Religious Right: The Greatest Threat to Democracy

by A.F. Alexander

This book is a timely expose on the Religious Right that gives insight into the network's blueprint for America. From Christian Reconstructionists, Dominionists, Quiverfull, Seven Mountains Mandate, the attacks on public schools, to birth control becoming a hot button issue, find out the leaders of the movement and their tactics. This book explains, and documents, a stealthy hijacking of the government, courts, schools, even our history, and popular culture. This work includes interviews, research, and a bibliography. The presentation is organized and systematic, while in plain English. It shares how to get involved and make a difference in your community to protect your rights and preserve democracy. The book is written by an insider who left the Religious Right, and now shares why they believe they are mandated to have dominion over every aspect of life in the United States. The author details how their vision for America is not a democracy at all. A must read. Well researched with current events included and explained. Never dull and answers all your questions.

Genres: Politics, Religion, Nonfiction

385 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Book Shark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Religious Right: The Greatest Threat to Democracy by A.F. Alexander

“Religious Right: The Greatest Threat to Democracy" is an excellent expose of the Religious Right's agenda to replace Democracy for Theocracy. This is a very ambitious book that delves into the multi-pronged agenda of the Religious Right; it meticulously covers their tactics, the main players behind this ominous movement and provides readers with tools on how to protect our democracy. A.F. Alexander has crafted a well-rounded representation of why this movement believes they must take dominion over every aspect of our lives. This insightful 394-page book is divided into the following six sections: The Critical Issue, 2. Who are They & How We Got Them, 3. The Resulting Worldview, 4. The War is On, 5. The Family Mountain, and 6. The Past and the Future.

Positives:
1. A comprehensive and accessible book on the greatest threat to democracy, the Religious Right.
2. A fascinating topic in the hands of a person who witnessed firsthand the oppressive influence of the Religious Right on her community and bravely exposes their ubiquitous tactics.
3. So much substantive material covered in one book. A great Kindle value!
4. Excellent format. Each chapter begins with a "What to Expect From this Chapter" and ends with a "Take With You From This Chapter".
5. A well cited book! Each work is cited within the text.
6. Does a wonderful job of defining terms and hammers home her main points with conviction.
7. An excellent defense of the Separation of Church and State. Really exposes the abuses to the First Amendment with a luxury of examples.
8. Great lessons in history throughout the book. "One will do well in these matters to heed the warning of the ‘Father of the U.S. Constitution,’ James Madison: Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?"
9. A.F. Alexander unmercifully exposes many of the tactics used by the Religious Right covering many aspects of our lives. Infiltration of politics, families, even moderate churches.
10. Exposes the main players behind the Religious Right movement. "In 1976, Jerry Falwell started his “I Love America” rallies across America that positioned him to found the Moral Majority in 1979."
11. Discloses major milestones of the movement. "But, the 1983 Supreme Court decision in Bob Jones University versus United States was truly the game changer." It also shows how the Religious Right and the Republican Party became inseparable.
12. Finally a book that really explains and exposes Dominionists. "Believe they are mandated by God to have dominion over the entire nation, and over every aspect of American life."
13. "The seven strategic areas of influence were identified for staking their flags of victory, including business, government (politics, courts, military), media, arts and entertainment, education, the family, and religion."
14. Exposing David Barton for what he is...a fraud! "David Barton has taken Rousas Rushdoony’s revisionist history and has been peddling it as truth."
15. The end-times mentality that impacts our society and politics.
16. The Religious Right and how they influence on the seven strategic areas...eye-opening stuff.
17. One of the areas near and dear my heart are the problems the Religious Right has with science. The anti-science movement.
18. Why the feminist movement is despised. An excellent American women's rights timeline is provided. The Quiverfull movement. The anti-choice movement.
19. An interesting look at the gays versus "traditional" families. Women's roles.
20. A section on how to get involved and protect our democracy.
21. A formal bibliography.

