The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory — Book Review

I became aware of Tim Alberta’s book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism shortly after its release. It was going around on social media and I added it to my TBR list, hoping to get to it, eventually. In the last month, a number of people in my circles had read it, posting snippets, recommendations and concerns on their own accounts, and I decided it was time to bump it up to the front of the line.

It is a deeply flawed book, filled with personal stories, some good journalism and research and an overarching perspective that the author finds difficult to escape. The book opens with his father’s funeral as the author recounts a painful event in which he is personally attacked at the funeral because of his previous book, American Carnage.

The author’s father was a conservative pastor, and like many pastors, he’d found himself struggling to balance conservative politics with Biblical values and viewpoints. In the previous book, which I have only read a summary of, the author offers a highly critical view of President Trump, his supporters and what he sees as the destruction of the Republican Party.

The sequel is meant to be a similar overview of Evangelical Christianity and an analysis of the impact of politics in general and specifically, the MAGA movement led by President Trump on Evangelical Christianity. The Spector of Trump looms large over the book, but most of the focus is on Evangelicals who compromised their beliefs to support Trump and other political causes.

If you are a Christian or an Evangelical, you’re probably aware of many of those he will target. Parts of the book remind me of a sermon I preached back in 2020, entitled The American Gospel. There is some good analysis in this book and there are a few voices the author highlights who preach a similar message to my own sermon, calling people back to the Gospel truth.

I’ll start with the good of the book. First, there is a well researched evaluation of the history of Liberty University, the Falwell family’s involvement in politics and the Christian Coalition. Most of the content in this section is accurately presented and provides a good framework for the argument. There is much to criticize here and the reporting is fairly straightforward.

Second, as a Southern Baptist, I found the coverage of the problems of the SBC to be fairly unbiased and hopeful. The author represented the good and the bad honestly and any mistakes were more from an absence of information than misinformation.

The further the author gets away from his own personal experiences, the better the book becomes. He has some talent for interviewing individuals and capturing their perspective to tie it together with his greater themes. By interviewing some of the key figures who became the worst offenders of the problem he’s trying to diagnose, he humanizes them without agreeing with them. The author gives some of these men ample space in the book to explain their perspectives.

What I didn’t like. From the first chapter on, there is a condemnation of “these people”. The targets of this book are lined up and shot down, one after another. Some are given a voice, as mentioned in the paragraph above, and others are reduced to a caricature of a few quotes.

Some Christian leaders are criticized for losing their relevance, which is defined as refusing to follow the dictates of the political leaders the author respects and supports and for holding non-Biblical viewpoints with which the author disagrees. Many of these criticisms are far afield from the legitimate criticisms that come at the end of the book when the author interviews some of the good examples of those pastors who are engaging their community for the Gospel.

The author has difficulty seeing the same problem on the left. The Senate race in Georgia was the perfect opportunity to present a non-partisan criticism which points out the misuse of religion by both the right and left, but though he spends many words on the Republican candidate, there is nary a mention of the Reverend Democratic candidate’s mistakes in this area. This would have been a wonderful opportunity to build a bridge to both sides, by treating the race fairly, instead it is completely one-sided.

This is a pattern throughout the book. The Catholic faith of prominent politicians on the left and their moral failures are ignored, while the author keeps coming back to both the failures of the former president and using that as a sledgehammer to condemn any who would support him. Because of this, the author loses some credibility in his criticism. Shouldn’t any Christian who argues that the morality of their political leaders doesn’t matter face the same backlash? The book would have significantly more power if it had taken that into account and shone the same lens on so called “religious” politicians of various political persuasions.

There is a section that starts to talk about the pro-war policies of politicians and the problems these policies have brought. Again, the author ignores that this is no longer a position solely tied to conservatives, but is pushed aggressively by both sides in Washington.

In one section, he puts forth the following statement, “Once a segment of the populace is convinced that they’re under siege, what is to stop them from being radicalized?” This is a fair question. The author is right to criticize those who use a narrative to manipulate Christians, but we’re currently seeing other “religions” radicalized. The terminology “This is the most important election in your lifetime” is used by both sides. Aggressive use of a persecution complex mentality is used by many groups, not just those the author targets, but like most of the book, he limits this only to religious conservatives.

It is difficult to recognize your own biases. Many of the people the author targets for criticism are presented as living in a bubble that reinforces their ideology. It is obvious this is also true for the author. He pushes several “facts” that have already been debunked and some of which have proven false since publication of the book. His perspectives on DC Politics, President Trump and the Pandemic are exactly what you will find if you are informed by opinion pages of Mainstream Media.

Another quote from the book says, “That vocal minority will always push around a timid majority” — this is the problem he sees in churches and as the author interviews the pastors who are struggling, this is the challenge he wants to help them with. The author defines the “crazy” 15–20% that he sees controlling many churches. This does occur in some churches, but strong Biblical leadership and solid discipleship is the best antidote. The author illustrates this when he revisits his father’s church and the pastor there, who, over time, has completely transformed the congregation.

Celebrity pastors who lead cults of personality are a large part of the problem, but really we’re talking about those who move away from the Bible, whether they lead a congregation of 50 or 5000. Pastors who focus on preaching the Gospel and avoid pushing politics and non-Biblical content from the pulpit are the ones who have the least issues today. Even those who dabble in this area continue to struggle. Strong Biblical leadership by qualified pastors is ever the best antidote for churches losing their way. That was the solution in the first century and it continues to be the solution today.

The author almost gets that. He definitely interviews some men who do and much of the last 20% of the book is given to these voices. The book starts out lumping Evangelicals into a big bucket. The heretics and the saints are slapped with harsh labels, especially if they vote in a manner the author doesn’t agree with. Some of the Christian leaders are condemned for this reason alone. At least two godly men of character are treated harshly because they changed their minds between 2016 and 2020.

At first, I wanted to hate this book, and the more I read, the more I wanted to like it. In the end, I found some good ideas, but the execution was lacking. Too many of the arguments were poorly formed and amounted to beating straw men on the head. I suspect he never would have written this book if his father were still alive. It is filled with far too many generalizations and not enough nuance. At times, I thought he was almost there, but the author never quite spelled out the main point of the pastors he interviewed at the end, who are held up as exemplary models.

So, if I were to write my own summary of these ideas, it might go like this. Practical truths that may not be spelled out in this book, but can be gleaned along the way:

The Bible, the Gospel and the Church are more important than politics. Christians lives should reflect that and the way the Church services are conducted should reflect that. Church services should be centered around the worship of God, the encouragement of the saints and the proclamation of the Gospel. Christian people should focus far more on grassroots Christian life on life impact in their communities than projecting their opinions on the internet. The Church should lead the way in this kind of local influence and care. Our ultimate hope should be in Christ and eternity, not in this world or our country.

If this book had been less political, less biased against conservatives and more honed to focus on proclaiming this kind of central message, it would be something I could recommend without hesitation. It could be the kind of book to unite us around true Christian ideals. As it is written, it only serves to further divide the Church, as the author and his friends look down on too many of their fellow believers and judge them as “these people.”

Originally published at http://seeinggodclearly.com on June 10, 2024.