Truce - History of the Christian Church

By Chris StaronReligion & Spirituality Christianity History Religion

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Truce - History of the Christian Church episodes

April 08, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I Milton Friedman and School Choice (part 2 of 2)
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Milton Friedman is one of the most important economists of the last hundred years. His ideas were quoted by many evangelical writers in the 1970s and 80s, despite his not being a Christian and few of his ideas being in the Bible. Figures like Jerry Falwell loved the guy. Ronald Reagan adopted many of his ideas, though they disagreed on things like the increasing national debt. Friedman played a major role in the popularization of the school voucher concept. Essentially, some people want to allow parents to have a say in which school their children attend. If they want to take the children to a private school, they believe that the government should give them a certain amount of money that would have gone to the public school and give it to the private one. Those who disagree say that this would defund already underfunded schools. Friedman also believed that teachers should not necessarily be certified and that the free market would weed out the bad ones.
Stanford professor Jennifer Burns (author of Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative) returns to help Chris explore this complicated subject.
Sources:
Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns
Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
Free to Choose
A helpful Britannica article on Friedman
Listen, America! by Jerry Falwell. Paperback, August 1980 reprint version Bantam edition
Divided We Stand by Marjorie Spruill
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Discussion Questions:
Had you heard of Friedman before this episode?
What are school vouchers?
How could school vouchers be seen by some as a tool of segregation?
What would it mean if parents had to keep track of every teacher their children learned under?
How are schools currently funded in the US? Why does that matter? How are some schools wealthy while others are poor?
What should be the role of wealthy people when it comes to education?

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28 min
March 25, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I Milton Friedman vs. John Maynard Keynes (1 of 2)
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Milton Friedman may be the most famous American economist. His research and theories have profoundly shaped the modern American economy. But few of us can clearly articulate what he taught and what it means for our times. Friedman's career was defined by the aftermath of the Great Depression. He worked in the government administering the New Deal, but never really agreed with it. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago and built a department around him that taught a version of free-market economics known as monetarism. Essentially, monetarism is the idea that inflation is a product of how much money is in circulation. Friedman did not like the Federal Reserve or the gold standard, instead, advocating for a standard 4% increase in the money supply every year that would not be shifted. By setting a rule, he hoped to do away with an entire governmental department.
Friedman and his co-authors ventured into areas that other economists thought, perhaps, unwise. They used economics to explain things like marriage and school choice. He was also a proponent of school vouchers.
Stanford professor Jennifer Burns joins Chris today to explore the many facets of Milton Friedman. This is the first of two parts.
Sources:
Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Part to Power by Robert Caro
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laissez-faire
“Keynesian Economics Theory: Definition and How It's Used” Investopedia article
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/article/one-hundred-years-of-price-change-the-consumer-price-index-and-the-american-inflation-experience.htm
Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman: A Concise Guide to the Ideas and Influence of the Free-Market Economist by Eamonn Butler
Friedman on the Donahue show in 1979
Discussion Questions:
Had you heard of Friedman before this episode?
If so, what did you know about him?
What does "laissez-faire" mean in economic terms?
Does it line up with the Bible in any direct way?
Why do you think so many conservative Christians lean toward laissez-faire?
How bad was the Great Depression?
If you had worked for the government during the Depression, what would you have advocated?
Why are some people against the New Deal?
What did the New Deal mean to starving people during the Depression?
How does a fear of communism play into anti-New Deal sentiment?

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38 min
March 11, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I William F. Buckley v. Ayn Rand and the John Birch Society
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William F. Buckley Jr. helped change the face of conservatism in the US because he gave it intellectual backing. But that doesn't mean that his ideas were accepted completely. He had several nemesis within his own movement that tried to derail him.
One opponent was the John Birch Society. Buckley's whole modus operandi was to make conservatism respectable. But Robert Welch and other members of the JBS were using their movement to spread bogus conspiracy theories. They were actively discrediting the movement that Buckley tried to build. So Buckley, National Review, and Barry Goldwater tried to bring it down.
Another enemy was Ayn Rand. Buckley and Rand were libertarians, but they disagreed on something important: religion. Rand was an ardent atheist, while Buckley believed Christianity and conservatism were inseparable. When Buckley started Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) he discovered that his young followers were incorporating many other ideas into their ideology. Rand's writings were impacting the students. So Buckley had to work to expel those ideas from YAF.
Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard was another enemy. Rothbard actively encouraged his followers to split YAF and leave the organization.
Extremism leads to extremism. Extremism lends itself to ideological purity, which means that groups like YAF were destined to split and split and split again. Buckley has his work cut out for him.

