The stuff:
This book describes an investigative journalist’s journey through various aspects of Christian nationalism in the United States and beyond, and the efforts of its adherents to affect, if not undermine, the government and society. Author Katherine Stewart explores the implications regarding civil rights of American citizens and the meaning of American democracy.
“[The religious right] does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy,” Stewart writes, “but to replace the foundation democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a ‘biblical worldview’ that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders. The movement is unlikely to realize its most extreme visions, but it has already succeeded in degrading our politics and dividing our nation with religious animus. This is not a ‘culture war.’ It is a political war over the future of democracy.”(p.3)
Stewart recounts attending a “Pastors’ Briefing” in October of 2018 at Unionville Baptist Church in South Carolina. The event was hosted by a group called Watchmen on the Wall, an affiliate of the Family Research Council (FRC).
The purpose of the gathering was not—alas!—to pass on the latest in Bible scholarship or to swap tips on sermons, tending to one’s flocks, community outreach or service, or any such mundane business. According to the promotional materials the author received, the briefings are “focused on shaping public policy and informed civic activism.”
The author refers to the FRC as “one of the most powerful and politically connected Christian nationalist and lobbying groups in America,” which organizes such events through Watchmen on the Wall. The Watchmen on the Wall claim to have 25,000 pastor-members.
The FRC is a non-profit group and technically is not supposed to endorse candidates, but the “briefing” is to coach pastors to encourage church members to vote “biblically.” For example, they should vote for policies and candidates that support restricting access to abortion.
The event epitomizes in many ways the various inroads Christian nationalism is making into government and society the author depicts in the rest of the book. The traditional idea of separation between church and state is blurred and sometimes ignored outright. History is rewritten to describe the United States as a Christian nation at its founding. A theocracy must be “restored.”
Stewart traces many current Christian nationalist ideas to Rousas John (R. J.) Rushdoony (1916-2001), whose parents fled the Armenian genocide. Among Rushdoony’s influences, the author notes the proslavery Presbyterian minister and theologian, Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898) from Virginia:
“The beleaguered people to whose cause Dabney rallied were, more precisely, his ‘oppressed’ white brethren of Virginia and neighboring states to the south. Their oppression consisted of, among other things, having to pay taxes to support a ‘pretended education to the brats of black paupers.’” (p.106)
Among the long list of Rushdoony’s contributions to the current right-wing Christian movement is the idea of Christian homeschooling.
Stewart traces Christian nationalist influence in the White House with prayer meetings and Bible studies, into the judiciary system, and down to the local level of “churches” meeting in taxpayer-funded school buildings when those buildings are not in use, for example. She provides a history of the Christian view on abortion, and chillingly, also notes an international right-wing movement among Christians.
Thoughts:
My grandmother worked as a nurse between the two world wars. She was long retired by the time I knew her. She told me about her work, sometimes in ways that were glaringly inappropriate for a seven-year-old’s ears. (Thank you, Grandma, for letting me peek into the adult world.) Things didn’t always go right when babies came into the world, a phenomenon that was a complete mystery to me. “At Protestant hospitals, when things go wrong,” she told me, “they let the baby die. They didn’t ask to be born.” (Could a baby ask for anything?) “At Catholic hospitals, they let the mother die. She was in God’s hands.”
I don’t recall what I thought about this at the time, other than it was another puzzling adult thing. Why should either mother or baby die? I do not know whether this is an accurate reflection of treatment of childbirth complications in the 1920s or so. And, if it needs to be said, my grandmother is unavailable for comment.
Nevertheless, it is frightening to think that maternal and infant deaths are on the rise in the wake of new, restrictive legislation. Stewart has a chapter demonstrating the effects that the new so-called “pro-life” legislation has had on people, even recounting her own experience during a miscarriage.
The strength of the book is in the author’s willingness to go directly (when possible) to the source, interview people, and attend meetings, in addition to conducting the historical research, giving the present a context.
Stewart’s prose is clear and concise, although the text is information-dense. She lets people talk and listens, offering her own thoughts only as conclusions.
The Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry awarded its 2020 Morris D. and Selma V. Forkosch Award for the best humanist book of the year to The Power Worshippers. The Religion News Association awarded it its 2021 First Place for Excellence in Nonfiction Books.
Bio: Katherine Stewart is an investigative journalist and author. Her books include Class Mothers (fiction) (2006); The Good News Club (nonfiction) (2012); and New York Times bestselling Money, Lies, and God (nonfiction) (2025). Her articles have appeared in The New Republic, Religion News Service, The Guardian, and other places. She was awarded the 2014 Americans United Person of the Year and the 2024 Freethought Heroine from Freedom From Religion Foundation awards.
Title: The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism
Author: Katherine Stewart
First published: 2019
Length: nonfiction book
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 
And this is why I have a difficult time with organized religion. It sounds like a good book, and perhaps a bit scary.
Amen, sister. And yes, it’s scary.
You wrote a great and very helpful review for what seems like a very interesting book. I grew up in an evangelical fundamentalist church in northern Sweden. Despite leaving it I keep contact with my family and old friends without issue. However, it was and is very different from the strange Christian nationalism we see here in the US. First of all, even though they tend to reject evolution and abortion, just like conservative Christians do here, they are less militant about it, and all political leanings are represented within the Church. There is no climate or science denial (except evolution) and they are as disturbed by Trump and Christian nationalism as we are. We have been in a very strange state here in the US the last few decades.