Negatives:
1. Low production value. Needed better editing.
2. The book is repetitive. A better editor would have helped this budding author make this a five-star book. So much great material here just needed to streamline it better to enhance the already fine reading experience. This book could have easily been reduced a hundred pages without losing its effectiveness.
3. As is constituted, requires an investment of time. For the record, it's still worth it.
4. What percentage of the Religious Right is truly as portrayed in this book? That question probably wasn't answered to my satisfaction but I tend to agree with the majority of the conclusions of this insightful book.

In summary, this is one of the best Kindle values I've ever encountered. A.F. Alexander should be commended for the exhaustive research and for providing readers with a lot information that supports her main arguments. I've read quite a few books on this topic and this is one of the better books as it relates to the Dominionist movement and their tactics. The book suffers from being repetitive and grammatical errors but don't let that keep you from reading it. The book is comprehensive and succeeds in exposing the greatest threat to our democracy. I highly recommend it with reservations noted.

Further suggestions: "Attack of the Theocrats!" by Sean Faircloth, "American Fascists" by Chris Hedges, "Nonbeliever Nation" by David Niose, "God's Defenders" by S.T. Joshi, "Bible Thumper to Atheist" by Tom Crawford, "Doubt: A History" by Jennifer Hecht, "Why the Religious Right is Wrong About the Separation of Church and State" by Rob Boston, "Freethinkers" by Susan Jacoby, Man Made God: A Collection of Essays" by Barbara G. Walker, "Immortality" by Stephen Cave, "Godless" by Dan Barker, "Christian No More" by Jeffrey Mark, and "The Invention of God" by Bill Lauritzen.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author knows what he is talking about. This is an explanatory excerpt where he presents his bona fides.

"Who am I to write a book on the Religious Right? I was a member of the Religious Right, graduated from a church-sponsored Bible institute, sat in Religious Right pews, taught Sunday school to their children, and was a church secretary, and even wrote for the church’s monthly publication, and became its editor. Even in my college years, I was an early Religious Right follower, and was fully integrated into its culture. Because of this unique rank-and-file perspective, I delve into the rationale behind the movement’s agenda as only an insider can understand it. This allows me to explain, authentically, their worldview and tactics. I relate what this means to the larger picture of our country, and its future -- from our First Amendment struggles, to the public-square arguments, and even the historical record of the conflict between church and state, from the perspectives of both."

In addition to all of this, he has done years and years worth of research.

First and foremost, I need to say that this is a highly "readable" book. The organization is flawless and makes it easy to follow the history of the movement. It is also very easy to go back and re-read certain portions, or review key points.

I have been following the growth of this dangerous brand of "Christianity" since the 1980s, when I became aware of the push to have the proponents elected to political offices at all levels, starting with an important one ---school board.

Public education was, and is, in their cross-hairs.

I started paying attention. Unfortunately, the election of Ronald Reagan gave the movement a wide-open door into our government – – something they had been seeking since the 70s, and even a bit earlier.

They make great incursions into the halls of government, at all levels, but especially the federal government, during the Reagan Reign of Terror. The movement was somewhat subdued during the Clinton years, but they were regrouping and ready for the second assault on government with the election of GWB, another Republican Patsy for the religious right.

A quick search into the"Seven Mountains Mandate" will provide a thumbnail sketch of the long-range goals, and they are well on the way to reaching them.

A Trump presidency would open the door wider, and he is pandering to them actively.

He does not cover even the half of what the religious right have accomplished as far as their intrusion into government at all levels, but he has a fantastic bibliography if you want to do further reading.

I have been keeping up with this for three decades now, and unfortunately had neglected to list the many books that I have read here on good reads, but I am going to try to go back and review Some of the most recent books.

This is absolutely number one on my list of recommended books.

[Salima Joyner]

Rightly dividing the truth

This an excellent read! And answers so many questions concerning the agenda
of the religious right. As a believer in Christ myself this has been eye opening to me. We as believers need to study the word of God as he guides us through all truth through his Holy Spirit so that we won't tossed and turned by agendas not motivated by God. Proverbs 30:12 There is a generation that's pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filth.

