The Truth Episode: Lies about Wildfires, the End of Fact Checking, and the Honesty of Jimmy Carter [Convocation Unscripted S2E1]

Our first Convocation Unscripted Episode of 2025--now weekly for first 100 days of Trump's administration.

Thanks for the nearly 300 of you who joined us for our first 2025 Convocation Unscripted+LIVE conversation yesterday afternoon. To keep up with what will be a challenging stream of news, and to help us all collectively sort out the signal from the noise, we’ll be conducted these conversations weekly for the first 100 days of Trump’s administration. We’ll also be posting the recording of those conversations each week here as well—see below for the recording of last night’s conversation. If you have friends who would like to join us, please invite them to subscribe (it’s free!).

AN ANNOUNCEMENT: Half of the Convocation team -- Robby and Diana -- will be at the Southern Lights Conference next week on January 17-19 on St. Simons Island, GA. The topic is Reimagining Faith and Democracy. Additional speakers include Jacqui Lewis, Dante Stewart, Mihee Kim-Kort, and Brian McLaren. Great music, too!

Virtual tickets are available. You don't have to watch in real time -- recordings can be accessed anytime until April 30, 2025. For information and registration, check out the website below.

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The Truth Episode: Lies about Wildfires, the End of Fact Checking, and the Honesty of Jimmy Carter

Below is our first Convocation Unscripted+LIVE episode for 2025, which we’ll now be doing weekly during the first 100 days of Trump’s administration. We opened this episode by talking about the devastating wildfires in Southern California, which incoming President Trump is already politicizing with blatant lies about its causes. We talked about two events that each seem to mark the end of an era and are related to truth-telling. First, we discuss Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement this week that META is going MAGA, by appointing top officials from Trump’s orbit to its board and global policy positions, donating to Trump’s transition fund, and, most significantly, ending its fact-checking program on all platforms. We also reflect on President Jimmy Carter's funeral, which provided moving tributes to his life and legacy. And we recall that Carter’s principal campaign promise was, “I will never lie to you.” A new era indeed.

Also, as requested, here are links to the books we mentioned in the episode:

• Gionathan Lo Mascolo, The Christian Right in Europe: Movements, Networks, and Denominations, 2024.

• João B. Chaves, The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South, 2022. (currently out of stock unfortunately)

• David Gushee, Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies, 2023.

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ICYMI on The Convocation