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Flipping Tables

Monte Mader

Monte, a former alt. right evangelical takes deep dive discussions on evangelical deconstruction, current events and American history, and what the Bible actually said. Follow her journey from fundamentalist conservativism to progressive ideals, the words of Christ and how to stay active during this moment in history

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  • 23 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 26 min
  • English

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  • Monday · 1 hr 44 min

    74. Just Because I'm a Woman: The Life and Legacy of Dolly Parton

    I cried a lot of tears when we lost Dolly and also writing this script. WHAT A LEGACY! This week on Flipping Tables, we celebrate the life, love, and legacy of Dolly Rebecca Parton. We will cover her childhood of growing up in poverty, her iconic music career, movies, books and most of all- her generosity. Dolly could have been a billionaire and chose to help people instead giving upwards of $600 million dollars throughout the course of her life. Dolly was an example of how to be superstar who was known most of all by her love. Sources: Full source list on patreon.com/montemader Anderson, E. J., et al. (2020, December 17). Safety and immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-1273 vaccine in older adults. New England Journal of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2028436 ABC News. (2026, March 13). Dolly Parton shares health update at 2026 Dollywood park opening. https://abcnews.com/GMA/Culture/dolly-parton-shares-health-update-2026-dollywood-park/story?id=131063621 ABC News. (2026, August 25). Dolly Parton's family shares her final message amid news of her death. https://abcnews.com/GMA/Family/dolly-partons-family-shares-final-message-amid-news/story?id=135948668 ABC News. (2026, August 26). Dolly Parton's legacy of giving: Inside her decades of philanthropy. https://abcnews.com/GMA/Culture/dolly-partons-legacy-giving-inside-decades-philanthropy/story?id=135947174 Afar. (2020). New Nashville mural highlights Dolly Parton's Black Lives Matter quote. https://www.afar.com/magazine/nashville-mural-highlights-dolly-partons-black-lives-matter-quote American Eagle Foundation. (n.d.). Dollywood. https://eagles.org/dollywood/ American Songwriter. (n.d.). Behind the major financial risk Porter Wagoner took when RCA signed Dolly Parton. https://americansongwriter.com/behind-the-major-financial-risk-porter-wagoner-took-when-rca-signed-dolly-parton/ American Songwriter. (n.d.). The first song Dolly Parton wrote at age 5 with the help of her mother, "Little Tiny Tassel Top." https://americansongwriter.com/the-first-song-dolly-parton-wrote-at-age-5-wrote-with-the-help-of-her-mother-little-tiny-tassel-top/ American Songwriter. (n.d.). On this day in 1975, Dolly Parton released one of her most underrated (and controversial) career hits—banned by radio over one single lyric. https://americansongwriter.com/on-this-day-in-1975-dolly-parton-released-one-of-her-most-underrated-and-controversial-career-hits-banned-by-radio-over-one-single-lyric/ Appalachian Regional Commission. (n.d.). Education in Appalachia. https://www.arc.gov/about-the-appalachian-region/the-chartbook/education-in-appalachia/ Appalachian Regional Commission. (n.d.). High-poverty counties in Appalachia, 1960 and 2019–2023. https://arc.gov/map/high-poverty-counties-in-appalachia-1960-and-2019-2023/ Appalachian Regional Commission. (n.d.). Income and poverty in Appalachia. https://www.arc.gov/about-the-appalachian-region/the-chartbook/income-and-poverty-in-appalachia/ Appalachian Regional Development Act. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 29, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Regional_Development_Act Axios Nashville. (2026, August 27). Dolly Parton's philanthropy extended far beyond books. https://www.axios.com/local/nashville/2026/08/27/dolly-parton-philanthropy-donations The Bargain Store (song). (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 29, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bargain_Store_(song) Billboard. (n.d.). A timeline of Dolly Parton's good deeds. https://www.billboard.com/lists/dolly-parton-good-deeds-timeline/ Billboard. (2024, November 15). Dolly Parton's brother David Parton dies. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/dolly-parton-brother-david-parton-dies-obituary-1235831296 Billboard. (2026, July 27). Dolly Parton's older brother Coy "Denver" Parton dies at 82. https://www.billboard.com/music/country/dolly-parton-brother-coy-denver-parton-dies-1236304122/

  • August 24 · 1 hr 19 min

    73. Evangelical Manosphere with Tim Whitaker

    check out Tim on substack! https://substack.com/@timwhitakerspeaks/p-209161563 Tim and I share similar stories about leaving evangelicalism around a lot of the same reasons- but how do we get to the young men? Men, especially at a young age, are being pulled into the manosphere, extreme conservatism, and Christian fundamentalism. Today we talk about how the movement pulls them in, weaponizes their loneliness and anger, and keep them trapped. Learn more about our stories, how we got out and how to reach young men in the movement.

  • August 17 · 1 hr 54 min

    72. Nelson Mandela Part 2

    “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” - Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born July 18th, 1918 in Mvezo, Transkei, into the Madiba clan of the Thembu royal house. His father, a chief, was stripped of office by a colonial magistrate for refusing to answer to colonial authority. Raised after his father's death as ward of the Thembu regent, he underwent Xhosa initiation at sixteen and took the name Dalibunga. He was expelled from Fort Hare in 1940 for a student boycott, fled an arranged marriage to Johannesburg, and qualified in law. He joined the ANC in 1943 and co-founded its Youth League, pushing the organization from petitions toward mass action. He served as Volunteer-in-Chief of the 1952 Defiance Campaign and opened South Africa's first Black law firm with Oliver Tambo. After the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and the banning of the ANC foreclosed legal protest, he went underground and co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, the movement's armed wing. Arrested in 1962 and tried at Rivonia, he opened his defense from the dock in 1964, calling a free and democratic society an ideal he was prepared to die for. He received life imprisonment and served 27 years — most of it on Robben Island as prisoner 466/64, breaking limestone in a quarry that permanently damaged his eyes, denied leave to bury his mother and his eldest son. He refused conditional release in 1985, answering that a prisoner cannot negotiate. Freed in 1990, he steered negotiations through near-civil war, shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk, and became president in May 1994 after the first non-racial election. His single term produced the 1996 Constitution and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He stepped down in 1999, in a region where liberation leaders rarely did. The unfinished business was economic: the Freedom Charter's redistributive commitments were traded away, land reform stalled, inequality endured. He admitted his government moved too slowly on HIV/AIDS, then spent his last years campaigning on it. He died 5 December 2013, aged 95. References Boehmer, E. (2008). Nelson Mandela: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Chikane, F. (1988). No life of my own: An autobiography. Skotaville. Frankel, P. (2001). An ordinary atrocity: Sharpeville and its massacre. Yale University Press. Gevisser, M. (2007). Thabo Mbeki: The dream deferred. Jonathan Ball. Gordimer, N. (1990). My son's story. Bloomsbury. Kathrada, A. (2004). Memoirs. Zebra Press. Lodge, T. (2006). Mandela: A critical life. Oxford University Press. Madikizela-Mandela, W. (1985). Part of my soul went with him (A. Benjamin & M. Benson, Eds.). W. W. Norton. Madikizela-Mandela, W. (2013). 491 days: Prisoner number 1323/69. Ohio University Press. Mandela, N. (1964). Statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the Rivonia Trial, Pretoria Supreme Court, 20 April 1964. Mandela, N. (1994). Long walk to freedom: The autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Mandela, N. (2010). Conversations with myself. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Mandela, N. (2018). The prison letters of Nelson Mandela (S. Venter, Ed.). Liveright. Meredith, M. (2010). Mandela: A biography (rev. ed.). PublicAffairs. Sampson, A. (1999). Mandela: The authorised biography. HarperCollins. Steinberg, J. (2023). Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a marriage. Alfred A. Knopf. Suttner, R. (2008). The ANC underground in South Africa, 1950-1976. Jacana. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. (1998). Report (Vols. 1-5). Juta. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. (1997). Special hearing: Mandela United Football Club, Johannesburg, 24 November - 4 December 1997. Umkhonto we Sizwe. (1961). Manifesto, 16 December 1961.

