(00:00:00):
In this episode...

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White evangelicals quite easily have turned the Bible into,

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as I say,

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an inexhaustible well of narratives that legitimize social arrangements that they prefer.

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Come and get it, friends.

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Episode number four, Faith in the Fresh Vibe podcast.

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I am your host, Rohadi, coming at you from Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

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No, we will not become the 51st state.

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Are you nuts?

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This is a serial season called Farewell Evangelicalism.

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This episode carries forward the conversation from episode three,

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which was a conversation on conspiracy theory.

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We're going to take it a step further now and make sense of how you apply

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conspiracy theory to form and shape evangelicals as a whole.

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Because evangelicals, it's a wide group.

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There are no set beliefs,

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yet somehow it's possible to take the vast majority and have them believe in the

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same things.

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How do you do it?

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Propaganda.

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That's where we're going in this episode featuring the voices of Scott Coley and D.L.

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Mayfield.

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Now,

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why are we spending so much time on conspiracy theories,

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which was episode three,

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and propaganda,

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which is episode three,

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definitely this episode,

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and a little bit of episode five as well.

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Once we learn the how and why conservative Christians buy into damaging beliefs and

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theologies that harm vulnerable people and themselves,

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connecting them to the political aspirations that seek to preserve the power of

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white supremacy and patriarchy,

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Folks still in,

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leaving,

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or who have left evangelical church traditions will develop the language to make

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sense of all the weird as you pursue your ultimate freedom and liberation.

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We begin the episode with Scott Coley,

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who will share excerpts from his research,

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also available in Book Farm,

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called Ministers of Propaganda.

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The conversation then shifts gears in the second half with one of the most powerful

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examples of effective propaganda.

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The organization?

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It's called Focus on the Family.

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Bringing their research and expertise will be D.L.

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Mayfield.

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Now, content warning.

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The second half deals with child abuse because it's focused on the family.

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It also has a ton of swearing, just in case you're listening and suddenly an F-bomb drops.

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But after all,

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if you're more offended by swearing than focus on the family,

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you're in the right place,

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but you got some work to do.

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Let's jump straight in with this conversation with Scott Coley.

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My name is Scott Coley.

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I have a PhD in philosophy and I was on the philosophy faculty at a liberal arts

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college for about 10 years.

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And so I'm an author, a professor and a consultant.

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And I've recently written a book called Ministers of Propaganda,

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Truth,

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Power and the Ideology of the Religious Right.

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I live in central Pennsylvania,

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which is an area that came to be inhabited by the Susquehannock Indians in and

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around the 16th century.

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Now,

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if you remember from episode one,

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I made a joke about the scandal of the evangelical mind,

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which isn't a joke at all.

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It's the title of a book.

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We start our conversation by bringing it up again.

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it had some insight where i don't think i think it was written in 94 or something i

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was like oh my this book could have been written now this was like what 20 that's

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25 years isn't it yeah so herman's actually just released a new edition of it oh

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with like new data

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No, no, no, there was no data that I mean, that's sort of the point.

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There's no data.

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I mean, the central argument book is still salient.

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Now,

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I mean,

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we could,

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you know,

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I mean,

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there are discussions to be had about whether the book deals adequately with sort

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of social aspects of things.

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social practices, which is something that my book deals with.

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I mean,

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the book was pretty,

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it was regarded as pretty unsparing and hard-edged when it came out.

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Now,

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if you remember from episode one,

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the reason why we're interrogating evangelicalism and conservative Christianity is

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because they are the largest religious voting bloc in America and hold a lot of sway.

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Their beliefs are also exported.

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So Canadian evangelicals also don't have a unique thought.

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They import their beliefs from America largely.

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American evangelicalism is exported all across the world.

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So we need to break down the evangelical mind to ascertain how we were brought to

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this point of chaos.

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I think that's a great place to situate the argument to the book and to sort of

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contrast my argument with,

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let's say,

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an argument that I would have made,

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say,

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10 years ago if I had set out to analyze the kinds of problems that I pick up in

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the book.

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So one way of putting the basic problem that I try to analyze is why is it that so

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many conservative white evangelicals appear to inhabit an alternate reality?

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Yeah, sure.

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And if I had if I had written this book,

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say,

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10 or so years ago,

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I probably would have said something like this.

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Conservative white evangelicals here after I'll just say evangelicals.

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And by the way, I mean, in the American context.

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Probably what I would have said a decade ago is something like this.

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Evangelicals favor problematic social arrangements and political policies,

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morally problematic policies,

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because they're just not thinking clearly about,

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for example,

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the moral salience of institutions.

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They tend to focus on individual morality, individual piety, this kind of thing.

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And they don't think, for example, about the moral valence of, say, economic institutions and

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Or institutional injustice, this kind of thing.

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And that's a big – that's the problem.

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That's a big part of the problem in evangelicalism.

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Now, I still think that's true.

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I haven't abandoned that idea.

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But what I've come to recognize in researching this project and just sort of seeing

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what goes on the last decade or so is that that is an incomplete picture of what's

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going on.

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Yes,

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it's true that evangelicals favor morally problematic policies and social

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arrangements because they're not thinking clearly.

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But it's also true,

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and it's equally important to notice,

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that part of the reason that evangelicals aren't thinking clearly is because they

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favor problematic policies and social arrangements.

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In other words, there's a feedback loop between belief and practice.

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Yes, it's true.

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That bad belief leads to bad practices,

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but it's also true that bad practices lead to bad beliefs.

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And this feedback loop is what I call ideology.

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An ideology sort of exists within a kind of ecosystem, right?

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You don't find ideology in a vacuum.

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Any ideology exists.

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is based around some kind of social hierarchy.

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And that hierarchy could be based in race,

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could be based in gender,

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economics,

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some combination of the three,

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something else.

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As it happens, I talk about all three of those in my book.

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But ideology is based around perpetuating and propping up some kind of social hierarchy,

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whatever that hierarchy is.

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Human beings in the face of some kind of social hierarchy have a tendency to

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construct what we call legitimizing narratives.

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And a legitimizing narrative is what it sounds like.

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It's a narrative that legitimizes, in this case, some kind of social hierarchy.

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In the absence of a legitimizing narrative, social hierarchy is just a hierarchy.

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It's just some people have wealth, power, power.

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privilege and so on, and other people are subjugated, disenfranchised, and impoverished.

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And without a legitimizing narrative, people tend to find these kinds of things unacceptable.

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You know, why do these people get to have stuff and these people don't?

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Why do these people have power and these people are subjugated?

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So a legitimizing narrative comes in and it provides a moral justification for

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whatever the preferred social hierarchy is.

