Terahertz

Only three more days till Marci McDonald’s well-anticipated (at least by me and at least a few others) book, The Armageddon Factor.

From Radom House Publishers:

The Armageddon Factor
The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada
Written by Marci McDonald

About this Book

An urgent wake-up call for all Canadians who think that this country is immune from the righteous brand of Christian nationalism that has bitterly divided and weakened the United States.
In her new book, Marci McDonald documents the startling extent of the influence that the religious right already wields in Canada and shows how, quietly, often stealthily, it has provoked far-reaching changes in Canadian policies and institutions, including our public service, our schools and our courts.
In four short years, galvanized by their failure to stop same-sex marriage, not only have conservative Christians developed a permanent infrastructure in Ottawa, designed to outlast whatever party is in power, but they have done so by borrowing the rowdy style of the American religious right to which most of their leaders boast close ties. Their rise has been tied to the election of Stephen Harper and it is no secret that evangelicals have already re-shaped Harper’s foreign policy in the Middle East, guided by what McDonald terms the Armageddon Factor. But few Canadians are aware that a militant band of conservative Christians with a direct pipeline to Harper’s cabinet is also attempting to reshape the country’s social, cultural and even scientific policies, driven by a belief that Canada has a biblically ordained role to play in the final days before Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.

About this Author

MARCI McDONALD is one of Canada’s most respected journalists. The winner of eight gold National Magazine Awards, she is also the recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists’ investigative feature award. A former bureau chief for Maclean’s in Paris and Washington, she has interviewed Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton, and spent five more years in the United States as a senior writer for US News & World Report. A winner of the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, her study of the backstage machinations behind the free trade deal led to her book, Yankee Doodle Dandy: Brian Mulroney and the America Agenda. Her controversial cover story in the Walrus, "Stephen Harper and the TheoCons,” [link added] inspired this book.

Along with this book, I heard from a friend that Ms. McDonald will be appearing in Calgary on May 18 for the Council of Canadians: Calgary Chapter along with Donald Gutstein, author of Not a Conspiracy Theory. Hopefully we can get them out to Vancouver in the near future.