Customer Reviews

The Politics of Heaven: America in Fearful Times

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The role of religion in politics is a subject whose time has come. Of the several books treating it that have come out this year, Earl Shorris' "The Politics of Heaven: America in Fearful Times" is the most comprehensive and rewarding. Even those who are most conscientious about doing their political homework will gain new insights from the meticulous research and trustworthy analysis of this beautifully written treatise.
Mary Etta Moose

Very rarely do I come across a book that I'm genuinely interested in. Most books I read are stuff that I'm vaguely familiar with. Or interested in. Or have some experience with. I picked up this book on the synopsis on the back cover alone (and it was also a librarian's feature shelf pick). I thought the book was going to be about evangelicals and their politics shaped by an afterlife. And while it was a bit about that . . . it had more to do with a "theology of fear". I honestly found the book incredibly interesting. I learned stuff about people and history that I didn't know before. It was genuinely informative. The author, Earl Shorris, spends time banging on Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Bush. But he shows his true moderate, un-biased voice when he spends equal time critiquing the foundations that both Clintons have built their politics off of. As well as Jim Wallis and other evangelicals like Falwell and Dobson. His basic premise is that both Democrats and Republicans rely way too heavily on "fear", i.e. nuclear, after-life, hell, heaven, etc, as a political tool. And that ultimately, the majority of our politics lean way to heavily on "politics of the moment" as opposed to sound, intellectual discourse rooted in philosophy, spirituality, and economics. The argument being that we have far more to learn from Aristotle than we do from political advisors seeking to capitalize on the politics of the moment. It's a bit long. And the writing jumps around a bit. But for interesting history lessons and informative insights alone, it's worth a read.

Look at the reviews of this book -- another example of bimodal distribution, good and bad, up and down, black and white. The good reviews reflect what I believe are honest assessments of what this book has to say, while the bad are knee-jerk reactions by people who I suspect represent the reason why the book was written in the first place.

"Americans" is one of the last chapters of the book, and if you won't wade through the whole thing (shame on you, as this is a great book), then at least read this chapter. Mr. Shorris does not explicitly reveal the identity of "The Movement" anywhere in his text, but here it is. Basically, it is those Americans who, out of their irrational and all-consuming fear of death and insecurity, have constructed a cult of Christianity that makes absolutely no sense. Indeed, as Shorris asserts, the "love of God and our fellow man" has been replaced by the "fear of God and our fellow man." Everything that Christ Jesus taught has been twisted and corrupted to serve the needs of the Movement and its desire for short term security (great wealth, power and supremacy) and long term security (Heaven everlasting).

While reading the book I kept shaking my head, recognizing again and again the traits and characteristics of conservative friends and family members. All love Jesus and strive to follow Him, yet they enthusiastically support war, racism, capital punishment, the rape of the poor and middle class for the benefit of the rich and, above all, supply-side economics. But Shorris' thesis deals primarily with The Movement's support of corrupt politics and murderous politicians as a very selfish means of attaining Heaven. I agree with this thesis: indeed, these Americans, good Christians all, are the very disposition of evil.

I am giving this book one star only because I am not allowed to give it zero stars. I think there are some interesting ideas in the text, although they are buried in a thick layer of venom and hatred directed at anything conservative or even moderate. After a few hundred pages of ultra-radical rantings, I found it very difficult to take the author seriously.

Many have written and commented on the present state of America, one in which much pessimism reigns about the future of this republic in the face of terrorism, imperial misadventure, and sheer incompetence in its leaders. Many have also remarked on the seeming turn to religion and apocalypticism both as a solution and a cause of the malaise. But Earl Shorris believes that every problem has a distant intellectual cause and he discovers the cause of our present danger in the thought of Plato, Leon Strauss, and Alasdair MacIntyre. The last two thinkers are little known, Strauss the supposed godfather of neoconservatism and MacIntyre a convert to the outmoded thought and faith of Thomas Aquinas. You might have thought Plato would have been good enough as a target.

Shorris is an accomplished student of the classics but in his attempt to find in the classics an explanation of the current climate of opinion, which he labels without a real name THE MOVEMENT, he demonstrates yet again how far from reality an intellectual can get when he refuses to leave his study and his books.

Shorris correctly finds much hypocrisy and false religion in the Evangelical stranglehold on the politics of both political parties but he naively thinks that a return to the Social Gospel can lead to a proper place for Christianity in the life of the American Republic. Little does he understand that the appeal of Christian fundamentalism owes its power to the lack of real education in America about what Christianity was at its outset and how it became the greatest hoax of civilization. Emancipation from religion is the answer, not a renewed perusal of outdated eschatological dicta and insights. Americans need to be weaned from Christianity, not given new opium potions laced with social religion.

I have truly never read a book so misguided, so confused, and so wrong-headed than this one, despite the credentials of its author. It is an example of how our current malaise can totally disorient even someone with intellectual powers above the average, way above the average.

What we need is a return to Voltairean skepticism and Humian doubt, not a return to the insanities of biblical religion. Our politics should deal with real problems and real solutions, not evangelical fears and promises.

The Politics of Heaven is hell to read and hell to think about.