God's Own Country: Tales from the Bible Belt

by Stephen Bates

Right-wing evangelical Christianity has come to dominate American political and social life in recent years, dividing the country and sparking cultural and moral battles whose outcome will determine how the world’s only superpower is shaped in the 21st Century. High politics and low tactics frame a fierce debate which goes much further back in the country’s history than the accession of George W. Bush in 2001. It is a battle that affects the world. In this book Stephen Bates explains why what happens in the Bible Belt matters around the world, and how there are those who hope to export the battle internationally. American fundamentalist religion has the potential to impact on crucial and acutely dangerous areas of the world. Its priorities are often arcane and sometimes weird. But it is already affecting American government foreign policy—not least in Israel and the Middle East, where some are predicting the world’s last and greatest battle will be fought. Where will America’s battle for its soul take the world?

Genres: Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2007

About the author

I am a British journalist and author. In a 36 year career in Britain, until 2012, I worked for the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and for the last 22 years for the Guardian. I specialised at various times in covering education, politics, Europe and the European Union, religion and British royalty and I reported from more than 40 countries across the world.
The Photographer's Boy is my first novel and has been more than a decade in the making. Set against the background of the US Civil War, it's a story of journalism, early war photographers, war and politics: there's even a little sex.
I've previously written three books combining my twin interests of history and journalism: A Church at War was about the struggle over homosexuality in worldwide Anglicanism; God's Own Country was about the history of American religion and politics and Asquith was a short biography of the Edwardian prime minister H.H. Asquith. I also edited the Bedside Guardian 2012: the annual anthology of the paper's best articles.
I've been fascinated by American history ever since I was a student more than 40 years ago and have visited (and reported from) the US many times - including the locations and battlefields of my novel.
I have two more books coming out next year: both history and both non-fiction:
An Immense Scheme in View: Britain in 1846 is about the great political, economic and social upheavals at the heart of Victorian politics.
And The Poisoner: The Short Life and Deep Crimes of William Palmer is about a man Charles Dickens called "the greatest villain ever to stand in the Old Bailey dock", a serial killer whose trial transfixed the nation, from Queen Victoria downwards. But did anyone ever really prove that he was guilty? Read the book from next Spring and find out!
I live in Kent, England, have been married to Alice for 27 years and we have three grown-up children. I was brought up a Roman Catholic but covering religious affairs managed finally to kill off my faith, so I am now an agnostic.
Hope this tells you a little bit about me and my latest books!

Reviews

[severyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's fairly hard to feel much sympathy for the American politicised Religious Right. On the one hand they insist that The State should be hands off of citizens and their private lives and their freedom to teach non-science in science classes, and yet at the same time they insist that The State should be hands on of citizens and their private lives and their freedom to choose abortion safely.
This kind of conflict I suppose is what leads to outbursts like Pat Robertson's fearsome:

'The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.'

I like that, for Robertson, rhetorically at least, destroying capitalism is worse than killing your children.

Stephen Bates' book is a pretty good history of modern American religious politics, from witchburning to the still scarier W Bush years. He just about swallows his partisanship, most of the time, and it makes an interesting read following straight on from 'Monkey Girl'.