A review by cosmicbookworm
Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right by Randall Balmer

5.0

This is an important book. Randall Balmer is a historian who's father was affiliated with Westchester EFree church in Des Moines. He attended high school in Des Moines in the '70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Balmer

While it is a short book, and a quick read, this was a gut wrenching read for me.
Made me once again ashamed and asking forgiveness for the years I spent working on behalf of the "religious" right. While it has been more than a decade since I realized the error of my ways, there are truths presented here that make me sick. Truths that make me feel duped, conned and used.

This is an eye opening account of the rise of the Religious Right in the political arena, and how the real reason Christian leaders went after the evangelical vote and started encouraging Christians to war against abortion and Gays was because the IRS had taken away Bob Jones University tax exempt status. Christian schools had popped up in response to desegregation of public schools. The Christian schools didn't want the government telling them that they could not discriminate.

The people exposed in this book do not represent my brand of Christianity. A sobering reminder that it is not always obvious who are the wolves and who are the sheep.