The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
Author: Tim Alberta | Library: Newbooks
A deeply personal investigation into how American evangelicalism traded the gospel for political power — told through the lens of the author’s own father’s death and the spiritual crisis that followed.
PROLOGUE
Prologue
Tim Alberta recounts the worst day of his life — July 29, 2019 — when, hours after fumbling a CBN interview about evangelicals’ devotion to Trump, his father, Pastor Richard Alberta, died suddenly. At the funeral, congregants accosted Alberta about Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on him rather than offering condolences; a church elder handed him a letter calling his Trump criticism treason against God. These wrenching encounters crystallized the book’s central argument: American evangelicalism has traded worship of God for idolatry of worldly power, violating the biblical truth that the kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to God alone — not to any nation or politician.
PART I: THE KINGDOM
Chapter One — Brighton, Michigan
Pastor Chris Winans faces congregational backlash at Cornerstone EPC in Brighton, Michigan — a conservative, overwhelmingly white church founded by Alberta’s father. Winans endured criticism for closing during COVID, refusing to condemn BLM, and dismissing QAnon adherents. Members departed for a rival church preaching Christian nationalism. Alberta uses this personal story to argue that American evangelicals have made an idol of the nation itself, treating America as a “new Israel” and conflating earthly political power with divine purpose.
Chapter Two
Pastor John Torres of Goodwill EPC in Montgomery, New York sees his congregation torn apart by political extremism. After Obama’s election, Torres read a letter from a Black pastor about the milestone and faced immediate backlash. During Trump’s rise and the COVID-19 pandemic, partisan conspiracies metastasized. When Torres published a video on racial reconciliation after George Floyd’s murder, a cabal accused him of promoting Critical Race Theory, demanded his firing, and waged a campaign of intimidation — culminating in a photoshopped image of the church ablaze. Through conversations with mentor Martin Sanders, who argues that American Christians have “baptized their worldview and called it Christian,” the chapter illustrates how evangelicals replaced the kingdom of God with the kingdom of politics.
Chapter Three
This chapter traces Liberty University’s transformation from Jerry Falwell Sr.’s struggling fundamentalist college into a multibillion-dollar monument to politicized evangelicalism. Alberta shows how Falwell Sr. abandoned his early separatist preaching to build the Moral Majority, weaponizing patriotism and anti-abortion sentiment to mobilize Christians for the Republican Party — despite abortion not initially motivating the movement. The chapter follows Doug Olson’s disillusionment with Liberty’s God-and-country spectacle, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s corrupt Trump-aligned reign, and professor Nick Olson’s moral crisis questioning whether Liberty’s founding vision was corrupted or simply fulfilled. “Champions for Christ” became a marketing slogan, not a calling.
Chapter Four
Russell Moore’s journey from Southern Baptist prodigy to denominational exile. Rising to lead the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Moore confronted the idolatry of political power — denouncing Trump, pursuing racial reckoning, and investigating sexual abuse cover-ups. These stands made him a target; far-right factions waged “psychological warfare” against him, and over 100 churches withheld funding. Ultimately, Moore’s fifteen-year-old son asked why they remained. Moore left the SBC in 2021, realizing his denominational identity had eclipsed his gospel identity — a parable of institutional idolatry.
Chapter Five
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, exemplifies evangelicalism’s transactional surrender to political power. Alberta traces Jeffress’s evolution: from preaching only the Bible, to launching a culture war over LGBTQ library books, to demanding moral purity from candidates (attacking Romney’s Mormonism in 2011), to championing Trump — declaring he wanted “the meanest, toughest SOB” to protect America. A PRRI survey captures the shift: only 30% of white evangelicals said immoral politicians could govern with integrity in 2011; by 2016, 72% agreed. Jeffress briefly voiced remorse after January 6 but quickly reverted, illustrating how a “siege” mentality led evangelicals to abandon Christ’s teachings on suffering for worldly power.
Chapter Six
Wheaton College’s “Amplify” conference confronts American evangelicalism’s existential crisis. Australian theologian John Dickson warns that Christians will become a minority in America within a decade, arguing the Church must learn to “lose well” rather than lash out from insecurity — what he calls its “bully syndrome.” Pastors Charlie Dates and Laurel Bunker contrast the early Church’s confident humility under real persecution with today’s artificial victimhood complex. Ed Stetzer and Vincent Bacote diagnose shallow discipleship and national idolatry as root causes, while Dickson urges American Christians to trade their persecution complex for the cheerful confidence of underground believers worldwide.
Chapter Seven
Alberta examines how evangelical churches underwent political “sorting” during COVID-19, using FloodGate Church in Brighton, Michigan as the central case study. Pastor Bill Bolin transformed a congregation of one hundred into fifteen hundred by defying shutdown orders and fusing right-wing activism with worship — spreading vaccine misinformation, endorsing election conspiracy theories, and boasting of Nazi salutes from the pulpit. Congregants like Vern and Nancy Hoffner abandoned churches preaching political neutrality, seeking validation rather than discipleship. The chapter culminates with David Barton’s “American Restoration Tour,” illustrating how misinformation, tribalism, and theocratic ambition supplanted the gospel.
