Culture, Faith and Politics with Pat Kahnke

LIVE: Episode 25, Is this the Last Stand of the MAGA Cult?

Donald Trump now has a $1.776 billion settlement he plans to use to fund revenge for his political party. MAGA evangelicals held a MAGA cult worship service called Rededicate 250. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

Rededicate 250: An Eyewitness Exposes the Theology Behind MAGA's Big Show (with Rick Pidcock)

This weekend, the Trump administration spent millions in federal funds on a 9-hour worship rally on the National Mall. The event was organized by the same company that ran Trump's January 6 Ellipse rally — on a largely no-bid government contract. Eric Metaxas invoked the Sinai Covenant from the stage. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to frame America's military posture in theological terms. And Trump sent a prerecorded Bible video.

Rick Pidcock, a journalist and theologian who attended Rededicate 250, joins Pat Kahnke for a full eyewitness account of how MAGA theology went national on America's 250th birthday.

Chaos and Cover-ups at America's 2nd Biggest Christian TV Network (with Amy Hawk)

Joni Lamb, co-founder of Daystar Television Network — America's 2nd largest Christian TV network — died this week estranged from her own son. What he says happened inside that billion-dollar ministry is a disturbing story about modern Christian media. Pat Kahnke and Amy Hawk examine the Daystar story: a $3.9 million PPP loan used to buy a private jet, seven homes valued at $11.7 million, a honeymoon allegedly charged to ministry donors, and — most seriously — allegations that an abuse claim inside the Lamb family was pressured into silence. Daystar is classified as a church by the IRS. That means no financial disclosures. No accountability. And a billion-dollar operation that nobody is allowed to question. This is what the Fruit Test (Matthew 7:16) looks like when applied to Christian media empires.

Trump Makes Us Rethink Everything about Faith and Politics (with Adam Swenson)

Today we're talking about Adam Swenson's article on Stage 3 of Christian faith: Perplexity. And we're using Nick Kristof's article "This Is What Happened When Trump Abandoned the World’s Poorest Children" as an example of what happens when the real world takes a wrecking ball to our assumptions.

LIVE, Episode 24: Golden Idols, Robert Jeffress, and the MANY Christians Behaving Badly featuring Amy Hawk

The latest polls have revealed that Donald Trump is truly a record setter – his unfavorability is higher than Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate. Pat Kahnke is joined by Amy Hawk to discuss all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live! (5/12/26)

ESSAY: Jeffress Said Trump Understands the Bible Better Than the Pope?!

Robert Jeffress told Fox News that Donald Trump understands the Bible better than the Pope. I can't let that stand. In this video, I do a full breakdown of Jeffress's Romans 13 argument — the same passage used by enslavers and apartheid defenders — and show exactly how it's being weaponized to silence Christian criticism of the war in Iran.

ESSAY: Franklin Graham, Mike Johnson, and MAGA's Exploitation of the Book of Esther

They called Trump and Mike Johnson "modern-day Esthers" — chosen by God, appointed for such a time as this. But the Esther Bible story doesn't say what they think it says.

 

Esther was a powerless Jewish exile who risked her life to protect her people from annihilation. She had no army, no legislation, no executive authority. She was a refugee at the mercy of an empire. MAGA theology has taken one of Scripture's most profound stories of courage against oppression and turned it into a permission slip for political domination.

 

In this video, I apply the Fruit Test (Matthew 7:16) to the MAGA Esther claim — examining how figures like Mike Johnson, Franklin Graham, and Dutch Sheets have weaponized this passage to sanctify Christian nationalism and the consolidation of state power.

 

 

 

David Brooks' "Shock of Faith" : A Beautiful Example of Embracing Spiritual Complexity (with Adam Swenson)

What happens to your faith when authority figures stop answering your questions?

Pat Kahnke and Adam work through Stage Two of Brian McLaren's stages of faith — a conversation for everyone navigating the space between certainty and collapse. Whether you're deconstructing Christianity, wrestling with faith and doubt, or just trying to stay sane in the age of MAGA theology, this is for you.

We're working through two essays: Adam's "Complexity Is What Happens When Authority Figures Stop Answering Your Questions" and David Brooks' New York Times piece "The Shock of Faith" — possibly the most honest account of faith deconstruction written by a public intellectual in years. Brooks describes himself as "a wandering Jew and a very confused Christian." He told a room full of conservatives "you're supposed to boo" — and kept going. That's Stage Two in real time.

LIVE, Episode 23: Trump's Worst Polls yet, is America Waking Up?

The latest polls have revealed that Donald Trump is truly a record setter – his unfavorability is higher than Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live.

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