LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Michelle Goldberg, author of "Kingdom Coming" has written an article at the Huffington Post about the changes this election has wrought:

In The New York Times Book Review today, John Wilson wrote a version of a piece I've been seeing a lot of lately. He argued that the danger of the Christian right has been wildly overstated, offering as examples books like my Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Kevin Phillips American Theocracy, and the documentary Jesus Camp.

"Will the evangelical Red Guards soon be storming the Museum of Modern Art? How worried should you be?" he asks, then answers, "Not very." This, of course, is absolutely correct. It also absolutely misses the point. I can only speak for my own book, but what I sought to describe was not an imminent theocratic takeover of America, but a slow, often subtle, but ultimately profound change in American life and government. As I wrote, "I want to be clear, however, that I am not suggesting that religious tyranny is imminent in the United States. Our democracy is eroding and some of our rights are disappearing, but for most people, including those most opposed to Christian nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty much as normal for the foreseeable future." There is a vast distance between democracy and theocracy, and even a small shift along that spectrum strikes me as cause for concern. The writers denouncing "theocracy hype" don't engage with these incremental alterations, instead suggesting that since we're not quite slouching towards Gilead, there's nothing much to be concerned about.