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The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
For readers of Democracy in Chains and Dark Money, a revelatory investigation of the Religious Right's rise to political power.
For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. But in her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: America's Religious Right has evolved into a Christian nationalist movement. It seeks to gain political power and impose its vision on society. It isn't fighting a culture war; it is waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.
Stewart shows that the real power of the movement lies in a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations, embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances with like-minded, anti-democratic religious nationalists around the world, including Russia. She follows the money behind the movement and traces much of it to a group of super-wealthy, ultra-conservative donors and family foundations. The Christian nationalist movement is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals.
The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart's probing examination demands that Christian nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and American democratic freedoms.
For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. But in her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: America's Religious Right has evolved into a Christian nationalist movement. It seeks to gain political power and impose its vision on society. It isn't fighting a culture war; it is waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy.
Stewart shows that the real power of the movement lies in a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations, embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances with like-minded, anti-democratic religious nationalists around the world, including Russia. She follows the money behind the movement and traces much of it to a group of super-wealthy, ultra-conservative donors and family foundations. The Christian nationalist movement is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals.
The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart's probing examination demands that Christian nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and American democratic freedoms.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2020
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April 29, 2023
American Inferiority
One of the many paradoxes of the American republic is its self-image as a risk-taking, pioneering, adventurous people. Yet it is none of these. America’s timidity and uncertainty about itself is demonstrated most forcefully in its obsession with religion and its use of religion as a political force. As Katherine Stewart says, the recent turn to the divine has very little to do with religious doctrine, and absolutely nothing to do with Christian ethics. It is a political movement, the purpose of which is to create a feeling of certainty, particularly an existential certainty about American worth, for individuals as well for the nation. As she puts it, the current state of a plurality of Americans have “a longing for certainty in an uncertain world... The movement gives them confidence, an identity, and the feeling that their position in the world is safe.”
But this is not a new phenomenon, neither the uncertainty nor the response to it. America was founded on a deep spiritual uncertainty and a cultural obsession with safety. And it has a traditional way to deal with both: racism. While racism is a by-product of a more subtle malaise stemming from American religious history, it is the symptom through which the underlying disease can be accessed. This, I think, is what is missing from Stewart’s book. Without a recognition of the sociological/spiritual source of the problem, it only appears that the current state of American politics is the result of relatively recent events and concerns. And this is not the case.
It is, of course, misleading to view American religious movements in terms of doctrinal disputes. They have always been political, and always motivated by uncertainty expressed as fear. The so-called First Great Awakening in the mid-seventeenth century British colonies did not incidentally occur contemporaneously with the Stono Rebellion of slaves in South Carolina and the Slave Conspiracy in New York City. These were profoundly disconcerting events. Simultaneously with these revolts, indigenous peoples presented a persistent threat to New England and New York while they were allied with French. Race is what drove white colonists into the revivalist tents. Reassurance was what was sought and received: they belonged and they would prevail, together.
Following a series of post-Independence rebellions in the new United States, which shook the country’s confidence in itself, the Second Great Awakening coincided with intense national debates about the slave trade and the enactment of the fugitive slave laws. The traditionally symbolic event of the movement is the meeting at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1800. The location is not insignificant. From the time of the American Revolution, there had been continuous warfare by the white settlers with the native Shawnee and Cherokee residents of Kentucky. Cane Ridge was effectively an evangelical Te Deum for victory over the natives, and a celebration of continuing white supremacy in the region.
The Third Great Awakening in the defeated Confederate states corresponds to the period of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. This is the period of ‘Jim Crow,’ the attempt to reverse Emancipation and maintain black serfdom into the 20th century. Church attendance was entirely segregated. Fear of black political power provoked intimidatory pressure on the black churches to refrain from political involvement. According to one leading historian of the period, “,,, in the racial climate of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, ... inter-racial spirituality was considered to be 'unchristian' and 'immoral'.” Inter-marriage among races was prohibited by law in Southern states, with widespread approval from the churches. The complicity of Christianity in the attempts to maintain racial dominance is undeniable.
The 20th century version of these movements is Christian Fundamentalism. Named after a series of essays published just prior to World War I, Fundamentalism, has proven attractive to nativists, racists, and radical evangelicals ever since. The second Ku Klux Klan with its gospel of white nationalism is one of its more prominent artifacts. But so are the racial prohibitions in 20th century Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Pentecostal sects.
The new ‘radio preachers’ of the 1920’s and 30’s like Billy Sunday, and later Father Coughlin, were covertly sympathetic to the Klan and overtly racist in their own views. Even into the 1950’s, the most notable inheritor of the revivalist tradition, Billy Graham, would not take a stand against racism. To the degree that main stream churches succumbed to ‘liberal’ attitudes towards race, radical evangelical emerged to minimise race as an issue, diverting national attention to ‘moral’ issues of abortion, same sex marriage and their version of religious liberty.
Of course, each of these episodes is an arbitrary designation for what is a really a single and consistent culture of fear not religious conviction. There is a similar pattern in all of these historical examples. First, race is rarely mentioned as a motive or a subject of renewed religious fervour. However, neither is Christian doctrine. Aside from the allusion to ‘fundamentals’ in the 20th century (which ultimately could not be agreed upon in any case), concerns about orthodox doctrine were matters for the leaders of these movements not their followers. The attempts to explain persistent popular appeal of religious enthusiasm by reference to doctrinal repair or recovery is ludicrous. Ordinary Christians simply have no idea about the relative merits of double predestination, the number of the saved, or the Virgin birth.
It is historically obvious that American Christianity is a tribal affair. Each of the movements outlined above is an act of reinforcement of (white) tribal solidarity. They all cut across sectarian and associated doctrinal differences. And they very clearly provide comfort in times of social stress. And this stress is always dominantly that of race. James Baldwin attributed American racial attitudes to an inherent feeling of impurity, of inherent and irredeemable sin. I think he’s correct. This is an inherited spiritual condition which instinctively seeks a spiritual therapy. Hence the perennial attraction of the revival, the anti-intellectual jamboree of pure feeling among like-minded, and troubled, souls. The tradition of the revival serves both to hide and to justify racial fear.
Racism typically manifests as fear of the Other. However, it is actually fear of the Self that is at issue. In anti-Semitism, for example, it is clear that ‘The Jew’ has never referred to any Jewish person. It is a construct which is useful to confirm Christian identity by negation, and to simultaneously deny the fear of not being among the arbitrarily chosen group to be spared eternal damnation. Recall that strict Calvinism is the ur-religion of America. This fear of exclusion from membership among the saved is an essential part of the American religious legacy. The relative paucity of the Jewish population on which to project this fear was solved by the presence of the imported black man.
It should not be surprising that race is not an explicit topic among those participating. To admit the issue of race would raise the suspected impurity to the level of consciousness, something far too painful to contemplate. And since theology is simply an alien discipline, the vocabulary used is one of vague ‘values,’ which are to be upheld or recovered. Reading the transcripts of sermons given by the great revivalists from Whitefield in the 17th century to the various mega-preachers of the 21st, the persistent emphasis is consistently on either Pauline faith in the advice of the preacher or the unfortunate influences of ‘alien’ elements in society. These elements are rarely mentioned by name. But they are demons who certainly do not resemble the upright white folk who are part of church-going society. They are black, brown, or red, usually with identifiable accents.
My point is raising the history of Christianity in America is that religion has always been a matter of nationalism in the country. Indeed, religion has always been the principle mode of expression of this nationalism. The network of Christian churches traditionally has formed the political glue holding the republic together. This network has typically controlled local government, including the education system even before independence. And it has always been supported by ‘average’ participants as well as large benefactors. The use of modern technology to communicate within these networks is incidental.
Christianity in America appears more fragmented into sectarian factions than any other country on the planet. Yet intellectual issues of doctrine always give way to the need for political unity in order to exert power. And the one issue that is persistently central as the catalyst for this unity is race. Racial domination is the source and goal of power in America. That the country is deeply disturbed is not an issue. This is not a new condition; it has been so from its roots. Racial fear has been passed along from generation to generation as its principle cultural legacy.
So, I can’t agree with Stewart that “The roots of the present crisis in the American political party system lie at the juncture of money and religion.” The roots are psychological, or, if you prefer, spiritual. Money and religion are merely responses to a feeling of inferiority which is unacknowledged. The country blusters and obfuscates, especially in religion, because it feels unsure. The most visible proof of that feeling is the country’s persistent racism, which acts not as compensation but distraction from the feeling of inferiority. Confronting the religious façade with this fact, continuously and forcefully, is, I think the only hope of doing anything about it.
Postscript 16/11/200: Still going strong: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/op...
One of the many paradoxes of the American republic is its self-image as a risk-taking, pioneering, adventurous people. Yet it is none of these. America’s timidity and uncertainty about itself is demonstrated most forcefully in its obsession with religion and its use of religion as a political force. As Katherine Stewart says, the recent turn to the divine has very little to do with religious doctrine, and absolutely nothing to do with Christian ethics. It is a political movement, the purpose of which is to create a feeling of certainty, particularly an existential certainty about American worth, for individuals as well for the nation. As she puts it, the current state of a plurality of Americans have “a longing for certainty in an uncertain world... The movement gives them confidence, an identity, and the feeling that their position in the world is safe.”
But this is not a new phenomenon, neither the uncertainty nor the response to it. America was founded on a deep spiritual uncertainty and a cultural obsession with safety. And it has a traditional way to deal with both: racism. While racism is a by-product of a more subtle malaise stemming from American religious history, it is the symptom through which the underlying disease can be accessed. This, I think, is what is missing from Stewart’s book. Without a recognition of the sociological/spiritual source of the problem, it only appears that the current state of American politics is the result of relatively recent events and concerns. And this is not the case.
It is, of course, misleading to view American religious movements in terms of doctrinal disputes. They have always been political, and always motivated by uncertainty expressed as fear. The so-called First Great Awakening in the mid-seventeenth century British colonies did not incidentally occur contemporaneously with the Stono Rebellion of slaves in South Carolina and the Slave Conspiracy in New York City. These were profoundly disconcerting events. Simultaneously with these revolts, indigenous peoples presented a persistent threat to New England and New York while they were allied with French. Race is what drove white colonists into the revivalist tents. Reassurance was what was sought and received: they belonged and they would prevail, together.
Following a series of post-Independence rebellions in the new United States, which shook the country’s confidence in itself, the Second Great Awakening coincided with intense national debates about the slave trade and the enactment of the fugitive slave laws. The traditionally symbolic event of the movement is the meeting at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1800. The location is not insignificant. From the time of the American Revolution, there had been continuous warfare by the white settlers with the native Shawnee and Cherokee residents of Kentucky. Cane Ridge was effectively an evangelical Te Deum for victory over the natives, and a celebration of continuing white supremacy in the region.
The Third Great Awakening in the defeated Confederate states corresponds to the period of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. This is the period of ‘Jim Crow,’ the attempt to reverse Emancipation and maintain black serfdom into the 20th century. Church attendance was entirely segregated. Fear of black political power provoked intimidatory pressure on the black churches to refrain from political involvement. According to one leading historian of the period, “,,, in the racial climate of the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, ... inter-racial spirituality was considered to be 'unchristian' and 'immoral'.” Inter-marriage among races was prohibited by law in Southern states, with widespread approval from the churches. The complicity of Christianity in the attempts to maintain racial dominance is undeniable.
The 20th century version of these movements is Christian Fundamentalism. Named after a series of essays published just prior to World War I, Fundamentalism, has proven attractive to nativists, racists, and radical evangelicals ever since. The second Ku Klux Klan with its gospel of white nationalism is one of its more prominent artifacts. But so are the racial prohibitions in 20th century Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Pentecostal sects.
The new ‘radio preachers’ of the 1920’s and 30’s like Billy Sunday, and later Father Coughlin, were covertly sympathetic to the Klan and overtly racist in their own views. Even into the 1950’s, the most notable inheritor of the revivalist tradition, Billy Graham, would not take a stand against racism. To the degree that main stream churches succumbed to ‘liberal’ attitudes towards race, radical evangelical emerged to minimise race as an issue, diverting national attention to ‘moral’ issues of abortion, same sex marriage and their version of religious liberty.
Of course, each of these episodes is an arbitrary designation for what is a really a single and consistent culture of fear not religious conviction. There is a similar pattern in all of these historical examples. First, race is rarely mentioned as a motive or a subject of renewed religious fervour. However, neither is Christian doctrine. Aside from the allusion to ‘fundamentals’ in the 20th century (which ultimately could not be agreed upon in any case), concerns about orthodox doctrine were matters for the leaders of these movements not their followers. The attempts to explain persistent popular appeal of religious enthusiasm by reference to doctrinal repair or recovery is ludicrous. Ordinary Christians simply have no idea about the relative merits of double predestination, the number of the saved, or the Virgin birth.
It is historically obvious that American Christianity is a tribal affair. Each of the movements outlined above is an act of reinforcement of (white) tribal solidarity. They all cut across sectarian and associated doctrinal differences. And they very clearly provide comfort in times of social stress. And this stress is always dominantly that of race. James Baldwin attributed American racial attitudes to an inherent feeling of impurity, of inherent and irredeemable sin. I think he’s correct. This is an inherited spiritual condition which instinctively seeks a spiritual therapy. Hence the perennial attraction of the revival, the anti-intellectual jamboree of pure feeling among like-minded, and troubled, souls. The tradition of the revival serves both to hide and to justify racial fear.
Racism typically manifests as fear of the Other. However, it is actually fear of the Self that is at issue. In anti-Semitism, for example, it is clear that ‘The Jew’ has never referred to any Jewish person. It is a construct which is useful to confirm Christian identity by negation, and to simultaneously deny the fear of not being among the arbitrarily chosen group to be spared eternal damnation. Recall that strict Calvinism is the ur-religion of America. This fear of exclusion from membership among the saved is an essential part of the American religious legacy. The relative paucity of the Jewish population on which to project this fear was solved by the presence of the imported black man.
It should not be surprising that race is not an explicit topic among those participating. To admit the issue of race would raise the suspected impurity to the level of consciousness, something far too painful to contemplate. And since theology is simply an alien discipline, the vocabulary used is one of vague ‘values,’ which are to be upheld or recovered. Reading the transcripts of sermons given by the great revivalists from Whitefield in the 17th century to the various mega-preachers of the 21st, the persistent emphasis is consistently on either Pauline faith in the advice of the preacher or the unfortunate influences of ‘alien’ elements in society. These elements are rarely mentioned by name. But they are demons who certainly do not resemble the upright white folk who are part of church-going society. They are black, brown, or red, usually with identifiable accents.
My point is raising the history of Christianity in America is that religion has always been a matter of nationalism in the country. Indeed, religion has always been the principle mode of expression of this nationalism. The network of Christian churches traditionally has formed the political glue holding the republic together. This network has typically controlled local government, including the education system even before independence. And it has always been supported by ‘average’ participants as well as large benefactors. The use of modern technology to communicate within these networks is incidental.
Christianity in America appears more fragmented into sectarian factions than any other country on the planet. Yet intellectual issues of doctrine always give way to the need for political unity in order to exert power. And the one issue that is persistently central as the catalyst for this unity is race. Racial domination is the source and goal of power in America. That the country is deeply disturbed is not an issue. This is not a new condition; it has been so from its roots. Racial fear has been passed along from generation to generation as its principle cultural legacy.
So, I can’t agree with Stewart that “The roots of the present crisis in the American political party system lie at the juncture of money and religion.” The roots are psychological, or, if you prefer, spiritual. Money and religion are merely responses to a feeling of inferiority which is unacknowledged. The country blusters and obfuscates, especially in religion, because it feels unsure. The most visible proof of that feeling is the country’s persistent racism, which acts not as compensation but distraction from the feeling of inferiority. Confronting the religious façade with this fact, continuously and forcefully, is, I think the only hope of doing anything about it.
Postscript 16/11/200: Still going strong: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/op...
