Hello my friends!

I'm really excited to let you know that our daughter Reese May was born on Good Friday, 3/29 at 9:51pm, 7lbs 14oz. Reese means “enthusiasm and fire” and May is after Rebecca’s mom. I’m still in disbelief! We are now in the thick of late night feedings and a taking care of a sick two year old. Thank you all for your support and prayers! It truly means so much.

As I told you last week, I will be on family leave for the next few weeks as Rebecca, Foster, and I develop new life rhythms with the arrival of our baby girl! During this time, I have asked several people I deeply admire to share their insight and heart on topics we have all been discussing together. Today, I am honored to share a short Q&A with Katherine Stewart.

I not only deeply admire Katherine Stewart's work, but I admire her as a person. She is an investigative reporter and author who has covered religious liberty, politics, policy, and education for over a decade. Her latest book, THE POWER WORSHIPPERS: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, is a rare look inside the machinery of the movement that brought Donald Trump to power. In fact, the new documentary called "God and Country" is based on this book.

Another friend of mine, Meghan Tschanz, interviewed Katherine Stewart on her excellent podcast. This interview was not only deeply insightful, but Katherine shares her own personal story of some of the things she's been impacted by herself personally, even to the point of almost losing her life. I highly encourage listening.

Katherine Stewart's journalism appears in the New York Times op ed, NBC, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. But even in the midst of such a demanding schedule, she graciously provided time for this Q&A for my newsletter.

But before we dive into our conversation, I have a quick announcement.

Lastly, I wanted to tell you about my new podcast: Many of you have asked if I've ever considered starting a podcast. Well, I'm planning to do just that at the end of May! My goal for this podcast is to produce an audio sermon every week for those who want to navigate scripture together in our current social and political environment. This will create another opportunity to meaningfully engage the Bible and our faith together. I also hope it could provide an opportunity to have intentional interviews and conversations with others down the road. This could be a really positive free resource, especially for those who currently do not have a church community, but still want a weekly sermon. Several of you have also generously asked if there is a way to help get this podcast off the ground, which is so incredibly kind of you! The reality is, I need several pieces of tech to produce this podcast to my standards. For example, I need a mic, cables, and some other gear, and my laptop is over a decade old and is in desperate need of replacing if I hope to continue to create this kind of content. So, if you feel like you want to help me launch this podcast, you can do so through the link below with any amount that feels right for you. A sincere thanks to all those who have given so far! I'm excited to bring this project to life! Be sure to watch for updates in the weeks ahead! ​ $5.00 Into The Gray: Podcast The goal of this podcast is to bring a sermon every week for those who want to navigate scripture together in our... Read more Get it now! ​

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And with that announcement, here is our Q & A with Katherine Stewart. I hope you gain as much needed clarity and insight from her answers as I did.

Q & A With Katherine Stewart on Reproductive Rights

Let’s start with the recent decision, by chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Tom Parker, to ban IVF. Can you please walk us through this decision?

The Christian nationalist movement has long used abortion as an issue to unify different strands of their movement. They know that if you can get people to vote on a single issue, you can control their vote.

The activists who focus on the abortion issue are extreme in their demand for a ban on abortion “from the moment of conception,” which they define as the moment of contact between egg and sperm. According to this theory, a zygote is the moral equivalent of a human being. The logical consequences theory would not only make IVF impossible, but would also outlaw some of the most popular and effective forms of birth control, such as IUDs and birth control pills. So in a sense, Parker is just being consistent with anti-abortion activists’ demands. It’s interesting that his decision was hailed by some of the movement’s key organizations, such as Liberty Counsel, even as some Republican politicians who have previously supported bills that would make IVF impossible are trying to walk it back.

Why are they trying to walk it back?

The Republican party still depends on the votes and money of a significant number of people who are keen on IVF and have even used IVF to create their own families, or know people who have. They are disproportionately older and wealthier than the typical parent. They’re not going to like this decision, and they have the power to make a stink.

That’s why a good number of Republican politicians, including some who have endorsed extreme anti-abortion legislation, are trying to backtrack on what they have stated previously. They are introducing new legislation that makes a carve-out for IVF. It's interesting what they're not making a carve-out for: birth control. Minors including those as young as 10 and 11. Rape victims. Women whose pregnancies are putting their life and health, including their mental health, at risk.

Tell us a bit about Parker’s worldview. In what ways is it consistent with the ideology of the Christian nationalist movement?

The same day that the Alabama Supreme Court released its embryo decision and Parker’s concurrent ruling, Parker said in an online broadcast that “God created government” and that Christians should take it back from the “possession” of others. These statements reflect Parker’s ties to Charismatic Evangelical networks, known as the New Apostolic Reformation, and which promote an ideology called the Seven Mountains mandate.

According to Seven Mountains dominionism, Christians should dominate what they call the “Seven Mountains” of influence, which includes the categories of government, business, education, media, entertainment, religion, and family.

Two decades ago, Seven Mountains dominionism was considered so extreme and out-there that it was never allowed near the podium with Republican political leaders. Now, that very same ideology is a heartbeat away from everything that happens in the Republican Party. Major religious right strategy gatherings sponsored by groups like the Faith & Freedom Coalition and Family Research Council feature seven-mountains-themed breakout sessions and panels from the main stage.

