The Final Service

A  church in decline tries to reinvent itself, and its young members struggle with how to talk about Christianity. The Final Service is written and produced by Mateo Schimpf with additional writing and reporting from Ray Suarez . It's edited by Jarrod Sport with production support from Elize Manoukian. It's made possible with generous support by the Henry Luce Foundation and is distributed by PRX...

Julian Deshazier is a rapper and a pastor. That sounds like it would be appealing to kids from his old neighborhood on the South Side. But getting them to show up to church on Sundays isn't easy. The Final Service is written and produced by Mateo Schimpf with additional writing and reporting from Ray Suarez . It's edited by Jarrod Sport. It's made possible with generous support by the Henry Luce F...

Christian Allyn is proud to be Lithuanian. So when he found out that the archbishop was going to close his Lithuanian church in Waterbury, Connecticut, he decided to step in. Can his appeal save St. Joseph’s Church? The Final Service is written and produced by Mateo Schimpf with additional writing and reporting from Ray Suarez . It's edited by Jarrod Sport with production support from Elize Manouk...

This is the first chapter in a four-part series about church closures in America. Lorraine Pacheco is the caretaker for a tiny church in an even tinier town in the eastern plains of New Mexico. As she gets older and her congregation shrinks, she’s starting to wonder if it will survive after she’s gone. The Final Service is written and produced by Mateo Schimpf with additional writing and reporting...

Notice anything about churches in America? In a lot of place they're boarded up. Converted to some other use. Or just abandoned. Reporters Mateo Schimpf and Ray Suarez go on a journey to find out why so many churches are closing, and whether pastors can do anything to save them.

One theme was consistent throughout this election year: the assertion that democracy was under threat. Throughout the year, Jonathan Rauch weighed in on whether democracy is waning, and how the Republican party could build a future without Trumpism. Jonathan Rauch joins Ray Suarez to discuss Trump's reelection, and how he feels today about the health of our republic.  This is our final episode of...

In less than three weeks, Donald Trump will be back in the White House, and we’re waiting to see what he will tackle on Day One. On the campaign trail, Trump promised he’d end the fighting in Ukraine on January 20th. The war is nearing its third anniversary, and there are few signs an end is in sight. Russian president Vladimir Putin has recently signaled he’s ready to compromise, but can presiden...

100,000, that’s the estimated number of Protestant churches that will close in the U.S… not by 2050, but five years from now. What some scholars are calling “The Great De-churching” is already well under way, and the exodus is accelerating. This week, Ray Suarez speaks with Ryan Burge, professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, about why non-religious people and atheists are on...

When bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, it makes infections harder to treat. This increases the risk of disease spread, severe illness, and death.  Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) leads to deaths, high health treatment costs, and economic and livelihood losses. Jennifer Cohn, Director, Global Access at Global Antibiotic R&D Partnership (...

Third party candidate, Robert Kennedy, Jr., played an out-sized role in the 2024 presidential election. Trump said Kennedy would have “a big role in health care” if he were re-elected. And on November 14th, Trump announced RFK, Jr. would be nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. More than 75 Nobel laureates have urged the US Senate to deny Kennedy, because they feel he woul...

One issue where President-elect Trump hammered home the differences between his plans and those of Kamala Harris was immigration. For a decade, the public has been increasingly worried about the number of people turning up at the southern border, the number of people seeking asylum in the US, and perhaps more quietly, about the changing face of America. Ray Suarez spoke with Ted Hesson, immigratio...

Donald Trump has successfully defied the political odds for almost a decade – largely because of his unpredictability on the campaign trail. But when it comes to his foreign policy, Trump is anything but unpredictable. If we take him at his word, some analysts believe Trump will inflame economic tensions with China, pull the US out of NATO, and hand Ukraine over to Vladimir Putin. Ian Bremmer on w...

Diversity has often been seen as the United States’ defining strength – but today, some Americans see it as a threat. And this isn’t new. Throughout history, differences of religion, ethnicity, and origin have driven states around the world to war, violence, and extreme division. However, German-American political scientist Yascha Mounk says this isn’t the only path.  On this week’s episode, we re...