December 12, 2019
I thought I had a good grasp of politics, but I never understood why religious conservatives, who are supposed to care about "morals" and "family values" could support a president like Trump. This book helped me understand the answer. Stewart travels through the world of Christian nationalism and meets with leaders and foot soldiers of the movement, attending their conferences and gatherings, and providing historical context as to why the religious right has gained so much power in modern American politics. The journalism is top notch, and the book is well written and entertaining. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in exploring these issues.
August 17, 2023
I noted with interest that during the storming of the Federal Capitol on January 6, 2021 that some of those involved were carrying Christian symbols and signs, and at one point one of the leaders of the invasion of the Senate chamber, Jacob Chansley, actually asked the rioters to pause in their rampage and join him for a moment of prayer to God, "Thank you for allowing the United States to be reborn." I wondered what kind of Christianity motivated this action. Reborn to what?
I read this book to help figure out why so many people who identify themselves as Christian supported and voted for Trump, and some even participated in a violent invasion of the halls of Congress trying to stop a Constitutional process in order to keep Trump as president.
These Christians don't want a pluralistic democracy, they want an autocratic theocracy that imposes Bible based laws on the country. To them Jesus is King, and if a leader like Trump comes along and acts like a king, that makes him the leader that's needed.
This book focuses on the organizations and the people behind the rise of religious nationalism. The rest of this review is made up of a listing of the content chapters, short descriptions, and scattered excerpts from the book.
Introduction
The author first learned about religious nationalist when they invaded her community's schools. That led to her earlier book, The Good News Club. This book is based upon information collected over the subsequent ten years.
The first chapter tells of the author's visit thirty-three days before the 2018 midterm elections to a meeting in the fellowship hall of the Unionville Baptist Church located forty-five minutes outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. The meeting is religious in name, but is political in every other way.
This chapter introduces us to Ralph Drollinger as the author visits the World Ag Expo in California, an annual agricultural outdoor exposition bringing together hundreds of businesses supporting the food-growing sector.
Chapter 3 describes the story of the issue of abortion of being a convenient tool to obtain popular support to protect the tax exempt status of religious institutions (Bob Jones University in particular) that wanted to maintain racial segregation.
Chapter 4 describes the organization Church United that targets multiple ethnic groups.
Chapter five tells the story of Rousas Rushdoony.
I read this book to help figure out why so many people who identify themselves as Christian supported and voted for Trump, and some even participated in a violent invasion of the halls of Congress trying to stop a Constitutional process in order to keep Trump as president.
These Christians don't want a pluralistic democracy, they want an autocratic theocracy that imposes Bible based laws on the country. To them Jesus is King, and if a leader like Trump comes along and acts like a king, that makes him the leader that's needed.
This book focuses on the organizations and the people behind the rise of religious nationalism. The rest of this review is made up of a listing of the content chapters, short descriptions, and scattered excerpts from the book.
Introduction
The author first learned about religious nationalist when they invaded her community's schools. That led to her earlier book, The Good News Club. This book is based upon information collected over the subsequent ten years.
For the past ten years I have been attending conferences, gatherings, and strategy meetings of the activists powering this movement. I have sat down for coffee with “ex-gay” pastors determined to mobilize the “pro-family” vote. I have exchanged emails late into the night with men and women who have dedicated their lives to the goal of refounding the United States according to “biblical law.” (p2)CHAPTER 1 Church and Party in Unionville
Their issues—the overwhelming preoccupation with sexual order, the determination to unite the nation around a single religious identity, the conviction that they are fighting for salvation against forces of darkness—have come to define the effort that has transformed the political landscape and shaken the foundations upon which lay our democratic norms and institutions. (p2)
It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a “biblical worldview” that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders. The movement is unlikely to realize its most extreme visions, but it has already succeeded in degrading our politics and dividing the nation with religious animus. This is not a “culture war.” It is a political war over the future of democracy. (p3)
Christian nationalism is not a religious creed but, in my view, a political ideology. It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation. It asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage. It demands that our laws be based not on the reasoned deliberation of our democratic institutions but on particular, idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible. (p3)
The leaders of the movement have quite consciously reframed the Christian religion itself to suit their political objectives and then promoted this new reactionary religion as widely as possible, thus turning citizens into congregants and congregants into voters. (p6)
The first chapter tells of the author's visit thirty-three days before the 2018 midterm elections to a meeting in the fellowship hall of the Unionville Baptist Church located forty-five minutes outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. The meeting is religious in name, but is political in every other way.
Since churches are subsidized with public money through tax deductions and other tax advantages, one could say that the United States now has a publicly subsidized political party that promotes an agenda of religious nationalism. (p31)CHAPTER 2 Ministering to Power
This chapter introduces us to Ralph Drollinger as the author visits the World Ag Expo in California, an annual agricultural outdoor exposition bringing together hundreds of businesses supporting the food-growing sector.
According to the conventional wisdom, the movement is simply an effort to preserve so-called traditional values and, perhaps more critically, to restore a sense of pride and privilege to a part of the American population that feels that its status is slipping. But a closer look at the substance of that political religion, in the context of the movement’s involvement with political elites, tells a very different story. Most of the political vision of Christian nationalism is decided in the inside game. After all, the Bible can be used to promote any number of political positions. Many would argue that it generally favors helping the poor, for example. But the Bible of Christian nationalism answers to the requirements of the individuals who fund the movement and grant it power at the highest levels of government.(p33)CHAPTER 3 Inventing Abortion
While many Americans still believe that the Christian right is primarily concerned with “values,” leaders of the movement know it’s really about power. (p40)
The study guide [Drollinger's] makes clear that God believes in deregulation. “Leaders must incentivize individuals and industries (which includes unencumbering them from the unnecessary burdens of government regulations),” Drollinger writes. Drollinger has words of wisdom for laborers, too. In a Bible study titled “Toward a Better Biblical Understanding of Lawmaking,” he cites 1 Peter 2:18-21, “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.” Here Drollinger explains, “The economy of Rome at the time of Peter’s writing was one of slave and master. The principle however, of submitting to one’s boss carries over to today.” (p48)
This is all music to the ears of agribusiness leaders. Major issues confront managers of agricultural concerns these days, among them government policy with respect to labor, foreign trade, water access, subsidies and other regulation. It is not surprising that industry leaders may look to a certain kind of religion for answers—not in the sense of praying for rain (although speaker Sonny Perdue, the secretary of agriculture, has done that, too) but in the sense of working with religious nationalists to elevate the policies and politicians that work to their benefit. (p48)
Of course, those policies, which favor low regulation and minimal workers’ rights, may exacerbate existing wealth inequalities in the Central Valley. But this is a feature of the system, not a bug. That’s the way inequality works. On the one hand, it creates concentrations of wealth whose beneficiaries are determined to manipulate manipulate the political process to hold on to and enhance their privileges. On the other hand, it generates a sense of instability and anxiety among broad sectors of the wider public, which is then ripe for conversion to a religion that promises authority and order. Drollinger is just one particularly successful example of the kind of religious entrepreneur that such times invariably call forth. (p48)
Drollinger’s Bible is also firmly on the side of the wealthy. “God is pro private property ownership,” he writes, asserting that a flat tax is “God-ordained.” When one individual earns more than another, he says, “it is not just or fair for the Government to tax that person at a higher percentage.” .... And he declares his “growing personal conviction” that “if there is not a change to a flat tax soon, citizens who are now both on government subsistence programs and paying no income tax should have the privilege of voting curtailed until their case proves otherwise.” So much for democracy. (p48)
Drollinger also anchors an ardent passion for male supremacy in his reading of the Bible. Women, he has maintained, should not be allowed to teach—or be placed in positions of leadership over—men in church. “If you look in the Bible all the leaders are male. It may not be what I would choose,” he says with an air of feigned helplessness, “but that’s what God wants.” (p50)
Citing the story of the Tower of Babel, Drollinger maintains that the Bible requires “the nations” nations” to be kept separate through “borders and boundaries,” and that “God’s Word says He frowns on illegal immigrants.” It’s a curious message to bring to a room full of agribusiness people, many of whom rely critically on cheap, often undocumented labor from “other nations.” (p51)
Many Americans still mistakenly believe that leaders of the religious right confine their attention to a few hot-button concerns and that if we could just find “common ground” on, say, abortion, the hostilities would cease. The religion I found in Tulare, however, is mostly about money and power. (p53)
Chapter 3 describes the story of the issue of abortion of being a convenient tool to obtain popular support to protect the tax exempt status of religious institutions (Bob Jones University in particular) that wanted to maintain racial segregation.
This story is worse than myth. It is false as history and incorrect as analysis. Christian nationalism drew its inspiration from a set of concerns that long predated the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade and had little to do with abortion. (p54)CHAPTER 4 The Mind of a Warrior
As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, “It wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.” (p63)
Chapter 4 describes the organization Church United that targets multiple ethnic groups.
Jim Domen is one such leader. A California pastor and the founder of a group called Church United, he has built his voter-outreach machine around the idea of racial inclusiveness.(p79)CHAPTER 5 Up from Slavery: The Ideological Origins of Christian Nationalism
“For the evangelical church right now, membership is no longer based on color,” [Bradley] Onishi notes. “It is also not really based in religion anymore, either. Your litmus test for religious belonging comes via your political beliefs.”(p89)
Chapter five tells the story of Rousas Rushdoony.
... today’s Christian nationalism did not emerge out of the religious movement that opposed such rigid hierarchies. It came from the one that promoted them—with the Bible in one hand and a whip in the other.(p115)Due to G.R.'s word limit on reviews, this review is continued in "message 1" below.
Rushdoony advocated a return to “biblical” law in America. The Bible, says Rushdoony, commands Christians to exercise absolute dominion over the earth and all of its inhabitants. Women are destined by God to be subordinate to men; men are destined to be ruled by a spiritual aristocracy of right-thinking, orthodox Christian clerics; and the federal government is an agent of evil. Public education, in Rushdoony’s reading of the Bible, is a threat to civilization, for it “basically trains women to be men,” and represents “primitivism,” “chaos,” and “a vast ‘integration into the void.’ ” In over thirty books and publications, including The Messianic Character of American Education and The Institutes of Biblical Law—often hailed as his magnum opus and recommended as one of the Choice Evangelical Books of 1973 by evangelical flagship journal Christianity Today—Rushdoony lays it all out in a program that he calls Christian Reconstruction. (p104)
Where David Barton strikes out on his own, it is to take a swipe at modern, liberal government as a form of slavery, a gesture that Rushdoony surely would have endorsed. “Since sinful man tends to live in bondage, different forms of slavery have replaced the more obvious system of past centuries,” Barton explains. “The state has assumed the role of master for many, providing aid and assistance, and with it more and more control, to those unable to protect themselves.”(p115)
Justice in education, for Rushdoony as for Dabney, was not merely a matter of exempting (white) taxpayers from the burden of supporting secular indoctrination. It was also about laying the foundations for the reconstruction of a theonomic society: one whose laws are based on what Christian nationalists today might call a “biblical worldview.”(p117)
Justice in education, for Rushdoony as for Dabney, was not merely a matter of exempting (white) taxpayers from the burden of supporting secular indoctrination. It was also about laying the foundations for the reconstruction of a theonomic society: one whose laws are based on what Christian nationalists today might call a “biblical worldview.”(p123)
June 9, 2020
Originally published on my book blog, TheBibliophage.com.
Katherine Stewart deftly explains the intersection of Christian evangelism and political power in The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. She breaks down the history, the people, organizations, goals, and the tactics. For the first time, I’m completely clear on the way billionaire power brokers are breaking through the separation of church and state. And it’s scary as hell.
Stewart begins with how this radical movement harnesses the power of pulpits around the world. Despite starting in the United States, its goal is worldwide power. And this is a political movement, as she makes abundantly clear. It’s not grassroots, but rather comes from those with plenty of money and a hunger for control.
In order for churches to maintain their IRS tax-exempt status, pastors can’t campaign for specific candidates. However, the power brokers in this movement supply massive pastor networks with “voter’s guides.” Each locally-focused guide details candidate positions. Then it separates those with “biblical values” from “liberal humanists.” Throughout, pastors make very clear to their congregations that the only righteous choice is the former. It’s a single, carefully calculated step away from a prohibited campaign for a specific candidate.
Their perspective on women and children
Women are secondary citizens in Christian nationalism. And, despite some Orwellian double speak, there’s no equality between the sexes in this world. For these men, power starts at the broadest political level and continues down to individual families. Men have power, and women are always subordinate. Even though they keep home, children, and life in order for said men. Stewart explains how these beliefs impact women’s health, reproductive rights, and their control of their own lives.
I certainly thought that the anti-choice movement was at the forefront of Christian nationalism. Stewart explains the nuanced way they included it in their platforms. Not quite as straightforward as I thought. She also explains how the religious beliefs of Catholic health systems routinely endanger women’s lives.
As for children, Stewart lays bare the deeper purposes behind the “school choice” movement, including vouchers and charter schools. Religious nationalism is beginning to inculcate their beliefs in elementary school children. And they’re using our tax dollars to do it.
Christian nationalism and the LGBTQIA+ community
Not surprisingly, pastors and power brokers in this movement demonize anyone who isn’t cis-gender, binary, and heterosexual. They fight incredibly hard against LGBTQIA+ rights. One particular pastor is a “former” gay man and now helps “convert” others. He’s a rising star in the movement, and Stewart is given access to him and his presentations.
Christian nationalism and Black oppression
The power brokers in this movement date back to pre-Civil War, slavery days. Wow, does this connection make this a relevant book for anyone desiring to be allies for the Black community. The men who head today’s Christian nationalist movement draw directly on the writings of slave owners and anti-abolitionist activists. Stewart clearly draws the connections, and I was gobsmacked.
My conclusions
To say this book shook me is a small understatement. It gives background and underpinnings to the “mysteries” of the 2016 election. And more than anything, it’s about gathering power and using people’s belief set to move your own life upward.
It’s important to say that not all Christians or evangelicals support this movement. But the people behind it have mountains of money, and they know how to use it. It’s spent in campaign contributions, from local to national races. The men behind it organize Bible study groups in the halls of most U.S. legislatures. And its slick propaganda is sent around the world.
Stewart explains that these “power worshippers” aren’t building on our founding fathers’ democratic principles. They’re twisting them to serve their own purposes, which lead far away from true citizen-centered politics. I’ll leave you with one quote from Stewart:
“Today’s Christian nationalists talk a good game about respecting the Constitution and America’s founders, but at bottom they prefer autocrats to democrats.”
Chilling, right? I recommend this book and will be telling people about it for months and years to come. If you want to understand the dark underbelly of religion and politics, this is a great place to start.
Pair it with The Handmaid’s Tale (show or book) by Margaret Atwood, for a frightening fictional vision that seems more possible every day. Or try it alongside The Soul of America by Jon Meacham for a historical perspective.
Katherine Stewart deftly explains the intersection of Christian evangelism and political power in The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. She breaks down the history, the people, organizations, goals, and the tactics. For the first time, I’m completely clear on the way billionaire power brokers are breaking through the separation of church and state. And it’s scary as hell.
Stewart begins with how this radical movement harnesses the power of pulpits around the world. Despite starting in the United States, its goal is worldwide power. And this is a political movement, as she makes abundantly clear. It’s not grassroots, but rather comes from those with plenty of money and a hunger for control.
In order for churches to maintain their IRS tax-exempt status, pastors can’t campaign for specific candidates. However, the power brokers in this movement supply massive pastor networks with “voter’s guides.” Each locally-focused guide details candidate positions. Then it separates those with “biblical values” from “liberal humanists.” Throughout, pastors make very clear to their congregations that the only righteous choice is the former. It’s a single, carefully calculated step away from a prohibited campaign for a specific candidate.
