Kirkus
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A Democratic member of Congress and self-described humanist takes on the Bible-thumping right wing. Huffman, representing California’s north coastal Second District, gets down to cases straightaway: Whatever else Jan. 6, 2021, was, he writes, it was one of a series of “megachurch revivals” in which “speakers invoked violent Bible stories, labeled Biden a ‘demon’ and ‘antichrist,’ and cast their mission to keep Trump in power as a holy war.” That war part is quite literal, he says: Christian nationalists have no love for democracy or its exponents and would gladly take up arms to establish their “Christian” rule over America. This, writes Huffman—who was raised in a breakaway Mormon sect, long since rejected—represents nothing short of an existential threat. If, for the moment, the nationalists are mostly waging a culture war, things could soon turn ugly, as their views become ever more radicalized even as the number of Americans who profess to be Christian is in decline: “Decline breeds desperation. And desperation breeds extremism.” They have powerful allies, President Trump foremost among them, but with an ace in the hole in House Speaker Mike Johnson, who “rejects church--state separation outright and has long advocated what he calls ‘biblically sanctioned government.’” And while there are cracks in the firmament, particularly with divided views of Israel, Huffman projects violence to come, inasmuch as the Christian nationalist movement has given up trying to argue the righteousness of the cause and instead “demands the hard certainty of conquest.” Battle is inevitable, he says, and what is essential in that battle is to hold firm to our government as a secular and not a sectarian institution. A fiery denunciation of the theocrats who seek to impose their views—and policies—on this constitutional republic. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.