This is Democracy: Episode 240 – Evangelical Religion

[00:00:00] Intro: This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United states, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

[00:00:24] Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy.

[00:00:28] Jeremi: This week we’re going to talk about a topic that is ubiquitous in the news and ubiquitous in our public discourse, but often, rarely interrogated. And we’re going to have the chance to interrogate this topic today as we do every week with every topic. Uh, this is the topic of evangelical religion. You can’t read about American politics without reading about evangelicals and their supposed influence one way or another.

[00:00:51] Jeremi: Uh, we’re joined today by, I think now it’s fair to say one of the foremost scholars of evangelical religion in American politics, particularly the role of Dispensationalist. And Dan will talk to us about who they are. Uh, this is. Dr. Daniel Hummel, who is a major scholar in the field of religion and politics and international affairs.

[00:01:13] Jeremi: He is the director of University Engagement at Upper House, a Christian study Center serving the wider University of Wisconsin Madison Community. Dan is the author of. Two books that I highly recommend, uh, to everyone. Two books that I know very, very intimately. In fact, Dan’s first book, which was his dissertation, I was one of the professors who worked with him on is Covenant Brothers, evangelical Jews and US Israeli relations.

[00:01:41] Jeremi: I was really very privileged to be one of the professors. Dan wrote this dissertation and researched this dissertation. Within it, it really brings out, at least for me, A deeper understanding of the religious connections between Christians in the United States and a certain group of Jews in Israel, and how that relationship is crucial for understanding usis Israeli relationship.

[00:02:04] Jeremi: I’ve not seen any other book that does this, so I highly recommend that. And then Dan’s most recent book is The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism, how The Evangelical Battle. Over the end times shaped a nation, shaped the American Nation. It’s a brand new book. I just finished reading it and it’s, it’s extraordinary to detail at which it explains the ideas and faith claims that underpin so much of religion and politics in American society today.

[00:02:32] Jeremi: Dan writes, in addition to books, major articles you can find in the Washington Post, Christian Today Religion news Service, as well as more. Academic venues, religion and American culture, church history, and many, many others. Uh, Dan, thank you for joining us today.

[00:02:47] Dr. Daniel Hummel: It’s a pleasure. Good to be with you, Jeremy.

[00:02:49] Jeremi: Thank you, Dan. Uh, it’s a kind of reunion also. We haven’t talked in a little while, so I’m glad we’re doing this. Zachary, of course, you have a poem to start us out? Yes? Yes. What’s the title of your poem?

[00:02:59] Zachary: A Dispensation for the Dispensationalist.

[00:03:03] Jeremi: Wow. Wow. I’m wrapping my, my head around that tongue twister.

[00:03:07] Jeremi: Okay, let’s hear it. We

[00:03:09] Dr. Daniel Hummel: came here

[00:03:10] Zachary: on boats as if hope alone floats in big cramped quarters. We must have smelled so fel we landed, picked up the trel and built your automatics, your John Porters, your all sorters. So we might taste this freedom of yours for a bit borders, if you will, in the grand boarding House of Liberty.

[00:03:31] Zachary: Where anything can happen for the right fee. Now I’m told they say they’d like to see us reach the Jordan, so we might hold the hole of holy land. They say they’d like to watch us build a temple so someday they can burn it all to sand. They say at last they’d like to send me homeward so I can die in some fantastical last sand.

[00:03:55] Zachary: But bury me and place the stones on a grave in Kalamazoo, fold my things and lie them there way down in Chattanooga. And when I’m old and tired, please let me die in Honolulu for I shall never leave this God forsaken land if only for the sake of ruining. Such a stupid plan.

[00:04:18] Jeremi: You, you are in the last few weeks, Zachary really becoming quite the satirist, aren’t you? Yes. So tell tell us about this poem. What is it about?

[00:04:26] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Well, this

[00:04:27] Zachary: poem is about me as an American Jew who’s often quite dissatisfied at this country, uh, coming to terms with what it means to be a Jew in a, in a country so dominated.

[00:04:36] Zachary: By Christianity or at least a particular version of Christianity. And at the very least, I think, if I’m perfectly honest, a lot of it comes from living out of spite or living in spite of, of, of perceived slights, et cetera. And, and I think that that’s a part of the Judeo-Christian relationship, if you will, that that maybe isn’t explored enough.

[00:04:58] Zachary: But, but also I think, connects to the ways in which these, uh, religious divisions, uh, influence our politics and the way. That, that are not just our worldview, but our ideology takes shape.

[00:05:09] Jeremi: Sure, sure. Very well said. Uh, Dan, any reactions?

[00:05:12] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Oh, wow. Yeah, many reactions. Uh, first on that last point about the Judeo-Christian tradition, it just reminds me of, I believe his name was Arthur Cohen.

[00:05:19] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He was just a writer in the, in the 1970s on religion and America. And he, he contested the idea that there was such a thing as the Judeo-Christian tradition because for most of the last 2000 years, Christians have hated Jews. And that tradition was a construct of the. Mostly the mid 20th century and Cold War politics and other things.

[00:05:37] Dr. Daniel Hummel: So Zachary, I think your, your tension is, is not only felt by you, I guess, uh, I’d say, uh, historically. Um, and then I, you know, on the, on the poem itself, the first thing that came to mind was as we’ll get into dispensationalist, are people traditionally who were very heavenly minded. You could say they were focused in their theology on getting to heaven, and that that was really the purpose of being a Christian was to, to get to heaven.

[00:06:02] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so the, the first part of your poem is very earthy and descriptive and I, I don’t think they’d maybe identify, uh, with, with, with that, uh, directly. And then you, you mentioned Kalamazoo and. Chattanooga, I think. Is that Chattanooga? Um, yes. Yeah. And if, if you read the book, I, I do have a geographical sort of thrust to the story or an arc to the story that actually starts in the, what I call the Great Lakes Basin, but basically the Midwest, including parts of Canada, which is really where this theology in the 19th century picks up.

