Explore every episode of the podcast Complexified

What does this election tell us about the changing role of religion in American public life? A record number of Muslims are headed to Congress.Christian pastors won races campaigning on economic justice.Voters with no religious affiliation helped elect candidates who put faith at the center of their campaigns. There are unexpected and encouraging new alliances here, also… deep divisions. Tom Gjelten is an award-winning journalist who spent nearly four decades at NPR, covering international affairs, national security, and, most recently, religion and belief. His reporting explores America’s changing religious landscape and the intersection of faith, politics, and public life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All year on Complexified, we’ve been asking who gets to claim Christianity in American politics. Tonight, that question has some new answers. Did these candidates win because of how they talked about faith? What brought voters to the polls? And how much of what happened tonight will last beyond this election? Jack Jenkins, national reporter for RNS and author of American Prophets: The Religious Roots of Progressive Politics and the Ongoing Fight for the Soul of the Country, is joining us to unpack the results and what they mean for religion and political power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A University of Kentucky employee asked to be excused from using artificial intelligence at work. He said it violated his beliefs as a humanist. The university granted him a religious accommodation. It’s a case where the process worked. But it opens up harder questions: Who decides whether a belief counts as religious? How does a court or employer determine if someone sincerely holds it? And what happens to everyone else? RNS reporter Bob Smietana joins Amanda Henderson to explore what this case reveals about religious freedom, the right to refuse AI, and the broad ecosystem of policy and proceedure of making room for conscience at work. Read Bob’s reporting: “A Kentucky man becomes the first humanist granted religious exemption from AI.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russell Moore on the death penalty, sacred life and political belonging In Texas, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad. Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced that his execution would be livestreamed. The backlash led to that proposal being withdrawn, leaving fresh questions about the death penalty—and what it means to make someone’s death a public spectacle. Meanwhile, in Tennessee, Christa Pike survived a botched execution after two doses of a lethal drug failed to kill her. She was hospitalized and later returned to prison. Together, these cases bring questions about punishment, suffering and the value of human life into sharp focus. Today on Complexified, we’re joined by public theologian Russell Moore, editor at large at Christianity Today, to explore how Christians understand justice, mercy and the sanctity of life—and what happens when their different answers become a test of who counts as Christian at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Religion has always been part of American politics. What changes from cycle to cycle is where it shows up and what it looks like. This year it’s turning up in some unexpected places: seminarians running for Senate, a president feuding with the pope, and Black churches organizing marches to the polls after the Voting Rights Act was gutted. I’m joined for an election midterm roundtable by three of the reporters who’ve been covering all things religion and politics for Religion News Service. With us today are national reporter Jack Jenkins, whose recent reporting examines faith leaders on the ballot; national reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain, who has covered abortion measures on midterm ballots; and projects editor and national reporter Adelle M. Banks, who has reported on the March on Washington and the continuing fight for voting rights. Adelle is also the coauthor of Becoming a Future-Ready Church: 8 Shifts to Encourage and Empower the Next Generation of Leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Televangelist Jim Bakker is dead at 86. And whatever else can be said about him, he was a true American original. In the ’70s and ’80s, millions of Americans welcomed Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker into their living rooms every day. They laughed with them, prayed with them and sent them money—enough money to build a television network and a Christian theme park. He was also a convicted fraudster whose empire collapsed amid revelations of deception, sexual misconduct allegations and spectacularly bad judgment. His was a life of faith and fame, of innovation and swindlery. And his legacy is everywhere. So today’s question: How did Jim Bakker turn religious intimacy into an American empire? My guest is Dr. Leah Payne, a historian of American religion at Portland Seminary and author of God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music. She studies where faith, politics and pop culture meet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Soldiers are trained for physical combat. But war also confronts them with death, killing, grief, guilt and questions of meaning. The military has long employed chaplains to care for those needs—across religious traditions and for service members with no religion at all. Now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that system needs more power. He has created an Office of Religious Affairs with what he calls “real teeth.” Its director will report directly to him, oversee funding and policy, and develop tools to assess the spiritual readiness of the force. Hegseth has made own conservative Christianity a prominent part of his leadership of the military. At the speech where he announced the new office, he explained why. Today, RNS national reporter Jack Jenkins joins us to examine what Hegseth is building. Will this office help service members draw strength from their own deepest beliefs?  