How Evangelical Beliefs Are Influencing Modern Politics

Is the Bible really anti-abortion? Ever wondered what it’s like inside a fundamentalist evangelical gathering? 

Strap in for a thought-provoking episode of The Cheeky Scholar as we sit down with Dr. Myev Rees, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, to uncover the complex layers behind evangelical movements in the U.S. We pull back the curtain on their origins and evolution into a system that impacts education, family dynamics, and reproductive choices. Myev shares her firsthand experiences from evangelical gatherings, including The Institute of Basic Life Principles conference, revealing the strict disciplinary practices and controversial teachings that permeate conservative Christian households.

Reality TV’s role in mainstreaming conservative values takes center stage as we dissect the portrayal of hyper-conservative families in shows like the Duggars in TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” Myev and I explore how these sanitized depictions influence societal norms and potentially propel fringe beliefs into the mainstream. We then navigate the contentious history of evangelical anti-abortion stances and the rise of the religious right, shedding light on the intersection of religion, politics, and media.

From evangelical activism to the strategic adoption of abortion as a political tool, this episode offers a rich, nuanced perspective on how deeply intertwined these elements are in shaping contemporary America.

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Episode Transcript

Lara Ayad (00:09):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Cheeky Scholar.
This is the podcast where smartand cheeky scholars share their
knowledge about history, artand culture and bust a whole lot
of myths along the way.
I'm your host, Dr.
Lara Ayyad.
If you're new to the show,thanks for joining us today and

(00:31):
if you've listened before,welcome back, all right.
So I'm very excited to haveMaya F Reese on the show on the
Cheeky Scholar.
Maya received her PhD inreligious studies at
Northwestern University and sheis now associate professor of
philosophy and religious studiesat Cypress College.

(00:51):
Maiev grew up in SouthernCalifornia.
She loves food, wine andrescuing dogs, and I can attest
to this because whenever I goover, I play with the pups and
you're a chef extraordinaire.
But instead of asking you forthe best recipe this time around

(01:11):
, maya, I'm going to actuallyask you if you could come up
with the worst imaginable icecream flavor.
What would it be?

Myev Rees (01:17):
Ooh, worst imaginable ice cream flavor, I think,
maybe something like smokedsalmon.

Lara Ayad (01:24):
Ooh, oh, my God, yeah smoked salmon.

Myev Rees (01:25):
Oh my God.

Lara Ayad (01:26):
Yeah, smoked salmon would be really bad.
I think anything in the fish ormarine animal category would be
a pretty bad one.
I was thinking sardine andblueberries would be pretty,
pretty horrendous, but yeah,yeah, well, anyway, we can start
talking about much lessimportant things now.
So so, Myev, you you specializein religious studies and I know

(01:48):
you've studied fundamentalistgroups in the United States
specifically, and what I thoughtwas so interesting when I was
was talking with you ahead oftime about your research is you
looked a lot at the Institute ofBasic Life Principles, like
this is sort of an organizationthat you've focused on with your
research.
The name of the Institute,institute of Basic Life

(02:11):
Principles, doesn't sound veryinteresting, but when I looked
them up I was shocked to findout who they are.
So would you mind telling mewhat exactly is the IBLP?

Myev Rees (02:29):
What's their mission?
Yeah, yeah, it is.
It's one of the most banalnames for an extremist
organization, right?
Um, the Institute of Basic LifePrinciples?
Um, sounds like a bad sort ofself-help kind of you know
movement or something like that.
But no, the, the, basically theinstitute.
I'll just call them the IBLP.
That is their current name.
It started as the Institute inBasic, I believe, Youth

(02:52):
Conflicts.
This is earlier in the 20thcentury, founded by a man named
Bill Gothard, and it's what wecall a parachurch organization.
So it's not an officialnomination.
It's an organization ofconservative evangelicals that
got started to address the Iwould call moral panic of the

(03:13):
mid 20th century of juveniledelinquency.

Lara Ayad (03:17):
Okay, and that was in the early sixties, right, right
, yeah.

Myev Rees (03:21):
And so this is like, you know, the rebel without a
cause, you know the James Deanpanic, right?
What are the teenagers doing?
And so the and this came alongwith the general moral panic
around the decline of thetraditional nuclear family was

(03:45):
helped along by the women'smovement, by, you know, all
kinds of the civil rightsmovement and so on.
So you see, so what happens isthis man, um, bill Goddard,
begins hosting these seminars,um, so they're basically just
live events that people startcoming to, and they start coming
by the thousands.
They're incredibly popular, um,and then eventually he kind of
does this sort of like circuittour where he's hosting all of

(04:06):
these, these big seminars.
Eventually he starts turning itinto a curriculum that people
are sort of taking home withthem.
There are these textbooks thathe starts to self-publish.

Lara Ayad (04:21):
So it's almost like a homeschooling type of situation
or kind of like aself-education, you know type of
setup here.

Myev Rees (04:29):
yeah, it starts out aimed at parents helping um
build strong christian familiesquote unquote and um and parents
who are concerned about moraldecay, moral decline, um, and
all of these kinds of things.
It doesn't really jump intohomeschool curriculum until the
1980s and that's sort of thatmaps on with the history of

(04:54):
American homeschooling generally.
So that's, you start to seemore and more families deciding
in conservative Christianity tohomeschool, far more now than in
the eighties, as it's been apretty steady increase.

Lara Ayad (05:07):
Yeah, and you've been to.
Yeah, you've been to.
You've been to some recentconferences with the IBLP, I
know when you were doing yourfield work and working on your
doctorate.
My understanding is you went toa couple of the what they're
called conferences or meetingsfor members of the IBLP.
Can you tell me a little bitabout what that was like and
what you saw there?

Myev Rees (05:28):
Yeah, so these homeschool conferences.
So now the IBLP is a sort of acomprehensive homeschool
curriculum, and I saycomprehensive in the sense that
it's comprehensive for them.
It is severely lacking in sortof basic math, history, things
that we would consider to beimportant parts of an education
program.
But so now it's a, it's a wholesort of system.

(05:51):
But it doesn't just stop athomeschooling.
It really is about howmarriages should function, how
many children people should have.
So one of the hallmarks of theIBLP is that Bill Gothard taught
that parents should, orhusbands and wives should,
welcome as many children as Godwill give them.
So they don't practice any kindof birth control, including the

(06:14):
rhythm method or natural familyplanning or anything like that.
It's complete openness,regardless of what that means
for the health of the mother andso on or the financial freedom
of the family and so on.
So it's not just homeschooling,it's how husbands and wives
relate to each other.
It's how parents are supposedto relate to children.
It is a lot real stress onchild discipline.

(06:37):
There are advocates of corporalpunishment for children as
young as infancy.
So it's a prettyall-encompassing world.
So, the vast majority of folkswho engage with the IBLP engage
with it through thehomeschooling curriculum,
through the family structurecurriculum.

(06:58):
But they do have these livegatherings and that they call
homeschool conferences.

Lara Ayad (07:04):
Got it and they're very family oriented, right Like
you go there and there's lotsof big families.

Myev Rees (07:08):
They are at the family and they happen at
various places around thecountry.
The biggest one is their annualone, which happens in Big Sandy
Texas.
They have a campus in Big SandyTexas.

Lara Ayad (07:18):
I couldn't make up a name like that.
If I tried Big Sandy, texas,it's like sober.

Myev Rees (07:22):
Very Texas name.
Yeah, it's a very Texas name.
Um, about three hours, uh, eastof Dallas.
Um, just to give you a sense,it's in a little teeny town.
If you blink you'll drive pastit.
Um, so it's, uh, yeah, I thinkthat, um, it's closest, if I, if
memory serves to, to Tyler,texas.
That's.
That's where I remember goingto get when I was there.

