Spirited Book Club: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory

A Spirited Book Club discussion of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta.

Join the conundrum and the conversation! Pastor Steve Holm, retired ELCA and Spirited daily devotions writer, joins facilitator Sheri Brown to unpack the E in ELCA, especially in the context of the word evangelical having become cultural code for “white conservative Republican.” We’ll frame the conversation with the book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelism in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta. 

Alberta—a journalist, a practicing Christian, and the son of an evangelical pastor —documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump’s presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church and asks: If the evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?

When: Thursday, July 11 at 12:00 noon.

Read about the book and the author, read reviews, and register for the conversation via Zoom.