The Power Worshippers

Last updated
The Power Worshippers
Cover power worshippers.webp
First edition
Author Katherine Stewart
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date
2020
Media typePrint (Hardcover), e-book
Pages352
ISBN 978-1-63557-343-5
OCLC 1141734279

The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism is a 2020 nonfiction book by American journalist and author Katherine Stewart. The book describes Christian nationalism in the United States as a regressive political ideology with historical ties to opposition to abolitionism in the 19th century, hostility towards Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs in the 1930s, and resistance to the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Christian nationalists, Stewart argues, falsely believe that America was founded on the Bible and vocally reject the principle of separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers of the United States, desiring instead to impose their version of theocracy and authoritarianism in its place, often by force.

Contents

Development

Stewart first became interested in the subject in 2009, when she was directly confronted with the problem in her daughter's public school, where Christian evangelicals were using after-school programs known as Good News Clubs to promote their religious goals and proselytize to children, with their ultimate aim of defunding and eliminating public education in the United States. Her experience led her to write the book The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (2012). [1] Stewart would later expand on this idea in The Power Worshipers, proposing that charter schools are used by the religious and free market fundamentalists alike to privatize government services, which serves to both propagandize right wing ideas and beliefs and to redirect funds from the public to the private sector. "This privatization, although it covers itself in libertarian rhetoric, is essential to the project of indoctrinating the next generation in the 'right' ideology and the right religion—with the added benefit of funneling public dollars into the pockets of right-thinking businessmen." [2]

Synopsis

The book argues that Christian nationalism in the United States is far more than just a social movement focusing simply on culture war issues like abortion and gay marriage, but a highly organized and well funded political movement that seeks to replace secular, democratic values and institutions with conservative and religious ones, where the will to power takes precedence over religious, spiritual, and moral tenets of the Christian faith. Stewart presents a history of the movement, showing how in the 1970s, early right-wing Christian nationalism was less concerned with morality and more interested in fighting the IRS to maintain the tax-exempt status of their churches. This led to the rise of the New Right and their novel use of abortion by Jerry Falwell and others as a political issue to unify their side, even as many conservatives continued to support legal abortion until the 1990s. The Christian nationalist movement attracted major funding by plutocrats with similar goals, leading to their increasing control and eventual takeover of the Republican Party, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and ending with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, who would successfully help members of the movement repeal legal abortion and open the door to the goals of Christian nationalism at the federal level with his anti-democratic, autocratic style, which represents a recrudescence of the divine right of kings, a notion supported by Christian nationalists, who believe that kings derive their authority from God, and cannot be held accountable by the rule of law.

Reviewers noted that Stewart's book fills a niche on the subject of Christian nationalism in the United States, including previous work by Jeff Sharlet on The Fellowship in The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (2008) and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy (2010); [3] Anne Nelson's investigation of the Council for National Policy in Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right (2019); Gerardo Marti's historical focus in American Blindspot: Race, Class, Religion, and the Trump Presidency (2019); and Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry's Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States (2020). [4]

Adaptation

The documentary film God & Country (2024), directed by Dan Partland and produced by Rob Reiner, was based on The Power Worshippers. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fundamentalism</span> Unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs

Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishing one's ingroup and outgroup, which leads to an emphasis on some conception of "purity", and a desire to return to a previous ideal from which advocates believe members have strayed. The term is usually used in the context of religion to indicate an unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs.

The Christian right, or the religious right, are Christian political factions which are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative and traditionalist policies. Christian conservatives seek to influence politics and public policy with their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity.

Religious nationalism can be understood in a number of ways, such as nationalism as a religion itself, a position articulated by Carlton Hayes in his text Nationalism: A Religion, or as the relationship of nationalism to a particular religious belief, dogma, ideology, or affiliation. This relationship can be broken down into two aspects: the politicisation of religion and the influence of religion on politics.

Christian terrorism, a form of religious terrorism, comprises terrorist acts which are committed by groups or individuals who profess Christian motivations or goals. Christian terrorists justify their violent tactics through their interpretation of the Bible and Christianity, in accordance with their own objectives and worldview.

Dominion theology, also known as dominionism, is a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians and based on their understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of acquiring governing authority are varied. For example, dominion theology can include theonomy but does not necessarily involve advocacy of adherence to the Mosaic Law as the basis of government. The label is primarily applied to groups of Christians in the United States.

Sovereigntism, sovereignism or souverainism is the notion of having control over one's conditions of existence, whether at the level of the self, social group, region, nation or globe. Typically used for describing the acquiring or preserving political independence of a nation or a region, a sovereigntist aims to "take back control" from perceived powerful forces, either against internal subversive minority groups, or from external global governance institutions, federalism and supranational unions. It generally leans instead toward isolationism, and can be associated with certain independence movements, but has also been used to justify violating the independence of other nations.

