ending in the televised broadcasts of the Army-McCarthy hearings in which a lawyer asked if McCarthy had any decency. That was pretty much it for McCarthy. But Roy Cohn went on to have a well-connected career, providing legal services for the mob and Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News. He also became a mentor to a young real estate mogul named Donald Trump. Famous people like Andy Warhol attended his birthday party at Studio 54. Cohn died of AIDS, something that was killing gay men rapidly in the 1980s, though he denied he ever had it.

This is the story of two men allowed to prey on the fears of the American people for their own gain. One fell hard, the other found himself fighting against his own people.

In this episode, Chris interviews Larry Tye, author of the book "Demagogue". He's also the author of "Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend" and "Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon".

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The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is really well produced. But they also take deep dives into some of the things going on in modern Christianity that I can't cover on Truce. They are a good supplement to the stuff we cover on this feed. So we thought... why not share each other's show?

In this bonus episode, you'll hear Chris talking with Anna Tran and Jesse Eubanks about their episode "Where the Gospel Meets Artificial Intelligence". It is a look into the ways in which AI may someday try to gain ground in the spiritual realm. Also, they do an interview with TikTok evangelist York Moore who uses that medium to share the gospel. I was especially interested in the ways in which AI chatbots are building false relationships with people, taking the place of human interactions.

They cover a lot of ground! Let them know that you heard about their show from the Truce Podcast!

Season six starts in just a few months, but I will be launching a bonus episode in a few weeks. Subscribe so you get every new episode as it's released.

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Season 5 of the Truce Podcast was a blast! I'm hard at work on season 6, which will discuss how American evangelicals got tied to the Republican Party. It is already coming together so well! I can't wait to share it with you.

God willing, season 6 will drop in the fall or early winter of 2023.

Like, subscribe, sign up for the email list, and remember the show in your prayers!

Godspeed!

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On March 4, 1933, FDR delivered his inaugural address. In it, he used the phrase "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". I did a little searching and this phrase is used a LOT in Christian books. So often. But it almost always refers to the fear one person has in their heart. In reality, it is a comment on collective fear. The Great Depression started in 1929 and was exacerbated by a bank run in which Americans lost faith in the value of our currency and the banking systems.

That is an important distinction. FDR's speech is about collective fear. As I've contemplated the modernist/fundamentalist debate this season, I keep returning to the idea of fear, not in the US economy but in God's economy. He commands us to love the Lord, keep His commands, love our neighbors, turn the other cheek, and give to those who ask of us. Why do we forget to do this important work? Could it be because we've lost faith in God's economy?

This episode features a clip from my discussion with Jacob Goldstein, former host of NPR's Planet Money podcast and the current host of Pushkin's What's Your Problem? podcast. His book is Money: The True Story of a Made-up Thing.

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