(07:44):
But so the IBLP has a nowbecause it has become this whole
organization.
It has lots of little parts andone of the parts is called the
Alert Academy.
The Alert Academy is a sort ofparamilitary organization for
young men, so think of it sortof like a Boy Scout program

(08:06):
meets boot camp, right?
So it's kids who are as young asyou know, six or seven years
old, but goes all the way up tohigh school and all the way up
into the early twenties, and atthat level it's very much a sort
of paramilitary organization.
They have uniforms, they drill,they, you know, they do all of

(08:26):
the things, they have ranks andyou know unlike the Boy Scouts,
right, and all of that.
So the Alert Academy campus isin Big Sandy, texas, and so it's
sort of the place where theIBLP is now headquartered.
It used to be actuallyheadquartered in Illinois, but
now they've moved it entirely tothe Alert Academy campus in Big

(08:47):
Sandy.

Lara Ayad (08:47):
Got it Okay.
So the men are there, they'redoing these paramilitary things,
and boys as well.
They've got these rankings.
Are women there doing anythingat all?
Do they have?

Myev Rees (08:57):
activities, Not on the regular, but for this once a
year event.
They host these what they callthe family conferences, and
that's when IBLP families fromall around the country descend
into Big Sandy, Texas, and theycamp.
Essentially, they come in giantRVs, they come in multiple

(09:18):
minivans, because we're talkingabout families of 10, 12, 13, 14
children, right?
So I mean they're not all thatbig but a lot of them are that
big but they're pretty massive.

Lara Ayad (09:28):
These are massive families.
Yeah, these are big families.

Myev Rees (09:30):
I mean.
I mean I think that it was veryunusual to, unless it was a
very young family.
It was unusual to see a familyof two kids right, usually you
had multiple siblings and sothey, you know it's a vacation
and it's it's the sort ofprimary vacation for a lot of
these folks.
You know, they, they pack uptheir stuff and all the things
that 13 kids could possibly need.

(09:51):
They've got little bikes andthey've got the diapers and
they've got the stuff and theyall caravan to big Sandy, Texas,
where everybody sort of gatherstogether and they, you know,
line it all up and it's, I meanit's, it's sort of like it's
like kid chaos.
You know, there's like little,there's a gaggle of little kids
running around everywhere andand all kinds of things.

Lara Ayad (10:12):
And what they have.
I mean my gosh.
Even parents of one or twosmall children will tell you
that they're almost like chaosmachines.
It's a lot like that, as aslovable and wonderful as they
are, they're also like thesekind of chaos machines.
Yeah, so, so, so you, so youwent to one of these conferences
and you went.
I'm guessing just as a singlewoman or you went by yourself.

Myev Rees (10:34):
Yeah, they are technically open to the public.
They're not.
You know you don't have to.
You know you have to buy aticket and there were no.
You know you give them yourname and you register just like
anything else.
So I can't imagine why anybodywho's not associated with the
IVLP would want to go, unlessthey were a researcher or a
reporter maybe, but it's a bitof an insular group and so they

(10:58):
really flew under the radar ofthe popular press until very,
very recently, and even thenwe're still very much an under
studied group particularly theirpolitical influence, which I
can get into in a minute.

Lara Ayad (11:12):
But the big yeah, yeah, but let's talk about what
you saw there.

Myev Rees (11:16):
What did?

Lara Ayad (11:16):
you.
Was there any particularexperiences that you had there
that really just kind of struckyou or have kind of stayed with
you?

Myev Rees (11:23):
There.
You know, there are a couple ofexperiences that were hard, so
they.
So the the gathering isorganized.
There's like a giant sort ofauditorium where everybody can
gather for like openingceremonies and keynote speakers
and things like that.
There's a book sale area justlike any other conference, right
.
There's like an area whereyou're selling these but nothing

(11:44):
that would be available inmainstream shelves, very niche
things in fundamentalistevangelical materials.
And then there are all thesesort of breakout schedule groups
groups for young marriedcouples, you know little,
seminars for mothers, seminarsfor men and so on.
So I tried to go to as much asI could go to without having to

(12:05):
be in two places at once, and Iwas obviously not welcome in the
men's groups, so I didn't tryto attend those.
But but I did attend some ofthe, some of the, the married
couples one I did, I did askpermission to sit in on that
even though I was single and andsome other ones for mothers,

(12:27):
and I think that I mean there'sa couple of things that really
strike you.
If you're familiar at all,probably what listeners might be
most familiar with the IBLP isthrough the Duggar family, which
is the TLC's 19 Kids andCounting reality show.

Lara Ayad (12:43):
Right, I remember hearing that name.
I remember hearing that namewhen I was younger.

Myev Rees (12:49):
Right.
So, yeah, they start out asthis, like reality show family.
Then they eventually sort ofbecome this, this huge sort of
thing, and then there's a verypublic fall from grace where
their son is is convicted ofhaving child pornography.
He is, he molested his sistersand a family friend and is now

(13:11):
now incarcerated and you knowand all and so that caused TLC
to drop the show.
But of course the Duggars are ahuge money-making thing, so
they they sort of create,quickly created a new show for
just the daughters and so anyway.
So I think that what whatpeople would notice right away
if they were to go, um, is thatit's it's like being in a
community of people, but there'sthousands of people who are

(13:34):
just like the Duggars.
So they dress very modestly inlong dresses.
All of the women have very longhair.
It's a teaching of Bill Goddardfor women to have long hair as
their crowning glory.
It's predominantly white, whichmakes sense when you start to
look at the homeschoolingcurriculum, which is a very

(13:56):
white supremacist bend.

Lara Ayad (13:58):
Right, and we'll get to that in a little bit too,
because I know that's been animportant part of your work and
like even that book that you'vebeen working on in the early
stages, so we'll get to that ina bit, yeah.

Myev Rees (14:08):
Yeah, and so what you notice I mean what you notice
on the surface is, you know,thousands of really seemingly
very happy families, right, sortof all going about doing this
like fun, camping vacation kindof thing, right, and.
But when you start to hear someof the stories, it starts to
feel you start to see some ofthe cracks.

(14:30):
So one of the things that theIBLP teaches, and Bill Goddard
really has emphasized throughouthis career, is what he calls
the umbrellas of authority, sothat women fall under the
umbrella of authority of theirhusbands when they are married,
when they are unmarried to theirfathers, and then the husbands
fall under the umbrella ofauthority of church

(14:54):
organizations, church leaders,government leaders and so on,
right, and so it's a verystructured, hierarchical thing,
and so the women in thesecommunities are expected to
accept their husband'sleadership and to not argue.
And sometimes these husbandsmake questionable financial

(15:15):
decisions, right, and it's alsovery difficult to have 14
children in any economy.

Lara Ayad (15:21):
Right, I can imagine that puts so much strain on just
the parents' resources.

Myev Rees (15:27):
Yeah, exactly, and another complicating teaching of
Goddard's is that they do notallow for any kind of debt,
which includes credit card debt,but also mortgages and car
loans and things that we wouldsometimes use to build wealth in

(15:48):
our economy.
Now, not everybody in the IBLPhones exactly to all of these
laws all of the time, but thevast majority of them do, and so
you have a lot of thesefamilies who are really
financially struggling.
But there is this almostunsettling veneer of
cheerfulness which many viewerscaught on when they were

(16:11):
watching 19 Kids and CountingRight.

Lara Ayad (16:14):
Many people were family right yes exactly.

Myev Rees (16:17):
Many people remarked at how this woman with 19
children never seemed to raiseher voice and she always spoke
in this infantilized, sweet highpitch sort of way.

Lara Ayad (16:28):
Right and it's.

Myev Rees (16:29):
That is, that kind of behavior for women is something
that we, that that we say iscaught and it's taught.
So it's something that isexpressly taught to be
submissive, to be sweet, to notbe challenging, to be a help
meet, which is one of theirfavorite words to your husband.

(16:51):
But it's also caught becauseit's the way that the culture
speaks, right, it's theexpectation that people have for
women, and so the children thatare raised in this movement
grow up hearing their mothersspeak like that and so on.
So a lot of these women areliving in situations that are
really challenging.

