Tim AlbertaRezensionen

Gets a bit repetitive, but manages to interesting throughout.

I’ve admired Tim Alberta’s work in the Atlantic for some time. I didn’t know a lot about Alberta’s personal life, especially his devotion to his religion and his knowledge of the Bible and the clerical world in general. I felt a bit like an interloper reading this book since I’ve not been a religious person since saying goodbye to the Catholic schools of my youth. One thing about this book is certain: critics can’t claim the Alberta is a “woke” lefty non-believing journalist out to do a hit job on the corrupt evangelical world. The man could step into a pulpit of any church in America and preach a kick a….well, suffice it to say he knows what he’s talking about in his revelations about the seedy evangelical world. What struck me most is Alberta’s observation that the teachings of Jesus are the antithesis of the combative, take no prisoners attacks of so many of those on the religious right. Alberta’s statistics (from reputable sources) should give the evangelical world a wake up call to realizing that they are about one generation away from extinction. The only disappointment about this book is that the very people who need it most aren’t likely to pick it up. They wouldn’t want to be accused of being…..”woke.”

Superbly reported. Extremely timely and relevant. This is a thorough examination of how many in the American Church have lost their way and fed a habit of idolatry instead of keeping their focus on Jesus Christ. As a result, many who consider themselves evangelicals have helped Protestant organizations (churches, political organizations, universities, et al) amass great wealth and political power, all at the expense of their souls and what could have been harmony in the United States.

This book is eye-opening and terrifying.

Summary: A several years-long study of why much of the evangelical movement turned to hard right, nationalist politics, ignoring character and embracing the pursuit of power to enforce its vision of American greatness.

Tim Alberta, a writer for The Atlantic, who had written articles critical of the former president, was stunned in the summer of 2019 when his father, an evangelical pastor outside Detroit, died suddenly of a heart attack. What stunned him even more was that a number of people at his father’s funeral, instead of offering comfort and condolences, took him to task for what he had written. One, a family friend, left him a letter accusing him of being a traitor. Subsequently, conversations with his father’s successor, Chris Winans, told a tale of controversy during COVID over church closures, mask mandates and more. Winans watched many depart for a church down the road preaching a political gospel people wanted to hear instead of the counter-cultural gospel of Jesus Pastor Winans preached.

All this set Alberta on a cross-country quest to understand what was happening in much of American evangelicalism, from a tent church in the South, to the ministry of Robert Jeffress, to the campus of Liberty University. Alberta remains a faithful Christian and this book is not an exvangelical hatchet job. Much of the book allows leaders in their own words to talk about their embrace of an American greatness gospel, motivated by an idea of reclaiming a white vision of America in the 1950’s, even as boomers from that era began to die off and the actual population of the country became far more culturally diverse. He questions the flip-flop from the excoriation of Bill Clinton for his moral failures to the embrace of a president just as flawed, if not more so. He received no good answers, just the justification that the needs of the hour required such a man. Some interviewees expressed quiet reservations not reflected in their subsequent public rhetoric.

He also chronicles the stories of the wounded. Russell Moore was a former leader of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Church, a man of impeccable religious conservatism who nevertheless opposed the former president and also stood up against sexual abuse in the church against its executive leadership. He was forced out and left the denomination. David French, fought for religious liberty cases on university campuses and at one time wrote for the National Review. When he wrote against the former president, the threats became so bad, both he and his wife began carrying firearms. One of the most courageous was a Liberty University professor, popular with students being fired for not obeying the administration. He refused to resign, accept a severance package and sign a non-disclosure agreement. He offers an account of Rachael Denhollander, fighting for anti-abuse policies in the Southern Baptist Church while forced out of her own congregation.

He portrays his own father’s embrace of the culture wars and efforts to reclaim American greatness, and how the seeds that bore fruit in 2015 were sown many years earlier through Falwell’s Moral Majority and Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition. Combine that with congregations nourished on talk radio and conservative cable news networks and you had a populace discipled, not by the gospel of Jesus but by the gospel of America. Instead of a vision for a global kingdom of God, what mattered was the kingdom of America. Instead of zeal for the greatness of God, it was zeal for the greatness of America. In short, what Alberta portrays is political idolatry in the guise of Christianity.

