Guardian (UK):
Michelle Goldberg, a young journalist for Salon magazine, went
among some of the fundamentalists to interview them. In Kingdom
Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, she has produced some
excellent firsthand reporting of their essential weirdness, even
as she overcame their aversion to her Jewishness.
The Bloombury Review Michelle Goldberg has written an excellent primer on the
menace the U.S. Christian Right represents for the American people.
This is a book that all American citizens who harbor any apprehensions
about the role the Religious Right has played in politics recently
must read. Goldberg's book is superbly written, encapsulating history,
politics, and powerful insights in a short and easy-to-read volume
that, surprisingly, will still shock progressives despite their
already jaded cynicism regarding the threat posed by politicized
Christian fundamentalism in the United States.
News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
I wish I could tell you Goldberg's wrong. But I've been following
the movement since first learning about it while covering religion
more than a decade ago, and I know independently that she's not.
And I wish I could say she's exaggerating; as she notes, the subject
is "hard to discuss without sounding shrill and hyperbolic."
But if anything, she downplays the disturbing ramifications of
her own reporting: The movement, to paraphrase the late Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson, intends to use the political system
to write an American suicide pact.
Christian nationalism resembles past U.S. revivals in emphasizing
the literal truth of the Bible. But as Goldberg writes, it extrapolates
from that truth a practical political program, and it has hitched
that program to the Republican Party, whose upper levels now are
replete with movement adherents in and out of government.
ESQUIRE: “Kingdom Coming is an important work of investigative
journalism, exposing as it does a mass movement with 'a vision
of reality utterly at odds with that of the secular world,' that
would use its power to impose a religious worldview on a diverse
country. Godlberg's book is also an impassioned plea against,
'fundamentalism, tribalism, Puritanism and obscurantism,' and
for, 'modernity, humanism, reason and progress.' Those are the
values with which she makes her case."
–Anna Godbersen
TIME OUT NEW YORK:
“ ...Though it’s no secret where she stands on issues
like the government’s favoritism toward faith-based initiatives,
the author utilizes the same sure-handed reporting of her magazine
articles and keeps her editorializing confined to the last chapter,
“Exiles in Jesusland.” To merely point out that Goldberg
avoids the cult-of-personality characteristic of writers working
today’s political divide (be it Ann Coulter or Al Franken),
however, is to damn Kingdom Coming with faint praise. Regardless
of where you fall on the moderate-to-progressive political scale,
this well-written chronicle of civil liberties under siege by
holy rollers will undoubtedly scare the bejesus out of you.”
—David Fear
THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE:
"...Unlike so many mainstream pundits –
David Brooks and Nicholas Kristof, I'm talking to you –
who claim arrogant liberals are out of touch with the Christian
common man, and that the prescription is some sort of "Take
a Fundie to Work Day," Goldberg has the guts to admit that
such dialogue is pointless.
Liberals are often accused of rejecting moral absolutes in favor
of a tepid cultural relativism. This world-view, or lack thereof,
was challenged on September 11. Many contend the lesson still
hasn't sunk in; that the left, to paraphrase Christopher Hitchens,
still thinks Karl Rove is more dangerous than al Qaeda. Whether
our own mullahs can teach a larger political lesson remains to
be seen, but Kingdom Coming could be a good start."
—John Dicker
Publisher's Weekly, MAY
15:
“In an impressive piece of lucid journalism, Salon.com reporter
Goldberg dives into the religious right and sorts out the history
and networks of what to most liberals is an inscrutable parallel
universe. She deconstructs "dominion theology," the
prevalent evangelical assertion that Christians have a "responsibility
to take over every aspect of society." Goldberg makes no
attempt to hide her own partisanship, calling herself a "secular
Jew and ardent urbanite" who wrote the book because she "was
terrified by America's increasing hostility to... cosmopolitan
values." This carefully researched and riveting treatise
will hardly allay its audience's fears, however; secular liberals
and mainstream believers alike will find Goldberg's descriptions
of today's culture wars deeply disturbing. She traces the deep
financial and ideological ties between fundamentalist Christians
and the Republican Party, and discloses the dangers she believes
are inherent to the Bush administration's faith-based social services
initiative. Other chapters follow inflammatory political tactics
on wedge issues like gay rights, evolution and sex education.