  • August 10 · 1 hr 49 min

    71. Nelson Mandela Part 1- The History of Apartheid

    Trigger warning: extreme racial violence and discrimination Thank you to patreon supporters for making this episode possible: patreon.com/montemader The Dutch arrived at the Cape in 1652, dispossessing the Khoikhoi and San and building a slave economy racially ordered from the start. Britain took over in 1806; abolition in 1834 helped drive the Boer Great Trek inland. Diamonds (1867) and Witwatersrand gold (1886) demanded cheap Black labor, producing pass laws, migrant labor, and compounds — apartheid's machinery in embryo. The 1910 Union unified white rule and excluded Black voters; the 1913 Natives Land Act confined the African majority to 7% of the land. The ANC formed in 1912. The National Party won in 1948 and codified segregation into a total system: race classification for every citizen, forced removals from Sophiatown and District Six, an education policy designed to train Black children for subordination, and Bantustans that stripped millions of citizenship. Sharpeville (1960) ended nonviolent strategy; Mandela was imprisoned in 1964. Soweto (1976) and the 1980s township revolts made the country ungovernable. Sanctions forced De Klerk to unban the ANC in 1990. Apartheid law was repealed in 1991, and the first nonracial election came in April 1994. Sources: Beinart, W. (2001). Twentieth-century South Africa (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Bundy, C. (1979). The rise and fall of the South African peasantry. University of California Press. Callinicos, L. (1980). Gold and workers, 1886-1924. Ravan Press. Crais, C., & Scully, P. (2009). Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A ghost story and a biography. Princeton University Press. Davenport, T. R. H., & Saunders, C. (2000). South Africa: A modern history (5th ed.). Macmillan. De Gruchy, J. W., & De Gruchy, S. (2005). The church struggle in South Africa (3rd ed.). Fortress Press. Dubow, S. (2014). Apartheid, 1948-1994. Oxford University Press. Elphick, R., & Giliomee, H. (Eds.). (1989). The shaping of South African society, 1652-1840 (2nd ed.). Wesleyan University Press. Giliomee, H. (2003). The Afrikaners: Biography of a people. University of Virginia Press. Hobhouse, E. (1901). Report of a visit to the camps of women and children in the Cape and Orange River Colonies. Legassick, M., & Wolpe, H. (1976). The bantustans and capital accumulation in South Africa. Review of African Political Economy, 3(7), 87-107. Lodge, T. (1983). Black politics in South Africa since 1945. Ravan Press. Lodge, T. (2011). Sharpeville: An apartheid massacre and its consequences. Oxford University Press. Mager, A., & Mulaudzi, M. (2011). Popular responses to apartheid, 1948-c.1975. In R. Ross, A. Mager, & B. Nasson (Eds.), The Cambridge history of South Africa (Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press. Marks, S., & Rathbone, R. (Eds.). (1982). Industrialisation and social change in South Africa. Longman. Peires, J. B. (1989). The dead will arise: Nongqawuse and the great Xhosa cattle-killing movement of 1856-7. Ravan Press. Plaatje, S. T. (1916). Native life in South Africa. P. S. King & Son. Platzky, L., & Walker, C. (1985). The surplus people: Forced removals in South Africa. Ravan Press. Ross, R. (2008). A concise history of South Africa (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Sanders, J. (2006). Apartheid's friends: The rise and fall of South Africa's secret service. South Africa. (1913). Natives Land Act, No. 27 of 1913. South Africa. (1950). Population Registration Act, No. 30 of 1950. South Africa. (1950). Suppression of Communism Act, No. 44 of 1950. South Africa. (1953). Bantu Education Act, No. 47 of 1953. South Africa. (1967). Terrorism Act, No. 83 of 1967. Thompson, L. (1985). The political mythology of apartheid. Yale University Press. Thompson, L. (2014). A history of South Africa (4th ed.). Yale University Press. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. (1998). Wolpe, H. (1972). Economy and Society, 1(4), 425-456.