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So you have at the center of ideology, you have a social hierarchy that

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And then you could think of it sort of in concentric circles.

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You've got a hierarchy and then you've got a legitimizing narrative that explains

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why the hierarchy is legitimate.

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And this is an important part of the feedback loop between belief and practice, right?

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So look at a prime example of this kind of feedback loop that involves legitimizing

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narrative would be something like the interplay between racial segregation and

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white supremacy,

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say,

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in the middle of the 20th century.

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Which isn't to say that this doesn't exist anymore, right?

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It's just to say that it was particularly clear at that moment and explicit,

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say,

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in the Jim Crow South.

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I mean,

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this was happening all over the U.S.,

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but just to take it a particularly explicit example,

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let's say the Jim Crow South in the first half of the 20th century.

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You have a belief,

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white supremacy,

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that leads to a particular kind of practice,

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namely racial segregation.

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Right.

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The consequences of which appear to justify the original belief in white supremacy, right?

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Because of course,

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if you bar people of color from accessing the accoutrement of wealth and success

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via racial segregation,

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then that's going to appear to confirm white superiority.

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Never mind that you're establishing social conditions that guarantee this

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particular kind of outcome.

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Okay, well, what's the legitimizing narrative?

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Why say that,

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you know,

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apart from these sort of consequences that are cited in support of white superiority,

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what evangelicals did was they went to the Bible to justify,

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to provide legitimizing narratives that were meant to morally justify racial segregation.

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And there's a whole history there of interpretation in,

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you know,

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the book of Genesis,

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for example,

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going back to theological justifications for race-based shadow slavery.

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So a central line of argument in my book is that white evangelicals have

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effectively turned the Bible into an inexhaustible well.

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of legitimizing narratives that prop up and perpetuate social arrangements that

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benefit themselves,

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often to the detriment of historically marginalized groups.

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Let's continue with the pillars because you have ideology,

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but then you roll ideology into the mechanism onto,

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you know,

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bringing folks into the subculture and you name it as propaganda.

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Right.

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So propaganda comes in many different forms.

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You find propaganda in film, in other kinds of art, in oration.

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I deal with a particular kind of propaganda in my book,

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and that is rhetoric that appeals to some ideal.

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could be an intellectual ideal, a moral ideal, political ideal, theological ideal.

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It's rhetoric that appeals to some ideal in service to an agenda that undermines

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that very ideal.

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So I'll give you a couple of examples.

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One example would be the way in which the defender of chattel slavery in the Antebellum South

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appealed to the political ideal of liberty in defense of race based shadow slavery.

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This perhaps sounds absurd to you.

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I hope it does.

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It should.

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Right.

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But as I say, these things exist in an ecosystem.

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So propaganda is couched within ideology.

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So according to the ideology of white supremacy on which this institution of race

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based shadow slavery was based.

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Some people owned property and some people were property.

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And so outlawing slavery,

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abolishing slavery was tantamount to depriving some people of the liberty to own a

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certain kind of property,

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which just happened to be other human beings.

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I mean,

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we now recognize,

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of course,

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that,

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and it was recognized at the time,

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that one of the principal arguments against the institution of chattel slavery was

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race-based or otherwise,

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one of the principal arguments against chattel slavery is that it violates the

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political ideal of liberty by depriving people of their liberty.

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But if,

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within a particular ideology,

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one can appropriate,

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you know,

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a particular ideal,

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in this case the ideal of liberty,

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I mean,

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what makes this kind of propaganda so potent is that if I can appropriate that ideal,

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then you don't get to use it to argue against my position,

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right?

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Because liberty is on my side.

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Same thing with – to take another example that I discuss at length in the book

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because I think it's really important to the deterioration of evangelicals'

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perception of reality –

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I asked Scott to give us another example,

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and now we turn the page to fundamentalism,

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who are not that different than evangelicals,

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at least for our purposes here.

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So again, you have an ideal.

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That is appealed to in service of an agenda that undermines that very ideal

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creation science evokes the ideal of scientific rigor scientific method science

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it's science right in service to a set of institutions and industry and agenda the

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whole purpose of which is to undermine legitimate science.

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Because they've appropriated that ideal,

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you know,

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that sort of lay observer,

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particularly one who's already inclined to this kind of ideology,

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they say,

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well,

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you've got creation scientists and then,

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you know,

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sort of conventional establishment scientists and they disagree about science-y stuff.

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You know, who's to say who's right?

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I guess I'm just going to go with the people I am inclined to agree with.

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You know, but it's just scientists arguing with each other.

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When in fact, it's not scientists arguing with each other.

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They're scientists, and there's the creation science industry that aims to undermine science.

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Now it's time for more specifics.

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What is it about white evangelicalism that makes them so susceptible to all of

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these malformed inputs?

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It's, as I say, ideology, legitimizing narratives, propaganda.

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Another important factor here is what's called motivated reasoning.

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Motivated reasoning, again, I mean, it's sort of what it sounds like.

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It's reasoning that is motivated by one's self-interest.

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It's the reason why we expect judges and referees to be neutral.

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We expect judges to recuse themselves and

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from cases where their material interests might be impacted by the outcome of a given case.

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Not because we assume that the judge lacks integrity.

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Maybe the judge has integrity, maybe they don't.

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But the point is that even a judge that has integrity...

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shouldn't preside over a case that affects their material interests because your

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very perception of reality is subject to the effects of motivated reasoning.

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So you've got a social hierarchy that benefits certain people.

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You've got legitimizing narratives.

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which I argue white evangelicals tend to take from the resources of Christian theology,

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that's influenced by motivated reasoning.

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Motivated reasoning prompts us to accept legitimizing narratives that are actually

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quite shoddy and unsupported,

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right?

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Why does anyone believe that this is true?

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Well, because they want it to be true, because it benefits them, right?

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Yeah, the material benefit there is the linchpin of,

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I mean,

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I can't think,

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I suppose that there would be some additional intersections there beyond the

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material benefit.

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But man.

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Well, it could be any kind of benefit.

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And it could even be a way of justifying the,

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you know,

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let's say the wealth that you already have.

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An important thing that's going on here is a method of biblical interpretation that

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I call the hermeneutics of legitimization.

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This is the means by which white evangelicals pull legitimizing narratives out of the Bible.

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And the hermeneutics of legitimization has, I argue, three pillars that tend to show up.

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One is proof texting.

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I don't think I need to tell you what that, your listener, what that is, right?

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You know, taking a passage out of context to suit a particular purpose.

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But you've got proof texting.

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That's one pillar.

