The Conservative Takeover of the Southern Baptists, and Jared Kushner’s New Book

The Conservative Takeover of the Southern Baptists, and Jared Kushner’s New Book

On this week’s episode of Start Making Sense, Sarah Posner explains how the Baptists became conservative, and Amy Wilentz comments on Jared’s White House memoir.

Jon Wiener and Start Making Sense
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The transformation of the Southern Baptist Convention into a powerful right-wing political force developed over the last 50 years. Before 1973, when abortion became a constitutional right, the Southern Baptists did not have a political position on abortion. Then came what they call the “conservative resurgence”—we call it the “fundamentalist takeover.” Sarah Posner explains that history. Her book Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind” is out now in paperback.

Also on this episode, a new installment of “The Children’s Hour”: stories about Ivanka, Jared, Don Junior and Little Eric. This week: Jared writes a book! He called it Breaking History. We have comment from our chief Jared correspondent, Amy Wilentz.

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Jon Wiener Jon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


Start Making Sense Start Making Sense is The Nation’s podcast, hosted by Jon Wiener and coproduced by the Los Angeles Review of Books. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes each Thursday.  


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