Complexified

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.
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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?

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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.

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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

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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.

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