Or will the Pentagon decide which beliefs make someone spiritually fit to serve? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Across YouTube, podcasts and church conferences, a new group of pastors and influencers is promoting an openly racist and baldly antisemitic vision of Christian America. They present themselves not as extremists, but as respectable religious leaders defending truths that others are afraid to say. Today, RNS reporter Bob Smietana takes us inside this emerging movement—who these men are, what they believe, and why these old ideas are finding new life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Republican leaders across Texas are repeatedly warning that Sharia is an urgent threat to the state- making it a rallying cry as we head into the midterm elections. The Muslim community, who has long stayed quiet, is now organizing and speaking out.  Today: how the drumbeat of Islamophobic language became school curriculum, and how the small population of Muslim Texans begins to use American strategies- to work for their place in Texas. To understand what is happening in Texas we are joined by RNS journalists Fiona André and Ulaa Kuziez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A state in Germany has seen the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party win nearly 44% of the vote—making it the state’s largest party and bringing it within three seats of a governing majority. While Catholic and Protestant churches had been prominent opponents of AfD in this election - their influence failed to stem the tide of the growing far-right, nationalist movement.  How did this happen in a place where churches once birthed the Protestant Reformation and contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twenty-five years after 9/11, the attacks' aftershocks — surveillance, suspicion, identity — continued to shape how young Muslim Americans saw themselves and their country. With Zohran Mamdani sworn in as New York City's first Muslim mayor, that history collided with a new political moment. On Sept. 11, 2001, Haroon Moghul was president of NYU's Muslim Student Association. Today, he is a chaplain at Xavier University in Cincinnati. During this live journalism event, Moghul and Asad Dandia, Brooklyn's official borough historian and an early advisor on Mamdani's mayoral campaign, traced that arc — from the shadow of 9/11 to the present moment. As a teenager, Dandia was surveilled by the NYPD as part of its post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program; he later joined — and won — a class-action lawsuit against the department. In conversation with Religion News Service Events Host Niala Boodhoo and Islam reporter Ulaa Kuziez, the panelists unpacked what a quarter-century of living post-9/11 meant for Muslim American identity, faith, and belonging — and what the future might look like for a community that had just seen one of its own elected to lead America's largest city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One year after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, his widow, Erika, is leading Turning Point USA — appealing to young women through a message of faith, forgiveness and biblical womanhood. Can her vision hold together the movement he left behind? RNS reporter Kathryn Post has followed that transformation. RELATED: At TPUSA’s women’s summit, Christian influencers say feminism threatens motherhood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dolly Parton was loved by evangelical Christians, queer fans, atheists and nearly everyone in between. Some saw her as a model of Christian living. But Dolly’s own relationship with Christianity was more complicated. She once said she wasn’t a Christian, even as she called God her best friend. Religion scholar Sarah Dees joins Amanda Henderson to explore Dolly’s Appalachian religious upbringing, the “Gospel of Dolly,” and how a country music superstar became a spiritual icon to people with radically different beliefs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Springfield, Ohio, a small Rust Belt city where thousands of Haitian immigrants had settled…  America’s fights over work, migration, race, religion and belonging stopped being abstract. The pressures have accumulated for years. Then, on one night in 2024, Springfield became an American flashpoint.   RNS reporter Kathryn Post has followed what happened in Springfield across three reporting trips—from churches transformed by Haitian worship to residents emerging from ICE check-ins wearing ankle monitors. This is the story of how Springfield became a microcosm of 2026 America. RELATED: As ICE closes in, Ohio churches line up families to care for Haitian kids left behind As Supreme Court clears way to deport Haitians and Syrians, faith leaders grieve, prepare for what’s next As Springfield's 15,000 Haitians brace for deportations, local churches train to resist ICE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pope Hats, Hot Dogs and Holy Ground: Baseball has long been called a kind of church. It has its own calendar and rituals, its sacred places and inherited traditions. Its faithful gather at appointed times, sing familiar songs, share food, pass stories from one generation to the next, and keep believing through seasons of disappointment. Like religion, baseball asks people to live with failure, practice hope, and trust that renewal is always possible. RNS Reporter Bob Smietana was recently in Chicago for a remarkable night with the White Sox. But this was not just any old night of baseball. This was high church! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says it is bringing in new converts at an extraordinary rate. Its practicing members are among the most religiously engaged people in the country. By a lot of measures, active Latter-day Saints appear to be doing well. At the same time…the church is losing nearly half of the people who were raised in it. Even for kids raised going to church every week with families committed to the Mormon faith, one in three leaves. Both of these stories are true. So what happens between a deeply Mormon childhood and the decision to walk away?Amanda Henderson speaks with RNS columnist Jana Riess on the declining numbers of LDS women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why Democratic pastors are being attacked for their faith, not merely their politics. Pastors, seminarians and other faith leaders are running for office as Democrats across the country. Their campaigns are making progressive Christianity newly visible—and prompting opponents to challenge not only their politics, but their legitimacy as Christians. RNS national reporter Jack Jenkins joins Amanda to examine James Talarico’s rise, attacks involving a “Satanist wedding” and biblical inerrancy, and the theological dispute between Raphael Warnock and Mike Johnson over Matthew 25. Do these candidates represent a durable religious political force, or are they a temporary reaction to Trump? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who's behind a mysterious mass-text that invoked faith and economic justice to promote data centers? A few weeks ago, residents of Prince George’s County, Maryland, received a text message telling them about the benefits of data centers: jobs, investment, economic opportunity. The message wasn’t signed. It didn’t say who had paid to send it. But it linked to a website belonging to something called the Interfaith Action Movement. Sounds like a coalition of religious leaders. But the leaders, followers, and houses of worship were not disclosed by the IAM contact. And the timing was interesting. Less than a week earlier, Prince George’s County had imposed a two-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers. Residents were already fighting over the environmental costs, the economic promises and who would ultimately benefit. So who was behind this “interfaith” campaign? RNS reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain followed the anonymous text to a Seventh-day Adventist faith leader and political consultant with connections in Maryland, New Jersey—and a campaign-finance scandal in Bermuda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

RNS reporter Bob Smietana on Gloo, the faith-tech company chasing a one-stop IT/AI solution for churches. Nearly half a billion dollars, gone, over thirteen years. That's how much a company called Gloo has lost trying to build an all-in-one digital & administrative powerhouse for what it's calling the "Faith & Flourishing Ecosystem" of American churches. A tech company that can handle email & texting, data analytics, web hosting, podcast hosting, IT infrastructure, sermon-to-social video clips, all the way to AI-generated devotionals and study guides. That's just a taste. Our guest is RNS reporter Bob Smietana, and we're asking: What happens if it works? What happens when one for-profit company, one whose SEC filings admit it might not survive the year, becomes the back office for a huge slice of American Christianity? Who holds that data? Who shapes that message? What happens if all of that data falls into the wrong hands? Check out more here: Faith-based AI company Gloo faces moment of truth after $438M in losses — Bob Smietana, July 9, 2026 Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger hopes Gloo can make AI a force for good — and for God — Bob Smietana, March 24, 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Tradition Becomes Trouble On the side of a mountain in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, a fanciful event attracting a small but ardent group of Catholic traditionalists gathered to celebrate the consecration of 4 new bishops…  Who were then promptly excommunicated from the Catholic Church along with the bishop who appointed them. The group is called the Society of St. Pius the Tenth, or SSPX. It has spent decades claiming to defend the true Catholic tradition against a church it sees as too modern, too open, too willing to change. But this time, by moving ahead without Rome’s approval, SSPX triggered excommunications and pushed its whole society into schism.  And it's not the first time this group has run up against the disapproval of the Holy See. Today, Vatican reporter Claire Giangravè joins us to talk about SSPX, Pope Leo, the Latin Mass, and what happens when longing for an older church becomes a rupture with the church itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philip Reed-Butler, Black AI, and the future of healing For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about artificial intelligence. We’ve talked Vatican positioning, Silicon Valley philosophers, Catholic ethics, corporate power, doomsday language, all circling the question of who gets to shape the future these machines are confining us in. But most of those conversations begin from the same assumption: AI is a tool built somewhere else, by someone else, to give us answers. Productivity. Efficiency. Surveillance. Profit.  