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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In an impressive piece of lucid journalism, Salon.com reporter Goldberg dives into the religious right and sorts out the history and networks of what to most liberals is an inscrutable parallel universe. She deconstructs "dominion theology," the prevalent evangelical assertion that Christians have a "responsibility to take over every aspect of society." Goldberg makes no attempt to hide her own partisanship, calling herself a "secular Jew and ardent urbanite" who wrote the book because she "was terrified by America's increasing hostility to... cosmopolitan values." This carefully researched and riveting treatise will hardly allay its audience's fears, however; secular liberals and mainstream believers alike will find Goldberg's descriptions of today's culture wars deeply disturbing. She traces the deep financial and ideological ties between fundamentalist Christians and the Republican Party, and discloses the dangers she believes are inherent to the Bush administration's faith-based social services initiative. Other chapters follow inflammatory political tactics on wedge issues like gay rights, evolution and sex education. Significantly, her conclusions do not come off as hysterical or shrill. Even while pointing to stark parallels between fascism and the language of the religious right, Goldberg's vision of America's future is measured and realistic. Her book is a potent wakeup call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian nationalists. (May 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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An important work of investigative journalism. (Anna Godbersen - Esquire )

An important work of investigative journalism. -- Anna Godbersen, Esquire

Definitive guide to how a relatively tiny group of intellectuals, politicians, and conservative religionists positioned themselves to take over America. -- Tony Normal, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Goldberg's book will be recognized as the definitive guide to how a relatively tiny group of intellectuals, politicians, and conservatives religionists positioned themselves to take over America. This stuff is no joke. (Tony Normal - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette )

Regardless of where you fall on the moderate-to-progressive political scale, this well-written chronicle of civil liberties under siege by holy rollers will undoubtedly scare the bejesus out of you. (David Fear - Time Out )

This well-written chronicle of civil liberties under siege by holy rollers will undoubtedly scare the bejesus out of you. -- David Fear, Time Out

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184 of 197 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary, important reading, May 25, 2006

By	Ruth Adar (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (Hardcover)

Michelle Goldberg has researched and written an important book, one that will provoke discussion. I was impressed by the depth and breadth of her research and of the interviews with the people she writes about. She claims her biases up front.

The most important aspect of the book is a delineation of the opposing world-views she describes, something that may be news to blue-staters: there are two competing views of American and world history, two competing standards for "science," two competing notions of reality in American life today: an Enlightenment/humanist viewpoint and a viewpoint from which the Christian God, as interpreted by the Christian Right, is King of the United States. She suggests that dialogue between the two is impossible because there is so little common ground, and that those on the center and left underestimate the seriousness of the challenge to the U.S. Constitution and values.

My only gripe with this book is that the scenario she paints is so dark that many readers may be tempted to defend themselves against the thought, rather than against the threat. She is describing real institutions, real people, real organizations whose own mission statements can be checked out with a few keystrokes at the keyboard.

This is a must-read book for anyone who values free speech, freedom of religion, or is concerned for the way their tax dollars are spent.

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88 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In defense of justice, reason and fairness, July 25, 2006

By	Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (Hardcover)

"Kingdom Coming" by Michelle Goldberg is a cautionary tale about Christian Nationalism and its threat to the Enlightenment values that are crucial to maintaining a modern democratic state as we know it today. Ms. Goldberg has done a superb job of surveying the movement, its leaders and its political ideals. Through her remarkable first-hand reporting and analysis, the author helps us understand that a liberal response articulating why rationality matters is urgently needed to counteract the forces of irrationality that threaten to undo our country.