[00:06:33] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And then the, one of the more fascinating subplots that was interesting for me to study was how dispensationalism. Travel southward. And really by today it would be to the outsider, it would seem like it’s a sort of native southern theology. But that’s actually really far from the truth. So just thinking of sort of the, the way that this set of ideas has traveled over the last 150 years, uh, Kalamazoo and Chattanooga are actually pretty good, pretty good stand-ins for, uh, the breadth of the tradition.

[00:07:03] Dr. Daniel Hummel: That’s really

[00:07:03] Jeremi: interesting. I didn’t know if you, did you intend that, Zachary? Not at all.

[00:07:07] Dr. Daniel Hummel: It’s very

[00:07:07] Zachary: hard to find three city names, the United States that rhyme. I’m not sure I accomplished that stuff.

[00:07:13] Jeremi: You made them rhyme. You made them rhyme. So, so Dan, I think this is a great place to start because, uh, knowing you as I do, I know that you’re someone who’s a deep believer, but you’re also someone who, who’s inclusive in the way you view how different religions and different faiths should work.

[00:07:31] Jeremi: And you’re also someone who. Believes deeply in academic and scholastic study that comes through in, in your book, of course. Can you tell us what Upper House is in that context, just to situate how, how you, you enact this in your own life?

[00:07:45] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Yeah, well first of all, to the listeners, Jeremy, you’re the, you’re really the reason I’m, I’m even in Madison, right?

[00:07:50] Dr. Daniel Hummel: So I came in 2010 to study with you and then stayed here until I finished in 2016 and Upper House was actually founded in 2015 here on, just across the street actually from the. Old or the, the history department building. Uh, the humanities building. And, uh, we’re a Christian study center. So we are overtly Christian in our orientation and we are a study center, which means we really value the life of the mind and we value exploring ideas that.

[00:08:18] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Are related to questions of faith, questions of identity, questions of philosophy, and how academic disciplines explore those ideas. And so we, we host speakers, we host sort of groups of students that are going through really dense, difficult books. We’re trying to give students who are identify as Christian on campus, the ability to supplement all the really good learning.

[00:08:41] Dr. Daniel Hummel: They’re. Happening that’s happening at UW with some equally rigorous, we hope, study in the tradition of Christian thought, but we also see ourselves as, uh, to, to borrow an older term, a third space in Madison where people from different backgrounds can come and engage in civic dialogue. And explore the big questions.

[00:09:02] Dr. Daniel Hummel: We call them the questions of meaning, the questions of existence in a way that lets everyone bring their whole selves into the space. So, um, whether that means you’re a Christian or, uh, some other tradition or no tradition at all, we think, uh, a lot of these big questions are relevant to all of us and we really try to steward our reputation and, and our space as a place where anyone is welcome any time of the year.

[00:09:27] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And Dan, do

[00:09:28] Jeremi: you see that as a mainstream approach? Because to, to some, myself included, it often appears as if, and, and I’m not singling out one group or another, but it often seems as if religion is put against learning and against intellectual life in our world today.

[00:09:43] Dr. Daniel Hummel: I. Yeah, I think your, your instincts are pretty accurate.

[00:09:47] Dr. Daniel Hummel: We, we definitely are exist as part of a larger tradition. There’s actually a consortium of Christian study centers that are on many large university campuses. But there is, there’s many counter pressures or countervailing pressures that push, uh, most Christians, many Christians in the US toward.

[00:10:04] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Polarization toward, you know, sitting in tribal camps toward culture wars types type ways of framing the university. And I find it a privilege and, and a joy even in the difficult times to, to be someone who’s trying to articulate a different vision for how faith and religion can engage with the university.

[00:10:23] Dr. Daniel Hummel: That there’s actually a mutual benefit that happens and that the university, uh, UW in particular is ultimately better if there are thinking religious people engaged. On campus and around campus at places like Upper House.

[00:10:37] Jeremi: And am I reading your new book correctly to say that or to, to interpret that? Uh, much of what you are implicitly critiquing is, is part of the story of the rise and fall of Dispensationalism for you?

[00:10:50] Dr. Daniel Hummel: I. Yeah, dispensationalism is a particular theological tradition that has had a lot of purchase in the white evangelical world for the last 150 years or so, and it’s really, in my reading, it really has collapsed as a. An academic intellectual project in the last generation, I, I dated to the nineties, you could quibble and say maybe it was the two thousands.

[00:11:15] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so we’re living in the wake of a sort of collapse in a lot of evangelical thinking and there’s a vacuum. And it’s not to say that dispensationalism, which we can get into isn’t, it’s not necessarily a, a theology that I would endorse, but it did give a, a coherent worldview to many Christians, and we’re living in the collapse of that.

[00:11:37] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Worldview and there have been many things that have filled that vacuum. This is my reading, including a capitulation to a, a type of con, consumer, commercial Christianity, and a type of nationalistic politics. And these are even more. Influential in the evangelical world because there is such a dearth of theological engagement by millions of, of evangelicals, uh, across the country.

[00:12:04] Dr. Daniel Hummel: So that’s, that’s sort of my analysis. And I, I wrote the book in part because I grew up in this world and I actually wanted to take it seriously, um, but also because I could. Sort of from my vantage point I, I was pretty sure that part of the way forward for Evangelicals is to understand this history and to sort of consciously undertake the project of building a new theology that can actually address some of the core issues that are troubling.

[00:12:29] Dr. Daniel Hummel: The community today. Well, and I

[00:12:30] Jeremi: think your, your book really provides a long arc for what you’ve just described so succinctly. Uh, you start with the period right after the Civil War, and that’s really where, at least for me, you defined what dispensationalism was or is, what are we

[00:12:45] Dr. Daniel Hummel: talking about here? Yeah.