The Republican Party in the United States includes several factions, or wings. During the 19th century, Republican factions included the Half-Breeds, who supported civil service reform; the Radical Republicans, who advocated the immediate and total abolition of slavery, and later advocated civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era; and the Stalwarts, who supported machine politics.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group that works to protect religious liberty, expand Christian practices within public schools and in government, outlaw abortion, and curtail LGBTQ rights. In 2014, ADF literature described part of its mission as "[seeking] to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries." ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with branch offices in several locations including Washington, D.C., and New York. Its international subsidiary, Alliance Defending Freedom International, with headquarters in Vienna, Austria, operates in over 100 countries.

Christian nationalism is a type of religious nationalism that is affiliated with Christianity. It primarily focuses on the internal politics of society, such as legislating civil and criminal laws that reflect their view of Christianity and the role of religion/s in political and social life.

Neo-nationalism, or new nationalism, is an ideology and political movement built on the basic characteristics of classical nationalism. It developed to its final form by applying elements with reactionary character generated as a reaction to the political, economic and socio-cultural changes that came with globalization during the second wave of globalization in the 1980s.

Christian fascism is a far-right political ideology that denotes an intersection between fascism and Christianity. It is sometimes referred to as "Christofascism", a neologism which was coined in 1970 by the liberation theologian Dorothee Sölle.

In the politics of the United States, the radical right is a political preference that leans towards ultraconservatism, white nationalism, white supremacy, or other far-right ideologies in a hierarchical structure which is paired with conspiratorial rhetoric alongside traditionalist and reactionary aspirations. The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small groups such as the John Birch Society in the United States, and since then it has been applied to similar groups worldwide. The term "radical" was applied to the groups because they sought to make fundamental changes within institutions and remove persons and institutions that threatened their values or economic interests from political life.

Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks liberation, equality, representation and/or self-determination for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.

Social conservatism in the United States is a political ideology focused on the preservation of traditional values and beliefs. It focuses on a concern with moral and social values which proponents of the ideology see as degraded in modern society by liberalism. In the United States, one of the largest forces of social conservatism is the Christian right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Stewart (journalist)</span> American journalist and author

Katherine Stewart is an American journalist and author who often writes about issues related to the separation of church and state, the rise of religious nationalism, and global movements against liberal democracy. Her books include The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (2012) and The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (2020), which also served as the basis for the documentary film God & Country (2024).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trumpism</span> American political movement

Trumpism is an authoritarian movement that consists of the political ideologies and political movement associated with Donald Trump and his political base. Scholars and historians have identified Trumpism as consisting of a wide range of right-wing ideologies such as right-wing populism, national conservatism, neo-nationalism, and neo-fascism. Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist, and racist attacks against minority groups. Other identified aspects include conspiracist, isolationist, Christian nationalist, protectionist, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBT beliefs. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics.

<i>The Good News Club: The Christian Rights Stealth Assault on Americas Children</i> 2012 non-fiction book by Katherine Stewart

The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children is a book by American journalist Katherine Stewart about the Good News Club (GNC). Published through PublicAffairs in 2012, the book examines the GNC, its formal structure and social organization, its literary goals, and the effects of GNCs on schools and surrounding communities since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not exclude them in a lawsuit involving GNC. The book's final chapter focus on an overarching imperative to "defund and ultimately eliminate" the public schools by the Christian evangelical movement, according to Stewart. She calls the public school system "one of the largest and most successful collective efforts in [American] history" in her conclusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Feucht</span> American activist and Christian singer-songwriter

Sean Feucht is an American Christian singer, songwriter, former worship leader at Bethel Church, and the founder of the Let Us Worship movement. He ran unsuccessfully as a Republican in California's 3rd congressional district.

The Seven Mountain Mandate, also Seven Mountains Mandate, 7M, or Seven Mountains Dominionism, is a dominionist conservative Christian movement within Pentecostal and evangelical Christianity. It holds that there are seven aspects of society that believers seek to influence: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government.

<i>God & Country</i> 2024 film by Dan Partland

God & Country is a 2024 American documentary film directed by Dan Partland and produced by Rob Reiner. The film discusses the emergence of Christian nationalism and its close relationship with far-right politics in the United States, exploring its perceived threat to democracy and the politicization of Christianity. The documentary is based on Katherine Stewart's book The Power Worshippers (2020). It is distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories. The film was released on February 16, 2024.

References

  1. Wilson-Hartgrove, Jonathan (July 15, 2020). "The Christian nationalist scam". Christian Century. 137 (15): 36–38.
  2. Abraham, Yvonne (March 6, 2020). "'The Power Worshippers' asks are religious extremists taking over politics?". The Boston Globe. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  3. Garrison, Becky (March 1, 2020). "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism". Humanist. 80 (2): 40–41.
  4. Anderson, Matthew Lee (July/August 2020). "What Is a Christian Nationalist?" Christianity Today. 64 (5): 64–68.
  5. Boorstein, Michelle (January 11, 2024). 'God & Country' film spotlights Christian nationalism’s threat to democracy". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 18, 2024.

Bibliography

Further reading