PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz., April 3, 2007 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The evangelical political movement has peaked and its dogmas are proving unworkable public policy. In The Devil's Own Politics, author Joel W. Harnett denounces radical evangelical leaders, those "shaman politicians" who, by exploiting religion for political advantage, shatter the principles of separation of Church and State that underlie our democracy.

In painstaking and lucid prose, Harnett describes the "dumbing down" of America, where scientific truth, evolution, and modern advances of knowledge are shunted aside in the service of sectarian dogma. In The Devil's Own Politics he brings new phrases such as "God-spin" and "crotch politics" into our language and exposes the evangelical political movement for the arrogant and destructive element it has become in American society. The author does not attack religious beliefs, only those people who manipulate them for power and political gain. Harnett names and identifies these "self-serving shaman politicians," their affiliations and interconnections.

The Devil's Own Politics, an in-depth political study of the period 2004-2006, points out that religion has been injected into such socially-charged issues as stem cell research, abortion, evolution and homosexuality in an attempt to sway votes and hijack the political system. Moreover, by scoffing at facts that contradict its outrageous moral claims, the Evangelical Right not only is "dumbing down" America, but because of its resistance to science, is effectively causing an economic drag on the country.

The Devil's Own Politics is now available at local book retailers and online at Xlibris.com.

About the Author

Joel Harnett, who died just after completing this book, was born and raised in New York. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Richmond, Virginia and a retired major in the U.S. Army Reserve, he also lived in Texas and from 1989-2006 in Arizona. In New York he was with Look magazine for almost twenty years before leaving to found Media Horizons, a publishing and broadcasting company. Harnett was active in the non-partisan City Club of New York, the nation's oldest civic watchdog organization. After seven years as chairman, he ran for mayor of New York in 1977 and, by suing the Securities and Exchange Commission, successfully disclosed the city's fiscal problems. With his wife Lila, Harnett created and built Phoenix Home and Garden, Arizona's most prestigious magazine. Chairman emeritus of the Valley Citizens League, a non-partisan civic organization in Phoenix, Harnett was a lifelong poet and noted art collector. His 2005 book of poetry, New Day Rising, published by the Heard Museum, deals with the exploitation of Indians, wars, religion, and the beauty of the country.

               The Devil's Own Politics * by Joel W. Harnett
    The Explosive Political Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Movement
                     Publication Date: 3/09/2007
          Trade Paperback; $19.99; 293 pages; 978-1-4257-2833-5
          Cloth Hardback; $28.99; 293 pages; 978-1-4257-2834-2

To request a complimentary paperback review copy, contact the publisher at (888) 795-4274 x. 7836. Tearsheets may be sent by regular or electronic mail to Marketing Services. To purchase copies of the book for resale, please fax Xlibris at (610) 915-0294 or call (888) 795-4274 x.7876.

Xlibris books can be purchased at Xlibris bookstore. For more information, contact Xlibris at (888) 795-4274 or on the web at www.Xlibris.com.

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