Ms. Goldberg explains how homeschooling has allowed superstition to be instilled in a generation of young people who are being encouraged to become politically active. Exurban megachurches provide organizers with millions of voters and activists who can be rapidly mobilized around Christian causes. The author dedicates individual chapters to discussing six areas where extremist positions have gained ground, including: revisionism of U.S. history; anti-gay rights activism; intelligent design theory (Creationism); faith-based public services; abstinence; and the U.S. court system. As Ms. Goldberg clearly shows, the Christian movement's success has been substantial and in many cases has been attributable to sympathy and support at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Significantly, Ms. Goldberg's comparative analysis shows that extremist Christian views have gained institutional support over time. For example, she compares how the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964 shied away from the John Birch Society in order to distance itself from the admixture of militarism with religion to the Bush administration's embrace of General William G. Boykin after he had made several outlandish public statements about divine warfare. In fact, by appointing hundreds of ideologically sympathetic judges and bureaucrats to numerous positions within the federal government, Ms. Goldberg contends that the extremist Christian movement will continue to exert its influence for many years to come.

Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Ms. Goldberg helps us consider how fascism finds fertile ground once all objective reason has been marginalized from public debate. The author attributes a peculiar form of Christian postmodernism, in its rejection of objective truth as myths that are propagated by the so-called liberal elite onto the unwilling Christian masses, to be responsible for fomenting a paranoid fanaticism that ultimately may prove to be a catalyst to inspiring violent action against all those who are different or who may object to the Christian agenda. But such concerns are not merely theoretical; Ms. Goldberg goes on to share the experiences of herself and others who have already suffered discrimination as a result of the works of Christian extremists.

Interestingly, Ms. Goldberg punctures the inflated claims of heartland moral superiority. The author points out that the "red states" where Christianity is strongest has higher divorce rates, lower education levels and are net debtors to the federal treasury when compared with the "blue states" where liberalism is strongest. The reality on the ground, then, suggests that the proclamations about Christian morals, Biblical guidance and American individualism are so much empty rhetoric; rather, such widely misheld beliefs probably provide simplistic answers to complex questions about changing economic, cultural and social conditions. While it is true that Ms. Goldberg does not propose a specific response to these underlying problems (which in any case would be beyond the scope of this book), her plea to liberals to stand up in defense of justice, reason and fairness is, in my view, totally appropriate: an enlightened, free and civil government is what is needed most to help solve the problems that plague the U.S. and the Christian community, and liberals need to make that fact better known.

I highly recommend this important book to everyone.

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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We ignore this book (and Christian nationalism) at our peril. , May 1, 2007

By	Jason Mierek "uniqueness is ubiquitous" (Urbana, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As someone who grew up in a home influenced by apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism, I admit right up front that I will not attempt an "objective" review of this book (whatever that might mean). I agreed with the premise Michelle Goldberg outlines (i.e., that there is a powerful strand of politicized Christianity in the US that holds the Constitution in contempt and that seeks absolute political control---Goldberg calls them "Christian nationalists") before she ever set fingers to keyboard. Frankly, I was amazed at the empathy and understanding with which Michelle Goldberg approached this material, and found that one of the strongest features of this book. Another of the strengths is in her willingness to let her subjects speak for themselves. Oftentimes the most damning comments come straight from the mouths of the Christian nationalists themselves, and Goldberg does a fine job of putting these quotes into an overall context that should chill anyone who still appreciates the ideals of the Enlightenment.

For example, Goldberg repeatedly exposes a Manichean worldview in which the American body politic is literally divided into black and white, good and evil, with the Christian nationalists on one side and the rest of us on the other. (I leave it for you to guess which side is "good.") "Thus every political issue--indeed, every disputed aspect of our national life--is a struggle between good and evil" (p. 4). She quotes Pastor Rod Parsley: "Everyone asks, `Why is it so close?' The light is getting lighter and the dark is getting darker. These two opponents are not just opponents. This is a values situation. This is lightness and darkness!" (p. 51). As Goldberg sagaciously notes, people have a perfect right to this Manichean worldview, "yet when the United States government works this way, it turns all nonevangelicals into "the other side." The nonreligious are no longer even part of the debate..." (152). I would also note that in this view, the "wrongly religious" (i.e., those who don't accept a particular collection of tenets about God, the Bible, etc.) are also left out of the debate.

