In an extremely polarized political landscape, how do we learn to change our minds? What happens when someone dedicates their entire career to the Christian Right and then has a moment of repentance? Join us as we talk with Rob Schenck, author of Costly Grace, who offers his perspective on the religious Right and the religious Left and what we often get wrong about the other side.

Links:

Schenck's account of his time in Minneapolis during the ICE protests:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/02/rob-schenck-i-went-to-minneapolis-to-bear-witness-and-to-make-amends/

Schenck's book, Costly Grace:
https://www.amazon.com/Costly-Grace-Evangelical-Ministers-Rediscovery/dp/006268793X

Underneath a bombastic and bumbling Donald Trump sits a world of radical right-wing intellectuals, shaping the ways we experience the MAGA movement today. How did the American far right emerge? How have we misread the far right—and what does that mean for our democracy? Join us as we talk with Laura Field, scholar in residence at American University and author of the new book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, as she talks about the intellectuals and thinkers behind Trumpism today. What do they actually believe?

Links:

Laura Field's Book, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right:
https://www.amazon.com/Furious-Minds-Making-MAGA-Right/dp/0691255261/

Laura's review of Alexandre Lefebvre's Liberalism as a Way of Life:
https://www.illiberalism.org/good-liberals-bad-cave-a-review-of-liberalism-as-a-way-of-life/

Laura's website:
https://www.lkfield.com/

The Democratic Party is the home of the religious "nones." And yet it is also a bastion of wokeness and language policing. With its desire to maintain its own purity, its own creeds, and its own take on "original sin," is wokeism on the left becoming its own kind of religion? Join Matt and Shadi as they unpack the status of the Left today. Shadi examines the intersection of his own political and religious identities, noting the ways the Left requires religious people to reduce themselves to fit its mold. Matt talks about the ways he noticed the Left become disoriented after Trump's second win. And together they ask: Is wokeness a religion?