Faith, Fame, and the Feed: How Influencers Shape What We Believe

In a world where attention is authority, who gets to shape faith, values, and public life? What does it actually mean to be an influencer in 2025 — and why does it matter so much for religion and politics? In this episode of ...

Sometimes a story breaks you open. While reporting on abuse and accountability inside the Southern Baptist Convention, RNS journalist Bob Smietana reached out to someone he’d interviewed many times before — publisher and whis...

What if your favorite wholesome mom account was also your quietest political radicalizer? Earlier this year, RNS Editor Roxanne Stone was in Austin, Texas talking about tradwife influencers—women whose soft, nostalgic aesthet...

When a 27-year-old streamer outruns the Church and spooks the political class, it’s worth asking how we got here. Nick Fuentes was supposed to be a fringe character—the kind of online provocateur national leaders could shrug ...

A paradox: declining churchgoing, rising Bible sales. Americans are attending church less—and buying more Bibles than ever. In this Complexified conversation, Amanda Henderson and RNS reporter Bob Smietana unpack the paradox:...

What happens when a Muslim mayor-elect treats identity as a bridge, not a brand? In this episode of Complexified , Amanda Henderson explores the story of Zoran Mamdani , New York City’s first Muslim mayor-elect—a politician w...