  • August 3 · 1 hr 18 min

    70. The Opium Wars

    **Get episodes ad free and support the show at patreon.com/montemader** We've been hearing a LOT of red scare language lately, this time- directed at China. Tennessee gubernatorial hopeful Marsha Blackburn, released a campaign ad smashing fortune cookies so that we could know she would be tough on China (ok Marsha). So WHY does China have beef? It turns out, China has a very good reason to resent and distrust the UK and its rogue stepchild, the United States. In the 19th century, Britain needed Chinese silk, porcelain, and tea and China needed nothing Britain made. The trade deficit was embarrassing. And while Britain kept spending money, China kept getting richer. So the British East India Company found a solution: flood China with opium grown in colonized India (using forced labor and leaving people in abject poverty of course). As China fell to addiction the silver that purchased the opium funneled through the East India Trading Company and into the British governments coffers. By the 1830s, an estimated 12 million Chinese people were addicted. Silver was flowing out of China to pay for the drug, destabilizing the entire economy. When the Chinese government saw the population hollowing out in real time, they seized and destroyed 1,400 tons of British opium in 1839. Britain declared war under the guise of free trade, national honor and to protect it citizens and property. It was actually to protect its drug trade and poison China. The military mismatch was obscene. British gunships dismantled Chinese coastal defenses built for a different era. China had no answer for industrial-age firepower. The 1842 Treaty of Nanking forced China to pay Britain the equivalent of billions in reparations (for the drugs Britain had illegally smuggled into their country), hand over Hong Kong, and open five ports to foreign control. Britain had gone to war for the right to keep selling heroin to a country that was begging it to stop. A second war followed in 1856 had the same results but added granting legal immunity from Chinese law on Chinese soil. For breaking laws like, smuggling drugs. The Chinese call this the beginning of the "Century of Humiliation." A sovereign civilization was militarily forced to accept mass addiction as a trade term. China was flooded with drugs intentionally, brutalized with war, robbed and told they were in the wrong. They have a DAMN good reason to distrust the west, and most of us, never hear this story. Sources: (full list on patreon) CDC/National Center for Health Statistics. (2026). Drug overdose death statistics https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm Dikotter, F., Laamann, L., & Zhou, X. (2004). Narcotic culture: A history of drugs in China. University of Chicago Press. Fay, P. W. (1975). The Opium War, 1840-1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire University of North Carolina Press Gladstone, W. E. (1840). The Gladstone diaries (M. R. D. Foot & H. C. G. Matthew, Eds., Vol. 3). Oxford University Press. Gordon, C. G. (1860). Letters from China [Primary source correspondence]. In D. C. Boulger, The Life of Gordon (1896). T. Fisher Unwin. Hanes, W. T., III, & Sanello, F. (2002). The Opium Wars: The addiction of one empire and the corruption of another. Sourcebooks. Hansard. (1840, April 8). War with China: Adjourned debate. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., vol. 53, cc. 818-920. Hansard. (1870, May 10). East India (opium revenue). Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., vol. 201, cc. 489-512. Lin, Z. (1839). Letter to Queen Victoria [Primary source document]. In S. Y. Teng & J. K. Fairbank (Eds.), Lovell, J. (2011). The Opium War: Drugs, dreams and the making of China. Picador. Platt, S. R. (2018). Imperial twilight: The Opium War and the end of China's last golden age. Alfred A. Knopf. Porter, J., & Jick, H. (1980). Addiction rare in patients treated with narcotics. New England Journal of Medicine, 302(2), 123. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198001103020221

  • July 27 · 1 hr 39 min

    69. UnCULTured with Daniella Mestyanek Young

    You can go to www.knittinglady.com to see Daniella's work and get her books "Uncultured" and "The Culting of America" Have you ever wondered how people fall into cults? How do otherwise smart, caring, reasonable people end up finding a leader they would do ANYTHING for? Including offering up their children. What is a cult, and how do we get rid of them? Daniella was born a third-generation member of the infamous Children of God religious cult, and grew up being trafficked around the world, before escaping that life and moving to America at age 15. She put herself through high school and graduated as college valedictorian before commissioning into the US Army as an intelligence officer. That’s where she really started to think about group behavior…and seeing it, well, everywhere. Daniella deployed twice to Afghanistan (2011, 2014) and became a member of one of the Army’s first Female Engagement teams (an experiment that put women into deliberate ground combat for the first time in Army history, and eventually led to the repeal of the sexist combat ban and the gender desegregation of the entire US military). She is a proud daughter of the 101st, (that's the unit in Band of Brothers), a recipient of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award (from Obama, y'all), and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Organizational Psychology at the Harvard Extension School (she focuses her research on group behavior, social norms, culture, extremism, leadership demagoguery and cults).

  • July 21 · 1 hr 39 min

    68. The History of Birth Control

    Birth control has a long history in America. In colonial times, people relied on withdrawal, herbal remedies, and homemade barriers, though few spoke about it openly. During the 1800s, condoms became more practical after Charles Goodyear learned to vulcanize rubber in 1839, and diaphragms and douches came into use as well. This progress met resistance. In 1873, the Comstock Act made it a crime to send contraceptives or information about them through the mail, treating the subject as obscene and pushing it out of public view. The movement took shape through Margaret Sanger. She opened the first birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1916 and gave the practice its name. Her organization eventually became Planned Parenthood. The legal walls came down slowly. A 1936 court ruling weakened the Comstock restrictions and allowed doctors to prescribe contraceptives. The turning point came in 1960, when the FDA approved the first birth control pill. The Pill gave women far more control over their own lives and became a defining part of the decade that followed. The courts soon caught up. In Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that married couples had a right to use contraception. In 1972, Eisenstadt v. Baird extended that right to unmarried people. The years after brought more options: the IUD, hormonal implants, and emergency contraception such as Plan B, which later became available over the counter. In 2010, the Affordable Care Act required most insurance plans to cover contraception at no cost, a rule that drew legal challenges over religious objections. Contraception is still a subject of political debate. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, questions returned about the privacy rulings that once secured the right to birth control, and its future remains uncertain. References (full list on patreon) Avery, B. Y. (1991). Empowerment through wellness. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 4(1), 147–154. Baker, J. H. (2011). Margaret Sanger: A life of passion. Hill and Wang. Balmer, R. (2021). Bad faith: Race and the rise of the religious right. Eerdmans. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014). Center for Constitutional Rights. (2021, February 1). Black liberation archives, week 1: Fannie Lou Hamer taught us. https://ccrjustice.org/home/blog/2021/02/01/black-liberation-archives-week-1-fannie-lou-hamer-taught-us Christianity Knowledge Base. (2005). Contraception. https://christianity.fandom.com/wiki/Contraception Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. (2017). Taking the unintended out of pregnancy: Colorado’s success with long-acting reversible contraception. Commonwealth Fund. (2025, December 16). Overview of federally funded contraceptive programs. Issue Briefs. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2025/dec/overview-federally-funded-contraceptive-programs D’Emilio, J., & Freedman, E. B. (2012). Intimate matters: A history of sexuality in America (3rd ed.). University of Chicago Press. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022). Eisenberg, M. L., & Lipshultz, L. I. (2010). Estimating the number of vasectomies performed annually in the United States: Data from the National Survey of Family Growth. Journal of Urology, 184(5), 2068–2072. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2010.06.117 Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972). Franks, A. (2020, July 28). Margaret Sanger’s extreme brand of eugenics. America Magazine. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/07/28/margaret-sangers-extreme-brand-eugenics/ Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). Guttmacher Institute. (2023). Contraceptive use in the United States [Fact sheet]. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states Guttmacher Institute. (2025, September). The right is waging a quiet war on contraception. Jones, R. K., & Dreweke, J. (2011). Countering conventional wisdom: New evidence on religion and contraceptive use.