PART II: THE POWER
Chapter Eight
The American Restoration Tour, led by Chad Connelly and David Barton, mobilizes evangelical churches into GOP voter-registration engines under the guise of “biblical values.” Alberta follows the tour from the Ohio state capitol to churches in Vandalia and Michigan, revealing how “salt and light” theology is weaponized to justify political activism. Through encounters with conspiracy-fueled congregants, pastors divided over political engagement, and Connelly himself, Alberta exposes a movement that demands Christians win the culture war at any cost — even if preserving Christian values requires abandoning them.
Chapter Nine
Alberta attends Ralph Reed’s 2022 Road to Majority conference in Nashville, exposing how evangelical political leaders weaponize fear and faith for partisan power. The chapter traces Reed’s decades-long career — from building the Christian Coalition in the early 1990s to orchestrating evangelical voters — showing how he transformed marginalized believers into a potent GOP voting bloc. The conference features apocalyptic rhetoric, claims of Christian persecution, and Trump’s speech attacking Mike Pence, whom the crowd booed despite his evangelical credentials. Alberta argues that for Reed and his allies, character, truth, and honor are disposable means; winning elections is the only end that matters.
Chapter Ten
This chapter traces the religious right’s “seduction by power” through Cal Thomas, a former Moral Majority vice president who renounced the movement in his 1999 book Blinded by Might, calling for “unilateral disarmament” after realizing that scare-based fundraising and political idolatry had corrupted the Church’s witness. Alberta contrasts Thomas’s intellectual autonomy with Adam Kinzinger’s agonizing exit from Congress after defying Trump, and Russell Moore’s counsel that earthly power undermines gospel witness. Evangelicals accumulated worldly power to condemn enemies while squandering the spiritual power to save them — underscoring John 3:17’s message that Christ came not to condemn but to save.
Chapter Eleven
Greg Locke’s Global Vision Bible Church in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee serves as a case study in how evangelical extremism migrated from fringe to mainstream. Alberta contrasts Locke — a viral, gun-toting, conspiracy-promoting pastor who built a megachurch by weaponizing culture-war outrage — with Billy Graham’s model of evangelicalism. Though Locke privately admits his bellicosity is partly performative and expresses misgivings about QAnon infiltration, he continues inciting followers with violent rhetoric. Alberta argues that Locke is not an outlier but the logical endpoint of a movement where pastors now serve as political operatives, providing religious justification for partisanship.
Chapter Twelve
Exiled Orthodox monk Cyril Hovorun and Yale theologian Miroslav Volf analyze how authoritarian leaders weaponize faith. Hovorun details how Putin and Patriarch Kirill fused Russian Orthodoxy with nationalism to justify invading Ukraine, transforming a voluntary “civil religion” into a coercive “political religion.” Both scholars draw chilling parallels: Milošević used Orthodox identity for ethnic cleansing, and American evangelicalism has been “captured by nationalist ideals.” Volf laments that Christ’s teachings on poverty, humility, and loving enemies now barely register in evangelical discourse. They prescribe theological deconstruction — stripping secular religions of false spiritual legitimacy — but Alberta questions whether American pastors even perceive the crisis.
Chapter Thirteen
This chapter focuses on the fusion of militant Christian nationalism with Republican politics, using Doug Mastriano’s Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign as the narrative spine. Figures like Jack Posobiec, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, and Al Mohler each exemplify this trend — from Pizzagate conspiracies, to explicitly theocratic declarations (“the church is supposed to direct the government”), to DeSantis replacing “the devil” with “the left” in his invocation of Ephesians. Drawing on the biblical concept of aphiemi (letting go), Alberta argues that evangelicals’ refusal to relinquish political power betrays core scriptural teachings. Pastor Jonathan Wagner provides the counterpoint — refusing to put an American flag in his church and stating, “I don’t see America in the Bible.”
Chapter Fourteen
Alberta chronicles his visit to the ReAwaken America Tour in Branson, Missouri — a two-day spectacle organized by Michael Flynn and Clay Clark blending Christian nationalism with conspiracy theories, commercial hucksterism, and Trump worship. Preachers invoked biblical prophecy to predict Republican victories; speakers peddled dubious products; Eric Trump declared his father’s election “divine intervention.” The chapter’s core is Alberta’s interview with Stephen Strang, publisher of God and Donald Trump, who reveals that for him, political activism itself measures religious devotion — a redefinition that Alberta identifies as the real crisis within American evangelicalism.
