The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

Chapter 5 introduces Robert Jeffress. A staunch defender of Trump, he believed that his duty as pastor of First Baptist Dallas was to “push back against evil” (107). This meant wading into politics. Alarmed by secular changes in the country, Jeffress used Trump and Fox News to fight back. He became close to Trump, believing his benefits as a political figure outweighed the harm he caused to the credibility of evangelicals. As a result, his congregation swelled, and his church received large donations. After the 2016 election, he became a regular guest on Fox News and was well known at the White House. However, after the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6th, he found himself wrestling with his own complicity in the violence.

Jeffress gained national notoriety when he attacked Mitt Romney in 2008. Romney, a dedicated Mormon, was used to support from white Christian communities. However, Jeffress not only condemned Romney, but he also encouraged evangelicals to resist any form of Christianity that differed from their own. This stand made him “one of the most prominent evangelicals in the country” (113). Only five years later, Jeffress betrayed his own high moral standards when he defended Trump after the Access Hollywood tape dropped. The tape, which featured Trump boasting about how he could sexually assault anybody because of his fame, was predicted to turn away the evangelical community. Instead, Jeffress said that he didn’t want a “meek and mild” (114) leader to protect the nation, but a strongman. At this point, Jeffress no longer cared about using good to fight perceived evils: “He just wanted to fight evil—period” (115). In 2011, evangelicals responded to a Public Religion Research Institute survey about the importance of a politician’s morality, with only 30% saying it didn’t matter. In a second survey with identical questions in 2016, that percentage had risen to 72%. When asked to explain this huge change, Jeffress explained that evangelicals were “under siege.”

This siege was defined by Jeffress as the mass exodus of evangelicals from the Church. He dismissed theories of his own provocation as a factor in their leaving. He thinks that bad behavior in the church doesn’t drive out true believers; it gives uncommitted Christians an excuse to leave without guilt. This drain led Jeffress and his loyal followers to become “radicalized.” He started to compare the marginalization of evangelicals to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. When confronted with the stark differences between himself and the Jewish people in Germany in the 1940s, he maintained his position. Contrasting the beliefs of many evangelicals, though, Jeffress supported vaccination during COVID-19 and condemned the January 6th riot. This paradox in his behavior did not appear to cause him to reflect on his belief system. Alberta presents him as being less preoccupied with ideological consistency and more with following his perception of God’s will.

Chapter 6 introduces John Dickson, a professor of theology at Wheaton College in Illinois. He warns his students that America is quickly becoming a “post-Christian nation.” Unlike Jeffress, Dickson takes this in stride. Wheaton, a theologically conservative school, avoids the extremism displayed by Christian conservatives. Because of this, “politically homeless church leaders” (127) find refuge there.

Dickson believes that the goal of Christianity should not be to turn the tide of secularism, but to learn how to “lose well.” He compares extremist evangelists to playground bullies, displaying their insecurity by picking on marginalized people. Dickson contrasts the evangelical experience to the persecution of Christ’s apostles, who gained attention and credibility through their cheerful acceptance of persecution.

However, the difference between the actual persecution of early Christians and the performative “martyrdom” of modern evangelicals is stark. Laurel Bunker, a speaker at the same conference as Dickson, points out this difference. She states that the vanishing confidence in Christianity in America is directly related to the fact that Christians actually “act worse than the rest of the world” (132). Their victimhood complex prompts them to lash out against perceived offenders. Bunker points out that evangelicals, including herself, identify themselves with God so closely that they interpret attacks on them to be attacks on God.

Dickson also cautions that American Christianity is not isolated from the rest of the world. Its actions affect Christianity everywhere. People in his native Australia no longer want to be identified as evangelical because of the toxic connotations originating from American evangelism. He came to America specifically to help rehabilitate its image. Dickson believes that above all else, evangelicals must rid themselves of their persecution complex. He argues that American Christians should think of themselves as “eager dinner guests at someone else’s banquet […] always respectful, always humble, because this isn’t our home” (141).

Chapter 7 introduces Pastor Bill Bolin at FloodGate Church in the author’s native town of Brighton, Michigan. He integrated something he calls his “diatribe” into his Sunday sermon. His diatribe was a speech on political issues that included conspiracy theories and misinformation.

FloodGate is close to Cornerstone, the author’s church. However, Floodgate is a much newer congregation. It was also smaller until Bolin refused to comply with Michigan’s lockdown orders to combat COVID. Bolin’s popularity grew sharply, and his congregation flooded with new members. All the other churches in the area, including Cornerstone, started losing significant chunks of their congregation to FloodGate. Bolin was more of a performer than a pastor, and his interpretation of the gospel attracted people who only wanted “their worst impulses confirmed” (144).

In the beginning of Trump’s campaign in 2012, Bolin protested against him, calling him a lifelong Democrat trying to grift the right for money and fame. However, when Trump started to appoint pro-life judges to the courts, Bolin reversed his position. He believes that under the influence of Mike Pence and the prayers of evangelicals, Trump had become “born-again.” Trump rebuked Pence, though, amid the January 6th riot, and Bolin refused to comment on how this aligned with his beliefs.

Many longtime members of Cornerstone now attended FloodGate. Disillusioned by Chris Winans’s approach as senior pastor, Vern and Nancy Hoffner were among them. They described Winans’s closure of the church during COVID-19 as the point of no return. Vern states that “Christians are under attack because we’re different” (151). They parted not with Cornerstone, they emphasized, but with Winans. This aligns with Bolin’s claim that most of his new members come to him because of grievances with their former pastors.

However, in 2022, Bolin started to feel uneasy about the extremism of some of his members. Though he was thinking about trimming his diatribes back to reduce his complicity in violent extremism, he knew that if he did, those who wanted the “inferno” would go seek it elsewhere.

David Barton, referred to as a “punch line” in the academic community, is widely known as a fraud shunned by most conservative scholars. Nevertheless, at FloodGate, David Barton spoke to a full house. The congregants disregarded his lack of credentials. They cared about his willingness to echo their own beliefs, which he did through a slide show of pseudo-history that made Bolin “look meticulous by comparison” (158). Barton was performing as half of the “American Restoration Tour” (160), with his partner, Chad Connelly. The pair directly advocated for partisan affiliations and represented a “lesson in being under siege and a tutorial in going on the attack” (160) for the congregants of FloodGate.