shooting down blacks. >> american history tv on c-span three next sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern former student richard lindsay on integration in north little rock high-school. >> they knew what was going to happen, but we don't know what's going to happen. we don't realize. ..

it [applause] >> i am honored to have make and we decided. but maybe he says is my right hand. i apologize for sounding like that. it's all my fault. i have to have a routine and i forgot he's a wonderful guy who actually wants to know how you're doing and he loves politics. so i wouldn't change it for the world. i should have factored that in. i'm sorry we started a few minutes late. i absolutely could not resist. michael sean is an extraordinary figure for public conversation. he's a progressive who gets impatient with progressive sometimes about how they talk

about and think about religions. he's a catholic who gets impatient with the church sometimes about how the inc. and talk about politics and he's a christian who believes that christianity has a role to pay in public life but gets messed up with christians and nobody played that role. he's such an independent thinker that i could imagine his taking about five minutes to undermine the intellectual rationale behind each of those compliments. but we are here to talk about his grade book. i appreciated peter's comments about how an odd way fawell may have secularized christianity rather than christianizing or politics. i think to get to that. tenacious want to start with two basic questions. what is a catholic boy from new england, like you, doing writing about jerry falwell? witchery you to jerry falwell?

and affect a couple that with another question. putting aside your political critique of having. how do you feel about him as a human being at the end of all of your research? >> first of all, it was suggested to me by a jewish friend from a short. i guess it was denominational affair, but man approached me and said you wrote this book about catholics and progressives. and that was what we received. maybe you should do a book about republicans and conservatives. anything i keep waiting for a biography of jerry falwell. and i thought about it for about five seconds and said, of course that's the next thing you should be working on. and in doing the research, most of which was really people for an american wasco grateful for the archives not having to check down in lynchburg and my dogs

would not like that. every day i was working on this project is someone who carries a mesh at the intersection of religion and politics, everyday was like waking up in the photographic negatives. these are the issues they cared about and everything was in the wrong place or reverse. that said, it was fascinating this is a consequential man and as you alluded to, we are still living largely in his shadow or at least the republican party is still largely living in his shadow. and so, as i got involved, one of the things from a historical training for survivor this is his story, not my story. when you quote something he said that his offensive come you don't have to say look how offensive that was. i didn't offer any criticisms in the book except in the introduction in the epilogue are not contemporaneous and he sent

here to defend criticism for me, so neither was found in real-time as he was living his life and therefore made its way into the book. but i wasn't interested in talking to people in treacherous back, looking back 30 years. i just don't think that's how history plays itself out. i regret not meeting any of the incredible capacity prevention which extended for people who are not like-minded including ted kennedy who went to liberty to give a talk and had dinner with the family and a few months later they are both in florida and rose kennedy is not doing well and jerry came and prayed with rose kennedy and they became friends. when jerry junior went to law school, one of the letters of recommendation was from senator kennedy. the most bizarre mention was with larry flynt and they have this famous lawsuit that went to the supreme court may have a dog and pony show that they go to

college campuses to debate each other. in addition to the symbiotic relationship that often develops between ideological opponents, they found out they enjoyed each other and i think the initial occasion was one of the difficulties i think it was where he said to reverend falwell, i will give you writing my plane and they said it's foolish for us to both of airplane for a week. and subsequently every time he was in los angeles, jerry falwell would always visit larry and he wrote this very moving tribute in "the l.a. times" about we agreed on nothing to do with my friend. i regret not meeting him. but i will say one of the things someone said to me as soon as they shared with them as starting this project they said that that should be interesting. i suppose the fact responsiveness that the most interesting thing about him.

>> i'm not going to count on michael to lend me his private plane whenever i come down. there's been a lot written before your book about how falwell came to politics and in some ways he was recruited. one thing i liked about falwell is that he was quite honest in his autobiography in acknowledging that when martin luther king was doing his work in the civil rights movement was doing his work, follows deeply posted this at the politicization of christianity and eventually just came out and said yeah, i'm wrong. he didn't defend there is no contradiction. would you talk about the recruiting of jerry falwell? i think there is part of this that was sorted an outside catalyst from the republican party. >> he had been to being his toe and the political waters