[00:12:47] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And, and I think in, in popular understanding, the, what most people would know about dispensationalism is that it has a. Unique teaching called The Rapture or the Any Moment Rapture, which is this idea that at any moment, including during the recording of this very podcast, all true believers, all true Christians would suddenly disappear and be in heaven with Jesus.

[00:13:08] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And that that would set off a timeline of sort of catastrophic events that would ultimately lead to the rise of an anti-Christ dictator and ultimately lead to the battle of Armageddon. And really the whole world is destroyed. And then, Uh, remade anew and this set of teachings has been very popular in movie, in Hollywood movies and, and other things.

[00:13:29] Dr. Daniel Hummel: That’s just one part of the dispensational theological system, and it’s a system because it touches on sort of all aspects of Christian theology. And the key part for the, the beginning of the story for the post-Civil War era is to understand that dispensationalism offered a very otherworldly understanding of the church.

[00:13:50] Dr. Daniel Hummel: That, uh, of what it meant to be part of a church that allowed pastors who adopted the theology to really stay silent on the hot issues of the day. And in the 1860s and 1870s, that was slavery and then reconstruction and racial justice. And for many pastors and I, I particularly identify pastors who were in states that were in the north, but had a strong southern sympathy.

[00:14:14] Dr. Daniel Hummel: This theory of the church, this way of understanding the church as an entirely heavenly people that should have nothing to do with politics was especially appealing to pastors who were looking for a way to hold their churches together after the Civil War. And that’s really the, the original appeal of the dispensational system.

[00:14:31] Dr. Daniel Hummel: It wasn’t necessarily about. Decoding the end times, but once you, once they adopted sort of the church part of the theology over the next generation or so, they also strongly adopted the end times part of the theology and many other parts as well. But that, that’s sort of, that was one of the contributions I tried to make is try to understand why this theology becomes popular in America.

[00:14:54] Dr. Daniel Hummel: In the 1860s and 1870s, and not, for example, 20 years before that, or 20 years after that. And I think the answer there has a lot to do with reconstruction and racial politics in the us. So,

[00:15:04] Zachary: so how does this, this belief system become merged or at least connected to a particular set of, of political beliefs And in particular, how does this belief system, uh, maybe conflict or parallel Americans.

[00:15:20] Zachary: Principles or, uh, lack of respect for, uh, a principle of separation of church and state? How do those, how do those two

[00:15:27] Dr. Daniel Hummel: connect? Yeah. Well, any, any theology has an implicit politics to it. So that there was, you know, this is part of the interesting thing about the. 1870s is, is staying silent on reconstruction really was a politics of reconstruction, right?

[00:15:42] Dr. Daniel Hummel: It was a desire to get past reconstruction. It was a desire to reconcile between northern and southern whites. And, and there were particular reasons why dispensationalist basically wanted that to happen. And a lot of it had to do with. Engaging with global missions and finding racial politics to be sort of a speed bump on the way to, to global missions and so prioritizing that over race.

[00:16:03] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so there, there’s an implicit racial politics that is in the the theology of dispensationalism. And yet at the same time, for most of these early dispensational, which is different than later generations, there was a very strong understanding that. The church was separate from the state and that really the Christian should not be involved in in politics as such.

[00:16:26] Dr. Daniel Hummel: They should not be necessarily politicians. Voting was actually sometimes discouraged because within the theology, the ultimate loyalty of. The Christian was to the church. But we see, we see looking back and, and many people understood it at the time that you can’t actually get out of politics. Claiming that you had nothing to say about politics was often a way of endorsing the status quo and over the generations, that’s often what Dispensationalist did, particularly when it came to issues of race, is they would endorse the status quo and as largely white Christian community, that would often be a status quo that was beneficial to them.

[00:17:05] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Uh, and they, they weren’t, they didn’t have a theology or a theory or a, or a sort of social critique that gave them any impetus to be active on working for racial justice or, or even, uh, racial equality. One of the

[00:17:18] Jeremi: really interesting parts of your book for me, and it’s interesting because it’s a period both you and I have spent a lot of time thinking about, uh, is the period after World War ii.

[00:17:27] Jeremi: Hmm. Which in some ways is as interesting as I think the period after the Civil War. These might be two of the, the key fulcrums for so many changes in American politics. And democracy. You write around page two 14 about how the dispensational leaders across America, this is just on the eve of Billy Graham’s rise, how they do become more politically active in criticizing progressive politics and calling for the United States to remain a dominant world power.

[00:17:56] Jeremi: What shift is happening after World War ii?

[00:17:58] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Yeah, and, and people like William Bell Reilly, who’s a very famous fundamentalist minister. In the Minneapolis city area was key to this. And, uh, one of the things that is a through line from the post Civil War period to the post World War II period is that Dispensationalist understood their highest calling to be missions evangelization.

[00:18:19] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Converting people into Christians. And thi this took on a different implications for sort of national and international politics by the end of World War ii. And the, the sort of dawn of the Cold War anti-communism, uh, becomes a key way that, or, or the threat of communism becomes a key way that Dispensationalist understand the world and particularly as a threat to their highest calling, uh, global missions.

[00:18:45] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so in some ways that that is the answer, uh, to the question is that, Communism because such a threat to the mission’s enterprise that many fundamentalists and dispensationalist who were sitting on the sidelines in earlier periods decided that this was such a existential threat that they needed to, uh, join the fray.

[00:19:03] Dr. Daniel Hummel: But someone like Riley, also, William Bell Riley, the person I mentioned before also is a key to a more, a less defensive or reactive posture and more of an active posture in that. Riley was also a conspiracy theorist. And a virulent anti-Semite. And someone who, even going back to the 1910s, was looking at the globe and seeing all types of threats and conspiracies that were in his view, designed to, uh, destroy the church.