What’s troubling to see is people from rural pastors to Jerry Falwell, Jr., using this gospel to build their own kingdoms, drawing off people from other congregations with the lure of their false gospel. For some, there is power and glory in their nearness to earthly political power. And while all this is happening, many Gen Z children are heading for the exits, and many others as well.

Alberta concludes where he began, at the church his father once pastored. He’s heartened to find that, despite all the wounds, Chris Winans has persisted, pursuing a strategy of “pull, don’t push” with his people, offering sound teaching to make them question their own beliefs. The church had replaced its losses and was leaning into a vision of faithful presence in the culture rather than “owning the libs.” He entertains the hope, even as he wonders how this all will work out that this “hidden gospel,” hidden in quiet acts of everyday faithfulness will lead to a new revealing of Christ.

Jesus said we cannot believe in both God and Mammon. This is the kind of choice and the kind of divide that runs through the accounts of this book. I’m increasingly struck through recent reading that the draw of Mammon is the belief that it works. That seems the only justification people offer for embracing a political faith so opposite the teaching of scripture. What is not said is that in so doing we are saying that we don’t believe in the way of Jesus, the way of loving enemies, of expanding the reach of his rule to “sinners,” Samaritans, and even Gentiles, and walking the way of the cross. Are we willing to persist in what is foolish and weak, believing it reflects the power and wisdom of God?

Part of the challenge is that our attention, on social and news media, is on the gospel of Mammon. During his remarks at his father’s funeral, and in a recent interview, Alberta repeatedly offers the challenge that if we claim to place Jesus first, that we spend more time in scripture, in reading nourishing Christian books and taking in podcasts and sermons, than listening to the media of Mammon. Perhaps, in this season of Lent, fasting from this media and feasting on the word of God may be a start. Hopefully, it will remind us whose kingdom, power, and glory we are called to seek.

Can you imagine being approached at your father's funeral and being accosted about your political views? That happened to Tim Alberta.

Alberta is a fearless man. He takes on the insidious milieu of Christian nationalism that has drenched the modern church. For the most part, he does so with a firm and orthodox understanding of Scripture. This book is needed in the confused climate of American evangelicalism. So many have begun to look for salvation in a political outcome that they have missed the true nature of the Kingdom of God. Alberta takes this ideology to task.

If this book has shortfalls, they come in the realm of overstating one's case. Alberta takes up the most heinous of examples to cover. He devotes chapters to Greg Locke (a certifiable nutcase who has baptized Christian nationalism with a few hijacked bible verses), Charlie Kirk, Robert Jeffers, and Jerry Falwell Jr. Don't misunderstand me - all of these characters need the attention that Alberta shines upon them. My fear is that he paints the totality of the church in the hues of their error. For example, in chapter twelve he seems to indicate that the church is following the pattern of Vladimir Putin and how he used the Russian Orthodox Church to solidify his autocratic government. Does anyone besides me think this is an argument that is a bridge too far?

Another part of this book that is confusing to me are the two chapters that cover sexual abuse allegations and investigations in the Southern Baptist Convention. In no way am I saying that these issues should be hidden. I am, however, questioning what role they play in a book on Christian nationalism. It seems that Alberta wants to air all of the church's dirty laundry, whether it is pertinent to his topic or not. I think he even senses this tendency. In the Epilogue, he writes, "To be clear, there are still thousands of healthy, vibrant churches across this country, places that have their gospel priorities straight and lean into the tradition of discipling with hard truths" (444). And then he goes on to say that most American christians are not interested in this type of discipleship. I suppose I share his concern over Christian nationalism and its insidious effects upon the Gospel, but perhaps I disagree with how pervasive the problem is.

Regardless of my critique, Tim Alberta has authored a fine book. It sheds light on issues that the church must address. It points to a more historical and robust understanding of Scripture. And it, in the end, roots any hope we have in Jesus.

