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Truce - History of the Christian Church

Truce explores the history of the evangelical church in America, from fundamentalism to pyramid schemes to political campaigns. Host Chris Staron uses journalistic tools to investigate how the church got here and how it can do better. The current season follows the rise of the Religious Right, examining the link between evangelicals and the Republican Party. Featuring special guests like Rick Perlstein, Frances Fitzgerald, Jesse Eisinger, Daniel K. Williams, and more.

history christianity

All Episodes

52:00

Republicans and Evangelicals I The Late Great Planet...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/07/15

Give to help Chris make the Truce Podcast Hal Lindsey published The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970. It was a HUGE hit, selling over 35 million copies by 1999. It was also produced into a film narrated by Orson Welles. That film was shown in movie theaters and church basements and made a splash. The movie is a repackaging of premillennial dispensationalism, which I covered last season. It presents a particular vision of end-times theology, which wrongly predicted that the world would end around

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56:21

The Camino del Norte part 2

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/07/01

Support the work of the Truce podcast at www.trucepodcast.com/donateIn the last episode, Chris and his brother Nick started their journey along the Camino del Norte, part of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. Now, join Chris as he looks at some of the forces on pilgrims hiking the trail. From the Twelve Tribes religious group and their Yellow Deli restaurants to a spiritual guru in Guemes, people are trying to leverage hikers. Despite this being a Catholic pilgrimage, most of the people

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52:16

The Camino del Norte part 1

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/06/17

Give a little help Chris make TruceOn this bonus episode, Chris takes you along with him as he hiked 250 miles on an old Catholic pilgrimage route called the Camino de Santiago. The Camino has a complex history and is actually comprised of more than one trail. The Norte, the oldest (if you take the Primativo), is along the northern coast, the Frances runs east-west through the middle, and the Portuguese routes are north-south from Lisbon to Santiago. You can walk from Turkey following a

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31:42

Republicans and Evangelicals I Boardroom Jacobins

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/06/03

Give to help Chris make Truce. A little goes a long way!In November of 1965, a young lawyer published a book called Unsafe at Any Speed about the dangers of driving a Chevy Corvair. The car could become unstable and possibly flip if driven in poor conditions or without proper training. The lawyer? Ralph Nader. It took a while for the book to find its audience, but soon it was on bookshelves across the US and made a celebrity our of Nader. Soon he and his "Nader's Raiders" were on a spree,

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32:30

Republicans and Evangelicals I The Failure of...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/05/20

Give to help Chris make TruceGerald Ford's administration was in trouble. The country was experiencing stagflation, where prices were going up but employment was going down. What could he do? He announced his desire to lower taxes. This proposal was met with opposition by... Ronald Reagan. Reagan was worried that these cuts would increase the national debt. Then, just a few years later, Reagan changed his mind. Two major things happened. One was the invention of supply-side economics (also called

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45:03

Republicans and Evangelicals I The New Right

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/05/06

Give to help Chris continue making TruceA small group of men calling themselves The New Right had a major role to play in bonding some evangelicals to the Republican Party. Yet many Christians don't know who these guys were or how they used money and influence to accomplish their goal. Let's meet the fellas. One was named Paul Weyrich. Weyrich's contribution to the movement is that he knew how to organize people, a skill he learned from watching liberal protests. He was a former radio newsman from

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53:41

Bonus: Compelled: A New Song

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/04/22

Give to help make Truce more sustainableThe Compelled podcast is hosted by my friend Paul Hastings. It's a testimony show that walks listeners through people's lives so that we can hear how God continues to set people free through faith in Jesus. This episode is part of an ad-swap that Chris did with Paul to get the word out about Truce, but it also serves as a reminder to us that God is still working in the lives of His people. You can learn more about the Compelled podcast at

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28:28

Republicans and Evangelicals I Milton Friedman and...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/04/08

Give to help Chris continue to make TruceMilton Friedman is one of the most important economists of the last hundred years. His ideas were quoted by many evangelical writers in the 1970s and 80s, despite his not being a Christian and few of his ideas being in the Bible. Figures like Jerry Falwell loved the guy. Ronald Reagan adopted many of his ideas, though they disagreed on things like the increasing national debt. Friedman played a major role in the popularization of the school voucher concept

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38:39

Republicans and Evangelicals I Milton Friedman vs....

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/03/25

Give to help Chris make TruceMilton Friedman may be the most famous American economist. His research and theories have profoundly shaped the modern American economy. But few of us can clearly articulate what he taught and what it means for our times. Friedman's career was defined by the aftermath of the Great Depression. He worked in the government administering the New Deal, but never really agreed with it. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago and built a department around him that

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17:35

Republicans and Evangelicals I William F. Buckley v....

