Evangelicalism

Though President Trump ran as an outsider, New Yorker writer Jane Mayer describes his vice president as "the connective tissue" between Trump and the billionaire donors in the Republican party.

Director Mike White on writing and directing his new film about a 47 year old man who feels he's not as successful as his former college peers.

In The Child Catchers, Kathryn Joyce explores the outsized influence of evangelical Christian groups on the overseas adoption industry. The adoption movement has orchestrated a boom-and-bust market that can exploit poor families in countries where regulations are weak and "orphans" may not actually be orphans.

Anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann studies the personal relationships evangelicals develop with God. In her book When God Talks Back, she explains how relationships with God are often cemented through the power of prayer. The book has just come out in paperback.

This interview was originally broadcast on Fresh Air on March 26, 2012. When God Talks Back was released in paperback on Nov. 13.

In his new memoir, David McGlynn describes how his teenage years were disrupted by violence. McAllen was a swimmer who turned to evangelical Christianity in college. A Door in the Ocean is a compelling coming-of-age story marked by random tragedy and biblical tracts, church coffee and chlorine.

Anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann studies the personal relationships evangelicals develop with God. In her book When God Talks Back, she explains how relationships with God are often cemented through the power of prayer.

New Yorker Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza spent four days with Michele Bachmann and her staff aboard their campaign jet in late June. His profile looks at the writers, beliefs and books that Bachmann has specifically mentioned as influences in her life.

In Paul Thomas Anderson's film There Will Be Blood, the young actor Paul Dano plays a rural preacher at odds with the oilman (Daniel Day-Lewis) at the center of the story. Dano previously appeared in Little Miss Sunshine, playing the teen who was an elective mute.

Scientist Francis Collins makes a case for the existence of God in his book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Collins, an evangelical Christian, headed the National Human Genome Research Project.

David Kirkpatrick is a correspondent in the Washington bureau for The New York Times. He covered the politics of the conservative Christian movement in the 2004 election, and has been following the presidential campaign of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.