No journalist that I’m aware of has chronicled the rise of the Christian Right as assiduously and comprehensively as Katherine Stewart has. From her first book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, to The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, and now her latest effort, Money, Lies, and God, which will be published in February 2025, Stewart has tracked this movement’s growing influence and insidious threat to American democracy.
After reviewing The Power Worshippers and interviewing Katherine Stewart, I became far more attuned to news articles and reports about the Christian Right, much better equipped to identify its key players and understand the implications of their activities. Outstanding journalism provides context and connection and that is what Stewart delivers in this book; she dives deep and immerses herself, pours over the publications produced by think tanks and advocacy organizations, talks to lots of people, and then lays out her case in prose that is organized, clear, and compelling. The result is journalism of the highest order.
Here’s how Stewart describes her central thesis in the opening pages: “The big story of our time is the rise of an antidemocratic political movement in the United States.”
As readers will learn, not only is this movement well-funded and organized, it’s also actively involved at all levels of government, from local school boards to the United States Senate, exploiting contemporary issues like immigration, gender, and the economic anxiety produced by decades of extreme wealth inequality that have hit Middle America very hard. The fact that the influence of the Christian Right and its brand of political, social, and cultural authoritarianism goes unrecognized by most people is a testament to how effective the movement has become in eroding confidence in democratic processes and solutions.
“Christian nationalism and the New Right,” Stewart writes, “are the power couple of American fascism. If there is one document that cements the vows of this new union, it would have to be the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a voluminous plan, published in 2023, for how the next conservative president would save the country.”
What is the great internal enemy that the authors of Project 2025 seek to save America from? The hydra-headed “woke” elite and its cosmopolitan, over-educated, gender fluid, and anti-Christian adherents who advocate for abortion-on-demand. No single issue is as useful as abortion for rallying large groups of people to advocate for an assault on democracy itself. That much of this advocacy originates and is promulgated in the pulpits of tax-exempt evangelical churches illustrates just how tenuous the separation of church and state is, and how it’s growing more so with every passing year. One of the clearest warnings in the entire book is that the wall that once stood as a reasonable barrier between church and state is rickety and falling to pieces, and it isn’t in this condition by accident.
In addition to identifying the individuals and organizations that fund the Christian Right, Stewart also names the people and institutions that provide its intellectual and ideological justification, among them the Claremont Institute, home of men like attorney John Eastman, an active participant in Donald Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The men of Claremont — and Stewart shows the extent to which the institute is a male bastion — are obsessed with identity politics and produce a steady negative critique of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and initiatives. Disinterested in proposing practical solutions to the problems facing America, the men of Claremont, fixated with 18th century notions of appropriate gender roles and hierarchies, seek to “rile up a grievance-addled base and satisfy their own resentments.”
Intrepid and open-minded, Stewart has regularly attended annual conservative gatherings and conferences, religious and otherwise, such as the Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, the Road to Majority, and CPAC. A recurring theme at these events is anxiety and fear about traditional gender roles. Stewart calls this anxiety “the rocket fuel of the new American authoritarianism.” It’s the fuel that drives efforts to ban books from school libraries and undermine support for public education by promoting voucher schemes and public funding of Christian K-12 schools as well as institutions of higher learning.
The universe of the Christian Right — funders, think tanks, evangelical churches, allied politicians, and advocacy groups — pursues a narrow, minoritarian agenda that gives its adherents license to ignore reality and reject any fact, person, or oppositional political party that contradicts or challenges its views. Opponents are viewed as enemies, deserving of revenge and retribution; the more extreme religious conservatives — the “spirit warriors” as Stewart refers to them — seek to exempt themselves from the laws and norms that apply to everyone else.
On the surface it appears that the Christian Right is perfectly aligned with the Republican Party and Donald Trump, all pistons firing in unison, but the reality is somewhat different. Stewart describes it this way: “From the inside, the movement looks much more like a hive, with individuals and groups reassembling themselves into ever-changing configurations, but always around the same purpose.” There are disagreements, overlaps, and dividing lines, internal contradictions, which Stewart identifies as one of the movement’s weaknesses. Another weakness is that those who reject a cynical politics of divide and conquer represent a majority of citizens, although the results of the recent election raise questions about the existence and strength of this majority.
This is an important book, and it couldn’t appear at a more opportune time. The forces assaulting our democracy, institutions, and society are poised to seize the levers of political power. While their success isn’t inevitable or ordained, the only thing that can deter them is an informed and organized opposition.
This review originally appeared in the California Review of Books.
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