680: Cancelling Colbert, Starving Gaza, & American Charisma  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Holy Post]] - Full Title: 680: Cancelling Colbert, Starving Gaza, & American Charisma - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/bfcce4b9-13fc-41a7-b7bb-3fe45b8aa8d0 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Phil's European River Cruise** - Phil Vischer describes his European river cruise from Prague through Germany to Budapest, including visits to abbeys and cultural events. - He shares a humorous experience of a tourist-driven dinner featuring the chicken dance and nonstop accordion music. Transcript: Phil Vischer I was in Europe. Phil was in Europe. Phil doesn't get out much. Phil went to Europe. Skye Jethani This is big for you because you had a whole thing about not crossing water for a long time, didn't you? No. Phil Vischer You didn't travel overseas. I know, but it wasn't like I don't want to. Caitlin Schess I've been around since you've been on a different cruise too. Phil Vischer Yeah, we did. My mother, my dear, dear mother that you know. Do you know her? Have you met my mother? Caitlin Schess Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Where? Phil Vischer Some event? Caitlin Schess Uh, our first live event. She was, she was trying, she, she, we only talked for a little while cause she wanted to get out of my way to make sure I had time to talk to eligible bachelors. Phil Vischer Oh yes. Well, there you, very kind of her. The way a mother would. I guess that worked pretty well. She's decided to, and this is probably 10 years ago, decided to use some of what we would be getting as inheritance to instead create memories and go on some trips together. So this was our second Viking River cruise, which is fun. The first one, yes. Thank you, Viking. Happy to sponsor. Reach out. Call me up. The first one was down the Rhine River. This one was down the Danube, the beautiful blue Danube, which isn't really blue, but that's not the point. And it was fun. And Lisa and I went over early cause, uh, last year was our 35th wedding anniversary, but we didn't do anything and get to go anywhere cause too much stuff was going on and cancer and stuff. So we decided to go early. So we went to Prague and spent three days in Prague. Then we, uh, took a bus from Prague to, uh, Regensburg, Germany, got on a Viking boat. And then we floated from Regensburg down to Passau, and from Passau down to Vienna, and from Vienna down to Budapest. And we had fun all the way down. Wow. All the way down. And we went to two different abbeys. One abbey where the monks make beer and sell it to the tourists, and another abbey where the monks make apricot wine and sell it to the tourists. Yes. Do they do anything non-alcoholic? No. So these are not Baptist monks. Monks love alcohol. No, they're not Baptist monks. The Baptist monks didn't go over well in Europe. People, they were too dour. Like, no, no. They just made sweet tea and casseroles. No, no more casseroles. Nobody wants your cast. You could maybe do fruit cakes. You could have fruit, but those have alcohol in them, don't they? Fruit cakes? They can have some. Yeah. So anywho, no, they were not Baptist monks, but we were in so many churches, so many. Yeah, there's a lot of churches. There's so many churches. Skye Jethani When I was a kid, we did something down some river in Germany and I wasn't paying close attention but i remember someone joking about it's it's the abc trip yeah another bloody castle Phil Vischer Yeah and church another bloody church yeah that was probably the rhine it was probably the rhine is castle after castle after castle after castle right and most of them uh attempted To be blown up by napoleon and that was actually the case on this trip too it was like this was this part had to be rebuilt because Napoleon and this gate had to be rebuilt because Napoleon. He was just running around trying to blow everything up. Skye Jethani It's like American government agencies. This one's going to have to be rebuilt because of Trump. Yeah. Phil Vischer He's just like Napoleon. Wow. We're putting that together probably for the first time. And people will probably really appreciate that we're putting that together because it's going to help them so much understand the world in a better way. Things that I like, the architecture, the cathedral in Prague is pretty amazing. And like when I was in high school, I was pretty cool because I was into Art Nouveau illustration. Okay. You know, and that gets the girls. If you say, hey, hey, you want to look at my book of Alphonse Mucha prints? Was Matisse Art Nouveau? No. No, he was before that. No, yeah, this is 1920s. Yeah, like 1900 to 1925 or so before Art Deco. Anyway, Alphonse Mucha was the preeminent illustrator, Art Nouveau illustrator, and did advertising images and just classic. You would recognize his work immediately. But he did a whole set of windows in the Prague Cathedral, which are astonishing. You just stand there and it's like, wow, because he was an amazing designer. So that was a highlight, seeing the muka