(17:11):
One woman shared in a mother'sgroup about how, um, uh, based
on some decisions that herhusband had made, they were
struggling to, um, to pay theheating bill and um, and it was
winter time, and she was tellingthe story that if you had seen
it written down and read it, youwould have thought that this

(17:32):
was a deeply tragic story abouthow her children were cold and
they had to all sleep together.
All 10 of them sleep together inthe living room and, as she put
it, piled up like puppies andshe's to keep warm, and she was
describing this as if it was ablessing, as if this was a

(17:55):
moment that God had provided tostrengthen her faith right.
And that's the sort of the loopthat runs through the way that
women speak in these communities, so that everything that is
challenging becomes anopportunity to test your faith
right.
Everything that's challengingbecomes an opportunity to test

(18:15):
your faith right.
Everything that's difficultbecomes an opportunity for you
to witness for Christ.
And so what that does is thatit nips in the bud any kind of
disagreement, any kind ofdissent, any kind of demand,
perhaps of the, the, the wife,that maybe she doesn't want to

(18:36):
have kid number 11, since theycan't keep the 10 they have warm
in the winter.

Lara Ayad (18:41):
Um, you know.
And how old do you think thatmother was?
How old do you think thatmother was, that you saw, she
was probably in her earlyforties.
Yeah, she was probably earlyRight, so she had time at that
point to have quite a fewchildren and this was the
situation they were in.
I mean, they were basicallyliving in poverty and they
couldn't keep the kids warm.
But she did not see that asyou're explaining.

(19:03):
It's like she didn't see thatas a problem, or at least on the
surface.

Myev Rees (19:08):
It's like the way she's relating the story was
like we are so blessed to beliving in this situation the
story was like we are so blessedto, and that's the sort of
striking thing that you get isthat I don't think that these
stories would be told if therewasn't some part of her that was
hurt, upset, afraid.
In that moment she was sharingthat, but it's very quickly
turned around into this sociallyacceptable way that you can

(19:31):
make sense of it, which is tothen continue to be a witness
for this lifestyle.
You know, another thing that'ssometimes hard in as a, you know
, as an educated woman who makesher living now as a college
professor the education, thevalue of education, education is
undervalued deeply in thiscommunity.
There is a real contempt forhigher education in particular,

(19:55):
and especially for girls.
So it was challenging to sit ina room and listen to women in
their 30s and 40s instruct youngwomen who were, you know, 15,
16, that their primary objectiveshould be wifehood and
motherhood and that anythingthat would distract them from

(20:17):
that was of what they call theenemy, which is the devil or
Satan.
And so the goal is to, you know, to, to support your husband
and to to, even if you don'thave one yet, that one of the
major teachings that they sayover and over again is that
every young girl should startpraying for her husband as young

(20:40):
as possible.
You know, 11, 12 years old,start praying for your future
husband.
Like not praying that he'llshow up praying for him, you
know, as if I hope he's doingwell out there in the world
right.

Lara Ayad (20:51):
That's incredible.
So it's also like a very kindof there's a lot of aspiration
in all of this right.
It sounds like young girls aretaught to really aspire to
something that maybe doesn'texist yet or something like that
, and I know, like you know,it's interesting you're talking
about women and talking aboutmothers, because my
understanding is like your focuson mothers, and also like even

(21:11):
reproductive rights, was a bigreason that you went to these
conferences.
Is that right?
Like why did you go to thisconference in the first place?

Myev Rees (21:19):
Well, I went to the conferences because the vast
majority of my research I wasinterested in the way that this
community was presenting ontelevision through the Duggars
and the way that that televisionshow worked to mainstream some
of these values.
Because the way that the showreally presents the Duggar
family it's as if they're notpart of a larger movement, as if

(21:40):
they're sort of a one-off, youknow, and it's a very apologetic
show, right, it's a show thatreally casts them in a very
positive light and highlightssome of the very extreme parts
of Goddard's institutions, likethe courtship rituals, right,
where there's no hand-holdinguntil you're engaged, there's no

(22:02):
kissing until you are married.
It's a very hyper-supervised bythe father courtship process.
The way that the show presentedthat it was almost like a fairy
tale, right, they presentedthese weddings and millions of
people tuned in to watch theseDuggar girls get married.
In these very sort ofperformative of purity culture

(22:24):
we call purity culture inevangelical circles, the IBLPs
takes purity culture to a wholenew place.
So even those who espousepurity culture sometimes, you
know, don't wait till theirwedding day to have their first
kiss.

Lara Ayad (22:37):
But that's, you know, there's a spectrum and we could
get into this in a minute.
But it's just kind ofinteresting that you mentioned
this reality show about theDuggars was sort of like a bit
apologetic and is like making itlook like this is a one-off,
but it's actually it seems likeit's kind of playing into like I
don't know it's I don't know ifit's like an increasing amount
of Americans are really pushingfor much more conservative

(23:00):
values, because it wasn't thereeven like some recent reality
shows about like arrangedmarriages, like these Indian
weddings or like these like kindof women who are specifically
employed by like Indian familiesto like arrange a marriage and
find a match for their daughter,for their son, and this was
getting like really popular.
And even you could argue likebachelor the bachelorette.

(23:21):
There's like kind of aformalized sort of ceremony.
In that I don't want to stretchit too far, but it's just
interesting to me that likethere's kind of this trend, even
in just reality TV, where yousee like are American audiences
kind of like attracted?

Myev Rees (23:36):
to these ideas on some level or another you know,
well, it's, it's funny because,you know, reality television and
this kind of reality television, reality television is a big
genre, so I'm I'm excludinganything that's like a
competition show, you know.
Sure, yeah, but realitytelevision really gets a lot of
its start through this kind oflike extreme family.

(23:58):
I'm thinking of, you know, tlc'searliest shows, like A Baby
Story and A Marriage Story,right, that really emphasize
this very heteronormative, veryprocreative, you know, type of
relationship that reinforces theidea that a woman's highest
calling is in wifehood and inmotherhood, right, I mean, and

(24:19):
this is, I think that I thinkyou're right to point out that
there has been a mainstreamingof that idea that, there, that
that didn't necessarily, it'snot that that didn't exist, it's
that that has always existed,but that the folks on the fringe
have sort of been brought intothe mainstream in a way.
That's very powerful, right?

(24:40):
And you now have, you know thatgosh I'm forgetting his name
now, but that was he a footballplayer who gave that graduation
speech, who said you know, whenhis wife's life really began,
when she got married and had achild, you know, and he's saying
this at a college graduation toa room at least 50% of female
graduates, right.
So this is, you know, andthat's that is the message,

(25:04):
right, that's the message ofthose reality shows, that's the
message, certainly, of the IBLP,that that is when you, that is
when your life really begins,that that is when you, um that
is when your life really begins,um, and that's when fulfill
your calling, right, right, andis this so?

Lara Ayad (25:20):
do you think then?
I mean, we were talking aboutkind of reality TV.
We're talking about themessages of these different
types of shows and thesenarratives.
Do you think that what, whatthe IBLP was doing on a larger
level, is reflective ofChristianity on the larger level
in the US?
Because, like it's funny, likehere I am podcasting from Los
Angeles, of course, and I'mlooking around and I'm like I

(25:43):
don't think I don't see myneighbors being directly
impacted by these views.
As far as I can tell, I don'tthink that the state of
California is gonna, like youknow, ban abortion at any at any
point, even though, federally,we've already seen the
overturning of Roe v Wade.
But, like, is there somethingthat I'm missing?
Like is there some kind of likea secret Bible belt or

(26:04):
something like that that isoperating in LA or in Southern
California that I'm not seeing?
Like what's going on here?

Myev Rees (26:14):
Yes, except it's not secret.

Lara Ayad (26:18):
There's nothing secret about it.
Lara's just in a cave and it isnot a secret.