Sources
Buckley: William F Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Carl T. Bogus.
The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism by David Farber
Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley Jr
Heather Cox Richardson's YouTube series on the history of the GOP
Hoover Institution article on the impact of Buckley and Firing Line
Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
The Incomparable Mr. Buckley documentary
The Sharon Statement
Discussion Questions:
Extremism leads to extremism. Do you agree?
The desire to keep a movement ideologically pure is not unique to Buckley. Discuss that desire. When is it important and when does it lead to issues?
Rand and Buckley disagreed on the role of religion. Why did that put them at odds?
Why would Murray Rothbard want to split YAF?
Why are youth movements so important to politics? To religion?

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17 min
March 04, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review
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Senator Robert Taft couldn't get the nomination. He tried to be the GOP's nominee for president three different times but could not get elected. Conservative Republicans' failure to get nominated by their own party was a source of much frustration. What could they do? Concerns of conspiracy spread through people like Phyllis Schlafly whose book A Choice Not an Echo claimed that "elites" were steering the party.
It was into this world that a bright young man with an untraceable accent found his appeal. William F. Buckley Jr. was born into a wealthy family that was deeply Catholic and driven by concern over the New Deal. They were libertarians and wanted a small government. Buckley lived a childhood of privilege, riding horses, playing piano, and mostly private education. His first book, God and Man at Yale, was a sharp critique of his alma mater, stating that they should have done a better job promoting laissez-faire economics and religion. The book was a smash hit, in part, because Yale fought its charges in the press.
Buckley followed it with a rousing defense of Senator Joseph McCarthy's tactics in the early 1950s, but the book was published just as the senator was revealed to be the demagogue he was. So Buckley decided to shift his effort to creating a journal of opinion that would appeal to conservatives. National Review became the "it" publication for conservatism in the US, and the most successful journal of opinion in the country. Its greatest impact was giving conservatism an intellectual voice in an era when the "liberal consensus" dominated.
Buckley then went on to start in the PBS television show Firing Line, a funny thing for a libertarian because the show was sponsored, in part, through government funding. Buckley succeeded in giving conservatism an intellectual voice. In the process, he won his greatest victory: convincing Ronald Reagan to become a conservative.

Sources
Buckley: William F Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Cart T. Bogus.
The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism by David Farber
Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYgv7ur8ipg&t=3018s Firing Line Episode 113, September 3 1968
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley Jr
Heather Cox Richardson's YouTube series on the history of the GOP
National Review. 1st edition, November 19, 1955. Page 6 (gives a helpful breakdown of what the magazine stands for)
Hoover Institution article on the impact of Buckley and Firing Line
Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
The Incomparable Mr. Buckley documentary
Discussion Questions
Do you have any personal connection with Buckley? Did you see his shows or read his writings?
Why did conservatism need an intellectual voice?
How did conservatism change between Bob Taft and Buckley?
Buckley believed in a limited government, one that incorporated Christianity. Would you like his version of the American government?
Buckley claimed that he wasn't racist, but believed that black people were incapable of governing themselves. That they should earn the right to vote in the South. Is this racism?
National Review welcomed segregationists to write in the journal. Would you read a publication like this?
Buckley advocated for a smaller government but also stared in a TV show on public television. Does this strike you as hypocrisy?

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44 min
February 18, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I Barry Goldwater – How Republicans Welcomed Extremism - Part Two
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In the first part of our series, Chris explored the beginning of Barry Goldwater's career, from his early days as a young man to his rise to the Senate. In the second episode, Goldwater still hasn't agreed to be the nominee, even though groups are raising money in his name.
One of his most valuable supporters was a woman named Phyllis Schlafly. In 1964 she published a small book, A Choice Not an Echo. It claimed that GOP nominations had been rigged going back many years. She felt burned that Robert Taft (a true conservative) had been avoided over Dwight Eisenhower. Her book earned Goldwater the eventual nomination by his party.
At the 1964 GOP convention, Goldwater announced that extremism was a thing he was okay with. While this excited his base, it scared a good many others who were already afraid that he'd use his power to launch nuclear weapons.
Lyndon Johnson won that year in the greatest landslide in US presidential history.
CORRECTION: The original version of this episode said that LBJ's win in 1964 was bolstered by the Civil Rights Act. Historian Rick Perlstein wrote in to say that he won despite the Civil Rights Act.
Sources
Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein.
The Heritage Foundation's claims about Black Lives Matter
JFK's address about the Cuban missile crisis
The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
LBJ ice cream ad
Rockefeller's speech at the 1964 RNC via C-SPAN
Birchers by Matthew Dallek
Goldwater's speech at the 1964 RNC via C-SPAN
1964 RNC party platform
These Truths by Jill LePore
Goldwater's comments on the Religious Right
Discussion Questions
How did the 1964 Republican platform show a slide to extremism?
Is the argument for "states' rights" inherently racist? How has it been used to back racism?
Why did Goldwater's talk about nuclear weapons make people uneasy?
How did Goldwater's address to the 1964 RNC act as a call to extremists?
Why did Lyndon Johnson win by the largest victory in US presidential history?
Even though he lost dramatically, Goldwater had a big impact. What was it?

