This is the back cover blurb of my book, An American Theocracy Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Anselm Davis grew up in Religious Right fundamentalism and spent over forty years of his life active in the movement.  His parents were missionaries; his father was a well known minister in a large, extremely conservative denomination.  He was deeply immersed in the culture and understands the goals, the methods and the overall ideology associated with this group.  He attended a religious college and served as an alcohol/drug ministry leader for a large Bible church in Austin, Texas.  For some time, he was as rabid a supporter of this fundamentalist belief system as existed.   He spent time stationed near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border where he saw the effects of theocracy on ordinary people and served in Vietnam where he saw the horrors of war.   When his view of God changed due to his exposure to Twelve Step programs, he started to have serious doubts about the beliefs, and particularly the methods, being employed by the Religious Right.  In 1994 he was recruited out of a Southern Baptist church to be a Republican delegate at the Harris County Senatorial Convention in Houston, Texas (the year the Religious Right seized total control of the party).  The intolerance, hypocrisy and manipulation he saw displayed there led to his leaving the movement shortly after that experience.     He began doing research into how to counter what he saw as a growing menace to democracy. This book is a result of that research and his personal experiences.     

I Wrote an ongoing column for Houston's Other newspaper.
I Write a column for the Houston Chronicle's online edition called Pearland Progressive
I Write a weekly column for the Alvin Sun called View From the Left