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Origin Story

Origin Story

By: Podmasters
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What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey dig into the astonishing secret histories of concepts you thought you knew. Want to support us in making future seasons? There are now two ways you can help out: • Patreon – Get early episodes, live Zooms, merchandise and more from just £5 per month. • Apple Podcasts – Want everything in one place with one easy payment? Subscribe to our premium feed on Apple Podcasts for ad-free shows early and bonus editions too. From Podmasters, the makers of Oh God, What Now?, American Friction and The Bunker.Podmasters / Ian Dunt & Dorian Lynskey 2022 Politics & Government Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • Evangelicals – Part Two – Good News, Bad News

    Evangelicals – Part Two – Good News, Bad News
    Jun 9 2026
    Ever since the birth of evangelical Christianity in the 1730s, believers have disagreed over whether to dedicate themselves to changing society as well as converting individuals. For most of that time, the most activist American Protestants were politically progressive but that all changed in the 1970s thanks to two activist entrepreneurs: Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Falwell and Robertson turned televangelism, or the “electric church”, into a lucrative industry, producing celebrity preachers like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. They also had unprecedented political ambitions. Beginning with Falwell’s Moral Majority in 1979 and expanding with Robertson’s Christian Coalition in the 1990s, their crusade sought to put social conservatism at the heart of the Republican Party and wage a culture war against so-called “secular humanism”. What Darwinism was to the original fundamentalists of the 1920s, abortion and homosexuality were to the new religious right. Evangelicals gave Republicans their votes in return for policies but this quid pro quo was complicated by broken promises, overreach and scandal. The movement and the party developed a symbiotic relationship that proved mutually corrupting. Once evangelicals threw themselves behind the strikingly ungodly Donald Trump, conservatism seemed to overtake Christianity. Even as evangelical churches boom in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the American movement is losing support and influence, turning off young people with its intolerant dogma. Perhaps evangelicals were right to keep politics at arm’s length. How responsible are Falwell and Robertson for our present era of conspiracy theories and culture wars? Did the fundamentalist tradition ultimately prevail or is this something else? What place is there now for liberal evangelicals? What happened to the big-tent message of Billy Graham and has evangelicalism today betrayed its roots in its quest for political power? And what influence is it having on politics in the UK? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Robert Ajemian – ‘Jerry Falwell Spreads the Word’, Time (2 September 1985) • Anonymous – ‘Billy Graham: A New Kind of Evangelist’, Time (25 October 1954) • D.W. Bebbington – Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (1989) • Paul S. Boyer – When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (1992) • Peter J. Boyer – ‘The Big Tent’, New Yorker (15 August 2005) • Isaac Chotiner – ‘How Donald Trump Is Teaching Christians to Abandon Empathy’, New Yorker (1 April 2025) • Whitney Cross – The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York 1800-1850 (1950) • Jerry Falwell – Listen, America!: The Conservative Blueprint for America’s Moral Rebirth (1980) • ‘The Gospel According to Ralph Reed’, Time (15 May 1995) • Frances Fitzgerald – The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (2017) • Harry Emerson Fosdick – ‘Shall the Fundamentalists Win?’ (21 May 1922) • Richard Hofstadter – Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) • Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) • Michael Luo – ‘How Billy Graham’s Movement Lost Its Way’, New Yorker (21 February 2018) • Michael Luo – ‘The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind’, New Yorker (4 March 2021) • Michael Luo – ‘How Christian Fundamentalism Was Born Again’, New Yorker (29 July 2024) • Dorian Lynskey – Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World (2024) • George M. Marsden – Fundamentalism and American Culture: Second Edition (2006) • Pat Robertson – The New World Order (1991) • Damian Thompson – The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium (1996) • Kenneth L. Woodward, John Barnes and Laurie Lisle – ‘Born Again: The Year of the Evangelicals’, Newsweek (25 October 1976) Films and podcasts • The Eyes of Tammy Faye, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (2000) • The Eyes of Tammy Faye, written by Abe Sylvia and directed by Michael Showalter (2021) • Inherit the Wind, written by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith and directed by Stanley Kramer (1960) • The Testament of Ann Lee, written by Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet and directed by Mona Fastvold (2025) • Things Fell Apart: 1000 Dolls, presented by Jon Ronson, Radio 4 (9 November 2021) • Things Fell Apart: Dirty Books, presented by Jon Ronson, Radio 4 (16 November 2021) • Things Fell Apart: A Miracle, presented by Jon Ronson, Radio 4 (23 November 2021) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters ...
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Evangelicals – Part One – Altared States

