“Matthew D. Taylor’s work is a gift. He has given us an empathetic, fair-minded, highly intelligent, and eminently readable story that explains one of the most important religious movements in modern America. Most people don’t even know what the New Apostolic Reformation is, much less that it has been a driving force of Christian Trumpism. The Violent Take It by Force will change that.”
“This astounding book is the inside story of the theology that both undergirded and inspired the January 6 insurrection and has continued to grow into the greatest religious threat to democracy this election year. Beyond the importance of politics, we need to change the ‘faith factor’ at this urgent moment. Only a good theology of democracy can replace the idolatrous false worship of Christian nationalism, which turns a Läs mer…
“As Matthew Taylor details in his fascinating and revelatory book, Independent Charismatic religious leaders, who twenty years ago would have been shunned by the mainstream Christian Right, are now front-line captains in the American culture wars, offering biblical rationales for the embrace of radically theocratic, authoritarian agendas. Taylor’s sensitively reported exploration is a vital contribution to our understanding of the crisis facing democracy.”
“Matthew Taylor has written an essential guide to the radical charismatic Christian movement that catapulted from the fringes of evangelicalism to the center of Republican politics in the Trump era. The Violent Take It by Force takes us deep inside this fantastical world of spiritual warfare by self-declared prophets, with a vivid portrait of how these Christian supremacists market themselves to pews and politicians, and how their radical Läs mer…
“If you think you’ve already read everything you need to understand American Christian nationalism, think again. The movement is more diverse than many realize. And nobody knows its charismatic and violent elements better than Matthew D. Taylor. The cynical should pay attention. At the center of this movement aren’t politicians parroting empty rhetoric; they’re soldiers at war, with cosmic stakes. And these aren’t leaderless mobs of rioters; they’re Läs mer…
“The New Apostolic Reformation is filled with characters, and in The Violent Take It by Force, Matthew D. Taylor brings major figures of the movement—their spirituality, their political ambition, and their proximity to the January 6 insurrection—to life. Taylor’s work illuminates the NAR’s aim to shape religion and politics in the 2024 election cycle and beyond.”
“The New Apostolic Reformation is one of the most influential and dangerous Christian nationalist movements in the United States—and beyond. Matthew Taylor is the world’s leading scholar of religion on the New Apostolic Reformation. In The Violent Take It by Force, he clearly and succinctly explains how the NAR grew from the work of C. Peter Wagner and flowered into a present-day spiritual and political juggernaut. Taylor has Läs mer…
“Matthew Taylor shines a bright light on a dark corner of American Christianity, depicting its role in the ascendency of Donald Trump, the January 6 insurrection, and the ‘holy violence’ it is bringing to our political life. In brisk, engaging prose, he portrays the leaders and the followers of a movement that threatens to replace rational public discourse with strident demonology, endangering the future of our democracy.”
“An essential book for understanding the role of religion in twenty-first-century American politics. Matthew Taylor has written a page-turning account of a small group of leaders, hucksters, and activists who once were on the fringes of US culture, but recently exerted influence on the highest office in the land—and may yet again. A thorough study and a thoroughly unnerving warning, The Violent Take It by Force should be Läs mer…
“In this critical book, Matthew Taylor gives us a harrowing tour of the once-fringe charismatic forces that have coopted and upended the contemporary Christian Right political movement, infusing it with an anti-democratic theology of spiritual warfare that is increasingly spilling over into political violence. For anyone who has been perplexed about the dangerous, carnivalesque marriage of Trump’s MAGA movement and Christian nationalism, this well-written book helps dispel the Läs mer…