[3.75] Readers who are in the hunt for a breezy thumbnail summary of the impact of evangelicalism and its historic intersection with politics would be advised to pass on this opus and read Alberta’s excellent articles in the Atlantic. Those who seek a deep-dive into this extraordinary phenomenon will find Alberta’s book insightful and – depending on their politics and religious convictions – disturbing or encouraging. I found the first quarter of the book most engaging as Alberta skillfully used his dad as a launching board for the thorny topic. His father was a hotshot banker who was on the rise in his industry but still felt a profound emptiness. He entered a seminary and became a respected preacher. In a revealing C-SPAN interview, the author acknowledged that pretty much all the family’s relatives and friends thought the change in trajectory was “nutty.” He approaches the issue as both a journalist and a Christian. His strong faith, family ties to religion and superior knowledge of scripture are evident throughout the book. Alberta’s extensive – and in some cases exhausting—investigation risks overwhelming readers who have only moderate interest in the issues. Dozens of religious leaders, political luminaries and other individuals fill the pages. But in the end, Alberta presents a thought-provoking and debate-inspiring expose on what he depicts as a hostile takeover of evangelicalism. In a televised interview, the author confided that he was initially worried about how his research might impact his religious convictions. “My faith has never been stronger than it is now,” he said.

The past ten years have been quite extraordinary in American history, especially as it relates to the condition and situation of white American Evangelicalism. It’s been difficult to get a good handle because so many of those in the midst of it prove reticent at anything resembling introspection and self-critique, and many of those well trained in the secular environment are at a significant remove from the white American Evangelical community.

But Tim Alberta is a white American Evangelical; his father was a prominent pastor of a politically conservative Evangelical church in the Detroit area. And Tim Alberta is well trained in the secular environment. To this end his The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism is one of the better and compelling investigations into what has been going on in white American Evangelicalism over the past decade, and what it means for the future of American Evangelicalism and America in general.

As might be noticeable, my one overarching critique is his equation of white American Evangelicalism with American Evangelicalism writ large. There are still plenty of non-white American Evangelicals in America, and they have not been the major supporters of the MAGA phenomenon as seen in this work. The trends Alberta experiences and notes are very real in white American Evangelicalism; not so much everywhere else. It is always good to be reminded there is more to Evangelicalism than white American Evangelicalism.

Alberta writes as part of the in-group but as one whose credentials and loyalties are rendered suspect because he is less than enthusiastic about Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump. He profiles his experience of speaking to his church, the one in which his father preached for years, at his father’s funeral, and the furor it caused. The book is full of interviews with all sorts of people in the world of conservative politics, MAGA, and American Evangelicalism: Jerry Falwell, Jr.; Ralph Reed; Robert Jeffress; Stephen Strang; David French; Russell Moore; and many others. The author visits churches which gained significant membership increases with MAGA political flair as well as the high profile MAGA conferences and rallies.

And what is seen is a crude politicization of religion, a MAGA tribalism with a Christian nationalist veneer, leaving many who held conservative political views but a robust faith in Jesus aghast and marginalized. Churches which attempted to navigate COVID-19 and the trials and tribulations of 2020 in ways which took seriously the ways of Jesus found themselves shrinking, while churches loudly defying local health guidelines and promoting MAGA in the pulpit swelled. Many white American Evangelicals of note found themselves closer to political power than they could have imagined, and were captivated by it. Plenty of white American Evangelicals in the pews were swayed by the fearmongering and nostalgia for an imagined past inherent in the MAGA movement.

Christians seem concerned about persecution but do not seem to give thought to the power they have and how they’re leveraging that power, and what they may end up reaping because of what they have sown. Grifters are gonna grift; their marks will continue to be deceived. And 2 Timothy 4:2-3 is more accurate than we might have imagined:

For there will be a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have an insatiable curiosity to hear new things. And they will turn away from hearing the truth, but on the other hand they will turn aside to myths.

Paul was never as concerned about the dangers from without which Christians could clearly perceive. The pernicious danger has always been from within; the messages, the ones we want to believe and make us feel better about ourselves. The problem was always the false prophets; the challenge is to remain faithful in proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus, especially when those who need to hear it most assume their faithfulness to its message.

There have been various forms of reckoning. This crisis, too, shall pass. The Church of Christ endures; it has since Jesus ascended, and it will beyond His return.