starting in the 60s with the anti-communist theme starts making its way into his sermons. and obviously with roe v. wade in 1973. he worked with anita bryant, miami-dade and referendum, which was written day one and defeated a civil rights claim. but it was in 1979 figure five republicans, howard phillips went to lynchburg and said we need you. we need you to galvanize their base. he was very resistant to do this and he thought that his people in the pews were not ready for this and would react badly to his getting politically involved. fundamentalists had a long tradition and teaching spirituality at the church, but they sure should not be involved in moral reformation. this is obviously had its roots going all the way back to the reformation and the discussion between faith and more, but also

was a direct response. fundamentalism in the beginning was the response to the social gospel movement which that private charity is of course upon christians, but justice in society is also a part of christian vocation in fundamentalism is formed very much in response to that created the social gospel movement. and so he had helped us all play a sound basis and at 65 he gave the marches in a speech attacking dr. king for getting politically involved. but that victory came armed however with a poll in the poll showed that the people in pews at the evangelical and fundamentalist community were chomping at the bit to get politically involved and that they fell for a variety of reasons for the kind of shared moral discourse that at least went to slander the cultural radar screen was now being passed and they could no longer

assumed to be safe in the ghetto and i don't just get on a pejorative term at all, but that the institutions they will come at the, churches and a falwell's case, the university could no longer protect themselves from the forces of the ambient culture said they had to get politically involved if they were going to protect their niche and of course i went off the entire culture. >> could you talk a bit in detail on how that sort of galvanized to the moment. >> the jones case is actually after the farming of the moral majority. what preceded it was an irs decision that segregated schools to maintain their tax-exempt status in 1978 from the irs said they would have to do more than simply have an antidiscrimination plank in their charter. they need it and the burden of

proof would be on the institution, not the irs. and this created such a groundswell of opposition that it was the straw that broke the camel's back. i think it's relevant for room time the idea of government is not just policy, but saying you have to do this, not that. but the most dangerous person in america. and that is very much because he continued to hold to this idea that moral reformation would not pass the christian church, that this score the fundamental protestant doctrine received two great works. >> can you talk a little bit about the way in which the religious conservatives including falwell are often talk about the people who converted a large community of particular southern evangelicals to republicanism when in fact a lot

of this political conversion to place in the mid-1960s around the civil rights laws. a lot of the voters had already started coding republican in the goldwater years and later. and can detect about this this interaction between assertive to wait this out conservatism and evangelical movement? >> it's interesting because of course he also was a segregationist. and as equally candid and he flipped on the deal but they're not religious folk should be involved in politics. he also flipped on segregation and said i was just reading the bible from. he wish he had taken the insight to question his way of reading the bible a little more thoroughly, but that is not how he preceded. and by the time liberty university was founded, he was desegregated. those no longer part of the issue. i preface this in the book and i hope scholars of southern history will do more on this.

it does seem to me that in the 1950s and 60s as jim crow is being pulled apart is when you see the first explicit ideas about christian nationalism and christian -- the american exceptionalism coming to the fore. and there's a beautiful quote in the book in toqueville where he's talking about the aristocrats and how even though the political and legal situation changed, psychologically they had to hold onto their feeling of superiority. in the d.c. the sense that if there were no longer going to be racially superior they had the feel they need elsewhere. and what that gives rise to is israel hyper page or two of them in the sense of american exceptionalism that you don't really find in this house previously. this indignation than that, that he was a death given the specific inflection and if you

close your eyes and i'm sure we also have again change this weekend. when you close your eyes and was sent to governor palin talk about american exceptionalism, it is straight from the falwell book and i do believe that nonsense that is treated in this need to feel superior. so if you cannot feel superior to the black folk as jim crow's gun away, we'll feel superior to the rest of the world because we are americans. as southerners were not always too proud to be part of the union. >> it would seem to be the obvious first thought is you are imposing a psychological view from the outside on a group of people who do have an authentic taste for some time. i could elaborate back on the beach you know what ago. >> and an armchair and i don't like playing armchair psychologist, but it does just seem to me you do not see in the

pulpits, but also the political language before that time. you don't see the sense of american exceptionalism coming out of the evangelical republican church in the way it does subsequently. so you can't prove a negative. i can't say, there was no war room with a set height, this is what we're going to do. but i do think it just organically develops in the southern pulpit in a way it had not previously. >> i want to ask you about fundamentalism which you read about in a lovely way with some considerable respect. but how do you think a falwell father, a member of this church was looking? what reaction? >> i hope they would understand that i do think, you know, you develop a certain intimacy with

