Tim Alberta's new book portrays a tug of war for the soul of American Christianity

The Long Game

Tim Alberta's new book: The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals In An Age of Extremism, is a sobering look at the results in history when a religious movement morphs into a political movement, and allows its identity to be taken over by political imperatives and goals.

Alberta's book documents the spread of Christian Trumpism, aided and abetted by conflict profiteers who have made "fear and hatred a growth strategy" inside the evangelical subculture for decades.

But Alberta also writes that, to his surprise, he found evidence that the doomsday industrial complex has been "floundering" more recently and that "somewhere along the line their momentum had stalled."

Alberta details the way that Russell Moore, Curtis Chang, David and Nancy French and others have begun to try to unite, connect and organize the many disparate and isolated members of the American church who do not worship a political leader or give blind allegiance to a political party.

Time will tell if this is accurate and durable. But Alberta's book is a remarkable work of journalism. Tim also tells his own story of loss, heartbreak, and trying to come to grips with the moment in which we find ourselves.

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