Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism [Paperback]

 

 

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This is a good look at what the fundamentalist Christian right believes and is trying to impose on the rest of the US. Goldberg has a shrewd eye as a reporter, has read a fair amount of academic material, and written with genuine passion and concern.

For those who have not had contact with the fundamentalist Christian right, much of what she describes will seem frightening to the point of disbelief. Yes, there are people in the US who want to impose a rigid version of Christianity onto the rest of the nation. They believe in the literal truth of the Bible as the original source of all wisdom and truth, and they are convinced in their righteousness to the point that some would sanction legal execution and even murder for their cause. Their mentality is cloistered - to block different perspectives from getting them to question their beliefs - and paranoid and wholly unaware of their own hypocrisy. They believe that the US is sinful and needs to become christianized, to live in strict accordance with their interpretation of the Bible. The mandate, in their view, comes directly from God, hence there is no room for compromise - their beliefs are absolute and indivisible. Their belief is also impervious to logic and evidence: my uncle, when confronted with the fact that there is fossil evidence in favor of evolution, merely replies that "the devil puts that there."

I believe Goldberg's characterization of their wacky world view is essentially correct, because there are people in my own family - cousins - who are involved in the movement. (We are somewhere on the atheist-agnostic spectrum, definitely the "urban secularists" whom Goldberg wishes to protect.) While my closer cousins are tolerant of our beliefs (as we strive to be of theirs) and share a strong bond with us, we recently met some more distant cousins and it was a frightening encounter. As their children were homeschooled, they regarded mine with suspicion that exploded into vicious accusations that they were "in league with the devil". It was genuinely shocking and personally offensive to us.

What Goldberg accomplishes in this book is look at them as a highly organized force that wants to take over the country, a political movement. They began to gather steam from the time of President Reagan, when they were incorporated as a voting block and core of highly motivated grassroots activists into the GOP. They want to ban abortion, restrict the teaching of evolution via legislation (i.e. the world is 6000 years old, etc.), outlaw homosexuality, and restrict sexual freedom outside of marriage; they also wish to subvert the US Constitution so that religion can dominate the state. Up until the time of Bush II, they had made great progress, from the nomination of judges that favor their view to battles on school boards in favor of teaching "intelligent design" as a scientific alternative to neo-Darwinism, and the campaign for sexual abstinence outside marriage (i.e. against disseminating basic knowledge on women's reproductive health). There are armies of these believers in mega-churches, in "home schools" to keep their children free of the taint of public education, and in innumerable political groupings. Then, under Bush, they entered the government mainstream for the first time to systematically subvert science policy, got grants under the faith-based initiatives - government funds to provide social services AND proselytize - and enter the judiciary in greater numbers than ever before.

That is where the book stops, in early 2006 (at least in the hard cover edition). What Goldberg has reported is valuable, but I have a number of criticisms of her approach. First, with the 2006 and 2008 elections, it is clear that the book is somewhat out of date. With the Terry Schiavo controversy and other issues tied to Bush II, the country has decisively rejected the fundamentalist Christian right, at least for the time being.

Second, I believe that Goldberg over-estimates how far the fundamentalist Christian right can go. In other words, once their beliefs and true agenda are better known, I am sure that more Americans will reject them. The recent Tillman assassination, for example, will expose many of their true colors. However, Goldberg is much more frightened than I am: she repeatedly labels them as nascent fascists, worries that they will continue to grow and gain influence, and will never compromise.

Third, Goldberg's tone is over-heated and near hysterical in her creation of a dichotomy between fundamentalist ruralists and urban secularists. From within my own family, I know that the lines cannot be that sharply drawn. While my close cousins say and believe certain things, they respect diversity and love to travel and were as experimental (in a manner of speaking) as the rest of us when young. I am convinced that it is only an infinitesimal minority that are so fanatic (like my more distant relatives). Indeed, they are somewhat like the Taliban vis-a-vis the rest of Islam, in my view. The book verges on, but never quite becomes, a polemic.

