What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism? Is one of them acceptable (even desirable) from a Christian point of view?

In this episode we interview James Walters, Professor at the London School of Economics. As an ordained priest in the Church of England, he is the first person we've interviewed who belongs to an established state church. This gives him a perspective somewhat different from the American one in which separation of church and state is the assumed norm.

Not every Christian agrees on what a “Christian government” should look like. Whoever is in power will have to decide what form of Christianity to implement, and they are likely to claim it is the only valid kind.

In this episode we chat with Elizabeth Bruenig, journalist for The Atlantic, on Christian Nationalism in the US. Does it really represent the values shared by all Christians? Does it have the right to speak in the name of “Christianity”?

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

Professor William Cavanaugh, author of Migrations of the Holy and The Uses of Idolatry, weighs in on the topic of nationalism. He argues that nationalism is a religion that rivals Christianity and is therefore not compatible with it.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

How can national constitutions persecute religious minorities? What would motivate them to do so, and is this motivation really Christian? These questions and others are addressed by Marietta van der Tol in her book, Constitutional Intolerance (CUP, 2025). In this episode, Barney and Austin draw out some of Marietta’s key insights not only in this book but other of her publications.

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

In this episode, Austin & Barney discuss the key takeaways and insights from the series on Exvangelicalism, and introduce the topic of our next series: Christian Nationalism!

Watch this space for interviews with world experts across the spectrum of political opinions on this urgent and controversial topic!

Thanks to Jamie Maule for sound engineering!

Next up in our Exvangelicalism series, Karen Swallow Prior outlines some of the images that have shaped the social imaginary of evangelicals—for good and ill—and how that has impacted the experiences of exvangelicals .

She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2024).

Another episode in our Exvangelicalism series, Sarah McCammon shares her story and her research on those who leave the American Evangelical church, to produce a powerful and insightful insider account of the exvangelical experience.

Today is the launch day of the paperback edition of Sarah's book, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church (Macmillan: 2024). Click on the link to get a copy!

Thanks to Jamie Maule for audio editing!

The second in our mini-series on Exvangelicalism. Emma Feyas is a PhD candidate researching exvangelicalism. She tells us about the history of the movement and provides insights both from scholarship and from her own experiences.