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43 min
February 04, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I Barry Goldwater – How Republicans Welcomed Extremism - Part One
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Barry Goldwater may be one of the most interesting figures in Republican history. He grew up the son of a wealthy department store owner. He was a city council member and then a senator from Arizona. He was handsome and took pictures with guns and cacti. Goldwater was also a libertarian who wanted a small government and low taxes.
His platform was laid out in a ghostwritten book Conscience of a Conservative. L. Brent Bozell wrote the book. He was a member of the John Birch Society. The book advocated for state's rights, though Goldwater argued that he was not a racist. The problem is that the South had long been using state's rights complaints to justify their oppression of black people. So, was Goldwater a racist? He sure as heck did what racists wanted.
He also advocated for nuclear weapons in the US, an end to progressive taxation, and strange plans to reduce government spending. He courted extremists, mashing traditional conservatism false conspiracies and bad actors. The Republican Party would eventually bounce back to being an establishment party, but not for long. Many of Goldwater's ideas would be carried out by Reagan just a decade and a half later.
CORRECTION: The original version of this episode said that Goldwater served in WWI. It was WWII. Sorry! The error has been corrected.
Sources
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro. Especially The Passage of Power
Bichers by Matthew Dallek
A Choice Not An Echo by Phyllis Schlafly
Buckley: William F Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism by Cart T. Bogus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05MPUsdFyQY The Memory Palace episode 130 “Independence Hall 2: The Legend of Walter Knott”
1964 Republican Party Platform
Heather Cox Richardson's video series on the history of GOP
Questions
What does it mean for someone to be a "conservative"?
How does it impact us when we are tied to organizations like the John Birch Society? How did it impact conservatives?
Discuss the relationship between the state's rights argument and racism.
Was Goldwater a racist?
Many of the people we've covered over the years have been public speakers. Should we take a second pass at vetting our public speakers?

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39 min
January 21, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals I The John Birch Society (featuring Matthew Dallek)
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Robert Welch was a candy magnate who invented the Sugar Daddy and sold favorites like Junior Mints and Milk Duds. He was also very anti-communist. His dubious research led him to found the John Birch Society, a group whose mission was to spread conspiracy theories worldwide. They had major support from wealthy men like Fred Koch, father of the Koch brothers (who financed opposition to Obamacare and climate change legislation).
Some of their most notable campaigns were those against Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren and President Dwight Eisenhower. They claimed that these men were communist sympathizers working behind the scenes to put the communist agenda. Bogus stuff, but they gained thousands of followers across the country. They also fought the income tax, said that black people would not have wanted equality if the communists hadn't taught them to, and argued that the US is a republic and not a democratic republic.
Phyllis Schlafly, RJ Rushdoony, Tim LaHaye, and many others had ties to the birchers. This group had a huge influence on the Religious Right! Not to mention shifting the GOP to accept extremists.
Our special guest for this episode is Dr. Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. His book is Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.

Sources:
Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right by Matthew Dallek
Before the Storm by Rick Perlstein
Divided We Stand by Marjorie Spruill
Helpful Guardian article about the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity
Christian Reconstruction: RJ Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism by Michael McVicar
NY Times article about J. Howard Pew's connections to Robert Welch
Dark Money by Jane Mayer
Discussion Questions
What is the John Birch Society?
Was communism a threat to the country in the mid-1900s?
What would have been the proper way to respond to communism?
What is the impact of conspiracy theories on American Christianity?
There are real conspiracies in the US, like those by Donald Trump and his allies to steal the 2020 election. But a lot of Christians don't believe these real conspiracies. How has an abundance of false conspiracies numbed our ability to recognize reality?
Are you surprised Tim LaHaye, Phyllis Schlafly, and RJ Rushdoony were affiliated with the JBS?
How can believers maintain their faith even when evangelical culture has been corrupted?

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44 min
January 07, 2025Republicans and Evangelicals | A Brief History of Libertarianism (featuring Andrew Koppelman)
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Modern evangelicalism sometimes incorporates pieces of different ideas. Things that are in the air. Social messages. Political stances. But has evangelicalism been enchanted by libertarianism?
In this episode, we cover a brief history of libertarianism. What is it and who are some of the main thinkers? We discuss Murry Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, and Robert Nozick.
What is a libertarian? Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi define libertarianism by six characteristics. Libertarians are defined by a love of private property, they are skeptical of authority, and they like free markets, spontaneous order, individualism, and negative liberty. We will define each of these throughout the episode.
Our special guest for this episode is Andrew Koppelman, law professor at Northwestern University. He's the author of the book Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed.

