The Atlantic journalist’s portrait of a fractured movement chooses lament over axe-grinding.
Donald Trump might pose problems for established political norms, but he has been a godsend for book publishers. In the years encompassing Trump’s first campaign, election, inauguration, tumultuous term as president, second campaign, and unprecedented response to defeat in 2020, dozens of books have been written about the relationship between white evangelical Christians and Donald Trump’s populist politics.
The latest of these is Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. A journalist for The Atlantic, Alberta combines memoir and research, drawing on his upbringing in and familiarity with the evangelical tradition to interrogate what historian Thomas Kidd describes as “a movement in crisis.”
This crisis is both political and personal. It is political in that white evangelicals have been the steadiest base of support for the least outwardly faithful president in half a century, at the alleged expense of their prior platitudes about morality and ethics being central to public service. But, as Alberta explains, it is also deeply personal, leading to rifts in families, communities, and congregations.
As the title hints, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory is organized into three sections, each focusing on a different element of the evangelical movement and its evolution over the last decade in response to changing political tides. Alberta crisscrosses the country visiting churches and political rallies, interviewing pastors and activists, and trying to make sense of what he sees as too many evangelicals sacrificing a Christian approach to the political world at the altar of power. The result is a book that is well resourced and eminently readable, …