  • July 13 · 1 hr 14 min

    67. Did God Do That or Did Men? Part 2

    Part 2 of my two part series about how women were written out of authority and a few rungs down the ladder of hierarchy in the church and in Christian Nationalism but also the history of how propaganda was weaponized against faith communities to build the power system we see happening. We have to know it and name it to fight back. And if you are a person of faith you have to be vocal about reclaiming it. In this episode, we continue through the invention of virginity, the need to control reproduction to control wealth. The history of female leadership in the church, how it was intentionally translated out of the Bible in order to justify removing women from leadership and subjugating them. And the 20th century push of the weaponization of wedge issues against feminism, abortion, and gay rights to help people defend racism and school segregation. I hope that you enjoy! Full source list on patreon.com/montemader Sources: Primary Documents and Legal Records • Treaty of Tripoli (1797), Article 11. Ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate, June 7, 1797. Full text, Avalon Project, Yale Law School. • Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (the Jefferson Bible), c. 1820. Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Primary source. • Public Law 84-274, "Under God" added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Signed June 14, 1954. • Public Law 84-851, "In God We Trust" established as national motto. Signed July 30, 1956. • Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983). Supreme Court ruling. • Reagan, Ronald. "Evil Empire" speech, March 8, 1983, National Association of Evangelicals, Orlando, FL. Reagan Presidential Library. • Southern Baptist Convention resolutions on abortion, 1971, 1974, 1976. Available through SBC Historical Commission archives. Patristic and Early Church Sources • Socrates Scholasticus. Historia Ecclesiastica (Church History), Book VII, Chapter 15, c. 439 CE. English translation, NPNF (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers) Series. • Damascius. Life of Isidore (fragments), c. early 6th century CE. Names Cyril in connection with Hypatia's death. • John of Nikiu. Chronicle, Chapter 84, c. 690 CE. Pro-Cyril secondary source. • Tertullian. De Cultu Feminarum (On the Apparel of Women), c. 204 CE. • Chrysostom, John. Homilies on Romans, Homily 31 (on Romans 16:1-4). • Augustine of Hippo. De Genesi ad Litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis), c. 401-415 CE. • Council of Laodicea (363-364 CE), Canon 11. • Pope Gregory I. Homily 33 on the Gospels, 591 CE. The sermon conflating Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman of Luke 7. On Biblical Scholarship and the Pastoral Epistles • Ehrman, Bart D. Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We — 37 — Flipping Tables — “Divine Protection… For Men” Think They Are. HarperOne, 2011. • Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. Doubleday, 1997. • Johnson, Luke Timothy. The First and Second Letters to Timothy. Anchor Yale Bible, 2001. • Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. NICNT, Eerdmans, 1987. (Interpolation argument for 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.) • Epp, Eldon Jay. Junia: The First Woman Apostle. Fortress Press, 2005. On Women in the Early Church • Gupta, Nijay K. Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church. InterVarsity Press, 2023.

  • July 6 · 1 hr 27 min

    66. Did God Do That or Did Men? Part 1

    In last week's episode, I had a LOT of questions around "How did we even get here?" "How did women get written into this system that way?" "Why are women buying into this movement?" "WHY WOULD WOMEN AGREE TO GIVE UP THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE?" Quick note: take the repeal of the 19th Amendment seriously. It serves two purposes: 1. To normalize it so when they come for it, it doesn't sound as crazy as it used to. 2. By shifting the Overton window, when they propose other parts of their agenda, it sounds less crazy and sets off fewer alarm bells. So I wanted to do a two-part series about how women were written out of authority and a few rungs down the ladder of hierarchy in the church and in Christian Nationalism but also the history of how propaganda was weaponized against faith communities to build the power system we see happening. We have to know it and name it to fight back. And if you are a person of faith you have to be vocal about reclaiming it. In this episode, we go through the invention of virginity, the need to control reproduction to control wealth. The history of female leadership in the church, how it was intentionally translated out of the Bible in order to justify removing women from leadership and subjugating them. And the 20th century push of the weaponization of wedge issues against feminism, abortion, and gay rights to help people defend racism and school segregation. I hope that you enjoy! Full source list on patreon.com/montemader Sources: Primary Documents and Legal Records • Treaty of Tripoli (1797), Article 11. Ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate, June 7, 1797. Full text, Avalon Project, Yale Law School. • Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (the Jefferson Bible), c. 1820. Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Primary source. • Public Law 84-274, "Under God" added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Signed June 14, 1954. • Public Law 84-851, "In God We Trust" established as national motto. Signed July 30, 1956. • Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983). Supreme Court ruling. • Reagan, Ronald. "Evil Empire" speech, March 8, 1983, National Association of Evangelicals, Orlando, FL. Reagan Presidential Library. • Southern Baptist Convention resolutions on abortion, 1971, 1974, 1976. Available through SBC Historical Commission archives. Patristic and Early Church Sources • Socrates Scholasticus. Historia Ecclesiastica (Church History), Book VII, Chapter 15, c. 439 CE. English translation, NPNF (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers) Series. • Damascius. Life of Isidore (fragments), c. early 6th century CE. Names Cyril in connection with Hypatia's death. • John of Nikiu. Chronicle, Chapter 84, c. 690 CE. Pro-Cyril secondary source. • Tertullian. De Cultu Feminarum (On the Apparel of Women), c. 204 CE. • Chrysostom, John. Homilies on Romans, Homily 31 (on Romans 16:1-4). • Augustine of Hippo. De Genesi ad Litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis), c. 401-415 CE. • Council of Laodicea (363-364 CE), Canon 11. • Pope Gregory I. Homily 33 on the Gospels, 591 CE. The sermon conflating Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman of Luke 7. On Biblical Scholarship and the Pastoral Epistles • Ehrman, Bart D. Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We — 37 — Flipping Tables — “Divine Protection… For Men” Think They Are. HarperOne, 2011. • Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. Doubleday, 1997. • Johnson, Luke Timothy. The First and Second Letters to Timothy. Anchor Yale Bible, 2001. • Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. NICNT, Eerdmans, 1987. (Interpolation argument for 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.) • Epp, Eldon Jay. Junia: The First Woman Apostle. Fortress Press, 2005. On Women in the Early Church • Gupta, Nijay K. Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church. InterVarsity Press, 2023.