windows in Prague. And the abbeys were fun. And wandering around, found a little coffee shop in Passau, Germany. And it had a second level that was decorated kind of like a 1940s apartment, which was really fun to hang out with. In? Not with. I didn't hang out with the second floor. I hung out in the second floor. Everyone wants to feed you a sausage. And if you say no to the sausage, then they want to feed you schnitzel. And if you say no to the schnitzel, they want to feed you goulash in Czech Republic. And we also went to Bratislava. I forgot about that. Went to Bratislava, which is the capital of Slovakia, also big on goulash. Caitlin Schess What is goulash? Phil Vischer It's a stew-like substance that we did not... I didn't need goulash. Skye Jethani Is there cabbage involved? I don't... Phil Vischer Sounds like there should be. I don't know. Hey, listeners, what's in goulash? I imagine there's multiple recipes for goulash. Yeah, I bet there's. Skye Jethani There's got to be. It just doesn't sound appealing to the English ear. Phil Vischer We did one excursion that we kind of regretted. Uh-oh. Yeah, and I guess it was a new one that they hadn't offered before, but it was a hurrican dinner, which is, I guess, a German or Austrian, this was in Austria, festival to celebrate the New grape harvest before you're going to make wine. Okay. Because there's vineyards all over the place and they make a lot of wine, even the monks. And so you have this special dinner with music and wine testing and tasting or testing, tasting. And so we signed up for it. So like, that sounds like a special cultural event. We'll do that. And it was more like, I think we're at Epcot Center and everything is dressed up for the tourists. And there's a guy with an old guy with an accordion running around. He won't stop playing and leading everyone in songs. Skye Jethani So like you had a sense that if there weren't paying tourists here, they would not do this. They would not do this. This is not a custom that they – No. Phil Vischer This was something that's – yeah. And then on the bus ride, it was like a half an hour bus ride to get to the restaurant where they've set all this up for the tourists to give them an authentic – which means at one point doing The chicken dance. Because I think that's authentic to when the monks bring in the grape harvest, they all do the chicken dance on the way back. They did YMCA and We Are Family. My brother Rob said at one point, before this is over, he's going to play Sweet Caroline. ([Time 0:05:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/85329fae-6142-42b0-9b89-40754bf22db2)) - **Colbert's Cancellation Context** - Stephen Colbert's late-night show cancellation reflects broader trends as late-night TV loses money and viewers shift to online platforms. - Media mergers might motivate networks to cut costly shows, unrelated directly to financial performance. Transcript: Phil Vischer Yes, it is. So the public story is late night TV doesn't make money anymore. We got to make some hard decisions. Skye Jethani Yeah. Apparently word leaked that the late show had been losing $40 million a year. Yeah. Phil Vischer Which is, you know, it's not chump change. Skye Jethani It's not nothing. That's some serious schnitzel. Phil Vischer Yeah. If this podcast was losing $40 million a year, I'm pretty sure we'd be canceled. If we were losing $40 million a year, this show should be a lot better. Ooh. Yeah. Well, or one of us should be manifesting a lot more wealth. That's right. Okay. But there was no discussion about, because he has like a full-time staff of 200 people. I mean, how many, like if we did a daily show, do you think we'd need 200 people to do it? No. No, I don't think so either. Or the Ed Sullivan Theater. No, we don't need that either. It's just not cheap. I mean, it's nice. Yeah. We got the Wheaton Theater right across the street. We could do that. It's vacant because of like asbestos or something. Yeah, something. Oh, gosh. So they didn't say, hey, can we reduce the budget? Could you cut your staff? They just said, no, you're done. So do you think it's plausible that it wasn't part of the settlement with CBS and Skydance to make the Paramount Skydance merger go through? Skye Jethani Okay. I've read and listened to some different people talking about this who have more media insights. Phil Vischer No, I'd look to you for media insight. Skye Jethani And James, what's his name who was on? McDonald. No, James, the guy who was on after Colbert for a while for the Late Late Show, the English guy. He's not James. Yeah. Corbin. Caitlin Schess Corden. Oh, him. Corden. Skye Jethani Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His show got canceled because it was also losing money a couple years ago. Yeah. And this is the trend in late night shows. Is cancellation? Well, they're just losing money. They don't have as many viewers. They don't get as many sponsors. So they're losing money. Their overhead is high. And as people probably know, CBS is in a merger talks with Skydance. Yes. Sundance. Skydance. Skydance. And often when companies