"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities." Romans 13 has been quoted to defend the American Revolution's opponents, the Fugitive Slave Act, and apartheid, and in 2018 to defend separating families at the border. So what did Paul actually mean?

In this episode, Dennis Kramer goes back to Nero's Rome to read Romans 13 in its setting, alongside the verses around it that often get left out. We look at the data on how Americans think about authority, Scripture, and law today, trace how the chapter has been used and misused through history, and hear the strongest case from each side.

0:00 Cold Open

1:32 Introducing the Host

2:17 Welcome

3:34 Rome, Around AD 57

6:05 Reading the Whole Passage

10:43 By the Numbers

14:16 Romans 13 on Trial

18:37 The Case Each Side Makes

20:44 Closing

In 1896, America's most famous evangelical politician was a Democrat. A century later, roughly eight in ten white evangelicals vote Republican, election after election. What changed? Not the Bible. The politics.

In this first episode of The Cross and the Capitol, Dennis Kramer traces how white evangelicals and the Republican Party became allies, from William Jennings Bryan and Jimmy Carter to the Moral Majority and Ronald Reagan. Along the way, we look at who "the Christian vote" really is, and give each side its strongest case.

0:00 Cold Open
1:06 Introducing the Host
1:51 Welcome
3:52 Before the Alliance
6:05 The Turn
9:01 The Alliance Hardens
10:52 Who Is the Christian Vote?
12:11 The Case Each Side Makes
14:02 Closing