While only 14 percent of the US population 'identify themselves as white evangelical Protestants,' the author makes it clear in this well-researched, urgent book that their fervent dedication to their cause makes them a dangerous force in American politics. It’s not a matter of merely exerting control in specific areas, either. Rather, Lavin emphasizes throughout the text, diehard Christian nationalists seek nothing less than complete control over the public arena, whether someone shares their beliefs or not ... While the author belabors the last point for a few too many pages, her haunting, memorable interviews with abuse survivors highlight the deep-seated, long-lasting pain of children who were forced to live in constant fear of retribution for perceived sins ... Despite Lavin’s deep engagement with her material and evident commitment to exposing the sinister mechanics behind the Christian right’s devotion to theocratic, even fascist, principles, the book can be a slog. Wading through the endless litany of offenses, and the overly generous use of colons and semicolons impedes the narrative’s flow. And the author’s prose, while largely energetic and often elegant, sometimes verges into hyperbole...burying well-honed arguments under waves of outrage that will turn away some readers ... Nonetheless, Lavin’s indignation is understandable, and her revealing text serves as a fitting reminder of the forces arrayed against secular America.

The unremittingly alarmist tone makes Lavin’s book a chore to read at times. Still, her overall points are well worth noting, particularly when it comes to looking at the long game: the evangelicals, allied now with supremacists and nationalists, have been concentrating quite effectively on transforming key aspects of American governance, especially the judiciary, into which the Trump administration has rushed to appoint lifetime judges committed to preserving 'religious liberty,' which according to Lavin means 'anything they did or said came under the stamp of morality, because it was they who were saying it.' Often repetitive, but with a point: the culture war is a real war, and the fundamentalists have their eyes on the prize.

While well-told, this history isn’t particularly innovative; far more revealing is the book’s second half, which draws on hundreds of interviews with adults who suffered corporal punishment as children in evangelical households. Pairing their stories with an examination of the Christian right’s promotion of 'parental rights,' Lavin convincingly positions child abuse as a central tenet of the Christian far right’s extremist politics...Though Lavin’s account is limited by her focus on ex-evangelicals, whose ’90s-era recollections give the narrative a throwback sheen, and her understanding of Evangelicism at times feels sensationalized, her reporting on child abuse is important and shocking. It’s an infuriating glimpse into a cloistered world where abuse is encouraged.