Synopses & Reviews
Michelle Goldberg, a senior political reporter for Salon.com, has been covering the intersection of politics and ideology for years. Before the 2004 election, and during the ensuing months when many Americans were trying to understand how an administration marked by cronyism, disregard for the national budget, and poorly disguised self-interest had been reinstated, Goldberg traveled through the heartland of a country in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism: the America of our time. From the classroom to the mega-church to the federal court, she saw how the growing influence of dominionism-the doctrine that Christians have the right to rule nonbelievers-is threatening the foundations of democracy.
In Kingdom Coming, Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout our national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military retirees pledging to seize the nation in Christ's name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country's social problems.
With her trenchant interviews and the telling testimonies of the people behind this movement, Goldberg gains access into the hearts and minds of citizens who are striving to remake the secular Republic bequeathed by our founders into a Christian nation run according to their interpretation of scripture. In her examination of the ever-widening divide between believers and nonbelievers, Goldberg illustrates the subversive effect of this conservative stranglehold nationwide. In an age when faith rather than reason is heralded and the values of the Enlightenment are threatened by a mystical nationalism claiming divine sanction, Kingdom Coming brings us face to face with the irrational forces that are remaking much of America.
Review
"[Goldberg] ends by exhorting her readers to retake the country from the grassroots up. If you think that Christianity is the new Communism, then this is the book for you." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Kingdom Coming is an important work of investigative journalism, exposing as it does a mass movement with 'a vision of reality utterly at odds with that of the secular world,' that would use its power to impose a religious worldview on a diverse country. Godlberg's book is also an impassioned plea against, 'fundamentalism, tribalism, Puritanism and obscurantism,' and for, 'modernity, humanism, reason and progress.' Those are the values with which she makes her case." Anna Godbersen, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopsis
Michelle Goldberg, a senior political reporter for Salon.com, has been covering the intersection of politics and ideology for years. Before the 2004 election, and during the ensuing months when many Americans were trying to understand how an administration marked by cronyism, disregard for the national budget, and poorly disguised self-interest had been reinstated, Goldberg traveled through the heartland of a country in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism: the America of our time.
In an age when faith rather than reason is heralded and the values of the Enlightenment are threatened by a mystical nationalism claiming divine sanction, Kingdom Coming brings us face to face with the irrational forces that are remaking much of America.
Synopsis
InKingdom Coming, Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout our national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military retirees pledging to seize the nation in Christ's name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country's social problems. With her trenchant interviews and the telling testimonies of the people behind this movement, Goldberg gains access into the hearts and minds of citizens who are striving to remake the secular Republic bequeathed by our founders into a Christian nation run according to their interpretation of scripture. In her examination of the ever-widening divide between believers and nonbelievers, Goldberg illustrates the subversive effect of this conservative stranglehold nationwide. In an age when faith rather than reason is heralded and the values of the Enlightenment are threatened by a mystical nationalism claiming divine sanction, Kingdom Coming brings us face to face with the irrational forces that are remaking much of America.
Synopsis
An eye-opening account of a groundswell religious movement determined to change America.
Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming takes us on a journey through an America in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism: the America of our time. From the classroom to the megachurch to the federal court, Goldberg carefully demonstrates how the growing influence of dominionism the doctrine that Christians have the right to rule nonbelievers is threatening the foundations of democracy.
Deep within the "red" zones of a divided America we meet military retirees pledging to seize the nation in Christ's name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country's social problems.
Kingdom Coming offers the powerful testimony of "regular" Americans to illustrate the subversive effect of this conservative stranglehold nationwide, and it urgently requires us to turn our attention to the mechanisms of an insidious fundamentalism opposed to science, pluralism, and reason.
Synopsis
"A potent wakeup call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian nationalists."--Publishers Weekly, starred review
About the Author
Michelle Goldberg is a veteran reporter at Salon.com, where she has reported extensively on both sides of America's ever-seething culture war. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essays by Michelle Goldberg from 2009 and 2015