Hedges, graduate of Harvard Divinity School and foreign correspondent of almost twenty years with The New York Times, sounds an alarm about the political agenda of the Christian Right in the USA. Hedges delivers here the mix of intelligence and public concern exhibited in his earlier, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (2003).

By the ‘Christian Right’, Hedges means those US Christians seeking political rule, ‘dominionists’ committed to ‘reconstructionist’ agendas for rebuilding an American biblical commonwealth, a theocracy, even ‘Christocracy’. These groups have long been studied by sociologists, such as Sara Diamond (Roads to Dominion, 1995), but they have risen to new prominence amid post-9/11 fear and super-patriotism.

Hedges' argument is that this ‘core group of powerful Christian dominionists’ has ‘latched on to the despair, isolation, disconnectedness and fear’ in the USA and aims to subordinate public life to its own Christian order. Dominionists thus are enemies of democracy and their political approach ‘shares many prominent features with classical fascist movements’. To shore up his case that dominionist approaches are ‘fascist’, Hedges turns to Robert O. Paxton's book, The Anatomy of Fascism (2004) and dramatically places at the front of his book an abridgement of Umberto Eco's 1995 essay on ‘Ur-Fascism’ (‘Eternal Fascism’).

The Eco essay provides a list of fourteen features typical of fascism. Paxton's book provides a definition of fascism:

Hedges finds many aspects of this definition in his deft portrayal of dominionist ethos, ideology and practice, especially in Christian Right figures like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy and James Dobson. More importantly, Hedges offers poignant stories of lesser known individuals whose despair – personal and cultural – made them vulnerable to dominionist agendas.

Hedges also explores dominionists’ conversionist strategies, their cults of masculinity, persecution of homosexuals, crusades against evil and Islam, enshrining of ‘Christian character’ as preferred public virtue, ‘war on truth’ in propounding Creationism, sanctification of ‘ruthless unfettered capitalism’ and their vision of the world's apocalyptic ending in purgative violence. Hedges shows how all this does indeed conjure the spectre of fascism – at least as Paxton, Eco and others, have defined it. Hedges' book thus works as a wake-up call, especially for those unacquainted with the religious and political extremism of today's dominionists.

Two modifications in the book's theoretical structure might strengthen the book's argument. First, Hedges could do more to stress that fascism emerges not only from moralist or religious fanaticism, but also from corporate powers’ exploitation of public wealth and from aggressive will-to-power of military elites. Hedges's book refers to these two groups, often exposing links of dominionists to corporate and military sectors. Yet, as with his book's title, when it comes to naming ‘American fascists’ the religious extremists get the ‘fascist’ tag.

A problem with linking fascism mainly to religious right extremism is that readers can easily conclude that a mere return to liberal religion (such as Hedges himself finds in his own liberal Presbyterian heritage) is the antidote for our fascist moment. Liberals, though, have their own ways of making common cause with corporate and military power, all the more so if the liberalism at hand is laced with elitism and racism, as it often is. The problem, then, is not only that liberals have been apathetic in resisting the Christian Right, but also that they often cooperate with and benefit from US corporate and military power.

Second, Hedges would do well to clarify what legitimate place there might be for religious believers to formulate and advocate public policies. Hedges allows religious believers precious little public role except for circumspect modesty in public about God's inscrutability and the vigorous public resistance he calls for against the intolerant Christian Right. ‘Democracy keeps religious faith in the private sphere’, Hedges writes, ‘ensuring that all believers have an equal measure of protection and practice mutual tolerance’ (p. 196). But does practising mutual tolerance entail consigning faith to ‘the private sphere’? I think not. Scholars such as ethicist Jeffrey Stout (Democracy and Tradition, 2004) and sociologist José Casanova (Public Religions in the Modern World, 1994) stress that believers can advocate religiously based policies while displaying tolerance and deliberative reasoning in public life. Arguably, Hedges' own prophetic critique of intolerance is an example of a liberal faith working outside a private sphere.

Whether Hedges would agree or not with these suggested modifications, his book remains a must-read for those seeking to understand the crisis of religion and politics in the USA today.