What has the evangelical church become?
A new book on the Christian right reveals how a series of unscrupulous leaders turned politics into a powerful and lucrative gospel.
Tim Alberta’s faith in Jesus Christ has never faltered. He’s the son of a white, conservative Republican pastor from a white, conservative Republican church in a white, conservative Republican town: Religion has always and will always be an important part of his life. But his faith in the church writ large, his belief in organized Christianity — that has begun to crumble.
There were the sex scandals, the political hypocrisies of church leaders supporting politicians like former President Donald Trump who trample over evangelical theology even as they command overwhelming evangelical support, the bullying and abuse and outright lies. But what has shaken Alberta’s understanding of the church so deeply — what has convinced him that American evangelicalism has reached a crisis point — is the prioritization of politics over religion. Of politics as religion, commanding the faithful to dismiss the separation of church and state as a myth, to seek dominion over government, media and culture in an existential battle for the literal soul of the country. To establish unvarnished, unapologetic, proud evangelical theocracy — and all who disagree be damned.
“The crisis of American evangelicalism, I now realize, is an obsession with that worldly identity” as opposed to a spiritual one, he writes in this week’s Friday Read, adapted from his upcoming book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. “Instead of seeing ourselves as exiles in a metaphorical Babylon, the way Peter describes the first-century Christians living in Rome, we have embraced our imperial citizenship. Instead of fleeing the temptation to rule all the world, like Jesus did, we have made deals with the devil.”
Now he’s set out to answer a question upon which the future of America depends: Why?
“Your dog is fat.”
Can you guess who said this about then-President George W. Bush’s pet? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
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Decoding Newsom and DeSantis With Body Language … California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had plenty to say about their diametrically opposed approaches to governance in their Fox News debate last night. But for body language expert and former FBI agent Joe Navarro, it was their body language that revealed what they were really thinking. “Words can lie, spin and mislead,” he writes, “but body language usually tells the truth — if you know how to look.”
It’s really happening: Serial liar George Santos could be facing his last moments in Congress as an expulsion vote looms later today. Can’t keep up with the latest from the messy 23-count-indicted New York House denizen? Here’s what to say at the holiday party to make you sound smart-ish (from Santos biographer Mark Chiusano, author of The Fabulist):
— Give the guy his due: “Well, he ain’t wrong that Congress ‘represents chaos’ right? Government shutdowns, blatant grandstanding, Kevin McCarthy’s supposedly sharp elbow. Broken clock is right twice a day, or something.”
— Toss in some style talk for your fashion-forward friends: “Ferragamos are out on Capitol Hill, because you don’t want the feds asking questions about campaign credit card receipts. But the man did make a preppy blue sweater cool again.”
— Everyone will be talking about what he’ll do next, so jump in with some predictions of your own: “I bet he’ll end up on Dancing with the Stars. Well, after he does a podcast blitz for Trump over the summer and then has his prison bid. Maybe the show will be streaming by then.”
— Pepper your comments with references that show off your vast knowledge of Santos’ many scandals: “He’s not the last congressional scammer we’ll see, but he might be the most colorful. It takes chutzpah to lie about Holocaust-fleeing ancestors and a drag queen background and still have time to rip off roommates, dog lovers and the campaign accounts of credulous fellow politicians.”
I Accidentally Invented George Santos in Hollywood … When Marty Kaplan wrote The Distinguished Gentleman — the 1992 Disney comedy starring Eddie Murphy as a conman who lies his way into Congress and makes Washington his mark — he never imagined anyone would pull it off in real life. But 30 years after the movie opened, he saw a bombshell headline in the New York Times: “Who Is Rep.-Elect George Santos? His Résumé May Be Largely Fiction.” “It was a spit-take-your-smoothie moment for me,” he writes now. “The Distinguished Gentleman may not exactly have been art, but life was all-in on imitating it.”
Biden Is Losing Black Voters … During the 2020 presidential primary, things weren’t looking great for Joe Biden. Then came Super Tuesday, and a landslide victory in South Carolina that reminded the country of his strong support among Black voters. But as we head into 2024, polls indicate that former President Donald Trump is pulling more and more of the Black electorate over to his side in key battleground states. In the latest installment of his 2024 Road Trip series, David Siders heads to South Carolina to find out just how dire the situation is for the Biden campaign.
**Who Dissed answer: It was Sen. Harry Reid, the former Democratic majority leader, who The New York Times once described as having “an intolerance for fat people.” He made the comment when Bush’s dog walked into the Oval Office during a coffee meeting with Reid toward the end of his second term as president.
