About this episode

Andrew Root discusses the intersection of idolatry, the church, and late capitalism, arguing that the church's anxiety about decline is rooted in a fertility cult mentality.

Andy Root is back, and this time he's got a fertility god on the cover of his book — which, if you've been paying any attention to his work, is not actually a detour. Baal and the Gods of More is what happens when Andy takes the background hum of economic critique that's been running through all his previous books and turns it all the way up, then runs it through First and Second Kings, Hartmut Rosa's theory of dynamic stabilization, Robert Gordon's economic history of the American special century, and Luther's commentary on the Magnificat, and comes out the other side with something genuinely uncomfortable and genuinely useful. The argument in brief: the church's anxiety about decline is not primarily a spiritual problem or a missional problem. It is a fertility cult problem. We have, like the Israelites under the Omride dynasty, decided that Yahweh needs a little help from the gods of growth — and we've done it so thoroughly that we can barely tell the difference anymore between faithful ministry and escalatory capital accumulation. Andy doesn't spare himself, or Tripp, or the emerging church movement, or the academic publishing world, or anyone who has ever refreshed their…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Tripp Fuller

Guest: Andrew Root

Topics covered

• idolatry
• church
• late capitalism
• economic critique
• fertility cult
• spiritual decline

Keywords

• idolatry
• fertility god
• economic critique
• church decline
• Baal
• social media
• Bonhoeffer
• dynamic stabilization

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Counting Crows

Books & works: Baal and the Gods of More, Magnificat

Places: Berlin

More episodes of Homebrewed Christianity

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• Religion Has a Physiology: Ilia & Tripp on Why Rituals Come Before Beliefs · June 2, 2026 · 1h 21m
• The Machine Is a God Image with Ilia Delio · May 30, 2026 · 1h 30m
• The Problem Is Not Poverty. It Is Wealth. w/ Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty · May 28, 2026 · 1h 21m
• Preaching in the WTF Zone: Leah Schade on Saying Something True When the News Will Not Stop · May 25, 2026 · 1h 10m
• The Darkly Radiant Struggle with Gary Dorrien · May 23, 2026 · 1h 27m

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