Culture, Faith and Politics with Pat Kahnke

America is Haunted by a History of Willful Ignorance. (Melvin Edwards on "Nuremberg, Mississippi")

America can't plead ignorance — not when the evidence has always been right in front of us. Award-winning author Melvin E. Edwards joins Pat Kahnke to investigate how a nation chooses not to know, and what that moral choice actually costs.

Edwards' debut novel Nuremberg, Mississippi asks the question that Nuremberg prosecutors put to Nazi officials: when what you're doing is legal — but legal is causing the deaths of people — did you ever think about just not doing that? From Jim Crow sundown towns to the patterns playing out today in the age of MAGA and Christian nationalism, this conversation draws a straight line from 1965 Mississippi to modern America.

Purchase "Nuremberg, Mississippi" here: https://a.co/d/0gUiOpU3

ESSAY: Trump's Christian Persecution Report Should Embarrass Every Serious Follower of Jesus

Trump's administration released a 565-page report claiming 14 acts of "anti-Christian bias" by the Biden administration. Every serious follower of Jesus should be embarrassed by it. This isn't persecution. This is the loss of privilege — and the difference matters theologically.

LIVE, Episode 22: Trump Keeps Raising the Temperature, When Will it Be Too Much?

The incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner is just the latest example of the rising temperature in America. And that's all part of Trump's political strategy. Join Pat Kahnke for a live chat about all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

Morning Live Stream, Episode 2: The Tribal Gospel, When Christianity Stops Asking Questions

How does tribalism shape our understanding of the shooting at the WHCD? Also, how does it fit into the 4 stages of belief? Adam Swenson and Pat Kahnke continue their discussion of deconstruction - with a focus on tribalism and false simplicity.

Trump Is Now America's Solomon. A Theologian Responds. (with Tihomir Kukolia)

On May 17th, MAGA is staging a national Bible reading to "rededicate America to God" — and almost nobody is talking about what's actually happening. I sat down with Tihomir Kukolia, Executive Director of the Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, to expose the Christian nationalist infrastructure hiding inside the "America Reads the Bible" event — and why it should alarm every American, Christian or not.

After Deconstruction: What a Mature Christian Faith Might Look Like (With Adam Swenson)

Deconstructing Christianity doesn't mean abandoning the faith — it means finally growing into one. In this video, we walk through Brian McLaren's four stages of faith and ask the question the Evangelical Church doesn't want to answer: why does MAGA Christianity keep getting stuck at Stage One?

If you've spent years inside evangelical certainty only to find it collapsing under the weight of real questions, this is for you. Drawing on McLaren's Faith After Doubt, we map the journey from Simplicity through Complexity and Perplexity — and into what a mature, reconstructed faith actually looks like on the other side. Whether you're exvangelical, still inside the church but quietly questioning, or an atheist trying to understand why American Christianity went so sideways — this framework explains it all.

Morning Live Stream, Episode 1: Is Kash Krashing? and Intro to New Deconstruction Series

Adam Swenson joins Pat Kahnke for the first Culture, Faith, and Politics MORNING Live Stream!

LIVE Episode 21: Trump reads 2 Chronicles, White House Denies Inviting Mark Driscoll to Rededication Event

Donald Trump read from 2 Chronicles at the America Reads The Bible event. What’s going on with Mark Driscoll and his claim that he was asked to speak at the main event for the national rededication on the Mall on May 17th? And we debut our new segment, Christians Behaving Badly. Join Pat Kahnke for a live chat about all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

Trump, NOT Jesus, Sets the Standard for MAGA. (The Bible vs MAGA, Part 3)

Trump decides who is honored and who is shamed in MAGA — but Jesus had a radically different answer. This is where the two gospels collide. In this installment of The Bible vs. MAGA, we examine one of the most powerful and least understood forces driving Christian nationalism: the weaponization of honor and shame.

ESSAY: Hegseth's Holy Violence: MAGA's Most Dangerous Theology

Pete Hegseth isn't just a bad Cabinet pick. He's a theological project — and silence is no longer an option.

As Secretary of Defense, Hegseth has publicly glorified violence, renamed the Department of Defense the "Department of War," and invoked the name of God to justify military aggression. This isn't political theater. It's Christian nationalism in power — and it belongs to a specific movement with a specific ideology, rooted in Doug Wilson's network out of Moscow, Idaho.

 

In this episode, retired evangelical pastor Pat Kahnke examines what Hegseth's actions reveal about the theology driving MAGA: a version of Christianity that prays for maximum violence against enemies, treats empathy as sin, and seeks to build an authoritarian Christendom — not by following Jesus, but by ruling in his name. This is what happens when Christian nationalism stops being fringe and starts running the Pentagon.