For the Media
For Immediate Release
America, Fascism, and God
Sermons from a Heretical Preacher
By Davidson Loehr
Contact: Jon-Mikel Gates, Publicity Associate, 802-295-6300 x111
jgates@chelseagreen.com
America, Fascism, and God Examines Ties Between Religious Fundamentalism and Signs of Fascism in America
“Davidson Loehr has the integrity, wisdom and moral courage to preach the radical message of the Gospel. His voice, in our times of turmoil and distress, peals out with a heartening clarity. This book will alienate some, including those in the liberal church whose timidity he assaults, and will anger others, especially the false prophets who entice us in the name of religion to idolatry. But what he says is true. He calls us to live the moral life. He calls us to stand up for justice and tolerance in the face of growing intolerance and injustice. He reminds us that no moral stance is ever made without risk and no hope is possible without the hard, often bitter labor by men and women of faith.”
—Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning and Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America
“Fundamentalism is always a natural ally of greed, brutality, and war, as it has become in America,” says Davidson Loehr, a liberal minister from Austin, Texas. “When you hear men like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell say that rich people shouldn’t be taxed, that there should be no welfare programs for the poor, and that we should hunt down terrorists and ‘blow them away in the name of the Lord,’ you are as far from honest religion…as you can get.” Loehr’s book, America, Fascism, and God (Chelsea Green, September, 2005), is a call—first to understand how religion has been hijacked and debased. And then to take it back.
In thirteen incisive and illuminating sermons, Loehr explores how religion and democracy have been desecrated by the unholy alliance of corporate money, political power, and religious fundamentalism. Historically, these three forces have come together in the form of religious fascism and brought death and destruction in their wake. In America, Fascism, and God Loehr asserts that we may be living under such a regime in the United States today. Yet Loehr has hope in what he calls “honest religion.” We must “reclaim our highest ideals from the institutional religion, and begin expressing them in ordinary language that can belong to all people.”
Loehr’s sermons—God As a Hand Puppet, The Fundamentalist Agenda, The Dark God of Capitalism, Under the Cover of War, and The Legitimate Heir to God, for example—focus on different aspects of his premise and build on one another to give a clear picture of what America is becoming and how to bring us back to a democracy where honest religion trumps fundamentalism.
Davidson Loehr was a professional musician, Vietnam War combat photographer, and a carpenter before he entered the University of Chicago in 1979 to earn a Ph.D. in theology, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. He is senior minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, a 640-member congregation.
Book available, September 2005 | Paperback | $12.00 | 1-931498-93-8 | 5 3/8 x 8 3/8 | 160 pages
For more information, please visit www.chelseagreen.com/2005/items/americafascismgod.
View Cart
Print this page.