Sources
Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed. by Andrew Koppelman
The Individualists by Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi
The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek
Matthew 25
The Road to Serfdom cartoon version
The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro (for the Dust Bowl section in book 2)
99% Invisible episode The Infernal Machine for information on anarchists
Teddy Roosevelt's first address to Congress
Dark Money by Jane Mayer
EPA.gov article about The Clean Air Act
NPR story about law enforcement throwing protestors in unmarked vans
Listen America! by Jerry Falwell
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (I could only stomach maybe 1/4 of it. I promised myself if she wrote "Rearden Steel" one more time that I would stop reading. She did. So I did.)
Discussion Questions
What is libertarianism?
How have you seen libertarianism crossing over into evangelicalism?
Does libertarianism counter the story from Matthew 25?
What is the impact of Ayn Rand? Have you read her books?
Why did Atlas Shrugged suddenly become the "it" book among Republicans in 2020?
Is there any place for selfishness in the Christian walk?

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1 hr 3 min
December 17, 2024Republicans and Evangelicals I How Bad Drivers Prepare Us for Christmas
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Well, we survived the 2024 US presidential election! But many people still feel anxiety as we head into the Christmas and New Year holidays. How can Christians prepare for a holiday season when politics will likely arise?

Chris Staron is joined by Karl Klemmer, Nick Staron, and Ray McDaniel at First Baptist Church in Jackson, WY to discuss these issues and more. Plus Chris talks about his own anger as a pedestrian as drivers have come close to hitting him. How do Christians respond when they are wronged? We also spend a lot of time talking about Romans 14 which encourages believers to love their brothers and sisters who struggle in their faith or who have convictions different than our own. Can verses about food sacrificed to idols teach us something about dealing with loved ones who are different than us?

Sources:
Romans 12-15 (mixed translations)

Discussion Questions:
Why is it important to come to a complete stop at stop signs?
Has anyone ever wronged you on the road? How did that feel? How did you react?
Do you get upset about things you can't change? What are some examples?
How can you adjust to not beat yourself up over things you can't change?
What are other examples of non-mission critical things we can give grace on (like food sacrificed to idols)?
Are there political issues that are mission-critical? Which ones are not? What are some that you can let slide in a conversation?
How do you prepare yourself to enter a stressful environment?

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43 min
December 03, 2024Republicans and Evangelicals I How the Wealthy Dodge Taxes (w/ Pro Publica's Jesse Eisinger)
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How do ultra-wealthy people avoid paying taxes? It seems like a strange subject to bring up when discussing why some evangelicals are drawn to the Republican Party. But many of the ties between evangelicals and the GOP have to do with money. So, let's take a little side trip and explore the tax loopholes of today. More importantly, let's try to understand why so many Americans are tax-averse. Could it possibly be because we, deep down, know that someone else is getting a better deal than us?
One tactic used by the ultra-wealthy is "buy, borrow, die". They avoid "income", instead opting for assets like stock and real estate they can borrow against. Borrowed money is not taxed. Then they either pay back those loans with other loans (often with interest rates that are much lower than their tax rates would be) or they fail to pay back the loans. Then... they die.
Jesse Eisinger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter with Pro Publica. Chris first heard about him from his book (pardon the language) The Chickenshit Club and met him when he appeared at a live event in Jackson, WY hosted by the Teton County Library, the Center for the Arts, and the Jackson Hole News and Guide.

Sources
Pro-Publica's reporting on taxation
This lecture at the Center for the Arts in Jackson, WY on November 8, 2023
Fascinating IRS responses to some of the conspiracy theories about them
Disney's Donald Duck film "The New Spirit" encourages income tax as a national duty
Time Magazine article about the history of taxes
William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan by John Pafford (pg 29)
New York Times archival article listing taxes paid by the wealthy
The 16th Amendment
The Macomber case article on Justia.com
Historic Tax Bracket data
Time Magazine article on the John Birch Society
Methodist History from January 1988
Discussion Questions:
What are your thoughts on the income tax in general?
How should countries be funded?
Why might a progressive tax structure (where wealthy people pay more) make sense?
How could we close some of these tax loopholes?
What is the difference between income and wealth?
Should we tax wealth in the USA?

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47 min

About Truce - History of the Christian Church

From the publisher's feed

Truce explores the history of the evangelical church in America, from fundamentalism to pyramid schemes to political campaigns. Host Chris Staron uses journalistic tools to investigate how the church got here and how it can do better.