Faithful Politics

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
How did Christianity become so deeply woven into the American story? 

Matthew Avery Sutton, professor of history at Washington State University and author of Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity, joins Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram to explain why American Christianity and American history cannot be told as separate stories. Sutton traces Christianity’s influence from Columbus, Spanish Catholic missions, Jamestown, Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, enslaved Muslims, Indigenous nations, and the First Amendment to revivalism, slavery, abolition, apocalyptic evangelicalism, and Christian nationalism. 

He argues that disestablishment did not remove religion from public life. Instead, it created a competitive religious marketplace where churches had to persuade, organize, innovate, and grow. The conversation also challenges both oversimplified “Christian nation” claims and overly clean secular founding myths. This episode helps listeners see America’s 250th as a moment for humility, honesty, and a fuller reckoning with the faiths that shaped the country.

Guest Bio
Matthew Avery Sutton is a historian of American religion and politics at Washington State University. His work examines how Christianity, evangelicalism, revivalism, missions, apocalyptic belief, and political power have shaped American public life. He is the author of Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War, and Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. In this conversation, Sutton helps frame the Church and State 250 series by showing how Christianity has been both a force for power and reform throughout American history.

Book Mentioned
Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity by Matthew Avery Sutton
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781541646339

American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism by Matthew Avery Sutton
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780674975439

Relevant Links & Resources
Matthew Avery Sutton Faculty Profile
URL: https://history.wsu.edu/faculty/wsu-profile/sutton/
Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091
Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/
Support the show
Keep the conversation going.
Want to learn more about Faithful Politics, suggest a future guest, or connect with us directly?
Visit our website:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Browse our bookstore, featuring books from many of our guests:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/bookstore
Support the show and help us keep these conversations going:
patreon.com/cw/FaithfulPolitics
Subscribe for behind-the-scenes content, reflections, and updates:
faithfulpolitics.substack.com
Contact the hosts:
Josh Burtram, Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpolitics.com
Will Wright, Political Host: Will@faithfulpolitics.com
Follow Faithful Politics:
Instagram: faithful_politics
Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
How did Manifest Destiny become a Christian story about land, providence, and moral duty? 

L. Daniel Hawk, Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary and author of Undoing Manifest Destiny, joins Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram to explain how theology helped justify conquest, removal, and Indigenous erasure. Hawk traces Manifest Destiny through John O’Sullivan’s famous phrase, the Doctrine of Discovery, Lewis and Clark’s “Corps of Discovery,” Genesis 1:28, and the settler belief that land had to be owned, fenced, cultivated, and turned into property before it counted as rightly used. 

He also challenges a common assumption: early Americans did not usually justify westward conquest by directly appealing to the book of Joshua. The deeper story, he argues, was a Christianized vision of dominion, civilization, and national innocence. This conversation helps listeners understand how biblical language shaped American expansion, and why that history still matters for churches, politics, and America’s 250th.

Guest bio
Dr. L. Daniel Hawk is Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary. He is the author of Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice. His work helps explain how biblical interpretation, settler colonialism, and American national identity shaped Christian justifications for conquest, land seizure, and Indigenous erasure.

Book Mentioned
Undoing Manifest Destiny: Settler America, Christian Colonists, and the Pursuit of Justice by L. Daniel Hawk
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781514008645

Relevant Links & Resources
L. Daniel Hawk Faculty Profile
URL: https://seminary.ashland.edu/faculty-and-staff/l-daniel-hawk/
Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091
Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/
Support the show
Keep the conversation going.
Want to learn more about Faithful Politics, suggest a future guest, or connect with us directly?
Visit our website:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Browse our bookstore, featuring books from many of our guests:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/bookstore
Support the show and help us keep these conversations going:
patreon.com/cw/FaithfulPolitics
Subscribe for behind-the-scenes content, reflections, and updates:
faithfulpolitics.substack.com
Contact the hosts:
Josh Burtram, Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpolitics.com
Will Wright, Political Host: Will@faithfulpolitics.com
Follow Faithful Politics:
Instagram: faithful_politics
Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Can America tell the truth about itself if it starts the story in 1776? 

Mark Charles, Navajo writer, speaker, activist, and co-author of Unsettling Truths, opens Church and State 250 by arguing that America’s religious story begins with land, conquest, colonization, and theology. Charles explains the Doctrine of Discovery, the papal ideas that gave Christian Europe permission to claim land already inhabited by Indigenous peoples, and how that logic later shaped colonial charters, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Manifest Destiny, Supreme Court precedent, and modern Christian nationalism. 

He challenges familiar phrases like “Columbus discovered America,” “nation of immigrants,” and “We the People,” asking listeners to notice who was excluded from those stories. This is not an easy opening conversation. It is a necessary one, because Charles insists that the country cannot build a shared future without first creating a common memory.