  • June 29 · 1 hr 43 min

    65. Responding to TPUSA Women’s Conference

    Turning Point USA led a womens leadership conference in June which brought women of all ages together to tell them... not to lead. They lied about things like the witch trials saying that it was the trials that were first wave feminism and they were killing those women because of abortions and that feminist historians recorded the accounts of the slaugher we know. NONE of that is true. For all their chatter about faith they have no issue lying. We saw career women waiting to have children telling girls to have "more children than you can afford, before you're ready". White children specifically mind you. I thought Dr. Barr would be the best resource to help me respond to these statements. Beth Allison Barr is an American historian who is currently the James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Her specialities include European women, Medieval & Early Modern England, and church history. She is also the author of "The Making of Biblical Womanhood" and "Becoming the Pastors Wife"

  • June 22 · 1 hr 31 min

    64. The Joy of Resistance

    Thank you to the patrons who make this possible! patreon.com/montemader When everything feels impossible (and lately at times it has) when power concentrates, institutions bend, and the news is a daily gut-punch, we're told that joy is irresponsible. That real resistance has to be grim all the time or you aren't doing it right. Thats not true. Joy. Art. Music. Song. Are all integral components of resistances that change the course of history. In this (almost) two-hour episode, lets traces ten stories across 2,000 years of human history where people under siege, during empire collapse, fascist occupation, genocide, and authoritarian rule, chose joy anyway. Not as escape but as the most radical act available to them. From enslaved gladiators who built a free community on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, to early Christians throwing communal dinner parties in Roman catacombs, to Parisian workers running a utopian government for 72 days before being massacred, to Jewish fighters holding a Passover Seder the night before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began (and more): this episode is a historical time traveling journey in how joy functions as survival, identity, and resistance network. I hope it encourages me the way it encourages you. It's only when we remember the joy of living that we find the courage to resist. Recommended Books for further reading if these stories inspired you: Spartacus Barry Strauss, The Spartacus War (Simon & Schuster, 2009) Aldo Schiavone, Spartacus (2013) Early Christians & the Catacombs Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harper & Row, 1987) The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, trans. Maureen Tilley (Fortress Press) Paris Commune John Merriman, Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune of 1871 (Basic Books, 2014) Louise Michel, The Red Virgin: Memoirs of Louise Michel, ed. Bullitt Lowry & Elizabeth Ellington Gunter (1981) Harlem Renaissance David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (Knopf, 1981) Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1940) Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925) Danish Rescue of the Jews Bo Lidegaard, Countrymen (Knopf, 2013) Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (Viking Press, 1963) Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Samuel D. Kassow, Who Will Write Our History? (Indiana University Press, 2007) Israel Gutman, Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Houghton Mifflin, 1994) Emanuel Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto (McGraw-Hill, 1958) Víctor Jara & Nueva Canción Joan Jara, Victor: An Unfinished Song (Jonathan Cape, 1983) Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File (The New Press, 2003) The Singing Revolution Mart Laar, The Power of Freedom (2010) The Singing Revolution, documentary (2006, dir. James & Maureen Castle Tusty) The Velvet Revolution Michael Žantovský, Havel: A Life (Grove Press, 2014) Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern (Random House, 1990) Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless (1978) Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Marguerite Bouvard, Revolutionizing Motherhood (Scholarly Resources, 1994) Rita Arditti, Searching for Life (University of California Press, 1999) CONADEP, Nunca Más (Eudeba, 1984) Horacio Verbitsky, The Flight (The New Press, 1996) Sources list available on Patreon: patreon.com/montemader

  • June 15 · 55 min

    63. Why The 'L' is First

    A couple years ago I learned that there is a reason that the 'L' comes first in LGBTQ+ and I want to share that with you.Through much of the 20th century, "gay" served as an umbrella term, and early activist groupings often led with gay men, producing orderings like "GLB." The shift to placing "L" first took hold in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the United States, and it was a deliberate gesture of respect. The most cited reason is the AIDS crisis. As the epidemic devastated gay male communities in the 1980s, lesbians showed up in enormous numbers as caregivers, nurses, blood donors, fundraisers, and organizers. Lesbians like those in the Blood Sisters of San Diego organized blood drives when gay and bisexual men were barred from donating. This solidarity reshaped the movement, and foregrounding the "L" became a way of acknowledging that labor and centering women who had frequently been rendered invisible within both gay male spaces and the broader feminist movement. Lesbians were central to progress long before the acronym existed. The Daughters of Bilitis, founded in San Francisco in 1955, was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the U.S. Figures such as Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon spent decades organizing. Lesbians were present at the 1969 Stonewall uprising and in the Gay Liberation Front that followed. Within 1970s feminism, lesbians pushed a frequently resistant women's movement to take their concerns seriously, even as Betty Friedan infamously dismissed them as the "lavender menace", a slur activists reclaimed in a celebrated protest. Lesbians also did foundational work that benefited everyone: building community institutions, bookstores, health collectives, and mutual-aid networks; advancing lesbian feminist theory; and fighting for custody rights, anti-discrimination protections, and visibility at a time when being out could cost a woman her job and children. References Armstrong, E. A. (2002). Forging gay identities: Organizing sexuality in San Francisco, 1950–1994. University of Chicago Press. Bernstein, M. (1997). Celebration and suppression: The strategic uses of identity by the lesbian and gay movement. American Journal of Sociology, 103(3), 531–565. Brier, J. (2009). Infectious ideas: U.S. political responses to the AIDS crisis. University of North Carolina Press. Cohen, C. J. (1997). Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens: The radical potential of queer politics. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 3(4), 437–465. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167. Faderman, L. (1991). Odd girls and twilight lovers: A history of lesbian life in twentieth century America. Columbia University Press. Faderman, L. (2015). The gay revolution: The story of the struggle. Simon & Schuster. Gallo, M. M. (2006). Different daughters: A history of the Daughters of Bilitis. Carroll & Graf. Gould, D. B. (2002). Life during wartime: Emotions and the development of ACT UP. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 7(2), 177–200. hooks, b. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. South End Press. Hutchinson, B. (2015). Lesbian blood drives as community building activism in the 1980s. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19(1), 115–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160.2015.959876 Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Crossing Press. Schulman, S. (2021). Let the record show: A political history of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Shilts, R. (1987). And the band played on: Politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic. St. Martin’s Press. Vaid, U. (1995). Virtual equality: The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian liberation. Anchor Books. Zimmerman, B. (1981). What has never been: An overview of lesbian feminist criticism. Feminist Studies, 7(3), 451–475.