In 2020, Latinos became the second largest ethnic voting group in the United States, and the fastest-growing segment of the swing states in the 2024 Presidential Election. The results of Election Day are clear: Donald Trump gained with working class Americans, and particularly Latino men, delivering him a decisive victory. Ray Suarez speaks with Mike Madrid, author of The Latino Century: How Ameri...

According to Steve Schmidt, if you want to understand how the Democrats failed against Donald Trump in 2024, then you have to go back to Joe Biden not stepping aside earlier. In a candid, raw conversation, Ray Suarez speaks with Steve Schmidt, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, and host of The Warning , about how Donald Trump built a new multicultural, working class coalition, and why identity pol...

Election Day is over, and the results are clear: former president Donald Trump resoundingly defeated vice president Kamala Harris. We don’t have all the data, but a majority of US counties swung towards the Republicans. How did Trump gain new working class voters? And where does the Democratic Party go from here? Dante Chinni, director of MSU J-School’s American Communities Project, Rahul Bali, po...

We’ve finally reached November 5th, Election Day in the US, and a majority of Americans remain deeply pessimistic about the state of the nation. Throughout the year, we’ve talked to voters about the issues they care about in 2024, and we share their stories in this election special. We’ll revisit our conversations with Iowa voter Phil Hemingway, Latorya Beasley, therapist and in vitro fertilizatio...

Donald Trump’s anti-establishment message has galvanized tech leaders across the US, including in former Democratic Party stronghold, Silicon Valley. This American Life ’s Zoe Chace speaks with our producer, Mateo Schimpf, about what happened when Michigan Republicans took his advice and actually tried to buck the system. And tech billionaires have had their fingerprints all over the 2024 Presiden...

During the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump's campaign has been fueled by some surprising supporters… leaders in big tech. According to recent reporting from The New York Times , tech billionaires like Elon Musk have built a “shadow campaign” to put Trump back in office.  WIRED’s Steven Levy joins Ray Suarez to talk about why big dollar donations are causing a big divide in the once deeply blu...

We're entering the final days of the 2024 presidential election, but a lot can change in a few weeks. Historically, several presidential contests have been upended in October. Coined the "October Surprise," for decades candidates have been tested at the finish line... and many have faltered. So what could trip up Harris or Trump?  Ray Suarez hosts a panel featuring political strategist and pollste...

Refugees in California are generally protected from federal deportation under sanctuary and safe haven laws, unless they've been incarcerated. And in 2022, after serving 25 years for murder, San Quentin State Prison parolee Phoeun You was turned over to ICE, and deported to Cambodia. In this episode, the story of Phoeun You : a man returned to a country he never knew.  This episode was produced in...

Immigration is once again a political football in the lead up to the 2024 Presidential Election, and while Congress stalled to address comprehensive border control measures, hundreds of thousands of migrants became pawns in a political game. The Washington Post 's Eduardo Porter talks with Ray about how Mexico's former president used migrant flows to gain leverage in Washington D.C., and which US...

We're entering the final days of the 2024 presidential election, but a lot can change in a few weeks. Historically, several presidential contests have been upended in October. Coined the "October Surprise," for decades candidates have been tested at the finish line... and many have faltered. In 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump was trailing in the polls in October – as he is now with Kamala Harris – so...

Monday, October 7, 2024 marks the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israeli territory. For a while, Israel's response to the violence supplanted the war in Ukraine in the headlines, but as the months dragged on, attention had largely turned away from Gaza. That all changed in late-September when Israeli airstrikes in neighboring Lebanon killed seven high-ranking commanders and officials fro...

After the two recent assassination attempts on former president Donald Trump, it’s clear the United States has a problem with political violence. But in our history, several would-be assassins have attacked sitting presidents, so is there something different about these Trump shooters… and this era of political grievance?  Bruce Hoffman, Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at...