Alberta is able to bring the story back to his home church in Michigan and its reinvigorated pastor who endured the difficult days and was emboldened to stand on even more faithful ground.

But white American Evangelicalism will not be what it once was. If defined in terms of the statistics about belief and church participation in America, especially among its younger crowd, the white American Evangelicalism investment in political conservatism is one of the biggest and most disastrous failures in history. This is a time of reckoning, a revelation of hearts and minds, and it is not pleasant. White American Christians might well have to learn a lot of humility and to respond appropriately. It will feel entirely novel and contrary to all they had come to experience and believe; yet it will ultimately prove more faithful to the ways of Jesus than the fearmongering power politics of our present age.

Tim Alberta was raised in an Evangelical family and his father was the pastor of one of the largest Evangelical churches in their Michigan town. His father died in July 2019 shortly after the author had published a book critical of Donald Trump that had been criticized on-air by Rush Limbaugh. As a result, instead of receiving condolences from the people in his family's church, he was regularly criticized for having gone over to the other side. This prompted his wife to ask "what is the matter with these people?" This book is Tim Alberta's attempt to answer his wife's question.

The author begins with detailed and very personal stories of churches that were losing members because the pastor was emphasizing Jesus instead of political outrages. Members were moving to churches that delivered an extreme political message. He interviews a number of pastors who were struggling with how to handle this situation.

The author then visits a number of the politically charged churches and reports on their church services where the key messages seem to be that the country is going downhill and Christians need to fight back. He notes that the services are also designed to provoke fear in the congregation. He then interviews the pastors and asks them how their square their political focus with their Christian faith. Although some of the pastors acknowledge the conflict, they argue that they are just providing what their congregation wants. They then go back to preaching the same way. The author feels that these churches are practicing idolatry.

The author then visits some big rallies where people like Ralph Reed, Charlie Kirk, Eric Metaxas and Paula White are delivering the messages. He sees many of these people are hucksters trying to make money out of the Evangelical community.

The book contains excellent reporting on recent events at the Southern Baptist Conference meetings as they are forced to come to grips with sexual abuse scandals in their churches. Russel Moore's struggles with the SBC are also reported on in detail as Moore was forced out of his leadership position in the SBC because of his unwillingness to endorse Donald Trump as well as his insistence that the SBC deal fairly with the sex abuse scandals.

There is also some excellent reporting about Liberty University and how it tossed out it's religious mission in favor of political boosterism.

On the positive side, Alberta talks to some of the people working to counteract this politicization of the church.

Some of the material has already appeared in The Atlantic where Alberta is a staff writer. His deep faith and knowledge of scripture comes out in the book making this a deeply personal book. The book is also very unsettling as you see how the church is being so politicized. The book is strongly recommended for anyone interested in religion and contemporary US politics. It is one of the most important books published in 2023.

Cinderella is one of my favorite fairy tales. I love all the various tellings, and the messages that each have. As a child it was a tale that reminded me that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was worth fighting for. The prince was a metaphor for happiness.

This idea, of what happens after the fairy tale, where the town within the story is centuries after the princess is dead was enthralling. I loved the way the author played with the way that stories can shape our beliefs. How not everything we are told by those in power is true, but many will follow it willing because they either have accepted defeat or have heard it so many times they believe it to be so. But like fire, it just takes a spark of defiance. A single soul to question the truth, and it will ignite a resistance.

This book held many parallels to our current society. They were woven into the story is such a manner that wasn't overbearing, but after reading it, one can't help but feel inspired and stabby.

You'll love this book if you love retellings, fairy tales within fairy tales, and books with happy endings. While it's YA, and the MC makes some of those dreadful YA choices, it did not feel like the typical YA.

Note: LGBT Characters, Own Voice

A well-done book, but not my kinda book. Long, exhaustive history of Republican Party politics for the last 10 years or so, but mostly about DJT and his relationship with other Republicans. I learned a lot certainly, but it involved wallowing in a lot of history I didn’t like watching at the time and It wasn’t any better reviewing in hindsight either. One thing I liked about the book is that the author is a conservative himself, just not a wacko, so it was good to get an insider perspective (although Albertson’s a journalist not a politician).

