The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
对威胁摧毁美国福音派运动的分裂进行了及时、严谨的报道和深入的个人审视。
- 3 min read
内容简介 · · · · · ·
The award-winning journalist and staff writer for The Atlantic follows up his New York Times bestseller American Carnage with this timely, rigorously reported, and deeply personal examination of the divisions that threaten to destroy the American evangelical movement.
Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal.
For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 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 documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is “woke” and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.
Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today’s believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing.
Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?
这位屡获殊荣的记者兼《大西洋月刊》特约撰稿人继《纽约时报》畅销书《美国大屠杀》之后，对威胁摧毁美国福音派运动的分裂进行了及时、严谨的报道和深入的个人审视。
福音派基督徒可能是当今美国最两极分化、最不被理解的群体。记者蒂姆·艾伯塔（Tim Alberta）本人是一位虔诚的基督徒，也是一位福音派牧师的儿子，在他的开创性新书《王国、权力和荣耀》中，他为美国福音派运动描绘了一幅广阔而深刻的令人不安的肖像。通过电视布道者和小镇传教士、名人复兴主义者和日常去教堂的人的眼睛，艾伯塔省讲述了一个因短暂的恐惧而贬值的信仰、一个被党派诡计破坏的承诺以及一个被永久丑闻玷污的声誉的故事。
对于数以百万计的保守派基督徒来说，美国是他们的王国——一块被分别出来的土地，一个受到独特祝福的国家，一个与上帝立有特殊圣约的民族。然而，这种对国家的热爱已经让位于右翼民族主义的狂热，这是一种轻视耶稣基督王国的鲁莽的血与土的偶像崇拜。艾伯塔省追溯了现代福音派运动的轨迹，将政治和文化拐点置于教会教义和传统的背景下，解释了唐纳德·特朗普的总统任期和 COVID-19 大流行如何加速了长期以来指向灾难的历史趋势。作者从全国各地半空的避难所和只有站立室的会议厅进行报道，记录了美国基督教内部日益严重的分裂，并与读者一起经历了这个奇怪的新环境，在这个环境中，爱你的敌人被“唤醒”，拥有自由被“唤醒”。 WWJD 的答案。
艾伯塔省深入美国福音派运动的最高层，调查了保守派基督徒以保护地上王国的名义追求、行使和经常滥用权力的方式。他强调了福音派正在进行的战斗以及他们战争的武器，以证明与圣经的脱节：与新约的规定相反，今天的信徒正在与血肉之躯进行激烈的斗争，眼睛盯着此时此地，绝望地想要一种轻浮而转瞬即逝的力量。徘徊在真正的文化流离失所和感知到的宗教迫害的交汇点，阿尔伯塔描绘了一个迅速世俗化的美国，它已经开始不信任福音派教会，并将当今个体牧师及其教会的叙述编织在一起，因为他们面临着失去地位的双重挑战并削弱了地位。
阿尔伯塔省仔细审视这些残骸——牧师破碎、会众遭受重创、信徒因性丑闻和政治阴谋而失去宗教信仰——问道：如果美国福音派运动不再荣耀上帝，那么它的目的是什么？
作者简介 · · · · · ·
Tim Alberta is a staff writer for The Atlantic, the former chief political correspondent for Politico, and has written for dozens of other publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and Vanity Fair. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. He co-moderated the final Democratic presidential debate of 2019 and frequently appears as a commentator on television programs in the U.S. and around the world. He lives in Michigan with his wife and three sons.
蒂姆·艾伯塔 (Tim Alberta) 是《大西洋月刊》的特约撰稿人、 《政治报》的前首席政治记者，并为数十种其他出版物撰稿，包括《华尔街日报》、《体育画报》和《名利场》。他是《纽约时报》畅销书《美国大屠杀：共和党内战前线和特朗普总统的崛起》一书的作者。他共同主持了 2019 年最后一场民主党总统辩论，并经常以评论员身份出现在美国和世界各地的电视节目中。他与妻子和三个儿子住在密歇根州。
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