Michelle Goldberg - Michelle Goldberg is a senior writer for Salon.com. Because the online magazine's staff is relatively small, its reporters' beats are large, and she's covered everything from New York's drug laws to Kurdish refugees in the Middle East, reporting from all over the United States and from Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel and the West Bank. One constant in her peripatetic career is a fascination with the role of ideology in politics, leading her to report extensively on both sides of America's ever-seething culture war.
In addition to working at Salon, Goldberg has been an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at New York University, teaching a class called "Writing Social Commentary." She's also been a columnist for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and for Shift Magazine, and her work has appeared in publications including Rolling Stone, The New Republic online, The UK Guardian, The Utne Reader, Newsday and other newspapers nationwide.
"We know our country is in the midst of a vast and troubling cultural revolution, and is in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism where every political issue is a battle between good and evil. Without the knowledge of many, though, a large number of Americans who call themselves Christian Nationalists are mobilizing to dissolve the separation of church and state. In her brave new book, Kingdom Coming:The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Salon.com writer Michelle Goldberg carefully demonstrates how the growing influence of dominionism - the doctrine that Christians have the right to rule non-believers - is threatening the foundations of democracy" (Cody's Books, 2006).
Goldberg's telling of the rise of a small sect, known as the Christian Nationalists, is both revealing and shocking. While they are a small sect that are a minority even among religious evangelists, they power they are gaining as interns in the White House is a fearful thought. Goldberg makes a clear distinction between conservative Christians and the Christian Nationalists. The vision she projects is unsettling if the Christian Nationalists continue to gain power.
America is "in the grips of a fevered religious radicalism". Sorry, that statement doesn't pass the silly giggles test. Totally unfounded sensationalist hackery. Michelle apparently has very little appreciation for the realities of a polity "in the grips of fevered religious radicalism."
Yes, I find that to be quite funny. Iran perhaps? Afghanistan under the Taliban? These might qualify as countries gripped quite literally (i.e. organs of power all in the hands of religious extremist) by religious radicalism. To make that claim about the US suggests either (a) a complete lack of perspective or (b) a desire to strike a pose for her target audience.
I like Goldberg's articles on Salon, but my first impression when hearing about her book was that it may be a bit of an overreaction. She's an insightful writer, though, and almost always a good read.
I think she does make a case and then build facts and anecdotes around the case to create a provocative conclusion. Nothing new there. But she does imho effectively explore the fascinating and sometimes perverse relationship between religion and nationalism, an ancient and often difficult intersection that generally includes justification for military and commercial adventurism.
The book doesn't have to be read to be able to break down one self-contained statement. The assertion that the US is "in the grips of fevered religious radicalism" is patently absurd. And however valid the rest of her case may be that is not a very strong starting point.