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Another is what I call motivated literalism.

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And the idea there that that sort of evokes motivated reasoning,

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but motivated literalism is when you read the Bible and what you claim is the

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plainest sort of most straightforward sense.

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But only when doing so, but only when doing so doesn't threaten your material interests.

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So motivated literalism,

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that's the reason why someone like John MacArthur insists that you have to read the

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first few chapters of Genesis to mean that the earth was created in six 24-hour

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days a few thousand years ago.

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But then when it comes to Christ's admonitions about wealth,

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all of a sudden things get very complicated,

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right?

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It's a lot of interpretation.

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Very contextual.

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If you want to have your mind blown, right?

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I mean, just look at the way that John MacArthur reads the parable of the Good Samaritan.

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But spoiler alert, when Christ says go and do likewise, he doesn't actually mean that.

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But Genesis 1 and 2 are perfectly simple.

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And the third pillar,

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so you've got proof texting,

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motivated literalism,

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and finally,

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and this is key,

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is the paradigm of authority and submission.

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So when you approach a text, one of the questions you have to ask is, what is this about?

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What is this text about?

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What is this book about?

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What is this...

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Whatever.

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What is it about?

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And according to the paradigm of authority and submission,

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one of the central questions that the Bible sets out to answer is which humans

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should have power and which humans should submit?

(00:19:25):
And so you combine those three things, right?

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Yeah.

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proof texting, motivated literalism, and the paradigm of authority and submission.

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And you can see how white evangelicals quite easily have turned the Bible into,

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as I say,

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an inexhaustible well of narratives that legitimize social arrangements that they prefer.

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So easy.

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Yeah.

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I mean,

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how could you not do that when that's how you read the Bible or any text for that matter?

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Any text,

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you could apply these components here,

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and now it becomes dangerous when you can use these pieces to push ahead such an

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obtuse yet powerful set of,

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not merely reasons,

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but you can mobilize folks towards malformed power and do what you need to do to

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keep it.

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Right.

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And as I argue in the last chapter of the book,

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I think a common perception is that the problem with

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fundamentalism is that it's too rigid because,

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you know,

(00:20:36):
fundamentalists,

(00:20:38):
yeah,

(00:20:38):
I mean,

(00:20:39):
I think it's fair to say the perception is that fundamentalists are just too

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dogmatic and rigid about things.

(00:20:44):
Fundamentalists tend to be rigid, but I think we need to couch that, right?

(00:20:49):
In an understanding of this sort of technique of knowledge that's at play here, right?

(00:20:53):
I would argue the problem with fundamentalism is that infinitely flexible, right?

(00:20:56):
Because you can make the Bible say whatever you want.

(00:20:59):
And the trouble with fundamentalism,

(00:21:01):
right,

(00:21:01):
is that they decide that the Bible says a particular thing that happens to be self-serving,

(00:21:05):
and then that serves as a pretext to not change your mind in the face of moral argument.

(00:21:11):
As you were describing these components,

(00:21:13):
it's easy to lose a sense of hope,

(00:21:16):
especially when you think about a loved one who may be part of that world.

(00:21:21):
It sounds like a cycle that can't be broken.

(00:21:24):
It's that nefarious.

(00:21:26):
It's so effective in that sense.

(00:21:29):
How would you describe solutions?

(00:21:33):
How does one get out of the feedback loop or even simply become alert to the feedback loop?

(00:21:42):
Everyone is susceptible to the pull of ideology.

(00:21:48):
motivated reasoning and so on.

(00:21:50):
So I think there are sort of two questions here, right?

(00:21:53):
One of which is,

(00:21:54):
how can you know that,

(00:21:55):
you know,

(00:21:55):
let's say you're more progressive on the political left or liberal or however you

(00:21:59):
want to put it,

(00:21:59):
right?

(00:22:00):
How do you know you're not doing the exact same thing that people on the other side

(00:22:03):
are doing,

(00:22:03):
right?

(00:22:04):
That's an easy criticism.

(00:22:05):
Right, right.

(00:22:06):
To that, I would say this.

(00:22:07):
I would say,

(00:22:08):
look,

(00:22:08):
we're all susceptible to these dynamics,

(00:22:10):
but there's at least one important difference between what I'm doing and what the

(00:22:14):
people I'm arguing against do.

(00:22:16):
And that difference is this.

(00:22:18):
The kinds of social arrangements and political policies that I advocate for don't

(00:22:22):
benefit me materially.

(00:22:24):
That's not to say that you're necessarily wrong.

(00:22:28):
Let's say you're a member of a group who's suffered injustice.

(00:22:31):
Yeah.

(00:22:32):
Yeah.

(00:22:32):
Right.

(00:22:33):
But even then,

(00:22:33):
I think the pull of the moral argument is not,

(00:22:36):
you know,

(00:22:36):
look at me,

(00:22:37):
look at how you're treating me.

(00:22:38):
Right.

(00:22:38):
So, I mean, Dr. Martin Luther King, he didn't go around talking about how he'd been wrong.

(00:22:42):
Right.

(00:22:43):
He was I don't know.

(00:22:44):
Maybe he did.

(00:22:45):
I haven't.

(00:22:46):
You know, obviously, I don't know all the remarks that he ever made.

(00:22:48):
But the force of his argument was that he was arguing on behalf of a group of

(00:22:53):
people that were being that were subject to.

(00:22:59):
So,

(00:22:59):
yeah,

(00:23:00):
I mean,

(00:23:01):
in that case,

(00:23:01):
it may be that the demands of justice just happen to serve one's own interests.

(00:23:06):
But the point is not that it's serving one's interests.

(00:23:09):
The point is that it's about justice.

(00:23:12):
That ties very neatly,

(00:23:13):
I think,

(00:23:14):
into what I would say about how to become attuned to how these different factors

(00:23:20):
may contribute to one's perception of the world.

(00:23:22):
Yeah.

(00:23:23):
And that would be this.

(00:23:24):
There are sort of two threads that I don't really state them explicitly, right?

(00:23:29):
But I think they sort of run through the book,

(00:23:31):
and I think they sort of come out of the arguments of the book,

(00:23:36):
one theological and one more political.

(00:23:39):
And I've had more conservative friends who've read the book suggest to me that they

(00:23:43):
find this compelling.

(00:23:45):
And I don't want to oversell it, right?

(00:23:46):
We're not talking about hard rights.

(00:23:49):
But we're talking about,

(00:23:50):
you know,

(00:23:51):
we're talking about that one who is sincerely working out their faith with fear and trembling,

(00:23:58):
and who sincerely desires to follow Christ and emulate the example of Christ,

(00:24:04):
should find the following kinds of

(00:24:08):
So the theological argument is basically this.