Their perspective on women and children
Women are secondary citizens in Christian nationalism. And, despite some Orwellian double speak, there’s no equality between the sexes in this world. For these men, power starts at the broadest political level and continues down to individual families. Men have power, and women are always subordinate. Even though they keep home, children, and life in order for said men. Stewart explains how these beliefs impact women’s health, reproductive rights, and their control of their own lives.
I certainly thought that the anti-choice movement was at the forefront of Christian nationalism. Stewart explains the nuanced way they included it in their platforms. Not quite as straightforward as I thought. She also explains how the religious beliefs of Catholic health systems routinely endanger women’s lives.
As for children, Stewart lays bare the deeper purposes behind the “school choice” movement, including vouchers and charter schools. Religious nationalism is beginning to inculcate their beliefs in elementary school children. And they’re using our tax dollars to do it.
Christian nationalism and the LGBTQIA+ community
Not surprisingly, pastors and power brokers in this movement demonize anyone who isn’t cis-gender, binary, and heterosexual. They fight incredibly hard against LGBTQIA+ rights. One particular pastor is a “former” gay man and now helps “convert” others. He’s a rising star in the movement, and Stewart is given access to him and his presentations.
Christian nationalism and Black oppression
The power brokers in this movement date back to pre-Civil War, slavery days. Wow, does this connection make this a relevant book for anyone desiring to be allies for the Black community. The men who head today’s Christian nationalist movement draw directly on the writings of slave owners and anti-abolitionist activists. Stewart clearly draws the connections, and I was gobsmacked.
My conclusions
To say this book shook me is a small understatement. It gives background and underpinnings to the “mysteries” of the 2016 election. And more than anything, it’s about gathering power and using people’s belief set to move your own life upward.
It’s important to say that not all Christians or evangelicals support this movement. But the people behind it have mountains of money, and they know how to use it. It’s spent in campaign contributions, from local to national races. The men behind it organize Bible study groups in the halls of most U.S. legislatures. And its slick propaganda is sent around the world.
Stewart explains that these “power worshippers” aren’t building on our founding fathers’ democratic principles. They’re twisting them to serve their own purposes, which lead far away from true citizen-centered politics. I’ll leave you with one quote from Stewart:
“Today’s Christian nationalists talk a good game about respecting the Constitution and America’s founders, but at bottom they prefer autocrats to democrats.”
Chilling, right? I recommend this book and will be telling people about it for months and years to come. If you want to understand the dark underbelly of religion and politics, this is a great place to start.
Pair it with The Handmaid’s Tale (show or book) by Margaret Atwood, for a frightening fictional vision that seems more possible every day. Or try it alongside The Soul of America by Jon Meacham for a historical perspective.
May 12, 2023
This book should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of the country- and the world. These "Christian Nationalists" are real, they are extremely well funded and they are making headway. They have gone a long way in making the wall of separation between church and state crumble- in no small part thanks to the corrupt and twisted opinions of Clarence Thomas but he is certainly not alone. I believed that the connection between Putin and Trump was exclusively about money and it largely is but it is also part of the agenda by the religious right and Putin and Trump are right on board with it. By the way, the Christianity being preached by these people bears little if any resemblance to the Christianity that I learned about growing up. They use the Old Testament and in many ways are even more harsh than it is.
Their ideas are based in an harsh Old Testament, system of beliefs as already mentioned, but they go further in many respects. They believe that if you are poor, disabled, or just down on your luck, it is a punishment from God and you should not be helped.
Over the past several years I have tended to shy away from these current events type of books because they are so disturbing. I usually read history because it has already passed so it is easier to accept the end result. Stewart does end on a hopeful note but it does not alleviate my anxiety because it is just a general hope on her part that the good guys will somehow win. The solutions to the problems caused by the far right seem to have become so pervasive that undoing the damage could take a very long time.
Their ideas are based in an harsh Old Testament, system of beliefs as already mentioned, but they go further in many respects. They believe that if you are poor, disabled, or just down on your luck, it is a punishment from God and you should not be helped.
Over the past several years I have tended to shy away from these current events type of books because they are so disturbing. I usually read history because it has already passed so it is easier to accept the end result. Stewart does end on a hopeful note but it does not alleviate my anxiety because it is just a general hope on her part that the good guys will somehow win. The solutions to the problems caused by the far right seem to have become so pervasive that undoing the damage could take a very long time.
August 25, 2023
I tried to write a review of this book. I failed. There is just too much to unpack for me to do it or its author justice. It is an important book and even if you don't agree with everything -- or anything -- that Katherine Stewart has written, you owe it to yourself to give her a hearing.
April 12, 2020
This book assumes as an unchallenged premise that America’s Religious Right has evolved into Christian Nationalist and that the Republican Party is currently controlled by the ultraconservatives within their own party. That kind of framing does a disservice to what is really being done against this country.
The real question that this book skirts at is why 80% of white Evangelical Christians support Donald Trump. What is it about his fascism that they love so much? Why do they overlap in their beliefs? No, check that. It’s not an overlap in the Venn diagram sense; it’s more that the Christian Nationalist are a subset such that their hate is sublated by hating the same people that Donald Trump hates and their special form of nationalism leading to fascism is contained within each other’s world view.
Fascism stems from nationalism applied for the special benefit of the privileged class in the guise of liberty such that the selective in-group believes their special privileges are warranted and do not come at the expense of the out-group, “it’s okay to deny gay marriage to loving same-sex couples since my book tells me it’s okay to hate the sin as long as I don’t hate the person even if that is part of their essence”.
The author’s main thrust of the book is on how the evangelical Christians are being controlled by a ginned up hatred of abortion, some anti-gay bigotry and other closely related values issues in order that the religious institutions can profit from their parochial schools all in a guise of violations of their own religious liberties. The author never fully diagrams the reason why the Christian Nationalist and today’s Republican Party hate the same people and are enabling their special brand of nationalism leading to fascism.
I just see the current world a little bit differently from the author’s main premises. The Christian Nationalists have always been with us. The NYT in 1924 made note of the fact that when Mussolini came to power that the KKK were America’s fascist and a book that connects this way better than this book, Behold America: The Entangled History of the America First and the American Dream, showed how the KKK was made up of only Christian Nationalist such as Donald Trump’s father Fred Christ Trump and morphed into the American First movement of the 30s and 40s and became today’s modern Republican Party as led by their leader Donald Trump. They weren’t taken over by the ultraconservatives; they are the Republican Party and the Republican Party is them.
America’s Religious Right didn’t evolve into something they never were, they have always been that way while they were just hidden behind the veil of the more modest religious types who are slowly being replaced. One can always tell the nuts from the sane by seeing how they respond to two questions: 1) is climate change man made and 2) is evolution by natural selection a reasonable theory for explaining nature. They are led by a Fascist who thinks ‘climate change is a Chinese Hoax’ and they are also taught by Trump and their church leaders to reject all science because all authorities such as government experts, academics, and scientist are not as worthy to them as their gut feelings are which get reinforced by their sources from self anointed authorities who tell them that everything they read or hear is fake news and that they need only trust Trump or their church leaders. Usually, I don’t give a damn if somebody believes that fairies are real and live in my shoes, but when they want to regulate my shoes because of that I start to care, or worst yet, if they believe the Corona Virus is a ‘Democratic Hoax’ and is not worse than a flu and that we should stop social distancing because after all ‘we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease itself’ (all said and done in March 2020 and affirmed by Christian Nationalist and Donald Trump), but when people deny science and math when it can kill me that’s when I start to care.
I want to be specific. I did not really care for this book. The connections have always been there but the author doesn’t really connect them to reality while she blames ‘the ultraconservatives or the America right’ for making the Republican Party the Republican Party or ‘the American Religious Right evolving’ for turning the Christian Nationalist into Christian Nationalist. I would argue they have always been there and now they have found a leader that channels who they are as he is channeled by them and the author really never gets at how a religious person could enable such a moron who says ‘climate change is a Chinese hoax’, or all news is fake that doesn’t praise him or their religion.
The real question that this book skirts at is why 80% of white Evangelical Christians support Donald Trump. What is it about his fascism that they love so much? Why do they overlap in their beliefs? No, check that. It’s not an overlap in the Venn diagram sense; it’s more that the Christian Nationalist are a subset such that their hate is sublated by hating the same people that Donald Trump hates and their special form of nationalism leading to fascism is contained within each other’s world view.
Fascism stems from nationalism applied for the special benefit of the privileged class in the guise of liberty such that the selective in-group believes their special privileges are warranted and do not come at the expense of the out-group, “it’s okay to deny gay marriage to loving same-sex couples since my book tells me it’s okay to hate the sin as long as I don’t hate the person even if that is part of their essence”.
The author’s main thrust of the book is on how the evangelical Christians are being controlled by a ginned up hatred of abortion, some anti-gay bigotry and other closely related values issues in order that the religious institutions can profit from their parochial schools all in a guise of violations of their own religious liberties. The author never fully diagrams the reason why the Christian Nationalist and today’s Republican Party hate the same people and are enabling their special brand of nationalism leading to fascism.
I just see the current world a little bit differently from the author’s main premises. The Christian Nationalists have always been with us. The NYT in 1924 made note of the fact that when Mussolini came to power that the KKK were America’s fascist and a book that connects this way better than this book, Behold America: The Entangled History of the America First and the American Dream, showed how the KKK was made up of only Christian Nationalist such as Donald Trump’s father Fred Christ Trump and morphed into the American First movement of the 30s and 40s and became today’s modern Republican Party as led by their leader Donald Trump. They weren’t taken over by the ultraconservatives; they are the Republican Party and the Republican Party is them.
America’s Religious Right didn’t evolve into something they never were, they have always been that way while they were just hidden behind the veil of the more modest religious types who are slowly being replaced. One can always tell the nuts from the sane by seeing how they respond to two questions: 1) is climate change man made and 2) is evolution by natural selection a reasonable theory for explaining nature. They are led by a Fascist who thinks ‘climate change is a Chinese Hoax’ and they are also taught by Trump and their church leaders to reject all science because all authorities such as government experts, academics, and scientist are not as worthy to them as their gut feelings are which get reinforced by their sources from self anointed authorities who tell them that everything they read or hear is fake news and that they need only trust Trump or their church leaders. Usually, I don’t give a damn if somebody believes that fairies are real and live in my shoes, but when they want to regulate my shoes because of that I start to care, or worst yet, if they believe the Corona Virus is a ‘Democratic Hoax’ and is not worse than a flu and that we should stop social distancing because after all ‘we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease itself’ (all said and done in March 2020 and affirmed by Christian Nationalist and Donald Trump), but when people deny science and math when it can kill me that’s when I start to care.
I want to be specific. I did not really care for this book. The connections have always been there but the author doesn’t really connect them to reality while she blames ‘the ultraconservatives or the America right’ for making the Republican Party the Republican Party or ‘the American Religious Right evolving’ for turning the Christian Nationalist into Christian Nationalist. I would argue they have always been there and now they have found a leader that channels who they are as he is channeled by them and the author really never gets at how a religious person could enable such a moron who says ‘climate change is a Chinese hoax’, or all news is fake that doesn’t praise him or their religion.
May 22, 2020
This some truly scary stuff, but it’s timely and more people need to read this. I grew up in the religious south where you’d see the religious creep in the social structure and public institutions. It wasn’t until I moved away from there that I saw how fucked up it was. A true wolf in sheep’s clothing. Katherine Stewart provides an excellent piece of journalism here, and many Americans need to be aware of this, but most importantly, they also need to vote.
February 28, 2021
I don't normally read the horror genre, but this book would qualify. It kept me up at night. And it's not fiction.
May 4, 2023
An alarming, important, comprehensive, and thoroughly researched look into the origins, theology, strategies, and politics of one of the most ambitious and growing movements in America today. Lest she be misunderstood, Ms Stewart makes it clear early in the book Christian nationalism is not about religion or culture, but is instead "a political war over the future of democracy." That is to say, there's very little about the movement (beyond the Biblical words and imagery they use) that's Christian (they are, after all, the folks who called Trump "God's candidate" and "God's guy"), but their reach in churches around the country and in the halls of power is widespread.
"The Power Worshippers" was written during the Trump years, before January 6. As a consequence discussion about the prospect of violence is not as prevalent or urgent as it would otherwise have been. That being the case, I'm going to cheat a little here for the sake of brevity. (Well, given how long this review turned out to be, maybe that's not the best word.) In July of this year, Ms Stewart had an article in the NY Times with the title "Christian Nationalists are Excited About What Comes Next." (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/op...). A couple of the things she wrote in the article concisely capture the scope and menace of this movement:
• "Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project."
• The movement is driven by the "theology of dominionism — that is, the belief that 'right-thinking' Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society."
• "The rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appear[s] to have increased significantly." (She quotes Florida senator Rick Scott speaking at the Road to Majority Policy Conference in June 2022: " “The backlash is coming. Just mount up and ride to the sounds of the guns, and they are all over this country. It is time to take this country back.”)
As I began the book, I cautioned myself against making too much of her argument, that conspiracy thinking can manifest itself on the Left as easily as it does on the Right. Stewart wipes that skepticism away very convincingly. By and large, she lets them speak for themselves.She's spoken to key participants (they're surprisingly open about what they're doing, even to the point of talking about how they deceptively use common images and non-threatening phrases to cover up what they're really doing), attended their conferences and church assemblies, read their literature, and more. She identifies the key figures and organizations and shows how they are connected to one another.
She writes: [Christian nationalism] is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity... It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation. It asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage. It demands that our laws be based not on the reasoned deliberation of our democratic institutions but on particular, idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible.
The movement's goals include dismantling public education in the country (they view it as a cesspool of secularism and atheism), gaining a voice in -- and ultimately control over -- boards of education, expanding their presence in American courts, and influencing national policy. As recent Supreme Court decisions about abortion, "rights of conscience," religious presence in public schools, book removals at schools, and many other developments make clear, they have been very very successful.
Stewart explores how this all came to be and who the key figures are. The movement is not centralized, she says -- there is no singular command and control center -- but they are networked (nationally and internationally), technologically savvy, major figures in the movement are active in numerous different organizations, and they're capable of mounting country-wide programs, including voting campaigns. And many of them are very rich and very influential.
If I may, let me share a few excerpts that capture what Stewart uncovered about where the movement is coming from, what it wants, and how far it's gotten toward reaching its goals.
• One nationally known figure and best-selling figure says of women, “Your task is at home. A woman’s task, a woman’s work, a woman’s employment, a woman’s calling is to be at home.” He even frowned upon church libraries carrying books written by women. “If he found out your wife worked, he’d fire you,” one of his supporters said. “Or, if he liked you, he’d give you a raise so she could quit her job.”
• Examples of the "Biblical values" the movement presents: "Scripture... opposes public assistance to the poor as a matter of principle—unless the money passes through church coffers."; "God believes in deregulation"; a "flat tax is 'God-ordained.'"; "nowhere does God command the institutions of government or commerce to fully support those with genuine needs."; "God’s Word says He frowns on illegal immigrants"; “Abortion is discrimination based on age... Half of the babies that are killed are female babies, and those women, those very young girls, they don’t have a choice.”
• Jesus, one keynote speakers said, “was a man’s man, but we feminized him in the church,” adding, “I believe that sword he’ll be carrying when he comes back is an AR-15.”
I could go on. I won't. I will, however, share Stewart's observations about how successful the movement has been in gaining access to power. "By the spring of 2018, Drollinger’s [a huge name in the movement] weekly White House Bible study gatherings, some reportedly taking place in the West Wing, included as many as eleven of fifteen cabinet secretaries. (Emphasis mine.) His people boast of having “ministers that do nothing but walk the halls of the [Congressional] office buildings and drop in and pray with members.” They have national figures funding them or acting as spokesmen -- e.g., Betsy DeVos, Mike Huckabee, Ginni Thomas, the Mercers, and numerous others.* They've gotten seats in state boards of education, selecting what textbooks can and can't be used, what curriculum can and can't be taught. One key figure -- David Barton**, whose name comes up again and again -- has even attained influence on education in the military. As part of their effort to identify registered and non-registered voters in churches and finding influential members who will spread the word, they have gotten access (as one of their media people put it, to "about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database."
