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As you Lovers certainly know, this podcast is focused on the apparent crumbling of what we have called for the last few hundred years, The Church. Congregations are shrinking, the influence of churches is ebbing, and churches are being shut down. The church that I’m a part of is going through that process now. And many of the people who one might have expected to be the next generation of a thriving church are finished with organized religions (the NONES) or the Spiritual but Not Religious folks. There is a reason why this is happening. It’s not Jesus or the Gospel itself. It’s the hypocrisy of the comfortable church that is turning people off. They are looking for ways to become the presence of the Gospel in a meaningful way in a world that is more of a mess than it’s been for a long time.
So we, as Christians, as people of faith, have a job to do and it’s not to save the church. As Brian McLaren said on this podcast a few months ago (episode 095). “We have to decide whether we want to save the church, or join God in saving the world.” This episode of Love in a Dangerous Time is about the job that Christians have of “joining God in saving the world.”
Dr. Nancy MacLean is a well-know and well respected historian. She is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. This summer she came out with a rather earth shaking book called Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. It has been described by Publishers Weekly as “a thoroughly researched and gripping narrative… [and] a feat of American intellectual and political history.” Booklist called it “perhaps the best explanation to date of the roots of the political divide that threatens to irrevocably alter American government.” And it’s scarier than anything you ever written by Stephen King. And Democracy in Chains was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for nonfiction.
The book discusses the life and thought of one of the Libertarian movement’s leading thinkers, James McGill Buchanan, and the infamous right-wing financiers, Charles Koch (yes, he’s one of the Koch brothers) and their efforts to accomplish many of the apparent goals of Trumps cabinet members. Their projects have included trying to end public education, stop all measures to control global warming, eliminate labor unions, suppress voting, make medical care unavailable to the poor, and eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Now their group is proposing (and very close to getting) a constitutional convention to replace the US Constitution.
For those of us who read the Bible, and see Jesus as our teacher, this is a terrifying prospect. This discussion with Dr. MacLean sheds much light on the values and ethics (or the lack there-of) we’re confronting as we do our Gospel work in this area.
To bring his brilliance and creativity to the discussion I’ve invited Rev. Stephen H. Phelps to join me. Steve is a Presbyterian minister here in New York. For three years he was the interim Senior Pastor of The Riverside Church (till early 2014), a huge congregation with a long-time reputation as a center for Gospel-led Justice work. He also does a fair bit of writing in Tikkun Magazine, Huffington Post, TruthOut, and in his blog, Permanent Revolution, at http://www.stephenhphelps.com/
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2 thoughts on “DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America – with historian Dr. Nancy MacLean [LDT101]”
Russ,
I have really enjoyed your work on Love in a Dangerous Time and shared it far and wide amongst my friends. Even if I don’t always agree with the guest you have on, I appreciate that I have been exposed to their point of view and feel I am a better person for it. This episode, however, I struggle with. In fact I’ve struggled so much that I have chosen not to listen to it yet. I’ll be the first to tell you it’s bad to cast judgement on something before even fully knowing what it is, but please hear me out. I decided to post this publicly rather than via a private email because I feel this is a fair question to ask and your answer will be important. My concern and my question is: how is this “deep history of the right” any different than the “deep history of the left” books written by the ‘culture warriors?’ In college I found myself sinking into the right, going so far as to purchase and read a few books by Laura Ingraham, listening to Bill O’Reilly’s daily talking points memo, etc. All these books and resources on the right claimed to expose the REAL intentions of the left, funded by George Soros and a cabal of anti-American liberals, yada yada yada. You’ve probably heard it all before. Part of my ‘conversion’ away from this was realizing that the world, while complex, is sometimes simpler than we make it seem and that all these vast conspiracies supposedly perpetrated on us were nothing more than phantoms created by people who stand to profit from our fear.
Enter this podcast episode. My misgivings and apprehensions all center on this same idea. I’ve been down this road before. I’ve heard the claims that there’s a conspiracy out there designed to take us down. In so, so many ways I see this book as no different than what Breitbart does. Again, I haven’t read it and I haven’t listened to the episode. But I don’t need to go check on Breitbart’s front page again to know that there is nothing of value there.
What prompts me to even ask this question as opposed to writing this whole thing off is the trust I place in you. You have helped me see new perspectives and hear new voices, and I haven’t really had reason to doubt you or any of your guests. That’s why I’m sort of giving you this chance to convince me, and others who may share my concerns, that this is different.
Keep up the good work.
Sean
Hi, Sean – First let me apologize for not responding sooner. I get so few comments (I don’t understand why) that I spend very little energy keeping up with them. And then your very thoughtful note comes along. Your comment is exactly the kind of response I hope for with Love in a Dangerous Time (LDT). Thank you for giving this whole question so much thought. I admire your openness to ideas that you may not agree with. We always learn. I do think you should listen to the interview with Nancy MacLean, though. (Since you first wrote in April, I guess it’s possible you’ve listened to it by now – again sorry). It is true that the left is vulnerable to some of the charges of information picking, etc. While Nancy’s book is somewhat of an expose, it is also a well-documented work by a legitimate scholar. I’m sure I have lots of prejudice against the Libertarian movement, but there was a lot of plain old information, in her book and the interview, that astounded me. MacLean is a terrific researcher. In the book she tells how she came by most of her info. It’s a fascinating story. I have to tell you that while I was reading her book and preparing for the interview, I was also reading Milton Friedman and watching his 1970s PBS series. We have to take it all very seriously. Especially because now many of the programs and prejudices that Charles Koch has been donating to are being enacted by the Trump administration.
The most important thing though, is the question of values. This is a Christian podcast. When I look at the values espoused (admittedly not always with complete sincerity) by the left – end racism, education for all, surviving climate change, equal pay, equality for minorities of race, gender, sexual identity, etc. – these are things I already care deeply about. On the Libertarian right (I’m not talking about conservative people here. The Libertarians see themselves as radicals who really want to change the way the world works.) we see demands to end public education, open and arrogant gerrymandering and voter suppression, hostility to measures proposed to mitigate climate change, total indifference to poverty and racism, and on and on… As a follower of Christ, I can’t support or even give credibility to these ideas or the movements that have been built up around them. Jesus was clear about his agenda and it is the diametrical opposite of theirs. I understand that there are Christians who think the Libertarians are wonderful, but those Christians never discuss the actual teachings of Jesus when arguing for their programs.
So, Sean, I could go on and on. My recommendation is that you listen to the interview and read MacLean’s book. Then read the Gospels and Libertarian writings, especially Milton Friedman, James McGill Buchanan (the subject of MacLean’s book), and read up on Charles Koch. I believe it’s impossible to hold Jesus and Libertarianism in the same brain (or heart).
Let me know how it goes.
Russ – russ@commonsoul.com
PS – I’ve been trying to find your comment in the website. I received it through my website software, and apparently approved it, but it does not appear to be in a public form. I appreciate that you wanted to go public with it. I’m really sorry that didn’t happen. Now I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong. (It’s always something!)