Book Review: Bare Naked Truth - On the Religious Right by Stacey Tallitsch

Critics of the religious right often differ on the approach to opposing it. Some believe it necessary to keep the debate civil and respectful. Others think the best approach is a two-by-four. Stacey Tallitsch falls in the second camp. The problem is he puts such a large spike in the end of his club that his goal is lost in the bloodlust.

Bare Naked Truth: On the Religious Right leaves no doubt where Tallitsch stands. An announced candidate for Congress in Louisiana, he categorizes the religionists he attacks as "Dominionists." The name comes from a variety of statements by fundamentalists that God has commanded Christians to exercise dominion over the Earth and society.

Tallitsch's attack on them uses a combination of approaches. He first examines what he sees as some of the fallacies of Christianity and then explores in detail numerous examples of hypocrisy, duplicity, hatred and intolerance of members and followers of the religious right. This leads into an ongoing discussion and assertion that the true goal of Dominionists is persecution and destruction of anyone disagreeing with them.

In reality, the Religious Right in America is a group of mega-wealthy apocalyptic utopians, who honestly believe that in order for Christ to return, they must make heaven on earth. Frighteningly, in their hallucination of heaven is [sic] very much Aryan in nature, where all remnants of 'heathen' culture outside colonial Puritanism must be purged into extinction.

Tallitsch then explores his view that the politics of the religious right is embodied in the Bush Administration. At bottom, Tallitsch asserts that the Bush camp is part and parcel of the Dominionist conspiracy. In so doing, he freely equates Bush, his family and his politics to Adolph Hitler and Nazism, even devoting much of one chapter to exploring ties between President Bush’s grandfather and the Nazi regime.

The two approaches merge in an effort to demonstrate that the Dominionists and the Bush Administration share the same goal – fundamentalist Christian domination of both the nation and the world, a goal to be achieved by war on anyone who doesn't believe. According to Tallitsch, "The Christian cultist's [sic] playbook is little more than a revised version of Mein Kampf and Machiavelli's The Prince, with many of the same goals and philosophies."

Article Author: Tim Gebhart

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dogs, and his books. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and his blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

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