Myev Rees (26:24):
You're not in a cave, but I do think that perhaps
Sometimes I do feel like I'm ina cave girl.
Also, I think that it isindicative of the fact that, you
know, given social media and Iam by no means an expert on how
algorithms work but the way thatthose kinds of systems can
create echo chambers where weare surrounded by people like us

(26:46):
, who agree with us, we suddenlydon't see a lot of.
You know, the stuff that'sgoing on are all around us,
right, that our neighbors aredeeply engaged in some of these
ideas.
Now, of course, you know,regional differences do matter.
California does tend to be alittle bit more left-leaning.
That said, you know a greatdeal of research I'm thinking of

(27:10):
Darren Docek's book inparticular from Bible Belt to
Sun Belt.
You know Southern California hasbeen a hotbed of evangelical
culture for a very long time,since, you know, the early part
of the 20th century, and part ofan intellectual evangelical
culture too, with the rise oforganizations like Fuller

(27:31):
Theological Seminary, pepperdine, the Seventh Day Adventist
communities are located here.
There's a great deal ofconservative Protestantism, and
not to mention, you know, losAngeles is a huge Latino
population, and so you know thatis a huge Catholic population
as well.
So the idea that SouthernCalifornia is somehow secular is

(27:54):
that that is just not the case.
But I do think, though, thatsometimes and something that I'm
always telling my students isthat sometimes there's a line
from Marshall McLuhan thatsometimes gets mistakenly
attributed to David FosterWallace, which is that the only
thing that the fish don't see isthe water, that the only thing

(28:15):
that the fish don't see is thewater.
The idea is that when we areswimming in ideas that are so
powerful and so prevalent, theycease to be legible to us right
that we actually can't see themanymore, because they are the
water in which we swim, they arethe air that breathing, and I
think that, with Protestantismas a concept writ large, it

(28:39):
suffuses American culture in away that sometimes becomes
difficult for us to locate andpinpoint, but it is certainly
there.

Lara Ayad (28:48):
What's an example of that that really, like sticks
out to you is like that sort ofthese heavily Protestant,
perhaps even evangelical, ideasthat are kind of part of this
water that we swim in, like what.
What's a great example of that?

Myev Rees (29:02):
Well, I think that, well, one of the one of the
biggest examples might besomething like when my students
ask, when I ask them like what'sthe most important question if
you want to know something aboutsomebody religiously, the first
question they say oh well, youask them if they believe in God,
right, and I'm like well, sure,that's a reasonable question to
ask.
But the idea that religion issomething that happens in belief

(29:26):
, that religion is an individualintellectual activity, right,
that's?
Or what William James said whata man does in his solitude,
right?
That that idea of religion isis something that I
intellectually assent to.
I choose to believe this, andso, therefore, I am part of this

(29:47):
religious community.

Lara Ayad (29:48):
It almost sounds like Rene Descartes, that you know
Enlightenment era philosopherlike I think, therefore I am,
and it's almost like I believein God and therefore I'm a
Christian.

Myev Rees (29:57):
That's incredible, and that's great because it
works for Protestantism, rightFor Protestantism.
Whether or not you believe inJesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior is the central question.
That is the biggest thing.
You can't walk into a churchand say, gosh, I really like the
music and I really like thesermon, but I can't get behind
this divinity of Christ thing.
Is that a problem?
Right, I mean, you'd be leftout of the room, right, like no,

(30:18):
you have to believe that.

Lara Ayad (30:20):
I'm sure a couple of folks have tried.
You never know, yeah.

Myev Rees (30:22):
Oh yeah.

Lara Ayad (30:22):
Well, sure.

Myev Rees (30:24):
But the primacy of belief right is a Protestant
idea.
Right, because nobody asks thatof Buddhists, nobody asks that
of Hindu practitioners, nobodyis.
I mean, I have a joke that myrabbi used to say what do you
call the atheist who shows up atYom Kippur services?
You call them a Jew.
And because you know, becauseit doesn't matter.

(30:47):
Oh, like you know, or the sortof the joke in Judaism.
It's like we're fine with one.

Lara Ayad (30:54):
God or fewer right.
I used to have one student whoused to joke around that we're
the only because she was Jewishand she's like the only group of
people, we're the only group ofpeople who, by religion, are
literally called Jewish, likeit's literally something-ish.
And that was the joke and I waslike.
I'm not Jewish myself, but it'sjust like kind of hilarious to
hear people talk about theirbeliefs that way.

Myev Rees (31:14):
Yeah, so many religious traditions are much
more about practice.
They're much more about, orthey're about, community, right?
Nobody knocks on your door andsays you know hello.
Have you considered becoming aNavajo today?
Right, because being part ofNavajo tradition and there are
many Navajos who are Christians,of very many or Dine people who
who are part of you knowChristian traditions as well.

(31:35):
But the idea that religion iswho you are as a community, or
religion is what you do, thisidea that religion is inherently
something that happens betweenyour ears, that happens in
belief, and belief only, that'sa sign of Protestant hegemony,
right?
That's a sign thatProtestantism has gotten to
define the terms of what countsas religion and what doesn't

(31:58):
count as religion.

Lara Ayad (31:59):
That's fascinating, and I you know it's kind of
interesting because now thatyou're saying that out loud, I'm
like oh, so there's a lot of,like different beliefs that,
let's say, not just Protestantsbut specifically evangelicals
really adhere to, and one ofthose key beliefs that we've
been hearing about very muchrecently is the belief that

(32:20):
abortion is anti-life, like thatyou need to be pro-life in
order to be, even like, a goodChristian, right, Like there's
that attachment to beliefs.
So I'm kind of curious, likewas was something like this
belief about abortion beinganti-life or, you know, about
the importance of being pro-life?
Has that always been an issuefor Christians more widely?

(32:44):
Has it always been an issue forevangelicals?
Like, where did all of thisbegin?

Myev Rees (32:49):
Yeah, I mean the answer is no.
It hasn't always been an issuefor Christianity writ large,
sorry, excuse me, it hasn'talways been an issue for
Christianity writ large, sorry,it has not always been an issue
for Christianity.
Jesus said almost nothing about.
Actually Jesus said nothingabout abortion.
He did say a lot about a lot ofother things that conservative
Christians don't like to talkabout.
He said a lot about divorce.

(33:10):
He said a lot about money.
He said a lot about poverty.
He said a lot about a lot ofthings.
He didn't mention abortion, andno, abortion has not been part
of, has not been a central tenetof Christianity for the
beginning of its history.
It has become a central tenetof conservative Christianity,

(33:32):
conservative evangelicalism inAmerica, and that has happened
really in the last 55 years.
So the idea that you know thatin order to be a good Christian,
you have to oppose legal andsafe access to abortion, or in
order to be a good Christian,you have to hold to the idea of

(33:53):
fetal personhood, for example,that is a completely modern
invention.
And not only is it a moderninvention, in some ways it's a
very I mean, the Catholic Churchdoes put that forward but it is
also a very American idea, andso, yeah, so I mean, basically,
I can go into the history of howthis happened if you're

(34:15):
interested.

Lara Ayad (34:16):
I mean, could you tell us briefly, because you
said it specifically tends to bevery American, like and very,
very briefly like, how did thisall begin Like, and why is it
such an American preoccupation?

Myev Rees (34:29):
Well, okay, so in the beginning of the 20th century,
evangelical Christians had akind of crisis.
They were being faced with acouple of challenges to their
certain types of biblicalinterpretation.
One of those challenges camefrom the intellectual, from sort

(34:50):
of the top down, from the ivorytower, new ways of reading the
Bible that we call biblicalcriticism.
Another challenge came fromDarwinian theory, right so, from
Darwinian evolution, whichchallenged a literal reading of
Genesis.
And so what happened in theUnited States is that now, of
course, there have beenevangelicals who you know were

(35:11):
very politically progressive.
Some of our most effectiveurban renewal programs of the
19th century were championed byevangelicals.

Lara Ayad (35:20):
The women's suffrage, the temperance movement were
all championed by evangelicals,and they were almost like a yeah
, it's almost like another,another face altogether of an
evangelical, of evangelicalmovements that most people do
not know about.
Like I didn't know they wereinvolved in the suffragette
movements.
That's, that's insane.

Myev Rees (35:40):
They weren't just involved, they were instrumental
.
Without them, we, you know, itwould have been delayed decades.
Um so, absolutely so.
So what happens basically inthe 20th century is that in the
early part of the 20th centuryis that evangelicals,
particularly Southern whiteevangelicals, um begin to feel
attacked by elites.

