The complete guide to debunking right-wing misinterpretations of the Bible—from economics and immigration to gender and sexuality. Jesus loves borders, guns, unborn babies, and economic prosperity and hates homosexuality, taxes, welfare, and universal healthcare—or so say many Republican politicians, pundits, and preachers. Through outrageous misreadings of the New Testament gospels that started almost a century ago, conservative influencers have conjured a version of Jesus that speaks to their fears, desires, and resentments. In Republican Jesus, Tony Keddie explains not only where this right-wing Christ came from and what he stands for but also why this version of Jesus is a fraud. By restoring Republicans’ cherry-picked gospel texts to their original literary and historical contexts, Keddie dismantles the biblical basis for Republican positions on hot-button issues like Big Government, taxation, abortion, immigration, and climate change. At the same time, he introduces readers to an ancient Jesus whose life experiences and ethics were totally unlike those of modern Americans, conservatives and liberals alike.

Sex, God, and the Conservative Church guides psychotherapy and sexology clinicians on how to treat clients who grew up in a conservative faith—mired in sexual shame and dysfunction—and who desire to both heal and hold on to their faith orientation. The author first walks clinicians and readers through a critique of Western culture and the conservative Christian Church, and their effects on intimate partnerships and sexual lives. The book provides clinicians a way to understand the faulty sexual ethic of the early church, while revealing the hidden mystical sex and body positive understanding of sexuality of the Hebrew people. The book also includes chapters on strategies for a new sexual ethic, on clinical steps to heal religious sexual shame, and on specific sex therapy interventions clinicians can use directly in their practice. Finally, it offers a four step model for healing religious sexual shame and actual touch and non-touch exercises to bring healing and intimacy into a person's life.

From How Would God Vote? “The Bible commands a style of politics that in the American context could only be described as deeply conservative. Is, then, the politics of God theocratic? “A strong case could be made for theocracy, American-style, if the word were defined not in the conventional way but according to its root meaning. Democracy signifies the rule of the demos, the people. Strictly speaking, theocracy means the rule not of churches or priests but of theos, God. It won’t do to deny that many conservatives, even while unambiguously affirming the traditional American separation of church and state, would add more theos to the democratic mix than is currently the case. I choose not to call myself a theocrat because I know how eager liberal secularists would be to twist the word against me. Dishonestly they would make it appear that I wish to impose a literal biblical theocracy, that I would dumbly imitate word for word the political structure of king, priesthood, and religious high court that existed in biblical antiquity. “Yet, in a subtler sense, are we not all theocrats now?” This startlingly original investigation into the controversies dividing America provides a clear and convincing affirmation of the relevance of the Bible to contemporary politics. With liberals and conservatives alike claiming the authority of the Bible as support for their views on social and moral issues, the need to understand what the Bible actually says has never been more pressing. In How Would God Vote?, journalist and scholar David Klinghoffer illuminates the worldview set forth in the Scriptures and argues that, with some exceptions, the God of the Bible would overwhelmingly support traditionally conservative principles and policies. Klinghoffer considers the ethical and moral heart of contemporary political debates—questions like immigration, gay marriage, abortion, care for the poor, war and peace, censorship, privacy, the place of religion in schools and the community, and much more. There is a pattern here. It’s for a very good reason that conservatives line up as they do, predictably, on a range of issue; as do liberals. The two competing political philosophies derive from radically different ways of looking at the world: one in consonance with the Bible, the other very much not. Klinghoffer, however, is no stereotypical Republican. Controversially, he argues that the Bible would have us emphasize domestic policy, the classic pre-9/11 culture war issues, over a hyped-up “World War IV” against “Islamofascism.” The Bible has a foreign policy, he shows, and it is not neoconservative. He demonstrates support in the Scriptures for a welcoming attitude toward immigrants, for gun control, and for affirmative action. The Bible, Klinghoffer shows, is no mere list of dos and don’ts but a fully coherent and practically relevant portrait of moral reality, compelling and deep enough to guide not only our private but our public lives. Even if we as individuals fail its private tests, that’s no reason to reject its public lessons. To anyone who takes God seriously, every election poses a radical question: Will we vote with Him, or against Him? The Bible is an unapologetically political book, Klinghoffer explains, and an extremely conservative one. Some political views offend God, and those views are mostly liberal. In short, the Bible commands you to be a conservative. Stimulating and provocative, How Would God Vote? is an important contribution to pre-election debates and to setting the path the nation will follow in the future under a new president.

From Billy Graham and Ronald Regan to Newt Gingrich and William Bennett, God is a Conservative provides an important look at the role of religion in conservative politics in modern America. Kenneth J. Heineman reveals the profoundly religious nature of contemporary conservatism, offering an intriguing look at the social history of moral politics over the last three decades, and the still tremulous aftershocks of the New Deal. With a new Preface that examines the Bush presidency, including a provocative analysis of his re-election, and the rising influence of the Conservative Right, God is a Conservative is essential reading for understanding today's American political landscape.

From Billy Graham and Ronald Regan to Newt Gingrich and William Bennett, God is a Conservative provides an important look at the role of religion in conservative politics in modern America. Kenneth J. Heineman reveals the profoundly religious nature of contemporary conservatism, offering an intriguing look at the social history of moral politics over the last three decades, and the still tremulous aftershocks of the New Deal. With a new Preface that examines the Bush presidency, including a provocative analysis of his re-election, and the rising influence of the Conservative Right, God is a Conservative is essential reading for understanding today's American political landscape.

In God's Own Party, Daniel K. Williams presents the first comprehensive history of the Christian Right, uncovering how evangelicals came to see the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could reclaim America as a Christian nation.

In 1999, the Reverend Jerry Falwell outed Tinky-Winky, the purple character from TV's Teletubbies. Events such as this reinforced in many quarters the common idea that evangelicals are reactionary, out of touch, and just plain paranoid. But reducing evangelicals to such caricatures does not help us understand their true spiritual and political agendas and the means they use to advance them. Shaking the World for Jesus moves beyond sensationalism to consider how the evangelical movement has effectively targeted Americans—as both converts and consumers—since the 1970s. Thousands of products promoting the Christian faith are sold to millions of consumers each year through the Web, mail order catalogs, and even national chains such as Kmart and Wal-Mart. Heather Hendershot explores in this book the vast industry of film, video, magazines, and kitsch that evangelicals use to spread their message. Focusing on the center of conservative evangelical culture—the white, middle-class Americans who can afford to buy "Christian lifestyle" products—she examines the industrial history of evangelist media, the curious subtleties of the products themselves, and their success in the religious and secular marketplace. To garner a wider audience, Hendershot argues, evangelicals have had to carefully temper their message. But in so doing, they have painted themselves into a corner. In the postwar years, evangelical media wore the message of salvation on its sleeve, but as the evangelical media industry has grown, many of its most popular products have been those with heavily diluted Christian messages. In the eyes of many followers, the evangelicals who purvey such products are sellouts—hucksters more interested in making money than spreading the word of God. Working to understand evangelicalism rather than pass judgment on it, Shaking the World for Jesus offers a penetrating glimpse into a thriving religious phenomenon.