Culture, Faith and Politics with Pat Kahnke

Yuval Noah Harari's conversation with Ezra Klein exposes something theologians have been slow to name: MAGA is not a political movement — it's a redemption narrative. And redemption narratives are the most powerful force in human history. Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson break down what Harari gets right, where theology goes further, and why Christian nationalism has succeeded by replacing the Gospel with a story that feels better than the truth.

Mark Driscoll is one of the most documented bullies in modern American Christianity — so why do people keep following him? In this conversation, Amy Hawk and I dig into the pattern: from the collapse of Mars Hill Church to his current Trinity Church in Arizona, and the lawsuit he's now filed against a pastor who walked away. We play the clips and let Driscoll speak for himself — the pulpit rants, the "biblical manhood" that looks a lot more like intimidation than discipleship. Then we ask the harder question: what is it about this brand of domineering, fear-based leadership that still draws crowds, builds platforms, and gets a national stage? We look at the documented behavior, hold it up against the character Scripture actually calls for in a leader, and try to understand why so many Christians mistake cruelty for courage — and control for conviction. If you've ever sat under a leader like this, or watched someone you love get pulled in, this one's for you.

Booed at Madison Square Garden. Storming out of a Meet The Press interview. It's not been a great week for the President of the United States. Are we seeing the unraveling of Trump? Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

Eric Metaxas claims America's founders intended to organize the United States around the Old Testament's Sinai Covenant — a "Christian nation" built on biblical law. In Part 2 of this series, we put that claim under the microscope and ask a simple question: where are the receipts ?The answer, according to virtually every working historian, is that they don't exist. This is a careful, evidence-based refutation of the Christian nationalism narrative Metaxas is selling — and an honest look at why he's selling it now. We trace how the rhetoric works, who it's meant to mobilize, and what it actually does to the Christian witness when bad history gets baptized as theology. This isn't about scoring political points. It's about scholarship, the historical record, and the difference between what scripture says and what Christian nationalism needs it to say. Whether you're a believer, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, the goal is the same: sanity, sound reasoning, and a defensible account of where the United States actually came from.

Donald Trump has named Bill Pulte — the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a 38-year-old real estate heir with zero intelligence experience — as Acting Director of National Intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard. The DNI oversees all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. In this episode I break down why this appointment should alarm every American, not just Democrats.

Franklin Graham's May 2026 visit to Belarus wasn't just an evangelistic crusade — it was a diplomatic mission for Donald Trump. Lukashenko, Europe's last dictator and Putin's key ally in the northern invasion of Ukraine, used Graham's visit to send "warm greetings to President Trump." That's not gospel. That's Christian nationalism with a passport. Tihomir Kukolja, former Executive Director of the Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, was born in the former Yugoslavia, where Billy Graham preached to 10,000 people in a steady rain in 1967 — braving communist power to reach ordinary people with nothing to offer him politically. He watched that legacy get dismantled in real time when Franklin Graham sat across from Lukashenko and called it an honor. In this conversation, Tihomir — a Croatian theologian, reconciliation leader, and eyewitness to both legacies — walks through exactly what happened in Minsk, what it reveals about Franklin Graham's double gospel, and why a message that poses no threat to authoritarian power is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the Belarus dictator story American evangelicals aren't talking about. It should be.

The Freedom 250 celebration fair is rapidly turning into a rally from the one man at the center of his own universe - Donald Trump. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

This is the first in a short series, which will be a theological autopsy of how one of Christianity's most respected communicators became MAGA's most dangerous court prophet — and what his collapse tells us about the spiritual crisis inside American evangelicalism.   We'll examine Metaxas's two recent speeches at the Rededicate 250 event and Sean Feucht's Christian nationalist rally — what he said, why it matters, and why it qualifies as false prophecy. We trace his full arc: from the Access Hollywood tape to the January 6th insurrection to his claim that Trump's election was "an outrageous gift from God." We also expose the deepest irony: Metaxas literally wrote the definitive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the theologian who died resisting exactly the kind of regime Metaxas now enables. In October 2024, 86 of Bonhoeffer's own descendants signed a public statement condemning Metaxas by name for misrepresenting their ancestor to serve a far-right Christian nationalist agenda. This is what a false prophet looks like. This is what Christian nationalism does to a man's conscience. And this is why it matters for every believer trying to hold the line.

Mark Greene at "Remaking Manhood" and "Walking Talking Men" joins Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson to talk about healthy masculinity vs. "Man Box" culture in this Thursday morning LIVE episode.

Ken Paxton — impeached, credibly accused of bribery, and caught lying to federal investigators — just became the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. And MAGA Christians helped make it happen. In this episode, I break down why MAGA Christians keep voting for Donald Trump's most corrupt lackeys, what it reveals about the debasement of the Christian conscience, and why "normie" Republicans are just as complicit. This isn't virtue signaling. It's VICE signaling — and the data from the 2024 primaries makes it impossible to ignore.