are merging, you want to get losing assets off the books. Otherwise, the new owners take it over and then they kill it and they get off to a bad start. You don't think that's what happened? No. Phil Vischer Why? Why? Because they couldn't get the merger approved unless they made Trump happy. Skye Jethani But they made him happy when they settled the lawsuit he filed against 60 Minutes and paid him $16 million. Phil Vischer Also, it's been reported that Ellison Jr. You know Ellison Sr. He's one of the richest men in the world and he funds the Skydance media. By the way, Skydance Animation hired John Lasseter when he got canceled. Canceled the millennial way from Pixar. Larry Ellison's son hired him to run Skydance Animation. And they put out three or four movies that have not done very well. That's neither here nor there. It's been rumored, and Trump has even hinted at it, that Skydance has agreed to give the administration $20 million worth of free advertising time to promote their messages. Skye Jethani Yeah. So the rumor is that CBS, especially the news side of CBS, is going to be essentially state-run media and have a lot of- Well, that's an exaggeration. Phil Vischer It is an exaggeration. They've agreed to have an ombudsman to keep tabs on news media bias on behalf of the administration, basically. Okay. Which is kind of weird. It's a little concerning. Trump extorted 10 million out of ABC, and then turned around and sued CBS for 2 billion, 3 billion. Skye Jethani Now he's suing Murdoch for 10 billion. Phil Vischer Yeah. Let's sue everybody who criticizes me. That's good. That's a healthy democracy. I'm excited about that. Skye Jethani Caitlin, are you going to miss Colbert? Phil Vischer I'm sure you watched him every night. I don't think her generation knows about late night television because they don't know about schedules. Ouch. Are you familiar with the idea that different shows were on at specific times long, long ago? Have you read about it in books? Caitlin Schess I've read about it in history books. Phil Vischer Yeah, right. Caitlin Schess I did read, I don't know if y'all ever listened to Derek Thompson's podcast, Plain English. He did a whole episode about Colbert's cancellation. And I don't know how, I mean, I know even less about any of this. But one of the points that he made was along the lines of like young people watch TikTok and YouTube and they're not, they're both not watching cable. And structurally they're more interested in people who kind of create a thing by themselves rather than belong to an institution or have that kind of like larger team behind them so It's like the people that are making a ton of money right now are the people who like set up a phone and make an Instagram account they're not having any of the institutional structure Behind them that's true often in politics right now and it's true in media. And he's right that like I have never as an adult thought even a little bit about anything that's on TV. So I fit the stereotype there. Skye Jethani I wonder if Colbert – I mean he's going to come back in some form because he's just too talented and popular. Like Conan O'Brien had his show canceled from TBS and he now has a podcast and he's on YouTube and I assume he's doing very well. He's got that HBO travel show. Phil Vischer He's doing fine. Skye Jethani I imagine Colbert can do what he does and do it best without the overhead of 200 people at Sullivan Theater and without the constraints of CBS. Phil Vischer I how much cheaper The Daily Show is, you know, with Jon Stewart. Because they don't seem to be in any danger of getting canceled or John Oliver's show. So maybe he moves to an HBO or, you know, Netflix. ([Time 0:15:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9870ac5c-2c4e-4fc0-b5a4-a5590fad31d4)) - **Distinguishing Criticism and Anti-Semitism** - Criticizing Israel policies is not antisemitism; targeting Jews with harassment and violence is. - Political opposition and anti-Semitic acts must be differentiated to maintain nuanced discourse and justice. Transcript: Phil Vischer Not all good. Bad stuff happening. The crisis in Gaza is getting worse. There's a bunch of stories over the last week about starvation mounting in Gaza. So much so that it brought so much pressure that the Netanyahu government in Israel has finally agreed again to allow aid to pause to make a, what did they describe it? A tactical pause in hostilities so that some aid caravans can get in. So that's good. That's good. It took a long time to get that to happen. And there are so few Christians complaining. There are some. There are some notable voices. But in general, our tribe, my historic tribe, is so pro-Israel that we have a hard time bringing ourselves to say anything negative. But like everything they do must be God's will because it will somehow we don't want to mess up the end times. Skye Jethani I just, I have no imagination for that. I don't get it. I don't understand why innocent, starving children should be met with apathy, regardless of the identity of those kids. It just doesn't make sense to me. Phil Vischer