Know Your Enemy - The Christian Right's "Wild Faith" (w/ Talia Lavin) [Unlocked]

In light of James Dobson's death this week, we've unlocked Matt's conversation with Talia Lavin about her book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America.

Duration: 1h 0m
Broadcast on: 23 Aug 2025
Audio Format: other

This episode was first published in October 2024, and has been un-paywalled following the death this week, on August 21, of Focus on the Family founder and influential figure on the religious right, James Dobson, at age 89. Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to hear more episodes just for subscribers.

In this episode, Matt is joined by journalist Talia Lavin to discuss her book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America, one of the most fascinating and unique books published on the Christian right during the Trump-era. Lavin takes her subjects seriously, but not uncritically, and especially focuses on the wrecked and ruined lives left in the wake of conservative evangelicalism's more conspiratorial and authoritarian elements, from the Satanic Panic to James Dobson's parenting manual on how to discipline a "strong-willed child" into compliance. Along the way, they talk about the triumph of QAnon, End Times theology, the importance of the New Apostolic Reformation, and more—all with an eye toward how these religious views and practices help explain conservative evangelicals' overwhelming support for Donald Trump.

Sources:

Talia Lavin, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America (2024)

— Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy (2020)

— "The Sword and the Sandwich" (Talia's newsletter)

Listen again:

"The Prayers and Prophecies of Pat Robertson," Know Your Enemy, July 17, 2023

Welcome listeners to this unlocked episode of Know Your Enemy. I'm Matt Sippen, your podcast co-host, and I'm not here, as always, with my great friend Sam with her bell. That's because I'm just offering a quick introduction to an episode I did back in October 2024 with journalist Talia Lavin, who had just published a book titled "Wild Faith, How the Christian Right is Taking Over America." I thought it was a fascinating and fairly unique book on the Christian right, and the reason we're unlocking this episode now is that Thursday, August 21, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, and kind of a Christian family psychologist, you might say, who authored many books on Christian parenting, how to discipline your strong-willed child into submission. I think he was a pretty odious influence on an entire generation of parents and their children, but beyond that, we talk about Dobson in this episode. So that is why we're unlocking it, but along the way, we talk about QAnon and Times Theology, the new apostolic Reformation, which is to say some of the charismatic Christians around Trump that we recently discussed in a bonus episode. So I don't need to say much more about Talia or this book. This will tide you over. We just recorded a very, very long episode about Frank Meyer, so we are giving our intrepid producer, Jesse, a little more time to get that done, and Dobson's death seemed like a great occasion to finally bring this episode out from beyond the paywall. So thank you, Jesse, our intrepid producer. Thank you, Will, for the music. You'll hear at the beginning and end of this episode. And a special thanks to Descent, the sponsor of this podcast. As always, I just want to mention that one thing they do for us as the sponsor is offer a free digital subscription. If you subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/knowyourenemy for $10 or more, of course, also at that level, you get access to the Know Your Enemy Discord. And for $5 a month, you get access to all of our bonus episodes, and what you're about to hear is a good example of what we offer behind the paywall. So if you're not a subscriber and you hear this and you like it, please consider subscribing. Here's my conversation with Talia Levin about her book Wild Faith, How The Christian Right is Taking Over America. Alright, welcome listeners to this very special bonus episode of Know Your Enemy. I'm Matt Sitman, your podcast co-host, and I'm not here with my great friend Sam Edderbell, what I am here with Talia Levin, the author of a book that actually, we're recording this on Monday, October 14th. So it comes out tomorrow, I believe, right, Talia? Yeah, it does. And it's titled Wild Faith, How The Christian Right is Taking Over America. And first, I want to say welcome, and second, congrats on this fantastic book that is, it's really extraordinarily well-written, I thought. The prose is great, and it's a little weird to call it a page turner because it's not a novel, it's all too real, but it's so well-written that it does, you do kind of get absorbed in it in a way that makes it very powerful read. And this is not your first book, you're also the author of the critically acclaimed Culture of Warlords, you're a journalist who's written everywhere for The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times Review of Books, The Washington Post, and others, and you also have a great newsletter, The Sword and the Sandwich. So welcome and congrats.

Transcription truncated.

In light of James Dobson's death this week, we've unlocked Matt's conversation with Talia Lavin about her book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America.