WOF 441: Did Bill Maher Become an Ally?

The atheist political commentator and television host Bill Maher has long been a bitter critic of Christianity. In additional to regular swipes at Christians on his shows, Maher also devoted an entire documentary film, sardonically entitled Religulous, to lampoon what he takes to be Christianity’s moral and theological absurdities. However, Maher has recently tempered his anti-Christian rhetoric and started focusing his biting wit on criticizing progressive woke ideology and condemning positions like neo-racism, the denial of biology, and the stifling of free speech in ways that the Catholic tradition would largely agree with.

In light of this apparent shift, is it time for people of faith to reassess Bill Maher? Has one of Christianity’s most vocal opponents now become an ally or, perhaps, even a friend? 

A listener asks, “What is truth?”

00:00 | Intro 01:32 | Bishop Barron’s recent diaconate ordinations 02:35 | Bill Maher’s analysis of religion 04:47 | What rationalism misses in its critique of religion 06:35 | Historic interpretive strategies for reading the Bible 10:31 | Freedom of speech and cancel culture 12:14 | On racial emphases 14:11 | Equality vs. equity 17:05 | Oppressors and the oppressed 18:21 | The philosophical roots of classical liberalism 20:01 | The value of classical liberalism over political progressivism 22:14 | Critiquing classical liberalism 26:18 | Is classical liberalism necessarily doomed? 28:39 | Finding points of agreement 30:41 | Listener question 32:48 | Join the Word on Fire Institute

Links:

• Religulous: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815241/quotes/
• Bishop Barron’s CNN article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/opinions/catholic-bishop-found-an-ally-in-bill-maher-barron/index.html
• Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

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