Yeah. So Jill Jacobs wrote a piece for Religion News Service. She is the leader of an organization of rabbis and cantors. And she says she hears from members nearly every day about synagogues vandalized, bomb threats called in during services, visible Jews harassed on the street, and hateful comments Online and offline. This is a piece entitled Holding Israel Accountable Isn't Anti-Semitic, Harming Jews Is. She says, in the last few months, we witnessed several violent anti-Semitic incidents, some of which have turned deadly. Some have denied these violent attacks constitute anti-Semitism because the perpetrators allegedly acted out of solidarity with Palestinians. So it was political violence, not anti-Semitism. And she says on the flip side, some Jewish leaders have seized on the fact that two of the men shouted free Palestine in the course of their deadly attacks and declared this phrase itself To be anti-Semitic. And she objects to that as well. Free Palestine, when chanted at a rally to end the war, spray paint it on a sidewalk or written on a sign outside the Israeli embassy, is a political statement similar to Free Tibet. The phrase can encompass multiple views of what a free Palestine might look like and multiple strategies for how to achieve it. At the same time, few Americans would have trouble identifying a violent attack on a mosque or a Muslim community event as a bias crime. In other words, it's obvious. It's a bias crime, regardless of the politics of the imam or the community. Likewise, we should have no trouble identifying the recent violent attacks on Jewish community events and spaces as anti-Semitic. But not all opposition to Israel or Israeli policy is anti-Semitic. So she's looking for nuance. Skye Jethani She's going to be looking for a while. Phil Vischer Here we are again with the nuance thing. All people of conscience should be horrified by Israel's actions in Gaza, which have already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including thousands of children, provoked Widespread starvation and disease, and displaced nearly the entire population. Americans can and should protest the war. It is not anti-Semitic to advocate for changes in U.S. Policy toward Israel. But when anger about Israeli government policy spills over into harassment or violence directed at Jews in the United States or any other country, that's anti-Semitism. Right. Skye Jethani I don't understand why this is difficult for people either. Like protesting in front of the Israeli embassy. Phil Vischer Yeah. Fine. Skye Jethani Okay. I get it. Because you're critiquing a government policy. Phil Vischer Right. Protesting in front of a synagogue. Skye Jethani But American Jews- Different. American Jews are not responsible for the decisions of the Israeli government. They're not. No. They don't have connections? No. Well, I mean, some might, but to paint with such a broad brush is incredibly dumb. ([Time 0:23:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cbd32623-117c-48ba-82c7-2a21c7f6812c)) - **Engaging on Israel Conversations** - When discussing Israel-Palestine issues, ask why someone feels strongly pro-Israel to understand their viewpoint and find common ground. - Affirm their good motives before presenting different information to foster productive conversations. Transcript: Caitlin Schess Think it would be really helpful to ask some questions for why someone feels so strongly that Israel must be more in the right. Because to the point of what we said earlier, there might be people who are going, I think this is part of, you know, an end times plan. That's a very different conversation you might have biblically, theologically, politically than if someone says. I mean, I hear much more often than the dispensationalist thing. I just hear it says that people will be blessed if they bless Israel. And so we want to be, you know, a country that supports Israel. You could have a conversation about the difference between the people of God and the Old Testament and the modern nation state of Israel. But you could also just go to scripture and be like, how often does Israel do things it's not supposed to do? And God judges Israel for the things they're not supposed to do. Or it could be a purely political thing. It could be, this is the way I grew up. We always thought Israel was really important. I mean, there were so many retrospectives written in the turnover from Biden to Trump of just how different generations of Democrats have thought about Israel, depending on how close They were to the Holocaust and memories of the Holocaust. So asking questions, you might end up with someone who feels really strongly about this for reasons that make sense to you. And you can start from there and just affirm. Like sometimes what people are looking for is just I was taught this was important and it seems like you don't think this is important. If you can find a way to draw out what they think is important that you can affirm and then say, but here's some other things that I think are really important, or here's some other information That might change