Today’s conversation starts somewhere else. Philip Reed-Butler is a scholar, theologian and technologist at Iliff School of Theology, where he directs the AI Institute and teaches Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational AI project designed around introspection, healing and mental-health capacities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anthropic, the Vatican, and the Moral Branding of AI Imagine you're an engineer at one of the most powerful AI companies in the world. You've built a system that can write poetry, pass the bar exam, and hold a conversation that feels startlingly human. And then someone asks you: but does it know how to say it's sorry? That question — about fault, correction, forgiveness — is not a technical question. It's a theological one. And the fact that engineers at Anthropic were asking it, and that they were asking it of Catholic ethicists and Vatican officials, is the story we're unpacking today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A theology of sorts has been building in Silicon Valley, where questions about digital, biological and spiritual life are beginning to converge. For most of us, AI means chatbots, recipe tips, work tools and strange little images. But in other circles, the conversation is darker and far more existential. Some believe AI could give humanity powers that once belonged to science fiction: curing disease, extending life, even overcoming death. Others look at the same advances and see catastrophe — even the possible end of civilization. So which is it? Are we watching the future of medicine take shape, or the beginning of something closer to the end times? Through it all, religious language is never far away. Religion News Service reporter Hayden Royster joins Complexified to explain the belief systems shaping the AI race — from accelerationists and doomers to transhumanism, superintelligence and the strange theological language running through it all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1891, Pope Leo 13th looked at the Industrial Revolution — factories, machines, workers being displaced and exploited — and decided the Church had a role to play. The result was an encyclical: Rerum Novarum, translated as “On New Things,” it became one of the foundational documents of modern Catholic social teaching. 135 years later, another Pope Leo sees another technological revolution enveloping humanity: his first encyclical is about artificial intelligence. The Ethics of AI is not a question for solely for engineers, investors, governments, or Silicon Valley. It is a question for all of us about the human person. So today we begin there: with the document, the history behind it, and the tension the Vatican is highlighting as we are barreling into the age of artificial intelligence.   technology is building machines that aspire to transcendence, while religion maintains that the divine is already present in fragile, embodied human life  Religion News Service Vatican correspondent Claire Giangravé has spent most of her waking hours with this encyclical and has been reporting on what it says, why it matters, and what kind of future Pope Leo is warning us not to sleepwalk into. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who gets to tell America's story? Hillsdale College is small by most reckoning, but punching above its weight in influence, with its ethos and teaching saturating all levels of education far beyond its campus in Michigan. It is showing up in charter schools. In civics curriculum. In state-level fights over history education. In Trump-aligned patriotic education projects. And recently, in Rededicate 250, a faith-filled gathering on the National Mall where conservative Christian leaders, political figures, and Trump allies are preparing to rededicate America as “one nation under God.” This week on Complexified, Amanda Henderson talks with RNS reporter Kathryn Post about how one small, academically serious, deeply conservative liberal arts college became a key intellectual partner in MAGA’s Christian America story. Listen to the new episode of Complexified wherever you get podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Baptist preacher (and Texas Lieutenant Governor) who stood before the White House Religious Liberty Commission had a message: there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution. That's a shift... For two centuries, Baptists didn't just support the wall of separation between church and state — they built it. They famously asked Thomas Jefferson for it. And then as recently as 1960, Southern Baptist leaders argued that a Catholic president would surely subordinate the Constitution to the Pope. This devotion to a secular state was deep. But that was then, this is now... Baylor University historian Elesha Coffman suggests Southern Baptists have become the very force they feared Catholics would be — a dominant religion using political power to shape society along theological ideals. According to Coffman, the receipts are right there in the historical record.  In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with Coffman about her recent article, Southern Baptists have become what they once feared Catholics would be, about the winding path from Jefferson's reply to the Danbury Baptists, through the founding of a prominent anti church-state separation organization, through Ronald Reagan telling a room full of evangelical leaders, "I know you can't endorse me, but I endorse you," all the way to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick declaring the wall never existed. The question underneath it all: is this hypocrisy, strategy, or evolution? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A year after his death, the Catholic Church is moving forward—and revealing what Francis actually changed. While he was alive, Francis' papacy was interpreted in real time: praised, criticized and debated. It was difficult to separate what was truly changing from what simply felt different because of him. Now, the Church moves forward, and this movement offers something new. A chance to see what was durable. What still feels like Francis? What has been absorbed into the Church’s way of operating? And what, if anything, has already begun to fade? In this episode, we step back from the moment-to-moment reactions and take a first real look at Pope Francis in hindsight. Not to revisit his papacy, but to understand it differently—through what we can now see. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The playbook for dismissing a pope just stopped working. Trump called Pope Leo weak. Catholics — including some of Trump's own — aren't buying it. Vatican reporter Claire Giangravé joins Amanda Henderson to explain why Leo, a Chicago-born American pope, can't be dismissed the way his predecessors were, what his quiet first year was actually building toward, and whether the unlikely Catholic coalition forming behind him can hold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Schrader Rodriguez spent eight years trying to "pray out the gay". He modulated his voice. He stopped listening to music with female lead singers. He sat weekly with a therapist who watched him come apart — and said nothing. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that therapists have a First Amendment right to pursue conversion therapy with their patients, upending a Colorado ban on the practice. This isn't history, nor is it a Colorado-only case. Bans that advocates spent years winning in state after state will unravel. The number of LGBTQ youth being engaged in conversion practices nearly doubled in the last year alone — from 10 to 20 percent. What Tim's story makes clear is how ordinary this harm looks from the outside. It's not electroshock. It's not boot camps. It's a weekly therapy appointment. It's a trusted relationship. It's the promise that if you pray hard enough and want it badly enough, God will change you. And when it doesn't work, the program tells you that's your fault too. Amanda Henderson talks with Tim this week about what eight years inside that world actually felt like — and what it means that the one protected space survivors thought they still had is now gone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Sarah Mullally was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury, it looked like a breakthrough. It was. But it didn't happen by accident. In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with Catherine Pepinster, a journalist who reported on Mullally's rise and the network who helped make it possible. Before women could even become bishops in the Church of England, a small group of clergy saw a gap: being allowed to lead and actually getting there are two very different things. So they built Leading Women, a mentoring organization designed to prepare female candidates for leadership inside one of the world's oldest institutional churches — one still embedded in British parliamentary life and still navigating deep divisions over sexuality and abuse. Pepinster traces Mullally's path from chief nurse of Britain's National Health Service to the most powerful seat in Anglican Christianity — a woman who has reached the top of two professions in one lifetime. She also maps what Mullally is walking into: an institution in numerical decline that still sits at the center of British public life, now led by a woman who will serve only six years and inherit two unresolved crises her predecessor couldn't survive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inside a growing spiritual movement built around awakening, ascension, and the search for something bigger At a packed conference in Los Angeles, thousands of people gathered to explore a different way of understanding reality—through crystals, energy healing, and the belief that some humans didn’t originate on Earth. They’re called starseeds: people who believe they were sent here from other planets to help humanity “ascend” to a higher dimension. According to our guest RNS reporter Kathryn Post, it might sound fringe. But the deeper you go, the more familiar the underlying search begins to feel. Because the people drawn to this world aren’t so different from anyone else. They’re looking for meaning, for purpose, for a way to make sense of suffering. And increasingly, they’re finding those answers online—through influencers, shared language, and communities that have no central authority. But as these beliefs spread, they’re also evolving. In some cases, blending with conspiracy theories about hidden elites, cosmic battles, and the end of the world as we know it. So what happens when belief becomes entirely personal—but still somehow shared? And how do you tell the difference between a spiritual search… and something more dangerous? RELATED: Starseeds, government plots and an alien mantis: Inside New Age spirituality's new age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Muslim families in Texas are asking: does school choice include us? A Houston father went to enroll his kids in Texas's new school voucher program and discovered his school wasn't on the list — along with every other Islamic school in the state. Texas launched one of the country's largest school choice programs promising families public funds for religious private schools, but roughly a hundred Muslim schools were excluded without official explanation. State officials have posted publicly about not funding schools tied to terrorist organizations, pointing to Governor Abbott's designation of CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization — a designation the federal government has not made. Now families are suing with a March 17th deadline bearing down. Amanda Henderson talks with RNS reporter Fiona André and editor-in-chief Paul O'Donnell about the lawsuits, the communities affected, and what this moment reveals about who "school choice" was really built for. