The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

Wonderfully written by a pastor, son of a pastor. Great insight into how Christians move away from the central point of their faith and wander into political (Sort of explains how Trump's followers "misuse" their FAITH experiences) or feel good topics, and about how more Christians are beginning to move back to faith-centered churches where they can find community and small groups and Biblical teachings and gain more faith relevance in their lives.

This book provides an overview of the American evangelical landscape m over the last two decades. As a successful political journalist and the son of an evangelical pastor, Tim Alberta offers an insider picture of the evangelical family of churches. No matter what your own political beliefs or religious (non)affiliation may be, this book provides very good reasons to be worried about the rise of political extremism, racism, and xenophobia among those churches. As the same time, Alberta also talks to leading evangelical religious and political figures who are trying to make things better, like David French, Adam Kinzinger, and Russell Moore. The book’s greatest strength is Alberta’s ability to be honest about evangelicalism while remaining sympathetic to the pastors and parishioners he interviews. I have read many articles about American evangelicals and politics, but most are written by journalists who are not evangelicals. Some are atheists or agnostics who clearly do not understand people of faith. For example, I can think of a couple journalists who are outraged that evangelicals want to convert people. Alberta’ central theme is that politicization of the churches reflects changes in American politics more generally. As a result, pastors who want to keep their flocks have to change their preaching to suit those sheep who have turned into wolves. Time and again, Alberta finds evangelicals who don’t follow the Great Commandment. They make their country, not God, their idol, and they don’t love their neighbor if that neighbor is different than they are. In this world, pastors find that they must provide spiritual cover for unbiblical and unchristian behavior among their parishioners or find their congregation shrink. Of course, he also talks to a few pastors who paid that price - and are glad they did. In such a setting, some pastors have discovered that serving the wolves also provides worldly success: large congregations, media appearances, book sales, and connections with influential people. They might justify their fame as helping bring people to Christ, but they don’t turn these new Christians people into genuine disciplines. By emphasizing changes in the pews, Alberta wants to minimize the role of malevolent leaders in inciting their flocks, but I didn’t find that point convincing. After all, Alberta’s account of the Jerry Falwell empire would suggest that wealth and power were the point from the beginning. The general tendency to cover up sexual abuse in the church, and to ostracize survivors like Tiffany Thigpen and Jules Woodson, would suggest that pastors deserve a lot of blame too. Alberta is optimistic enough to remain a member of the evangelical movement instead of moving to a mainline Christian denomination. In fact, he is now pursuing a master’s degree at a seminary. After reading this book, I think he is probably being too optimistic: the rot runs very deep. If he is right, however, I am glad that Tim Alberta will be part of the solution.

This is an extremely compelling book that is very well-written. The author gives us insight into what evangelical Christianity is all about, and how adherents of the faith are out to destroy the United States. I did find the book to be a bit of a slog. The book is long, so it took me a while to get through. But the book is filled with fascinating case studies that kept things moving forward. The narrative did try my patience as I struggled to quell my anger over evangelical’s cult-like devotion to Trump, QAnon, and fabricated American history. Despite Alberta’s well-written narrative, I’ve no use for Republican politics or evangelical Christianity. All of that is antithetical to my values and ethics. My one big gripe about this book is that the author never turns his spotlight on whether the Christian beliefs of evangelical Christians are, in fact, reasonable. Clearly Alberta assumes they are since that is how he was raised. Alberta only examines the reasonableness of the political beliefs that stem from the religion. Several times the author refers to Christian beliefs as “the Truth” with a capital ‘T’. My feeling is that, no, Christian beliefs are not the “Truth.” There is no evidence or proof that Christianity is true – none – so the political actions that flow from these beliefs are based on myths and fairy tales. The book is also written as if evangelical Christianity represents all Christianity in the US. It does not. Americans are taught that we are never allowed to criticize someone’s religion. I hold no such opinion. Christian Nationalism and the Christianity of the evangelical supporters of Trump will destroy this country. And I will hold all Christians and their religion directly responsible for this. The case studies Alberta presents are really interesting and more than a little scary. At the end, Alberta’s book has me more convinced than ever that nothing makes atheism look more appealing than American Christianity. Highly recommended for all Americans.

Great book!

If you are into your American politics and want another piece of the puzzle as to why it is, as it is then this book is for you. It discusses the rise of American evangelicalism and its influence on todays politics offering a fascinating insight for those of who have no understanding of the situation and are watching from afar. Thoroughly recommended.

It’s a thorough and comprehensive of some of the most relevant figures in American Evangelism, using each example to explain every characteristic of the conservative Christians in that country, and how have they surrendered to Donald Trump, against all of their beliefs.

Tim Alberta was raised in an Evangelical family and his father was the pastor of one of the largest Evangelical churches in their Michigan town. His father died in July 2019 shortly after the author had published a book critical of Donald Trump that had been criticized on-air by Rush Limbaugh. As a result, instead of receiving condolences from the people in his family's church, he was regularly criticized for having gone over to the other side. This prompted his wife to ask "what is the matter with these people?" This book is Tim Alberta's attempt to answer his wife's question. The author begins with detailed and very personal stories of churches that were losing members because the pastor was emphasizing Jesus instead of political outrages. Members were moving to churches that delivered an extreme political message. He interviews a number of pastors who were struggling with how to handle this situation. The author then visits a number of the politically charged churches and reports on their church services where the key messages seem to be that the country is going downhill and Christians need to fight back. He notes that the services are also designed to provoke fear in the congregation. He then interviews the pastors and asks them how their square their political focus with their Christian faith. Although some of the pastors acknowledge the conflict, they argue that they are just providing what their congregation wants. They then go back to preaching the same way. The author feels that these churches are practicing idolatry. The author then visits some big rallies where people like Ralph Reed, Charlie Kirk, Eric Metaxas and Paula White are delivering the messages. He sees many of these people are hucksters trying to make money out of the Evangelical community. The book contains excellent reporting on recent events at the Southern Baptist Conference meetings as they are forced to come to grips with sexual abuse scandals in their churches. Russel Moore's struggles with the SBC are also reported on in detail as Moore was forced out of his leadership position in the SBC because of his unwillingness to endorse Donald Trump as well as his insistence that the SBC deal fairly with the sex abuse scandals. There is also some excellent reporting about Liberty University and how it tossed out it's religious mission in favor of political boosterism. On the positive side, Alberta talks to some of the people working to counteract this politicization of the church. Some of the material has already appeared in The Atlantic where Alberta is a staff writer. His deep faith and knowledge of scripture comes out in the book making this a deeply personal book. The book is also very unsettling as you see how the church is being so politicized. The book is strongly recommended for anyone interested in religion and contemporary US politics. It is one of the most important books published in 2023.

À lire même si vous n'êtes pas religieux. Il ne cherche pas à convaincre; je suis toujours aussi non religieux qu'avant la lecture. Mais je me considère privilégié d'avoir eu accès à une si grande et réconfortante franchise, ainsi qu'à une si grande volonté de cohérence et d'humanisme.