your position. People just knowing that you don't think they're stupid or evil for the position they hold, I think is a huge pathway to having a conversation where they might change their mind. So even if you end up going like your reasoning is wacky, but you get to a place where they're like, my dad taught me to care about this. Or as a kid, I remember us caring so much about Israel. Then at least you can find something to affirm. And if people feel like you think they're a good person with good values, you can help direct that into something that you think is a better conclusion. Not in a paternalistic way, but just in a like, let's find some common ground and let me treat you like a person that I believe you to be, who is, especially if you're talking to a fellow Christian, someone who wants to do God's will, someone who desires to know what the right thing is here. ([Time 0:34:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e2a8cc41-ea9d-48cc-99f4-ad6c7849df60)) - **Charisma, Stories, and Institutional Cycles** - Charismatic movements depend on compelling stories more than just leaders. - America fluctuates between eras of institutional creation and destruction influenced by these movements. Transcript: Skye Jethani The book looks at all kinds of charismatic movements, both religious and political, and how they've shaped our culture and what gives them so much power. Her central argument is that these movements are ultimately built on powerful stories and not just compelling leaders. And the current MAGA-Epstein crisis is putting that theory to the test. Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. In our conversation, we talk a bit about MAGA, but we also look at earlier movements in American history and why some of them were focused on building institutions while others were All about tearing them down. And we recorded a bonus interview about the rise of Pentecostalism in the U.S. About a century ago and the many other supernatural movements that emerged in that same era. That conversation is exclusively for Holy Post Plus subscribers. So again, to sign up for that, go to holypost.com. Here is my conversation with Molly Worthen. Molly Worthen, welcome to The Holy Post. Molly Worthen Thank you for having me. Skye Jethani Before we got on the air here, I was saying it was nice to meet you. And you reminded me that we had shared a car together at some point on some CT event. So I apologize for not remembering that. Your new book, Spellbound, is my kind of book because it's history. I love history I mean, you teach history, but there's a lot in here. You cover the entire scope of American history and the way charismatic movements and leaders have affected it. But towards the very end of the book, you talk about a couple of paradoxes that I think, I mean, you're summarizing the book, spoiler alert, but everyone should read the whole thing. I want to talk about some of those paradoxes as a way of kind of giving people a sense of what you mean by charismatic movements and leaders and all that. And the first one you talk about is the way that American history fluctuates between eras of creation and destruction with charismatic movements. I won't get into all the way you summarize that or the categories you use, but I think it's safe to say we are currently in an era of destruction, of kind of institutional decline, distrust, And a lot of powerful voices are calling for that and feeding off of people's distrust of those institutions. So here's my question to start off with. If we fluctuate between eras of creation and destruction, what do you think it takes to move us from this current era of destruction back to one of creation, where we have leaders and Movements that are about building things rather than just destroying them? Molly Worthen That's a great question. And you're absolutely right in that there's this way in which charismatic leaders need institutions. The institutions, traditions are their foil. They can't really exist outside of some relationship with these structures that have a different way of thinking about authority than what they represent in a kind of personal appeal To a transcendent story that they're inviting their followers into. And I think in previous eras of history, America has had perhaps a more balanced social and political and ideological ecosystem, so that there have certainly been leaders whose the Heart of their message is some kind of call to burn everything down and start again or radical revolutionary reform. But that message is coming through in a broader ecosystem of relatively healthy institutions. ([Time 0:45:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d66e2d33-2622-4b24-9769-fb78ebfe1e39)) - **Balance in Charismatic Movements** - Charismatic movements involve tension between desire for control and surrendering control to a leader or story. - Successful movements balance individual empowerment with submission to a meaningful narrative. Transcript: Skye Jethani It's probably the one that I found most intriguing as I looked at all these characters and movements that you described. And