[00:19:34] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so he’s someone who did not need World War II or even World War I to get politically active. Uh, he was someone who embedded a conspiratorial way of seeing the world with his largely apocalyptic. Theology to basically call Christians to action to combat these conspiracies. And so he was someone who promoted the protocols of the elders of Zion, even though those were widely discredited.

[00:19:59] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He was someone who openly supported Hitler in the 1930s, and then he was someone who was a strong anti-communist in the 1940s before he died, and really embedded that particular set of politics in his theology. Uh, reading

[00:20:15] Jeremi: your section on William Bell Reilly, who I must confess I did not know very much about until, until your book now.

[00:20:20] Jeremi: I know a lot more about him. You describe his, uh, hand in hand pairing of theology and politics, which is just the opposite of the separation of church and state that Zachary was just talking about. And you also make a lot out of his use of radio shows, back to the Bible Radio, Bible Class Hour through the Bible.

[00:20:37] Jeremi: And it, it reminded me, Dan, of Father Coughlin. Mm-hmm. Uh, is there, is there a parallel here?

[00:20:43] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, there’s certainly a parallel in a shared Christian anti Judaism that runs through both of those personalities. I think a bigger and inter really interesting parallel is the use of, of media in that case radio before that, mass print media after that television and ultimately the internet dispensationalist have been just masters at adopting the newest form of media.

[00:21:07] Dr. Daniel Hummel: To get their message out. And sometimes they’ve been at the forefront of, of these particular types of communications media later. People like Jerry Falwell who helped found the Christian right, was very early adopter of, of computers to help rationalize his communications and, uh, his sort of, uh, mailing lists.

[00:21:28] Dr. Daniel Hummel: But this has been just a consistent theme in the history of dispensationalism. Is that because of their overriding concern for getting the word out, for spreading the gospel? As they understand it, they are eager to adopt media and to use media and exploit media in a sort of mass, uh, popular way. And so some of the most popular radio shows in the 1940s and fifties were dispensationalist inspired radio shows.

[00:21:53] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Often they were basically daily bible commentary shows, but we’re mixed in with. Commentary on the daily news. And so the, the merging of scripture and politics was, you know, a daily affair for, for many of those radio shows. And do you

[00:22:08] Zachary: see in this period, as well as dispensationalism becomes an increasingly prominent religious belief, if not widespread politicians trying to appeal to dispensationalist voters or particular kind of social conservatism they display.

[00:22:24] Zachary: And, and how do you think that? This movement began to shape American policy as a whole.

[00:22:31] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Yeah. In some ways Dispensationalist were unremarkable. Conservatives in some ways, the sort of literal meaning of, of the word conservative I mentioned. They, they often endorsed the status quo. Unlike other Christian traditions that have a very strong social critique or critique of culture, dis dispensationalist tended not to, and that goes back to that division between the church and the world that is at the heart, uh, of the theology.

[00:22:56] Dr. Daniel Hummel: But that’s not to say that they didn’t have a politics, as we’ve talked about, and also that, that they weren’t very attractive or appealing as a, as a religious subgroup to American politicians. And you, you see this later in the 20th century where someone like Ronald Reagan, who is often rumored. In news media to actually be a dispensationalist.

[00:23:15] Dr. Daniel Hummel: This is sort of a, a scandal because of the apocalyptic, uh, worldview of dispensationalism. What if our, you know, if our president has that worldview, what does that, what does that mean for our, our foreign policy? I don’t really think Reagan was a systematic thinker, uh, on these things, but he was very strategic in, in appealing to some of the more pessimistic ways of sort of the, the direction of the world that would align with.

[00:23:38] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Dispensationalist beliefs and, uh, at various times also, uh, reference theologians or writers from the dispensationalist tradition that would be, uh, well known to, to people, uh, in that world. The other major president that is often, uh, was rumored to have links to dispensationalism was George W. Bush. Uh, I’m a, I’m a.

[00:23:58] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Again, pretty dubious that Bush himself held to any particular end times theology. Uh, he wasn’t a theologian, uh, on that front, but he certainly, um, invoked images and rhetoric, including the idea of a crusade, which of course he backtracked on, but still used it and, uh, had its effect that would’ve aligned with a dispensationalist understanding of what was going on in the world.

[00:24:22] Dr. Daniel Hummel: So I think at the highest levels of. Of state leadership, there’s definitely a story to tell there. I think the broader story is how dispensationalism actually adapted to become a viable part of the Christian right. Uh, as, as sort of a grassroots movement that gave a lot of the verve to conservative politics in the 1970s and 1980s.

[00:24:45] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And I have to

[00:24:46] Jeremi: say, Dan, to me, that was one of the most interesting parts of your book before you get to Bush with who you talk about, uh, in, I think the last chapter, the second to last chapter, you spend a lot of time on Billy Graham, who, for those who don’t know Billy Graham, you, you can’t think of a more influential religious figure, I think in American society post-war than than Billy Graham.

[00:25:07] Jeremi: I think. On personal relations or close personal relations with every president. Mm-hmm. Um, prominent figure in all kinds of settings. And then Hal Lindsay, who’s largely forgotten to history, but as you point out, probably sold more books, uh, the Late Great Planet Earth than almost any other author of his time.

[00:25:24] Jeremi: And he is the person who apparently Ronald Reagan was talking about when he talked about dispensationalism at different times. Right. So, so how do we understand these figures and their role and their connection to dispensationalism?

[00:25:37] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Yeah. One interesting fact about Graham is that he was the, uh, successor to William Bell, Riley I, in, in the sense that when Riley died in 1948, he had handpicked Billy Graham, who at that time was a less well known revivalist who was traveling around the country to be his successor at his.