PART III: THE GLORY
Chapter Fifteen
Pastor Brian Zahnd of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri transformed from a charismatic megachurch leader into a prophetic critic of evangelicalism’s political captivity. After a spiritual awakening through the Church Fathers, Zahnd renounced his celebrity-pastor persona and stopped conflating Christianity with Republican politics — most pivotally refusing to lend his pulpit to partisan causes after a convicting experience praying at a Dick Cheney rally in 2004. The resulting exodus of over 1,500 members ultimately fortified his congregation. Zahnd’s central argument — drawing on Haggai’s prophecy and Christ’s unshakable kingdom — is that American evangelicals have traded eternal glory for earthly power, and must choose between “the sword of Caesar” and “the cross of Jesus.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Georgia Senate race between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock exposes evangelicalism’s prioritization of political power over moral witness. Despite Walker’s credible scandals — including paying for abortions — conservative Christians like Ralph Reed defended supporting him, framing attacks as persecution and declaring “winning is a virtue.” Alberta traces how this transactional approach backfired: Walker lost, Christian nationalist candidates like Mastriano and Kari Lake flopped, and the Dobbs overturn of Roe actually increased abortions and galvanized pro-choice voters. Evangelicals have substituted politics for genuine discipleship, undermining their credibility on the very issues they claim to champion.
Chapter Seventeen
This chapter chronicles the organized campaign by right-wing activists to weaponize American churches for political ends. Charlie Kirk, hosting “Freedom Night in America” at Dream City Church in Phoenix, demands pastors abandon neutrality and fight leftist “tyranny.” Eric Metaxas — once a respected Bonhoeffer biographer, now a conspiracy-peddling Trump loyalist — spreads election denialism from pulpits like Westgate Chapel. Their partnership to screen Letter to the American Church nationwide signals an aggressive takeover of church infrastructure. Meanwhile, dissenting voices like Moore and French prepare a counterattack in what Alberta calls “a war for the soul of American Christianity.”
Chapter Eighteen
David French, Russell Moore, and Daniel Darling — each professionally punished for their stances — dine in Tennessee, sharing stories of church hostility and online harassment, concluding that a vocal 15–20% of congregants bullies the silent majority. Moore builds secretive pastoral networks and convenes reform-minded leaders, while Curtis Chang partners with French and Moore to launch The After Party, a curriculum teaching Christians a “how” of political engagement grounded in the Golden Rule — funded unexpectedly by secular donors. By spring 2023, Moore expresses cautious optimism: the Christian nationalist takeover appears to have stalled.
Chapter Nineteen
The 2022 Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim sees messengers overwhelmingly vote — roughly 80 percent — to adopt landmark abuse reform measures, including an independently maintained database of credibly accused predators. Alberta contrasts the denomination’s institutional failures — decades of self-preservation and cover-ups that prioritized reputation over victims — with signs of genuine renewal: the election of moderate conservative Bart Barber over hard-line candidate Tom Ascol, backed by Charlie Kirk’s MAGA-aligned faction. Survivors Jules Woodson and Tiffany Thigpen embody the chapter’s central tension: having achieved historic reform, they nonetheless cannot return to a church that failed them — a modern echo of the Good Samaritan parable.
Chapter Twenty
Rachael Denhollander and Julie Roys become unlikely crusaders against sexual abuse and institutional corruption in American evangelicalism. After exposing Larry Nassar, Denhollander confronted the SBC’s cover-up of abuse victims like Jennifer Lyell, strategically outmaneuvering the Executive Committee to force independent investigations. Roys, fired from Moody Radio for exposing financial mismanagement, launched The Roys Report, uncovering scandals at Harvest Bible Chapel, Ravi Zacharias’s ministry, and John MacArthur’s church. The chapter argues that evangelical institutions systematically shield abusers while punishing whistleblowers, and that genuine reform — exemplified by Broadmoor Baptist’s transparency — requires embracing uncomfortable accountability over tribal solidarity.
Chapter Twenty-One
Liberty University serves as a microcosm of American evangelicalism’s corruption, following three insiders — professor Nick Olson, student body president Daniel Hostetter, and fired professor Aaron Werner — who confront the institution’s culture of intimidation, political entanglement, and spiritual compromise. Dissident faculty are surveilled and terminated, NDAs silence critics, and the Falwell legacy of power-worship persists under Jonathan Falwell’s new chancellorship. Alberta argues that Liberty’s “by-any-means-necessary” approach has catastrophically distorted its founding vision, and that true Christian renewal requires replacing the dominant metaphor of culture war with Christlike humility.
EPILOGUE
Epilogue
Alberta revisits his childhood church, Cornerstone, now led by Pastor Chris Winans, who nearly lost his congregation to political extremism but rebuilt it through a patient “pull, don’t push” strategy. Winans’s sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:18 reframes the Church as an “infinite game” — not about defeating cultural opponents but growing in Christlikeness — directly challenging the finite, zero-sum mindset of Christian nationalism. Alberta contrasts this renewal with evangelicals’ deepening embrace of Trump and political power, citing surveys linking Christian nationalism to racism and authoritarianism, and the accelerating collapse of religious affiliation, arguing that “evangelical” has become an impediment to evangelizing itself.
Summary generated from The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta (Newbooks Library)