(00:24:12):
If you are a Christ follower and you sit down to read the Bible and you

(00:24:17):
consistently come away with interpretations of the text according to which you're

(00:24:24):
doing everything right and you should have all the wealth and power and the people

(00:24:28):
who disagree with you are all wrong and they should be poor and subjugated,

(00:24:31):
you're probably not reading the Bible correctly.

(00:24:34):
That's not a good way to use the Bible or read the Bible.

(00:24:38):
And the second point is this.

(00:24:42):
And it's a similar point to do with politics.

(00:24:44):
When you go into the voting booth,

(00:24:46):
you could imagine a couple different kinds of motivation for voting in this or that way.

(00:24:52):
One motivation is this.

(00:24:53):
And sadly, I think this is sort of an assumption of American politics, what everyone's doing.

(00:24:59):
And I don't blame the Christians for this.

(00:25:00):
I don't blame Christian nationalists for this.

(00:25:02):
Most Americans tend to think that way.

(00:25:04):
That's a longer conversation, a deeper problem in our polity.

(00:25:08):
Though...

(00:25:09):
Christians are certainly complicit in it.

(00:25:11):
Anyway, one kind of motivation is this.

(00:25:14):
You ask yourself,

(00:25:14):
which politician or party or platform is going to enact policies that benefit me

(00:25:20):
and people like me?

(00:25:21):
And then you vote for that person.

(00:25:22):
So we're all just a bunch of different special interest groups.

(00:25:25):
As I say, Christians are definitely in the United States.

(00:25:29):
Conservative evangelicals are certainly complicit in viewing politics this way.

(00:25:33):
But I wouldn't say that they're sort of responsible for this situation.

(00:25:37):
It's just but it's not a good situation.

(00:25:40):
And they've certainly had a hand in exacerbating the problem.

(00:25:44):
Here's a very different motivation that might inform your thinking politically.

(00:25:48):
You go into the voting booth and you ask yourself,

(00:25:51):
which politician or party or platform is going to bring our laws and public

(00:25:56):
policies and economic institutions into greater conformity with the objective truth

(00:26:03):
about what people deserve and what we owe to each other?

(00:26:07):
In other words, justice, and then voting for that.

(00:26:12):
I would argue that that is what Christians ought to be doing.

(00:26:16):
And in fact, we're well positioned to set an example for our fellow citizens.

(00:26:22):
Thank you very much, Scott, for sharing your expertise on propaganda.

(00:26:37):
We've spent two episodes now naming systems.

(00:26:41):
It's time for us to pull apart an actual organization that is conducting the harm,

(00:26:48):
something that is recognizable.

(00:26:50):
And unfortunately,

(00:26:52):
the name of the organization is so prolific because it has proliferated across

(00:26:58):
North America and the world.

(00:27:00):
Anywhere conservative Christianity touches, focus on the family is there.

(00:27:07):
I invite D.L.

(00:27:08):
Mayfield to come and share a little bit about their research around the

(00:27:13):
strong-willed child,

(00:27:15):
about all things James fucking Dodson.

(00:27:36):
Hi,

(00:27:37):
I'm DL Mayfield and I am located in the traditional lands of the Cascades and

(00:27:44):
Cowlitz tribes,

(00:27:47):
otherwise known as the outer southeast part of Portland,

(00:27:52):
Oregon.

(00:27:54):
And I am a writer and a podcaster who is very obsessed with a man named Dr.

(00:28:03):
James Dobson and the parenting principles he kind of spread throughout the world

(00:28:11):
thanks to an organization called Focus on the Family.

(00:28:13):
And I'm, you know, an exvangelical.

(00:28:18):
I have known you a little bit on the mean streets of social media.

(00:28:23):
hey that's my life oh and it's nice to be here like seeing you you like your actual

(00:28:30):
face and chatting with you ditto the pleasure is all mine hello welcome let's talk

(00:28:37):
about james fucking dobson i'll have to put the explicit lyric on on this one i

(00:28:42):
wasn't sure if i should actually say that because you know it could be offensive

(00:28:46):
it's offensive to some but

(00:28:49):
I love swearing.

(00:28:50):
So if you are giving me like the thumbs up to swear, I'm gonna do it.

(00:28:55):
Okay, yeah, I'll just I'll just put explicit on on I think you have to do that.

(00:29:00):
Do you?

(00:29:00):
I don't know.

(00:29:02):
You don't.

(00:29:03):
Yeah, we do that.

(00:29:04):
I will match where you're going.

(00:29:07):
I usually,

(00:29:07):
well,

(00:29:08):
first off,

(00:29:08):
I swear nonstop in my head,

(00:29:11):
but out loud I'll swear more with Christians because Christians don't swear.

(00:29:15):
But for all my friends who do swear, I'm just like, no, I will be the opposite.

(00:29:19):
I don't need to.

(00:29:20):
Yeah.

(00:29:21):
Oh, you have that little thing within you.

(00:29:23):
Yeah.

(00:29:24):
Maybe I should say, it sounds like you have a bit of a strong-willed child in you.

(00:29:30):
And that is the name of my most recent podcast and Substack project.

(00:29:35):
It is actually called Strong-Willed because...

(00:29:38):
You know what is like the most annoying thing to authoritarian dictators?

(00:29:45):
It's people who have a strong will.

(00:29:48):
Why they try to crush early and often political regimes.

(00:29:52):
And it's why they...

(00:29:54):
perpetuate child raising materials that encourage parents to do the same thing.

(00:30:00):
So if you have that bit of a strong willed child in you,

(00:30:02):
which we all do,

(00:30:04):
it's time to nurture that baby.

(00:30:07):
It's time to nurture that strong willed child.

(00:30:09):
This is our moment.

(00:30:11):
This is our time.

(00:30:12):
That's my little message to start off with.

(00:30:16):
Thank you.

(00:30:17):
And outro fate to black.

(00:30:20):
End of episode.

(00:30:22):
Totally.

(00:30:23):
We did it.

(00:30:24):
Affirmations bathe me in affirmations of being a strong-willed child.

(00:30:32):
Now,

(00:30:33):
as we enter into this conversation,

(00:30:35):
I encourage you,

(00:30:36):
dear listener,

(00:30:38):
if you have to pause it because your body recoils from some of the things we are naming,

(00:30:45):
go ahead and do that.

(00:30:47):
Okay, let's jump back in.

(00:30:49):
As we name, focus on the family as a primary tool to disseminate propaganda.

(00:30:59):
Well, I have a few ways.