(36:01):
This happens largely um inresponse to a very famous uh uh
court case, the Scopes.
The Scopes trial, sometimescalled the Scopes monkey trial.
It was made famous by the playinherit the wind the Arthur.

Lara Ayad (36:14):
Miller.
It was named after my podcast,obviously because I've got like
a big monkey on the-.

Myev Rees (36:18):
Right, there you go.
Yeah, that's how important?

Lara Ayad (36:20):
it is no, and so this is is this in the?
You said this is in the 1950s,no, in the 1920s, 1920s, so this
is a little earlier on.

Myev Rees (36:29):
Yeah, so after the Scopes trial, basically what
happens is the Scopes trial wasa putting on.
It wasn't just a matter ofwhether or not John T Scopes
taught evolution in in hispublic school classroom, which
he did, and he did itintentionally and that broke the

(36:50):
law in Tennessee.
Tennessee had made that illegalyou could not teach evolution
in a public school classroom andso he broke that law
intentionally.
And two of the most celebratedcelebrity lawyers descended on
this little town in Dayton,tennessee, clarence Darrow and
William Jennings Bryan, and theyduked out like the trial of the
century.
And in some ways, when I teachit to my students, I'm like,

(37:10):
imagine, like the OJ trial,that's sort of what we're
talking about here.
It's just like the OJ trialwasn't really just about whether
or not this man killed his wife, right.
It was also about race inAmerica.
It was also about the role ofcelebrity in the justice system.
It was about all those otherthings and there were cameras

(37:31):
and there was the court ofpublic opinion, right.
All of that is happening in thespokes trial as well, the end
result of which is the questionis really whether or not
evangelical fundamentalism,which was sort of a new idea,
that the Bible was absolutely,literally, true in every single
word, and that it could beunderstood plainly by any

(37:56):
anybody on the street, right.
So this is what we call afundamentalist principle, and
the fundamentalism gets its namefrom a series of pamphlets that
were put out by um, by, by twosort of robber baron brothers,
who had a lot of money, and theyput out these pamphlets that
listed the fundamentals of theChristian faith as they
understood it.

Lara Ayad (38:16):
And that was also around that time in the 1920s.

Myev Rees (38:20):
Okay, and so and so what fundamentalism does is it's
a response to this newdefinition of modernity that's
sort of dawning in America,right.
This, this modernity of youknow progress and science and
you know Northern eliteinstitutions and all of these

(38:41):
kinds of things, right, andfundamentalism sort of emerges
as a reaction to that, as a sortof like digging in of the heels
and a hardening of ideas thatare opposed to all of that.

Lara Ayad (38:53):
So that's fascinating because and this is just like
me, kind of coming from my ownbackground too, because you
focus on the US I used to focuson modern Egypt and my own field
work and actually the MuslimBrotherhood was one of like the
oldest fundamentalist Islamicgroups to ever emerge in Egypt,
and they arose in the 1920s aswell, and it was in response to

(39:15):
this idea of like what it meansto be modern and what is
modernity and what is a modernculture.
And you kind of mentionedthings like, you know, science
and progress, the idea of theindividual and having like
individual aspirations and goalsand your own like kind of
existence in the world that'snot just attached to god or a
higher being.

(39:35):
So this is really interesting.
This is almost like a globalphenomenon, right like the
fundamentalist response tomodernity yeah, that's right and
the?

Myev Rees (39:44):
um.
You know, sometimes in our, inour contemporary news movement,
we, when we hear the wordfundamentalist, we do tend to
think of extremist, uh, violent,uh, terrorist islam, right, um,
that's what people associatewith that word now.
But actually it's an Americanword.
We created it and it's a wordthat originated in evangelical
Protestantism with thefundamentals, these pamphlets.

(40:05):
So what happens is is thatthere's this little subgroup of
American evangelicals, locatedmostly in the American South,
that are defining themselves asfundamentalists.
But the Scopes trial was anincredibly humiliating
experience for them.
And because you have the radiowaves that are broadcasting this

(40:27):
trial, william Jennings Bryan,who is the champion for the
fundamentalist message, is madeto look like a buffoon.
Is the champion for thefundamentalist message is made
to look like a buffoon, and thenhe unfortunately dies, like
right after the trial ends.
So it's almost like it killedhim, right?
Wow?
Hl Mencken, who's one of thegreat satirists of American
history, just goes to town onthese people in a very cruel and

(40:50):
in many ways unfair way, reallypaint them as these buffoonish
backwards, southern, you know,hicks, essentially yeah, and
that stereotype of like yeah,and that stereotype of the
southern hick, or even thequote-unquote the redneck, is
still something very alive andwell.

Lara Ayad (41:08):
I noticed it when, like when I'm like, when I was
like living in boston, I wouldsee people just like make
totally blatant statements about, like all soutoutherners as
being like this.
So it's something that verymuch still lives with us today.
We're dealing with the legacyof that.

Myev Rees (41:21):
Yeah, and what that does is that it continues to
feed a kind of populism rightthat defines itself against
Northern elitist, you know,education institutions and so on
, southern elitist, you know,education institutions and so on
.
So what happens after theScopes trial is that this is a
very oversimplified version.
But many evangelicalsessentially sort of throw their

(41:41):
hands up and say you know whatwe're out, we're going to form
our own subculture, we're goingto form our own schools, we're
going to form our owncommunities and to hell with the
rest of the country.
And in many ways that's whatthey do and they, in many ways
they drop out of the politicalsystem.

Lara Ayad (41:58):
Because they lost this.
They lost this trial to try tosay the Bible should be
interpreted literally.
It doesn't go through, itdoesn't work out.
They're like we're out of hereand so then they go on to do
their own thing, right.

Myev Rees (42:11):
Yes, and one of the tenets of the fundamentals is
the imminent return of Christ.
So this adds to the idea oflike why would you bother
getting involved in a societythat is bound for hell when
Jesus could come back any minute?
Like, why are you going tocampaign for a presidential
candidate?
Why are you going to try tobuild a university or an

(42:32):
institution?
Jesus could come back tomorrowand the world's going to hell in
a handbasket.
So we might as well just hunkerdown and, you know, create our
strength in our sub-communityright.
And that's sort of whatevangelicals do for the better
part of the middle 20th century.
And it's not really until theGoldwater campaign where they
start to come out, and notreally until the rise of the

(42:54):
religious right in the late1970s and early 1980s.

Lara Ayad (43:00):
Which coincides with that big start of the culture
wars.
Right, we hear that a lot ofthe time culture war, culture
war.
It actually started in the1970s, if I understood correct.

Myev Rees (43:11):
Yeah, it starts in the 1970s and it is a creation
of the evangelical right.
So what essentially happens isthat this community sort of
stays very insular.
And since we are talking abouta lot of people who are also
deeply invested in a kind ofwhite supremacist idea, they

(43:31):
also are setting up what theycall segregation academies,
these schools that areexclusively white, that do not
admit Black students, or that ifthey do admit Black students,
they do it in a very limited wayand they ban interracial dating
and so on and so forth.
So with the rise of the civilrights movement in the late 50s
and 60s, and then you get theCivil Rights Act in 1964.

(43:55):
That suddenly clues into someof these white evangelical
Southerners that society ischanging and it's changing in
this really dramatic way.
And their quote unquoteSouthern way of life is under
threat and one of the ways inwhich the Civil Rights Act gets
enforced is actually through theinternal revenue system.

(44:19):
So I'm sort of taking a longstory here to basically tell you
how did abortion become theissue for you?
Right?
Issue?
Because the Bible doesn't sayvery much about it and Jesus
says absolutely nothing about it, right?
And so why are we alwaystalking about abortion.
And we start talking aboutabortion largely in response,

(44:43):
not to Roe v Wade, but inresponse to the racial politics
of the late 20th century.
So what happens is is thatschools like Bob Jones
University, which was an allwhite, exclusively white
organization, started in Florida, moved to South Carolina, and
Bob Jones University only admitswhite students for most of its

(45:05):
history.
And then it twists its arm toadmit a few African American
students, but only married ones,because they don't want
interracial dating.
And then, even when theyallowed for non-married
African-Americans, theinterracial dating policy was so
strict that you would beexpelled if there was any
interracial dating, and so on.