Mark Driscoll, Al Mohler, and a host of religious leaders share one common trait: they are men who fear women. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

Trump's $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" has been framed as a truth and justice initiative — but a careful theological examination reveals it as something far more dangerous: a corruption architecture designed to reward political violence and insulate power from accountability. In this episode, I analyze the fund through the lens of biblical justice — specifically the Hebrew concepts of mishpat (legal justice) and tzedek (moral righteousness) — and demonstrate how Donald Trump's proposal inverts both. This is not a policy debate. This is a character audit. And the fruit does not lie. We also examine how evangelical Christianity's 80% bloc vote for Trump made this moment possible — and why conservative Christian voters now bear direct moral responsibility for the pardoning of January 6th rioters, including those convicted of assaulting Capitol Police officers.

Journalist and Substack writer Mark Ramm joins Pat Kahnke to break down the architecture of the new Christian right: Catholic integralism, Reformed evangelical dominionism, and the Pentecostal New Apostolic Reformation -- three theologies that can't agree on baptism, eschatology, or church structure, but have built a shared infrastructure of funding, influence, and political power that is reshaping America.

Adam Swenson and Pat Kahnke continue their series of discussions on deconstruction - of both religious and political faith. Using Brian McLaren's four stages of faith as a jumping off point, this conversation focuses on the final stage: Harmony. Desmond Tutu is an example we'll talk about today.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.      

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.

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 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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

Viktor Orbán lost in Hungary. JD Vance couldn't get a deal done with Iran. The White House fought with the Pope. And Trump shared an AI photo of himself as Jesus. It was a bad week for the MAGA movement – and even their leader can't save them. Join Pat Kahnke for a live chat about all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

From the Duggar family to Pete Hegseth to the Oval Office — the pattern is the same. MAGA Christianity has built a theological permission structure that protects powerful men and silences women and children. Pat Kahnke and Amy Hawk trace the unbroken line from Bill Gothard's IBLP, to the Duggar family's protected abuse, to Doug Wilson's submission theology, to the men now running the United States government.

Trump and MAGA don't just disagree with Jesus — they are selling the exact system Jesus came to destroy. In this episode of The Bible vs. MAGA, we go straight to the Sermon on the Mount and let the Beatitudes do the work. A viewer comment defending MAGA's values of honor, winning, and dominance became the entry point for a deeper question: what happens when the church adopts a worldview that Jesus spent His entire ministry dismantling? The honor-shame system that runs MAGA — the obsession with strength, the contempt for the weak, the gospel of winning — is not a Christian value. It is the ancient power structure the Beatitudes were written to expose. If you are a Christian wrestling with the fusion of Trump and the Gospel — or trying to find the words to explain why it feels so wrong — this is the conversation you have been waiting for.

At Charlie Kirk's memorial, they didn't just grieve — they worshipped. And what happened in that room reveals something disturbing about how MAGA Christianity weaponized worship music to train a movement. Author Rick Pidcock (Weapons of Worship) joins me to expose the psychological and theological mechanics behind worship-as-warfare — from Sean Feucht's rallies to a Seattle service where a worship leader told the congregation to throw rocks at LGBTQ+ people. This isn't fringe. It's a pattern. And it's been building for years inside evangelical spaces.

Trump's Iran threats crossed a line that even seasoned political observers are calling genocidal. Charlie Sykes joins Pat Kahnke to break down what just happened — and why Christian nationalism is the theological permission structure behind it. In this conversation, Sykes and Kahnke analyze Trump's recent statements targeting Iran — statements that Sykes calls "the most deranged ever issued by a U.S. president" — and trace how evangelical Christian nationalism has moved from the fringes to the center of American foreign policy. From Pete Hegseth's holy war rhetoric to Doug Wilson's "sin of empathy" theology, this is what MAGA Christianity looks like when it has its hands on a nuclear arsenal.

Donald Trump threatened the nation of Iran with genocide this morning, and everyone seems to care except for his Christian supporters. Let's talk about that. Also: how did Trump and his MAGA followers desecrate the Holy Week? Pat Kahnke and the live audience dive into the words of Paula White-Cain, Pete Hegseth, Franklin Graham, and Trump's profane Truth Social post on Easter.

In Part 2 of my interview with Matthew Taylor, we move from defining Christian antichrists to exposing the movements trying to reshape American politics and religion in real time. We break down the three major wings of Christian nationalism now competing for power inside MAGA: the Reconstructionist Calvinist world associated with figures like Pete Hegseth, the New Apostolic Reformation orbit represented by Paula White, and the Catholic reactionary lane often linked to JD Vance. Matthew explains how these movements differ, where they overlap, and why Donald Trump remains the central political vessel holding them together. We also look at the theological shift from the old “Cyrus” language to something much darker: Trump as a violent avenger, even a Jehu-like figure raised up to punish enemies and restore power. That change matters, because it reveals how MAGA theology is increasingly willing to justify domination, cruelty, and authoritarian politics in the name of God. If you've been trying to understand Christian nationalism, MAGA theology, religious power, and the spiritual logic behind this movement, this conversation will help connect the dots.

