What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to have Kelly and John ruin it for you? Just kidding! We're not here to cancel Thanksgiving and we hope you have a lovely one. But holidays are weird things - we often celebrate them without really examining why, or how we arrived at the myths and rituals that emanate from their core. And Thanksgiving is, in many ways, our strangest holiday - a secular celebration that is at once also an aggressively religious one, built around a series of supposedly historical events that seem to have a lot of missing pieces when you start connecting the dots. It can also be a day that evokes painful memories for the indigenous population. To help us unpack what Thanksgiving is and what it is not, and to shed some light on how we came to celebrate this holiday as well as how important it is that we not let that celebration obscure our understanding of early American history and the genocide of the indigenous population, we asked historian David J. Silverman - author of This Land is Their Land - to join us. You can buy Dr. Silverman's book here: This Land is Their Land @ Amazon Read also Dr. Silverman's 2019 piece in The New York Times: The Vicious Reality Behind the Thanksgiving Myth

Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House or Representatives. And what the media seems to think you should know about him is that he's very nice, he's smart. he's well-respected by his colleagues, he's personally liked by Democrats, and he's conservative Christian. Oh, and did we mention he's nice? Mike Johnson - real nice guy! What we think you should know about him, however, is that he is now the most powerful Christian Nationalist in the country - possibly in the history of the country. And Mike's niceness masks some truly dark intentions. Because while nobody seems to have heard of this guy before last month, he has been at the center of the far-right Christian project to remake America as a patriarchal theocracy, and he has very close ties to the likes of the Falwells, James Dobson, and Tony Perkins. So today, Kelly and John take some time to vent about the failure of our media and to try to correct their missteps ever so slightly, including highlighting some folks who have been covering Johnson the right way, as they provide a quick rundown of who Mike Johnson and why the ascension of this very nice man marks a very dangerous moment for the future of the country. The New York Times: The Embodiment of White Christian Nationalism in a Tailored Suit Mother Jones: Mike Johnson’s Long Flirtation With Christian Nationalism Mother Jones: Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a “Christian Nation” The Nation: The Folksy Fanaticism of Mike Johnson

Jenn Tisdale joins John and Kelly to talk about Edgar Allan Poe and the new Netflix series from Mike Flanagan The Fall of the House of Usher Like he did for Shirley Jackson with The Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan's series remixes and reimagines much of Poe's work and life story to create something haunting, timely, and revelatory, exposing themes in Poe's work and digging into the author's sense of morality and justice. For this Halloween special, they discuss the role that fears of pain and death play in narrative, what Carla Cugino's Raven character suggests about justice and free will, and just how damn great this cast is.

Jason Bivins is a specialist in religion and American culture an is the author of 2008's Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism. He has also published multiple articles, review essays, and occasional pieces on religion, politics, and culture in the United States. His most recent book is Embattled America: The Rise of Anti-Politics and America’s Obsession with Religion (forthcoming, Oxford University Press, April 2022). A child of the era of the Satanic Panic - the unfounded moral hysteria around devil worship that gripped much of the US and Canada in the 1980s and 90s - Jason's interest and study of religion has been driven in large part by the experiences of his metal-loving, comic book-reading youth. Here he talks to Kelly and John about how conservative evangelicals manipulate and embrace horror tropes for their own ends in books like Left Behind, the story of Hell Houses, and how are cultural fractured and broke all our brains sometime in the mid 1990s. If you want to connect with Jason, you can email him at jcbivins@ncsu.edu.

Mike Flanagan's "Midnight Mass" revisits a lot of the themes of much of his previous work: grief, death, trauma, loss (and you can listen to our discussion of his "Haunting Of" Netflix series here). But it also covers some a lot of new ground, including the complicated relationship between human beings and the religions they build. It is a show grounded as much in humanity as it is in horror, and it asks more questions than it answers - and, in this way, it demonstrates an understanding of what religion is and how it works that is rare not only for the genre but for popular fiction in general. John has been unable to stop thinking about the series since it debuted three weeks ago, and so, desperate to talk about it, he invited the two most qualified voices on the subjects of horror and religion he knows - Kelly J. Baker and Dan Colón, co-host and co-creator of Cage Club's The Monsters that Made Us. Dan on Twitter Show page: The Monsters That Made Us

If you've been feeling a little off lately, it's probably because FEMA recently tested a new emergency alert system and it activated the nanotech in your covid vaccine and now you're a zombie. As least, that's what a disturbing number of people on the right thought would happen. And maybe some of them still think it DID happen? You can find all about that in Matt Shuham's piece in the Huffington Post here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fema-wireless-emergency-alerts-system-test-conspiracy-theories-zombies-5g_n_651c71bfe4b00623d35ea98f So this weekend, we're asking, first of all, "why?" - and trying to make sense of the timing and implications of this particularly loopy conspiracy theory and what it says about the state of right-wing endtimes conspiracism.

