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Instant New York Times Bestseller

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year

An Economist and Air Mail Best Book of the Year

"Brave and absorbing." -- New York Times

"Alberta is not just a thorough and responsible reporter but a vibrant writer, capable of rendering a farcical scene in vivid hues." -- Washington Post

"An astonishingly clear-eyed look at a murky movement." -- Los Angeles Times

Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing--and least understood--people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory , journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal.

For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom--a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to a powerful current of right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.

Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, this work of investigative journalism investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused political power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting--and the weapons of their warfare--to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing.

Sifting through the wreckage--pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes--Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Prologue(1)
• Epilogue(429)
• Acknowledgments(447)
• Notes(453)
• Index(471)

Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this scathing account, journalist Alberta (American Carnage) scrutinizes the unraveling of American evangelicalism over the past several decades. According to the author, extremists are now the establishment within the evangelical movement and have been "conditioned to subdue" their Christlike love and chase political power. To make his case, Alberta profiles such "conservative clerics, Trump-inspired politicos, patriot crusaders, culture-war capitalists" as Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist megachurch pastor and longtime Trump acolyte who believes evangelicalism is "under siege" from a secular government, as well as moderate pastors who've broken from the denomination, including Russell Moore, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, whose critiques of Trump and calls to address racial tensions in the church sparked "vicious internecine fighting" and led to his 2021 departure from the denomination. Alberta adeptly illustrates how Christian nationalism is "destroying the evangelical church" on a big-picture level, as well as how it's justified individually, framed scripturally, and blared over pulpits in support of hyper-conservative political candidates. While he suggests a "true Christianity" might still be salvageable, Alberta's own evidence reveals how deep the rot has already spread. It's an incisive, unsparing look at a movement in crisis. (Dec.)

CHOICE Review

In this timely and riveting account, Alberta, a staff writer for The Atlantic, describes the war between millions of white American evangelicals and what they perceive to be an increasingly secular US. The author of American Carnage (2019), Alberta reveals how many Evangelical pastors have ceased to glorify God in the name of what they perceive as the restoration of a Christian America. Instead, he describes how well-known evangelicals, such as Ralph Reed; Jerry Falwell, Sr.; Jerry Falwell, Jr.; and Robert Jeffress, have betrayed the teachings of Jesus in exchange for wealth and power. Polling data shows that for many evangelicals evangelizing now seems to be an impediment to itself given that many of the better-known pastors preach a form of Christianity inconsistent with the teachings of Christ. A landmark poll taken in February 2023 found that two-thirds of white evangelicals either explicitly supported the notion of Christian nationalism or were sympathetic to it. Believing the Democratic Party to be sinister, predatory, and aligned with the devil, many of these Christian nationalists prefer Trump, despite his many moral failings. Trump has become their champion in the battle to establish the earthly kingdom where loving your enemy is woke. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. --Jack Robert Fischel, emeritus, Millersville University

Booklist Review

Alberta, a staff reporter for the Atlantic and a man of Christian faith, was impelled to write this look at religion and right-wing politics after the funeral of his father, a pastor, during which churchgoers assailed him for his anti-Trump writings. Crisscrossing the country, Alberta spoke with prominent evangelical clergymen (they are nearly all men) to understand how Donald Trump, seemingly the opposite of what Christ calls people to be, could hold so many believers in his thrall. Readers will get a history of the interworkings of religion and politics going back to the Scopes trial and highlighting the days of the Moral Majority and on through Barack Obama's presidency as churchgoers were fed a steady drip of lies from the pulpit about this "Marxist." Most importantly, according to Alberta, Christians believed they were "under siege" and thus were susceptible to wooing by alleged protector Trump. But there is so much more here. A parade of pastors most Americans have never heard of justify, amplify, but never really demystify why they've followed Trump. They've acquired power and twisted the kingdom, but the glory is so tarnished as to be unrecognizable. A probing, disorienting, and essential work.