Wild Faith is Here

Today is a big one for the team here at S&S Industries: at long last, Talia’s new book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America, is out in the world. If you haven’t bought your copy yet, I must insist you do so post-haste. And if you have bought yourself a copy, get one for a friend! It would make a heartwarming housewarming gift.

That last bit may be stretch—this is grim territory that Talia is bravely leading us into. As she writes in the introduction:

This book is about spiritual warfare: about the tens of millions of evangelical American Christians who believe that demons make war every day with the better angels of the human spirit. But it is also the story of women and children: women whose bodies are no longer their own property under the laws made by godly men. And children who face, in the homes of certain evangelicals, pain harder than iron.

This is the story of those children, told by them in dozens and hundreds of interviews to a Jew and brought to you in the hope that it might make people like you sit up and pay attention. It might make you listen to the music of war unfolding all around you, the sound of the final trumpets in the war to end all wars, the sound of an incidentally and demographically Christian nation becoming a Christian nation by law by force.

As you might expect, Talia is a bit busy at the moment—which is what she gets for publishing a book in the midst of the High Holy Days, not to mention most crucial election in our lifetimes. This week she’s featured in Esquire and Ms. magazines, and you can also catch her on a slew of podcasts, including It Could Happen Here, Did Nothing Wrong, Yeah Nah Pasaran!, Keen On, and In Bed With The Right. And there’s much more ahead, so be sure to check Talia’s Buttondown and Twitter feeds for updates.

The timing of this book is critical because the stakes are so high. The forces of fundamentalist nationalism tend to traffic in the language of apocalypse, and for those outside of it, the urge towards ignorance is understandable: as Talia’s editor here, I’ve become somewhat well-versed in this movement, and the more I learn the more horrified I’ve become. As the son, grandson, and great-grandson of clergymen, the world Talia uncovers here fills me with shame.

The opposite of shame, of course, is pride, and I couldn’t be prouder of the work Talia has put in to this project, and the good I know it will do. Her writing rings with the urgency that this moment requires:

It is coming for you, the rough music of God's justice, sweeping down from the high mountains, and down across the plains; into the tallest buildings, and the halls of power in particular. Only by knowing what makes up the notes—only by taking the time to notice and to recognize, as hard as that is to do, that the people on the march truly take it all literally—can you prevail. Read this book, and learn the melody of war. Only then can you take up whatever instrument you must and begin a countermarch of your own, the strange and beautiful cacophony of free will.

On behalf of both of us, we want to thank our readers for their patience and their support.

— David Swanson