your topic by working on a project like this. and you become so much empathetic date but again, my job as an historian was not to put myself into the narrative. but i think it is fair. i don't go out of my way to criticize him anymore than i criticize some of his critics certainly. and by giamatti for who i have the greatest respect, his worst moments in public life was very big of an attack on jerry falwell. and it is not a church state. it is religion in society and from an educated and associated should've known the difference. and there were more intelligent and subtle criticisms. it was certainly dogmatism on the last and in secular circles that was criticized in ways that are unfair in my catalog in the book. so i hope they would find it fared. it was his story.

i tried to just tell it without putting too much of a block -- i'm not going to fault the man for not being catholic although obviously i wish everyone became catholic. let me read a little bit from what you wrote about in the fundamentalism. fundamentalism is the self intellectual hold from the inside it is supremely coherent and everything else neatly in place. there is a certainty and clarity to fundamentalism. all the answers to a place lessons are found in the bottle if you know where to look. and i'm skipping fundamentalists it is morally rigorous, but not intellectually curious. fundamentalism is acceptable, not dexterous. it is an conference easy to parts of american culture that is profoundly countercultural in other parts. i feel like i am giving the essay examines the sats.

>> i could use those words and such an discredit the gop primary race. they think is important to understand he just didn't bring any kind of public religion. the thing mentioned it was a response to the gospel movement. was also a response to the use of the historical critical method for understanding the bible in terms of the context in which was written in things like this. you know, there's a great find in the early 20th 20th century evangelist that said that the word of god says one thing and scholarship did something else, then the whole scholarship. obviously that worldview, which will adopt is not very useful for a political system built on dialogue. and so this idea of bringing orthodoxy into the public square -- i would argue it is interesting is the intent to

look at abortion but in my mind the important fundamental thing he did as republicans now can view all issues in terms of absolute fundamentalist view. i don't want to pine for the days of democrats can sit down with the national association manufactures in spite of the minimum wage. for grover norquist, it is about ideology and if you disagree, you are not just wrong or have a different interest or perspective. you are a heretic. you are a republican in name only and you just don't see that attitude before falwell. and to me it is not just objectionable in terms of the social issue. it just now extends to republican views and afraid i think if you look up the debate, the early debate was the series that you are not as orthodox as i am israel, immigration, tax policies, the affordable care act.

this is really his contribution to the republican party. and in that way she stood more than they can do is not about cutting a deal to assess personal life quite tolerant. i think today's republican party is much more air to falwell then vacant and is rooted in the fundamentalist mind you. >> that's a very interesting notion. parties have replaced national conventions. >> talk about his religious faith. how he came to it and how you came to understand it, especially someone who could not talk to him directly about it. >> his father was agnostic and an alcoholic and bootlegger in a very successful businessman. his mother was devout, but was clearly the junior partner in the marriage.

he was not raised to go to church and when he got to college come he attended a local college, one day he was talking to the members of his gang, not a nefarious gang, but this group of fellow study hung out with and you said you know, i want to hear some preaching in this town. just like i i.q. and another sustained to the radio and she used to listen to charles fuller as california fundamentalists. they said well, we are told at park avenue baptist church they have that kind of preaching and they also some pretty gross. what i was enough for 20 wrote jerry. so he went there and convert that night. they have the altar call and they were anathema to prove conversion and he went out and bought a bible from a biblical commentary and within six menses enrolled in the seminary in missouri. i do not think there's any doubt that it was an authentic

conversion. this man was not a charlatan. this is an ulnar gantry figure. as a writer of course you are terrified and you'll find some personal scandal in his life that so many books. but if a focus on that and i don't care about that. i care about his public and political significance. >> michael just proved he's a christian. 90% would say i can sell a lot of books. >> think that it was not there. i think his faith was very real, but again it was like his personality, if desired this kind of certainty. he was not inquisitive. there's a great story i came across about a presbyterian who goes to dinner with and access asking a question about the different accounts of the crucifixion. in the bible. some have mary is fair, some she is not in this kind of thing.

