Matthew Avery Sutton explores Christian fundamentalist opposition to the Affordable Care Act, climate change, and Federal versus State governance in his newest book, American Apocalypse. The Bible doesn’t directly address States rights, or healthcare models, but fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity has had a large presence on these issues.
Sutton’s curiosity resulted in a 480 page book exploring the mindset of a faith focused on the Apocalypse, and how that lens can affect views on climate science and even the allocation of healthcare resources.
Sutton also rejects the idea that fundamentalism went dormant after the 1925 Scopes trial on evolution, and reemerged in the 1950s before transforming into the religious right of the 1980s.
From the interview:
That’s incorrect. They never gave up. They never withdrew or disengaged from culture. In the 1930s, for example, most of these fundamentalists were very critical of the New Deal. For Americans who were actively looking for signs of the coming Antichrist in the context of the 1930s, in the context of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, Roosevelt had all the markings of someone setting the stage for the end times. He was concolidating power. Government was growing.
The entire interview is available at Religion Dispatches, where you can find links to purchase the book from Powell’s, Indie Bound, and Amazon.