By Thomas Ultican 3/12/2025
Author Katherine Stewart is a friend of mine. OK, we are not bosom buddies and have only met face to face once briefly. However, in 2017, I wrote about her book The Good News Club and we began communicating by email. In 2019, when she published The Power Worshippers, I again reviewed her book and our email communications were enhanced. Now, she has completed the trilogy with Money Lies and God, her just released book, which continues a deep dive into Christian nationalism and the extreme right’s anti-democratic agenda.
On Money Lies and God’s cover, Congressman Jamie Raskin insightfully labels the book, “An indispensable citizen’s guide to the antidemocratic MAGA right.”
Whenever I read a book, the first thing I do is read everything on the cover and all introductory material. I was amazed by the well known people commenting on this book. Besides Jamie Raskin, I was particularly stuck by comments from Nancy MacLean and Steve Schmidt. Not that their selected comments were so mind blowing but because they are such heroes of mine.
Maclean, the famous historian and author of “Democracy in Chains”, states, “A bracing must-read story of how the varied streams have merged into a mighty river moving toward massive destruction—and it explains how together, we can divert it.”
Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign manager, political strategist and cofounder of the Lincoln Project, wrote, “Pieces through the fog and noise to reveal the dangerous forces gathering, planning, and plotting against liberty.”
The comments made me think this book could be special. I was not disappointed.
Building toward a Trilogy
Living in Santa Barbra, California in the early 2000s, Stewart was stunned to learn that her daughter’s elementary school had a protestant after school program for students called “The Good News Club.” For the past almost two decades this discovery has driven her to research how religious organizations are now allowed to proselytize babies in public facilities. The more she dug, the scarier reality became.
A significant figure in the tearing down of the separation of church and state was lawyer Jay Sekulow. Born into a Jewish family he converted to evangelical Christianity in the 1980s. In 1990, Pat Robertson brought Sekulow together with a few other lawyers to form the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) (notice how close the acronym is to ACLU). In 1994, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) added its name to the growing roster of well financed Christian legal organizations and is backed by groups that are a veritable who’s who of the Christian Right.
In 2001, this legal juggernaut succeeded again in their efforts to undermine the separation of church and state with its victory in Good News Club v. Milford Central School. Stewart commented:
“An alien visitor to planet First Amendment could be forgiven for summarizing the entire story thus: Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, together with a few fellow travelers on the Supreme Court and their friends in the ADF and ACLJ, got together and ordered that the United States should establish a nationwide network of evangelical churches housed in taxpayer-financed school facilities.”
The destruction of the first amendment was well underway.
In “The Power Worshippers”, Stewart dove deeply into the world of Christian nationalism. Among the many insightful items she shared were the actions of Paul Weyrich. He coined the term “moral majority.” He also co-founded the Heritage Foundation, The Free Congress Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Weyrich made 12 trips to Russia and Eastern Europe before his death in 2008 and became a strong supporter of closer relations with Russia. Stewart reports, “He was writing and speaking frequently in defense of Russia and facilitating visits between U.S. conservatives and Russian political leaders.” (Power Page 270)
In 2013, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association called Putin a “lion of Christianity.” In 2014, Franklin Graham defended Putin for his efforts “to protect his nations’ children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.” He also lamented that Americans have “abdicated our moral leadership.” In 2015, Graham met privately with Putin for 45-minutes. In 2016, Mike Pence said Putin was “a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.” (Power Page 272)
Donald J. Trumpski’s embrace of Putin and other despotic world leaders is an outcome spurred by Christian nationalism.
Completing the Trilogy
In the introduction to “Money Lies and God”, Stewart states, “There is no world in which America will become the ‘Christian nation’ that it never actually was; there is only a world in which a theocratic oligarchy imposes a corrupt and despotic order in the name of sectarian values.” (Money Page 7)
In these pages, Stewart expands beyond just the evangelical community to include the Conservative Catholic community that has joined forces with the evangelicals. The reader is introduced to Opus Dei, the ultraconservative and secretive Catholic group founded in fascist Spain. “Opus Dei does not disclose its membership, but Leonard Leo has a listed entry on the website of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., which is operated by Opus Dei …” (Money Page 43)
Stewart reports on the big 2023 Mom’s for Liberty event in Philadelphia. That same year, she attended the Network for Public Education event in Washington D.C. which is where I had my face to face encounter with my “friend.” She writes extensively about both events.
The book does a lot of documenting of the tremendous amount of money right wingers are pouring into their agenda. She cites the spending by the DeVos-Prince family, Texan Tim Dunn, Jeff Yass, Richard Uihlein, the Corkerys, Mike Rydin, Rebekah Mercer, Charles Koch and more. You meet the Ziklag group, a secretive organizations for high net-worth Christian nationalists. A ProPublica article asserts, “Ziklag appears to be the first coordinated effort to get wealthy donors to fund an overtly Christian nationalist agenda …”
I was surprised that our American psychosis is being spread rapidly around the world. Stewart attended the 2023 National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) in London where she saw representatives of the ADF and the Heritage foundation.
Stewart summarizes the NatCon pitch:
“The sum of all our problems—and the greatest threat that the United States and its sister republics around the world have ever faced—is the rise of the ‘woke’ elite. Cosmopolitan, overeducated, gender-fluid, parasitic, anti-Christian idolaters who worship at the shrine of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the leaders of this progressive cabal are bent on elevating undeserving people of color while crushing hardworking ‘real’ Americans (or real Britons, or whoever is in the audience).” (Money Page 100)
In the “The Rise of the Spirit Warriors” chapter, Stewart notes,
“In October 2023, the spirit warriors notched another stunning victory when one of their own … became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana indicated on his first day as Speaker that God himself had a hand in his ascension to a position second in line to the presidency.” (Money Page 163)
Late in the book, Stewart contends, “The axis around which a sector of the global antidemocratic reaction now turns is an extraordinary alliance between a dominant wing of the Republican Party in the U.S. and the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.” (Money Page 214)
I hope you read “Money Lies and God”. It is an extraordinarily well written and researched endeavor.
tultican 
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