Episode 178: The Power Worshippers with Katherine Stewart

Across the Margin: The Podcast

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Katherine Stewart, an investigative reporter and author who has covered religious liberty, politics, policy, and education for over a decade. Her latest book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, — the focus of this episode — is a rare look inside the machinery of the movement that brought Donald Trump to power. Stewart’s journalism appears in the New York Times op ed, NBC, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. But in her deeply reported investigation that is The Power Worshippers, Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: America’s Religious Right has evolved into a Christian Nationalist movement. It seeks to gain political power and to impose its vision on all of society. It isn’t fighting a culture war, it is waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. Stewart shows that the real power of the movement lies in a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations, embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances with like minded, anti-democratic religious nationalists around the world, including Russia. She follows the money behind the movement and traces much of it to a group of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors, and family foundations. The Christian Nationalist movement is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals. The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart’s probing examination demands that Christian Nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and our democratic freedoms. In this episode host Michael Shields and Katherine Stewart discuss the distressing vision the Christian Nationalist movement has for Americans while considering the very real and important rights at stake. They talk about the lies about the history of the United States the movement are employing to further their cause (mostly from a man named David Barton), how the Christian Nationalist movement is going global, how Christian Nationalist are intent on stacking the courts throughout the country, and so much more.

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