Fourth, for all its breathless exposes, there is often a lack of density to Goldberg's writing. She has done good reporting work, but there was something callow about the book, like much of it was thrown together and not very deeply reflected upon. For example, she repeatedly refers to Hannah Ardnt's Origins of Totalitarianism (in my reading an abstruse and obscure book of impossible syntax and unfiltered facts) as a source on the rise of mass demagogic movements as if to explain the similarities between the rise of Hitler and the fundamentalist Christian right. (I do not believe Hitler is a good rhetorical benchmark.) I often felt disappointed in her summaries of points of view and her musings.

All this being said, Goldberg's book is worth the read. She is a young writer, who will mature into a far better one. (My apologies if this sounds condescending - I do not mean to disrespect the many accomplishments of this book.) The reporting is valuable, she strives to be fair, and fearlessly presents a point of view. But this book is only a beginning and may already be outdated.

As someone born and raised in Northern Ireland, I have observed at first hand the corrosive effects of institutionalised religion. I underline that "institutionalised" part - I am privileged to know many fine Christians who seek to put their faith into practice and who, to paraphrase Jesus's words from the Sermon on the Mount, "let their light so shine before men, that they might see their good works and glorify their Father in Heaven". Christianity is an individual's religion, a personal commitment between a person and God. This is its great strength; in its proper form, it seeks to change the world one person at a time, not by coercion, but by example.

Its problems start when it tries to do things the other way around, by impressing its way of doing things (be they right or wrong) en masse on people who don't want to adhere. I have watched the growing trend of Christian churches in the USA seeking to exert political influence with some concern. This excellent book encapsulates it all very nicely. Written before the 2008 Presidential Election, it highlights the attempts of the religious right and those who ride on their coat-tails to make the USA a "Christian nation", something that by definition cannot exist in reality. It requires a comprehensive rewriting of history, to ignore the fact that the Founding Fathers were gentlemen of the Enlightenment and often at best Deists (in his campaign for the Presidency, Thomas Jefferson was famously accused of being an atheist by his rival). It also requires a fundamental rewriting of scientific fact, to make "intelligent design" a school subject, although it is only creationism in disguise and totally lacking in factual basis. When facts become changeable to suit majority opinion, then we're really in trouble.

Diversity is the life-blood of American democracy, and a much-admired facet of it. Suddenly, this is endangered, and while an Iranian-type theocracy is not on the horizon, the danger signals are there, especially when a former Governor whose only real qualification for office is essentially her religion and who believes that she is part of the last generation could conceivably get her fingers on the button to unleash Armageddon. Which, of course, makes it also a concern for those of us on this side of the pond. The old saying that when GM sneezes, America catches cold could also be said of America and the world.

The joy of this book is that it is no polemic; it is straightforward and factual. It insults nobody, and it backs up its statements by quotes from the people involved. In many ways, its very reasonableness and rationality make it even more scary. It is a clarion call to wake up reasonable, rational Americans, so that they rise and take back the real polyglot America, not the fictitious, self-serving America of the "Christian" Right's delusions. As God famously said to a depressed Elijah, "I have still 7,000 prophets who have not bowed the knee to Baal". Hopefully, there remain many Americans who have not bowed the knee to the Baal of false, distorted Christianity, and that they can be aroused to resist.

As a Jewish American woman, Goldberg is rightfully concerned when Christian Nationalists demand an officially Christian state. She is moved to gather detail on what such radicals actually want for the future. And some want a full restoration of Old Testament law, perhaps as practiced in the Puritans' Massachusetts Bay Colony, including the death penalty for witchcraft, blasphemy, adultery and homosexuality. Other radicals appeal for a new struggle to establish Christianity throughout the world. As she cites George Grant from in the late 1980s,

"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. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less ..." (p. 158)

Goldberg doesn't contest whether such Christian Nationalists represent religion as Jesus taught it. She just appeals to the U.S. Constitution in defense of all religious minorities. But since the Constitution enshrines some of the values which can be found in the Bible (such respect for other people) perhaps she has a certain appeal to religious values after all. In defending her society's freedom from church control, she is also fighting for the freedom of religion from state control.

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