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the podium becomes a pulpit. At a Pentagon press briefing this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth closed his remarks with a reading from the Book of Psalms and ended with "Amen." Press briefings don't usually end that way. RNS reporter Jack Jenkins joins Amanda Henderson to trace how we got here — from monthly worship services in the Pentagon auditorium to biblical scripture overlaid on weapons systems to a Secretary of War who told his troops the nation needed to be "on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." When the podium becomes a pulpit, what happens to everything else? That question hasn't gotten easier. 00:00 — Introduction: When the Podium Becomes a Pulpit 01:27 — The Original Episode: Setting the Scene 02:41 — The Generals' Meeting and the Warrior Ethos 05:14 — Christianity in the Military: Civil Religion vs. Hegseth's Faith 06:57 — "SecWar's Worship Service": The Pentagon Prayer Series 07:59 — Bible Verses Over Fighter Jets: The Social Media Campaign 10:15 — Recruitment, Viral Content, and Capital-B Believers 12:50 — The Theological Question: Faith as Military Doctrine 15:17 — Pushback — and Why It's Hard to Find 17:14 — Closing: The Baptism of the Military Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When empathy became toxic and cruelty became strength for Christian women. Christian womanhood has changed—and not in the ways many expected. In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with the co-hosts of the Saved By The City podcast Katelyn Beaty and Roxanne Stone about the shift from 1990s purity culture to today’s trad wives, MAGA moms, and warnings against “toxic empathy.” They unpack how pandemic burnout, influencer culture, and widening political gender gaps reshaped the ideal Christian woman—and why empathy itself has become a flashpoint. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are six decades of solidarity giving way to generational strain? For much of the last half-century, support for Israel was a defining pillar of American Jewish life. It shaped institutions, philanthropy, politics, and identity. The consensus wasn’t always quiet — but it was broad. Today, that consensus is under strain. Younger American Jews — many raised in synagogues, camps, and on Birthright trips — are expressing a different relationship to Israel than their parents and grandparents. Some are building alternative communities. Some are challenging legacy organizations. Some are questioning whether Israel should remain the organizing center of American Jewish life at all. Meanwhile, established institutions are responding with urgency — and anxiety – warning of rising antisemitism, political danger, and fractures that could reshape the community for decades. This tension didn’t begin on October 7. But October 7 — and the war that followed — has intensified it. Religion reporter Yonat Shimron joins us to trace the full arc: from postwar American Jewish flourishing, to decades of near-consensus, to the generational and institutional rupture unfolding now. What changed? Who gets to define Jewish responsibility? And what happens next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"We're the people everyone hates." That's what Rabbi Steven Burg hears when he asks young Jews who they are. October 7 accelerated this. In the aftermath of the attacks, lines were drawn between support for an occupied Gaza and the security of the Jewish state and people. Progressive coalitions found themselves fracturing. Interfaith partnerships strained to stay together. Students found themselves abandoned by people they thought were allies. But Burg says the problem runs deeper than politics. In this episode, host Amanda Henderson talks with Rabbi Steven Burg about what happens to religious identity when an entire generation can only define themselves by who hates them—and what it takes to move from trauma to something they're actually for. RELATED: Rabbi Steven Burg: "We cannot allow ourselves to be reduced to victims."  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Complexified welcomes the Rev. William Barber II, architect of the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina, as he sets out to reclaim voters that ran to the right in the last presidential election.Who are these voters?  