    Evangelicals – Part One – Altared States
    Jun 3 2026
    Welcome to Origin Story, the show about why we are where we are. This week we begin the story of evangelical Christianity and its influence on politics. Starting in the 1730s, Protestants in colonial America replaced the dour strictures of the Puritans with an ecstatic, empowering new creed that promised salvation through conversion: the word evangelical means spreading the good news. Over the next 150 years it swept the country through waves of revivalism, as star preachers like Charles Finney and Dwight Moody professionalised the business of soul-saving. The movement changed Britain, too. Evangelicalism cut across all the major Protestant denominations but believers disagreed over the timing of the prophesied Millennium and therefore whether they should focus on converting individuals or reforming society. Activist followers of the Social Gospel were at the forefront of the fight to end evils like slavery and child labour. It was slavery that caused the formation of a more conservative Southern church. By the early twentieth century, factional conflicts were piling up: over social reform, Biblical scholarship, the theory of evolution. Some evangelicals felt that there were effectively two religions, with liberals (or modernists) pitted against conservatives (or fundamentalists). The fundamentalists were gathering force until 1925, when Tennessee prosecuted a teacher named John Scopes for teaching Darwinism. A national media event, the trial made fundamentalism appear intolerant, ignorant and absurd, leading to decades of retreat and quiet rebuilding. America’s post-war evangelical megastar was Billy Graham, whose canny big-tent messaging and horror of controversy chimed with President Eisenhower’s tolerant civic religion. But through radio, television and bestselling books, the new fundamentalists were laying the ground for a culture war. A string of controversies in the 1970s revealed a much more militant and aggressive form of Christianity that was determined to transform not just evangelicalism but all of America. Why did evangelicalism become the dominant American religion and what part did British thinkers play? Who were the charismatic men and women who spread the word? Why did the battle between modernists and fundamentalists become so bitter, and how did the fundamentalists recover from the humiliation of the Scopes trial? How does the ambition to reform society complicate the task of conversion? And how did Martin Luther King inadvertently inspire the fundamentalists to finally become a political force? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Robert Ajemian – ‘Jerry Falwell Spreads the Word’, Time (2 September 1985) • Anonymous – ‘Billy Graham: A New Kind of Evangelist’, Time (25 October 1954) • D.W. Bebbington – Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (1989) • Paul S. Boyer – When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (1992) • Peter J. Boyer – ‘The Big Tent’, New Yorker (15 August 2005) • Isaac Chotiner – ‘How Donald Trump Is Teaching Christians to Abandon Empathy’, New Yorker (1 April 2025) • Whitney Cross – The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York 1800-1850 (1950) • Jerry Falwell – Listen, America!: The Conservative Blueprint for America’s Moral Rebirth (1980) • ‘The Gospel According to Ralph Reed’, Time (15 May 1995) • Frances Fitzgerald – The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (2017) • Harry Emerson Fosdick – ‘Shall the Fundamentalists Win?’ (21 May 1922) • Richard Hofstadter – Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) • Hal Lindsey – The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) • Michael Luo – ‘How Billy Graham’s Movement Lost Its Way’, New Yorker (21 February 2018) • Michael Luo – ‘The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind’, New Yorker (4 March 2021) • Michael Luo – ‘How Christian Fundamentalism Was Born Again’, New Yorker (29 July 2024) • Dorian Lynskey – Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World (2024) • George M. Marsden – Fundamentalism and American Culture: Second Edition (2006) • Pat Robertson – The New World Order (1991) • Damian Thompson – The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium (1996) • Kenneth L. Woodward, John Barnes and Laurie Lisle – ‘Born Again: The Year of the Evangelicals’, Newsweek (25 October 1976) Films and podcasts • The Eyes of Tammy Faye, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (2000) ... Reading list continues on Patreon Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin ...
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    1 hr and 33 mins
  • J.K. Rowling – Part Two – Transparent

    J.K. Rowling – Part Two – Transparent
    May 27 2026
    Welcome back to Origin Story and part two of the story of J.K. Rowling. In this episode we turn away from her life story towards her public statements and the information she is consuming. In 2020, Rowling publishes her first full-length statement about her gender-critical beliefs and it becomes her defining issue. We unpack some of the phrases she uses and the books she is reading and we explore what the science says about key issues: safety in trans-inclusive spaces, trans women (and women with Differences in Sex Development) in sports, and healthcare provision for gender-questioning youth. Since 2018 trans people in the UK have faced an enormous backlash: rising prejudice, restricted healthcare, political abandonment and obsessive media hostility. And Rowling has put herself in the forefront. Her tone has become more aggressive and her activism more overt, accelerated by Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. So when HBO announced its ambitious new Harry Potter TV series last year, in the midst of the Trump administration’s war on trans Americans and the UK Supreme Court’s explosive ruling on gender identity, it became a battleground. It’s hard to separate the art from the artist when supporting the art means funding the artist’s activism. How did Rowling move from the appearance of moderation to explicit militancy and how does that align with her professed values? Are her arguments supported by the research? How did anti-trans sentiment go mainstream so quickly? What are the ethics of continuing to consume Rowling’s work? And is the viciousness of right-wing transphobia causing some people to think twice about the consequences of their beliefs? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list Articles • O. Rose Broderick – ‘Evidence Undermines “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” Claims’, Scientific American (24 August 2023) • Cass Review: Final Report (2024)• Christina Cauterucci – ‘Impeccable Timing, Pamela Paul!’, Slate (16 February 2023) • Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026) • Matt Craig – ‘J.K. Rowling is a Billionaire — Again’, Forbes (30 May 2025) • Laura Dattaro – ‘Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity’, The Transmitter (14 September 2020) • Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025) • Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024) • Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020) • Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020) • Amelia Hansford – ‘JK Rowling sets up “women’s fund” to support gender-critical legal cases’, Pink News (26 May 2025) • Nick Hilton – ‘JK Rowling, Britain’s gloriously nasty novelist’, New Statesman (15 January 2024) • Katherine J. Igoe – ‘JK Rowling’s Under-the-Radar Book Series Gives a Clear Picture of Her Beliefs’, Marie Claire (5 August 2020) • Jessica Kant – ‘Anatomy of a Moral Panic’, jessk.org (3 February 2024) • Jessica Kant – ‘Welcome to the anti-trans outrage factory’, jessk.org (8 February 2026) • Alice McCool – ‘How the US Christian Right and Anti-Abortion Lobbyists are Reshaping NHS Policy’, Byline Times (2 April 2026) • Parker Molloy – ‘The IOC’s New Policy Isn’t Really a Trans Story’, The Present Age (26 March 2026) ... Reading list continues on Patreon Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 28 mins
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