[00:25:56] Dr. Daniel Hummel: His college in Minneapolis, uh, Northwestern College. So Graham has a direct connection to Riley in that sense. But Graham became, yeah, the, the most influential evangelical, maybe most influential religious figure in the late second half of the 20th century, and uh, Graham’s relationship to Dispensationalism is that he grew up basically a dispensationalist and his early revivals taught.

[00:26:20] Dr. Daniel Hummel: That there would be a rapture at any moment, and that that was one reason why listeners needed to convert was because you didn’t wanna be left behind. And this gave an urgency to, to not just individual conversion, but to the Cold War because communist societies wouldn’t allow. Missionaries into them.

[00:26:38] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so we needed to sort of support the, the downfall of communism in order to allow, uh, more missionaries to enter those countries so that that was certainly part of his, earlier, his early career, we’re talking about the 1940s, 1950s. Graham gradually moves away from that theology and he is a major figure.

[00:26:57] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He’s like a planet that everyone orbits in the evangelical world. And so for his entire career there were. Prominent people around him and in other parts of the many organizations that he ran that were dispensationalist and and held to those views. But you definitely see a shift in the sixties and seventies and eighties where Graham is moving away from that sort of otherworldly.

[00:27:19] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Theology and getting much more invested in a, you could say, a, this worldly understanding of what the Christian’s role is. And so by the, you know, by the 1980s, Graham is visiting the Soviet Union. He’s, he’s visiting Jewish and Christian communities behind the Iron Curtain. He is a calling for a nuclear freeze.

[00:27:39] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He is concerned about the environment and you just have a much different issue set for someone like Graham, uh, as he develops into a, a major world leader. For Hal Lindsay, uh, who’s a much different character, largely a, a media figure. Hal Lindsay, uh, went to the key seminary for dispensationalism, Dallas Theological Seminary, uh, right in your, uh, neck of the woods, Jeremy, that’s where your dad, your dad went to school there too, right?

[00:28:05] Dr. Daniel Hummel: My dad went to school there. Uh, a lot of, it’s a very large, it’s a. It’s a very large school, um, one of the largest seminaries in the, in the country. A lot of people went there. Not everyone who goes there comes out like any school, uh, believing everything the school teaches, right. Um, but, but it certainly had been seen as the major intellectual center for dispensationalism and how Lindsay, uh, went there.

[00:28:27] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He was a, um, a tugboat captain turned, uh, Turned theologian and he ended up becoming a, a campus ministry worker at U C L A where he really honed a message. This is in the sixties. Uh, he honed a message to appeal to counterculture, uh, students at U C L A and turned that into a book. And he crucially had a co-writer, uh, named Carol Carlson, uh, who really helped him, uh, turn.

[00:28:53] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Uh, turned his basically notes of talks into a book and it was called the Lake Ray Planned Earth. And it basically popularized the very dense, sophisticated, uh, end times theology of dispensationalism into a very accessible, uh, uh, vocabulary and presentation. He called the Rapture. Um, the ultimate trip. He called the anti-Christ, the future fewer, um, sort of a a pop culture version of the theology.

[00:29:21] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And this goes on to be the bestselling non-fiction book of the 1970s. It sells over 10 million copies. Um, it’s hitting right at the moment that a lot of other sort of negative or pessimistic books about the future are hitting, including, uh, Alvin ER’s Future Shock and. The population bomb came out a few years before, so there’s a lot in the air about sort of a pessimism about the future.

[00:29:42] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And, uh, Lindsay, in, in that, in, in the Lake Ray, planet Earth, isn’t explicitly political. He’s very much interested in politics and he’s talking about Middle East wars and the Cold War and all that kind of stuff. But his real solution, or his real call for Christians is to be faithful and spread the gospel, um, because he’s still in that sort of, uh, traditional dispensationalist mode.

[00:30:01] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He writes another book in 1980. Called the 1980s path to Armageddon or something like that, where he basically represents the exact same popularized end times theology. But, uh, he has a very strong call to action for Christians that they need to start voting in Christians into office. And, uh, and they need to be upholding conservative values like, uh, traditional family values as he.

[00:30:30] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Calls them and, uh, lower taxation. And, and he’s, he’s basically, uh, switching his, his mode from 1970 to 1980 into one that is very activist and very political, and he ultimately is a big supporter of Ronald Reagan and the nuclear buildup in the early, uh, 1980s. And really sets, uh, a lot of the terms. Uh, he’s not the only one for sure, but he’s, he’s a very popular figure at that time, who’s setting a lot of the terms of more broadly conservative politics, uh, in the early 1980s.

[00:31:02] Dr. Daniel Hummel: So,

[00:31:02] Jeremi: is it fair, Dan, with particular attention to Billy Graham and Hal Lindsay and, and Jerry Falwell, who you’ve also mentioned, who was a, obviously a pioneering televangelist? Uh, I, is it fair to associate these figures and. Perhaps Dispensationalist influence with the rise of what historians call the new, right?

[00:31:23] Jeremi: In the 1970s and eighties, the, the, the remaking of the Republican Party post Goldwater as a party that’s less elitist and quite frankly, more, more Christian, more, more explicitly Christian and evangelical in its tone and in its issues such as prayer in school, the American flag, and all these issues that had.

[00:31:43] Jeremi: That it brings forth is, is this a fair connection?

[00:31:45] Dr. Daniel Hummel: It is a fair connection. It it’s complicated, of course. So dispensationalist aren’t the only types of Christians who are active in the 1970s, uh, getting more politically active, uh, on conservative politics. But I think there’s an unavoidable inescapable.

[00:32:01] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Dispensationalist flavor to the arguments that are being made within the, uh, Christian conservative world in the 1970s and eighties. And these largely, uh, revolve around. The idea once again of threats to the Global Missions project and that, uh, communism is still on the horizon. And that’s a, that’s a major threat.