paul wells answer is a professor in college taught me about that to my satisfaction. and that was it. there is no sort of natural acquisitiveness. and i do think one of the faults he betrayed and fundamentalism are broadly as they do end up using the bible a is a proof text. they get their ideas and then they so many flips on segregation and political outcome he just just starts citing other text. there is not invited death to the scholarship they are. i think the funniest thing is fundamentalists at ours is the traditional way. if you actually look back in the early church, they certainly did not treat the bible as a kind of literal fundamentalist document the way he would. >> this is just purely because of something i care about. but it also shows something you've described in the relationship that tends to be biased.

one of the great liberal illusions of our time. actually got friendly with falwell, spent time down there. what is it? i don't want to put them in the same box. they're quite different figures. and yeah, what is it about him? because very many people like him on the right who would not have the openness and i'm not sure there are many people. what do you think created these relationships quick >> in part i think he would convert everyone. he would say when larry flynt time comes, i want to be there. and of course larry still living living and jerry is going to die. so i think that was part of it. he reveled being on the public stage. if that meant sharing the stage is someone whom he disagreed, he was acutely aware of again how, for instance, he had a summit

with evangelicals that mel white organized and it was very, very famous. he was aware that again you can have these symbiotic relationships. it was fund-raising opportunities on both sides, and media opportunities both sides and yet although these feminist things that come out of his mouth come as soon as the microphones came off, he was back laughing and evidently by all accounts a great guy to go have a peer with people you would have had a, but a great way to have bar-b-q bids. that disarms people, certainly. >> you talk about how falwell changed the face of american christianity and doesn't come points to peter's point and i guess alan wilson made the point also, rio was talking about religion politics or has been religion been totally

secularized. are we talking about augustine's theology or works for a portion or gay marriage. the church has been more politicized and converted as it were the public square. he sort of talk about how he changed american christianity? >> he did it in two ways. if you change the face of christianity and sweden or france that doesn't make a big difference. but in america this is a big deal. just think of the names before 1979 committee or the moral majority was formed. for the most prominent faces in america? niebuhr, dr. king, trying dan, derek and brothers, william coughlin. these are not conservatives. and billy graham to his great credit also did not get involved in the kind of course they followed it and was actually quite courageous on the issue of segregation and go to southern

cities for his revivals. and if they ran out of transit requires segregation come he would make them of the location. he refused yakutia segregated congregation. but the culture of graham is the first from the more traditional conservative wing. the falwell undeniably becomes the face of christian political involvement in the 1980s. the results of that is first of all when he shuts down the moral majority after 10 years, no one really rises to take his place but through his university, you now have many smaller jerry falwell suckered people like tony perkins who was in a number of studies university and their last goal as you mentioned is putting out lots of accolades for the cause. but no one really replace him as the personhood of bookers that phil donahue, netminder going to

call first. they had a friendship obviously can't usually dear friend theology. fall will is very suspicious of charismatics. if you are a professor, there is a professor was a liberty was fired for holding prayer meetings. so followers very suspicious. also a certain tension that robertson had gone to yield from his father had been a senator. and the falwell's were always on the wrong side of the track. so there was that tension in the relationship. also, falwell's empire was never as large or successful as the christian broadcasting network's the robertson started. but they were friends. i think is telling in 1888 when pat robertson ran, falwell endorsed george h. debbie bush and clearly, falwell understood the establishment and liked establishment republican politics very much. he liked going to the oval

office for my tardiness picture taken. even though he had opposed bush being chosen as a running mate, he was very of other leaders that understand yet eight years to get them on board before he made his own body and he was successful. >> there's the worst kind of journalists. does that mean falwell would be on his right quick >> i wouldn't be at all surprised. i would say this. another one of falwell's contributions is to get evangelicals of the idea they could not yoked with nonbelievers and for the nonbeliever as anyone who's not a fundamentalist. and he relied marches on francis schaeffer who is another great evangelical thinkers said we can be co-belligerence and it was hypothetical example because you had to have an example from the bible that helped jesus carry his cross. and so the king of persia helps rebuild the second temple. there was always the biblical

analysis. i actually think the founding of the device upon the idea that it okay now to do business with mormons who they consider heterodox and religious matter, but i actually think romney's mormonism helped them with but evangelical christians because without that, he's just a moderate former governor of massachusetts who signed health care reform provides tax care funding over abortion. where would evangelical home they know it went against proposition 8. i am not sure that it plays the way the current narrative says that it plays in terms of fundamentalist dealing with romney. it's much more concentrated than not. >> i'm sure it's much more complicated. you can't live with the narrative says they care passionately about a candidate's religious belief in the republican primaries and seem to be voting against romney.