that is your understanding that charismatic movements are a tug of war of sorts between people wanting a sense of control and people needing to surrender control and submit to some Movement or leader or narrative that's important to them. A couple of quotes in your book. Right at the introduction, you talk about the persistent human desire to feel free and important while someone else is in charge. And then page 318, humans simultaneously want to control their lives and fold themselves into a bigger, more exciting narrative. I mean, this just rings absolutely true. And in some of the stories you tell, it felt like there were certain movements that really asked people to give up a lot of control, to surrender a lot. And those are the ones that feel more cult-like. And then there's others, which if there's so much individual control given over, which you talk about kind of later in the 20th century with Oprah Winfrey and all the other kind of management Gurus that are out there, that almost feels consumeristic because it puts so much control in the hands of the individual. When you look back at the ones you covered, did you feel like there were certain movements that got this recipe right? Not that there's some divine gold standard to this, but where the movement was healthiest because it had both a sense of individual empowerment, but also gave people a narrative that They surrendered to, which provided that greater sense of meaning and purpose? ([Time 0:57:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f93a2f54-dc0e-486f-a54d-efe497139fd0)) - **Charisma: More Story Than Charm** - Charisma involves polarizing figures and is more about the power of the transcendent story than just personal charm. - Followers commit to the story’s narrative, sometimes uprooting lives, beyond just the leader’s presence. Transcript: Molly Worthen So interesting. And I suppose one has to then ask a prior question, which is, what is our standard of success? What makes a charismatic leader successful? This is highly debatable. And in many ways, charismatic leaders, they more often crash and burn and end in, at least in the short term, failure. If we're judging by their ability to achieve their particular platform of social or political goals, then they do long term success. Because charisma, you know, it is a kind of authority that is more located in a personal relationship that a leader is cultivating with followers and a claim toward a kind of transcendent Set of qualifications and abilities in the eyes of the followers. It is a kind of authority that a would-be leader strives for if he or she is cut out of the more reliable forms of authority, right? If you have a major military force at your command, that is loyal to you for institutional reasons, because of your role in a structure, you don't need necessarily to make this appeal On high to some personal kind of anointing you have. I should back up though, and maybe flesh out a little bit my definition of charisma. Because I'm drafting off of the definition that we've used colloquially in English for about a century since the sociologist Max Weber took this term that had been purely a theological Term, charisma, in the sense that it's used in the New Testament to describe, you know, either God's free gift of grace to all saved Christians, or in the sense of specific spiritual Gifts, like Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians, the gift of speaking in tongues or prophecy and so forth. Max Weber takes that and he applies it much more broadly to politics as well as religion, and says it describes this kind of authority separate from the authority of institutions or Tradition. And it's premised in a leader's ability to persuade followers that he or she has this set of supernatural powers or achievements. And I think that Weber was very much onto something, but I guess I've taken his definition and tweaked it a bit. I went into this project thinking that I would be writing about individuals who were personally really compelling, great orators. They'd all be really good looking. You really have to kind of be there at the political rally or hearing the sermon to feel the power. And I realized as my research went on that I was confusing charisma with charm. And charm is part of the picture. There are certainly charismatic individuals who are really good at working the room in a cocktail party or a political fundraiser who can make you feel that you're the only one in the Room. But that interpersonal phenomenon is not by itself enough to launch a new religion or, you know, lead a mass political movement. Skye Jethani And it seemed like you profiled some people in this book that clearly lacked charm. Yes. They did not have the interpersonal qualities or even the physical qualities sometimes that you would associate with a dynamic leader. And yet they clearly had a charismatic impact and launched movements of people. So your point is really well taken. Molly Worthen Yeah. Or it emerged in my research that really the more reliable sign that someone is charismatic is that they are deeply polarizing. So