Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (book interv)

[katty]

cont'd: http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/06/06/int06020.html
June 1, 2006


Michelle Goldberg's Gone To the MegaChurch and She Found Christian Nationalism There

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

One of the things Hannah Arendt talks about is the way totalitarian movements construct an entire parallel reality, and then insist that that reality be substituted for the actual reality. You see this with everything, from what’s going on in the science class, to the construction of foreign policy, to the promotion of abstinence education to the kind of fictitious numbers that are given for the Bush tax cuts. It’s something quite new in American politics – this idea almost of radical relativism – the idea that truth is determined by the person who has the power to impose it.

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Michelle Goldberg took a close-up look at right-wing religion in America and has reemerged to tell others just what she found there - a hypnotic mix of Jesus, community, and ballot box activism. Her new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, explores the parallel universe that threatens our reality-based world, and indeed, could replace it. We can just hear Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his separation-of-church-and-state grave. Michelle Goldberg talked with BuzzFlash about Hitler, Scalia, Christian revisionist history, and Christian reconstructionism.

* * *

BuzzFlash: In his remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Stephen Colbert said, "Though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior." How would you take that quotation and apply it to Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism?

Michelle Goldberg: As always, reality keeps sneaking up behind Stephen Colbert’s satire. The Christian nationalists, which is a term that I use to describe people from various denominations, but who believe that the United States needs to be remade as a specifically Christian nation, includes most of the leadership of the religious right's huge swaths of the Republican Party. The vast majority of these people will say that everyone has a right to practice their own religion. But they’ll say, as long as they recognize that this is a Christian nation. You can do what you want as long as you know your place.

[BayCityProgressive]

1. Coming?

Sorry it's already here...

[katty]

2. indeed it is-this author gets into definitions, details

that are either never mentioned, glossed over or only brought up in reference to the GOP.