[00:32:24] Dr. Daniel Hummel: But the other threat, uh, that is looming even larger is what, uh, Tim La Hay, who, who’s one of the major activists at the time, uh, calls, uh, secular humanism. And this is an amalgamation of sort of all the, the bad people. Uh, for, for the, for, for this group, uh, which include outright secularists, people who reject religion, who they find troublesome.

[00:32:46] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, all different types of progressives and, and political liberals who they find, uh, to be sort of eroding the foundations of American values. Um, it also includes communists, it also includes, um, Uh, you know, Hollywood actors and, and others that they would all find as sort of degrading and, and lehe made extensive lists of, of everyone who would be involved.

[00:33:08] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Uh, many government officials, the education system. Um, a lot of the things that, that we would, it, it’s not too far from some rhetoric we you can hear today. Um, and so, uh, that whole framing of the problem and then the solution being a sort of concerted Christian action organized action. In the political realm, um, that comes out of a particular theological argument that is rooted in dispensationalism.

[00:33:33] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And again, it’s not the only argument that Christians are making, but for people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Tim Le Hay, who I mentioned, and Hal Lindsay, um, this is, this is the way they decide to try to activate, um, the, the broader Christian community. And it’s so striking that. No more than 15 years before that in the 1960s.

[00:33:54] Dr. Daniel Hummel: You can get quotes from people like Jerry Falwell who are making the exact opposite argument when it comes to the civil rights movement, which is that, um, he has a famous, uh, sermon called, um, uh, what is it called? Uh, ministers and Marchers. And, uh, he basically makes the call that no pastor should ever be found in a civil rights march.

[00:34:13] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, because these, it goes back to that separation, uh, of right, of the church and the world. Um, and yet 15 years later, he’s making the opposite argument, which is, you better find the pastors in the pro-life march, um, because of this threat of secular humanism. So

[00:34:28] Jeremi: is it

[00:34:28] Zachary: the politics then, which replaces the sort of traditional, uh, theology as you describe it at this moment in the 1990s and, and early two thousands in which your book, uh, depicts a a decline in, in, in, in dispensationalism per se?

[00:34:45] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Yes. That’s one, that’s one way to think of the decline is that for many millions of evangelicals, um, what, what counts as, uh, Theological engagement becomes largely political engagement and these arguments around politics and culture, um, and commercialization. That’s another strand I follow is, is just the, the massive commercial appeal of this theology.

[00:35:10] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, there’s another story about the fall that is probably, uh, less interesting to those not in the evangelical world, which is about the, um, the collapse of intellectual. Credibility of dispensationalism within the seminary world. And this is happening at the same time, uh, the 1980s, 1990s, that there’s a concerted effort by, uh, other evangelicals who aren’t dispensationalist, but are still pretty conservative theologically.

[00:35:34] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, they, they find dispensational to be problematic on sort of the merits of the system. And, uh, and, and they, uh, sort of institutionally and intellectually outmaneuver, dispensationalism to the point that, uh, today, um, Popular dispensationalism is very widespread, particularly in the white evangelical world.

[00:35:53] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Many people don’t even know the term dispensationalism, but they, they, they sort of, if you ask them about their beliefs, they would reflect the influence of dispensationalism. And so you have that, you have that situation while at the very same time in the more, uh, The, the seminary halls and the, the sort of, uh, lecture halls of Christian colleges.

[00:36:11] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Uh, this is a basically dead, uh, theological system. And that’s a fa that was a fascinating contrast that I tried to, uh, connect and unpack in the book as well.

[00:36:20] Jeremi: Well, and it’s fascinating to me too, and I think it’s fascinating to our listeners because. In a, in a way, you’re saying that the theology loses credibility as its political influence expands considerably,

[00:36:33] Dr. Daniel Hummel: right?

[00:36:34] Dr. Daniel Hummel: That’s right. And there’s a, there’s a different levels to think about that. One is that there are decisions being made by particular thinkers, writers, theologians. To basically go popular, or you could even say to, to, to sort of sell out to the popularity. And so some of the credibility is lost as, um, scholars who were considered sort of serious scholars end up trying to capitalize on the commercial potential of dispensationalism.

[00:37:00] Dr. Daniel Hummel: In the 1980s and nineties and actually try to sort of replicate the success of people like Hal Lindsay. Um, and so that, that’s, that’s one way that, that those things, uh, are connected. A broader one would be that, um, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna overstate a previous era where you might think, you know, oh, evangelicals were just, um, influenced by their theology or something like that, that that’s never been the case.

[00:37:24] Dr. Daniel Hummel: But there have definitely been eras where theological, uh, arguments. Have been more influential than others. And what you see over the late 20th century is that a community that was largely structured around theological distinctives, uh, particular beliefs about God or about the world or about the church, um, becomes more and more shaped and formed by arguments about the culture and about politics.

[00:37:49] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And those things can’t really, uh, they, they either have to go together really. Uh, tightly or one is gonna lose out to the other. And you see over the, the late 20th century and into the 21st century that for millions of evangelicals, um, the what defines their evangelicalism is a set of cultural positions, uh, in the culture war.

[00:38:11] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Or a set of, uh, political positions and, and you could even say a voting habit. And, um, and that’s a significant shift. It’s again, not to idealize the previous era, but to show that there is a significant change over a 50 year period on how evangelicals themselves are defining, uh, themselves.

[00:38:29] Jeremi: Right. And I think that’s what makes, among other things this book so important because I think you explain for a reader like me who’s not anywhere nearly as well read in the theology as you are, you explain two phenomena, right?