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/03/11

Give to help Chris make TruceWilliam F. Buckley Jr. helped change the face of conservatism in the US because he gave it intellectual backing. But that doesn't mean that his ideas were accepted completely. He had several nemesis within his own movement that tried to derail him. One opponent was the John Birch Society. Buckley's whole modus operandi was to make conservatism respectable. But Robert Welch and other members of the JBS were using their movement to spread bogus conspiracy theories. They

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44:01

Republicans and Evangelicals I William F. Buckley Jr....

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/03/04

Give to help Chris continue the Truce Podcast.Senator Robert Taft couldn't get the nomination. He tried to be the GOP's nominee for president three different times but could not get elected. Conservative Republicans' failure to get nominated by their own party was a source of much frustration. What could they do? Concerns of conspiracy spread through people like Phyllis Schlafly whose book A Choice Not an Echo claimed that "elites" were steering the party. It was into this world that a bright young

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43:19

Republicans and Evangelicals I Barry Goldwater – How...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/02/18

Give a little to help Chris a lotIn the first part of our series, Chris explored the beginning of Barry Goldwater's career, from his early days as a young man to his rise to the Senate. In the second episode, Goldwater still hasn't agreed to be the nominee, even though groups are raising money in his name. One of his most valuable supporters was a woman named Phyllis Schlafly. In 1964 she published a small book, A Choice Not an Echo. It claimed that GOP nominations had been rigged going back many

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39:25

Republicans and Evangelicals I Barry Goldwater – How...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/02/04

Give to help Chris continue making TruceBarry Goldwater may be one of the most interesting figures in Republican history. He grew up the son of a wealthy department store owner. He was a city council member and then a senator from Arizona. He was handsome and took pictures with guns and cacti. Goldwater was also a libertarian who wanted a small government and low taxes. His platform was laid out in a ghostwritten book Conscience of a Conservative. L. Brent Bozell wrote the book. He was a member of

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44:16

Republicans and Evangelicals I The John Birch Society...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/01/21

Give to help Chris make TruceRobert Welch was a candy magnate who invented the Sugar Daddy and sold favorites like Junior Mints and Milk Duds. He was also very anti-communist. His dubious research led him to found the John Birch Society, a group whose mission was to spread conspiracy theories worldwide. They had major support from wealthy men like Fred Koch, father of the Koch brothers (who financed opposition to Obamacare and climate change legislation). Some of their most notable campaigns were

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63:11

Republicans and Evangelicals | A Brief History of...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2025/01/07

Give to help Chris continue TruceModern evangelicalism sometimes incorporates pieces of different ideas. Things that are in the air. Social messages. Political stances. But has evangelicalism been enchanted by libertarianism? In this episode, we cover a brief history of libertarianism. What is it and who are some of the main thinkers? We discuss Murry Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, and Robert Nozick. What is a libertarian? Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi define libertarianism by six

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43:08

Republicans and Evangelicals I How Bad Drivers...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2024/12/17

Give to help Chris make Truce Well, we survived the 2024 US presidential election! But many people still feel anxiety as we head into the Christmas and New Year holidays. How can Christians prepare for a holiday season when politics will likely arise? Chris Staron is joined by Karl Klemmer, Nick Staron, and Ray McDaniel at First Baptist Church in Jackson, WY to discuss these issues and more. Plus Chris talks about his own anger as a pedestrian as drivers have come close to hitting him. How do

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47:12

Republicans and Evangelicals I How the Wealthy Dodge...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2024/12/03

Give to help Chris make TruceHow do ultra-wealthy people avoid paying taxes? It seems like a strange subject to bring up when discussing why some evangelicals are drawn to the Republican Party. But many of the ties between evangelicals and the GOP have to do with money. So, let's take a little side trip and explore the tax loopholes of today. More importantly, let's try to understand why so many Americans are tax-averse. Could it possibly be because we, deep down, know that someone else is getting

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29:39

Republicans and Evangelicals I Fundamentalist...

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2024/11/19

Give to help Chris continue TruceIt all started with a meeting over fancy donuts. Paige Patterson and a friend met together to plot the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Before that time, the SBC had been more theologically diverse (though, not necessarily racially diverse due to its founding as a group that desired slavery). But if this group of fundamentalists was going to get a whole denomination to turn their way, they'd have to be clever. It would take time. Their

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41:27

Mike Cosper: The Church in Dark Times

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2024/11/04

Give $10/ month to help Chris make Truce What are the warning signs that a church leader will become a tyrant? How do we prevent church hurt from becoming our identity? What are ideologies and how do they become the overall focus of some ministries? Mike Cosper is the co-host of Christianity Today's The Bulletin podcast, the producer and host of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, and now the author of The Church in Dark Times. Discussion Questions: How does Mike define "Ideology"? What does it mean

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18:50

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

Truce - History of the Christian Church ·

2024/10/29

Give to help Chris continue to make TruceIn the Kanawha County Textbook War episode, Chris shared that the people of that county fought against some textbooks and stories being read in classrooms and as homework. Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado is one of the texts that was contested. So Chris decided to read it here as a bonus episode at the end of October. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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