(00:31:00):
So I've been reading books by Dr. Dobson for many years now.

(00:31:06):
I have been obsessed with white evangelicals for decades now.

(00:31:09):
I was a Christian writer in that world.

(00:31:11):
I was born to an evangelical pastor, was homeschooled, went to a Bible college, got my...

(00:31:21):
fucking degree in like being a colonizer because i did the missions program oh yeah yeah oh

(00:31:31):
It's a lot.

(00:31:33):
That is my background.

(00:31:35):
Eventually, right, I became a progressive Christian.

(00:31:39):
I was like,

(00:31:40):
whoa,

(00:31:41):
none of these people,

(00:31:42):
including my parents,

(00:31:43):
seem to actually care what Jesus said.

(00:31:45):
But I was autistic.

(00:31:46):
I took it very literally being indoctrinated day in and day out to take the words

(00:31:51):
of Jesus seriously.

(00:31:52):
Yeah.

(00:31:53):
And I was like,

(00:31:54):
oh,

(00:31:54):
my God,

(00:31:54):
Jesus is like,

(00:31:55):
let's overthrow,

(00:31:56):
you know,

(00:31:57):
the social order and the poor should be prioritized and the rich should be sent

(00:32:01):
away empty.

(00:32:02):
I'm like, yeah, let's do that.

(00:32:04):
You know, then obviously that right here, mom and dad.

(00:32:08):
And guess what?

(00:32:09):
They didn't give a rat's ass about that.

(00:32:12):
And I had to deal with that.

(00:32:13):
And part of what makes this so difficult to talk about how you were raised,

(00:32:21):
if you were raised in something similar to white evangelicalism,

(00:32:25):
which didn't just impact white people,

(00:32:27):
but...

(00:32:28):
We can get into why it's important for me to name the whiteness at the root of all of this.

(00:32:33):
But if you were raised like this,

(00:32:37):
for one,

(00:32:37):
nobody wants to unpack their childhood just across the board.

(00:32:40):
Nobody wants to be like, hey...

(00:32:44):
Maybe some of that was shitty.

(00:32:46):
Okay.

(00:32:46):
There's just no good reason to do that.

(00:32:50):
Secondly,

(00:32:51):
if you're raised in something like white evangelicalism,

(00:32:55):
if your parents utilize Dr.

(00:32:57):
Dobson methods,

(00:32:59):
there is so much of the propaganda is directly tied to goodness,

(00:33:04):
right?

(00:33:04):
Like we are good people with good morals.

(00:33:07):
Okay.

(00:33:08):
with good parenting strategies.

(00:33:09):
We're close knit and it's like, we're close knit, but really it's controlling.

(00:33:14):
You know,

(00:33:14):
it's,

(00:33:15):
it's like they use so much of,

(00:33:18):
of this language to kind of get it into your head.

(00:33:21):
So my project strong willed is looking at what we,

(00:33:26):
my partner and I,

(00:33:26):
Crispin are calling religious authoritarian parenting methods.

(00:33:30):
And it's really important to keep religious and authoritarian together.

(00:33:35):
Um,

(00:33:36):
But basically, we're looking at materials such as the one that made Dr. James Dobson famous.

(00:33:41):
His first book was published in 1970.

(00:33:43):
It was called Dare to Discipline.

(00:33:47):
And it was basically giving parents in America this advice that if you don't want

(00:33:52):
your kids turning into liberals,

(00:33:54):
if you don't want them protesting in the streets against Vietnam or for civil

(00:33:58):
rights or for the rights of women,

(00:34:01):
then you got to spank the shit out of them.

(00:34:03):
Right?

(00:34:03):
You got to dare to discipline.

(00:34:05):
And when you do that,

(00:34:07):
when you discipline your kids,

(00:34:08):
you tie it directly to your own personal faith in Jesus and God.

(00:34:14):
And you tell your child as you're hurting them, every time they...

(00:34:19):
Assert their will is when Dobson said you had to spank the kid, right?

(00:34:24):
Anytime they assert their will and it's in opposition to the parent's will,

(00:34:27):
you must hurt your child and say,

(00:34:29):
I'm doing this because I love you and I love God.

(00:34:32):
And this is what God does.

(00:34:34):
God punishes those he loves.

(00:34:37):
This is the only way to love you, the only way to help you.

(00:34:42):
So I'm coming to this conversation just knowing like that's the backbone of this

(00:34:48):
whole thing is teaching kids to equate abuse with love and control with love.

(00:34:56):
And if you grow up in that,

(00:34:58):
if you're getting spanked as a two-year-old every time you assert your own will...

(00:35:03):
When you get older, you don't remember that.

(00:35:05):
Actually,

(00:35:06):
like conscious memory starts forming around four and a half,

(00:35:09):
five years old for most people.

(00:35:11):
So you have a lot of folks running around out here who have no memory of this being

(00:35:17):
imprinted into their actual nervous systems and their bodies.

(00:35:21):
But,

(00:35:22):
you know,

(00:35:22):
they've been trained and programmed from birth,

(00:35:25):
not only just to immediately comply with authority and immediately suppress your

(00:35:29):
own will.

(00:35:29):
Right.

(00:35:30):
In the face of authority.

(00:35:32):
They're also like, but this is the best way to do it.

(00:35:35):
And my parents are the most loving people.

(00:35:38):
And the church that taught them to do this is the only place where you can

(00:35:42):
understand morals and goodness.

(00:35:44):
And it's just like, whoa, it's all connected.

(00:35:49):
It's all connected.

(00:35:52):
I think of all the folks who got the ass beat by their parents in the name of God.

(00:35:59):
And I think of now a generation of kids,

(00:36:01):
and there are generations now,

(00:36:03):
but the generation of kids who first came out of that are adults now,

(00:36:07):
have had their own kids.

(00:36:09):
And I don't know if you've tracked the numbers on this, but

(00:36:14):
A lot of folks,

(00:36:15):
A,

(00:36:15):
are in therapy now,

(00:36:17):
but B,

(00:36:17):
completely left their churches as a direct result of the abuse that they endured in

(00:36:25):
the name of God.

(00:36:26):
I don't know about the numbers.

(00:36:28):
I actually think now we can have a conversation about this.

(00:36:32):
I don't think very many people are leaving the church because of abuse they

(00:36:37):
experience as children.

(00:36:38):
I think,

(00:36:39):
again,

(00:36:39):
there's these cultural beliefs that what happened to me couldn't have been abuse.

(00:36:46):
This wasn't child abuse.

(00:36:48):
I just think if you don't come from this background and you read the works of Dr.

