ryan burge: i think that's interesting.cientist, how many decisions are made strategically and how many are made spiritually? judy: for pastor and political scientist ryan burge, greg locke's journey raises some familiar questions about faith and following. ryan burge: you have seen a lot of people do this. they have really gone hard in one direction and then backed off over time. even if you looked at billy graham, for instance, he used to preach a pretty fire-and-brimstone message, but near the end of his life, you got a lot softer on a lot of gospel issues. i think a lot of people realize, like, you can build up an audience, but what's it worth long term for the health of my soul and me as a person? judy: so you're saying its hard to believe that he's sincere? is that what you're saying, or ryan burge: any time a public figure changes their direction, it's always a question of, what's guiding -- what's directing the ship? what's guiding the show? i can't see into greg locke's heart. i hope to god that he finds a gospel t

american baptist pastor and political scientist ryan burge. >> today, churches have become so homogenoussm is 80% republican today. if you go to a white evangelical church, you're probably not going to find a single democrat in the congregation. and the pastor's probably also a strong republican as well. so you're going to hear one message and one understanding of the world. judy: and that trend, he says, was only accelerated by covid-19 and the way the pandemic response was politicized. >> pastors have always sort of dodged landmines during their sermons because they don't want to wade into these issues. the problem with covid was you couldn't dodge the landmines anymore. you had to make a decision, mask or no mask. distancing or no distancing. all online, all in person. what do we do? judy: pastor locke refused to close down his church during the pandemic, defying state authorities, and warned his members not to wear masks nor to get vaccinated. >> i think covid showed us there's a lot of people that are not willing to say anything when the government stands up and says, this is the wa

ryan burge, a baptist minister and political scientist, told me that these ideas have long percolatedinced that god has anointed a specific leader who, like those prophets of old, is prepared to defeat the forces of evil and redeem the country. and that leader is running for president." mckay, that's an excerpt from your piece. it remains the unlikeliest of marriages, the evangelicals and donald trump. those bonds, though, seem to have only grown stronger. tell us where we are in the middle of 2024. >> yeah, you know, like you said, i have been covering the trump campaign for a long time. i've attended more than 100 trump rallies over the course of my career. and the premise of this piece was that the prayers that are given at the beginning of these campaign events don't often get that much journalist ache attention. we focus on what trump is saying. but they provide an interesting and revealing insight into the religious right's attitude toward trump. one of the evolutions that you see in these prayers, and we ended up compiling 58 of them since trump launched his most recent campaig