POTLUCK 11 AM to 1 PM EST at ATLANTA FREETHOUGHT HALL
TALK 1 PM EST at ATLANTA FREETHOUGHT HALL & on ZOOM
“The Shadow Gospel”
Mark Brockway
Details
When people talk about the chaotic, increasingly precarious political landscape in the United States, they often blame polarization and the culture wars. In The Shadow Gospel: How Anti-Liberal Demonology Possessed U.S. Religion, Media, and Politics,”Whitney Phillips and Mark Brockway tell a very different story. Analyzing eighty years of densely overlapping religious and secular messages preaching the dangers of liberalism, the book argues that the fracture and chaos in U.S. politics isn’t the result of a clean split between left and right. Instead, it’s a split between the shadow gospel’s quasi-religious anti-liberal demonology—the vague sense that an evil leftist force is threatening to destroy American society—and the people accused of being the liberal devil.
A shadow gospel framework helps contextualize the violence of January 6, 2021, the fervor of Satanic conspiracy theorizing, and the crusade against “wokeness” and LGBTQ existence. But it also helps explain the most vexing elements of our politics: that the most potent source of religious messaging and influence in the United States is secular, that the most ruthless destroyers of Republicans are other Republicans, and that anti-liberal fear and loathing span the political spectrum.
By offering new ways of thinking about religious influence, the left/right dichotomy, and the appeal of Donald Trump, The Shadow Gospel reveals the true roadblocks to pluralistic democracy and emphasizes what people across the religious and political spectrum stand to lose if we don’t exorcise our anti-liberal demons. There are no easy solutions to our vast and complicated political problems. But those solutions will remain elusive if how we frame our problems is part of the problem. It is long past time to drag the shadow gospel out into the light.
The book can be found on Amazon or other bookstores and is published at MIT Press.
The meeting will be both on Zoom and at Atlanta Freethought Hall, 4775 N. Church Lane SE, Atlanta, GA, 30339.
Preceding the talk at 11, there will be a potluck lunch. Join AFS members and guests for some good food and great socializing. Please bring food according to the first letter of your last name:
A-G: Bring a main dish
H-P: Bring a dessert
Q-Z: Bring a side dish
AFS will provide drinks, plates and silverware.
Atlanta Freethought Hall
4775 N. Church Lane, Atlanta, Georgia 30339
Atlanta Freethought Hall is a former Primitive Baptist Church, rebuilt in 1866 after the original structure was destroyed by General Sherman’s troops during the Civil War. Atlanta Freethought Society (AFS) was founded in 1985, which makes it one of Metro Atlanta’s oldest secular societies. AF Hall is the meeting place for several other organizations and we rent the building at reasonable rates. If you would like to rent the hall for an organization meeting, a party, a wedding, etc., please see an AFS Board Member. Our building is wheelchair accessible.