Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

In a startling 2006 PBS television show called Is God Green? Bill Moyers tried to interview top leaders of the evangelical churches—including the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and the Christian activist Ralph Reed. All of them referred Moyers to their shared spokesman, Dr. Calvin Beisner, an adjunct fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Beisner, in turn, cited Genesis chapter 1, verse 28: “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”