Feb 14, 2025
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Confirmed Guests! Professor Eric Segall, Dr Aaron Carroll, Maura Quint, Tim Wise, JL Cauvin, Ophira Eisenberg, Christian Finnegan and More!
Katherine Stewart has been covering religious nationalism and the assault on American democracy for over 15 years. Her latest book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, was awarded first place for Excellence in Nonfiction Books by the Religion News Association as well as a Morris D. Forkosch award. Her previous book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children covered the religious right’s efforts to infiltrate and undermine public education.
Stewart writes for The New York Times opinion, New Republic and many others, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. In 2020 The Power Worshippers was acquired by producers Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner, who subsequently based their documentary feature film, God & Country, on the book. Stewart’s latest book Money Lies and God is available for preorder today!
In 2020, just months before the presidential election, acclaimed journalist Katherine Stewart released The Power Worshippers, a brilliantly reported book that acted as a wake-up call to readers: Christian nationalism must be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and our democratic freedoms. The Power Worshippers cemented Stewart as a go-to authority on Christian nationalism and the current threats to American democracy, and inspired the recent documentary God & Country, produced by Rob Reiner.
Stewart’s explosive follow-up, MONEY, LIES, AND
GOD: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (February
18, 2025) exposes the inner workings of the “engine
of unreason” roiling American culture and politics, but aims at a
bigger and more challenging target: how did we get to the point
where there is an organized political movement within the United
States that is working to destroy American Democracy? Furthermore,
why have so many Americans turned against democracy?
In this deeply researched book, Katherine Stewart takes readers to
conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings,
and services at extremist houses of worship, and profiles the
people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to
reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires,
pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles of Jesus,
disciples of Ayn Rand, women-hating opponents of “the gynocracy,”
pronatalists preoccupied with the dearth of white babies, Covid
truthers, militia members masquerading as “concerned moms” and
battalions of spirit warriors who appear to be inventing a new
style of religion even as they set about attacking democracy at its
foundations.
Along the way, she provides a compelling analysis of the
authoritarian reaction in the United States. She demonstrates that
the movement relies on several distinct constituencies, with very
different and often conflicting agendas. Stewart’s reporting and
comprehensive political analysis helps reframe the conversation
about the moral collapse of conservatism in America and points the
way forward toward a democratic future.
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