Horror would be nothing without Catholic horror. From crucifixes to demon possession, from Dante's "Inferno" to the "The Nun II", Catholic imagery and imagination have shaped horror for centuries. But the intersection of Catholicism and horror has a dark real-world connection, as well. The Hero Priest trope at once masks and alludes to a hidden legacy of clerical sexual abuse, and the threat of hell lingers in the imagination of so many believers. This week, we talk to our friend Matthew J. Cressler, a scholar of Catholicism and longtime fan of William Friedkin's 1973 classic "The Exorcist", about Catholicism's influence on horror as well as horror's influence on the Catholic imagination. You can find more about Matt and his work here: https://matthewjcressler.com/

In this Weekend Chit-Chat, we discuss: How the Klan of 1920s used mainstream acceptance and the mantle of Christianity to push their agenda in the center of American life, and we ask how the descendants of that group, like the Proud Boys, have altered those tactics in ways that seem radically different on the surface but maybe aren't so different after all. We talk absurd memes, the "it's just a joke!" defense, and tapping into pop culture references to appeal to the modern mainstream. But, hey, soccer! Soccer's good!

If you happen to fall within a certain (fairly broad) age range, there is a very good chance that somewhere, at some point, you have encountered Chick Tracts. Jack Chick's horrific, over-the-top, feverish warnings about what happens if you don't accept Christ before you DIE!!!! have literally littered city streets and coffee shop tabletops for decades. Chick Tracts are outlandish and, if you don't happen to be an ultra fundamentalist end times Christian, deeply offensive. But they are also interesting and, from an artistic perspective, clever and accomplished. In fact, purely in terms of how many eyes have seen his work, Jack Chick is one of the most successful artists ever. American Hysteria host Chelsey Weber-Smith recently released an in-depth, thoughtful, and thorough look at Chick's life and work, including his use of urban legend and horror tropes, and she joined us to talk about what made Chick tick, his theology, and why he's so beloved and despised (at the same time) by horror fans. You can find AH and Chelsey on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/americanhysteriapodcast/

For many, Labor Day is not much more than the end of summer movie season, a reason to have a cookout, or the symbolic beginning of the school year. It's the holiday we talk least about, in large part because the labor movement is one of the most underexamined areas of American history. So in honor of Labor Day, Kelly and John talked to Dr. Heath Carter, who has written extensively about the sometimes helpful, sometimes hostile role religion has played in driving the labor movement. Heath is an associate professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned a BA in English and Theology from Georgetown University in 2003, an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2005, and a PhD in history from the University of Notre Dame in 2012. And he is the author of Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago, which was the runner up for the American Society of Church History’s 2015 Brewer Prize, as well as the co-editor of three books: The Pew and the Picket Line: Christianity and the American Working Class, Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism, and A Documentary History of Religion in America, 4th Ed. He is currently working on a new book entitled On Earth as it is in Heaven: Social Christians and the Fight to End American Inequality, which retells the story of the American social gospel. You can find more about him at his website: https://heathwcarter.com/

Did you know A.I is not just the title of one of the best movies of the 21st century - it's a also a thing that's making a lot of news?? Well, we did, because we're very young and hip and with it. In this episode, we consider the implication of some of the emerging areas of A.I. - like ChatGPT - on religion. First, Kelly spent some time chatting with Jesus on two different platforms - a text based interface where users can ask Jesus questions and get text message responses (and can also ask the Devil questions...for a price!! *cue ominous music*) Second, John takes a look at the now defunct Way of the Future upstart religion, which had the goal of forming a benevolent relationship with our omniscient cyber overlords before they decide to go all SkyNet on us. We consider whether A.I. Jesus may replace tradition religious experiences, like prayer, and what religious movements that emerge around emerging technology, like Scientology and Heaven's Gate, tell us about religion itself.

It's Kelly's birthday (John's was yesterday...) and so we decided to talk to one of her favorites - Solomon Missouri, known to those in the know as Twitter's Pastor. In his own words, Rev. Solomon Missouri's ministry focuses on sexuality and spirituality outside and beyond church walls. We talk about how he stumbled into his role as Twitter's favorite spiritual leader, where Christianity is going, how he ministers to atheists who are still looking for community and support. You can find out more about his on his website here: https://www.solomonmissouri.com/ Rev. Missouri is also on all the social medias of note, including, of course (we still call it) Twitter @solomonmissouri

Dr. Bradley Onishi is the author of the recent Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism and What Comes Next as well as the co-host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus, which focuses on the the state of Christian Nationalism from a variety of angles. He joined John and Kelly to talk about his book, his experience growing up in California and converting to evangelical Christianity (which he would later go on to leave), and where exactly we are in the fight for a secular democracy in America. You can find out more about Brad, his books, and the podcast at his website: https://www.bradonishi.com/

On this chit-chat, we try to define what we mean when we say "authentic", what is "the true self", and we are all so prone to dividing religion into "real" and "fake". Also - fitness cults, the console wars, Coke and Pepsi, and Haruki Murakami. For this episode, we looked at work by Chrissy Stroop (https://religiondispatches.org/christian-nationalism-is-authentically-christian-and-according-to-a-new-poll-most-white-evangelicals-are-supporters/), Jessica Grose (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/opinion/religion-fitness.html), and David Chidester (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242807/authentic-fakes)