So no, there's no conspiracy. What there is, though, is much worse: a national, highly networked and coordinated, and increasingly empowered movement to reshape the country. They see their movement as a divinely ordained war against liberalism and democratic representation. In the words of an influential pastor and radio evangelist named D. James Kennedy, “The infusion of an atheistic, amoral, evolutionary, socialistic, one-world, anti-American system of education in our public schools, has indeed become such that if it had been done by an enemy, it would be considered an act of war.”
It's a war they're willing to fight -- in churches, schools, political offices, courtrooms, and -- to judge by the events of January 6 -- they'll do whatever is necessary.
3.5 rounded up for the importance of the subject and breadth/depth of research. Goes too far into the weeds towards the end for me.
* When a Whole Foods shopper reaches for a package of Organicgirl premium salad mix, she might be under the illusion that its contents were brought to market by a yoga mama with rainbow flags on her hydroponic greenhouse. But to anyone sitting at the table here in Tulare, these kings of the organics business are very much on board with the hard-right religion and even harder-right politics of Capitol Ministries.
** Mike Huckabee said, “I almost wish that there would be … a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced—forced at gunpoint, no less—to listen to every David Barton message.” Barton’s demagoguery met with immediate scrutiny. According to National Public Radio, “We looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible but not one of them checked out.”
"The Power Worshippers" was written during the Trump years, before January 6. As a consequence discussion about the prospect of violence is not as prevalent or urgent as it would otherwise have been. That being the case, I'm going to cheat a little here for the sake of brevity. (Well, given how long this review turned out to be, maybe that's not the best word.) In July of this year, Ms Stewart had an article in the NY Times with the title "Christian Nationalists are Excited About What Comes Next." (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/op...). A couple of the things she wrote in the article concisely capture the scope and menace of this movement:
• "Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project."
• The movement is driven by the "theology of dominionism — that is, the belief that 'right-thinking' Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society."
• "The rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appear[s] to have increased significantly." (She quotes Florida senator Rick Scott speaking at the Road to Majority Policy Conference in June 2022: " “The backlash is coming. Just mount up and ride to the sounds of the guns, and they are all over this country. It is time to take this country back.”)
As I began the book, I cautioned myself against making too much of her argument, that conspiracy thinking can manifest itself on the Left as easily as it does on the Right. Stewart wipes that skepticism away very convincingly. By and large, she lets them speak for themselves.She's spoken to key participants (they're surprisingly open about what they're doing, even to the point of talking about how they deceptively use common images and non-threatening phrases to cover up what they're really doing), attended their conferences and church assemblies, read their literature, and more. She identifies the key figures and organizations and shows how they are connected to one another.
She writes: [Christian nationalism] is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity... It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation. It asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage. It demands that our laws be based not on the reasoned deliberation of our democratic institutions but on particular, idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible.
The movement's goals include dismantling public education in the country (they view it as a cesspool of secularism and atheism), gaining a voice in -- and ultimately control over -- boards of education, expanding their presence in American courts, and influencing national policy. As recent Supreme Court decisions about abortion, "rights of conscience," religious presence in public schools, book removals at schools, and many other developments make clear, they have been very very successful.
Stewart explores how this all came to be and who the key figures are. The movement is not centralized, she says -- there is no singular command and control center -- but they are networked (nationally and internationally), technologically savvy, major figures in the movement are active in numerous different organizations, and they're capable of mounting country-wide programs, including voting campaigns. And many of them are very rich and very influential.
If I may, let me share a few excerpts that capture what Stewart uncovered about where the movement is coming from, what it wants, and how far it's gotten toward reaching its goals.
• One nationally known figure and best-selling figure says of women, “Your task is at home. A woman’s task, a woman’s work, a woman’s employment, a woman’s calling is to be at home.” He even frowned upon church libraries carrying books written by women. “If he found out your wife worked, he’d fire you,” one of his supporters said. “Or, if he liked you, he’d give you a raise so she could quit her job.”
• Examples of the "Biblical values" the movement presents: "Scripture... opposes public assistance to the poor as a matter of principle—unless the money passes through church coffers."; "God believes in deregulation"; a "flat tax is 'God-ordained.'"; "nowhere does God command the institutions of government or commerce to fully support those with genuine needs."; "God’s Word says He frowns on illegal immigrants"; “Abortion is discrimination based on age... Half of the babies that are killed are female babies, and those women, those very young girls, they don’t have a choice.”
• Jesus, one keynote speakers said, “was a man’s man, but we feminized him in the church,” adding, “I believe that sword he’ll be carrying when he comes back is an AR-15.”
I could go on. I won't. I will, however, share Stewart's observations about how successful the movement has been in gaining access to power. "By the spring of 2018, Drollinger’s [a huge name in the movement] weekly White House Bible study gatherings, some reportedly taking place in the West Wing, included as many as eleven of fifteen cabinet secretaries. (Emphasis mine.) His people boast of having “ministers that do nothing but walk the halls of the [Congressional] office buildings and drop in and pray with members.” They have national figures funding them or acting as spokesmen -- e.g., Betsy DeVos, Mike Huckabee, Ginni Thomas, the Mercers, and numerous others.* They've gotten seats in state boards of education, selecting what textbooks can and can't be used, what curriculum can and can't be taught. One key figure -- David Barton**, whose name comes up again and again -- has even attained influence on education in the military. As part of their effort to identify registered and non-registered voters in churches and finding influential members who will spread the word, they have gotten access (as one of their media people put it, to "about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database."
So no, there's no conspiracy. What there is, though, is much worse: a national, highly networked and coordinated, and increasingly empowered movement to reshape the country. They see their movement as a divinely ordained war against liberalism and democratic representation. In the words of an influential pastor and radio evangelist named D. James Kennedy, “The infusion of an atheistic, amoral, evolutionary, socialistic, one-world, anti-American system of education in our public schools, has indeed become such that if it had been done by an enemy, it would be considered an act of war.”
It's a war they're willing to fight -- in churches, schools, political offices, courtrooms, and -- to judge by the events of January 6 -- they'll do whatever is necessary.
3.5 rounded up for the importance of the subject and breadth/depth of research. Goes too far into the weeds towards the end for me.
* When a Whole Foods shopper reaches for a package of Organicgirl premium salad mix, she might be under the illusion that its contents were brought to market by a yoga mama with rainbow flags on her hydroponic greenhouse. But to anyone sitting at the table here in Tulare, these kings of the organics business are very much on board with the hard-right religion and even harder-right politics of Capitol Ministries.
** Mike Huckabee said, “I almost wish that there would be … a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced—forced at gunpoint, no less—to listen to every David Barton message.” Barton’s demagoguery met with immediate scrutiny. According to National Public Radio, “We looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible but not one of them checked out.”
April 6, 2020
I grew up in an Evangelical cult and was homeschooled until college. I've been deeply familiar with a number of the subjects Katherine Stewart explores in "The Power Worshippers" since I was a kid. My family even donated to some of the players.
Stewart does a fantastic job of providing an accessible overview of the far-right theocratic movement in the United States and explaining how it came to subsume such a large portion of American Christianity. Her working understanding of the subject outpaces the vast majority of journalism I've read on the subject.
My only complaint as an ex-cult member is that the tone becomes a bit editorial in places. Editorialization, even in the book's title, could turn off readers inside this oppressive theocratic movement who would otherwise find this a strong resource to make sense of their lives and, hopefully, find a way out. With facts so overtly damning, there's little need for moral commentary.
That minor criticism aside, I highly recommend this book!
Stewart does a fantastic job of providing an accessible overview of the far-right theocratic movement in the United States and explaining how it came to subsume such a large portion of American Christianity. Her working understanding of the subject outpaces the vast majority of journalism I've read on the subject.
My only complaint as an ex-cult member is that the tone becomes a bit editorial in places. Editorialization, even in the book's title, could turn off readers inside this oppressive theocratic movement who would otherwise find this a strong resource to make sense of their lives and, hopefully, find a way out. With facts so overtly damning, there's little need for moral commentary.
That minor criticism aside, I highly recommend this book!
March 23, 2021
“We don’t need lessons on patriotism from Christian nationalists. We need to challenge them in the name of the nation we actually have- a pluralistic, democratic nation - where no one is above the law and the laws are meant to be made by the people and their representatives in accordance with the Constitution.”
May 18, 2020
Katherine Stewart has chronicled the rise of christian nationalism in the US in very thorough fashion with this latest volume. Detailing the less familiar names of this (bowel) movement such as Weyrich, Rushdoody, Dallis, Barton, and Drollinger; she effectively examines the origins of this well-funded cult and the myriad ways they seek to insinuate themselves in every possible political and social arena, no matter how undemocratic the means or how much they need to pervert the American Founders' well-published opinions on these matters.
The list of lobbying organizations, coalitions of fanatical church leaders, and the terminology to rebrand issues of christian favoritism as freedom of religion makes for great reading and no doubt if you are a professional in the education and medical fields you will have heard of many of these. In particular, chapter 9 hit home for me as it details the unique stupidity and bigotry of the billionaire blowhards of west Michigan, who, in the name of so-called "school choice," are spending untold millions on fundamentalist christian education while trying to undermine the success of public education throughout the state.
It was a common trope that religion and politics should never meet. You were considered wise and ecumenical in your approach if you repeated this. You were considered especially wise if you said this was done more-so to protect the religion than the political systems. What has become plain is that there is no divide between these two fields for the wealthy organizations stoking the fires of division and resentment here and abroad. Their "beliefs" are inherently political and to separate them from politics makes no sense in their worldview.
How many times have you heard leftist commentators scratch their heads as to how the evangelical right could embrace someone like Donald Trump? Seriously? A group of people given to credulity that only read (actually, skim) one book in their lifetime (accompanied by online hitpieces from their favorite politio-religious pundit)? Astounding that they could be taken in by a well-known con artist while at the same time wealthy donors who know exactly what Trump is use him as a useful idiot (or in the biblical terminology, use him as a, "Cyrus," an analogy so fraught with logical contradictions it baffles the mind) for their own agenda...
Frequently these matters are tried in the court of public opinion through symbolic cases which are meant to serve as totemic indicators of where the country is on a certain social issue. Forcing religious hospitals to give abortions! Making a christian bakery make a gay cake! Educating students that the religion they happen to have been born into is but one among thousands of historical belief systems! Outrageous, almost makes me want to type in all caps, but I won't. It is refreshing to see this matter documented with first-person interviews, in-depth reporting, and the very materials that these organizations of bigoted blowhards use to make their american-taliban version of christianity seem like the most natural thing in the world, when it is in fact the antithesis of everything our Founding Fathers and the alleged founder of their faith would ever have preached in either the political or religious realms.
The list of lobbying organizations, coalitions of fanatical church leaders, and the terminology to rebrand issues of christian favoritism as freedom of religion makes for great reading and no doubt if you are a professional in the education and medical fields you will have heard of many of these. In particular, chapter 9 hit home for me as it details the unique stupidity and bigotry of the billionaire blowhards of west Michigan, who, in the name of so-called "school choice," are spending untold millions on fundamentalist christian education while trying to undermine the success of public education throughout the state.
It was a common trope that religion and politics should never meet. You were considered wise and ecumenical in your approach if you repeated this. You were considered especially wise if you said this was done more-so to protect the religion than the political systems. What has become plain is that there is no divide between these two fields for the wealthy organizations stoking the fires of division and resentment here and abroad. Their "beliefs" are inherently political and to separate them from politics makes no sense in their worldview.
How many times have you heard leftist commentators scratch their heads as to how the evangelical right could embrace someone like Donald Trump? Seriously? A group of people given to credulity that only read (actually, skim) one book in their lifetime (accompanied by online hitpieces from their favorite politio-religious pundit)? Astounding that they could be taken in by a well-known con artist while at the same time wealthy donors who know exactly what Trump is use him as a useful idiot (or in the biblical terminology, use him as a, "Cyrus," an analogy so fraught with logical contradictions it baffles the mind) for their own agenda...
Frequently these matters are tried in the court of public opinion through symbolic cases which are meant to serve as totemic indicators of where the country is on a certain social issue. Forcing religious hospitals to give abortions! Making a christian bakery make a gay cake! Educating students that the religion they happen to have been born into is but one among thousands of historical belief systems! Outrageous, almost makes me want to type in all caps, but I won't. It is refreshing to see this matter documented with first-person interviews, in-depth reporting, and the very materials that these organizations of bigoted blowhards use to make their american-taliban version of christianity seem like the most natural thing in the world, when it is in fact the antithesis of everything our Founding Fathers and the alleged founder of their faith would ever have preached in either the political or religious realms.
May 13, 2023
Ms. Stewart’s central argument – and it is one that fits all too well within the Big Lie and Q’anon – is that there is a coalition of religious, political and wealthy persons who are working to create what would effectively be a theocracy in the United States, one that would benefit all parties but in different ways.
Prelude
When I was a college student – back when baby dinosaurs munched grass peacefully in our back yard – the consensus school of history was favored. This pleasant theory emphasized how – in the United States, at least – we had long been governed by elected officials who strove to deliver those policies that would benefit the large majority of the American people. And they did this by merging their differences – through the all-important vehicle of compromise – into consensus programs which at least most of them could support.
My own political experience in elective office in the ‘70s and early ‘80s seemed to confirm this. However, it was not long after that that I detected a strong movement on the Right that was pushing for policy positions that were actually not supported by a majority of citizens. Why did not more notice this? Because they learned very early to disguise the impact of their goals by classic misdirection – using the emerging hot buttons of racial and cultural issues to inflame fear and anger as a magnet to attract votes.
As I lived through this time I detected pieces of this effort, but not – at first – the over-all pattern. For example, it was clear to me from the beginning that Reagan’s administration was intent, as Nixon’s had not been, on dismantling key components of the advances won through the New Deal and as a consequence of the Second World War: higher wages and good benefits, widespread prosperity, constraints upon business and industry, numerous unions offering a counterbalance to the wealthy, and a moral strain of civil rights and social justice shared by at least the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches. Under Reagan, the assault on domestic programs that helped the middle and lower classes began and the alliance between the political Right and fundamental religious sects grew more powerful.
I was a member of the Iowa Legislature when the reaction to Roe v. Wade began, and I saw how quickly the “sides” became divided between abolishing abortion and retaining the right of individual women to choose it as an option. Very early what could have been the basis for common ground was abandoned, seemingly quickly by both sides. And this began the rapid retreat of the Catholic hierarchy from the broad “garment” of social justice – one that covered all aspects of human life, including racial justice, worker rights, and opposition to the death penalty and nuclear war – to the shrunken single goal of halting abortions.
In words from her Introduction, [pp. 2-7]:
We are facing a “political movement that seeks to transform the defining institutions of democracy in America. This movement pretends to represent the past and stand for old traditions. But in reality it is a creature of present circumstances and is organized around a vision for the future that most Americans would find abhorrent….
“…Their issues – the overwhelming preoccupation with sexual order, the determination to unite the nation around a single religious identity, the conviction that they are fighting for salvation against forces of darkness – have come to define the effort that has transformed the political landscape and shaken the foundations upon which lay our democratic norms and institutions. This is the movement responsible for the election for the forty-fifth president of the United States, and it now determines the future of the Republican Party…”
“For too long now America’s Christian nationalist movement has been misunderstood and underestimated. Most Americans continue to see it as a cultural movement centered on a set of social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, preoccupied with symbolic conflicts over monuments and prayers. But the religious right has become more focused and powerful even as it is arguably less representative. It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a ‘biblical worldview’ that also happens to serve the interest of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders… This is not a ‘culture war.’ It is a political war over the future of democracy….
