Mary Jo McConahay

Playing God by Mary Jo McConahay is a detailed and very well researched deep dive into not just the shift to the radical right by many US bishops but the danger they and their Evangelical faux Christians pose to the separation of church and state.

While the abortion issue has long been a prominent point of agreement between Evangelicals and the Roman Catholic church, that is just one part of the alliance. The larger and more dangerous concern is the assault on what this country was, however imperfectly, founded on and has striven to achieve. Namely one that is for all people and not just ones who might worship (or look, for that matter) a certain way. In other words, this group is pretty much opposed to all of the actual concepts they pretend to support.

This is an excellent work of investigative journalism and of history. But what it needs to be is a call to action for the people who want some form of government that works for all and not some form of Christian nationalism that is heartless and cruel. We must, in whatever ways necessary, oppose these evil people.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (plus d'informations)

To be fair, I'm not the person this book is written for, and I suspect that the general reader who is coming to the topic fresh will get a great deal out of it. That said, this is really a collection of journalistic vignettes rather than a coherent monograph, as McConahay tries to link wartime policy and action with continuing memory in the relevant countries, with varying degrees of success. For myself, the stories of the American system of forced internment of "dangerous" individuals being extended to Central and South America made my blood boil, and are arguably the best portions of the book.… (plus d'informations)