that some people do find them immensely interpersonally magnetic, others find them repulsive. So, and this maybe is a good way of beginning to answer your question about success. I think perhaps one of the figures I write about who I would rank up there as a successful charismatic leader is Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And he is someone who, you know, some of our historical sources record to be immensely compelling personally. He was quite tall for the time, about six feet tall. He had electric blue eyes. One of his new converts said that just shaking his hand, she felt the Holy Spirit thrill her from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. But you can find just as many other records of skeptics meeting him and writing that, you know, this guy, why would anyone take him seriously? He's a clown. His hands are kind of weird and fat. I want nothing to do with him. And then you learn more about the early growth of the Mormon church. And you have to reckon with phenomena like the conversion of thousands of people in the British Isles to the Mormon faith, people who have never laid eyes on Joseph Smith. They have heard the story of him, of the discovery of the Book of Mormon, the Golden Plates, this new kind of Christian cosmology that re-centers the cosmic story on the new world. And they are so persuaded that they uproot their lives and move across the ocean thousands of miles to this tiny little town, Nauvoo, Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi to live With this prophet they've never met, right? So what's going on there? Clearly, it's a mistake to think it's all about Joseph Smith, the person. And this helped me solidify my hypothesis that the heart of charisma is really in the story and the story can travel. ([Time 0:59:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/571b120a-518e-41b6-8ea3-ee6c11302c7f)) - **Power of Story Over Leader** - Donald Trump's movement showcases the power of a conspiratorial story that may persist even if the leader contradicts it. - Followers resist abandoning a narrative that shapes their identity and view of the world. Transcript: Skye Jethani We are talking on the afternoon of July 17th. And you end the book or towards the end of the book, you talk about the rise of Donald Trump and his movement. And some people are speculating that that movement might be fracturing right now, because one of the central stories that that movement has been built on is one of a conspiracy theory Around elites, and it gets really gross really quickly, and Jeffrey Epstein. And it's fascinating to watch how Donald Trump and his followers are feuding with one another about this story. And I wonder if it's an example of a charismatic movement fracturing because it's turning in on itself. The very story that it was built on is being unfulfilled by its leader. I don't know if you've been watching the news or if this is just a cul-de that we're not going to be able to get through. If you've been watching the news, have you been looking at this story through your scholarship and what you uncovered in the writing of this book? And if so, what does it reveal to you? Molly Worthen That's so interesting. And I think it's probably still too early to tell whether this is just a kind of blip or whether it will really gain traction. But I think you're right. And I think the so far surprisingly sustained criticism of Trump by some of his most devoted followers over what they see as the suppression of this information that would further reveal The intricate conspiracy of child sex trafficking that they see as really at the heart of democratic elite activity, it is perhaps an example. It's a piece of evidence that shows us the way in which the story on which Donald Trump's charismatic appeal is built is more powerful and about more than him as an individual. Right. And we're at a point where he is acting kind of in he's contravening the story. And that's what's creating the tension. Skye Jethani So he kind of came onto the scene in a way politically using the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not actually born in the United States and therefore was an illegitimate president. Throughout different steps in his political career, he has cited different conspiracy theories, and they all share the commonality of the elites, or more specifically, the Democratic Elites are not telling you the truth, and they're manipulating the government and the society for their benefit, and you are the victims of this. Of course, the big lie, the Stop the Ste movement in 2020, the whole election was stolen, one thing after another, but they all play on that same trope. And the Democrats are demonic pedophiles who drink the blood of children. I mean, that sounds almost crazy, but that's a well-traveled story in a lot of MAGA circles. And so the Jeffrey Epstein thing and the Trump administration refusal to release any documents or who are now saying it's there's no there there and all the conspiracy. It's a it's a central pillar of that charismatic movement. And their leader is saying, just forget