“…Christian nationalism is not a religious creed but, in my view, a political ideology. It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation. It asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage. It demands that our laws be based not on the reasoned deliberation of our democratic institutions but on particular, idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible. Its defining fear is that the nation has strayed from the truths that once made it great. Christian nationalism looks backward on a fictionalized history of America’s allegedly Christian founding. It looks forward to a future in which its versions of the Christian religion and its adherents, along with their political allies, enjoy positions of exceptional privilege and power in government and in law.
“Christian nationalism is also a device for mobilizing (and often manipulating) large segments of the population and concentrating power in the hands of a new elite. It does not merely reflect the religious identity it pretends to defend but actively works to construct and promote new varieties of religion for the sake of accumulating power. It actively generates or exploits cultural conflict in order to improve its grip on its target population….
“Perhaps the most salient impediment to our understanding of the movement is the notion that Christian nationalism is a ‘conservative’ ideology. The correct word is ‘radical.’ A genuinely conservative movement would seek to preserve institutions of value that have been crafted over centuries of American history…. Christian nationalism pretends to work toward the revival of ‘traditional values’ yet its values contradict the long-established principles and norms of our democracy. It has no interest in securing the legitimacy of the Supreme Court; it will happily steal seats and pack the Court as long as it gets the rulings it wants. It cheers along voter suppression and gerrymandering schemes that allow Republicans to maintain disproportionate legislative control. It collaborates with international leaders who seek to undermine the United States’ traditional alliances and the postwar world order built up over the past seven decades. And it claims to defend ‘the family,’ but treats so many American families with contempt….
“The Christian nationalist movement is not a grassroots movement. Understanding its appeal to a broad mass of American voters is necessary in explaining its strength but is not sufficient in explaining the movement’s direction. It is a means through which a small number of people…harness the passions, resentments, and insecurities of a large and diverse population in their own quest for power. The leaders of the movement have quite consciously reframed the Christian religion itself to suit their political objectives and then promoted this new reactionary religion as widely as possible, thus turning citizens into congregants and congregants into voters….
“…Movement leaders understand very well that this access to conservative Christians through their churches is a key source of their power, and for this reason they are committed to over-turning regulatory, legal, or constitutional restrictions on the political activity of churches.”
Prelude
When I was a college student – back when baby dinosaurs munched grass peacefully in our back yard – the consensus school of history was favored. This pleasant theory emphasized how – in the United States, at least – we had long been governed by elected officials who strove to deliver those policies that would benefit the large majority of the American people. And they did this by merging their differences – through the all-important vehicle of compromise – into consensus programs which at least most of them could support.
My own political experience in elective office in the ‘70s and early ‘80s seemed to confirm this. However, it was not long after that that I detected a strong movement on the Right that was pushing for policy positions that were actually not supported by a majority of citizens. Why did not more notice this? Because they learned very early to disguise the impact of their goals by classic misdirection – using the emerging hot buttons of racial and cultural issues to inflame fear and anger as a magnet to attract votes.
As I lived through this time I detected pieces of this effort, but not – at first – the over-all pattern. For example, it was clear to me from the beginning that Reagan’s administration was intent, as Nixon’s had not been, on dismantling key components of the advances won through the New Deal and as a consequence of the Second World War: higher wages and good benefits, widespread prosperity, constraints upon business and industry, numerous unions offering a counterbalance to the wealthy, and a moral strain of civil rights and social justice shared by at least the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches. Under Reagan, the assault on domestic programs that helped the middle and lower classes began and the alliance between the political Right and fundamental religious sects grew more powerful.
I was a member of the Iowa Legislature when the reaction to Roe v. Wade began, and I saw how quickly the “sides” became divided between abolishing abortion and retaining the right of individual women to choose it as an option. Very early what could have been the basis for common ground was abandoned, seemingly quickly by both sides. And this began the rapid retreat of the Catholic hierarchy from the broad “garment” of social justice – one that covered all aspects of human life, including racial justice, worker rights, and opposition to the death penalty and nuclear war – to the shrunken single goal of halting abortions.
In words from her Introduction, [pp. 2-7]:
We are facing a “political movement that seeks to transform the defining institutions of democracy in America. This movement pretends to represent the past and stand for old traditions. But in reality it is a creature of present circumstances and is organized around a vision for the future that most Americans would find abhorrent….
“…Their issues – the overwhelming preoccupation with sexual order, the determination to unite the nation around a single religious identity, the conviction that they are fighting for salvation against forces of darkness – have come to define the effort that has transformed the political landscape and shaken the foundations upon which lay our democratic norms and institutions. This is the movement responsible for the election for the forty-fifth president of the United States, and it now determines the future of the Republican Party…”
“For too long now America’s Christian nationalist movement has been misunderstood and underestimated. Most Americans continue to see it as a cultural movement centered on a set of social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, preoccupied with symbolic conflicts over monuments and prayers. But the religious right has become more focused and powerful even as it is arguably less representative. It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a ‘biblical worldview’ that also happens to serve the interest of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders… This is not a ‘culture war.’ It is a political war over the future of democracy….
“…Christian nationalism is not a religious creed but, in my view, a political ideology. It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation. It asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage. It demands that our laws be based not on the reasoned deliberation of our democratic institutions but on particular, idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible. Its defining fear is that the nation has strayed from the truths that once made it great. Christian nationalism looks backward on a fictionalized history of America’s allegedly Christian founding. It looks forward to a future in which its versions of the Christian religion and its adherents, along with their political allies, enjoy positions of exceptional privilege and power in government and in law.
“Christian nationalism is also a device for mobilizing (and often manipulating) large segments of the population and concentrating power in the hands of a new elite. It does not merely reflect the religious identity it pretends to defend but actively works to construct and promote new varieties of religion for the sake of accumulating power. It actively generates or exploits cultural conflict in order to improve its grip on its target population….
“Perhaps the most salient impediment to our understanding of the movement is the notion that Christian nationalism is a ‘conservative’ ideology. The correct word is ‘radical.’ A genuinely conservative movement would seek to preserve institutions of value that have been crafted over centuries of American history…. Christian nationalism pretends to work toward the revival of ‘traditional values’ yet its values contradict the long-established principles and norms of our democracy. It has no interest in securing the legitimacy of the Supreme Court; it will happily steal seats and pack the Court as long as it gets the rulings it wants. It cheers along voter suppression and gerrymandering schemes that allow Republicans to maintain disproportionate legislative control. It collaborates with international leaders who seek to undermine the United States’ traditional alliances and the postwar world order built up over the past seven decades. And it claims to defend ‘the family,’ but treats so many American families with contempt….
“The Christian nationalist movement is not a grassroots movement. Understanding its appeal to a broad mass of American voters is necessary in explaining its strength but is not sufficient in explaining the movement’s direction. It is a means through which a small number of people…harness the passions, resentments, and insecurities of a large and diverse population in their own quest for power. The leaders of the movement have quite consciously reframed the Christian religion itself to suit their political objectives and then promoted this new reactionary religion as widely as possible, thus turning citizens into congregants and congregants into voters….
“…Movement leaders understand very well that this access to conservative Christians through their churches is a key source of their power, and for this reason they are committed to over-turning regulatory, legal, or constitutional restrictions on the political activity of churches.”
August 22, 2020
The power worshippers is another look into the the religious nationalists and the attempt at taking control over the American nation Making it seem like Christianity is the only hope for our godless world
Katherine Stewart does a great job at putting together this material she pin points all the areas that this movement is trying to control education, Medicare , LGBT rights , women’s rights etc she does it in a very professional way this book isn’t about hating christians but at shining light on the I would say fake Christian’s or radical believers who feel liberal thinking is the end game.
I found power worshippers a lot better then Chris hedges American Fascists in terms of strong educational points instead of the doom and gloom approach
power worshippers is a great book if you have a interest in the wave of proto fascism going on in the United States right now this book will leave you awe struck in some ways knowing that this kind of thinking is still going on in our modern world
Katherine Stewart does a great job at putting together this material she pin points all the areas that this movement is trying to control education, Medicare , LGBT rights , women’s rights etc she does it in a very professional way this book isn’t about hating christians but at shining light on the I would say fake Christian’s or radical believers who feel liberal thinking is the end game.
I found power worshippers a lot better then Chris hedges American Fascists in terms of strong educational points instead of the doom and gloom approach
power worshippers is a great book if you have a interest in the wave of proto fascism going on in the United States right now this book will leave you awe struck in some ways knowing that this kind of thinking is still going on in our modern world
September 6, 2021
A passage from The Power Worshippers:
"Christian academies soon came to depend heavily on public support. In Falwell’s Virginia, for example, state-sponsored tuition grants allowed students to take public money to the school of their choice. As religious entities, moreover, the schools and the organizations running them benefited from significant tax exemption. But in the late 1970s, following a string of court cases, the IRS began to threaten the tax-exempt status of religious groups running race-segregated schools. For conservative religious leaders, the previous decades had seemed like a long string of defeats. And now they had a chief bogeyman in the IRS, which was coming after their schools and their pocketbooks.
It would be hard to overestimate the degree of outrage that the threat of losing their tax-advantaged status on account of their segregationism provoked. As far as leaders like Bob Jones Sr. were concerned, they had a God-given right not just to separate the races but also to receive federal money for this purpose. Emerging leaders of the New Right were prepared to defend them. They began to meet regularly, to discuss politics, and to look for ways to make their voices heard in Washington. Paul Weyrich stoked the flames with sympathetic words about the unjust efforts “to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de-facto segregation.” In the grievances of the segregationists, he saw the opportunity to found a movement.
The correspondence between the religious conservatives and the New Right conservatives now crackled with energy. At their meetings in Lynchburg, common ground began to emerge. As Harry R. Jackson Jr. and Tony Perkins relate the story in their 2008 book, Personal Faith, Public Policy, “At one point during the wide-ranging discussion, Weyrich is reported to have said that there was a moral majority who wanted to maintain the traditional Christian values that were under assault in America. Falwell asked Weyrich to repeat the statement and then spun around and declared to one of his assistants ‘That’s the name for this organization – the Moral Majority.’” That day, say Jackson and Perkins, “marked the beginning of a new force in the American political landscape… At the rebirth of the Conservative civic involvement in 1979, the new leaders were determined not to repeat the “sins” of the fathers. They would not shy away from controversy, nor would they yield to criticism; they would work with others to restore the moral foundations of the nation.”
But they had a problem. As Weyrich understood, building a new movement around the burning issue of defending the tax advantages of racist schools wasn’t going to be a viable strategy on the national stage. “Stop the tax on segregation” just wasn’t going to inspire the kind of broad-based conservative counterrevolution that Weyrich envisioned. They needed an issue with a more acceptable appeal.
What message would bring the movement together? The men of Lynchburg considered a variety of unifying issues and themes. School prayer worked for some, but it tended to alienate the Catholics, who remembered all too well that, for many years, public schools had allowed only for Protestant prayers and bible readings while excluding Catholic readings and practices. Bashing communists was fine, but even Rockefeller Republicans could do that. Taking on “women’s liberation” was attractive, but the Equal Rights Amendment was already going down in flames. At last they landed on the one surprising word that would supply the key to the political puzzle of the age: “abortion.”
As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, “It wasn’t until 1979 – a full six years after Roe – that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.”
More than a decade later, Weyrich recalled the moment well. At a conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by a religious right organization called the Ethics and Public Policy Center (to which Balmer had been invited to attend), Weyrich reminded his fellow culture warriors of the facts: “Let us remember, he said animatedly, that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got us going was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially-discriminatory policies.”
As Balmer tells it in his book Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America, Weyrich then reiterated the point. During a break in the proceedings, Balmer says, he cornered Weyrich to make sure he had heard him correctly. “He was adamant that, yes, the 1975 action by the IRS against Bob Jones University was responsible for the genesis of the Religious Right in the 1970s.” It was only after leaders of the New Right held a conference call to discuss strategy, Balmer says, that abortion was “cobbled into the political agenda of the Religious Right.”"
"Christian academies soon came to depend heavily on public support. In Falwell’s Virginia, for example, state-sponsored tuition grants allowed students to take public money to the school of their choice. As religious entities, moreover, the schools and the organizations running them benefited from significant tax exemption. But in the late 1970s, following a string of court cases, the IRS began to threaten the tax-exempt status of religious groups running race-segregated schools. For conservative religious leaders, the previous decades had seemed like a long string of defeats. And now they had a chief bogeyman in the IRS, which was coming after their schools and their pocketbooks.
It would be hard to overestimate the degree of outrage that the threat of losing their tax-advantaged status on account of their segregationism provoked. As far as leaders like Bob Jones Sr. were concerned, they had a God-given right not just to separate the races but also to receive federal money for this purpose. Emerging leaders of the New Right were prepared to defend them. They began to meet regularly, to discuss politics, and to look for ways to make their voices heard in Washington. Paul Weyrich stoked the flames with sympathetic words about the unjust efforts “to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de-facto segregation.” In the grievances of the segregationists, he saw the opportunity to found a movement.
The correspondence between the religious conservatives and the New Right conservatives now crackled with energy. At their meetings in Lynchburg, common ground began to emerge. As Harry R. Jackson Jr. and Tony Perkins relate the story in their 2008 book, Personal Faith, Public Policy, “At one point during the wide-ranging discussion, Weyrich is reported to have said that there was a moral majority who wanted to maintain the traditional Christian values that were under assault in America. Falwell asked Weyrich to repeat the statement and then spun around and declared to one of his assistants ‘That’s the name for this organization – the Moral Majority.’” That day, say Jackson and Perkins, “marked the beginning of a new force in the American political landscape… At the rebirth of the Conservative civic involvement in 1979, the new leaders were determined not to repeat the “sins” of the fathers. They would not shy away from controversy, nor would they yield to criticism; they would work with others to restore the moral foundations of the nation.”
But they had a problem. As Weyrich understood, building a new movement around the burning issue of defending the tax advantages of racist schools wasn’t going to be a viable strategy on the national stage. “Stop the tax on segregation” just wasn’t going to inspire the kind of broad-based conservative counterrevolution that Weyrich envisioned. They needed an issue with a more acceptable appeal.
What message would bring the movement together? The men of Lynchburg considered a variety of unifying issues and themes. School prayer worked for some, but it tended to alienate the Catholics, who remembered all too well that, for many years, public schools had allowed only for Protestant prayers and bible readings while excluding Catholic readings and practices. Bashing communists was fine, but even Rockefeller Republicans could do that. Taking on “women’s liberation” was attractive, but the Equal Rights Amendment was already going down in flames. At last they landed on the one surprising word that would supply the key to the political puzzle of the age: “abortion.”
As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, “It wasn’t until 1979 – a full six years after Roe – that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.”
More than a decade later, Weyrich recalled the moment well. At a conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by a religious right organization called the Ethics and Public Policy Center (to which Balmer had been invited to attend), Weyrich reminded his fellow culture warriors of the facts: “Let us remember, he said animatedly, that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got us going was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially-discriminatory policies.”
As Balmer tells it in his book Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America, Weyrich then reiterated the point. During a break in the proceedings, Balmer says, he cornered Weyrich to make sure he had heard him correctly. “He was adamant that, yes, the 1975 action by the IRS against Bob Jones University was responsible for the genesis of the Religious Right in the 1970s.” It was only after leaders of the New Right held a conference call to discuss strategy, Balmer says, that abortion was “cobbled into the political agenda of the Religious Right.”"
May 10, 2022
Over the last several years, I’ve often found myself asking this question: why does x group of people believe y “fact”?
The questions range in topics:
*Why do some economically challenged Americans vote for parties that will—in the end—craft legislation that will make things harder for them?
*Why is wearing a mask so politically charged?
*Why do some Americans not understand basic scientific principles (or worse, ignore them in the face of evidence)?
*How are voter ID laws good? How are they bad?
*when did politics infuse itself (inextricably) into religion. Why is this okay?
