Truce - History of the Christian Church

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast How should Christians react in a post-Christian society? Many theologians describe our modern era as being post-Christian. Meaning that religion was once public in the United States, and it is slowly disappearing. Is that okay? Is it possible that now is a great time to be doing m...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast When did school prayer end? When was school prayer made illegal? American Christians have disagreed about school prayer ever since it was declared illegal in the 1960s by the Supreme Court of the United States. But what were the conditions surrounding that debate? In this episode...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Jerry Falwell Sr. was one of the most outspoken evangelical Christians in the 1980s. He founded Liberty University and the Moral Majority political movement. In 1985 he went on a trip to visit South Africa, which was then engaged in its apartheid practices. That meant keeping 80%...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Melani McAlister, author of "The Kingdom of God Has No Borders" and Professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University joins us to discuss how we export Christianity. In the 1950s and 1960s, American denominations sent white missionaries to Afr...

When I was a kid, we were playing at a friend's house. I fell and scraped up my knee pretty badly. Dirt and rocks were in the wound. My friend's mom was a nurse, so she got out her medical kit. She did her best to pick out what she could and then showed me her bottle of iodine. Iodine is a strong anti-microbial. Highly effective for cleaning wounds. But, like rubbing alcohol, it stings pretty bad....

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Many of us are familiar with Joseph McCarthy and his infamous hearings on Communism in the US government. What we don't know is that McCarthy was far from the first person to use these tactics. In this episode of the Truce Podcast we examine the Rapp-Coudert Committee-- an effort...

Give a little money to help support Truce! Details are at www.trucepodcast.com/donate 2020 has been a difficult year for many. I wanted to take a few minutes to discuss things that went well. So I opened up a phone line to collect stories from you, the listeners. Thanks to everyone who submitted their stories! I'll be opening up the phone lines again in another month to collect more listener feedb...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast It's time for our second annual Christmas Episode Exchange! Each year I put out a call on the Christian Podcasters Association Facebook page for 5-minute mini-episodes based on the theme of Christmas. Now I'm going to present several of the best from that group. 1) An Endurance Ch...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast The 1983 Supreme Court case Lynch v Donnelly brought church and state together in one important decision. In it, the court decided that a city-owned creche (also known as a manger scene) could remain on private land because it was part of a greater display. It wasn't a stand-alone...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast In 1954 the United States government, led by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, staged a coup to oust President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala. For what reason? To help the United Fruit Company. United Fruit was a giant company, capturing over 90% of the market in its heyday. The...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Billy Graham may have been the most important evangelist of the 20th century. His words were heard by millions of people around the world. He preached in person, on television, magazines, radio, and film. His impact is still felt today. He is also one of the people most responsibl...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast What do American Christians really want in the Trump era? I think that we just want representation. We want someone to stand for us, to fight out battles. But that gets tricky. There is a story in the Old Testament that gives us some clues about how that temptation can hurt us in...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast This was one of our first ever episodes! We're rebroadcasting it today because the 2020 US Presidential election is upon us. One of the questions that keeps coming up is: why does Donald Trump appeal to white evangelical Christians? This episode was produced three years ago, so it...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast The CIA, big business, and the Ad Council worked together to create the America that we know and love today. Together, they bonded our ideas of patriotism, capitalism, and religion. But not many of us know who the Ad Council is. Sure they created Smokey Bear, the Crash Test Dummie...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Did Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle murder Virginia Rappe? That questions defined the film industry for thirty years. Upset with Hollywood's moral failures, Christians demanded changes. We took over, fighting until the studios decided to censor themselves. This special episode of Truce ti...

Donate to help keep Truce going. Visit www.trucepodcast.com/donate for information James Fifield was a pastor, radio personality, publisher, and outspoken libertarian. He hated the New Deal and its restrictions. His organization, Spiritual Mobilization, created a marketing campaign that would bond Christianity to capitalism and the United States for decades to come. Also... you know those Ten Comm...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast When strikes broke out in the 1930's, some wealthy members of the US elite got together... to pray. One of the organizers of prayer groups across the country was Abraham Vereide. In this episode of Truce we tell the story of how Vereide became one of the most influential non-elect...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast In this bonus episode, host Chris Staron does his best to quiet fears about where Truce is headed. Is this show pushing a political motive? What about an economic system? Nope. Truce is about exploring our past in order to make us better. The goal is to remain orthodox and a-polit...

Partner with us by donating at: www.trucepodcast.com/donate Many Christian leaders came to hate the New Deal, especially libertarians. Their opposition to the New Deal as creeping socialism sparked the National Prayer Breakfast, some of Billy Graham's speeches, and the bonding of capitalism to Christianity and the US. So we should probably know what the New Deal was! Our guest this episode is Just...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Does the church represent working-class people or are we too focused on the wealthy? During the Industrial Revolution many saw churches as clubs for rich people. So working folks formed their own churches, unions, and organizations. In this episode Heath Carter, professor at Princ...

Donate to support the Truce Podcast at www.trucepodcast.com/donate The United States and Russia ran along parallel tracks in the late 1800s and 1900s. Both were empires. Both were tangled in war. Both were feeling the weight of the Industrial Revolution. But they divided in how they would deal with labor. That critical difference changed the history of the world. In this episode, Professor Heath C...

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Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast Is the United States a Christian Nation? How has communism impacted the American Christian Church? In this bonus episode, we're playing an episode from the Spiritual Life and Leadership podcast from Markus Watson. Markus is the author of "Beyond Thingification: Helping Your Church...

Become a patron of the show and help me make even more great episodes! Donate by visiting www.patreon.com/trucepodcast In 1940 the Supreme Court of the United States made a historic decision: that all schoolchildren should stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. Minersville School District v. Gobitis set precedent for three years. Walter Gobitas, a Jehovah's Witness, did not want his children salut...

Your youth group trip to South America was cancelled... now what? There are still important ministries that need your help. Truce is raising $25,000 to make this show my full time job. This mission reaches anywhere there is an Internet connection. And we're asking really big questions that will protect our Christian witness. You can give using a credit card at: www.trucepodcast.com/donate or send...