Wild Faith
How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America
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- ¥2,400
発行者による作品情報
Esquire Best Nonfiction Books of 2024
The acclaimed author of Culture Warlords investigates the rise of the Christian Right over the last half-century that lays out the grim vision evangelicals are enforcing on our democracy.
All across America, a storm is gathering: from book bans in school libraries to anti-trans laws in state legislatures; firebombings of abortion clinics and protests against gay rights. The Christian Right, a cunning political force in America for more than half a century, has never been more powerful than it is right now—it propelled Donald Trump to power, and it won’t stop until it’s refashioned America in its own image.
In Wild Faith, critically acclaimed author Talia Lavin goes deep into what motivates the Christian Right, from its segregationist past to a future riddled with apocalyptic ideology.
Using primary sources and firsthand accounts, Lavin introduces you to “deliverance ministers” who carry out exorcisms by the hundreds; modern-day, self-proclaimed prophets and apostles; Christian militias, cults, zealots, and showmen; and the people in power who are aiding them to achieve their goals.
Along the way, she explores anti-abortion terrorists, the Christian Patriarchy movement, with its desire to place all women under absolute male control; the twisted theology that leads to rampant child abuse; and the ways conspiracy theorists and extremist Christians influence each other to mutual political benefit.
From school boards to the Supreme Court, Christian theocracy is ascendant in America—and only through exploring its motivations and impacts can we understand the crisis we face. In Wild Faith, Lavin fearlessly confronts whether our democracy can survive an organized, fervent theocratic movement, one that seeks to impose its religious beliefs on American citizens.
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The Christian far right is eviscerating children's welfare in order to raise up an army of "soldiers... instructed in a totalistic environment," according to this eye-opening account. Journalist Lavin (Culture Warlords) begins by recapping the past several decades of the Christian nationalist movement in America in an attempt to explain mainline Christianity's embrace of Donald Trump's authoritarianism. She finds that the inflection point is QAnon, which, by "mixing the language of Old Testament mysticism with contemporary right-wing conspiracy theories," has caused anti-democratic ideas long-inculcated by the far right to blend seamlessly with popular religious narratives. While well-told, this history isn't particularly innovative; far more revealing is the book's second half, which draws on hundreds of interviews with adults who suffered corporal punishment as children in evangelical households. Pairing their stories with an examination of the Christian right's promotion of "parental rights," Lavin convincingly positions child abuse as a central tenet of the Christian far right's extremist politics ("Their objective... is to exact complete obedience"). Though Lavin's account is limited by her focus on ex-evangelicals, whose '90s-era recollections give the narrative a throwback sheen, and her understanding of Evangelicism at times feels sensationalized, her reporting on child abuse is important and shocking. It's an infuriating glimpse into a cloistered world where abuse is encouraged.