Shreena Gandhi is a part of the Religious Studies Department at Michigan State University, where is primarily teaches classes on religion and race in the Americas. She is currently finishing up edits on a manuscript, A Cultural History of Yoga in the United States, which looks at the impacts of race, gender and class on how yoga is practiced and commodified in religious and secular spaces. And she is working on two other projects: one on religious seeking in the colonial and post-colonial global south, which uses her grandfather’s writings and books as primary evidence, as well as the writings of other colonial and post-colonial religious seekers. And the other is a collaborative project on how to transform U.S. religious history into an anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-sexist discipline which helps move forward the goals of decolonization. She joined Kelly and John to talk about the history of yoga in the United States, how the story of colonialism and white supremacy cannot be separated from the popularity of yoga in the west, and what can and should be done about it. She also shared her thoughts on the past and future of the caste system.

This week, Kelly and John take on July 4th and ask if it's possible to wrestle it away from the darker side of American history as well as its increasingly Christian Nationalist connotations. Even though (or maybe because) America is not, in fact, a Christian nation and has no official religious identity, is July 4th a religious holiday? Has the project of state that (purportedly) guarantees freedom of religion and keeps the government (purportedly) independent of any religious affiliation actually made American history and its icons objects of religious devotion? Also this week: The good news is dogs and Bears. And we spend too much time on Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA". Plus, we talk about how where you are in America often reflects what you're actually celebrating on Independence Day, we bring up Robert Bellah's 1967 article "American Civil Religion", that time Thomas Jefferson tried to take all the miracles out the New Testament, and the fact that most of the founders were deists. And we somehow make no references to the 1996 movie, while Kelly attempts to accurately employ the phrase "go to bat for".

Toby Ball is the host and creator of the series Strange Arrivals, a production of iHeart Radio an Aaron Mahnke's Grim and Mild. The recently-concluded third season of his show looks at UFO researchers who developed theories to explain the phenomenon and the consequences those theories had for people who believed they had experienced the paranormal. In the finale, Toby explores the ways in which belief in aliens via the UFO phenomenon functions as a modern religious movement, including the ways in which it pierce the boundaries of an obsession to become something more like a faith, and how UFO culture often bears the traits of a hopeful apocalyptic cult not unlike early Christianity. Kelly and John talked to Toby about how his own religious perspective (or lake thereof) informs the series, how UFO culture is distinct from fully-formed religious identities, and if we have any reason to believe the latest guy with the "real story" of the US government and UFOs any more than the endless parade of similar guys who came before him. You can find Strange Arrivals on the Grim and Mild website here: https://www.grimandmild.com/strangearrivals You can learn more about Toby and his work here: http://www.tobyball.com/

This week was the tenth anniversary of the release of the The Last of Us on PlayStation 3. The critically-acclaimed HBO television adaptation aired earlier this year, and so we thought it would be a good time to take a look back at its themes and messages, especially where it concerns religion. Visions of the apocalypse can serve as great platforms to explore ideas about human nature, but, while they tend to be interested in the philosophy of religion, they often drop the ball when it comes to the actual depiction of religious people. How does The Last of Us stack up as far as that goes? What did we think of the "religion episode"? Is Ellie a Christ figure? And how come all the spoons and can openers seem to vanish when the world ends? We talk about that and more in this installment of our weekend chit-chat series! Also, read Kelly's book about this: The Zombies Are Coming!

When you work in religious studies, sometimes you get to work on really cool subjects, like Dr. Shaily Patel, who works on magic. For centuries, magic had been an integral part of religion. So much so, in fact, that it's hard to really see it as a separate category. So when did we start removing magic from religious practice and putting into the wands of boy wizards and teenage witches, or the hands of bearded old men? Why is magic a Vegas act instead of Church liturgy? The short answer is Christianity. The long answer is what Kelly and John invited Shaily on to talk about this week. Shaily Patel is an assistant professor of early Christianity at Virginia Tech. She earned her Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina in 2017 and holds master’s degrees from Vanderbilt Divinity School and The University of Chicago.  You can find her on Twitter @vox_magica

In the first weekend episode, John bring Kelly the topic of the Buddhist teaching of The Middle Way. One of the first breakthroughs in Siddhartha's journey to become the Buddha, the Middle Way reminds us that in order to be successful in our quests, we must center ourselves in moderation. This means avoiding the pitfalls of thinking in terms of extremes - that the answer to our problems is probably not ever the opposite of whatever caused them. As a society, and as a culture, we suck at this. And, worse, we tend to confuse the wisdom of this teaching with an endorsement of centrism, contrarianism, or moderation for moderation's sake. And as two people who tend to take on more than they can handle and are very bad at considering their own mental well-being, your two hosts consider where they might learn from the Buddha's insights here as well!