The Sunday Interview: The Christian Turn Against Democracy w/ Robert P. Jones (PART 1)
About this episode
Brad Onishi and Robert P. Jones discuss the 'war on empathy' within segments of white Christianity and its implications for democracy in the U.S.
In PART I of this conversation, Brad Onishi and Robert P. Jones (author of Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith in a Nation after the Christian Turn Against Democracy) discuss what they call the "war on empathy" within segments of white Christianity in the United States. Robert argues that voices like Allie Beth Stuckey, Joe Rigney, and Elon Musk framing empathy as sinful serves as a theological retrofit that gives people permission to support policies—like mass deportation and detention—that their deeper moral instincts would otherwise reject. Drawing parallels to 1933 Germany, the civil rights era (Emmett Till, Birmingham), and more recent events (George Floyd's murder, January 6th), the two explore how this ideology trains people to override empathetic responses to visible suffering and even to deny documented reality altogether, a phenomenon they tie to Hannah Arendt's writing on self-deception under authoritarian regimes. The conversation closes with a brief teaser about Robby's book concept of "embracing division," which argues polarization is not the core problem in American politics but rather a symptom of a broken system and rising anti-democratic forces. Books mentioned: 📕…
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