>> i do think evangelical pastors are very tight terrified of having a morning person it would confer upon that religion. >> factors you're talking about making the plate in the general election is a community that may have some bigotry in some cases, but certainly the logical mistrust that combo for him over obama. >> ,. two last questions really. i have three less questions before you open it up. maybe i'll hold on my last question. i was fascinated by the notion that the thomas baptist church was actually up prototype for what has become the mega-church. now, i think it is important for people not to confuse mega-churches with right-wing politics because it is not uniform of the case that mega-churches are all

politically conservative. but you talk about this model. could you sort of talk about how that developed in the sense of what might rick warren -- >> again, discredit the sense that they could no longer trust the cultures that trust the cultures that the prayer was elected to public schools, so the starter in christian schools. they were horrified the prayer was to look in the public schools, so the starter in christian schools. they were horrified if sex education been introduced into the public school curriculum. futurity begun a ministry to alcoholics out of his church. his father had died at a young age from his alcoholism. his father had actually shot his brother, who had been an alcoholic and i'm a drug-induced rage. so that was a special issue. and then if he got as the chitinous congregation and the congregation grew, he was very attentive and entrepreneurial and a chair to play about meeting their needs. so they started a day care center and started a food center

for the poor in the town of conflict this. very much, although i couldn't find any of it that says he saw this as a model, pretty much any similar sociological circumstance the ethnic irish at the early 20th century in the face of perceived hostility by the indian culture but their own schools, built the room what we now know social service agent these, obviously the catholic church would have had a union host it at that. falwell would not have had a union hall as part of his mega-church model. but it is this idea you create a ghetto and i don't mean that in a pejorative sense. but the temptations of the world that they are. it does not mean they can't and subsequently go out and flourish in the same way as mario cuomo as a product of the catholic ghetto. so his jd from saint john's university in the safety of the data of that tend to flourish

and create their excellences and produce top rate scholars. the first thing was he was very interested in scores and debate team, which played a brief important role in the gop nominating contest this year. so i think he created that because he felt the need to protect his son and created a mega-church in others again have followed that. i was researching an article in mega-churches about five years ago and i went here to the washington suburbs out of germantown rb on germantown and it is going to youth group meeting and they had these every week and they have seniors meetings every week. it's a real network and i got lost because it's the centerpiece of every work is fake homebred. everything refers to a tree. and i got a little lost and was running late and there is a

jogger. is that i'm looking for this address. 23 encore. he said i've no idea. turns out as a block in half away. this person who was jogging didn't know his own neighborhood once i walked through the door to his house where they were having this meeting for the get together every week to talk about what they were challenging, the social problems, education, how they do on this test. this is a community and i think there are large set yours up our society, where people have a crying need for that sense of community. and there is no equivalent on the left of that. and this is something we misunderstand and get allergic to the idea of a mega-church, when maybe we need to start going to some of them. now, saint peters is the mega-church for me. but they are not necessarily

there for the politics as you mentioned. not all of them are for baptist church in time associate ad under the pastor should jerry's son, jonathan is much less exclusively political ben & jerry's day. politics into jerry junior at the university and the university i don't think we mentioned was the first private institution to bring a lawsuit against the affordable care act. very much in the way they cherry produced videos announcing the efforts to reform health care in the clinton administration and using the exact same language. socialized medicine and all that stuff. so i do think the mega-church model speaks to a problem that we have in a modern plug-in community that people really don't want to build their community simply on the back of text messages and e-mail. they want to get together once a week and talk to people and evangelical churches doing a very good job of addressing the

need. and i do not fault them for that, but those of us more progressive need to pay attention to that need. you denholm's are not what they were. and i think it is a shame. >> first church of christ community organizing. >> it was in many ways. >> a hand in the back there. and then the lady on the left. to my left, you're right. >> in terms of social services, how does the mega-churches outreach differ up their bad sides appealed knights of columbus model or the parish hall model of roman catholic and mainstream protestant churches? >> thank you. can we do at least a couple at a time. decided they'll? is that you? >> anatole samet. my question is, you get falwell

