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Title: Close Encounters With the Religious Right: Journeys into the Twilight Zone of Religion and Politics by Rob Boston, Robert Boston ISBN: 1-57392-797-X Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: An Interesting Sermon for the Choir
Comment: Robert Boston presents the main players of the American religious right. He writes his book as an up to date warning on the agenda of people like Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Gary Bauer and a few lesser notables. But many Americans would just as well write them off as a political fringe. With the failure of Bauer's presidential campaign and the Christian Coalition in disarray Boston's book may only seem like an exercise in self promotion for his activism on behalf of Americans United for the Seperation of Church and State. That is exactly what it is, which does not mean that the book is without merit as a guide to the religious right.
Boston knows his subject. He attends their conventions and reads the junk mailings that these groups' supporters do not always bother to read. His descriptions are interesting though polemical. Like the very religious right rhetoric, Boston justifiably disdains, the book is an exercise in condescension toward its subject if not an exercise in demonization. Boston does not try to understand his subject the way Randall Balmer did in Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. He only wants to sound an alarm over those who would tear holes in the Jeffersonian wall of seperation between church and state. An opportunity was missed in not writing more about personal encounters with the people and places of this American subculture.
The religious right deserves to be written about and it should be questioned. Close Encounters with the Religious Right is not totally unjustified in its descriptions the religious right. Much of the rhetoric from the religious right speaks for itself. The book may only be the sort of exercise in polemics that one expects from liberals worried about the religious right, but it is an informative and entertaining read for anyone interested in the religious right.
Rating: 5
Summary: A witty and enjoyable overview of the religious right
Comment: While there are other books that describe the religious right political movement, Boston's book is unparalleled in its first-hand accounts, its attention to detail, and its charm.
At its root, Close Encounters offers the reader a summary of each of the leading groups and leaders that comprise the religious right. Instead of a dry recitation of the relevant players, however, Boston's book stands apart by buttressing facts and figures with personal anecdotes. An experienced expert on the issue of religion and politics, Boston does not simply remark on the religious right from an ivory tower. He's gone to the "belly of the beast," visiting and interacting with religious right officials and grassroots activists. (Particularly enjoyable are tales of Boston's trips to the Christian Coalition's "Road to Victory" conferences, and his reservations about group hugs at a Promise Keepers gathering.) These experiences offer an insight not offered by any contemporary journalist or researcher.
At times, Close Encounters' description of the groups that make up the right are enough to produce genuine concern about the future of church-state separation and religious liberty. The religious right's movement, as the book explains, represents a serious and determined threat to the First Amendment. Yet, Boston's humorous style and sincere enthusiasm for the subject matter turn what is clearly a serious issue into a fascinating and witty book.
One gets the impression that critics of the book have offered their critiques before actually reading Boston's work. It's a shame; they appear more interested in ad hominem attacks than a serious discussion of the subject matter.
Though written during the Clinton administration, Close Encounters is perhaps at its most relevant now, as many of the groups and religious leaders chronicled in this text have risen to even greater political influence by way of President Bush's administration. In short, anyone concerned with the religious right and the changing dynamic of the relationship between religion and politics will definitely enjoy Boston's terrific book. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 1
Summary: Close Encounters with an Intolerant Hate filled Writer
Comment: To be blunt I really feel sorry for Mr. Boston. Normally I can zip through books of this nature in a evening, but not this one. I found myself getting several headaches from the hateful, vindictive, diatribe that Mr. Boston uses throughout the book. It is as if he has some deep metaphysical anger toward anybody or anything that identifies themselves as a Christian and a conservative.
There seems to be three themes that run throughout this book
1. Intolerance
Mr. Boston is simply intolerant of any belief that he does not hold. He has been a proud participant in denying freedom of speech (pg 73) to groups he does not like. He criticizes the promise keepers, a group that help marriages succeed. Mr. Barton even notes in the book they have a phenomenally low divorce rate. Is he out of touch by criticizing this group I think so, one only need to read the words of the Past President of the Los Angeles Chapter of NOW (a pretty liberal organization) and what she had to say about promise keepers. "Really who can argue with a movement that exhorts men to keep their promises, to be good fathers, loyal husbands and decent people?" Apparently Mr. Barton can because, but he is intolerant of them because they uphold values he does not. This intolerance continues throughout the book and gets nauseating after a while.
2. Moral Relativism
This second theme bootstraps off of the 1st. While Mr. Boston is intolerant of certain groups beliefs he puts forward a hypocritical moral relativism that says everything is okay except of course what the conservative Christians believe. In a truly saddening example Mr. Boston tells how he wants his children growing up to be able to do anything they want to do. He is afraid, almost disgusted, that someone from the Christian Right might tell his Children that pedophilia is wrong, or having your poor old grandmother beaten to death in a mugging might be wrong.
Does Mr. Boston make excuses for the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes? No, not at all instead he calls those who point out these acts of evil as the true villains of his utopian society. Sick, truly sick.
3. Judicial Activism
"The Constitution . . . is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." Thomas Jefferson
Judicial Activism is good, but ONLY when it advances your extreme beliefs other than that it is bad. Mr. Boston believes that litmus tests are good as long as they will lead to the exclusion of the judges he deems unworthy. This anti-democratic rant is particulary sad when you view the history of the United States and that the judiciary is to be used as a check and balance and not a legislative branch. But Mr. Boston fully realizes that he will never get his views advanced through the legislature because most people disagree with him instead he must use the judiciary; Scary and anti-American.
If you like hatred and intolerance this book will be for you, if you enjoy freedom of speech, American values, and democracy this book will be a big turn off.
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Title: Why the Religious Right Is Wrong: About Separation of Church & State by Rob Boston ISBN: 0879758341 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: The Fundamentals of Extremism by Kimberly Blaker, Edward M. Buckner, Edwin Kagin, Bobbie Kirkhart, Herb Silverman, John Suarez ISBN: 0972549617 Publisher: New Boston Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Most Dangerous Man in America?: Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition by Rob Boston, Robert Boston ISBN: 1573920533 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy by Frederick Clarkson ISBN: 1567510884 Publisher: Common Courage Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Myth of Christian America : What You Need to Know About the Separation of Church and State by Mark Weldon Whitten ISBN: 1573122874 Publisher: Smyth & Helwys Publishing Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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