Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy is the latest offering from author Katherine Stewart detailing her exploration of the efforts of various factions on the right wing of the political spectrum to overtake and transform the U.S. government into a Christian theocracy. Stewart’s interest in what the Christian evangelical right was up to was piqued in 2009 when she discovered an organization called the Good News Club had set-up operations in the public elementary school her children were attending. While billing itself as an after-school program of Bible study, Stewart soon discovered the Good News Club’s real purpose was to indoctrinate a select group of children in fundamentalist Christian ideology with the intent of having them proselytize the non-Christians in their peer group. Spurred by this discovery, Stewart set-off on an investigative journey across the country leading to the publication in 2012 of her first book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children. Stewart detailed more of her findings in 2022’s The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism which expanded from the Christian right’s efforts to transform public education to the larger political realm of the U.S. government.
Money, Lies, and God picks up where The Power Worshippers left off with Stewart providing exhaustive detail of the various organizations, entities, and individuals currently working to destroy democracy. While Stewart takes care to note the ideological spectrum of those working to undermine or destroy our democratic form of government includes atheistic billionaires and libertarian “tech bros,” by far, evangelical/fundamentalist Christians comprise the majority of the antidemocratic right.
As the title of her book suggests, Money, Lies, and God is divided thematically into three parts: 1) Money; 2) Lies; and 3) Demons, or more loosely, theological (God) issues. In a certain sense, these themes are prevalent throughout the entirety of Stewart’s narrative while each designated section takes a more in-depth look at what might be described as case studies of the theme.
In Part I (Money), for example, Stewart profiles two Catholic activists who share the same last name (A Tale of Two Busches): Robert Busch and Timothy Busch. Robert, who works as an administrator in a development office at Stanford University, is best described as a pro-choice, progressive Catholic firmly believing in the doctrine of social justice. Timothy Busch is an extremely wealthy, anti-abortion, conservative who promulgates a free-market version of Catholicism that rejects the idea of the social doctrine (or gospel). Stewart uses this framework to touch upon the vast amounts of money that are available to those who share Timothy’s ideology1 and the various billionaires and organizations that provide and distribute those funds.2
Part II (Lies) primarily features a discussion of the little known (but highly influential on the right) Claremont Institute think tank in California and the various individuals who’ve risen to prominence from its ranks (e.g., John Eastman, Christopher Rufo) and/or have been featured in their house publication, American Mind. Claremont, in essence, provides the “intellectual” fodder (prevarications, fabrications, half-truths, etc.) by which the Republican party now formulates policy.
Stewart, in Part III (Demons), addresses the demon-fueled ideology of the “spirit warriors” (her term) prevalent throughout evangelical Christianity. One of the more prominent and well-known such spiritual warriors is Lance Wallnau:
Wallnau peddles a rotating selection of theologically inflected conspiracy theories. For example, he has alleged that environmentalists and anti-fossil-fuel activists are controlled by demons. He has also identified Tucker Carlson, the racist former Fox TV host as a “secular prophet” who is “used by God” and is “more powerful than a lot of preachers. In Wallnau’s world, clerical positions and religious affiliations appear to matter less in establishing an individual’s religious status than having the right politics. During the 2022 elections Wallnau was a busy man, speaking at churches around the country, making frequent appearances on popular Christian nationalist podcasts, such as Truth & Liberty Coalition, on whose board he sits, and keeping his two million follower apprised of his latest prophecies. By October 2023 his conspiracism had taken an especially sinister turn; he suggested it was Soros-backed anti-Netanyahu protesters who distracted the Israeli army, allowing Hamas to breach the Gaza Strip barrier and murder civilians.” [page 160]
Throughout the course of the full text of the book, Stewart provides a plethora of details concerning the numerous organizations and individuals, their funding sources, and their stated agendas in opposition to democracy — more than can be touched upon here. Stewart spends a considerable amount of time discussing how antidemocratic movements have become a worldwide phenomenon in no small part due to American evangelical Christians exporting their fundamentalist ideology to other parts of the globe. Or, as is the case with Russia, American Christians identifying and recognizing Russians were fellow travelers sharing their virulent homophobia and racism.
I will note a common theme that emerges in Money, Lies, and God (but is not explicitly expressed by Stewart) is the rampant, unbridled misogyny underpinning so much of the evangelical Christian and political right’s antidemocratic rhetoric. The idea that women can lead rich, fulfilling lives in non-subservient roles to men while having full control over their genitals and reproductive options is simply anathema to so, so many on the right of the political spectrum. In recent years, calls for women to be disenfranchised have been increasing at a rapid pace reflecting the right’s desire to subjugate and remove women from positions of power and authority.
Stewart concludes Money, Lies, and God with a chapter suggesting various ways those of us who still believe in democratic norms can move forward. Some of her key points: a) pro-democracy adherents are still the majority and outnumber antidemocratic forces; b) despite outward appearances, the antidemocratic movement is not unified and has numerous factions working in opposition to each other; and c) extreme levels of wealth and income inequality is the fuel powering the antidemocratic engine. These points are well-taken and provide a necessary restorative to the bleak picture painted in the previous 234 pages. I would hasten to add, for far too long many Americans have been unaware or ill-informed about the amount of money flowing to these various antidemocratic, evangelical Christian groups/organizations and their now triumphant infiltration and control of the Republican party. I highly recommend reading Money, Lies, and God to get fully up-to-speed on what’s happening right now, this very moment in Donald Trump’s America.
1. For a better understanding of how the Republican Party combined, enmeshed and made free market capitalism a tenet of the Christian faith, I highly recommend Princeton historian Kevin Kruse’s One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (2015) for a concise overview.
2. A small sampling of organizations: World Congress of Families (WCF), Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Center for Renewing America (CRA), Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), Concerned Women for America (CWA), Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Council for National Policy (CNP), Family Research Council (FRC), Gospel Coalition (TGC), International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders (ICAL), International Organization of the Family (IOF), plus many more. Billionaires providing funding to such organizations include: Charles Koch, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Richard Uihlein, Harlan Crow, Barre Seid, Dan & Farris Wilk, Rebecca Mercer, Betsy & Dick DeVos, plus many more.