31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Every American should read this book!, April 3, 2006
This review is from: The Hijacking of Jesus: How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate (Hardcover)
Dan Wakefield has written an important and eye-opening book about the Religious Right in
America. Liberal and proud of it, Wakefield has been concerned with social justice since the
fifties when, as a young reporter for The Nation, he published his ground-breaking study of
Spanish Harlem, Island in the City. Some time in the eighties this hard-drinking non-believer
experienced a spiritual awakening and returned to the Christian faith of his Indiana boyhood, a
journey he recounts in Returning.
But unlike some who turn their lives around when they accept Jesus Christ as their personal
savior, Wakefield did not abandon his commitment to the liberal causes of his non-believing
years. On the contrary, his faith is rooted in the ethical teachings of the Jesus who preached
peace, tolerance, and compassion for the poor: the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount.
As an articulate political liberal who is also a devout Christian, Wakefield is uniquely qualified
to comment on the co-opting of the Christian faith by the eerily well-organized juggernaut that is
the Religious Right, whose leaders preach war, intolerance, and hate and who believe that the
Sermon on the Mount is "no longer relevant for our times." Their political agenda is nothing less
than the replacement of what's left of our democracy by a theocracy, and their "wedge" issues are
anti-abortion and anti-gays, which are far more important to them than peace, social justice, or
the environment, for the simple reason that those two hate issues are the ones that get votes, that
get an increasingly impoverished and uninformed electorate to vote against their own self-
interest.
This is an angry book, but beneath the anger is the pain of a man who loves his country deeply and watches in horror as he sees it torn apart and in danger of losing the very values on which it was founded. He traces the gradual Republican takeover of our government -and the exponential growth of the religious right that supported it-to the election of 1964, when Barry Goldwater suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson with his New Deal-like War on Poverty and Great Society. That's when the forces of reaction began to get organized.
The great mistake of the left, as Democrats are only beginning to realize, has been their blindness
to the importance of religion and spirituality in American life. The brilliant political satirist Bill
Maher has a blind spot when it comes to religion, and in this he is typical of the American left.
Well, Bill Maher should read this book, because Dan Wakefield is just as mad as he is at the
hawkish, sexist, gay-bashing evangelicals who don't give a damn about global warming because
Armageddon is right around the corner and we're all going to die anyway-but Wakefield is a
man of faith who hasn't lost his mind. Every Democrat should read this book. Every American
should read this book!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
responding to publisher's weekly review, March 3, 2006
This review is from: The Hijacking of Jesus: How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate (Hardcover)
Great book. Essential read.
Journalistic Distance? Discretion please! After reading the Publisher's Weekly review of this book, I had to respond.
The Publisher's Weekly review of this book misses the point. It wreaks of the sentiment in which "journalistic distance" and the pursuit of objectivity is the one and only noble literary path.
Perhaps the books sipmly violates the reviewers sense of genre and style. Spare the public the small mindedness.
The author is a veteran writer, and in this time when the country has fallen over to the Right, there is no time to stand on the fence (or write from it). It has all happened and is well personal... and for the most part our (US citizens) heads are deep in the sand. "Distance" is what got us in trouble.
What nobility, or value, was there in those German journalists who pursued "distance" or objectivity during the rise of Nazism?
When things become as extreme as they have, it's time for some scholastic subjectivity. Tell it from the heart. No more ivory tower b.s.
I write this assuming that the reviewer has a solid knowledge of history, and not only the versions written by the victors. The consequences are too dire not to learn from history.
This is a crucial book in this time. The mechasnisms which those in power employ to control and manipulate the public must be made transparent. This is where change begins. This particular method, through co-opting Christianity, is by no means original though. After all, Emperor Constintine gave new meaning to the winter solstice.
Stand for something! Truths and rights eternally!
Don't hide behind "journalistic distance". Make it personal, intelligent, immediate and from the heart. Come full blast and let the professional reveiwers struggle with their own sensibilities and alien perspectives.
The book itself is an important read. Respect to the author of the book... Dan Wakefield.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