[00:38:44] Jeremi: You explain first of all the ways of thinking that seem to transfer over from one domain to another. Uh, at one point in the book you have a couple of pages where you show the overlap in dispensationalist thinking and qan on rhetoric. Mm-hmm. Uh, that’s not to say that all dis. Dispensationalist or most dispensationalist are qan on followers.

[00:39:01] Jeremi: But I think you make the point that dispensationalist are overrepresented, right. Uh, among, among some of these groups. So that, so you explain that, uh, as, as a sort of a classic intellectual history. Right. Habits of mind. But I think you also, as you just said, you, you explain a kind of cultural phenomenon too, where I, I, I guess the, the word you used earlier in this discussion, a flavor.

[00:39:21] Jeremi: Mm-hmm. A flavor of behavior, a flavor of seeing the world, um, becomes transferred over to what, to me, appear to be un. Unlikely repositories of, of allegiance like,

[00:39:32] Dr. Daniel Hummel: uh, Donald Trump, right? And that can be traced to a broader, if we wanna use that, that word again, flavor of the way that dispensationalist tend to understand history and time.

[00:39:44] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, and largely that it’s, it’s, uh, the, the longer time, uh, passes, the more chaotic and fallen the world will be. Until this. Immediate rupture point when the end times will occur. And so when Dispensationalist, uh, tend to look out on the culture and in politics, they tend to see narratives of decline and, uh, and in some cases, a, a sense of faithfulness or, or hopelessness, um, in what’s happening.

[00:40:12] Dr. Daniel Hummel: You see in the Christian right, with the falwells and the, and the Tim Le Hayes, um, that they, they. Developed a sense that there could, they could do something about it. And that was to get politically active. But that was only gonna be a stop gap anyway. Um, the world was still careening toward chaos, um, until Jesus returned.

[00:40:30] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so in, in a lot of the rhetoric, uh, you can see today in different pockets of our politics, you can see a same sort of defensive, uh, posture and a sense of just assumed. Worsening of the situation and from that and sort of working out of that position, what one’s politics should be. And I think that leads to conspiratorial thinking among other things, being at sort of the core of, of, of your politics.

[00:40:56] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so when I made the connection with QAN on, it was not to say at all that. Um, there’s a, there’s a easy straight line from, uh, some dispensationalist thinker to QAN on. It was to show that the pattern of, of qan on’s sort of understanding of history or, or of, of what’s gonna happen in the future, um, based on the, the, the Q drops and, and all the stuff that was being dropped out there, had an interesting resonance to the way that.

[00:41:22] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Christian right leaders f 40 years before that, were talking about what would happen in American society and um, and that pattern of thinking develops certain habits of mind and certain, uh, predispositions towards politics that I think are the, the continuity that connects the two.

[00:41:38] Jeremi: Right. Right. And so I think that leads to the, the final question.

[00:41:42] Jeremi: You’ve been very generous with your time and very insightful in, in articulating and elucidating so many of the points that you deal with in, in depth and detail in your book. Um, the question we ask every week, of course, is how is this historical framework, how is this historical research relevant for thinking about and renewing democracy today?

[00:42:02] Jeremi: I know, Dan, you care, care deeply. Uh, about if, if I might use the term rescuing Christianity mm-hmm. From its misuses perhaps, and, and I feel that way about misuses of Judaism. I, I’m sure within every tradition there are people who feel that way. What should we do? I, I, I struggle because, uh, I find, um, if, if I try to critique some of these, uh, what appear to me to be misuses, uh, or, or, uh, dangerous uses of, of religion, um, that it only reinforces.

[00:42:32] Jeremi: The resistance of those ones talking to on the other side. Right? Because it sounds like you’re condescending and maybe I am unintentionally. Right. So, so, so how do we do this? How do we get beyond this? Because this is not a happy ending where, where your book ends for, for democracy,

[00:42:46] Dr. Daniel Hummel: right? Well, um, you know, who comes to mind as someone who just passed away, uh, this last week, uh, Tim Keller, who was a major figure for a lot of Christians.

[00:42:56] Dr. Daniel Hummel: He was a, he was a pastor in New York City, um, very influential. And he, he talked a lot about, he was not a dispensationalist by the way. He was, he was a, um, uh, a pretty widely, uh, widely respected, uh, uh, pastor and, and figure. Um, he often talked about, um, Christians should follow a third way, uh, what he c what he said in, in politics.

[00:43:18] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And that was to, um, uh, attempt to, uh, ground. Christian thinking around culture and politics in biblical categories as opposed to categories that might dominate our current, uh, political debate. And those categories would often, uh, transcend or, or, uh, cut across some of the. Traditional lines that we draw in our politics.

[00:43:43] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, but they would be rooted in a sense of the, uh, dignity of each person, uh, and in a sort of faith in the ability for humans to cooperate. And reason together. And this got Keller, a lot of flack from basically every side. Um, he was considered too liberal, uh, by many Christians. He was considered far too conservative on some of his views by many liberals.

[00:44:09] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, but he had his own following and he influenced people like me to really, um, think critically about the tradition. One, including myself, grew up in, uh, not to discard it in some type of, uh, act of just, uh, adolescent rebellion or something, but to think about what are the categories that, um, uh, I inherited, uh, that I grew up, that I grew up with.

[00:44:33] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And how do those categories, you know, what, what parts of those categories do I affirm and what parts of them do I need to discard, um, to be at, you know, as I understand it, um, authentic to my faith and, um, I think if there can be more encouragement of third ways in our, uh, in our. Political discourse in our cultural discourse, ways that may not feel if, if we’re very partisan on, uh, one side or the other in, in our polarization.

[00:45:01] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, they may not feel comfortable, but they may actually open up space for conversation that doesn’t just evolve into, um, Uh, the power politics that seem to define, uh, most of our, uh, most of our conversations now, but that open up different ways of thinking about, um, the intersection of, you know, faith or transcendent values or religion with our society.