Let’s be clear: When they say “Christians” they don’t mean anyone who identifies as a Christian or goes to church on Sunday. They mean those who espouse an extremely hard-line form of the faith, melded with a hard-line form of partisan politics. When they say that they wish to “control those Seven Mountains” they don’t mean they want to give their religiously inflected opinions on public policy. They mean they think they have a God-given mandate to impose their worldview on the rest of us through the law and public policy – using the full police and military powers of the state if need be.

The IVF decision is a pretty good illustration of how it works. The chief justice opens his Bible and finds in it a commandment that thou shalt treat a frozen embryo as if it were a living child. There is no room for nuance. No space for alternative interpretations in Christianity or any other faith. No sense that people with different but equally sincere views, with or without religion, might have rights too.

If you dig deeper, it is really about the money and power, and not just sex. The hostility to women's reproductive rights is also accompanied everywhere with an embrace of far-right economic theory and a rejection of rights and protections for the workforce.

So the attack on IVF is just one piece of the much larger pie of controlling people’s rights. It should obliterate any illusions that they will stop with abortion. It doesn’t stop with bans on the forms of birth control that they choose to characterize as abortion. It stops with total dominion, where their explicit doctrine is that they and they alone should control every aspect of our government and society. They aim to destroy our personal and political freedoms and dismantle our democratic institutions.

Speaking of dismantling democratic institutions, can you tell us a bit about Project 2025?

For people who don’t know what it is, Project 2025 is a plan to reshape the government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Trump has suggested that if he is elected he will fire as many as fifty thousand civil servants and replace them with loyalists. So this is a big part of Project 2025—to replace people with expertise, eliminate the Department of Education, and pursue other measures that would totally remake American institutions.

The Heritage Foundation, which helped coordinate Project 2025, was traditionally right-wing in its pro-business economic ideology and generally hawkish foreign policy. But Project 2025 shows us that the old Right has left the building. The old gatekeepers of the Republican party are gone. Heritage has a new president now, and under his leadership the organization has embraced anti-democratic extremism.

Project 2025 repeatedly asserts, without evidence, that a supposedly woke elite has commandeered and weaponized the entire federal bureaucracy. That’s air force controllers, food safety inspectors, people helping to manage the intercoastal waterways and agriculture policy et cetera. They claim these civil servants represent an apocalyptic threat to the nation. It’s a paranoid narrative: we’re supposedly in a state of emergency, and nothing is out of bounds as they attempt to “save” the Republic.
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One crucial piece of Project 2025 is the religious nationalism. The solution they pose to many of our problems is to read the Bible and do what they claim to believe the Bible says. They say “life” begins at the moment of conception, so you can toss IVF and the most popular and effective forms of birth control out the window. The prospective head of the labor department has little to say about unions or empowering the workforce. But he does want to restore the Sabbath as much as possible and make sure that employers can discriminate against certain groups they don’t like.

Meanwhile, the key goals of the prospective Secretary of Health and Human Services include using the power of the federal government to promote anti-abortion and anti-contraception policies. He also appears to think HHS should hunt down Mr. Fauci, because the culture warriors on the Right have decided that he is a woke totalitarian, or something like that.

At least one individual left the Heritage Foundation recently because he couldn’t stomach the foreign policy stuff – which, as you can guess, is starting to look very pro-Russia. Remember, Putin has worked for two decades to present himself to western conservatives as a Christian nationalist. One of the reasons he has been loud and proud with his anti-gay policies is because it made America’s right-wingers feel like they have a friend in Russia.

What can we do to meet the threats that we face?

First, we have to understand that there is no substitute for the power of the vote. The leadership of the Christian nationalist movement understands that fact very well. Christian nationalism is not just a mindset but also an organizational apparatus. The movement is really good at mobilizing people -- not just those who explicitly identify as Christian nationalist, but also many fellow travelers or those who lend their support to the movement in other ways.

So a key to meeting this threat is to recognize that we are in the majority. We have the power – we just need to use it! Most American reject the politics of conquest and division that this movement represents. We need to help others understand what’s at stake and why their votes matter – not just in presidential elections but also in state and local elections.

At this point the focus should be, first and foremost, to mobilize the democratic base of voters, as well as to engage those who feel politically disenfranchised or tempted by third-party spoilers. We also need to do what we can to counter disinformation and support groups that seek to protect the right to vote.

Second, we need to engage the “principles first” conservatives, the ones who can’t sign up for the rapist-insurrectionist-fraudster nominee. They are basically the latest iteration of the never-Trumpers, and if we can peel off a few percentage points of Trump support, that can make a real difference. We need as big a tent as possible and should focus on what we have in common.

Third, we have to remember that a lot of politics happens at the local level. It’s important to keep track of what’s happening in your state and in your town, and to be aware of things like who’s running for your local school board. There are no shortages of avenues for engagement at all levels, and everyone has a role to play.

Thank you so much for your time, Katherine.

Now I'd like to hear from you.

Was this helpful for you? If so, you can find more from Katherine on her website and you can also find her on social media.