a great deal of credit for changing christianity. but was it really falwell or was it the korean phillips who are not just protestants. you know, phillips came to a very, very kind of strange and my new sectors. >> warren was a deacon in the serbian orthodox church. >> yeah. and so wyrick identifies as catholic i believe. so i'm wondering -- it seems to me when you talk about public capacity for friendship the way he could turn up venom -- i'm wondering if he wasn't playing apart and whether it present these guys strategizing a change in fundamentalists and evangelical christianity, were they the minds behind it? >> i don't think there is a significant question. i think the model is the same

auto i want to stress i could not find any evidence that falwell was looking to the model for what he was doing. and to his viewers, it is not in either order. i think wyrick obviously helped attune hand and phillips to political realities. he changed the way he spoke. he learned mostly to be aware of and diane "nightline"? msl donahue show rmi in the pulpit of thomas road baptist church before youtube, so you could still have a kind of anterior conversation in a way that you can't any longer. i think woody brock, you know, they could've conceivably gone to a different pastor. the grant that. but they did go to him for a different reason, which is they understood that it is certain telegenic quality. he was quick on his feet.

he had a combative competitive personality. he liked the political fray. the critically what they're after and couldn't because they were not pastors, they needed a pastor to tap into the people in the pews. it was very curious and earlier 70s he brings on a computer fundraising firm and this is after you have problems with the sec and finances for a mass and they looked at him and said you're sitting on a gold mine. he just on how to tap into it. and what they realized as americans are very skeptical of mail pitches and asking for money, but the evangelical from a pastor would open the checkbook right away and there's this incredible trust the people and the pews did put in their pastors. so wyrick needed him. ttd pirate to work for the political things?

he developed that pretty quickly. for instance, you had this instance in the first six months of the reagan administration. reagan makes a decision not what the social issue agenda and follows immediately on board then goes on to face the nation and says we've got to fix this economic stuff first. the only time he broke with him in the first six months was over the sale of awacs to the saudi arabian government. and i think that is again telling of his legacy, which in today's republican primary, you can't criticize any action by the israeli government whatsoever. i'm falwell, to make the point that not all of his contributions were lonesome, although he himself and many of the pews some anti-semitic attitude. there's no political oxygen on the right for the anti-semitic attitudes to reach any kind of

political expression. i think it's an undeniably good thing. if you look at the history of christian conservatives are not in this country come anti-semitism is a perennial temptation. so he really stands out. the irony is at the same time as he exults the role of israel, he is warning as the republicans do today that obama is kind of the european socialists. and of course you want to say no one ever asked them, do you know anything about the founding of the modern state of israel? they were all european socialists. you know, there is this irony. the last the irony was something totally lost and that was not one of his guests. >> let me bring in these forehands. this gentleman first. keep in the back of your head what i think is a different version of that in no way was

politics virtue religion. just keep that in mind as you listen to these questions. is that fair, by the way? >> my question was he talked about in the 70s how the republicans at the conservative leadership went to falwell and asked him to be a spokesperson. how necessary is a free modern liberal to reach out to people in the faith in the upcoming years? >> i think he regarded the question is a blessing. >> my question is similar actually suitable separate him. my question is, i get very concerned as a faith-based -- leader of the state-based organization and social justice issues unarchive the conference bishop seems to become a wing of the republican party. i wonder 20 years from now will two folks sitting up there

talking about a book they read about how the republican party came a wing of the republican party. an example of that is senator santorum a couple weeks ago made a statement about radical environmental geology not based on christian principles and i'm still waiting for the catholic conference of bishops to issue a response to that, which clearly is way out of whack and he still hasn't issued any response of that. so i know both of you are strong catholics. could you comment on your perspective of catholics how you feel about what is happening within the catholic bishops and the catholic church and are they becoming just another arm of the republican party? >> a timely and very franciscan question. i'm in the two hands in the back. >> hi, just two quick questions. what was falwell's relationship with really gramlich? did he learn from anything and did he have any relationship with franklin?

and also, how much impact of the goldwater campaign half on the yoking of fiscal conservatism, social conservatives and in rebounding to ideology you thought in the 64 campaign. >> great question as well. spinet james university of maryland. as a similar question to that branching off of the goldwater theme. you mentioned the undead sort of white hegemony in the south has played a role in the sort of shift in southern politics. but i know that a lot of things they organized in the 70s, sort of the christian right, l. gpt rice, for example, the era would very much about the masculine, domination masculinity and i wonder if he could speak to that pension and of course phyllis schlafly who is very involved with barry goldwater as well.