[00:45:24] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Um, and different ways of protecting the shared values that, um, I think most Americans have including around, uh, Sort of, uh, democratic, uh, representation, human dignity, um, and other things that I think most Americans can still affirm. So that’s the work we’re trying to do here. It’s not overtly political work, but it’s work about trying to reframe a lot of the conversations, um, that seem so, uh, so.

[00:45:50] Dr. Daniel Hummel: Concretized or, or solid in their polarizations right now. Yeah. And to try to think about new creative ways to engage those, those debates, that’s,

[00:46:00] Jeremi: that’s compelling, very compelling, uh, and, and inspiring. I think, uh, Zachary, I, I, In a way, it sounds to me like that resonates with how you and many others of your generation I see approaching this, right?

[00:46:13] Jeremi: I mean, you care about Judaism, but you don’t identify politically with many of the things that the Israeli Right does that the Jewish right does. Right. And so how do you do, do you think about a, a third way? Do you think about a, a way in which religion and politics can open up space for democracy and inclusion as well as faith in your life?

[00:46:35] Zachary: I think it’s, it’s just what Dr. Hummel described, which is, uh, an intellectual engagement in questions of religion instead of a dogmatic insistence. Um, and I think in, in that sense, um, I hope my generation is more willing to, not to ignore these questions or to simply adhere to one particular set of beliefs, but to interrogate our beliefs and to approach, uh, these, these, uh, bigger, broader questions about humanity, uh, from an intellectual perspective.

[00:47:04] Zachary: And, and also think critically about how that worldview should and does influence our politics. Um, and I think that I, I hope at least that there’s an opportunity for that. I think this third way, um, which at least in from, from my perspective, my third way, if you will, uh, would embrace a sort of, of diversity of, of, of, of point of view and, and of background.

[00:47:28] Zachary: Um, I think that there’s a space, um, in that diversity to have. Real discussions, uh, about, uh, religion and, and the relationship between religion and society, um, that, uh, that, that are much more productive, um, helpful and quite honestly interesting, right? Than the polemic, the polemics that we, we so often are

[00:47:47] Jeremi: bombarded with, right?

[00:47:48] Jeremi: It’s really not a discussion that we should have of religion versus secularism. Uh, it’s more a discussion of what are the elements of religion that. Matter in our lives and how do we reconcile those with our commitments to democracy, broadly engaged. And it’s a healthy

[00:48:04] Zachary: exercise for democracy, I think, uh, and for us as citizens of a democracy to be asking these bigger questions about humanity and, and our place in the universe, et cetera.

[00:48:15] Zachary: Um, and I think it’s, it’s not that everyone has to agree, but I do think that there has to be an agreement that those questions are, are worth answering. Even if your answer is, there is no

[00:48:24] Dr. Daniel Hummel: answer. Right, right,

[00:48:26] Jeremi: right. Yeah. Yeah. Dan, any

[00:48:28] Dr. Daniel Hummel: final thoughts? No, that, that is, I think Zachary and I are, are landing here at, at around, at the same point.

[00:48:34] Dr. Daniel Hummel: I think these big questions and, um, you know, whether it’s, what does it mean to be a human being? I. Or, you know, what is the point of it all? I mean, that’s a common perennial question, right? Right. I mean, these transcend any particular religious tradition. Um, these are questions that possibly every single human who’s ever lived, um, has contemplated.

[00:48:53] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And, um, you know, if we can’t talk about, uh, those and bring, uh, to, to go back to what we do here at Upper House, bring our whole selves into those conversations, whatever that means, whatever, uh, commitments, um, one has. If we can’t do that, I’m. I’m, I’m not excited about, uh, where society is going, um, but it does seem, it does seem like it’s, it’s harder and harder to, to do that.

[00:49:16] Dr. Daniel Hummel: And so, um, that’s where I’m, I’m holding out hope and, and, you know, working in my own little way to try to, um, carve out spaces like that. Uh, even e even in places like a university where that’s part of the stated aim of a university is to be, uh, an institution like that. Um, I think we need as many spaces as possible, uh, to, to engage in those types of conversations.

[00:49:35] Jeremi: Well, and I think, uh, among the many insights that we’ve gained from your book and from this discussion today and, and topics that I hope our listeners will interrogate further by reading your book and your related writings. You know, one is certainly that, um, we have to hold a mirror up and see what are the ways of thought, habits of mind, uh, assumptions we’re bringing to the table, and how over time have we inherited certain assumptions, certain ways of.

[00:50:01] Jeremi: Thinking that maybe you’re closing off the very conversations we wanna have. And then second, to really echo what you just said, so well, Dan, that we have to lean into and be intentional about creating spaces for conversation. And part of your book is about, it seems to me how. Probably well-intentioned men and women of faith, um, acted in ways that actually closed off conversation, didn’t open it up, and, and I think we can learn from that.

[00:50:27] Jeremi: This is not to criticize them in any way, but it is to say that what history allows us to do is learn from those who came before us and make our own new mistakes in a new way. Um, I, I, I think this, this kind of discussion of religion and politics is what we need to have in our society. It’s so rare. Dan, I’m, I’m proud to be your friend and to, to know that you’re doing this kind of work and, and I, I hope that, uh, it offers pathways for all of our listeners to think about how they can do this kind of work in their own community, in, in their own way.

[00:50:57] Jeremi: Uh, thank you so much Dan, and congratulations on your book once again. The title is, The rise and fall of Dispensationalism. Uh, Dan, thank you for joining us.

[00:51:06] Dr. Daniel Hummel: It’s been a pleasure to be with both of you.

[00:51:08] Jeremi: Thanks, Zachary. Thank you for your poem and your insights as well. Of course. And thank you, most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of this is Democracy.

[00:51:22] Outro: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Its Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:51:30] Outro: The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is Democracy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. See you next time.