Low-income voters earning less than $50,000 who favored Donald Trump by roughly 1% in 2024. That margin, according to Rev. Barber, is reversible, by campaigning being for something instead of against.Join host Amanda Henderson as she and Rev. Barber discuss the presumptions around low income voters, movement strategizing, modes of resistance, and responds to a challenge issued by the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to debate immigration theology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The applause was muted when Trump appeared on video. One year ago, the March for Life felt like a rock concert. This year, JD Vance had to contend with detractors from the stage. The pro-life movement got what it wanted—Dobbs overturned Roe. But abortions in America have actually risen since the decision. Nearly two-thirds now happen through medication abortion, mifepristone prescribed via telehealth, accessible even in states with bans. The Trump administration won't restrict it. Vance called that choice "prudential"—politically wise. The crowd wasn't buying it. One man said he trusted Trump's negotiating skills, then started crying. Reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain takes us inside a movement with profound conviction confronting political calculation, and only one person in thousands holding a sign about immigration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trying to put smoke in a box That's what it feels like to map why churches are dying. Most people who leave can't tell you why. They drifted. Three times a month became twice, then never. Ryan Burge, a sociologist and pastor, tracks the contradictions: the religiously unaffiliated climbed to 30% and stopped. Some churches that should close stay open. Others with resources fold anyway. Organizations scratch and claw past their expiration dates in ways no model captures. New Atheism ran out of steam. Baby boomers are aging out. And nobody can predict what happens next because the data reveals patterns but can't explain the drift. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Faith leaders thought their collars would protect them. They were wrong. The Presbyterian minister was wearing his collar. DHS shot him with pepper balls anyway. Across American cities—LA, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis—clergy are learning their moral authority no longer protects them as they resist Trump's mass deportation raids. Faith communities have built sophisticated networks: ICE observers, whistle brigades, cross-city organizing. In Minneapolis, where federal agents nearly double the police force, religious resistance is everywhere. Reporter Jack Jenkins tracks the collision between one of the largest faith-based movements in modern history and federal power that refuses to recognize the old rules. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Special Episode from The State of Belief! A special crossover from The State of Belief: RNS reporters Jack Jenkins and Adelle M. Banks join Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush to break down the biggest religion stories of 2025 — from faith-based pushback to immigration enforcement, to fights over DEI, to how communities are surviving economic upheaval. They also look ahead to 2026: an American pope, shifting “religious freedom” battles, and the rising entanglement of religion, technology, and politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Religious leaders stayed mostly silent when the U.S. seized a foreign dictator — except for the pope. Religious leaders stayed mostly silent when the U.S. grabbed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and flew him to New York. The loudest response didn’t come from Washington or American pulpits, but from Rome, where Pope Leo warned about sovereignty, dignity, and the rule of law. In this episode, Amanda Henderson talks with Religion News Service editor-in-chief Paul O’Donnell about why so many religious voices paused, why the pope didn’t, and what that contrast reveals about power, politics, and faith in real time. It’s a conversation about silence, authority, and what happens when moral instincts lag behind geopolitical force. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a world where attention is authority, who gets to shape faith, values, and public life? What does it actually mean to be an influencer in 2025 — and why does it matter so much for religion and politics? In this episode of Complexified, Amanda Henderson is joined by Religion News Service reporters Fiona Murphy and Richa Karmarkar to unpack the people shaping belief, identity, and public conversation online right now. From conservative power brokers and Christian nationalist figures to Jewish comedians, hijabi fitness creators, former monks, and viral TikTok storytellers, the conversation explores how influence works in the attention economy — and why people increasingly look to social media personalities, not institutions, for meaning, guidance, and moral frameworks. It’s a wide-ranging look at parasocial power, digital authority, and the blurred line between faith, culture, and influence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes a story breaks you open. While reporting on abuse and accountability inside the Southern Baptist Convention, RNS journalist Bob Smietana reached out to someone he’d interviewed many times before — publisher and whistleblower Jen Lyell. What followed was not another update for a news story, but a devastating turn that forced Bob to confront the human weight behind the reporting. In this episode, Bob joins Amanda Henderson for an unusually intimate conversation about Jen’s life, her courage, the institutional failures that shaped her final years, and what it means for a journalist when a story becomes personal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if your favorite wholesome mom account was also your quietest political radicalizer? Earlier this year, RNS Editor Roxanne Stone was in Austin, Texas talking about tradwife influencers—women whose soft, nostalgic aesthetic is reshaping conversations about gender, faith, and politics. Just up the road in Dallas, her colleague Kathryn Post had been surrounded by 6,700 women at “Sharpen the Arrows,” a high-energy conference hosted