>> my answer to your question is not: in the "washington post." it's a partial answer. >> i'm going to start with goldwater because i do think this is fine it was not politically involved. as the year before the minister's speech where he says christian master should not be involved in politics. but what he is our deep and 184 developed and largely in response to the social cost poetry fear of communism as godless as a rationale for the american way, for a free enterprise, capitalism. you have this irony that fundamentalism come apart as it is creation or genesis was in response to darwinism and get the end up embracing the social darwinistic ideas that we get

from rand and their economic views. but they back into it from communism. and very ham-handed play. it was a great moment in 1881 or 82 where he criticizes to kadir trio, people like what are you talking about? is enough to see the word socialist to assume there is a narrative dared that i think you see in our own david peoples criticisms of the affordable care act. his relationship with billy graham, obviously billy graham is an evangelical but not a fundamentalist. a very different cast of mind. and graham gets burned by his political involvement with nixon and fought during an billy pulled in, but he was never out. he would never mistake a falwell sermon. granted not talk about the

political issues to which a falwell did at all, never at any time in his career. come back to the rc's and the catholic question. the left is a really bad job as a reaching out to bishops and from my experience the catholic left i say enough i tend to week, the five times a month, have you written to your bishop? have you asked for a meeting? have you called? a given example because it pertains to someone in the room. in the 1980s out of nowhere the three franciscan showa from italy to want to give ronald reagan the bread of life. it's like a little statue recent being. the couple phone calls are made. reagan is going from one meeting to another. within a month, every franciscan newspaper, every franciscan magazine all around the world is a picture of ronald reagan and the franciscans giving him the bread of life.

try that in the up on the white house. try getting religious leaders and see who you can meeting with. we've got to do much better shot from the left of reaching out and developing friendships. the catholic ships are people. you've got to talk to them. you got to make them aware of your concerns. not in an aggressive nasty way, but to see them trying to understand where you come from. i do think it may have this moment between january 10 and february 12, but they felt the wind at their backs after the president announced the conversation, even though the president admitted at the time they're still more work to be done on that. i think they overreacted and search overplayed their hands. you saw last week boehner is backpedaling on this issue and critically hope they grasp it and i agree with e.j.'s column was great today and i hope he'll

read it. thanks to rush limbaugh, this issue is never again about prodigious liberty. it's now about contraception and how women are treated you do have to understand that if they go forward on this, they don't have the power to frame an issue in the culture and certainly not between now and november in a way that will work for them. >> let me ask two final questions are really debated. if you could relate them. you know, people talk about, what would jesus do? i can't this asking. that's a matter about which you care. but would he make a falwell? what would he make of this approach and in some sense, of all of our arguments in politics? yesterday one of the reasons was the foolishness of god.

and the other question is, could you do a talk about were but a progressive institution people would be inclined to talk about the negative impacts and i'd like to discuss that, but i still like to discuss what, if any positive contributions do you see falwell making so we can end on the know. >> first of all, and this is a theme of my criticism in the introduction is he understood that an american public discourse you can't really bring bible citations. but when he goes "nightline," it didn't do in terms of winning the argument to say that this has been proffered. i actually resist that because i think there is this idea that if you reduce religion to affix, taking to access to the public square. both been what you do is reduce

religion to affix. whereas when dr. king stood on the steps of the lincoln memorial and do this i have a dream speech he spoke about the creative redemptive power of suffering and how suffering of some tactical value. i am familiar with. only if you are a who recognizes the book of job for a christian who worships to crucify god. does that send as a doctor king make any sense whatsoever. so we have the idea that dogma -- dogmatic as a negative thing. but i also think we had this strange notion that dogma and the public square necessarily boost to the inquisition. and i don't know whether that's true. and dr. king's case it truly was not true. a followed by reducing notion to affix produces this idea in a certain type of tactics. you see this on us, to which the gospel is only for social justice and for conservatives is