(00:36:53):
Dobson,

(00:36:53):
it is abuse.

(00:36:55):
Like, there's no other way to say it.

(00:36:58):
I just think most people I've talked to are not there yet.

(00:37:02):
They tend to leave for other reasons.

(00:37:05):
I will say that with Donald Trump winning a second, you know, presidency in the United States, I

(00:37:15):
The sense I am getting from the culture,

(00:37:17):
and I'm not as plugged in as I used to be online,

(00:37:20):
but the sense I'm getting is...

(00:37:23):
people are leaving now or they've been leaving this whole time.

(00:37:28):
And now they're starting to be like,

(00:37:31):
Oh my God,

(00:37:33):
being nice and trying to like respectfully cater to our parents or our church

(00:37:39):
friends who,

(00:37:40):
who have this ideology,

(00:37:41):
right.

(00:37:42):
That is also rooted in authoritarianism.

(00:37:44):
Like that hasn't worked.

(00:37:45):
We've tried it for eight years.

(00:37:48):
It hasn't worked and we have nothing left to lose anymore because we,

(00:37:51):
A huge pressure that culture puts on us,

(00:37:54):
but also the church,

(00:37:55):
right,

(00:37:55):
is if you say something in a slightly intense way,

(00:38:01):
then you're responsible for how the other person reacts.

(00:38:04):
And we see this playing out politically all the time.

(00:38:06):
Like,

(00:38:06):
oh,

(00:38:07):
leftists,

(00:38:07):
you're being so mean to the conservatives,

(00:38:10):
which is why they voted for Donald Trump.

(00:38:13):
And that threat has been hanging heavy over the heads of people like myself,

(00:38:17):
people who,

(00:38:18):
again,

(00:38:18):
I'm a millennial.

(00:38:19):
I have my own kids.

(00:38:21):
that was a huge wake up call for me.

(00:38:23):
When I started parenting my kids,

(00:38:25):
I was like,

(00:38:26):
Oh,

(00:38:26):
I don't want to do any of the things my parents did for me.

(00:38:30):
And sometimes I wonder, I'm like, if I didn't have kids, would I ever have unpacked that?

(00:38:36):
Yeah.

(00:38:38):
I'm not sure people who can unpack this stuff without going through the process of parenting.

(00:38:42):
I'm like,

(00:38:43):
damn,

(00:38:43):
you are locked in and ready to do some work that sometimes seems to have been

(00:38:49):
thrust upon me just because I had to make choices as a parent myself.

(00:38:53):
And the longer I parented, the more I was like, oh, shit.

(00:38:57):
Oh, no, I think what happened to me wasn't great.

(00:39:00):
You know, nobody wants to think that.

(00:39:03):
We are biologically designed, right, to say my caregiver wants to take care of me.

(00:39:12):
We have to think like that as little kids.

(00:39:14):
There is no alternative.

(00:39:16):
Right.

(00:39:17):
is existential terror.

(00:39:19):
If you are a small child and you are like, wow, my parent is not taking care of me.

(00:39:23):
So we are just biologically designed to do anything in our power as children to

(00:39:28):
connect with our caregivers and believe that they have our best interests at heart.

(00:39:32):
And the weird thing is Dr.

(00:39:35):
Dobson was a child psychologist and he knew that and he exploited that.

(00:39:39):
And so he kind of taught this way of abusing kids where it wouldn't set off any red flags.

(00:39:45):
Yeah.

(00:39:46):
Because he's like, we're spanking in a really logical and calm manner.

(00:39:49):
You're explaining to your kid why you're doing it.

(00:39:52):
You're not just like beating the shit out of your kid for no reason.

(00:39:56):
Like you tell them why you do it every single time.

(00:39:59):
And at the end of you hurting them,

(00:40:00):
you actually make them hug you and tell you how much they love you and how thankful

(00:40:05):
they are for that correction.

(00:40:06):
Yeah.

(00:40:07):
Like this is so great and there's no ill effects on kids at all.

(00:40:13):
That's not true for one, but he said a lot of not true things.

(00:40:17):
And so he's actually like embedding this psychological response where the kid has

(00:40:24):
to say thank you for their abuse like every time.

(00:40:29):
And really internalize the idea that at their court, they are bad and deserving of punishment.

(00:40:36):
Right.

(00:40:37):
Now, this gets into why were Dr. Dobson, he was a child psychologist.

(00:40:42):
He really wanted the white patriarchy to continue on,

(00:40:46):
was really upset about all the social progress movements in the 1960s.

(00:40:51):
In the beginning,

(00:40:51):
he didn't talk about God a ton and then eventually,

(00:40:55):
right,

(00:40:55):
becomes this guru of Christians.

(00:40:58):
And that's because his number one thing is kids need to be punished because they're sinful,

(00:41:05):
because they're bad,

(00:41:07):
because left to their own devices,

(00:41:10):
they become tyrants,

(00:41:11):
dictators,

(00:41:12):
all these things.

(00:41:13):
And that found a home in Christian theology, right, which has this idea of original sin, right?

(00:41:20):
And then we're off to the races.

(00:41:22):
And his original book, Dare to Discipline, was so successful.

(00:41:27):
It sold so many millions of copies,

(00:41:29):
right,

(00:41:30):
that he was able basically to jumpstart Christian publishing as we know it and then

(00:41:35):
start an organization called Focus on the Family.

(00:41:37):
So my big thing is like,

(00:41:40):
Everybody loves to argue about what is an evangelical,

(00:41:42):
you know,

(00:41:43):
like even in America,

(00:41:44):
we're still trying to figure that out.

(00:41:46):
And I'm like all these churches across America.

(00:41:49):
And I know this made its way to Canada as well.

(00:41:52):
Thanks to Christian publishing.

(00:41:54):
Thanks to these, you know, apparatuses that Dobson, that Dobson.

(00:41:58):
So Dobson focused on radio and print media, right?

(00:42:01):
Yeah.

(00:42:03):
These things mean he can disseminate his message throughout the world, throughout America.

(00:42:07):
If you look at all these evangelical churches in the United States,

(00:42:11):
and I bet in Canada too,

(00:42:13):
right?

(00:42:13):
There's a lot of theological differences people have,

(00:42:16):
but they probably all parented their kids the same way.

(00:42:19):
They probably all focused on the need for corporal punishment or

(00:42:23):
for instilling, you know, discipline and respect for godly authority, right?

(00:42:30):
And tying that to your Christian religion.

(00:42:32):
And so I think that this is just such an understudied part of what makes an

(00:42:37):
evangelical an evangelical.

