Megan Basham

And they might find out soon what it is.

So the after party, um, it's a Bible study curriculum that was developed by, uh, Curtis Chang, who is a former pastor and a Duke divinity consulting professor.

Um, I believe he's done some work in Silicon Valley, but he really became known for, uh, the website Christians and the vaccine.

So he was working, um,

in partnership with the federal government to sort of spread the message that Christians needed to not be afraid of the COVID vaccine, needed to get vaccinated.

And he had a fairly viral video that went out that said, if you were concerned about it being derived from aborted cells at one point, way back in its history, you should look at it as like an image of Jesus's redemption of sinners.

So the vaccine was a redemption of that sin.

It was very bizarre, but it kind of went viral.

And so he, in partnership with David French and Russell Moore, developed this Bible study called The After Party that is supposed to address political divisiveness and partisanship.

So, you know, at the outset, an interesting choice of three people, because I don't think when we think of David French, for instance, we necessarily think of someone who is carrying the message of

turning down the tone of political divisiveness among Christians.

But leaving that aside for the moment, when the Bible study came out, it also came out right about the same time as an Atlantic writer, Tim Alberta's book, Warning About Christian Nationalism, came out.

And in that book, he mentioned interviewing Curtis Chang.

And he said they were developing this Bible study curriculum to go into churches, but they could not get any evangelical backers.

They couldn't get any Christians who wanted to fund it.

So they had to turn to mostly progressive unbelievers.

And it didn't offer any more information than that.

And, you know, Chang, Moore and French were very much sort of the hero of this little vignette in the book.

Well, you know, naturally, your reportedly spidey senses go off and go, well, wait a minute.

Who are these secular backers who are funding a Bible study about politics that's going to be going into evangelical churches?