Katherine Stewart (journalist)

Katherine Stewart is an American journalist and author who often writes about issues related to the separation of church and state, the rise of religious nationalism, and global movements against liberal democracy. Her books include The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (2012) and The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (2020), which also served as the basis for the documentary film God & Country (2024).

Katherine Stewart
Stewart in 2013
Occupation	Nonfiction author, Op-Ed writer, novelist
Language	English
Citizenship	United States
Subject	Separation of church and state
Notable works	The Good News Club (2012); The Power Worshippers (2020)
Spouse	Matthew Stewart
Website
katherinestewart.me
Literature portal

Career

As a writer and speaker, Stewart has shown interest in controversies over religious freedom and the separation of church and state.^[1] She has also written about public and science education,^[2][3] public funding of faith-based initiatives, anti-LGBT initiatives on the state level,^[4] faith-based political organizing,^[5] the U.S. Supreme Court,^[6][7] homeschooling,^[8][9] and bullying in schools in the U.S.^[10]

Stewart began her journalism career working for investigative reporter Wayne Barrett at The Village Voice.^[11] Since 2011, she has been an op-ed contributor to The New York Times, writing more than 20 columns.^[12] In a March 2020 op-ed, she linked the slow federal response to the country's coronavirus outbreak to President Trump's connections to the far right and anti-science conservatives.^[13]

Stewart has contributed pieces to The Guardian,^[14] and has written for The American Prospect,^[15] George Washington University's History News Network,^[16] The Nation,^[17] Reuters,^[14] The Atlantic,^[18] The New Republic,^[19]The Daily Beast,^[20] Newsweek, Rolling Stone, The New York Observer,^[21] Santa Barbara Magazine,^[22][23] The New York Review of Books,^[24] and Religion Dispatches.^[25]

In 2012, after seeing that group's involvement in her children's public school, Stewart wrote The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children. Kirkus described it as "[c]ompelling investigative journalism about an undercovered phenomenon."^[26] Alexander Heffner of the Minnesota Star Tribune wrote that the book "exposes the violation of church and state in schools", calling it "an important work" and "a fascinating exposé", and Stewart "a great digger for facts" and "a respectful narrator."^[27]

In March 2020, Stewart published The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, which outlines the decentralized Christian nationalist movement in the U.S. and its grabs for power, linking it to historical movements against abolition, the New Deal, and civil rights.^[3] It was reviewed in Foreign Affairs and was excerpted in the New York Review of Books and partially adapted in The New Republic.^[28][1][29] The Washington Post called it "required reading for anyone who wants to map the continuing erosion of our already fragile wall between church and state".^[30] David Austin Walsh in The Baffler wrote that Stewart neglected key right-wing evangelical figures such as Gerald L.K. Smith but that their "absence...is not a fatal omission."^[31] She was interviewed on The Brian Lehrer Show,^[32] The Majority Report, and for Salon and Sojourners.^[3][33][34] Power Worshippers also served as the basis for God & Country (2024), a documentary film directed by Dan Partland and produced by Rob Reiner.^[35]

Personal life

Stewart was raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she attended the Runkle School and Brookline High School.^[36] She is Jewish and her husband was raised Roman Catholic; they have a daughter.^[37][38]

Books

Nonfiction

• Stewart, Katherine (March 2020). The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (1st ed.). New York, NY: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781635573459. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
• — (2012). The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-843-7. Retrieved April 28, 2020.

Fiction

• Stewart, Katherine (2006). Class Mothers. Penguin–Berkley. ISBN 9781101220542. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
• — (2005). The Yoga Mamas. New York: Penguin–Berkley. ISBN 9780425202630.

Awards

• 2014 Americans United Person of the Year.^[39]
• 2020 Morris D. and Selma V. Forkosch Award from the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry, for The Power Worshippers.^[40]
• 2021 First Place for Excellence in Nonfiction Books from the Religion News Association, for The Power Worshippers.^[41]