**Why do some people believe our nation was founded favoring one religion over another?
—-
And the questions I ask myself lead to something I call a “brain crawl”—hours, days, months, years of research in the topic until my brain is satisfied I understand the topic (and all sides).
Folks, I’m mid swing in one of my brain crawls and you can thank (or curse) the last question I wrote above to it.
Principally, I asked:
1) why do some people believe the United States is a Christian nation? What is the evidence for and against such assertions?
2) what would a nation founded on Christian “values” truly look like? (And who decides?)
The books (and articles) I’ve read have been numerous. A few years ago (because this brain crawl remains—as yet—unsatisfied and thus, not exhausted) was a great one by Andrew Seidel—The Founding Myth.
I learned from his book more than I ever thought I wanted to about the Federalist Papers, supporting documents in what FACTUALLY the founders thought about religion with regard to our nation’s founding. (Spoiler: they didn’t want—explicitly—a nation founded under any religion…hence the very first amendment).
So that book explained the origin of the myth and the utter bastardization of history deployed to serve the myth. But it introduced a new concept—Christian Nationalism.
Yet…left unanswered was the rest of the story: The Who, the What, the When and the Why.
This book covers many of the gaps I still had. What is Christian Nationalism? When did it begin? Who are the architects? Who are the promulgators? What is the aim? To what end? Why do people buy in to it?
Christian Nationalism is a political religious movement or a religio-political movement. It is a fusion of fundamentalist Christian interpretation of biblical ideas with the power of political dominance. It believes this is a Christian nation, that our laws should align with the (interpreted) Bible, that it is okay and in fact “moral” to favor one group over another. There’s more the the movement…that’s the nutshell.
This book explains and defines the terms, goes into the history of the movement, introduces the reader to the key players, the main “tenets”, explains how the movement was formed, how it grew, and where it will go. (Ugh nowhere good!)
It’s a frightening book with footnotes (well researched and sourced).
And dammit, my “brain crawl” continues…
The questions range in topics:
*Why do some economically challenged Americans vote for parties that will—in the end—craft legislation that will make things harder for them?
*Why is wearing a mask so politically charged?
*Why do some Americans not understand basic scientific principles (or worse, ignore them in the face of evidence)?
*How are voter ID laws good? How are they bad?
*when did politics infuse itself (inextricably) into religion. Why is this okay?
**Why do some people believe our nation was founded favoring one religion over another?
—-
And the questions I ask myself lead to something I call a “brain crawl”—hours, days, months, years of research in the topic until my brain is satisfied I understand the topic (and all sides).
Folks, I’m mid swing in one of my brain crawls and you can thank (or curse) the last question I wrote above to it.
Principally, I asked:
1) why do some people believe the United States is a Christian nation? What is the evidence for and against such assertions?
2) what would a nation founded on Christian “values” truly look like? (And who decides?)
The books (and articles) I’ve read have been numerous. A few years ago (because this brain crawl remains—as yet—unsatisfied and thus, not exhausted) was a great one by Andrew Seidel—The Founding Myth.
I learned from his book more than I ever thought I wanted to about the Federalist Papers, supporting documents in what FACTUALLY the founders thought about religion with regard to our nation’s founding. (Spoiler: they didn’t want—explicitly—a nation founded under any religion…hence the very first amendment).
So that book explained the origin of the myth and the utter bastardization of history deployed to serve the myth. But it introduced a new concept—Christian Nationalism.
Yet…left unanswered was the rest of the story: The Who, the What, the When and the Why.
This book covers many of the gaps I still had. What is Christian Nationalism? When did it begin? Who are the architects? Who are the promulgators? What is the aim? To what end? Why do people buy in to it?
Christian Nationalism is a political religious movement or a religio-political movement. It is a fusion of fundamentalist Christian interpretation of biblical ideas with the power of political dominance. It believes this is a Christian nation, that our laws should align with the (interpreted) Bible, that it is okay and in fact “moral” to favor one group over another. There’s more the the movement…that’s the nutshell.
This book explains and defines the terms, goes into the history of the movement, introduces the reader to the key players, the main “tenets”, explains how the movement was formed, how it grew, and where it will go. (Ugh nowhere good!)
It’s a frightening book with footnotes (well researched and sourced).
And dammit, my “brain crawl” continues…
April 5, 2020
This book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of American democracy. Stewart details how the religious right (with money from reactionary plutocrats) is seeking to gain control of both federal and state governments to create a theocratic form of government based upon their own narrow (and false) reading of the Bible. As a born-again Christian, I am shocked at how these folk have misread the Scripture so as to benefit their own sense of "rightness" and order. I am also shocked that they cannot see how their own behavior is exactly the same as their proclaimed enemies, the Muslim, especially those extremists who want to place the entire world under Sharia Law. Their central claim that the world must conform to Jesus' teachings and must become Christian in order for Jesus to return are absurd and extra-Biblical, unless one violently twists the "Great Commission" found at the end of Matthew's gospel and ignores the "little apocalypse" of Matthew 24-25. How anyone naming Jesus as their Lord and role model could propose such a scenario is beyond me, especially when in Matthew 4:8-10, the satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and Jesus refuses the temptation to gain power and dominion over others.
Stewart's book is well-documented and quite clearly written. The threat that Christian Nationalism poses to American democracy has been evident even at the founding of this nation. There was actually a movement to make Hebrew the national language, since everyone knew that Americans were the new Israelis, God's chosen people. The only difference between now and then is that the nationalists have learned to play the long game, to slowly take over the plutocrats, then the state governments, and most recently the Federal government. This is what the First Amendment is all about. The Founders had before them the example of England and Europe, where nationally sanctioned religions held power in the government. Ben Franklin even talks about how his grandparents in England had to keep their translation of the Bible hidden so that they would not be arrested. It's time for the non-Nationalist Christians, the non-Christian / non-Nationalists, and the non-Christian nationalists to cut this movement off at the knees.
Stewart's book is well-documented and quite clearly written. The threat that Christian Nationalism poses to American democracy has been evident even at the founding of this nation. There was actually a movement to make Hebrew the national language, since everyone knew that Americans were the new Israelis, God's chosen people. The only difference between now and then is that the nationalists have learned to play the long game, to slowly take over the plutocrats, then the state governments, and most recently the Federal government. This is what the First Amendment is all about. The Founders had before them the example of England and Europe, where nationally sanctioned religions held power in the government. Ben Franklin even talks about how his grandparents in England had to keep their translation of the Bible hidden so that they would not be arrested. It's time for the non-Nationalist Christians, the non-Christian / non-Nationalists, and the non-Christian nationalists to cut this movement off at the knees.
June 18, 2020
I knew I had to read this book after listening to a fascinating podcast interview with the author. She has done an incredible job digging below the visible surface of the Christian Nationalist movement, which is defined as not simply personal religious belief or individual activism, but rather a well-financed effort to restructure the American political system which has most recently manifested in the election of Donald Trump.
It’s easy at times to chuckle at groups that call environmentalism “one of the greatest threats to society and the church today,” or megachurch leaders who claim to know how God feels about social issues and technology that didn’t arise until thousands of years after the Bible was written, but as we saw with Trump, opponents laugh at their own peril.
One of the most memorable takeaways is the author’s disquieting dig into how the “Moral Majority” leaders came to make abortion the central issue of their political and social platform. There’s a fascinating history of how the religious right seized upon abortion a full six years after Roe vs. Wade, as their original rallying cry of protecting segregated schools lost popularity. I’m not going to tell people that what they hold as a sincere conviction isn’t important, because plenty of people have told me the same thing over the years, but for many of the original builders of the right-wing religious cause, the anti-abortion “conviction” was more of a political strategy than a sincerely held belief. Writes the author, “The modern pro-life religion that dominates America’s conservative churches and undergirds a variety of their denominations is a political creation.”
It’s a division that sometimes means life and death for women. The author writes harrowingly of women in the midst of suffering miscarriages denied care and allowed to linger near death when a religious hospital is the only facility in town. The author herself was allowed to lose 40% of her blood volume before the hospital staff would even care for her. You have to pause and wonder what sort of country this is when such things are acceptable and legal.
It’s easy at times to chuckle at groups that call environmentalism “one of the greatest threats to society and the church today,” or megachurch leaders who claim to know how God feels about social issues and technology that didn’t arise until thousands of years after the Bible was written, but as we saw with Trump, opponents laugh at their own peril.
One of the most memorable takeaways is the author’s disquieting dig into how the “Moral Majority” leaders came to make abortion the central issue of their political and social platform. There’s a fascinating history of how the religious right seized upon abortion a full six years after Roe vs. Wade, as their original rallying cry of protecting segregated schools lost popularity. I’m not going to tell people that what they hold as a sincere conviction isn’t important, because plenty of people have told me the same thing over the years, but for many of the original builders of the right-wing religious cause, the anti-abortion “conviction” was more of a political strategy than a sincerely held belief. Writes the author, “The modern pro-life religion that dominates America’s conservative churches and undergirds a variety of their denominations is a political creation.”
It’s a division that sometimes means life and death for women. The author writes harrowingly of women in the midst of suffering miscarriages denied care and allowed to linger near death when a religious hospital is the only facility in town. The author herself was allowed to lose 40% of her blood volume before the hospital staff would even care for her. You have to pause and wonder what sort of country this is when such things are acceptable and legal.
Read
June 27, 2020Christian nationalism revealed--and it isn't as benign as it sounds
I read the book and am writing this review in the midst of the 2020 Corona-virus pandemic. The current crisis was not my sole impetus for picking up Stewart' s The Power Worshippers, but it contributed to understanding a whole lot more about our governments' (federal and state) proclivity for policies contrary to common sense and public well-being, and it isn't the economy this time.
This past week Trump held a rally in an enclosed Phoenix church with 3000 people, mostly younger, packed into it, most without masks, with my state of Arizona at the peak of the pandemic. To understand such insanity requires a deeper dive into the times in which we live, and how religion, nationalism, and politics have been set up so subtly and slipped into the drink of the public that such self-immolating events can occur without barely a whimper of protest.
You owe it to yourself and you offspring to read this book and then take action--if only to vote--on the contents.
I read the book and am writing this review in the midst of the 2020 Corona-virus pandemic. The current crisis was not my sole impetus for picking up Stewart' s The Power Worshippers, but it contributed to understanding a whole lot more about our governments' (federal and state) proclivity for policies contrary to common sense and public well-being, and it isn't the economy this time.
This past week Trump held a rally in an enclosed Phoenix church with 3000 people, mostly younger, packed into it, most without masks, with my state of Arizona at the peak of the pandemic. To understand such insanity requires a deeper dive into the times in which we live, and how religion, nationalism, and politics have been set up so subtly and slipped into the drink of the public that such self-immolating events can occur without barely a whimper of protest.
You owe it to yourself and you offspring to read this book and then take action--if only to vote--on the contents.
April 19, 2020
Really 2.5 stars. This was clearly written with an agenda and slant, much of which caused me to bristle. What is clear, however, from the factual reporting, is that many evangelicals are so focused on obtaining state-sponsored privilege, they are willing to look past the means to progress at any cost. Too often, this provides cover for white supremacy, racial subjugation, and an unbiblical view of environmental stewardship in the name of Christian Nationalism, minimizing the reality and impact of the gospel. I fear these political relationships of convenience will have long term consequences for generations and this book does a good job detailing precisely how deep and wide these relationships reach.
July 22, 2020
It wasn’t until five years after Roe v. Wade that Jerry Falwell made an issue out of abortion. The Religious Right actually first got together to oppose the IRS labelling the Bob Jones University as racially discriminating. Abortion’s back story: Fifty years ago, most Protestants did not oppose abortion rights. The Right had to inspire a religious movement in 1979 with a new theme but “Stop the tax on racist schools!” just wasn’t killing it in the focus groups. They had to come up with something that triggered the most voters – that became Abortion which unlocked the movements power. Define your party as the “Party of Life”. “The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.” I would have said endless war, capitalism or western civilization were the greatest destroyers, but that’s me. When nationalists say their party means Life or Religious Freedom, their high school implication is clear: the other party thus must stand for “Death” or “religious tyranny”. In rational conversation, the term “pro-life” would of course involve more than one issue. Lost to Christian Nationalists is loving thy neighbor, and caring for the least of these.
Christian nationalism is technically not conservative – it’s radical. It removes from the Bible all themes of social justice and all those bits about caring for the poor and downtrodden. Instead, it pushes hot buttons – Godlessness - the sanctity of life – the taking of an innocent life as trigger for “abortion”. Jimmy Carter was denied a second term partly because of the Abortion issue. Clinton on the Abortion bill, “I thought YOU paid it?” Opposing abortion started as code for “protecting segregated schools.”
“Dominion in earthly realms of authority (business & politics) is a Biblical mandate.” “if you are screwed, it’s your fault.” Amos Chapter Five is curiously absent from their bible readings. Christian Nationals believe social welfare programs “have no basis in Scripture”. To oppressed workers who complain, Peter 2:18-21 in the bible says that they can’t. “Progressive? That’s just another word for godless”. The litmus test for belonging is not religious beliefs but is first your political beliefs. Christian nationalism exploits and intensifies inequality. It’s left hand rejects government while it’s right hand demands government power to “impose their religious vision on the rest of society.” Preach love but practice intolerance formed from pure hate. Confederates prattled on about maintaining their privileged white way of life and it sure looks like the religious right has merely returned to its nasty origins. One data keeper on the Religious Right said they have over 200,000,000 names. Training your child in submission is God’s work according to spank-a-holic James Dobson. They teach at the Heritage Academy that God has revealed that prosperity requires a free market (which exists nowhere) and minimum of government regulations.
Vouchers are a way “to funnel state money to racially segregated religious academies.” Pushing charter schools paired with opposing gun registration. “It’s not your vote. It’s God’s vote.” Vouchers don’t improve education, they “eliminate non-sectarian education.” “We don’t want people teaching humanism. Humanism is the basis of the public schools.” The Hechinger report says, “the charter movement is prolonging racial segregation” citing an Associated press analysis of nearly 7,000 charter schools. “Approximately 73 percent of voucher schools across the country are Christian”, and only 23 percent are non-religious. Let’s look at an Abeka voucher school textbook which says that Satan “hatched the ideas of evolution, socialism, Marxist-socialism, progressive, and modern psychology.” All the humanity and empathy for others in humanism, gone. “59 percent of American public-school teachers are supplementing their paychecks with additional paid work.” Question: Should we as a nation privilege one brand of religion over all others? Christian nationalism works by valuing and responding only to the moral anguish of their own side while protecting only their own rights. Disempower all the rest. P.J. Smyth is a sadist piece of work on the religious right with smacking children to instill fear and obedience. A Pastor from Idaho, Doug Wilson, said, “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.” I doubt he put that on his Tinder profile. Doug also thought LGBT people should be able to be executed. In short, Christian nationalists don’t believe in universal equality, so all this disturbing but interesting stuff from the book I wrote down here should surprise no one.
Christian nationalism is technically not conservative – it’s radical. It removes from the Bible all themes of social justice and all those bits about caring for the poor and downtrodden. Instead, it pushes hot buttons – Godlessness - the sanctity of life – the taking of an innocent life as trigger for “abortion”. Jimmy Carter was denied a second term partly because of the Abortion issue. Clinton on the Abortion bill, “I thought YOU paid it?” Opposing abortion started as code for “protecting segregated schools.”
“Dominion in earthly realms of authority (business & politics) is a Biblical mandate.” “if you are screwed, it’s your fault.” Amos Chapter Five is curiously absent from their bible readings. Christian Nationals believe social welfare programs “have no basis in Scripture”. To oppressed workers who complain, Peter 2:18-21 in the bible says that they can’t. “Progressive? That’s just another word for godless”. The litmus test for belonging is not religious beliefs but is first your political beliefs. Christian nationalism exploits and intensifies inequality. It’s left hand rejects government while it’s right hand demands government power to “impose their religious vision on the rest of society.” Preach love but practice intolerance formed from pure hate. Confederates prattled on about maintaining their privileged white way of life and it sure looks like the religious right has merely returned to its nasty origins. One data keeper on the Religious Right said they have over 200,000,000 names. Training your child in submission is God’s work according to spank-a-holic James Dobson. They teach at the Heritage Academy that God has revealed that prosperity requires a free market (which exists nowhere) and minimum of government regulations.
