Customer Reviews

Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism

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Bivins explores a dramatic side of modern American religion, where the emphasis is on winning souls through fear. Rather than just preaching hellfire and Armageddon in church, these Christians engage all the arts of mass media to drive their warnings home across the nation. As Bivins quotes Christian tract cartoonist Jack Chick, "I want to shock people. I want to make them physically sick when they see this".

Bivins points out that the vast majority of conservative Christians in the USA were non-aggressive during the decades of America's world supremacy. But as American dominance waned, many conservatives blamed the forces of sin, and devoted themselves to a victory for God. Bivins details many of their major media efforts such as Christian cartoons, attacks on popular music, "hell house" dramas, and apocalyptic novels. He finds the level of vindictive violence, blood, and horror in these productions almost stupifying. Instead of offending the religious authorities of his day by daring to forgive sinners, Jesus as portrayed in these productions is bound to execute vengeance for sin. As Jesus says in the Left Behind novel Glorious Appearing, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that is justice, and that is your sentence".

The book is good in covering the story plots, knock-out lines, and theatrical methods of fear-mongering Christianity over the past four decades. But the intro. chapter is dense social science talk, and Bivins invites readers to skip this part if inclined. At the end he raises some good questions about how a popular religion of fear is affecting American society.

--author of Correcting Jesus

When I read this, I began to think of the type of misinformation the old Communist and Socialist regimes used against Christians. The hatred in this book is seething. It is clear the author has never truly familiarized himself with Evangelical Christianity or refuses to acknowledge some easily obtained facts. For clarification, all mainline Protestant churches at one time in the last 100 years considered it their responsibility to evangelize and be active in politics - e.g. Abolitionist Movement, Civil Rights Movement and the Resistance in Europe during WW2. One should also note that these churches that are maligned are the largest sources of charity in the US and the largest providers of private overseas aid from the US. The first charities to reach disasters are charities from evangelical churches (Salvation Army, Operation Blessing, World Vision) Hardly a religion of evil.

The conservative evangelical movement is not confined to the USA, but is a movement throughout the English speaking Protestant world. What the author considers Evangelical Christianity is the norm in much of Africa,in Spanish speaking Protestant churches in the Americas and Protestant churches China.

The movement in the industrial world is, in large part,a response to the dying mainline Protestant denomination's weak and ineffective message. This in turn was brought on by an out of touch elitist leadership. Many of the so called mainline denomination's only hope of surviving the next half century, is the remaining orthodox element in their respective denominations. This book has the stench of politics throughout and will surely appeal to those who need reaffirmation of their political and perhaps opposing religious views.

Mr. Bivens, in this and some of his other publications, seems to think that Christianity should be relegated to observer status. This has never been the case in American history, as one can clearly see in our Constitution and the writings of the Founding Fathers all the way up to Roosevelt invoking God's guidance throughout the Depression and WW2. Mr. Biven's view of Christianity is somewhat stereotypical of the revisionist left. To end any group's legal involvement in politics and culture runs counter to American ideals and any success in such endeavors will be the end of liberty in this country.