(00:42:39):
It's like, how do you discipline and indoctrinate your child is like the core root of it.

(00:42:46):
And it's just not being talked about enough.

(00:42:48):
Like the reason I think it's so important to focus on someone like Dr.

(00:42:53):
Dobson,

(00:42:54):
the first half of his life.

(00:42:56):
Right.

(00:42:56):
He was this child psychologist, this marriage and family therapist.

(00:43:00):
Right.

(00:43:00):
Giving advice.

(00:43:03):
And then the second half of his life,

(00:43:04):
he becomes basically the most prolific right wing political lobbyist the United

(00:43:10):
States has ever seen.

(00:43:12):
I do not have enough time to list out every political lobbying organization he has started,

(00:43:18):
been on the board of,

(00:43:20):
helped found.

(00:43:21):
I can't list out all the anti-LGBTQ plus bills that he personally helped concede to fruition.

(00:43:28):
So he has been so successful.

(00:43:30):
And the child psychology is directly related to the political activism.

(00:43:36):
And he basically...

(00:43:38):
gave parents these tools that would create a population for him that would be

(00:43:42):
predisposed to gleefully and loudly and proudly usher in a Christian authoritarian leader.

(00:43:50):
And that's exactly what happened.

(00:43:52):
That's exactly, you know, he got his wish that he has been gunning for from the 1960s.

(00:43:58):
In his office, he has this picture of Winston Churchill.

(00:44:03):
This is when he was, you know, still the head of folks in the family.

(00:44:06):
Yeah.

(00:44:08):
And he views himself as the Winston Churchill of America.

(00:44:13):
I think that's an important thing to say.

(00:44:14):
He's like, I never ran for office.

(00:44:18):
I never did any of these things where people could pinpoint it on me,

(00:44:23):
but I will go down as history as someone who saved America.

(00:44:29):
And by that, he means a white, patriarchal America.

(00:44:32):
He says, I will go down in history as,

(00:44:36):
by abusing and indoctrinating children and then implementing a right-wing Christian

(00:44:42):
authoritarian theocracy.

(00:44:44):
And it's like, wow, he did both.

(00:44:45):
He actually did both of those things.

(00:44:47):
Look at us now.

(00:44:49):
Let's talk about it.

(00:44:49):
Made it.

(00:44:51):
Hey, we're indoctrinated people, okay?

(00:44:55):
Here's where the autonomy piece is very interesting to me.

(00:44:59):
It's not that we're suckers.

(00:45:01):
It's that...

(00:45:03):
the psychological impact of what happens to you as a child like is real that

(00:45:08):
doesn't mean we can't overcome it um and actually that's why his second book was

(00:45:13):
called the strong-willed child because parents kept reaching out to him and were

(00:45:17):
like we're doing everything you say and we still have this one kid in our family

(00:45:22):
who no matter how much we spank them no matter how much we shame them right they

(00:45:26):
won't

(00:45:27):
obey us and so then he was like yeah there's this like type of kid called the

(00:45:32):
strong-willed kid that needs extra discipline and so he wrote a whole book about

(00:45:39):
the strong-willed children and I think that's where our real power is it's it's not

(00:45:45):
that like some kids are just strong-willed I think

(00:45:49):
probably more accurate description is like there's some kids who their nervous

(00:45:53):
system response is the fight response and that's the most intense one that gets

(00:45:58):
triggered where others have fight I mean I just said fight others have freeze or

(00:46:04):
fawn or flee so you dissociate or you numb out or you acquiesce and act like

(00:46:11):
they're the best people ever as like a survival mechanism or you peace out you know

(00:46:16):
there's all these different ways to respond but

(00:46:19):
I think that's so interesting is he knew...

(00:46:22):
It doesn't work on everyone.

(00:46:23):
And authoritarian governments know that as well,

(00:46:25):
which is why in the beginning they try and punish people.

(00:46:29):
Right now in the United States,

(00:46:30):
we're seeing this happen with the trans community and we're seeing this happen with

(00:46:33):
the immigrant community.

(00:46:34):
They're trying to punish both of these communities very visibly because,

(00:46:39):
you know,

(00:46:40):
both of them are supposedly threats,

(00:46:43):
right?

(00:46:43):
And they kind of are.

(00:46:44):
They're threats to white patriarchal norms.

(00:46:46):
So I guess I get that.

(00:46:47):
But they're trying to make an example and punish these strong-willed people

(00:46:51):
you know, individuals.

(00:46:53):
The truth is,

(00:46:54):
it's like,

(00:46:55):
yeah,

(00:46:55):
there's some of us,

(00:46:56):
it's like,

(00:46:56):
well,

(00:46:57):
you can beat us all you want,

(00:46:58):
but we're still going to keep being who we are.

(00:47:01):
You know,

(00:47:01):
he had this whole thing built into his system where it's like,

(00:47:05):
if a kid doesn't respond well to my

(00:47:08):
punishing methods, there's something horribly wrong with them.

(00:47:11):
Later on, he'll tell parents, you just weren't controlling enough.

(00:47:14):
You just didn't punish enough.

(00:47:16):
And that's why your child eventually left the faith or didn't vote for a Republican or whatever.

(00:47:21):
But it's kind of a neat trick he had to blame everybody except for his abusive system.

(00:47:28):
Here's the thing with abusive systems and one like focus on the family that has

(00:47:34):
existed for half a century is

(00:47:37):
There's collateral damage.

(00:47:40):
Now we are seeing the impact,

(00:47:42):
the consequences of generations of parents using Focus on the Family tools to raise

(00:47:50):
their kids,

(00:47:51):
many of whom no longer adhere to the Christian faith because of the abuse that they incurred.

(00:47:59):
One of the consequences that you may have noticed is

(00:48:03):
Is the adult children now becoming estranged from their parents?

(00:48:10):
We end this podcast with the question around estrangement.

(00:48:16):
Yeah, I think we just... Yeah, we've put out three podcasts now about estrangement.

(00:48:22):
And they have, you know, by far been the most listened to things we've ever put out.

(00:48:28):
And we've been podcasting for like eight years.

(00:48:31):
And we weren't even aware of this because you don't get a ton of feedback on podcasts.

(00:48:35):
But like, just the sheer amount of people who are downloading them and listening.

(00:48:39):
I was like, whoa, this is obviously hitting a nerve, which...

(00:48:43):
again,

(00:48:43):
I'm sort of thinking is related to this sort of sense I'm getting from people,

(00:48:51):
which is like,

(00:48:52):
okay,

(00:48:53):
if the gloves are off,

(00:48:54):
the gloves are off,

(00:48:55):
right?