(45:27):
So, as part of enforcing theCivil Rights Act of 1964, the
Internal Revenue Service decidesto say look, if you are an
institution that segregatesbased on race, if you are
discriminating based on race,we're no longer going to
consider you a charitableorganization, and so you're
never.
We're not going to give you taxexempt status and any donations

(45:47):
that are made to you are nolonger claimable, right?
So if I write a check to you,know the American Nazi Party or
something?

Lara Ayad (45:55):
like that.

Myev Rees (45:56):
I can't claim that as a charitable deduction on my
taxes, right, thank goodness.
So this is part of you know.
So this is part of thatmovement, and when that happens,
that's when evangelicals comeout of their self-imposed
subculture and they start to say, okay, look, now the federal

(46:20):
government is starting to comeafter our all white Christian
schools, and we can't have that.
And so that's when they startto actually become involved in
politics.
What does all of this have todo with abortion?
Absolutely nothing.
That's the funny thing is thatthat is the issue that

(46:40):
galvanizes the religious right,and this is not a secret.
You know people like Tim LaHayeand Paul Weyrich and Jerry
Falwell will have told peoplepublicly, out loud, that the
religious right starts with theGreen v Colony case, which is
the case that makes it so thatyou can't have these segregation
academies anymore, that it hasnothing to do with abortion.

(47:04):
But what they realize fairlyquickly is that abortion has the
power to galvanize a certainsubset of the evangelical
demographic and to galvanize aCatholic demographic as well,
and if they can bring thosegroups together, they can exert

(47:26):
some political power that theypreviously didn't have.

Lara Ayad (47:30):
So they attach themselves to a larger kind of
Catholic demographic, or maybe amore now at this point in the
middle of the 20th century moresocially accepted or 1970s more
socially accepted group ofCatholics.
If they attach to that boom,there we've got some power in
numbers.
We have a one commondenominator, one common issue

(47:50):
that we can you know, we canreally like mobilize people on,
and that is abortion Right.

Myev Rees (47:55):
So like in 1960, sorry, 1973, when Roe passes,
right Roe passes in 1973.
Right Roe v Wade, yeah, right,no, no evangelical organization
comes out and condemns.
It Doesn't happen.
In fact, the Southern BaptistConvention, which is the largest
denomination of conservativeevangelicals in America.
They reaffirm before Roe in1971, but also again in 1974, a

(48:21):
year after Roe, and again in1976, that they call upon their
members to work for legislationthat would keep abortion legal
and safe in the cases of rape,incest, the welfare of the
mother.
They do not want this being afederally adjudicated issue.

Lara Ayad (48:41):
That's so interesting .
So these Southern Baptists wereactually, in a certain way,
like fighting to keep women'sreproductive rights in certain
situations legal.

Myev Rees (48:50):
Absolutely yeah, huh, yeah, yeah.
In 1971, 1974, 1976, the SBCreaffirms that that abortion
should be something that islegal, that the federal
government should not get in,get involved in, and that, um,
and that it should be accessibleto women if they need it for

(49:11):
financial, emotional or medicalneeds.
And this is just you know.
And when you contrast thatright with the most recent, the
Southern Baptist Convention metagain this last June, right.
June of 2024, wherein theyaffirmed that IVF.
What would be against theirteachings?

(49:32):
Because they are now affirmingfetal personhood.
So they're saying that fetuslike IVF.
So not even fetuses, zygotes, Isuppose right.
Forgive me, I'm not up on themedical terminology.

Lara Ayad (49:47):
I believe zygote is the best way to put it.
Yeah.

Myev Rees (49:49):
Yeah, so the result of IVF?
Right?
The fertilized, the embryo thatis in a test tube in cold
storage, right, the result of anIVF procedure.
That is a person now, accordingto the SBC.
The SBC's official theologicalstatement is that that is a
person In 1971, that was not thecase.
The same organization saidwomen should have access to

(50:13):
abortion if they wanted.

Lara Ayad (50:15):
Right, right.
And so you said women shouldhave access to abortion if they
want it, right, right.
And so you said massive shift,right?
So are these so like theSouthern Baptist Church and
these other types offundamentalist Christian groups?
Are they putting pressure?
Because they did pair up with,like a set, a subset of
Catholics who also posedabortion in the 1970s and moving
forward into the 80s?
So are they now?

(50:36):
Are these evangelicals now likeputting pressure on Christians
to adopt a certain stancetowards abortion and women's
reproductive rights, like whatis going on in terms of like
what their relationship is withother types of Christian groups
and denominations in the UnitedStates?

Myev Rees (50:55):
So what happens with the segregation academies is
that they lose, right, they losethe cases that they're trying
to keep these universities andcolleges all white, right, they
lose that and they realize thatthey're sort of, politically,
they don't have a platform.
And so there's this very famoussort of conference call that

(51:18):
happens in Lynchburg, Virginia,with Paul Weyrich and Jerry
Falwell, where they're trying tofigure out well, okay, if we
can't campaign on segregation,if we've lost this battle, what
is an issue that we couldgalvanize the country over and
on.
In this famous call, someonesays what about abortion?

(51:39):
And what they realize is thatabortion has the ability to
crack what used to be called theCatholic block.
So it used to be that theDemocratic Party could count on
Catholics for their supportunanimously right Like right,
you think of John.

Lara Ayad (51:59):
F Kennedy.
As, like the most famousexample, Catholic Democrat, like
that was the traditionalassociation.

Myev Rees (52:05):
And they were deeply invested in labor unions, they
were deeply invested in all ofthese movements that the
Democratic Party reallyrepresented and counted on at
the ballot box.
And so what these evangelicalpastors realized was that if
they could make abortion thecentral issue, they could crack
the Catholic vote, because thatwas the only thing that

(52:27):
Catholics and conservativeChristians could get together on
.

Lara Ayad (52:32):
So in in other words, they could, they could stop the
Catholics from supporting theDemocratic Party wholeheartedly
at this point.

Myev Rees (52:39):
Exactly right.
They could pull, they couldsiphon off Catholic voters from
the Democrats to the Republicanside, and this was in part
because they didn't like JimmyCarter.
And this is kind of gettinginto a different kind of
conversation about why theydidn't like Jimmy Carter.
Carter um, but he was supposedto be their guy.
He was this southern baptistsunday school teacher from
georgia, like supposed to betheir guy.

(53:01):
He came to power on theircoattails and then wasn't he a
peanut farmer too?
yes, exactly, and you know.
It turned out, though, that, um, you know that jimmy carter
didn't actually represent thevalues of, you know, white
supremacist, fundamentalistevangelicals and didn't
certainly want them legislated,and so this was a problem.

(53:23):
And so now, all of a sudden,evangelical leaders are looking
for a new standard bearer, andthey find that standard bearer
in Ronald Reagan, and so RonaldReagan becomes their guy, right,
despite the fact that ronaldreagan has a very pro-choice
reputation at this point.
Right, and he's from californiaand he's divorced and he's an

(53:44):
actor, right, like he's not.
Not why reagan is kind of atrumpy kind of character,
because you're just like wait,this guy like this is your guy,
um, who stands and seems to notstand for any of the values that
you seem to want to hold on to,but he was.
He could open the doors ofpower, and so that's what?
Yeah, so abortion becomes avery powerful galvanizing issue

(54:08):
that they realize very quicklycan get people to the polls,
that can get people to writechecks, that can get people, and
it works out so nicely, right,because, when you think about
this, who does this serve?
Right, the?

Lara Ayad (54:24):
the ultimate.
I was gonna ask about that, whothat it's, who it serves,
because you were kind of likeit's interesting, because we
were talking before about likekind of keeping a white
supremacist structure in place.
How exactly is abortion relatedto that issue?
That seems to be actually likethe driving factor for these
fundamentalist groups isactually maintaining white

(54:45):
supremacy.
How do those things connect?