[Danns · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, a bit about the writing itself and the Kindle version. This book is long, very long, and at some points I think a bit more editing could have pared it down somewhat and removed redundancy. On the otherhand, the writing style is very approachable to a wide audience. Whle rife with from primary sources, the book is not weighed down to the point of being disjointed. The layout translated well to the Kindle but there are some typos and curious grammatical quarks that I believe are more attributed to the conversion than overall editing. I have seen similar issues with other electronic books.

A.F. Alexander makes no bones about his concerns with the religious right and what I think is very important is that he does so not at the expense of Christianity. He is very respectful of Christianity and does not at all attach the religion. This is not an "athiest attach on the tenants of Christianity" but a thoroughly researched warning of a very strict, very dangerous, fundamental segment of the religion that is on a crusade to turn the United States into a Theocracy. Aside from the primary resources cited, A.F. Alexander was himself brought up in the movement.

The text focuses on the Dominionist movement accounting the 7 Mountains Mandate that targets 7 levels of society: Business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion. The Seven Mountains were coined by Bill Bright the founder of the Campus Crusade, Loren Cunningham founder of Youth with a Mission, and Francis Schaeffer. An account of the rise of Evangelical Fundamentalism is provided and how their mission to influcence politics from grass roots level up to coroporate sponsered superfunds has been attained.

At the heart of this book is the first ammendment to the Constitution of the United States:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

What is important to understand is that the founders of the United States did not form a Christian Nation; that is revisionist history. Many of the founders were Deists. The first ammendment clearly builds a wall between religion and the government. A wall that provides no preferential treatment to any one religion nor interferes with one's religous choice. What Dominionist are doing is erroding that wall and entagling their religion with politics attacking the very tenants of this country and infriging on the rights of those who do not adhere to their world views. They are taking Christianity into a dark place where many historic accounts abound when a theocracy holds a nations and the atrocities committed there in. We have only to look at other nations like Iran and Egypt where a religious minority have usurped government and created a fundamentalist state with aborrant results. We as a nations must protect the first ammendment and disentangle religion from politics or risk spiraling into a similar society of oppression and violence.

Pick up any newspaper today or visit most any website on current events and you can see this battle being played out from Womans rights to immigration issues, environmental issues, birth control and marriage equality. We as a society need to stand up for the tenants of the constitution and disentangle religion from politics and being to make better progress. Otherwise we ruin both our nation and sully Christianity.

A very thought provoking book.

[Gene Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real true book about how conservative churches are anti America

This book was written about a decade ago. The true facts are happening now. The Conservative churches and politicians are destroying the constitution and forcing us to be liked them.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me so mad. Not mad at the author--mad at the forces he was exposing to me. I have known about Dominionists and the Seven Mountains for some time, but I did not realize the extent to which they have already eroded so many of our freedoms and the separation of church and state. Nor did I comprehend fully their final goal--to basically create a Calvinistic world. Yes, that's WORLD, not state.

Lest you think I'm overreacting, the book indicts the Religious Right with their own words. And not with words taken out of context, but long blocks of quotes (sometimes unfortunately repeated) that make it perfectly clear what is meant.

I have no quarrel with real Christians, but the Religious Right has no interest in the Jesus of the New Testament as anything more than a cloak to cover their grabs at power. And they are winning.

There are some spelling errors, some punctuation errors and as I said above, some quotation repetitions. Still, I hope you'll read this book and see what the Koch Brothers, Pat Robertson, Michelle Bachman, Ted Cruz and the ALCJ are really about, before it's too late, and The Handmaid's Tale becomes a reality.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

You must read this book. It is written in a popular form and well organized. It explains Dominionism and its' dangers of by attempting to mix church with state, which so far, has been very successful.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. It showed and proved everything wrong with the religious right. e need to kick those haters off the planet!

[Linda F Meyer Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Religiously Right on Target

An indispensable source of accurate and alarming facts about the religious rights efforts to turn the United States into a theocracy.

[Mark Ekdahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential encyclopedic historical compliation, could use better writing and editing, less repetition.