Is it fair — or even biblical — to apply the word "antichrist" to a political movement? Visiting scholar Matthew D. Taylor (Georgetown University) answers that question from scripture and history. In this conversation, I sit down with Matthew Taylor, author of Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists, to explore one of the most uncomfortable questions in American Christianity today: when does a Christian movement begin to exhibit the spirit of antichrist? Taylor's answer draws on New Testament scholarship, the parable of the wheat and tares, and a deeply inconvenient argument — that the history of Christianity, from Constantine forward, is in part a history of Christians abusing power in Jesus's name. That's not a fringe claim. It's a scholarly one with serious biblical grounding. This is not a political hit piece. Taylor is careful, precise, and anchored in the text. But the implications for Christian nationalism are impossible to avoid. If Christians can be the persecutors — not just the persecuted — what does that mean for movements wrapping authoritarian power in a cross?

Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson break down new polling data showing Donald Trump and the MAGA movement losing ground with the American public. They examine Trump's approval and disapproval trends, what the numbers reveal about key voter groups, and why more Americans are reacting negatively to the direction of MAGA politics. This conversation explores demographic shifts among younger voters, Black voters, Hispanic voters, and independents, along with the broader cultural and moral fallout surrounding Trumpism. Pat and Adam discuss why the movement increasingly feels exhausting, divisive, and politically corrosive to many Americans.

Franklin Graham spoke at the recent CPAC event and once again showed that his allegiance to Trump and power remains strong. Pat Kahnke takes a closer look at the words of Trump's unholy propagandist and more on this episode of Culture, Faith, and Politics live.

In this first installment of The Bible vs MAGA series, I'm asking a question that no one in evangelical leadership wants to answer: What happens when you hold MAGA values up against the words of Jesus — specifically the Beatitudes?  In Part 1, we begin at the beginning — with the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes are Jesus's most concentrated ethical teaching. And they stand in direct contradiction to nearly every policy position and public posture of the MAGA movement and its religious defenders. But here's what I want you to hear: Franklin Graham made his choice. We don't have to make the same one.

I spent three hours at the Minnesota State Capitol this weekend with somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people — and it changed something in me. This wasn't a political rally. It wasn't a hate rally. It wasn't a festival of grievances. The No Kings protest was something I haven't felt in a long time — a crowd of grown-ups who know who they are, fighting for something better, without a demagogue telling them what to believe. In this episode, I share what I witnessed, what it meant to me as a former evangelical pastor and lifelong Republican, and — most importantly — the single biggest lesson I took away from the weekend.

MAGA Christianity isn't a political stance — it's a theological crisis. In this first episode of The Bible vs. MAGA, retired evangelical pastor Pat Kahnke defines exactly what MAGA Christianity is, and why it represents a fundamental break from the historic Christian faith. Using the three core pillars of theology — Christology, Epistemology, and Eschatology — he exposes how MAGA Christianity has replaced Jesus with Trump at every level: as Lord, as the source of Truth, and as the hope for the future. Whether you're an evangelical, an exvangelical, or a Christian trying to make sense of how faith became entangled with political power, this series is for you.

What IS 'MAGA Christianity', anyway? And Why Is It Dangerous? Pat Kahnke takes a closer look at these questions and more on this episode of Culture, Faith, and Politics live.

Pete Hegseth didn't just bring his politics to the Pentagon. He brought his pastor. In this episode, I analyze a recent clip featuring Brooks Potteiger — Pete Hegseth's personal pastor from a CREC (Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches) congregation — and Joshua Haymes, calling for divine action against Texas State Representative James Talarico. As a pastor myself, I'm naming this for what it is: not prayer, not Christianity, and not faith. This is MAGA theology operating as a political weapon. This is the theological framework behind Christian nationalism — and it is now inside the U.S. Department of Defense.

Robert Mueller died on March 20, 2026. Donald Trump's response on Truth Social: "Good. I'm glad he's dead." This is my response. Mueller was a Bronze Star recipient, Purple Heart veteran, and the second longest-serving FBI Director in American history — a man who bled for this country in Vietnam and spent sixty years in public service under four presidents of both parties. Trump called him someone who "hurt innocent people." We need to talk about what that reveals. Not just politically — theologically. Because MAGA theology has a specific way of treating men of integrity: it destroys them. And what happened to the FBI after Mueller is the proof.

Was Trump's Iran war just? Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson apply the five criteria of just war theory to the opening phase of the conflict — and the results are damning. From the bombing of a girls' school on Day One to Trump's personal vendetta against Khamenei, this conversation asks the question MAGA Christians won't: does this war pass any Christian moral standard? If you're a Christian wrestling with MAGA theology, an evangelical asking hard questions about war and conscience, or simply someone who wants moral clarity on the Iran conflict — this conversation is for you.

After 20 years as an evangelical pastor and church planter, I've reached a conclusion I never thought I'd reach: I will never vote Republican again — and as a Christian, I believe I have no other choice. This isn't a political rant. It's a theological reckoning. In this episode, I make the biblical case for why MAGA Christianity is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Using Scripture, history, and observable evidence, I walk through why the Republican Party has become a haven for religious grifters — men like Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, and Paula White — who have traded the Gospel for political power and access to Donald Trump. I also announce a new weekly series: The Bible vs. MAGA — a systematic, verse-by-verse refutation of Christian nationalism and the theology that props it up.