Myev Rees (54:48):
Well, they connect because, because they are losing
the white supremacy argument inthe 1970s, right right they
glob on to abortion in order tomake that their new issue, so
that they can sort of skyrocketthemselves in power instead
leapfrogging over that firsthurdle of using aborted abortion

(55:09):
as a way to rocket themselvesover yeah, and those first,
those religious right abortionopponents, actually start
calling themselves the newabolitionists.
So it's really interesting,right, that here they are trying
to maintain segregation, tomaintain white supremacy in
institutions that get federaltax exemption, and then claiming

(55:32):
the mantle of the abolitionistin the process, right.
I mean that's really reallyironic and brazen in that way.
But when I say who does itserve, it's that when you're
opposing abortion, you have theultimate sort of martyr story.

(55:53):
You have this presumedcompletely innocent white fetus,
right, that is so vulnerable,that is so that doesn't actually
need anything, right?
This is not an, this is not apoor person who needs a job.
This is not a poor person whoneeds healthcare.
This is not this.
This is a sort of a perfect,disembodied victim martyr that

(56:15):
you can then glob onto and saythis is what we're fighting for,
right, and that can then propelyou into power.
And then the people who areopposed to those kinds of things
get sort of cast as people whowant to kill babies, right, and
that's, I mean, what a greatpolitical message that is.
Right.
Now You're, now you've createdthe concept of pro-life, right,

(56:38):
and nobody wants to be anti-life.

Lara Ayad (56:41):
Right, so you have like a couple of myths operating
here that you're pointing out,maya.
It's like.
First of all, there's the myththat the Bible's pro-life, which
you've shown, is not true atall.

Myev Rees (56:54):
And then also this myth of like a the Bible is not
anti-abortion Right.

Lara Ayad (56:58):
It's not anti-abortion right, I guess
that's a good way of putting it.
So the Bible is ananti-abortion.
And then the other myth is,like the myth of the fetus as a
martyr, right, and that this isthe kind of cause we fight for.
I mean, you even see that inlike sorts of narratives that
say we, you know, the governmentwants to go into war, certain
groups of people want to go intowar.
What do they do?
They make the myth of the goodwar and the idea that, like,

(57:18):
people going in are the martyrsand they're the martyrs for some
other kind of much bigger cause, right, so that it's like those
myths really mobilize peopleinto like holding fast to
certain sets of beliefs yeah,and it's particularly the white
fetus right.

Myev Rees (57:36):
And this plays into racist ideas of replacement
theory that immigrants are goingto come in and outbreed white
people and then white peoplewill be a minority and you know,
god forbid.
And then the United States,western civilization collapses
and da da, da, da, right.

Lara Ayad (57:54):
And if we can just change the definitions for who
gets defined as white down theline, and it wasn't even like
over 100 years ago, I think.
Irish people weren't evenconsidered white at a certain
point.
So it's fascinating too.

Myev Rees (58:06):
Yeah, there's a lot of good scholarship on that, but
no.
So basically that you get thisnew story of if white women
would just have more babies,right, and if white women would
embrace this kind of patriarchalsocial structure where their
job was to just raise whitechildren and raise white

(58:27):
families.
We would then have a kind ofyou know perfect white
supremacist utopia right, whereyou know this particular brand
of evangelicalism and I do wantto make it clear that, like
evangelical is a big term thatwe really haven't spent a lot of
time here defining.

Lara Ayad (58:47):
Right yeah, what is it like?
A brief way of defining thatterm?

Myev Rees (58:51):
I think the most concise way is it's a subset of
Protestantism that puts forwardthe idea that the Bible is
inerrant and that there is aneed to evangelize right, that's
the verb from evangelical, toevangelize, to spread that
message.
And so you have.

(59:14):
And culturally, evangelicalstend to be what we call low
church, so meaning that theirclergy tends not to be.
You know, they don't have tohave PhDs, they can have.
I mean, all the manyevangelical clergy do have, you
know, advanced degrees, but theydo tend to be anti-liturgical.
Right, they don't have.

(59:35):
You know, I always kind of thequick way I say to my students
is if you walk into a church andthere's a pastor in like
vestments and a collar, andthere's incense and there's
smells and bells, as you say,right, you are not in an
evangelical church.
If you walk into a church andthere is a pastor in a pair of

(59:56):
jeans and there are two giantjumbotron screens and there are
cup holders in the cat, in the,in the pews, then you are in an
evangelical church.
Right, it is a different world,right, and so there's a,
there's a.
There are cultural definitions,there are racialized
definitions, there aretheological definitions, and so
we have to be sort of carefulabout who we're talking about

(01:00:16):
here.
I'm talking about theseparticular groups of people.
I'm talking about dominantlywhite evangelical Christians who
are biblical literalists andwho who we would once call
fundamentalists, althoughsometimes they don't like that
word anymore fundamentalistsalthough sometimes they don't
like that word anymore, right,right.

Lara Ayad (01:00:33):
So okay, this, this kind of.
I want to like switch gears alittle bit too, because I'm so
curious.
You know, you know so muchabout this topic and you've done
all of this research and all ofthis field work and all of this
thinking and writing about thehistory of these evangelical

(01:00:56):
movements in the US.
The history of theseevangelical movements in the US.
I often hear I myself have saidit I hear other scholars joke
around that research is mesearch, it's you know, and it's.
It's sort of like a runningjoke, but I think there might be
some truth to it, for me atleast.
Do you think it was true foryou?
Like, how did you get sointerested in studying these
groups and studying these topics?
Like, do you have a backgroundas an evangelical Like.

(01:01:19):
Is that something that you grewup with?

Myev Rees (01:01:21):
Yeah, I mean I don't.
There are a lot of scholarsthat do.
My previous advisor, randallBalmer, started his life as an
evangelical, even up to you know, scholars.
Now many of them areex-evangelicals that are
scholars.
I am not an ex evangelical, Iwas never raised as an
evangelical, but I grew up inSouthern California and I grew

(01:01:42):
up with a lot of evangelicalsaround me and in, you know, in
my extended family.
I grew up with friends thatwent to evangelical megachurches
, that took me along with themand I was interested in that.
That, um, you know, my ownfamily was very religiously
eclectic, um, sort of, you know,ex ex-catholics and some new
agey stuff here and there andyou know things like that.

(01:02:03):
So, um, it's not me search inthat regard, um, but my interest
really is in the intersectionof religion and politics and
power.
I think that I was alwaysreally interested in, you know,
as a child of the 1980s and Iwas paying attention to the, you

(01:02:24):
know, to the Bush years right,that my whole life was really
shaped, as was yours, becausewe're the same, roughly the same
age that you know.
It was really shaped by therise of the religious right,
like my life coincided with therise of the religious right.

Lara Ayad (01:02:39):
Absolutely, absolutely.
I remember protesting JerryFalwell when I was in college,
like that was like a householdname.
Yeah, I was growing up, youknow so I don't think that you
know.

Myev Rees (01:02:50):
I think that growing up in in that kind of a
political milieu and then justhaving an interest in these
kinds of questions really madethat happen for me.

Lara Ayad (01:02:59):
Wow, and I've heard some monkey with very funny wire
rimmed glasses and a medievallooking hat told me that you're
working on a book and the bookdeals with some of the myths of
evangelical movements.
Can you, can you, share with mewhat those myths are and what
your book is about?

Myev Rees (01:03:19):
very briefly, yeah, I mean the book comes out of the
fact that I, you know, I thinkthat there are so many really
incredibly well-researched anddense scholarly examinations of
the religious right that are outthere right now and I don't
think I need to give the worldanother one.

Lara Ayad (01:03:39):
But you don't need to give the world another dense,
dry book.
Well, some of them aren't dry,some of them are great.