Political junkies, have fun with this book.

If you read the newspapers or keep up with the news, the contents of this book will not surprise you. However, the longer you read the book, the more you will feel despair, grow angry and feel depressed. Truth be told I have no respect for about 95% of members of the Republican party and about 100% of Republican members of Congress. There was some attempt at sanity by various people like John Boehner, John McCain and Paul Ryan to reign in some of the insanity from members of the hard Right, evangelicals and tea party members.

Regrettably the Republican Party, especially with Trump, have given in to their basic instincts – – – – racism, nationalism, fear of change etc. You will read countless examples of where narrow self interests particularly those of the Rich are pushed against the interests of the middle class and general populace.

The party of Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush is dead. Alberta’s book provides the timeline and autopsy results of the death of the Republican party. It's now Trump's party. Vestiges of civility, compassion and good judgment have been stamped out. Alberta's book shows that Trump had many willing accomplices ready and willing to sell their souls and sell out the interests of this country.

shitty

Though the title is taken from Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural address, this book is about more than just the 45th president of the United States and his impact on the Republican Party. Instead what Tim Alberta provides is a Washington-eye view of the evolution of the national GOP from the 2008 election to the midway point of Trump’s presidency. A longtime political reporter, Alberta draws upon a wealth of interviews with many of the key Republicans in Congress, featuring them as they key figures in their party’s evolution from the pro-immigration supporters of free trade and fiscal restraint into the more nativist, protectionist, and xenophobic party they have become since 2016.

As Alberta demonstrates, the factors that led to this transformation were present well before Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency. By the end of George W. Bush’s presidency Congressional Republicans faced a lot of internal discontent with their deficit spending habits and the costs of two interminable wars in the Middle East, to which was added the onset of a severe recession. With Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain in 2008, Republican leaders feared they might be politically marginalized for the next generation. Even in the afterglow of Obama’s victory, though, his team recognized that they would likely face a backlash because of the dismal economic conditions and the hard choices before them.

That backlash was the Tea Party movement. Its energy translated into Republican victories up and down the ballot in the midterm election. Yet even as Republicans benefited electorally from public dissatisfaction with Obama’s administration, Alberta notes the emerging tension between the party leadership and the new members of the caucus, many of whom rode to victory on the basis of this dissatisfaction. The new House Speaker, John Boehner, bore the brunt of this conflict, as the more radicalized members of his majority often pressed for actions that Boehner (who at one time was considered on the extreme wing of the House Republican caucus) resisted as pointless. Such extremism proved counter-productive in the Senate races that year, as Alberta notes how the selection of the more radical candidates cost the Republicans winnable races that would have given them unified control of Congress.

This tension only grew over the next six years, inspiring ambitious Republicans and frustrating legislative achievements. With Obama’s reelection victory in 2012, many within the party worried that they were on an electorally unsustainable course that would prove disastrous. Three years later the Republicans had a primary field notable for its considerable diversity, yet in the end what the base desired most was not ideological extremism or detailed conservative proposals, but someone who tapped into their cultural anxieties. Enter Donald Trump, whose often outrageous rhetoric and media savvy combined to win the nomination over a number of prominent party figures. Though many Republican officeholders blanched at his statements, his unexpected victory cuffed them to a mercurial figure who demanded total loyalty and who was even willing to sacrifice political power to get it.

Drawing as he does from conversations with many of the key individuals involved, Alberta offers an insider’s account of a decade’s worth of American politics. As perceptive of much of his analysis is, though, Alberta’s book suffers from some unfortunate limitations. These are a consequence of his “inside the Beltway” focus, with little consideration of developments at the state and the local level. With only a marginal effort made to unpack the dynamics that often drove many of the events he describes, the Congressional maneuvering and political infighting he describes can assume a greater importance than it might otherwise possess. A more expansive coverage might have made for a stronger book, albeit perhaps a less readable one. For with its mixture of reporting and retrospective commentary, Alberta’s book serves as a compulsively readable record of an important moment in the history of the Republican Party, one the consequences of which continue to ripple outward.½

