My most memorable television interview I’ve ever given was my first. And by memorable, I mean terrifying.
It all started back in the summer of 2016, when I hired a student research assistant, Kate Guichelaar, to help me analyze the campaign speeches of then-candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As the summer wrapped up, I wanted Kate to have a publication to show for her research hours, and so we co-wrote a little blog post that I published at Patheos’s Anxious Bench. I’d just joined the Anxious Bench, and this was only my second post as a regular blogger. Within minutes of publishing, it was clear that this was no ordinary post. My first piece of writing to go viral, it was read by more than 35k people, if I recall correctly.
One thing led to another, and in ensuing months I found myself called upon to comment on Trump’s distinctive linguistic style. That’s how I ended up on the national news in Canada, CTV.
Recording a live TV interview is frightening enough, but the afternoon before I was scheduled to record, news of the Access Hollywood tape broke.
So here I was, supposed to go on live television to talk about Trump’s linguistic style, and instead I’m trying to figure out if one can or should say “grab ‘em by the pussy” on television. Live. In Canada. Like I said, terrifying.
As it turned out, I was asked not about Trump’s boasting of assaulting women, but instead about which software program we’d used to analyze the speeches. All’s well that ends well.
Earlier this week, I had a moment of deja vu. On Monday evening, the night before I was scheduled to record a television interview with Michel Martin for Amanpour & Co (carried on PBS and CNNi), I opened Twitter to see news of the leak of the SCOTUS draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Here we go again, I thought. I knew full well the interview might go in a very different direction than the one the producer and I had discussed.
This one, however, was much less terrifying than the first. Michel Martin is herself a Christian and deeply informed on issues relating to religion and politics. The interview focused on Jesus and John Wayne, but we did also talk about the leaked decision, and I had an opportunity to place evangelical views on abortion in a broader historical context. You can watch the interview here if you like:
Minutes after I’d recorded that interview, I boarded a plane and headed for Malibu, where I had a really wonderful time with members of the Churches of Christ at their Harbor Bible Lectures.
Words can’t do justice to the richness of the conversations we shared, and the goodness of so many people who are seeking to respond faithfully as followers of Christ in a broken world. The stories people shared during Q&A and between events nearly brought me to tears. At some point I may reflect more on this, but jet lag is doing its part to keep my word count down today.
Between events and flights out to LA and back, I kept careful track of the conversations within evangelical spaces about the leaked decision. When news of this sort breaks, I see my primary role as observing, situating, and accurately representing what I am seeing. It comes in handy both for future writing and also when I’m called upon to comment in the media, a job I am happy to do but also one that weighs on me. I want to present events and viewpoints as accurately as possible in order to help steward our national conversation in a small way.
I’d initially planned to share some of the links and screenshots and my own observations here today, but I’ll save that for later (see: jet lag). (I’ve got a couple of other things from this past week to share as well, but those, too, will also have to wait for later.)
This morning, very much jet-lagged (I know, it’s only 3 hours but apparently I’m too old for this), I recorded an interview with Weekend Edition’s All Things Considered. It should air this Sunday.
It’s after 5 now, so I’ll try to answer a few more emails, spend time with the kids, and keep an eye on the clock until it can be deemed a respectable time to go to sleep.
(Me: multi-generational member of the CofCs) I'd be grateful for your impressions of your experiences at the Pepperdine lectures. Will try to get to the Lipscomb lectures in June.