Katherine Stewart: “Inside the Movement To Destroy Our Democracy.”

Program: At 2:00 pm Pacific, we’ll play the 90 minute documentary, God & Country, based on Katherine Stewart’s book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, followed by a short discussion and a stretch break.

Then, at approximately 3:30 pm Pacific, Katherine Stewart will join us at Live Oak in person to share her thoughts about the documentary and her current perspective as expressed in her new book, Money Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.

Here is the New York Times review of Money Lies and God: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/books/review/money-lies-and-god-katherine-stewart.html

This event is co-sponsored by the Humanist Society of Santa Barbara and the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Goleta, CA. Ms. Stewart’s books will be available for purchase on site, courtesy of Tecolote Book Shop.

This event will also be live streamed on Zoom at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88193881833

There is no cost to attend; donations gratefully accepted.

Speaker: Katherine Stewart has been covering religious nationalism and the assault on American democracy for over 15 years. Stewart writes for The New York Times opinion, New Republic, and many others, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR.

Her previous book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, was awarded first place for Excellence in Nonfiction Books by the Religion News Association as well as a Morris D. Forkosch award. In 2020 The Power Worshippers was acquired by producers Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner, who subsequently based their documentary feature film, God & Country, on the book.

Before that, her book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children covered the religious right’s efforts to infiltrate and undermine public education. This book was inspired by Stewart’s experience as a Montecito Mom with school-aged children enrolled in our local schools.

Co-Sponsor, The Humanist Society of Santa Barbara, is an all-volunteer non-profit educational organization (501.c.3) that promotes the values of Humanism on the Central Coast of California. Humanists care about having this one precious life be the best that it can be for all people on the planet, and about preserving the Earth for future generations.

Most humanists are secular, many are atheists (having either been raised as atheists or having “thought their way out” of their religious upbringing). Humanists stand in wonder at the magnificence and complexity of the universe, and are generally curious and interested in how things work, how things came to be the way they are, and how to impact where we are headed for the benefit of all humanity.

Humanists value reason and the scientific method as the most reliable method of discovering what is true. We value our 1st amendment rights, particularly freedom of speech and the separation of religion from government.

HSSB Website: [www.SBHumanists.org](http://www.sbhumanists.org/)