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Tim Alberta's The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory is essential reading. Both for Americans who are religious and those who aren't, as well as for anyone outside of America who is wondering what the hell is wrong with American Christianity.

The book focuses primarily on the evolution of Evangelical churches since the rise of Trump and the Covid pandemic, but gives essential background information and history where needed. For roughly the first half of the book, Alberta gives a sweeping survey of the state of Evangelical churches, pastors, and the power brokers within Evangelical circles. It is a heart breaking and terrifying glimpse of a community that has gone off the rails. In the second half, after clearly making the case that the Evangelical movement is broken in some fundamental way, he makes the case that there is light at the end of the tunnel, introducing the reader to the Christians that are fighting against Christian Nationalism and corruption within their churches.

I left Christianity years ago, before the recent rise of Christian Nationalism. Watching, from the outside, those who I once respected turn away completely from the tenants of Christianity has been troubling, even if their movement didn't threaten human rights and American democracy. While Alberta does go into the history of how American Christianity got where it is, I would have appreciated more discussion of the rise of Christian extremism in the 90's and Bush years. The problems and charlatans he describes and interviews have a long history. This is not a slight against the book, as it is slightly outside of what Alberta was focusing on, and it is not supposed to be a comprehensive overview of the corruption of American Evangelicalism. All in all, after finishing this book I felt more informed and was even left with a little bit of hope.