Guest Bio
Mark Charles is a Navajo writer, speaker, consultant, activist, and co-author of Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery. The son of an American woman of Dutch heritage and a Navajo man, Charles teaches on the intersections of American history, race, culture, faith, land, and Christendom. He is the author of Reflections from the Hogan, co-founder of the Would Jesus Eat Frybread? college-conference series, and in 2020 ran as an independent candidate for president while advocating for a national Truth and Conciliation Commission on race, gender, and class. In this conversation, Charles helps explain why America’s religious history has to begin with Indigenous land, the Doctrine of Discovery, colonization, and the stories the country tells about itself.

Book Mentioned
Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780830845255

Relevant Links & Resources
Mark Charles Official Website
URL: https://wirelesshogan.com/about/
Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091
Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/
Support the show
Keep the conversation going.
Want to learn more about Faithful Politics, suggest a future guest, or connect with us directly?
Visit our website:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Browse our bookstore, featuring books from many of our guests:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/bookstore
Support the show and help us keep these conversations going:
patreon.com/cw/FaithfulPolitics
Subscribe for behind-the-scenes content, reflections, and updates:
faithfulpolitics.substack.com
Contact the hosts:
Josh Burtram, Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpolitics.com
Will Wright, Political Host: Will@faithfulpolitics.com
Follow Faithful Politics:
Instagram: faithful_politics
Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Why do racial myths continue to shape American politics, religion, and culture long after people claim to reject racism? 

Greg Garrett, author of White Lies: Dismantling Ten Cultural Myths About Race, joins Faithful Politics to explain how false stories about race have been used to justify slavery, segregation, voting restrictions, exclusion, and white Christian nationalism. Garrett draws from film, theology, law, politics, sermons, advertising, James Baldwin, the Lost Cause, The Birth of a Nation, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture to show how myths do real public work. 

They tell people who belongs, who leads, and whose suffering can be ignored. The conversation does not treat myth as harmless folklore. It asks who these stories serve, why they are still persuasive, and what truth-telling requires from Christians, citizens, and communities that want to do better.

Book Mentioned
White Lies: Dismantling Ten Cultural Myths About Race by Greg Garrett
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780197652183

Relevant Links & Resources
Greg Garrett - Baylor University
URL: https://english.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/person/dr-greg-garrett

Guest Bio
Greg Garrett is the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor University and Canon Theologian for the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris. He has written more than thirty books, including White Lies: Dismantling Ten Cultural Myths About Race, The Gospel According to James Baldwin, and A Long, Long Way: Hollywood’s Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation. His work focuses on the intersection of faith, culture, literature, film, race, and public life, which makes him a strong guide for this conversation about the myths that sustain racial hierarchy in American religion and politics.
Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091
Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/
Support the show
Keep the conversation going.
Want to learn more about Faithful Politics, suggest a future guest, or connect with us directly?
Visit our website:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Browse our bookstore, featuring books from many of our guests:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/bookstore
Support the show and help us keep these conversations going:
patreon.com/cw/FaithfulPolitics
Subscribe for behind-the-scenes content, reflections, and updates:
faithfulpolitics.substack.com
Contact the hosts:
Josh Burtram, Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpolitics.com
Will Wright, Political Host: Will@faithfulpolitics.com
Follow Faithful Politics:
Instagram: faithful_politics
Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
What does conservatism mean when personality politics starts replacing policy, principle, and coalition-building? 

Tim Chapman, president of Advancing American Freedom, joins Faithful Politics to explain how he thinks about the future of the conservative movement, the Republican Party, and the role of long-term policy advocacy in American public life.

Chapman brings more than two decades of experience in conservative politics, including work with Heritage Action, the Heritage Foundation, P2 Public Affairs, and several U.S. senators. The conversation covers Reagan-era tax reform, Jack Kemp’s persistence on policy, conservative fusionism, traditional values, free markets, strong national defense, and the challenge of building institutions that can survive beyond one political figure. Will, Josh, and Tim also discuss the One Big Beautiful Bill, civility in Congress, Iran, America First foreign policy, and what America 250 should mean for the next generation.

Relevant Links & Resources
Advancing American Freedom
URL: https://advancingamericanfreedom.com/

Guest Bio
Tim Chapman is the president of Advancing American Freedom, a public policy advocacy organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. He has spent more than two decades working in conservative policy and political advocacy, including service as a principal at P2 Public Affairs, executive director of Heritage Action, chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, and as an adviser and staff member to Senators Jim DeMint, Don Nickles, and Tim Hutchinson. His work focuses on conservative coalition-building, public policy strategy, and helping shape the future direction of the conservative movement.
Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091
Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/
Support the show
Keep the conversation going.
Want to learn more about Faithful Politics, suggest a future guest, or connect with us directly?
Visit our website:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com
Browse our bookstore, featuring books from many of our guests:
faithfulpoliticspodcast.com/bookstore
Support the show and help us keep these conversations going:
patreon.com/cw/FaithfulPolitics
Subscribe for behind-the-scenes content, reflections, and updates:
faithfulpolitics.substack.com
Contact the hosts:
Josh Burtram, Faithful Host: Josh@faithfulpolitics.com
Will Wright, Political Host: Will@faithfulpolitics.com
Follow Faithful Politics:
Instagram: faithful_politics
Facebook: FaithfulPoliticsPodcast