In a sweeping investigation of the music of megachurches and political rallies, how did songs beloved by white evangelicals become the soundtrack of Christian supremacy’s war on democracy?
Praise and worship music often fits hand-in-glove with Christian Trumpism, and in this unsettling account, journalist Rick Pidcock asks: How did songs like “How Great Is Our God” become anthems of rallies for the regime? How do lyrics like “Praise is the water my enemies drown in” shape the people who sing them? Singing with others creates a powerful sense of belonging and transcendence. So what happens when the music of one movement becomes the soundtrack of another?
Pidcock, who led worship in evangelical churches for twenty years, uncovers how worship gatherings blur into political rallies and vice versa. He takes us to worship gatherings on the National Mall, to charismatic concerts around the country, and into the early days of contemporary Christian music itself. He looks at the racism, misogyny, apocalypticism, and individualism that underwrite the songs, and at the ways children are being indoctrinated by the lyrics of silly songs with disturbing undertones. He uncovers a worship culture increasingly controlled by a set of powerbrokers and looks at how algorithms define the worship repertoire.
Celebrity worship leaders like Sean Feucht and worship collectives like Bethel Music and Hillsong are crafting worship experiences that strengthen the power of those at the top, dehumanize those below, and wage war against people who won’t submit. The same songs sung at your local megachurch this Sunday–about power and punishment, floods and flames, pain and praise–now mark many political gatherings. As praise and worship music sands down the edges between Christianity and politics, Pidcock asks: Where are songs of conquest and spiritual warfare taking us?
Join us on January 15 at noon/MST as we welcome special guest Dr. Matthew Gabriele.
Gabriele is a scholar, author, and speaker focusing primarily on religion/ violence, nostalgia/ apocalypse during the European Middle Ages, as well as how the medieval world has been remembered in subsequent generations, including the politics and pop culture of today. He’s a professor of medieval history at Virginia Tech and member of the Royal Historical Society (UK).
Gabriele has published several academic books and more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles, and has given talks at universities across the US, as well as in England, Scotland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. His public writing has appeared in places such as The Washington Post, Time, CNN, Slate, Smithsonian Magazine, and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). Interviews with him on radio, podcasts, and TV have aired locally, nationally, and internationally, and he now hosts the podcast “American Medieval.”
See a sample of his writings and interviews here.
Most recently, he’s the co-author of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (Harper Books, 2021), and Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe(Harper Books, 2024). His new book, Violence: A Christian History, will be out with WW Norton in late 2027/ early 2028.
Join us on October 30 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Dr. Kevin Morris to discuss his latest book, An American Problem: How the County Built – and the Supreme Court Broke – the Voting Rights Act.
Kevin T. Morris is senior research fellow and voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
The rise and fall of the Voting Rights Act, from the triumph of its passage in 1965 to its evisceration by the Supreme Court in their 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally made good on the promise of the Fifteenth Amendment, which nearly a century before had granted Black Americans the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act was the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement, which had battled for years against voting laws that made it all but impossible for Black Americans to cast a ballot. The act was a resounding success, bringing Americans of all races and ethnicities into the democratic process. And then, in 2013, the Supreme Court brought this progress to a screeching halt with their decision in Shelby County v. Holder. In this book, Michael Miller and Kevin Morris offer a sweeping history of the Voting Rights Act and the attacks it has suffered.
Let’s take a break from “rage Friday” and enjoy a “science Friday” instead! Join us on October 23 as we welcome special guest Riley Black to discuss her new book Tyrant Lizard Queen.
From the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black’s latest book is an imaginative celebration of Tyrannosaurus rex, tracking a dinosaur named Snaggletooth from hatching to adulthood. While T. rex is famous as a massive, bone-crushing predator, Black uses the latest fossil discoveries to reveal a more nuanced, sensitive life. Readers follow Snaggletooth as she navigates a dangerous Cretaceous North America—surviving hunts, tussling with rivals, courting, nesting, and finding moments of connection. The narrative offers even die-hard dinosaur fans a fresh perspective and deeper appreciation for the Tyrant Lizard Queen.
Riley Black (she/they) is the author of When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals and Evolution’s Greatest Romance, winner of the 2024 A Friend of Darwin Award, and The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, winner of the 2023 AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books.
Riley has been a fossil fanatic since the time she was knee-high to a Stegosaurus. Her evolution into a science writer and amateur paleontologist was only natural. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, right in the center of dinosaur country, they chase tales of vanished lives from museum collections to remote badlands.