(00:48:55):
If this is actually happening, what else do we have to lose?

(00:49:01):
This is a sentiment I've heard from multiple people.

(00:49:03):
What else do I have to lose at this point?

(00:49:07):
Because for many of us,

(00:49:10):
Trying to be in relationship with people in our lives who are all in on Christian

(00:49:16):
fascist ideology,

(00:49:18):
it's exhausting.

(00:49:20):
And you actually don't have the energy to invest in the communities that are

(00:49:24):
working towards the kind of world you want to.

(00:49:27):
to live in if you're spending all of your time making christian fascists feel like

(00:49:33):
good people that is the pressure they are putting on their children that is the

(00:49:38):
pressure they're putting on anyone who maybe is like hey and so it's this

(00:49:43):
incredible amount of pressure which again ties back to these childhood experiences

(00:49:48):
of being hurt by your parents and

(00:49:50):
you have to end it by saying, I love you, mom and dad.

(00:49:54):
I know you did this for my own good, right?

(00:49:56):
And you're supposed to be grateful and kind of never puncture that image of I'm a

(00:50:02):
really good person because I'm a Christian narrative.

(00:50:05):
Now that narrative is being pummeled in so many ways.

(00:50:09):
And so people are on high alert.

(00:50:11):
And then when it comes a bit from their kids, it's just kind of some explosive stuff can happen.

(00:50:18):
But I think people are finally at the point where it's like,

(00:50:21):
Wow.

(00:50:22):
Like, I don't have anything else to lose because we don't actually have a relationship.

(00:50:26):
Our parents,

(00:50:28):
if they're still all in on this ideology,

(00:50:30):
they don't want to know who we are as people.

(00:50:33):
And that was never the goal.

(00:50:35):
The goal was you will...

(00:50:38):
comply to this role you were assigned at birth because again this is a white

(00:50:42):
supremacist patriarchal movement so if you are born female you have some very

(00:50:49):
specific roles to fulfill if you're born male you have some very specific roles to

(00:50:53):
fulfill and then it kind of extrapolates from there but the republican identity is

(00:50:57):
really important the always being obedient part is very important and then the

(00:51:02):
gender norms of whatever you know sex you're assigned at birth are so important and

(00:51:06):
a lot of people are like

(00:51:09):
I do not have the energy to do this anymore.

(00:51:11):
I'm a real person with real thoughts, real feelings, my own gender and sexual identity, right?

(00:51:19):
Like my own political views.

(00:51:22):
And all of that is such a threat to our parents if they come from this kind of system.

(00:51:28):
And so I think that's where people are like, life is too short to keep doing this.

(00:51:34):
Like I deserve to be loved for who I am.

(00:51:39):
And you know what?

(00:51:40):
Every kid fucking deserves that.

(00:51:43):
To be loved for who they are.

(00:51:45):
If you are born into something like white evangelicalism, that is not what you get.

(00:51:51):
And that is not the express purpose of it at all.

(00:51:54):
You are supposed to replicate your parents' ideology.

(00:51:58):
That is the number one role you're supposed to play in the world.

(00:52:01):
And I just think, oh my God, if we're going to talk about like what comes next...

(00:52:07):
where liberation is i'm like liberation is where children aren't being abused where

(00:52:13):
children are seen and loved for who they are and protected from folks who would

(00:52:18):
abuse them and try and put them into these very rigid narrow boxes just to uphold a

(00:52:25):
white supremacist patriarchy like no this is the future of liberation is we have to

(00:52:31):
stop abusing children and i know this is gonna make people uncomfortable but like

(00:52:37):
The Christian church in America in particular is like the biggest supporter of

(00:52:44):
child abuse because it carries on its political and patriarchal aims.

(00:52:50):
And I'm like, we've got to interrupt this.

(00:52:52):
And again, I know why people don't want to talk about it.

(00:52:57):
In the future, there's no reason to hit your kid.

(00:53:00):
There's no reason to hit your kid to get them to do what you want them to do.

(00:53:05):
Like the research has been showing us this from the 1950s.

(00:53:09):
So Dr. Dobson was well aware of all the research, right, about how damaging it is to kids.

(00:53:16):
when you use corporal punishment on them.

(00:53:18):
There's so many horrible ramifications.

(00:53:21):
Some of it is actually tied to child sexual abuse, which I don't think we can get into in here.

(00:53:26):
But then there's also this component of hurting your kid and making your kid afraid

(00:53:31):
of you,

(00:53:32):
you know,

(00:53:32):
in order to get them to obey.

(00:53:34):
It impacts the gray matter of their brain.

(00:53:37):
And you know what some of the outcomes are when you're

(00:53:40):
Grey matter is impacted in childhood.

(00:53:43):
It makes you more likely to commit to a high-control religion.

(00:53:47):
It makes you paranoid.

(00:53:50):
It gives you apocalyptic tendencies and fantasies.

(00:53:53):
Like...

(00:53:55):
You can look at what's going on in society and be like,

(00:53:58):
almost everything we're seeing happen in society is actually one of the outcomes

(00:54:02):
that comes from people being abused in childhood,

(00:54:06):
being spanked in childhood.

(00:54:08):
And then when you add on the spanking plus the religious component,

(00:54:12):
I'm doing this because God says,

(00:54:14):
it gets even worse.

(00:54:16):
yeah worse and gets people who are easily manipulated right to say this is what i

(00:54:22):
deserve this is actually what i long for and you know tucker carlson all these

(00:54:26):
people this is what's right calling trump daddy trump you know daddy don come to

(00:54:31):
spank all the liberals gross yeah dang it's so gross and i'm not allowed to talk

(00:54:38):
about this publicly but it's incredibly gross

(00:54:43):
And I think if people could take a few steps back, they'd be like, wait a fucking minute.

(00:54:49):
What is actually going on here with all these men writing all these books about

(00:54:53):
spanking young children?

(00:54:54):
You know what I'm saying?

(00:54:59):
Thank you, Scott.

(00:55:00):
And thank you, DL, for coming through and holding it down on propaganda.

(00:55:05):
We'll hear again from DL in future episodes.

(00:55:10):
So what is focus on the family upholding?

(00:55:13):
It's time for a deep dive.

(00:55:15):
They are pillars of white supremacy and patriarchy.

(00:55:20):
So why not just go there in the next episodes?

(00:55:22):
Let's do it.

(00:55:24):
Episode five, patriarchy, coming next.

(00:55:28):
Daniel Weed on the outro.

(00:55:53):
Your pain not forgotten

(00:56:41):
from all that's familiar into a journey uncertain but it's better I'm sure