Reviewed by Paul Clark June 2025
This book is a blistering attack on the American evangelical right and the threat it poses to democracy. It is a well-written, entertaining and deeply disturbing call to arms.
Levin gives a brief history of the evangelical right, which cut its political teeth supporting Jim Crow segregation against the civil rights movement. After it lost that battle, it focused instead, somewhat opportunistically, on opposition to abortion. More recently, it has chosen trans rights as a useful battleground.
Wild Faith examines the ideology of evangelical and fundamentalist churches, with their emphasis on hellfire, their prophets and apocalyptic apostles, many of whom are grifters who excel at enriching themselves by fleecing their congregations.
I found the chapters on evangelical family values particularly disturbing. Alongside elevation of the male and the subjugation of the female, some evangelical influencers promote the most appalling treatment of children, emphasising brutal physical punishment to beat any hint of rebellion out of them. Sickeningly, some even advocate beating babies who are less than one year old.
This book left me in no doubt that, at its worst, evangelical Christianity is a truly dreadful religion.
The core of the book is an examination of the Christian right’s political influence, from the Christian Zionism that seeks to exacerbate rather than solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, to the opposition of end-times fanatics to any efforts to deal with global warming. Levin details evangelical efforts to take over school boards and deny children proper sex education.
The book seeks to mobilise opposition to the very real threat posed by the evangelical right. The subtitle speaks of how they are taking over America, and in many ways, they are doing so. Not that America is going to become a theocracy any time soon (though parts of the Bible belt may feel like it).
Rather, the Christian nationalist right is a key part of the reactionary coalition Donald Trump has assembled. And through this coalition, they are able to advance key aspects of their agenda, pushing back many of the gains made in recent decades by environmentalists, feminists, anti-racists and LGBTQ activists.
We live in dark times, and the rise of the evangelical right threatens to make them darker still. This book is an important part of the fight against them.
Paul Clark 