A prolific writer, Riley’s byline has appeared in publications such as National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian, Nature, Science, atmos, Popular Science, New Scientist, SIERRA, and many more. She’s also been a frequent guest on radio programs such as Science Friday and All Things Considered, and Riley was among the paleontologists highlighted in the NOVA documentaries “Alaskan Dinosaurs” and “Dinosaur Apocalypse.” In a dream come true, Riley was also the “resident paleontologist” and consultant to the Jurassic World franchise. Her expertise has also led Riley to speak at a variety of venues from the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History to Dinosaur National Monument, most prominently delivering the 2022 keynote at tthe he annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.
Roughly $1 trillion of the US federal budget is distributed annually through grants-in-aid to state and local governments rather than individuals, heavily impacting local public service quality. While these funding formulas seem impartial and based on objective needs like population or poverty, Leah Rosenstiel’s Politics by Formula reveals they are deeply distorted by political institutions. Congressional committee leaders deliberately design these formulas to favor their own constituencies. Neutral formulas shield these political choices from public scrutiny while simultaneously constraining lawmakers, ultimately driving geographic inequalities and determining whose needs are prioritized across states.
Leah Rosenstiel is assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. A central interest of her work is understanding how politics affects the distribution of federal funding and the design of government assistance programs. Some of this research appears in my book, Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities, published by the University of Chicago Press. Her other research is published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Science.
She received a joint Ph.D. in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University in 2021 and a B.A. in Political Science from Carleton College in 2014. Prior to beginning graduate studies, she worked as a research assistant on K-12 education policy at the Congressional Research Service.
In They Poisoned the World, investigative journalist Mariah Blake exposes a decades-long cover-up of toxic “forever chemicals” contaminating the drinking water of 170+ million Americans. Tracing the pollution from the Manhattan Project to corporate labs, Blake reveals that manufacturers and the government knew these chemicals caused cancer and birth defects, yet lax regulations allowed the public to become unwitting test subjects. Based on extensive research, the book chronicles how a small New York village discovered the contamination in 2014, fought chemical giants, and ignited a powerful, historic grassroots environmental movement to protect public health.
Mariah Blake is an award-winning investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and other publications. She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. Her book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, was named on of the best nonfiction books of 2025 by The Washington Post and Scientific American.
Despite fifty years of idealistic, diverse new lawmakers arriving in Washington, Congress remains paralyzed and inhospitable to change. In Stuck, Maya Kornberg explains that well-intentioned reforms have been thwarted by systemic forces: political violence, skyrocketing campaign costs, constant fundraising, diminished staff, and centralized party leadership. Furthermore, social media has fueled a performative culture that prioritizes spectacle over substance. This gridlock reveals how internal dynamics cripple America’s central democratic institution, causing citizens to lose faith. Ultimately, Kornberg argues that saving American democracy requires targeted structural reforms that empower new members and restore Congress’s capacity to function.
Maya L. Kornberg is a senior research fellow at NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice and the author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in Lawmaking.
Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Smithsonian, Slate, The Nation, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Boston. His newest book, The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby: Inside a Billionaire Family’s Quest to Craft a Christian Nation was published by PublicAffairs in July 2026. 
Gabriele is a scholar, author, and speaker focusing primarily on religion/ violence, nostalgia/ apocalypse during the European Middle Ages, as well as how the medieval world has been remembered in subsequent generations, including the politics and pop culture of today. He’s a professor of medieval history at Virginia Tech and member of the Royal Historical Society (UK).
Kevin T. Morris is senior research fellow and voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Focusing on the provision of gender-affirming care, Health Care Civil Rights analyzes the difficulties and potential of discrimination law in healthcare settings. The application of civil rights law could be a powerful response to health inequalities in the US, but conservative challenges and the complex and fragmented nature of our health care system have limited the real-world success of this strategy. Revealing deep divides and competing interests that reverberate through patient experiences, insurance claims, and courtroom arguments, Anna Kirkland explains what health care civil rights are, how they work in theory and practice, and how to strengthen them.
Join us on October 16 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Leah Rosenstiel, PhD, to discuss her new book 
In Blazing Eye Sees All, journalist Leah Sottile investigates the modern New Age movement, examining why women become devoted to self-professed gurus like Love Has Won’s “Mother God.” While tarot and crystals dominate social media, Sottile reveals that this seemingly gentle world of “love and light” has long been built on conspiracies, antisemitism, nationalism, and anti-science views. Driven by modern anxieties like climate change and pandemics, people seek relief in these spiritualities. Ultimately, Sottile separates genuine healing from dangerous “snake oil,” helping readers find true clarity amid the rise of New Age influence.
Join us on August 14 at noon (PT) as we welcome special guest Mariah Blake to discuss her latest book 
Join us on August 7 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Maya Kornberg, PhD, to discuss her new book