Significantly, her conclusions do not come off as hysterical or
shrill. Even while pointing to stark parallels between fascism
and the language of the religious right, Goldberg's vision of
America's future is measured and realistic. Her book is a potent
wakeup call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian
nationalists.” (May 15)
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By Michelle Goldberg
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton
“Michelle Goldberg has done the impossible.
She's written a serious, scathing, eye-opening expose of the ongoing
takeover of our country by rightwing Christians– and somehow
managed to make it witty, funny, and humane. If it were satire,
Kingdom Coming would be hilarious. Unfortunately, it's
all true – things are even worse than you thought. Read
it while you can!”
–, columnist, The Nation ; author, Virginity or Death!
: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time
“America’s theocrats have to be seen, heard, and read
to be believed. Not all of us have the acute senses, stamina,
guts and intelligence to uncover these forces of unreason and
tyranny directly, so we rely on scouts. Michelle Goldberg is one
of our indispensable scouts, and Kingdom Coming is a
brave and important book. If you cherish plurality and reason,
read it to get the bad news—and to restore your faith in
journalism.”
–, Professor of Journalism, Columbia University, and
author of The Intellectuals and the Flag
“Michelle Goldberg ventured into the heartland of American
fundamentalist extremism -- and returned to warn us of the authoritarian
ambitions that lie behind the moralistic posturing of the religious
right. Every patriot who still cherishes the freedoms we
inherited from the nation’s founders should read her book.”
–, author of The Hunting of the President, Big Lies,
and The Raw Deal
“Michelle Goldberg takes us on an
eye-opening journey through the Christian right grass- roots,
from the evolution battles in Dover, Pennsylvania to Roy’s
Rock in Alabama and beyond. Along the way, she makes a devastating
case that underlying this movement’s campaigns against abortion
or gay marriage is a tremendous will to power, an ambition to
achieve Christian domination of our public life and laws. Kingdom
Coming offers a stark warning that our democracy is under
attack from within.”
–, author of With God on Their Side: George W. Bush and
the Christian Right
“Kingdom Coming reveals
just how thoroughly our national discourse has been corrupted
by the mad work of religious literalists. Goldberg demonstrates
— elegantly and persuasively— that tens of millions
of our neighbors are working each day to obliterate the separation
between church and state, to supplant scientific rationality with
Iron Age fantasies, and to achieve a Christian theocracy in the
21st century. This is a terrifying and necessary book.”
–, author, The End of Faith
“A chilling and lucid investigation
into the rise of Christian extremism in America, as well as a
how-to guide for thinking Americans who wish to preserve their
civil liberties against the coming onslaught. An important book.”
–, author of Jesusland
“Tocqueville said in 1840, 'Various forms of religious madness
are quite common in the United States.' Michelle Goldberg
demonstrates that various forms of religious madness are still
quite common. Tocqueville thought that American democracy could
contain the danger. Can it still? Only with an effort. That is
Michelle Goldberg's well-illustrated and eloquently expressed
point, and she is right to make that point, and we had better
pay attention.”
– , author of Terror and Liberalism and Power and the
Idealists
“Michelle Goldberg provides a critical
wake up call for all Americans about a coalition of right wing
Christian conservative groups determined to remake the United
States into a Christian nation ruled by their conception of
Jesus' will. Every American who cherishes religious freedom, civil
liberties and the separation of church and state must read Kingdom
Coming.”
–, National Director, Anti-Defamation League; author,
Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism
“Michelle Goldberg takes us on a superbly reported inside
tour of the far-out Christian Right, distinguished by its contempt
for democracy in this world in the hope of total victory over
nonbelievers in the world to come. This book should scare every
American who cherishes our secular Constitution and its separation
of church and state. ”
–, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism
www.kingdomcoming.com
| Contents copyright © 2006 By Michelle Goldberg | Published by W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc | info@kingdomcoming.com