only about social pyramid system. and religion it's very much about who caught it and how we worship him appropriately. and the others are derivatives. but if you leave the dogma at the door, the argument has to be a standout sound and i don't think christian ethics specifically were meant or intended to stand on their own and that is the key. so he was feeding the beast, trying to defeat. what was the other? the good thing. >> eire dimensioned anti-semitism that has no political currency on the great right now. in spite of himself, obviously the falwell lawsuit resulted in a great unanimous supreme court decision which he did not intend that we can all celebrate. he did bring this notion that christianity is not about being kind. and muscular christianity gives as much of an invitation to those of us were on the left to recognize there is some truth

there and reach different political and social conclusions from the fact that religion has to be about at some level for a christian about the empty tune or you're not making a specifically christian argument. i do think as a basic thing he enfranchised over 6 million fellow citizens and i don't think it's healthy to 6 million people who feel cut off from democratic processes. we may not like the way the boat would make other arguments and try to persuade them. but i find the most pernicious development last year are the to restrict the franchise and i'm waiting for some of my conservative friends who professes great devotion to democracy to stand up and say, this is out of bounds. and i have not seen it. but i do think falwell gets credit for bringing millions of americans into the political

process per se. that is a good thing. it is not healthy for society to have people divorced from the political system. i don't like it would be necessarily so. that's a different issue. the fact they are engaged and involved and take some sense of ownership around the democratic process he could teach credit for. >> i want to thank you. this is a great choice for me. i'm pretty sure it was for you as well. what are my favorite lines in scripture is of abiding god and god abides him. and this book is critical, but it also is loving. loving at the american political system. living out our obligations to each other and i've got to say loving of god. so thank you, michael sean. and i urge you all to buy this book. [applause]

[inaudible conversations]came do >> who is a nice oval opal a appeared opel workers at s airborne in iraq dries a known in knows about. but again, and suspicion was raised when i realized the back of the car was a little lower to the ground in the front. and given the rules ofand givete engagement, you cannot just shoot someone because they looked suspicious. can well,'t sir, scott, why did she xuzhou? well, i got scared. you got scared so you killed a man? well, yeah, sir. llhave a gun. you can't do that.ke, you ca and given the rules of engagement, you can't just shoo

someone unless you know they have a weapon. you know they are aiming for you know they've killed someone org, they are in the o action. they're so given the rules of engagement i could not shoot someone that looks suspicious.th so i need the best thing to dos. was steal attempt to get out of his car. so as as i did as looking over my left shoulder facing him inif the lead stryker vehicle, had not elected by name tape allvehl around me. i was inside the strikers standing up. i still have my m4, matt oakley and frame sans, looking cool, have a couple on. ames i was doing everything it ising supposed to do your looked at him and said hey, get out of your vehicle. ve and i knew he hurt me because he looked over her shoulder, over straight at me and raised hishte hands off the steering wheel ane then put them back down. nothing happened. i thought okay, maybe he o

understood or maybe he's saying i don't know where i am. i am lost. i didn't sdo know. lost. so i yelled at him again. he raised his hands up again ofl the steering wheel and shook his head no and that his foot off the brake. i then had to make a decision. so i shot two rounds in front of the vehicle with my m4. so my world went black. i woke up a week or so later at walter reid army medical center. my life forever changed. my world went black not only wt physically, being blanked the rest of my life.phys the shrapnel had cut by less than half entered the frontal lobe on the left side of my brain and mental training i went into the right i term a of al brain and cornea ectomy retina my optic nerve. i saw nothing but blackness and was told by the ophthalmologist that you would never be able to

see again. so my life went physically black. that day. but it also went spiritually black. i no longer believed in god. everything that i'd done, everything that i believed in now no longer meant anything to me. i remember one of my best friends, edward, coming into the room. i think it was before one of my surgeries and said, hey, scotty, why don't you say a prayer? i said, no. i don't know how to pray, and i don't know god. and i think it, the room went dead silent. like if there were cockroaches in the room, you would have heard 'em. my wife went back to her room realizing, you know, i'd been married to an awesome man, and i still am, and i'd be fine married to a blind guy, but being married to someone who didn't believe in what he believed in before, that was something different. so she began to