about it. Don't worry, just move on. But it feels to me like if you don't validate that for your followers, will they begin to question the other conspiracy theories that also rely on the foundation of a grand conspiracy By democratic elites? So I don't know. It's a fascinating moment, just having read your book, to watch this unfold and go, yeah, the story may be more powerful than the leader. ([Time 1:09:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/04b542a2-acea-49fc-bba2-bba24cc9be23)) - **Persistent Hunger for Transcendence** - Secularization hasn’t diminished human hunger for supernatural connection; charismatic religion thrives alongside growing secularism. - Religious impulse will express through various cultural and political channels even without formal institutions. Transcript: Molly Worthen The book is really about both kinds of charisma. It's about charisma in the sense of a political or religious leader's ability to foment a large movement and activate people. But it's also about charisma in that original New Testament sense. Unbidden, uncontrollable expressions of, I mean, what religion scholars used to call enthusiasm. That's the kind of old fashioned word that I still rather like for it. And often, these are expressions that have been labeled by other people in quote unquote mainstream society as weird and bizarre. I'm trying to suggest in the book that in every period, including our own, it's more fruitful and accurate to talk about a continuum and to see that hunger for contact with the supernatural, A sense that God is tapping you on the shoulder and selecting you to be his tool, his agent. I mean, that has this very straightforward manifestation in, say, a Pentecostal worship service. But the underlying hunger and dynamics are not totally different from what we see unfolding in relationships that people who think of themselves as quite secular might have with a Movement that really activates them. And we can make that observation without sort of going off the deep end and calling everything religion. And so I think kind of setting aside the question of what is or is not God's supernatural action in the world, I think that that hunger doesn't go away. Now, why is it that in our own time, this supposedly secular age, both worldwide and to a large extent in the secular post-Christian West, those forms of Christianity that are the most Vital, that are growing or at least expressing themselves vibrantly, These are not churches that have compromised, that have translated themselves most deftly into the rational Scientific idiom of modern Western elite establishment authority. Rather, these are highly supernatural, you know, quote, unquote, pre-modern expressions of religion. And I write in the book about what I think is kind of the most underappreciated revival of the past 100 years, which is the Toronto Blessing. Skye Jethani Which was a really interesting chapter. Yeah. Molly Worthen Yeah. And it's this major Pentecostal charismatic revival that, I mean, people will pinpoint the beginning of it in 1994 in Toronto. Like with all revivals, there are always kind of streams feeding into that moment. But it really supercharged the global expansion of charismatic and Pentecostal worship. It's not a political story, but it certainly has connections that are very important to the rise of Trump and this sort of complicated role that independent charismatic churches play In our politics, I think deserves a lot of nuance. So in some ways, we could say that the fact that, you know, if your neighbor is busy speaking in tongues and prophesying in his or her backyard, and you no longer call the police, you no Longer, you know, think you need an exorcism, is that perhaps a sign that indeed, religion is a weak force, right? It's not something that people take seriously. We treat it as one another's hobby. I think that strain in our culture coexists with a way in which these religious expressions have as much power or more than they ever did, especially because untethered from institutions, Kind of undisciplined by robust church structures, traditions, modes of interrogating, you know, the message that you think you are getting directly from God, it is perhaps too easy For this urgent sense of supernatural anointing to translate into a call for political action that does not necessarily get as much kind of disciplining and questioning as it merits. So, you know, I think we live in a complicated time where formal religion is, you know, simultaneously in some ways a weaker social force, certainly, than in previous generations. But in other ways, it has this kind of unexpected bite. And we need to take it seriously and understand that humans are in this fundamental way, religious creatures, wired to worship, wired for a transcendent connection. And that is true, whether you think of yourself as a, you know, secular atheist or a devout member of a religious body. And that I don't think is a feature of human nature that will ever go away. ([Time 1:16:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/517be92b-e81d-44ff-8643-c1eaeb3169b6))