Myev Rees (01:03:48):
When I'm sitting there thinking about, you know
what are the questions that I'mseeing all the time in my
classroom, right, when mystudents are getting their minds
blown, when they're the onescoming saying, wait what you
know in my classroom, what arethe issues that are making them
go whoa?
I never thought about thatbefore, and so the book really

(01:04:08):
came out of teaching at thatreally introductory undergrad
level.
So what I really wanted to dois to write a book that anybody
could pick up, that you did notneed a PhD to pick up.
That would really conciselyindicate these untruths that

(01:04:29):
many people are told about thereligious right, about Christian
nationalism, about conservativeProtestantism in America more
generally, and upend thoseuntruths.
Right, you know so many of mystudents, you know, think and
are deeply traumatized by theidea that if they are not in

(01:04:50):
favor of making abortion illegalin all cases that they're, that
they have no place inChristianity.
And I'm not a Christianapologist, I'm not a Christian
at all, um, but I see the painthat that causes in their lives
um and I see that them, I seethem feeling unwelcome in their
communities and un and and sortof more or less in their faith

(01:05:14):
tradition.
And so part of what I want todo is sort of say like, okay,
firstly, let's just do somebasic history right.
The history of Christianity is2000 years old and the abortion
debate is 50 years old.
So can you be a Christian andbe pro-choice?
Absolutely, you're in goodcompany.
So just starting with somethinglike that, starting with the
idea that the opposition toabortion came out of this noble

(01:05:38):
desire to save babies, when itdidn't, it came out of a desire
for political power in responseto a threat against white
supremacy, and that this was theissue that could launch them
into political power I'm notsaying that evangelicals today
don't believe in fetalpersonhood.
I think that many of them do,but they've been taught to

(01:06:00):
believe in it.
It was not ever part of theoriginal tradition in any way,
right.
And so really, what my book istrying to do is to delineate
some very clear lies, untruths,myths about, and some of the
claims that come directly fromthese conservative Christian

(01:06:20):
groups and sort of say, no, thatdoesn't match up with the
historical record.
No, that doesn't match up withyou know what the scriptures
actually say.
And no, that doesn't right,because sometimes I think that,
as we've all been payingattention to in the last 10
years, we seem to have lost theplot on some like basic facts.
Right, we now live in a worldof like alternative facts and

(01:06:43):
alternative reality and now wecan't seem to agree on some
really basic like one plus oneis two kind of situations, and I
think that what I really wantto do with this book is to just
delineate this is what thehistorical record says, this is
what the scripture actually says, right, this is what the
tradition has said, and then dowith that information what you

(01:07:05):
will.

Lara Ayad (01:07:06):
Right, so just the regular person can kind of like
almost not armor, but sort oflike equip themselves with that
information so that they're notkind of being fed this sort of
it almost sounds like it almostsounds like some of these
fundamentalist groups are almostgaslighting other people and
other Christians into being likewell, in order for me to be
Christian, I have to believethat the Bible is anti-abortion

(01:07:30):
and I have to believe, and if Idon't hold that belief myself,
I'm like I'm not a realChristian.
I mean, there's just somethingabout that that sounds.
You know, these untruths arereally kind of misleading people
.

Myev Rees (01:07:41):
it sounds like, yes, yeah, and it is misleading,
right, and it's a denial of somuch rich history, right, the
Christian bedrock of the civilrights movement, right, that so
much of this, the rise of thereligious right, was responding
to.
I mean, part of the reason whywhite Southern evangelicals
stayed out of politics wasbecause they saw politics

(01:08:04):
getting involved in causes likeequality that they were not in
support of.
And so I mean, when JerryFalwell, you know, stands up in
1965 and says, I mean it's, it'scrazy to think now we think
Jerry Falwell as the politicalpastor, right, but in 1965, on
the day that Martin Luther Kingand others marched from Selma to

(01:08:28):
Montgomery, that very day JerryFalwell stood up and gave a
speech about how evangelicalpastors should not be involved
in politics.
Ever, period, the end.

Lara Ayad (01:08:39):
Wow.
What a contrast, what acontrast.

Myev Rees (01:08:43):
And what we see is that what he really meant was
evangelical pastors should notbe involved in those politics,
in the politics ofAfrican-American empowerment, in
the politics of AfricanAmerican empowerment, in the
politics of civil rights.
We shouldn't be involved inthose politics, because then,
when it became the politics thathe agreed with, well, then they
came out, then he was all aboutit.
Right, right, right.

(01:09:04):
So I think that that's.
This is sort of.
It is really interesting assomebody who studies this
history, is that it's remarkableto me how short our memories
are, that this is that long ago,right?
This is our parents' generation, right?
We're not talking about somelong patinaed past right.

Lara Ayad (01:09:23):
No, no, this is like living people who remember, like
being almost adults in that era, and they're remembering that,
which kind of gets me to like.
This is like one last questionthat I wanted to ask you as we
wrap up, which is, you know,oftentimes when I hear experts
brought on, say the news or somea podcast or whatever to talk
about religion, sometimes youget a historian, but more often

(01:09:46):
than not I've heard people likepolitical scientists, legal
experts, sometimes they'relawyers.
Why is like?
What is it about yourbackground and your knowledge in
religious history that youthink gives you an edge to
understand what is going on hereand to kind of like address
what you were saying?
Like our memories have gottenso short, like what?
How does that kind ofbackground, in that humanities

(01:10:09):
type discipline, give you anedge?

Myev Rees (01:10:11):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think if it, I don't know if it
gives me an edge, but it givesme a different voice and I think
that we need all the voices wecan get right.
I love you know reading, youknow the texts that come out of,
you know sociologists who aredealing with data and who are
dealing with statistics andthings like that.
That's not my world, that's notthe world I live in, but that's

(01:10:32):
a really, that's reallyvaluable work.
And taking this view from apolitical scientist perspective
is also really valuable work.
And taking this view from a,you know, a historian's
perspective is really valuablework.
What, what I like about whatreligious studies can give you
is a very multidisciplinaryapproach all at once.
Right, so that it's not just wein religious studies.

(01:10:55):
We don't tend to reduce what weare seeing to the political or
the economic or the sociological.
We tend to try to see that inconcert with each other, right.
Right, and you have a knowledgeof the scripture itself too
right, which is reallyinteresting, yeah there's that
as well, Because that issometimes and a history of the

(01:11:17):
tradition, right, Because I mean, you can be an expert in
American political life and youcan spend your entire career
being well-steeped in Americanpolitical life, but you may not
know that.
You know what the church is,what the official stance of
Luther was on this right, Likethey may not know the whole
history of this within thereligious tradition, right, and

(01:11:37):
that's valuable informationbecause it does actually,
whether or not people are awareof it, informing their view.
It does inform their view.

Lara Ayad (01:11:45):
Wow.
So do you have a sense then,because I can't wait to read
this book that you're writing.
Do you have a rough sense of?
Is it in the nascent stages?
Do youhow can people kind of follow up
on how you're doing.
Are you?
Are you on social media?

Myev Rees (01:12:01):
I am on social media.
I'm at my um, but I haven'treally started the social media
campaign for this kind of workyet, so we'll see how public I
want to be.

Lara Ayad (01:12:18):
It's still incubating .
It's still an incubator.
It's still incubating.

Myev Rees (01:12:16):
It's still an incubator.
And I'm also aware of.
I'm still trying to figure outhow much of a public scholar I
would ever want to be.
People are very comfortable inthat place and other people are
not.

Lara Ayad (01:12:31):
So yeah yeah yeah, well, time will tell and you'll
know what's the best decisionfor yourself, right?
So?

Myev Rees (01:12:37):
yeah.

Lara Ayad (01:12:38):
Yeah, yeah.

Myev Rees (01:12:40):
Myev, I mean in the

Lara Ayad (01:12:41):
sake of sharing this incredibly, not just valuable
information, but great storieswith listeners who you know.
Maybe they're going to college,maybe they're not, maybe they
have a full-time job or they'retaking care of their kids.
Anybody who's interested inthis, I think, is going to be
thrilled to hear thisconversation.
I know I really enjoyed it.
Um, so I want to thank youagain for being on the cheeky

(01:13:03):
scholar.
I thought this was fantasticand I just feel like I learned
so much and I had a lot of fun.
So good.

Myev Rees (01:13:11):
Good good good.
Yeah, well, thank you.
Thank you, this was fun.

Lara Ayad (01:13:19):
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