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How does religious messaging affect voter attitudes towards a candidate? Prof. Jeremy Castle (Central Michigan University) discusses some experimental research he conducted on this topic with a number of colleagues and shares observations on a wide range of factors that affect how individuals vote. We discuss the political and social attitudes of Millennial evangelicals, and how religious rhetoric played out during the 2016 presidential election. Jeremy also chats about his work on whether or not political messages in movies have an impact on individuals.

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With all the tumult in the American political landscape recently, is the United States pump primed for a Christian Democratic party similar to those in Europe? Three scholars debate this topic based upon a scholarly symposium published in the journal “Perspectives on Political Science.” Prof. Hunter Baker (Union University), the organizer of the symposium, argues that the time is right for Christian Democracy in America. Prof. Bryan McGraw (Wheaton College) notes that while Christian Democracy (CD) was helpful in Europe for consolidating democracy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the conditions in the U.S. are not ripe for CD. Finally, Prof. Micah Watson (Calvin College) takes a decidedly negative position towards the concept of CD. Your host, Tony, chimes in with his own thoughts at the end.

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What is our purpose in life? How do we find it? While the good folks at Research on Religion would like to provide you with a definitive answer to that question, we can only offer you up a sociological analysis of how people search for meaning to their lives. Prof. Paul Froese (Baylor University) helps us with this task as he talks about his newest book, “On Purpose: How We Create the Meaning of Life.” Our journey includes everybody from Jesus to King Missile and from Tony Robbins to a pig who just doesn’t care.

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What do public school teachers think about the ability to exercise religious expression in the classroom? Prof. Laura Olson of Clemson University discusses her study on the attitudes teachers have towards the free exercise clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Dr. Olson contextualizes this issue in recent Supreme Court cases and the a decision by a public employee in Kentucky to refuse issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. We also discuss religious voting trends in light of the upcoming 2016 presidential election.

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How have evangelical Christians been involved in politics ever since evangelical Christians have been around. Studying how these religious individuals become involved in elections and social movements has largely been the fodder of sociologists and political scientists, but our guest — Nathanael Snow, a graduate student in economics at George Mason University — focuses the lens of public choice theory to understand how evangelical politics have changed over time. We learn what public choice theory is, why it can apply to religious groups, and the history of evangelical involvement in U.S. politics from the mid-19th century forward. Nathanael

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