  • June 8 · 1 hr 20 min

    62. Holy War

    In March 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stood before a Pentagon worship service and prayed for "overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy", calling for the eternal damnation of America's enemies. Military commanders across every branch have been reported, in over 200 formal complaints, telling troops the Iran war is "God's plan" and that Trump was "anointed by Jesus" to trigger Armageddon. Benjamin Netanyahu has quoted 1 Samuel 15:3, the command to destroy the Amalekites, sparing "neither man nor woman, infant nor ox" to justify Israeli military operations. This is what happens when political leaders weaponize faith to sanctify violence. And it has been happening for 1,700 years. From Constantine's battlefield vision in 312 CE and the subsequent murder of philosopher Hypatia by a Christian mob, through Augustine's just war doctrine that gave state violence a Christian vocabulary, to Charlemagne's massacre of 4,500 Saxon prisoners at Verden for refusing baptism. We cover the First Crusade's Rhineland pogroms, where Jewish mothers drowned their children rather than see them forcibly baptized, and the Jerusalem massacre of 1099, where chroniclers described blood reaching horses' knees. We examine the Albigensian Crusade's destruction of Béziers, where the papal legate reportedly said "Kill them all, God will know his own," and the witch trials that followed, killing up to 60,000 people (80% of them women) using Heinrich Kramer's Malleus Maleficarum as theological cover. We also cover what this history did specifically to women, a thread that runs unbroken from Tertullian calling women "the devil's gateway" in 200 CE, through the rape of nuns during the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople, to the sexual violence documented in California's Spanish mission system, to the girls in Native American boarding schools whose hair was cut, languages stolen, and bodies abused under church-run federal contracts. The only thing more dangerous than a tyrant, is one who believes God gave them permission. SOURCES Augustine, The City of God, c. 413–426 CE Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, c. 200 CE Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica, c. 439 CE (murder of Hypatia) Annales Regni Francorum (Charlemagne / Verden massacre) Barbero, Alessandro — Charlemagne: Father of a Continent, UC Press, 2004 Chazan, Robert — European Jewry and the First Crusade, UC Press, 1987 Mainz Anonymous and Solomon bar Simson Chronicle (Rhineland massacres, 1096) Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum (Jerusalem, 1099) Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, c. 1220 (Béziers) Nicetas Choniates, Historia, c. 1206 (Fourth Crusade / Constantinople) Brenon, Anne — Le vrai visage du catharisme, Loubatières, 1988 Kramer, Heinrich — Malleus Maleficarum, 1487 (ed. Mackay, Cambridge UP, 2006) Levack, Brian — The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, Routledge, 4th ed., 2016 Cuneo, Michele de — Letter of October 28, 1495, trans. Samuel Eliot Morison Díaz del Castillo, Bernal — True History of the Conquest of New Spain, c. 1568 Hassig, Ross — Mexico and the Spanish Conquest, U of Oklahoma Press, 2006 Pedro Pizarro — Relation of the Discovery and Conquest of Peru, c. 1571 Stannard, David — American Holocaust, Oxford UP, 1992 Kamen, Henry — The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, Yale UP, 1997 Jouanna, Arlette — La Saint-Barthélemy, Gallimard, 2007 Parker, Geoffrey — The Thirty Years' War, Routledge, 1997 Regan, Donald — For the Record, Harcourt Brace, 1988 Maurice, Jean-Claude — Si vous le répétez, je démentirai (Bush / Gog and Magog) NPR — "Netanyahu's references to violent biblical passages raise alarm," Nov. 7, 2023 U.S. Dept. of the Interior — Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, 2022 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada — Final Report, 2015 Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. 543, U.S. Supreme Court, 1823 Vatican Statement repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, March 30, 2023

  • June 1 · 1 hr 6 min

    61. “The Civil Rights Movement Part 2: Freedom Summer”

    My entire life I heard my Dad say "Freedom isn't free" and perhaps the best application of that is the Civil Rights Movement. It's easy from a place of comfort to not fully understand the risk and sacrifice required for... the right to vote. The right as a black person to have equal and fair access to elections, job protection, education. We are in our own Civil Rights moment now and we can learn a lot from what they didv Sources: U.S. Congressional Records, Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866 (Memphis Massacre testimony) FBI Files on the murders of Medgar Evers, Emmett Till, and the Mississippi Burning case (MIBURN) Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Records — Mississippi Department of Archives and History (publicly available since 1998) Department of Justice Civil Rights Division records and case files NAACP Anti-Lynching Campaign Records — Library of Congress Congressional Record, Senate filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, March–June 1964 Books — Scholarly and Narrative History: Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63 (1988). Simon & Schuster. Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65 (1998). Simon & Schuster. Branch, Taylor. At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68 (2006). Simon & Schuster. Berman, Ari. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (2015). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Anderson, Carol. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (2016). Bloomsbury. Anderson, Carol. One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy (2018). Bloomsbury. Du Bois, W.E.B. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (1935). Harcourt, Brace. Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986). William Morrow. Hamer, Fannie Lou. The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is (2011). University Press of Mississippi. Lewis, John, with Michael D'Orso. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998). Simon & Schuster. Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (1998). Knopf. Marable, Manning. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945–2006 (2007). University Press of Mississippi. McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer (1988). Oxford University Press. Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014). Spiegel & Grau. Tyson, Timothy B. The Blood of Emmett Till (2017). Simon & Schuster. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892). New York Age Print. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States (1895). Donohue & Henneberry. Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010). Random House. Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955). Oxford University Press. Memphis-Specific Sources: Honey, Michael K. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign (2007). W.W. Norton. Mlinar, Zeljko, et al. Memphis Sanitation Strike Archives — Memphis Public Library Special Collections Tucker, David M. Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civic Reformers, 1948–1968 (1980). University of Tennessee Press. Wright, Sharon D. Race, Power, and Political Emergence in Memphis (2000). Garland Publishing. Legal Cases Referenced: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960) Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903 (1956) Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013) United States v. Price et al. (Mississippi Burning prosecutions), 383 U.S. 787 (1966)

  • May 27 · 1 hr 3 min

    60. The Civil Rights Movement Part 1- Rights are Never Given

    Apologies for the lateness of the post, our dashboard encountered a technical difficulty that showed my podcasts didn't exist and had to be fixed before an upload could happen. Thanks for your patience. After being at Montgomery last weekend I wanted to do a deep dive into what I never learned as a kid. What led to the Civil Rights movement, its danger, its courage. Part one takes us through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and part two takes us beyond. SOURCES U.S. Congressional Records, Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 1866 (Memphis Massacre testimony) FBI Files on the murders of Medgar Evers, Emmett Till, and the Mississippi Burning case (MIBURN) — available through FOIA requests and the University of Mississippi's Mississippi Digital Library Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Records — Mississippi Department of Archives and History (publicly available since 1998) Department of Justice Civil Rights Division records and case files NAACP Anti-Lynching Campaign Records — Library of Congress Congressional Record, Senate filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, March–June 1964 Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63 (1988). Simon & Schuster. Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–65 (1998). Simon & Schuster. Branch, Taylor. At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68 (2006). Simon & Schuster. Berman, Ari. Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (2015). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Anderson, Carol. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (2016). Bloomsbury. Anderson, Carol. One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy (2018). Bloomsbury. Du Bois, W.E.B. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (1935). Harcourt, Brace. Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986). William Morrow. Hamer, Fannie Lou. The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is (2011). University Press of Mississippi. Lewis, John, with Michael D'Orso. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998). Simon & Schuster. Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (1998). Knopf. Marable, Manning. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945–2006 (2007). University Press of Mississippi. McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer (1988). Oxford University Press. McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama — The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001). Simon & Schuster. Payne, Charles M. I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (1995). University of California Press. Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014). Spiegel & Grau. Tyson, Timothy B. The Blood of Emmett Till (2017). Simon & Schuster. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892). New York Age Print. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States (1895). Donohue & Henneberry. Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010). Random House. Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955). Oxford University Press. Honey, Michael K. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign (2007). W.W. Norton. Mlinar, Zeljko, et al. Memphis Sanitation Strike Archives — Memphis Public Library Special Collections Tucker, David M. Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civic Reformers, 1948–1968 (1980). University of Tennessee Press. Wright, Sharon D. Race, Power, and Political Emergence in Memphis (2000). Garland Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960) Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903 (1956) Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013) United States v. Price et al. 383 U.S. 787 (1966)

  • May 18 · 1 hr 32 min

    59. Ronald Reagan Part 2: Reaganomics

    We met the carefully curated Ronald Reagan in part 1. We saw the Hollywood grin, the borrowed cowboy myth, the astrologer in the basement, the informant and the corporate lackey. In Part 2, we follow the money. The sale of a new economic dream for Americans during a time of desperate stagflation, unemployment and uncertainty. And what it sold has cost this country more than any single presidency in modern American history. Reaganomics was pitched to Americans as common sense. The government takes too much, thats the problem. Taxes on "job creators" choke the economy, corporations are going to run if you tax them you know. Cut taxes, slash regulation, trust the market — and a tide of prosperity will lift every boat. Cut off the welfare queen and free the small business owner. Trust the rich. Trust the men in suits who already had everything to know what was best for the woman scrubbing the floor at the hospital. He sold it the way only Reagan could, with a tear in his eye, a flag behind him, and a story about a Cadillac driving welfare cheat in Chicago who statistically did not exist. In this episode, we trace what actually happened next. The top income tax rate fell from 70 percent to 28 percent. The estate tax was gutted and capital gains were slashed. Corporate rates collapsed. All the ways the wealthiest among us make wealth were unleashed while the rest of us stayed tethered, shouldering more than our share of the burden. Union membership crashed from one in four American workers to roughly one in ten. Wages stopped tracking productivity. The federal minimum wage was frozen in time. Wall Street was deregulated, manufacturing was offshored, and the bottom half of the country watched its share of national wealth fall from 4 percent to barely 2.5, while the top 1 percent's share doubled. All while the national debt tripled. The mental health system was hollowed out, causing homelessness to explode. And every Republican economic platform since has been some version of do that again. Even Democratic leaders have allied themselves with this ideology in some way. We also dismantle the lie at the heart of it all, that spending on people is waste. Because every credible economist who has actually run the numbers has found the opposite. Every dollar invested in SNAP generates up to $1.80 in economic activity. Every dollar spent on early childhood education returns $7 to $12. Public transit returns roughly $4 to $1. WIC saves $3 in future Medicaid costs for every dollar it spends. Universal preschool, paid family leave, Medicaid expansion, infrastructure, these aren't handouts. They are the highest-return investments any government can make. The math has been clear for forty years. We were just told not to look. Reaganomics were one expensive lie for the American people. In this episode we talk about why we bought it, who profited, who's still paying — and what this country would actually look like if we ran the numbers instead of the mythology.

  • May 11 · 1 hr 20 min

    58. Ronald Reagan Part 1: The Marriage

    Three decades before the White House, Ronald Reagan was being assembled in plain sight. This episode traces the apprenticeship most highlight reels skip: the New Deal Democrat who became FBI informant "T-10," the B-list actor who turned a corporate speaking tour into a political movement, and the lapsed Midwestern kid who would one day broker the marriage of the Republican Party and white evangelical America. In postwar Hollywood, where Reagan, as Screen Actors Guild president, simultaneously fed names to the FBI and lent SAG's institutional cover to the blacklist. His October 1947 HUAC testimony was polite; the private file was not. Careers ended on the strength of "fraternal" reports. Then in 1954, General Electric Theater, and eight years on the GE plant circuit under Lemuel Boulware, the hardline VP who handed Reagan a reading list of Hayek and Hazlitt and turned his pep talks into a portable free market gospel. Corporations were buying preachers and performers to sell their "anti-union, low regulation" gospel. By 1962 GE had cut him loose, but "The Speech" was finished and in 1964 it launched Goldwater and, with him, Reagan himself. Finally, the wedding of cross and capital. Reagan, never a churchgoing adult, became the indispensable broker between corporate donors and a politically homeless evangelical electorate. In Dallas, August 1980, he closed the deal with one line: "I know you can't endorse me, but I want you to know I endorse you." That coalition outlived him still runs our country. In Part 2 we talk about the longterm staggering impact of Reaganomics. References Balmer, R. (2021). Bad faith: Race and the rise of the religious right. Eerdmans. Cannon, L. (2000). President Reagan: The role of a lifetime. PublicAffairs. Crespino, J. (2007). The new right and the southern strategy. Journal of Southern History, 73(4), 895–924. Critchlow, D. T. (2005). Phyllis Schlafly and grassroots conservatism: A woman’s crusade. Princeton University Press. Dochuk, D. (2011). From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain‑folk religion, grassroots politics, and the rise of evangelical conservatism. W. W. Norton. FitzGerald, F. (2017). The evangelicals: The struggle to shape America. Simon & Schuster. Hancock, A. (2004). The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. New York University Press. Kohler‑Hausmann, J. (2017). Getting tough: Welfare and imprisonment in 1970s America. Princeton University Press. Kruse, K. M. (2015). One nation under God: How corporate America invented Christian America. Basic Books. Levin, J. (2019). The queen: The forgotten life behind an American myth. Little, Brown and Company. Mittelstadt, J. (2005). From welfare to workfare: The unintended consequences of liberal reform, 1945–1965. University of North Carolina Press. Nadasen, P. (2005). Welfare warriors: The welfare rights movement in the United States. Routledge. Nickerson, M. M. (2012). The Reagan administration’s response to the gender gap. Journal of Policy History, 24(1), 115–140. Perlstein, R. (2020). Reaganland: America’s right turn 1976–1980. Simon & Schuster. Reagan, R. (1986, February 15). Radio address to the nation on welfare reform [Speech transcript]. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/radio-address-nation-welfare-reform Rich, C. G. (2020). The “welfare queen” goes to the polls: Race‑based fractures in gender politics. Georgetown Law Journal, 108(4), 1–67. Shilts, R. (1987). And the band played on: Politics, people, and the AIDS epidemic. St. Martin’s Press. Sick, G. (1991). October surprise: America’s hostages in Iran and the election of Ronald Reagan. Times Books. Troy, G. (2009). The great communicator: Media and the Reagan image. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 39(3), 458–470. Unger, C. (2024). Den of spies: Reagan, Carter, and the secret history of the treason that stole the White House. Mariner Books. Wilentz, S. (2008). The age of Reagan: A history, 1974–2008. HarperCollins.

