Culture, Faith and Politics with Pat Kahnke

Franklin Graham's May 2026 visit to Belarus wasn't just an evangelistic crusade — it was a diplomatic mission for Donald Trump. Lukashenko, Europe's last dictator and Putin's key ally in the northern invasion of Ukraine, used Graham's visit to send "warm greetings to President Trump." That's not gospel. That's Christian nationalism with a passport. Tihomir Kukolja, former Executive Director of the Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, was born in the former Yugoslavia, where Billy Graham preached to 10,000 people in a steady rain in 1967 — braving communist power to reach ordinary people with nothing to offer him politically. He watched that legacy get dismantled in real time when Franklin Graham sat across from Lukashenko and called it an honor. In this conversation, Tihomir — a Croatian theologian, reconciliation leader, and eyewitness to both legacies — walks through exactly what happened in Minsk, what it reveals about Franklin Graham's double gospel, and why a message that poses no threat to authoritarian power is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the Belarus dictator story American evangelicals aren't talking about. It should be.

The Freedom 250 celebration fair is rapidly turning into a rally from the one man at the center of his own universe - Donald Trump. Pat Kahnke discusses all this and more on Culture, Faith, and Politics live!

This is the first in a short series, which will be a theological autopsy of how one of Christianity's most respected communicators became MAGA's most dangerous court prophet — and what his collapse tells us about the spiritual crisis inside American evangelicalism.

 

We'll examine Metaxas's two recent speeches at the Rededicate 250 event and Sean Feucht's Christian nationalist rally — what he said, why it matters, and why it qualifies as false prophecy. We trace his full arc: from the Access Hollywood tape to the January 6th insurrection to his claim that Trump's election was "an outrageous gift from God." We also expose the deepest irony: Metaxas literally wrote the definitive biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the theologian who died resisting exactly the kind of regime Metaxas now enables. In October 2024, 86 of Bonhoeffer's own descendants signed a public statement condemning Metaxas by name for misrepresenting their ancestor to serve a far-right Christian nationalist agenda. This is what a false prophet looks like. This is what Christian nationalism does to a man's conscience. And this is why it matters for every believer trying to hold the line.

Mark Greene at "Remaking Manhood" and "Walking Talking Men" joins Pat Kahnke and Adam Swenson to talk about healthy masculinity vs. "Man Box" culture in this Thursday morning LIVE episode.

Ken Paxton — impeached, credibly accused of bribery, and caught lying to federal investigators — just became the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. And MAGA Christians helped make it happen. In this episode, I break down why MAGA Christians keep voting for Donald Trump's most corrupt lackeys, what it reveals about the debasement of the Christian conscience, and why "normie" Republicans are just as complicit. This isn't virtue signaling. It's VICE signaling — and the data from the 2024 primaries makes it impossible to ignore.