The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
by Katherine Stewart
View on GoodreadsKatherine Stewart's investigative mapping of the institutional infrastructure of American Christian nationalism — the legal organizations, donor networks, pastoral training programs, and policy shops — as a coordinated movement, not a cultural drift.
Core ideas
- The movement has a small set of central nodes (Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Wallbuilders, etc.) and a much larger network of pastor-organizers, state-level groups, and faith-and-freedom coalitions — Stewart's reporting tracks the connections.
- "Religious liberty" is the load-bearing rhetorical move: a vocabulary that translates majoritarian-religious-privilege claims into language that sounds like a defense of minority rights, which is why it works politically.
- The international dimension — Hungarian, Brazilian, Polish, Russian Orthodox connections — is the book's underdiscussed half; this is presented as a transnational project, not a US-only one.
Published2020
Pages352
ISBN9781635573435
ReadMar 2025