by conservative Christian commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. Different rooms, same ecosystem: conservative women influencers blending wellness, homeschooling, motherhood, faith—and a very clear political worldview. In this episode, Roxanne and Kathryn trace how pandemic isolation, sourdough starters, and “crunchy mom” content became a surprisingly powerful on-ramp into right-wing politics for thousands of women. They follow the journey of one former Bernie supporter turned MAGA homeschooler, unpack how these influencers use Christian language and gender ideals, and explore what happens when lifestyle content becomes a pipeline toward anti-trans activism, conspiracy thinking, and real-world policy changes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a 27-year-old streamer outruns the Church and spooks the political class, it’s worth asking how we got here. Nick Fuentes was supposed to be a fringe character—the kind of online provocateur national leaders could shrug off with “I don’t really know him.” But after a sympathetic Tucker Carlson interview and a wave of explosive backlash, Fuentes is suddenly unavoidable. He’s amassed a massive following of young men who see his Catholic branding as a moral compass, even as he pushes openly antisemitic, racist, and authoritarian views. And institutions—from the Heritage Foundation to the U.S. Catholic hierarchy—are scrambling to respond. In this episode, RNS reporter Fiona Murphy walks us through what’s actually happening: the Groyper movement, the collapse of traditional religious authority online, and why a livestreamer can now speak more directly, and more powerfully, than the Church itself. It’s a revealing look at faith, digital culture, and the new politics shaping a generation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A paradox: declining churchgoing, rising Bible sales. Americans are attending church less—and buying more Bibles than ever. In this Complexified conversation, Amanda Henderson and RNS reporter Bob Smietana unpack the paradox: a two-decade boom in Bible sales alongside sinking religiosity. They trace how hyper-personalized editions (pink gift Bibles, “adventure” and environmental Bibles, even waterproof ones) meet life stages and rituals; why translation choices and shifting English keep spawning new versions; and how politics keeps creeping in—from school-gate Gideons and translation fights to specialty “commemorative” editions. We get inside baseball on supply chains (thin paper, specialized presses, China printing), the print-vs-app tug-of-war, and the curious spikes tied to public events. It’s a tour of the market where scripture is both sacred text and consumer good—and what that says about American Christianity right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when a Muslim mayor-elect treats identity as a bridge, not a brand? In this episode of Complexified, Amanda Henderson explores the story of Zoran Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor-elect—a politician who turned identity into empathy and faith into fluency. RNS reporters Fiona André and Ulaa Kuziez join to unpack how Mamdani built a multifaith, multiethnic coalition that stretched from mosques to churches to fried chicken shops across Queens. They trace how his campaign refused to hide his Muslim identity but refused to be defined by it, focusing instead on rent, childcare, and transit—the everyday issues that knit a city together. Along the way, they examine how Mamdani faced Islamophobia head-on, speaking plainly about belonging, and why his victory feels like a new chapter in American politics—one grounded less in performance and more in trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a dusty parking lot, worship meets organizing as a community faces ICE—and refuses to disappear. In Vista, California, a Catholic parish that worships outdoors has become a refuge and a rallying point: 13,000 people on a weekend, 900 volunteers, a crucifix chainsaw-carved by parishioners, and a pastor urging his flock to show up when it counts. Religion News Service reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain takes us there: to St. Francis festivities packed into a too-small sanctuary, catechism teachers calling families one by one, and a congregation navigating grief after COVID while confronting deportations, raids, and fear. We hear how parish leaders organize listening sessions, set up safety patrols, and fill City Hall to push policies limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement—even as needs outstrip Sunday collections. It’s faith as survival and solidarity, born in a parking lot and carried into public life. If you’ve wondered what “church” looks like in this political moment, this episode offers a grounded, hopeful answer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When outrage wins the algorithm, what does faith become? This live conversation from the RNS Symposium at Trinity Commons wrestles with a bracing question: when faith, power, and platform collapse into the same feed, who gets to define what’s sacred? Host Amanda Henderson and guest John Fuglesang trace a line from open-source scripture to televangelist TV to AI resurrecting voices, exploring how media mirrors our clicks—and how those clicks shape the moral imagination we live in. They name the seduction of outrage, the costs of fundamentalism, and a red-letter way forward grounded in humility, service, and care for “the least of these.” Warm, wise, and a little irreverent, this episode invites us to be more mindful about what we amplify and why it matters now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices