Tim Alberta And The Mystery of What Happened To The Church

Are you a Christian who has spent the last decade or so wondering what the heck happened to your church? Have you been wondering if there are any serious Christians left who have not been swept up in some version of MAGA madness? Good news. They exist, Tim Alberta is one of them, and he's got a book.

The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory: American Evangelism in an Age of Extremism is a hard look into the heart of what has happened to the conservative Christian church. Alberta does not, like some authors, push back against the rise of Christian Nationalism by attacking the Christian part, and this book may be a tough slog for folks who do not embrace the faith.

But because Alberta is an evangelical Christian himself, he develops a clear view of where they lost the plot. As Chris Winans, the pastor who followed Alberta's pastor father, and who opens and closes the book, observes, the problem with American evangelicals is that "too many of them worship America." And power over it.

The book is a series of chapters organized around locations and the people Alberta has traveled there to interview. Some carry more weight than others--Lynchburg gets two chapters, as Jerry Fallwel's Liberty University serves as a particularly pointed example of how the pursuit of money and power completely overwhelms real attention to the Gospel. 

Alberta notes the particulars of how MAGAfied evangelicals have lost the plot. Of Trump pastor Robert Jeffers, he writes that he "no longer cared about fighting evil with good. He just wanted to fight evil--period." At a Ralph Reed event he notes:

Character didn't matter. Truth didn't matter. Honor and integrity didn't matter. Those were means, and all that mattered was the ends: winning elections.

Quoting from another pastor he interviews.

The great fault in the evangelical movement today is that we're disobedient to the commands of the one we claim to follow. What were those commands? Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for widows and orphans. Visit those in prison. Seek first the kingdom of God.

Alberta talks to some religious leaders who seem honestly confused and lost, and others who are wrestling with the understanding that if they don't get political in the pulpit, they will lose those parishioners-- the ones who think the sermon on the mount is too woke.

He has particular concern over the folks like Charlie Kirk, who, he notes, don't even pretend to that the goal is to glorify God, but simply to "take back America." He is disappointed in figures like Ron DeSantis who pretend to care about the faith, but barely nod toward it, and never in a meaningful way. 

Politicians, he notes

 saw the pointlessness in talking about servanthood, about humility, about unity and peace and love for thy neighbor. The market for such a message had long since disappeared. The demand was for domination, and Republicans like Trump and DeSantis were happy to supply it. Their appeal to evangelicals had everything to do with acting like champions and nothing to do with acting like Christ.

Of the culture wars being waged these days, Alberta is direct: "This effort to assert dominance over the culture is but a precondition for dominating the country itself."

Champions of Christian nationalism would have you believe that these efforts to rule the country are inherently theological; that they are in service of a broader effort to reclaim America for God. This is a lie. 

For Alberta, it's small potatoes. The God of All Creation has far larger concerns than the political victories of one political party in one country on one planet in one year. For Alberta, that is just another brand of idolatry.

In Alberta's travels and interviews, I see plenty of what I call the People of the Tiny God-- a god so small and powerless that electing the wrong politician for even the most trivial of offices will somehow threaten that god's existence. 

If you want a book that will explain why the chriustianists are wrong and bad because they oppose humanistic, progressive ideals, this may not be your book.

But if, like me, you've been looking around the past many years listening to alleged Christians valorize decidedly unChristian behavior, to insist that they cannot exercise their religion without being free to strike out at those of whom they disapprove, to express an ideology that seems laden with hate, to disdain any principles except the pursuit of power-- if you've been looking at all that and thinking that it does not resemble the faith that you grew up in, then this is your book.

It is discouraging to read just how far and deep and ugly some of the rot is. But it is encouraging to read that there are some folks who have not lost the plot and who embrace a faith that would even allow those of who disagree (and I am sure there are points on which Alberta and I would disagree) to coexist in ways that would still honor and energize and be energized by that faith. 

It's a big book, thorough, bolstered by interviews that run wide and deep (when you're a noted reporter for The Atlantic, people answer your calls). I've bought copies for some of the people I love, and I recommend you get your hands on a copy as well.