Of course, though, this point is moot, because making the US an overtly Christian country, in which the nonreligious and "wrongly religious" are second-class citizens at best, is one aspect of the Christian nationalist agenda: "Among [evangelicals and born-again Christians] there is substantial support for amending the United States Constitution to make Christianity the country's official religion..." (9). Leaving us out of the debate makes sense to Christian Reconstructionist theologian R.J. Rushdoony, who denounced democracy as a "heresy and `the great love of the failures and cowards of life'" (38). Whereas many try to sugarcoat this agenda for wider consumption, the raw truth is available for the flock: "Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ--to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish" (p. 41, Goldberg quoting George Grant's The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action.)

This antidemocratic, authoritarian philosophy can't stand up to the scrutiny of the contemporary world, though, and so, as Goldberg explores in the bulk of her book, the Christian nationalists have set to work building an alternate reality in which myth is science, fiction is history, and public policy is faith-based. From the continued intrusion of creationists in our public schools, to the campaign to refashion the Founding Fathers as Christian nationalists, to publicly funded abstinence-only sex education classes, there is a parallel reality alongside ours. "Originally, conservative Christian activists just wanted to keep Darwin and sex education out of schools. When that didn't work, they developed an alternative, quasi-scientific infrastructure that would legitimate their religious beliefs in secular terms, and which they hoped to use to replace the doctrines they objected to" (p. 138). "To the Christian nationalists...publicly funded religious social services auger nothing less than an epistemological revolution. They allow knowledge derived from the Bible to trump knowledge derived from studying the world. No longer would American policy and American civic life be based on facts available to all of us, on the kind of rationality that looks at `objective or even secular outcomes.' It would be based on faith" (p. 127). "What's lacking, though, isn't just truth--it's the entire social mechanism by which truth is distinguished from falsehood. Blunting Christian nationalism requires turning toward the Enlightenment and rebuilding a culture of rationalism. Unfortunately, multitudes of Americans no longer find Enlightenment values compelling" (p. 181).

That last sentence sums up what is possibly the biggest challenge posed by the theocratic right. Because they no longer find the Enlightenment values of empiricism and reason "compelling," they are assaulting the very criteria for establishing truth claims. Readers of this review may think this an exaggeration, but I can assure you from my experience as an undergraduate instructor that many students can no longer distinguish between fact and opinion, a consequence of twenty-plus years of a concentrated disinformation campaign. "This is a pattern that repeats itself again and again in the culture wars. When experts discredit some bit of fundamentalist orthodoxy, it's taken as further proof of the experts' bias. When religious conservatives are proven wrong, their faith in their righteousness only grows, along with their hatred of the conspiracy they see arrayed against them" (p. 78). "With no agreement on the most basic of facts or sources of authority, discussions between today's creationists and evolutionists seem particularly futile. Dialogue is impossible without some shared sense of reality" (p. 93). Lest the reader think this is merely an academic issue with no bearing on the real world, they need to remind themselves that this alternate reality is populated by pharmacists who confuse themselves with theologians and/or doctors: "A rash of Christian pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for both the morning-after pill and for ordinary oral contraceptives--180 such incidents were reported in one six-month period in 2004....In Denton, Texas, three pharmacists working at an Eckerd drug store refused to fill a rape victim's prescription for the morning-after pill" (p. 156). In other words, these ideas and beliefs have real consequences for people, especially for those who don't hold these ideas and beliefs.

Others have critiqued Goldberg for her comparisons to fascists, whom they usually equate unequivocally with Nazis. While comparisons to Nazis are always inflammatory and rarely helpful, we must remember that fascism has some definable characteristics and that most (if not all) of the movements Goldberg describes can be seen to share many of these characteristics. If it walks like duck, etc. Others have taken her to task for conflating Christian fundamentalists with Christian evangelicals with Christian nationalists with theocrats etc., implying that because the Christian nationalist movement is decentralized and diffuse that it is not real at all. These criticisms, all specious, are tactics employed by the theocratic right, along with a cynical use of "religious liberty," to pursue a pernicious agenda under the radar. We ignore Goldberg's book and the movements to which she alludes at our peril.

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