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

Tim Alberta’s follow-up to his lengthy tome, American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump was not focused on politics like American Carnage.

 

Instead, Tim conducts a deep dive into the white, American Evangelical Church in the age of Trump. The prologue begins detailing individuals’ awful behavior confronting Tim about his political book at his father’s funeral after Rush Limbaugh speaks disparaging about Tim. Tim’s father was the faithful pastor of a megachurch in Michigan when he died.

 

Applying a reporter’s diligence to his search, Tim interviews, and attends churches, that have embraced Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism being the belief that the United States is fundamentally a Christian nation since its founding. Christianity should be instituted as the state religion. Christians should have control of, and set the agenda, of the federal government.

 

He begins and ends the book with The Moral Majority and Liberty University. In between, he visits other churches and conferences. Most have embraced Christian Nationalism, though he does meet with pastors who have rejected nationalism that have watched their churches shrink. He details how, beginning with The Moral Majority, Christians have sought for a larger role within politics. They have advocated for more and more Christian policies, more outspoken Christians within the levels of government.

 

This book, while the investigation is thorough, is not as detached as American Carnage. Tim begins each chapter with a Scripture verse that somebody uses in the chapter. Tim builds off that verse. He is not reluctant to share his opinions on Christian Nationalism, criticizing the worldview, pointing out repeatedly how contrary it is to the Bible and Jesus’s own teaching.

 

What he witnesses is the churches who have embraced Christian Nationalism expanding their attendance, their ministries. Evangelical Christians have expected and pushed the church to align more with the modern Republican Party. The shift accelerated during the age of Donald Trump.

 

Tim is repulsed at the marriage of the church to Donald Trump’s political aspirations. Detailing how the church once was aghast and angry at Bill Clinton’s myriad sexual scandals, the church has shrugged supporting an unrepentant, adulterous, misogynistic cretin because, they believe, Trump furthers their interests.

 

The church has missed her calling as Jesus’s already established kingdom here on earth to trying to establish a Christian government within the United States. When that happened, she stopped focusing on furthering God’s agenda, instead focusing on winning. Winning elections, winning the culture war, the church now sees those opposed not as sinners in need of grace and Jesus’s salvation, but as enemies meant to be overcome and destroyed.

 

I first picked up this book in a bookstore, only reading the first half of the prologue that ends with Tim’s wife’s angry outburst that an elder at Tim’s father’s church wrote a letter to Tim telling him that he was sinning and offering absolution. I wanted to read more, but waited until the book became available at the local library. When I first checked months ago, there was a substantial waiting list for it. I was not the only person profoundly interested in what Tim had to say.

 

This topic needed an insider’s perspective. Reading as many books (novels) as I do, I have read plenty where Christians, the Republican Party, and the “Right”, in general, take a beating. Though I hold the Christians solely responsible for embracing Christian Nationalism, it doesn’t help when the Far Left is intent on driving Christianity and Christian thinking completely from the public sphere. To have an atheist dissect Christianity with detachment or hostility wouldn’t have caused any examination. Those who follow Christian Nationalism just would have further entrenched.

 

Tim delivers on that needed insider’s perspective. He argues, biblically, against Christian Nationalism. The few voices who lucidly agree with him state their cases succinctly, clearly. When Tim engages in conversation with the hardcore Christian Nationalists, sometimes they concede. Often, they dismiss Tim without arguing his points. None can formulate an argument for Christian Nationalism, or support for Donald Trump, without twisting themselves in rhetorical knots. Either they concede the point, get hostile, or simply end the conversation.

 

Yet, the rise of Christian Nationalism continues.

 

I have people who are close to me who have embraced Christian Nationalism. Not all of them have realigned their lives completely as some Christians have done in Tim’s book. Still, it grieves me to see them lose sight of what the church’s mission is here on Earth. I am blessed to attend a multiethnic, multiracial church that has prospered by keeping politics, mostly, away from the function of the church.

 

I am pleased that Tim wrote this book. He was transparent about the personal toll Christian Nationalism has taken on him and his family. He details his own journey, the path his father’s church walked on navigating this new reality. I’m certain that after publication, Tim is still receiving unwanted hostility for detailing this cult.

 

Tim should also be commended for detailing the abuse scandals that arose within the Southern Baptist Conference. He profiles some of the leading women who were the victims of abuse and then became the biggest whistleblowers.

 

The only part of the book I found lacking was Tim’s exploration of whether the leaders of Christian Nationalism truly believe this or are just playing Christians. Tim hints at the leaders’ motivations in peddling Christian Nationalism tropes. He details the fact that at many of these conferences, held inside or outside the church, most leaders have books or paraphernalia to sell. He talks about how some of these Nationalist churches just started small. Then, a pastor would give a political rant, wind up on YouTube and quickly become a celebrity. His church would explode in attendance and giving.

 

I must shamelessly link this book review to my first novel, The Preachers’ Bet. The outline of the plot is that a young man, disillusioned with the church, makes a bet with a friend that Christians are as gullible as any other group of people. They will believe in anyone who speaks their language without discerning whether the person is honest or not. He then usurps a small church’s leadership, becomes senior pastor, builds them into a megachurch, and leads them for decades. Only when he steps down, does he let the body know that he was playing them as fools, that he never believed anything he was proclaiming.

 

Admittedly, the book is mean spirited, basically stating that Christians aren’t discerning about leadership at all, are unable to see a swindle happening right in front of them. After reading The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, I almost wonder if my novel hadn’t gone far enough to explore this.

 

One of my major contentions with the Christian Nationalist movement is that they have so fecklessly hitched their wagon to Donald Trump without examining, or blatantly ignoring, that he doesn’t believe anything about Christianity. Tim points out, several times, that Donald Trump claims to be a Christian without any hint of a repentant heart. And the church is okay with this?

 

With Trump as their figurehead, do the leading voices in Christian nationalism even believe in Christianity? Do they believe in what they are promoting? Or do they just see a wealthy segment of the American population and the dollars and power that this segment would be willing to give to them if they just say the right words?

 

In the same vein, were those who attempted to cover up the abuse scandals within powerful bastions of the evangelical world believe in contrition, confession, repentance? Or were they more interested in holding onto power and the financial rewards of being a player in the evangelical world? The denomination that I was a part of for roughly a decade held a doctrine called Constituted Authority. This doctrine stated was that because God Himself, instituted all authority, secular and religious, those who are under authority must submit to it. While understanding that in churches, workplaces, Christians do have to show submission, with the rampant uncovering of leaders abusing their authority, I question the unbending application of this doctrine. How much evil has been done in the name of Constituted Authority? Have churches and denominations reevaluated this?

 

I wish Tim had gone even further into sorting out the true believers, those the Christian Nationalist message has deceived, versus those just out to making a buck. My contention is that a good portion of the public figures don’t believe much of what they are selling, but just found a way to profit.

 

That does not detract much from the overall message and impact of this book. I hope some Christians read this and are impacted. I pray for a repudiation of the track the American Evangelical Church is headed down.

 

I worry though. Tim’s book was published at a specific time. How would the book be updated now, post November 5th, 2024, with the beginning of a second Donald Trump presidential term? Christians, undoubtedly, were a huge voting presence restoring Donald Trump to the White House. Time will tell if their efforts reward them.