See also

• Child evangelism movement

References

1. See Stewart, Katherine (March 2, 2020). "Faith Militant". The New Republic. Retrieved March 27, 2020., including the editor's description of the author, under the article, which states "Katherine Stewart writes about controversies over religious freedom and church-state separation, politics, policy, and education."
2. Stewart (December 13, 2016). "Opinion: Betsy DeVos and God's Plan for Schools".
3. Camacho, Daniel José (March 3, 2020). "THE LONG-TERM VISION OF THE CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST MOVEMENT". Sojourners.
4. "Katherine Stewart". The Nation.
5. Stewart, Katherine (January 10, 2022). "The Shock Troops of the Next Big Lie". The New Republic. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
6. Stewart, Katherine (May 10, 2022). "How Christian Nationalism Perverted the Judicial System and Gutted Our Rights". The New Republic. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
7. Stewart, Katherine (July 5, 2022). "Opinion | Christian Nationalists Are Excited About What Comes Next". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
8. "The dark side of home schooling: America's Christian right tried to train up 'culture warriors' | Katherine Stewart". the Guardian. May 8, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
9. Stewart, Katherine (July 20, 2020). "Coronavirus home schooling highlights the religious right's education system influence". NBC News. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
10. Stewart (November 7, 2016). "Donald Trump Has Unleashed a New Wave of Bullying in Schools". The Nation.
11. Shimron, Yonat (March 6, 2020). "Katherine Stewart on Christian nationalism's push to undermine democratic norms". Religious News Service. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
12. Stewart, Katherine. "The New York Times Archives". Katherine Stewart. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
13. Stewart, Katherine (March 27, 2020). "The Religious Right's Hostility to Science Is Crippling Our Coronavirus Response". The New York Times. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
14. "Katherine Stewart | The Guardian". the Guardian.
15. "Katherine Stewart". The American Prospect.
16. Stewart. "A Founder of American Religious Nationalism". Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, George Washington University.
17. "Katherine Stewart". The Nation. January 14, 2015. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
18. Stewart, Katherine. "Katherine Stewart". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
19. "Katherine Stewart". The New Republic. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
20. "Katherine Stewart". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
21. Stewart (May 2, 2005). "Mommy Mimics: So Having a Baby Wasn't Just My Idea?". The New York Observer.
22. Stewart (Summer 2015). "Beautiful Minds: Santa Barbara Is Where Fantasies Come to Life and Creative Icons Come to Live". Santa Barbara Magazine. pp. 168–71.
23. Stewart (Spring 2015). "California Gold: Our Local Waters Are Home to the World's Most Sought After Sea Urchin". Santa Barbara Magazine. pp. 126–28, 162.
24. "Katherine Stewart". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
25. Stewart (March 2, 2020). "HOW A POWERFUL 'EX-GAY' PASTOR IS CHASING THE LATINO VOTE". Religion Dispatches.
26. "Book Review—The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children". KirkusReviews.com. December 19, 2011. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
27. Heffner, Alexander (January 24, 2012). "Nonfiction Review: Book exposes the violation of church and state in schools". Minnesota Star Tribune. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
28. "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism". April 14, 2020. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
29. "The Real Meaning of Religious Liberty: A License to Discriminate≈". The New York Review of Books. February 28, 2020.
30. Stewart (March 20, 2020). "Why Christian Nationalists Think Trump Is Heaven-Sent". The Washington Post.
31. "Onward, Christian Soldiers | David Austin Walsh". The Baffler. February 28, 2020. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
32. "The Religious Right's Rise to Power". WNYC. March 4, 2020.
33. "The Power Worshippers & the Rise of Religious Nationalism w/ Katherine Stewart". The Majority Report. April 13, 2020.
34. Marcotte, Amanda (March 3, 2020). "Trump's Christian right worships power more than they worship God". Salon.
35. Boorstein, Michelle (January 12, 2024). "'God & Country' film spotlights Christian nationalism's threat to democracy". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved February 21, 2024.
36. Stewart, Katherine; Stewart, Matthew (June 9, 2016). "Guest commentary: Why Are Brookline schools being 'turned around'?". wickedlocal.com. Katherine Stewart is a journalist and the author of The Good News Club (Public Affairs, 2012) among other works. She has written for The Nation, the Guardian, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Matthew Stewart is the author of Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic (Norton, 2014) and The Management Myth: Debunking the Modern Philosophy of Business (Norton, 2009), among other works. Katherine and Matthew are parents at The Runkle School, and Katherine is a graduate of Runkle and of Brookline High School.
37. Shimron, Yonat (March 6, 2020). "Katherine Stewart on Christian nationalism's push to undermine democratic norms". Religion News Service. Stewart, who is Jewish and whose husband was raised Catholic, said she first became aware of Christian nationalism when her daughter's public school in Santa Barbara, California, hosted a Good News Club, which encouraged elementary-grade children to try to convert peers to their evangelical faith.
38. Stewart, Matthew; Stewart, Katherine (March 7, 2017). "Neil Gorsuch's Gay "Friends" Won't Save Us on the Supreme Court". The Advocate. KATHERINE STEWART's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. She is the author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (PublicAffairs). Matthew Stewart's latest book, Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic (Norton), was long-listed for a National Book Award. He received his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University.
39. AU Staff (December 2014). "Investigative Journalist Named AU's 'Person Of The Year' at Meeting". AU.org. Retrieved March 27, 2020.
40. Fidalgo, Paul (April 13, 2021). "Katherine Stewart Wins Forkosch Award For Best Humanist Book; Judith Wells Wins For Best Article". Center for Inquiry. from the original on April 13, 2021. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
41. "Religion News Association names winners of 2021 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence". Religion News Association. October 7, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2022.

Further reading

• Brown, Emma (March 12, 2016). "These Christian teachers want to bring Jesus into public schools". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 27, 2020. Quotes Stewart, based on her authorship of The Good News Club.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Katherine Stewart (journalist).

• Official website
• The Good News Club website