  • May 4 · 1 hr 15 min

    57. Where Do We Go From Here? With Crystal Dawn

    In this deeply personal episode, Crystal Dawn opens up about the slow, often invisible process of religious deconstruction. Raised inside a tight-knit faith community where belief wasn't just a doctrine but the architecture of every relationship, Crystal walks us through the cracks that started as questions and widened into a chasm she could no longer pretend wasn't there. Crystal Dawn is a writer and content creator shedding light on the patriarchal systems of harm within evangelical culture. Her experiences growing up a pastor’s daughter, as well as her own deconstruction journey, give her a unique lens… one she blends with research and history to give language to what many people experience in coming out of those spaces. She is currently at work on her first book, forthcoming in 2027. Follow Crystal Here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystaldawnalchemy4/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/CrystalDawnAlchemy Website: www.crystaldawnalchemy.com

  • April 27 · 1 hr 21 min

    56. The Years of War on Palestine with Dr. Daniel Bannoura

    Resource packet mentioned in podcast: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JHWbiYVQ4sD5gX-o0yHC-5hXnY1KPf0kBvw2rZSJfiE/edit?tab=t.0 For ad free episodes, bonus content and "where did we get the Bible?" series sign up at patreon.com/montemader We have all seen the photos and videos of Gaza the last two years. We have heard the stories. We have watched politicians deflect and people say "but October 7th!!". But there's a story that spans far beyond October 7th. There is a series of decisions that decimated a region and crushed the vulnerable under the thumb of the powerful. How did we get here? what is the history that led to this point? To help talk about his heartwrenching story, we welcome Dr. Daniel Bannoura. Daniel is a Palestinian theologian and podcaster. He is a professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he received his PhD degree in Qur'anic Studies. He’s also the Director of Public Engagement at the Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice, and host of “Across the Divide”, a podcast that provides a space for thoughtful conversations about Palestine-Israel through the lens of faith and peacemaking. Recommended Reading: 100 Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

  • April 20 · 1 hr 40 min

    55. 70,000 Sermons: How Corporate America Bought the Pulpit

    This episode is brought to you by ground news. Get 40% off their Vantage plan by using groundnews.com/montemader That feeling you get at 11pm on a Tuesday as you crawl into bed after another long day. You've been moving nonstop since you got up and theres a gnawing guilt you can't quite shake. That you haven't done enough, you should be doing more, working harder. That feeling has a 400 year history. Born on a ship off the coast of Massachusetts in 1630, preached from a Puritan pulpit, secularized by Benjamin Franklin, bolted to a factory wall, and then deliberately and expensively marketed to you by a public relations firm hired by General Motors. The message wanders through the mill towns where clergy were quietly put on the company payroll to preach that strikes were sins against God; through the Gilded Age sermons of Henry Ward Beecher telling starving railroad workers that bread and water was enough; through the jaw-dropping story of Spiritual Mobilization, a corporate-funded operation that distributed pre-written anti-union sermons to seventy thousand American ministers during the New Deal era. The Protestant pulpit, for a generation, was a subcontractor of the American boardroom. But it's also a story of the people who fought back and the saga ends with a powerful question "What if rest itself is the most radical act left available to us?" References: full list at patreon.com/montemader Bowler, K. (2013). Blessed: A history of prosperity gospel. Oxford University Press. Carnegie, A. (1889). Wealth. The North American Review, 148(391), 653–664. Carter, H. W. (2015). Union made: Working people and the rise of social Christianity in Chicago. Oxford University Press. Cotton, J. (1641). The way of life. Printed by M. F. for L. Fawne and S. Gellibrand. Dochuk, D. (2011). From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain folk religion, grassroots politics, rise of evangelical conservatism. W. W. Norton. Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the witch: Women, the body, and primitive accumulation. Autonomedia. Franklin, B. (1904). Advice to a young tradesman. In A. H. Smyth (Ed.), The writings of Benjamin Franklin (Vol. 2). Franklin, B. (1909). The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. P. F. Collier & Son. Fraser, N. (2016). Contradictions of capital and care. New Left Review, 100, 99–117. Gilman, C. P. (1898). Women and economics: A study of the economic relation between men and women as a factor in social evolution. Small, Maynard & Company. Grant, H. J. (1936, October). Conference report. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Han, B. C. (2015). The burnout society (E. Butler, Trans.). Stanford University Press. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press Hersey, T. (2022). Rest is resistance: A manifesto Kruse, K. M. (2015). One nation under God: How corporate America invented Christian America. Machen, J. G. (1933). The Christian view of man. William B. Eerdmans. Osborn, I. (2008). Can Christianity cure obsessive OCD? A psychiatrist explores the role of faith in treatment. Brazos Press. Petersen, A. H. (2020). Can’t even: How millennials became the burnout generation. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Phillips-Fein, K. (2009). Invisible hands: The businessmen’s crusade against the New Deal. W. W. Norton. Price, D. (2021). Laziness does not exist. Atria Books. Rodgers, D. T. (1978). The work ethic in industrial America, 1850–1920. University of Chicago Press. Rose, J. (2001). The poverty of virtue: The ethical foundations of American welfare reform. Journal of Religious Ethics, 29(2), 247–272. Sutton, M. A. (2014). American apocalypse: A history of modern evangelicalism. Harvard University Press. Suzman, J. (2020). Work: A deep history, Stone Age to the age of robots. Penguin Press. Tawney, R. H. (1926). Religion/rise of capitalism. John Murray. Winthrop, J. (1838). Model of Christian charity. In Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (3rd series, Vol. 7, pp. 31–48). (Original work delivered 1630)

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