Vouchers are a way “to funnel state money to racially segregated religious academies.” Pushing charter schools paired with opposing gun registration. “It’s not your vote. It’s God’s vote.” Vouchers don’t improve education, they “eliminate non-sectarian education.” “We don’t want people teaching humanism. Humanism is the basis of the public schools.” The Hechinger report says, “the charter movement is prolonging racial segregation” citing an Associated press analysis of nearly 7,000 charter schools. “Approximately 73 percent of voucher schools across the country are Christian”, and only 23 percent are non-religious. Let’s look at an Abeka voucher school textbook which says that Satan “hatched the ideas of evolution, socialism, Marxist-socialism, progressive, and modern psychology.” All the humanity and empathy for others in humanism, gone. “59 percent of American public-school teachers are supplementing their paychecks with additional paid work.” Question: Should we as a nation privilege one brand of religion over all others? Christian nationalism works by valuing and responding only to the moral anguish of their own side while protecting only their own rights. Disempower all the rest. P.J. Smyth is a sadist piece of work on the religious right with smacking children to instill fear and obedience. A Pastor from Idaho, Doug Wilson, said, “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party.” I doubt he put that on his Tinder profile. Doug also thought LGBT people should be able to be executed. In short, Christian nationalists don’t believe in universal equality, so all this disturbing but interesting stuff from the book I wrote down here should surprise no one.
May 26, 2020
This book is well-written and well-researched. I had to read it incredibly slowly because of how angry it made me.
January 20, 2024
This book is very educational but also full on gave me nightmares sometimes and made me feel hopeless. However, the epilogue has hopes for the future! Fascinating stuff!
April 29, 2020
This is a very informative, well written encapsulation of the Christian Nationalism that has patiently, willfully, and calculatedly capped a forty year struggle/ plan to ensconce itself in the top levels of power in this country. I have been aware of this movement and its machinations and doctrines, (seven mountains, for instance), for years, and this book exposes those to, hopefully, a wider audience. It goes further and deeper to flesh out and add to what the initiated, (like myself), already have a good grasp of. Therein lies the problem for me. I know enough about this to be outraged already, and the more I learn, the angrier I become. And this does no good for my circulatory system.
I mean, what IS it with these people? My mind strays while reading- Say, for instance, they DO manage to overturn RoevWade, which has been their rallying cry for forty years, (gotta have some kind of schtick, right? Can't rally around their real purpose- a white supremacist authoritarian theocracy)? What do we do now? I can just see senators and reps mulling it over at one of the many organized prayer group meetings in and around DC, including the White House itself. What do we do next? Oh, wait, great idea here- Let's outlaw working outside the home for women. Those who can, should bear children and do nothing else, except maybe a walk to the market, but only with a partner wearing the same red robe and giant white blinders, eyes downcast. Everybody else, especially black, brown, red, and yellow people and non-hetero, and non christian people can just replace superfund cleanup funds with manual labor cleanup of toxic waste sites. The savings of said funds can then be passed along to the wealthy through tax cuts! How else to fill the boredom of a post RvW world? And if you have any doubts if the people in this movement are not capable of this, if this is sounds too far fetched, read this book. These folks are in the halls of power. And they live across the street from you. And they are patient, and relentless.
While all of this raises my anger level in an unhealthy way, it also leaves me feeling very frustrated. My two senators, my representative, and my governor regularly attend these "prayer" meetings and are complicit. So, the old "write your reps" thing ain't-a gonna work. I am a problem solver by nature, and this is one that cannot be solved quickly, (before I am long gone), and one that I have very little influence on. All I can do is wait, and vote.
So, if you wonder what the heck I am talking about, if you think I am just some nut job conspiracy theorist/ angry old man type, read this book. It is very well written, and most importantly, researched and cross-referenced. Stewart makes a great case that this is real. And it is stark. And insidious. And if we do not raise our awareness of our need to resist and take control, we will be run roughshod over by a religiously zealous minority. Can't happen? This administration is in place after not winning a majority vote count, and that is due in no small part due to the efforts of these people.
I mean, what IS it with these people? My mind strays while reading- Say, for instance, they DO manage to overturn RoevWade, which has been their rallying cry for forty years, (gotta have some kind of schtick, right? Can't rally around their real purpose- a white supremacist authoritarian theocracy)? What do we do now? I can just see senators and reps mulling it over at one of the many organized prayer group meetings in and around DC, including the White House itself. What do we do next? Oh, wait, great idea here- Let's outlaw working outside the home for women. Those who can, should bear children and do nothing else, except maybe a walk to the market, but only with a partner wearing the same red robe and giant white blinders, eyes downcast. Everybody else, especially black, brown, red, and yellow people and non-hetero, and non christian people can just replace superfund cleanup funds with manual labor cleanup of toxic waste sites. The savings of said funds can then be passed along to the wealthy through tax cuts! How else to fill the boredom of a post RvW world? And if you have any doubts if the people in this movement are not capable of this, if this is sounds too far fetched, read this book. These folks are in the halls of power. And they live across the street from you. And they are patient, and relentless.
While all of this raises my anger level in an unhealthy way, it also leaves me feeling very frustrated. My two senators, my representative, and my governor regularly attend these "prayer" meetings and are complicit. So, the old "write your reps" thing ain't-a gonna work. I am a problem solver by nature, and this is one that cannot be solved quickly, (before I am long gone), and one that I have very little influence on. All I can do is wait, and vote.
So, if you wonder what the heck I am talking about, if you think I am just some nut job conspiracy theorist/ angry old man type, read this book. It is very well written, and most importantly, researched and cross-referenced. Stewart makes a great case that this is real. And it is stark. And insidious. And if we do not raise our awareness of our need to resist and take control, we will be run roughshod over by a religiously zealous minority. Can't happen? This administration is in place after not winning a majority vote count, and that is due in no small part due to the efforts of these people.
June 22, 2020
Terrifying. But a must-read. Fave quote from it:
"...[T]he religious right has become more focused and powerful even as it is arguably less representative. It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America's pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a "biblical worldview" that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic founders and allied political leaders."
Said "allied political leaders", frighteningly being affiliates of trump and, especially, pence. Another scary thing about this movement is that the best argument in the world about how unconstitutional their stance/actions/etc. might be falls on deaf ears: these are people who don't give a sh*t about the Constitution.
"...[T]he religious right has become more focused and powerful even as it is arguably less representative. It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America's pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a "biblical worldview" that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic founders and allied political leaders."
Said "allied political leaders", frighteningly being affiliates of trump and, especially, pence. Another scary thing about this movement is that the best argument in the world about how unconstitutional their stance/actions/etc. might be falls on deaf ears: these are people who don't give a sh*t about the Constitution.
September 11, 2020
This book may be off putting to some evangelicals, as the author comes off as a bit hostile towards Christians. Yet, there are some really important points to be gleaned from the text. The book is essentially a secular denunciation of Christian Nationalism, also known as dominionism. I was raised in the evangelical faith and am now a mainline Protestant. I thought I understood the web of lobbying forces in the evangelical community upon our government, but I learned a lot from this text. This book was featured in an article from Christianity Today and is definitely worth your time.
August 19, 2022
The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart
“The Power Worshippers” is an eye-opening examination of the dangerous rise of Christian nationalism and its threat to democracy. Investigative journalist and author, Katherine Stewart provides an excellent expose of the organizations and the people behind the extreme Christian movements. This insightful and at times unnerving 348-page book includes the following twelve chapters: 1. Church and Party in Unionville, 2. Ministering to Power, 3. Inventing Abortion, 4. The Mind of a Warrior, 5. Up from Slavery: The Ideological Origins of Christian Nationalism, 6. The Uses and Abuses of History, 7. The Blitz: Turning the States into Laboratories of Theocracy, 8. Converting the Flock to Data, 9. Proselytizers and Privatizers, 10. Theocracy from the Bench, or How to Establish Religion in the Name of “Religious Liberty”, 11. Controlling Bodies: What “Religious Liberty” Looks Like from the Stretcher, and 12. The Global Holy War Comes of Age.
Positives:
1. A professionally written book. Stewart writes with conviction and authority. It reads very well and it informs the reader.
2. A fascinating and important topic, Christian nationalism’s threat to democracy.
3. Clearly explains upfront what this movement is all about. “It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power”.
4. Debunks the most important myth that is being spewed by the religious extremists. “Christian nationalism is not a religious creed but, in my view, a political ideology. It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation.”
5. Does a great job throughout the book of describing the financial supporters (including public money) of Christian nationalism. “Since churches are subsidized with public money through tax deductions and other tax advantages, one could say that the United States now has a publicly subsidized political party that promotes an agenda of religious nationalism.”
6. Trump’s beliefs. “Trump believes in the rule of force, not the rule of law. He is not there to uphold values but to impose the will of the tribe.”
7. Bad beliefs that drive extremists and hurt the planet. “Drollinger called environmentalism a “false religion” and asserted that certain initiatives to protect animal species and preserve natural resources “miss the clear proclamation of God in Genesis.””
8. Christian nationalism and abortion. “As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, “It wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term.”
9. Racial inclusivity and the religious right. “Jim Domen is one such leader. A California pastor and the founder of a group called Church United, he has built his voter-outreach machine around the idea of racial inclusiveness.” ““For the evangelical church right now, membership is no longer based on color,” Onishi notes. “It is also not really based in religion anymore, either. Your litmus test for religious belonging comes via your political beliefs.””
10. Slavery and religious extremism. “The Episcopalians of South Carolina found slavery to be “marked by every evidence of divine approval.”30 The Reverend J. C. Postell of South Carolina stated that slavery “is supported by the Bible … [T]he fact that slavery is of divine appointment would be proof enough with the Christian that it cannot be a moral evil,” adding that it “is a judicial visitation.””
11. The people behind the myth. “The error in the detail was there to provide cover for the great lie at the center of Christian nationalism. What David Barton and the leaders of the Hobby Lobby corporation don’t want you to know is that America’s founders explicitly and proudly created the world’s first secular republic.”
12. Explains how extremists have turned states into laboratories for theocracy. “The discovery of Project Blitz was a game changer for understanding the movement’s legislative strategy. It is the playbook for a nationwide assault on state legislatures in all fifty states. It does indeed describe a “blitz,” for the basic strategy is to flood the zone with coordinated, simultaneous bills in the hopes that they will, eventually, become law.2 The stated aim of the project is to advance “religious freedom”—in a late 2019 conference call, organizers discussed rebranding the initiative Freedom for All—but this turns out to be the biggest of the many deceptions that characterize the enterprise.”
13. Find out the three categories or phases of their model legislation.
14. How extremists use data to better target citizens for conversion. “Bill Dallas has not been shy in describing the massive reach of his data operation. “We have about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database,” Dallas said in a September 5, 2016, interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “What we do is we track to see what’s going to make somebody either vote one way, or not vote at all.”15 Other outlets, including Forbes, picked up on the stunning facts.”
15. Attacking and undermining public education with the purpose of eliminating it. “In public confusion about the nature of charters, the DeVos family and their allies saw opportunity. A lightly regulated charter school industry, they realized, could achieve many of the same goals as voucher programs.”
16. The goal of controlling the courts and extremism. “Among the many sordid legacies that the Trump/Pence administration will leave behind, perhaps the most damaging over the long term may well be the infiltration of America’s judicial system with the progeny of the Federalist Society, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and their allies.”
17. Controlling bodies by controlling hospitals. ““Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices but should provide, for married couples and the medical staff who counsel them, instruction both about the Church’s teachings on responsible parenthood and in methods of natural family planning.””
18. Impact of extremism and health care. “America’s maternal mortality rate is the highest among nations in the developed world, and it is rising sharply, up over 26 percent between 2000 and 2014.5 Black women are three to four times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy complications. This report finds that “in many states women of color disproportionately receive reproductive health care restricted by ERDs” and suggests that the consequent dangers “should be evaluated against the backdrop of vastly inferior health care delivered to women of color across the board.””
19. Expanding extremism to the globe. “The global holy war now defines itself against a single common, worldwide enemy: global liberalism.”
20. Great use of links to notes.
Negatives:
1. Stewart admits that the focus of the book is on the organizations and people behind Christian nationalism and not the people who are mobilizing to confront the threat.
2. It can be hard to follow all the organizations and acronyms behind Christian nationalism.
3. Lack of visual material to support the excellent narrative.
4. No formal bibliography.
In summary, Katherine Stewart should be commended for her exhaustive research and the ability to put pen to paper. This book is very informative and reads very well. She captures the concerns that we should all have over the threat that these radical religious groups pose to our democracy. My only criticism of note is that it was hard at times to follow all the different organizations behind the extremism; visual supplements would have addressed my concerns while providing readers a tool to enhance comprehension. A high recommendation!
Further recommendations: “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy” by Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, “One Nation Under God” by Kevin Kruse, “Founding Myth” by Andrew Seidel, “Why the Religious Right Is Wrong about Separation of Church and State” by Robert Boston, “Nonbeliever Nation” by David Niose, “The Dark Side of Christian History” by Helen Ellerbe, “Birth Control, Insurance Coverage, & the Religious Right” by A.F. Alexander, “The God Argument” by A.C. Grayling, “Freethinkers” by Susan Jacoby, “Moral Combat” by Sikivu Hutchinson, “Republican Gomorrah” by Max Blumenthal, “American Fascists” by Chris Hedges, “Doubt” by Jennifer Michael Hecht, and “Society Without God” by Phil Zuckerman.
“The Power Worshippers” is an eye-opening examination of the dangerous rise of Christian nationalism and its threat to democracy. Investigative journalist and author, Katherine Stewart provides an excellent expose of the organizations and the people behind the extreme Christian movements. This insightful and at times unnerving 348-page book includes the following twelve chapters: 1. Church and Party in Unionville, 2. Ministering to Power, 3. Inventing Abortion, 4. The Mind of a Warrior, 5. Up from Slavery: The Ideological Origins of Christian Nationalism, 6. The Uses and Abuses of History, 7. The Blitz: Turning the States into Laboratories of Theocracy, 8. Converting the Flock to Data, 9. Proselytizers and Privatizers, 10. Theocracy from the Bench, or How to Establish Religion in the Name of “Religious Liberty”, 11. Controlling Bodies: What “Religious Liberty” Looks Like from the Stretcher, and 12. The Global Holy War Comes of Age.
Positives:
1. A professionally written book. Stewart writes with conviction and authority. It reads very well and it informs the reader.
2. A fascinating and important topic, Christian nationalism’s threat to democracy.
3. Clearly explains upfront what this movement is all about. “It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power”.
4. Debunks the most important myth that is being spewed by the religious extremists. “Christian nationalism is not a religious creed but, in my view, a political ideology. It promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation.”
5. Does a great job throughout the book of describing the financial supporters (including public money) of Christian nationalism. “Since churches are subsidized with public money through tax deductions and other tax advantages, one could say that the United States now has a publicly subsidized political party that promotes an agenda of religious nationalism.”
6. Trump’s beliefs. “Trump believes in the rule of force, not the rule of law. He is not there to uphold values but to impose the will of the tribe.”
7. Bad beliefs that drive extremists and hurt the planet. “Drollinger called environmentalism a “false religion” and asserted that certain initiatives to protect animal species and preserve natural resources “miss the clear proclamation of God in Genesis.””
8. Christian nationalism and abortion. “As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, “It wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term.”
