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Why are Christian nationalists angry about the New York City Democratic mayoral primary victory of Zohran Mamdani? They surely are. Many are blaming "unchecked" immigration for his win. White Christians nationalist fear they are being replaced by too many non-Christians and too many black and brown people. In light of this event and the overall attacks on immigrants taking place in Trump's America, have I got a segment for you. We also hear from a founding father on why Muslims should not be discriminated against.

In contrast to prior episodes, this one features one guest: Sociologist Andrew Whitehead. Andrew is associate professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where he codirects the Association of Religion Data Archives at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. He is also the author of American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church (2023) and co-author with Samuel Perry of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States (2020).

The focus of the episode is what Christian nationalists fear, which is almost everything. Andrew does a wonderful job of breaking down what Christian nationalists fear and how fear is related to Christian nationalism. We also discussed why the Christian aspect of Christian nationalism isn't enough for Christian nationalists. It is good and proper to discuss the deficits in Christian nationalist history, but it is also important to understand the psychology behind the Christians who seek comfort in nationalism.

This isn't all about psychology; there is some history too. We hear from James Iredell, an early Supreme Court justice who has a good word for us today.

Music provided by Earl's Taco Shack, Jonathan Swaim, and Dustin Blatnik.

Hosted and produced by Warren Throckmorton

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Be it resolved: America's founders established a secular government with provision for a religious people. When the delegates met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they deliberately prevented the government from favoring any religion. Then when the Bill of Rights were added, freedom of religious expression was guaranteed.

Those who wanted a Christian government at the time were upset at what they called the religious defect in the Constitution. They were honest enough to admit what today's Christian nationalists often cover up: The Constitution is not a Christian document and the nation was not founded on the basis of Christianity.

The Christian myths surrounding the Constitutional Convention and Constitution came out later. At the time, most people recognized that the founding was secular.

This is a bonus episode with regular segments to return in July.

Music provided by Earl's Taco Shack. Segment written by Warren Throckmorton

Artwork: Sarah Eshelman

Recently, David Barton and Matt Krause testified in front of the Texas House of Representatives Public Education committee. Barton and Krause both said some historically questionable things to support the placement of the Ten Commandments in every Texas classroom. A premise of this podcast is that it takes faulty history to pursue Christian nationalist goals, one of which is to erode separation of church and state.

Texas Representatives John Bryant and James Tallerico scrutinized Barton's and Kruse's arguments and determined that placing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments in every Texas classroom was unfair and un-American.

The episode begins with a passionate appeal by Bryant and Talerico for fairness and ends with an analysis of faulty history which is being used to oppose fairness.

Music provided by Earl's Taco Shack (Gulf of Mexico Blues, Nebula); Jeremiah Lawson (Sonata for Guitar in A minor), and Jonus Fair (The Rest is History).

Written and produced by Warren Throckmorton

The podcast will be on break until June. Watch for new episodes with material from Andrew Whitehead, Katherine Stewart, Roger Finke, Jemar Tisby, Jeremie Beller, and much more in the second half of season two.

In this segment, I examine the notion that there was something remarkably Christian about America's founding era. Last week, I fact-checked Charlie Kirk's viral video defense of the belief that America was founded as a Christian nation in the legal sense. Most of what Kirk had to say was irrelevant or incorrect.

Today, I consider an overview of moral and religious failings during the founding era. Along with guests Jemar Tisby, Mark Noll, George Marsden, Caleb Campbell, and Aaron Cowan, I contradict Charlie Kirk's call to return to America's Christian roots. In fact, those roots don't seem very Christian when one considers the injustice and atrocities throughout the historical record.

From the segment: "With slavery, treachery, mass murder, betrayal and theft embedded in the legacy of the nation, what does it matter how many times a Supreme Being is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or if the Liberty Bell has Leviticus on it?"

Written and produced by Warren Throckmorton

Music provided by Earl's Taco Shack, Jonathan Swaim, and Jonus Fair

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In 2024, Charlie Kirk distributed a five-minute video defense of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. It has been played at least 20 million times on various social media platforms and is full of faulty history. This segment serves to correct the false claims and defend the proposition that America's founders set out to found a secular government with provision for religious pluralism. Unfortunately, this only applied to white males at first.

Kirk and his fellow Christian nationalists use a variety of false stories to prop up a vision of a Christian American founding. They want to go back to that mythical time. In this segment, historians Aaron Cowan, Randall Balmer, and George Marsden, English professor Matthew Boedy, and co-host Michael Coulter join me to debunk Kirk's false claims and advocate for good history and religious pluralism.

For primary sources referred to in this segment, see this link: https://warrenthrockmorton.substack.com/p/charlie-kirks-christian-america

Written and produced by Warren Throckmorton. Music provided by Earl's Taco Shack and Jonus Fair.

On January 3, 2025, Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson was re-elected to be Speaker of the House. In his acceptance speech, he quoted a prayer that he said Thomas Jefferson said every day during his presidency and every day of his life thereafter.

There is a problem with this story. The prayer was written 56 years after Jefferson died. Jefferson never said the prayer even one day of his life. Later, Johnson and the House chaplain refused to acknowledge they spread false witness to the whole country.

Before the prayer was associated with Jefferson, it was falsely tied to George Washington.

For many years, people who believe America was founded as a Christian nation have desperately wanted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to be on their team. In this episode, we will hear from Word and Way editor Brian Kaylor and Willamette University history professor Seth Cotlar as they describe how a common prayer became an American myth.

To read the prayer, titled "For Our Country," go to the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, page 36. An online version is here: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928Standard/bcp1928std.pdf

Telling Jefferson Lies is a product of Warren Throckmorton and today brought to you by the 3rd edition of Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson. For more information about the book or Warren Throckmorton's substack, go to gettingjeffersonright.com.

The next episode will be out within two weeks and I will announce the schedule for the season at that point.

Music for the segment was provided by Roman Candle, Earl's Taco Shack, Jonathan Swaim, Jonus Fair, Robo Surgeon Fish, and Dustin Blatnik.

If you like what's going on here, please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a lovely review.

Thanks for listening.

In 2024, a video featuring Charlie Kirk defending America as a Christian nation was viewed over 10 millions times on social media. Many of the claims were false or misleading. This season of Telling Jefferson Lies will examine this video and other Christian nation claims by Christian nationalists in addition to Kirk.

The first full episode is planned for April.

There are lies, there are Jefferson Lies, and then there are Christian nationalists' stories.

Music by Warren Throckmorton and Jonus Fair.

Host: Warren Throckmorton; guest Matthew Boedy.

Art: Sarah Eshelman

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Although the dates have not been set, new episodes of Telling Jefferson Lies are coming this Spring. I want to go deeper into the faulty history of Christian nationalism but also examine the psychology behind it as well.

Christian nationalism as an ideology is much more complex than fake quotes and false stories. The way history has been written from the beginning of the arrival of the Europeans must be examined as well.

This trailer focuses on January 6 with a clip from David and Tim Barton doing their Christian nationalist duty to distract from the reality of the insurrection at the Capitol. Immediately after the insurrection, Christian nationalists blamed antifa but Trump supporters who were on the ground said that conspiracy theory was wrong.

Thanks to Katherine Stewart for her commentary in this brief segment.