I really enjoyed the audio version of this -- listened to on long drives, walks, while cooking. I remember many of the events, but Alberta adds not only the context and timeline but deep and original reporting. The book helped me understand that Trump is the symptom, not the disease, of the GOP. Once he's gone -- and he will be gone, sooner than later -- this party will confront a reckoning unlike any they've seen. While I sometimes disagreed with Alberta's analysis, I found many of his arguments about why things turned out the way they did very persuasive. The Covington Catholic incident was one example. Alberta rightly corrects the record about the facts of the event -- the students did not instigate, and the mélee was much more complicated -- but he leaves the impression that Omaha elder Nathan Phillips lied about his Vietnam service. That's much murkier -- Phillips is a vet and has often described himself as a Vietnam-times or era vet, which is true. Phillips spent four years in the Marine Corps Reserve and left in 1976 with the rank of private, or E-1. Snopes has the rundown of the controversy here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nathan-phillips-vietnam-veteran/. Alberta utterly misses the structural violence that underlay that encounter, symbolized by Covington's virtually all-white enrollment and their continued used of a Confederate colonel as a mascot. In other words, the encounter wasn't some clash of "kids" and lefties, but has deeper and more complex roots. Where Alberta really sines is his portrayals of some of the real people in the news, especially the moral vacuum that is Paul Ryan, the gabfests with John Boehner, and especially the impossible position held by Tim Scott (R-SC). Very worth a read!

This is a dissection of the Republican Party covering the last 20 years or so and details the conditions under which Donald Trump was able to take over the GOP and totally change it. It's a very long book (600+ pages), but engrossing if you're into the subject matter. The state of affairs of politics and the behavior of the elected officials in our nation is disgusting and disgraceful, and frankly I can't see how we're ever going to make our way back to the days when both parties in Congress actually worked with each other and compromised in order to accomplish big things. It's very disheartening and troubling.

Readers looking for an exhaustive recap of Donald Trump's tumultuous trip to the White House — and his two-and-a--half years in office — won't be disappointed by Alberta's work. For those of who closely follow political developments, "American Carnage" will offer few surprises. But Alberta's systematic recounting of the many controversies gives readers an insightful bird's eye view of what is clearly among the most twist-filled eras in U.S. history. When I saw that this audiobook spanned 21 discs, I almost put it back on the library shelf. I'm glad I didn't.

This is an insightful and complex look at what has happened to the Republican Party since the era of George W. Bush. The author attributes many of the changes to the core beliefs of this party to Bush - and not in a positive manner. It was always my belief that Bush was the worst president in our history, though now with Trump he moves up one notch. However, the author lays out a compelling case that Trump was the result of the changes made during Bush's tenure, so perhaps a tie for worst? I found the book both fascinating and frightening, because unless major changes are made, the future might even be more difficult than today. This is a great book for anyone interested in politics, government and the future of our country.

Tim Alberta is one of those conservatives who realizes the disaster that is Donald Trump. The difference between this book and one written by a less ideologically committed author is that Alberta doesn't see how the GOP paved the way for Trump. Rather he shows Bohner and Ryan as fine, patriotic men who want only to assure good governance but are thwarted by trump's scattered thinking and vengeance. Sure Ryan's goal from the moment he entered government was to support the "Makers" and let the "Takers" fend for themselves. The way to do that is to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But no, he says, once Ryan lost his bid for Vice President, he realized the error of his ways and became much more compassionate. Strange, we didn't notice the compassion. He also has good things to say about Flake and Cruze. They didn't really flip flop, promising to work for the people and morality while they voted for trump's plans at every turn. It was just that trump was proposing things that, as conservatives, they agreed with. Strangely, he didn't have one good thing to say about Clinton. Hmm, I guess she doesn't have Ted Cruz's morality. It's a good book to see how conservatives can forgive themselves for this moral disaster, but I don't have much hope that they will change.

Look, the main reason I quit Facebook is because I don’t ever want to read what any of my friends or family think about politics, so I’ll spare you my thoughts on this book, other than to say that it is a thorough account of why I will never again associate with the Republican Party.