9. Racial inclusivity and the religious right. “Jim Domen is one such leader. A California pastor and the founder of a group called Church United, he has built his voter-outreach machine around the idea of racial inclusiveness.” ““For the evangelical church right now, membership is no longer based on color,” Onishi notes. “It is also not really based in religion anymore, either. Your litmus test for religious belonging comes via your political beliefs.””
10. Slavery and religious extremism. “The Episcopalians of South Carolina found slavery to be “marked by every evidence of divine approval.”30 The Reverend J. C. Postell of South Carolina stated that slavery “is supported by the Bible … [T]he fact that slavery is of divine appointment would be proof enough with the Christian that it cannot be a moral evil,” adding that it “is a judicial visitation.””
11. The people behind the myth. “The error in the detail was there to provide cover for the great lie at the center of Christian nationalism. What David Barton and the leaders of the Hobby Lobby corporation don’t want you to know is that America’s founders explicitly and proudly created the world’s first secular republic.”
12. Explains how extremists have turned states into laboratories for theocracy. “The discovery of Project Blitz was a game changer for understanding the movement’s legislative strategy. It is the playbook for a nationwide assault on state legislatures in all fifty states. It does indeed describe a “blitz,” for the basic strategy is to flood the zone with coordinated, simultaneous bills in the hopes that they will, eventually, become law.2 The stated aim of the project is to advance “religious freedom”—in a late 2019 conference call, organizers discussed rebranding the initiative Freedom for All—but this turns out to be the biggest of the many deceptions that characterize the enterprise.”
13. Find out the three categories or phases of their model legislation.
14. How extremists use data to better target citizens for conversion. “Bill Dallas has not been shy in describing the massive reach of his data operation. “We have about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database,” Dallas said in a September 5, 2016, interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “What we do is we track to see what’s going to make somebody either vote one way, or not vote at all.”15 Other outlets, including Forbes, picked up on the stunning facts.”
15. Attacking and undermining public education with the purpose of eliminating it. “In public confusion about the nature of charters, the DeVos family and their allies saw opportunity. A lightly regulated charter school industry, they realized, could achieve many of the same goals as voucher programs.”
16. The goal of controlling the courts and extremism. “Among the many sordid legacies that the Trump/Pence administration will leave behind, perhaps the most damaging over the long term may well be the infiltration of America’s judicial system with the progeny of the Federalist Society, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and their allies.”
17. Controlling bodies by controlling hospitals. ““Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices but should provide, for married couples and the medical staff who counsel them, instruction both about the Church’s teachings on responsible parenthood and in methods of natural family planning.””
18. Impact of extremism and health care. “America’s maternal mortality rate is the highest among nations in the developed world, and it is rising sharply, up over 26 percent between 2000 and 2014.5 Black women are three to four times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy complications. This report finds that “in many states women of color disproportionately receive reproductive health care restricted by ERDs” and suggests that the consequent dangers “should be evaluated against the backdrop of vastly inferior health care delivered to women of color across the board.””
19. Expanding extremism to the globe. “The global holy war now defines itself against a single common, worldwide enemy: global liberalism.”
20. Great use of links to notes.
Negatives:
1. Stewart admits that the focus of the book is on the organizations and people behind Christian nationalism and not the people who are mobilizing to confront the threat.
2. It can be hard to follow all the organizations and acronyms behind Christian nationalism.
3. Lack of visual material to support the excellent narrative.
4. No formal bibliography.
In summary, Katherine Stewart should be commended for her exhaustive research and the ability to put pen to paper. This book is very informative and reads very well. She captures the concerns that we should all have over the threat that these radical religious groups pose to our democracy. My only criticism of note is that it was hard at times to follow all the different organizations behind the extremism; visual supplements would have addressed my concerns while providing readers a tool to enhance comprehension. A high recommendation!
Further recommendations: “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy” by Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, “One Nation Under God” by Kevin Kruse, “Founding Myth” by Andrew Seidel, “Why the Religious Right Is Wrong about Separation of Church and State” by Robert Boston, “Nonbeliever Nation” by David Niose, “The Dark Side of Christian History” by Helen Ellerbe, “Birth Control, Insurance Coverage, & the Religious Right” by A.F. Alexander, “The God Argument” by A.C. Grayling, “Freethinkers” by Susan Jacoby, “Moral Combat” by Sikivu Hutchinson, “Republican Gomorrah” by Max Blumenthal, “American Fascists” by Chris Hedges, “Doubt” by Jennifer Michael Hecht, and “Society Without God” by Phil Zuckerman.
April 24, 2023
The author, Katherine Stewart, of the Power Worshipers (notice the play on words from the common phrase, The Power of Worship) takes the reader on a journey through the history of the religious right, from its origins in the 1960s to its current position of power in the Republican Party. She examines the key players and organizations involved in the movement and shows how they have been able to manipulate the political system to promote their agenda. The book is divided into three parts: the roots, architects, and agenda of the movement, each focusing on a different aspect of the rise of religious nationalism in America. As much as I recoil and the false teaching of the prosperity gospel, I had never connected this heresy with religious nationalism.
Stewart profiles architects including Jerry Falwell Sr., Paul Weyrich, and Richard Viguerie, and how they helped shape the movement. They and others led the way in the culture wars with such organizations as the Family Research Council, and the Alliance Defending Freedom. I tend to believe that some of the early evangelical leaders did not begin with the idea of a takeover of the American political system but there is no question that political operatives like Ralph Reed, David Barton, and Steve Bannon clearly used the movement to gain political power.
The agenda is to influence the courts, the state, and the nation. We now see the results of that with the courts packing during the Trump Administration. There has never been a time in the history of the republic when the seating of judges turned on ideology and conservative bona fides. The courts have been used to advance the agenda, including the fight against abortion rights and the push for religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws. The Federalist Society and the philosophy of originalism is mostly a made-up philosophy when it comes to any variety of hot button issues.
The religious right's efforts to gain political power at the state level, includes the push for school vouchers and the promotion of "religious freedom" bills, which really seek to crumble the traditional wall of separation between church and state. Just this week we have seen examples of legislation on the state level that would have been unheard of a generation ago.
On a side note I am currently involved in a lawsuit against one of the charter school mentioned in the book. The book rightfully notes the economic structure of these schools where the developers make millions by building the schools then leasing them to a charter school that then receives public money. It's a disgusting use of public funds for private enrichment.
The book shows how the religious right has infiltrated government at all levels, from local school boards to the White House, to push their agenda. Stewart notes that the Trump administration was particularly supportive of the religious right's agenda, with key appointments and policies reflecting their interests. Ironic given Trump is one of the least personally religious presidents (especially in terms of adhering to a personal moral code) in history.
Overall, "The Power Worshippers" is a powerful and deeply disturbing account of the rise of religious nationalism in America. The book provides numerous examples of the tactics used by the religious right to gain political power and promote their agenda and serves as a warning of the dangers of this movement both in the US and abroad. Anyone interested in understanding the current state of American politics and the role of religion in shaping it should read this book.
There were a few references to my religious tradition (LDS). All referring to the fact that “Mormons” fall into the same category as other heretics who are bound for hell. I'm looking forward to hell with all my other LDS friends and other heretics.
Stewart profiles architects including Jerry Falwell Sr., Paul Weyrich, and Richard Viguerie, and how they helped shape the movement. They and others led the way in the culture wars with such organizations as the Family Research Council, and the Alliance Defending Freedom. I tend to believe that some of the early evangelical leaders did not begin with the idea of a takeover of the American political system but there is no question that political operatives like Ralph Reed, David Barton, and Steve Bannon clearly used the movement to gain political power.
The agenda is to influence the courts, the state, and the nation. We now see the results of that with the courts packing during the Trump Administration. There has never been a time in the history of the republic when the seating of judges turned on ideology and conservative bona fides. The courts have been used to advance the agenda, including the fight against abortion rights and the push for religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws. The Federalist Society and the philosophy of originalism is mostly a made-up philosophy when it comes to any variety of hot button issues.
The religious right's efforts to gain political power at the state level, includes the push for school vouchers and the promotion of "religious freedom" bills, which really seek to crumble the traditional wall of separation between church and state. Just this week we have seen examples of legislation on the state level that would have been unheard of a generation ago.
On a side note I am currently involved in a lawsuit against one of the charter school mentioned in the book. The book rightfully notes the economic structure of these schools where the developers make millions by building the schools then leasing them to a charter school that then receives public money. It's a disgusting use of public funds for private enrichment.
The book shows how the religious right has infiltrated government at all levels, from local school boards to the White House, to push their agenda. Stewart notes that the Trump administration was particularly supportive of the religious right's agenda, with key appointments and policies reflecting their interests. Ironic given Trump is one of the least personally religious presidents (especially in terms of adhering to a personal moral code) in history.
Overall, "The Power Worshippers" is a powerful and deeply disturbing account of the rise of religious nationalism in America. The book provides numerous examples of the tactics used by the religious right to gain political power and promote their agenda and serves as a warning of the dangers of this movement both in the US and abroad. Anyone interested in understanding the current state of American politics and the role of religion in shaping it should read this book.
There were a few references to my religious tradition (LDS). All referring to the fact that “Mormons” fall into the same category as other heretics who are bound for hell. I'm looking forward to hell with all my other LDS friends and other heretics.
February 2, 2021
If you follow evangelical celebrities at all you have an idea their current view that they are in a battle of spiritual warfare against the rest of the world, and they take it very seriously. What you may not know is how organized and relentless the movement is and how far their reach goes in the US government, and beyond.
I have been intrigued by evangelicals for decades and while I knew virtually every politician has to at least pay lip service to religions, I didn’t know how deep they have burrowed into the system. Make no mistake they are out to turn America into a theocracy, and it is only the actual diversity of our nation that has slowed their march. So even as church attendance is shrinking the religious right’s control is growing. Or at least that is the way you feel after finishing this book.
It may not be that bad. But then again, it maybe it is. The only “saving grace” from this theocratic assault is a HUGH chunk of the American populous is really more focused on just getting by. BUT recent events show that there are ways that otherwise normal people can be swept up into the crazy. So that plus the religious right’s ability to use any grievance to its advantage may mean they will gain even more ground. So who knows how much more control they will get.
Some quick takes.
It is not theology in the traditional sense.
“For the evangelical church right now, membership is no longer based on color…It is also not really based in religion anymore, either. Your litmus test for religion belonging comes via your political beliefs.” Pg. 90
The start of modern religious right was not abortion but fear of losing church tax exempt status because of civil rights reforms
It would be hard to overestimate the degree of outrage that the threat of losing their tax-advantaged status on account of their segregation-ism provoked. As far as leaders like Bob Jones Sr. were concerned, they had a God-given right not just to separate the races but to also receive federal money for the purpose. Pg. 62
Phyllis Schlafly initially used not abortion but the Equal Rights Amendment to start her “pro-family” movement
But it was abortion that allowed things to really catch fire, which is odd because initially fundamentalists were not worked up about it.
[Randal Balmer] writes, ‘It wasn’t until 1979 – a full six years after Roe – that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons but as a rally cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti abortion crusade was more palatable than the religion right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools” pg 53
The 1971 convention of the Southern Baptists endorsed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion to preserve the “emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother” as well as in cases of rape, incest, and deformity. The convention approved the same resolution after Roe, in 1974, calling it a “middle ground between the extreme of abortion on demand and the opposite extreme of all abortion as murder” and again in 1976. Pg 97
This is really along the lines of the Qanon save the babies lie. There isn’t a problem, at least like they describe, but who could possibly be against babies?
The thing is just like in Q the evangelical power brokers used the emotional hook of babies to further a libertarian economic worldview. And maybe that is the biggest take away, it isn’t the theology in the theocratic take over it is the money. Money especially for really rich people and companies. Not work Joe’s like you and me.
Other bits.
The weird sympathy for slavery that has its pedigree in R.J Rushdoony. Now there is a character.
Rushdoony himself concluded, “Abolitionist leaders showed more hate than love on the whole.” Pg 112
Among Rushdooney’s successors, it would become clear that what they actually oppose is simply secular, democratic government….At the bottom they agree with Rushdoony that there is no neutrality: the state either answers to God or it answers to something worse. Pg 124
And there is stuff like this.
It was Rockefeller money that sent baseball player turned evangelist Billy Sunday into the coal mines of the West Virginia hills to preach the sinfulness of striking in 1920” pg. 117
Separation of Church and State Trivia:
This is why the Treaty of Tripoli of 1798, endorsed by John Adams and other member of America’s founding generation, declared explicitly (and un-controversially) that “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” Pg 131
So, all said this is a well research book with startling revelations about things are hidden from our view. But stylistically it could be better. In some sections there is lots of info with names of people and groups but there could be more narrative to bring it together and maybe focus deeper on fewer people but with greater depth.
I have been intrigued by evangelicals for decades and while I knew virtually every politician has to at least pay lip service to religions, I didn’t know how deep they have burrowed into the system. Make no mistake they are out to turn America into a theocracy, and it is only the actual diversity of our nation that has slowed their march. So even as church attendance is shrinking the religious right’s control is growing. Or at least that is the way you feel after finishing this book.
It may not be that bad. But then again, it maybe it is. The only “saving grace” from this theocratic assault is a HUGH chunk of the American populous is really more focused on just getting by. BUT recent events show that there are ways that otherwise normal people can be swept up into the crazy. So that plus the religious right’s ability to use any grievance to its advantage may mean they will gain even more ground. So who knows how much more control they will get.
Some quick takes.
It is not theology in the traditional sense.
“For the evangelical church right now, membership is no longer based on color…It is also not really based in religion anymore, either. Your litmus test for religion belonging comes via your political beliefs.” Pg. 90
The start of modern religious right was not abortion but fear of losing church tax exempt status because of civil rights reforms
It would be hard to overestimate the degree of outrage that the threat of losing their tax-advantaged status on account of their segregation-ism provoked. As far as leaders like Bob Jones Sr. were concerned, they had a God-given right not just to separate the races but to also receive federal money for the purpose. Pg. 62
Phyllis Schlafly initially used not abortion but the Equal Rights Amendment to start her “pro-family” movement
But it was abortion that allowed things to really catch fire, which is odd because initially fundamentalists were not worked up about it.
[Randal Balmer] writes, ‘It wasn’t until 1979 – a full six years after Roe – that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons but as a rally cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti abortion crusade was more palatable than the religion right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools” pg 53
The 1971 convention of the Southern Baptists endorsed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion to preserve the “emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother” as well as in cases of rape, incest, and deformity. The convention approved the same resolution after Roe, in 1974, calling it a “middle ground between the extreme of abortion on demand and the opposite extreme of all abortion as murder” and again in 1976. Pg 97
This is really along the lines of the Qanon save the babies lie. There isn’t a problem, at least like they describe, but who could possibly be against babies?
The thing is just like in Q the evangelical power brokers used the emotional hook of babies to further a libertarian economic worldview. And maybe that is the biggest take away, it isn’t the theology in the theocratic take over it is the money. Money especially for really rich people and companies. Not work Joe’s like you and me.
Other bits.
The weird sympathy for slavery that has its pedigree in R.J Rushdoony. Now there is a character.
Rushdoony himself concluded, “Abolitionist leaders showed more hate than love on the whole.” Pg 112
Among Rushdooney’s successors, it would become clear that what they actually oppose is simply secular, democratic government….At the bottom they agree with Rushdoony that there is no neutrality: the state either answers to God or it answers to something worse. Pg 124
And there is stuff like this.
It was Rockefeller money that sent baseball player turned evangelist Billy Sunday into the coal mines of the West Virginia hills to preach the sinfulness of striking in 1920” pg. 117
Separation of Church and State Trivia:
This is why the Treaty of Tripoli of 1798, endorsed by John Adams and other member of America’s founding generation, declared explicitly (and un-controversially) that “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” Pg 131
So, all said this is a well research book with startling revelations about things are hidden from our view. But stylistically it could be better. In some sections there is lots of info with names of people and groups but there could be more narrative to bring it together and maybe focus deeper on fewer people but with greater depth.
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