John Shelby Spong, retired Bishop, Diocese of Newark, New Jersey and the national best-selling author of Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, and 14 other titles:

If knowledge is power, as I believe it is, then the knowledge presented in this book will go a long way toward helping the United States retain the freedom of being a society, which though secular, can allow and even encourage a mature spirituality to develop.  That is no small achievement."

Richard Dawkins, Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, author of Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder, The Selfish Gene, and other books:

"I have just read this brilliant book from start to finish, almost without a break, and I am stunned and horrified by what I have learned. The fundamentalist Christian Right is America’s Taliban. With the exception of the burqa (and even that, one feels, is missing only because St Paul forgot to mention it) all the ingredients are there: slavish adherence to a misunderstood old text; hatred of women, modernity, rival religions, science and pleasure; love of punishment, bullying, narrow-minded, bossy interference in every aspect of life. The Religious Right represents organized ignorance, organized bigotry, organized nastiness – and these people are on their way to taking over the Republican Party. Not least, the book persuaded me how muddled the fundamentalists are. They think they are patriots, yet they fight the letter of the Constitution and the spirit of the Founding Fathers every step of the way. The Religious Right is, in the deepest and truest sense of the word, un-American."

“In fact, this is the most careful and devastating evaluation of the impact of fundamentalism on American society, politics and customs ever produced in the United States. . . .

I have seldom if ever reviewed a book so cogent, factually accurate and enlightening as this one. It opened a new vista of knowledge and insight that will make a significant contribution to American parents, educators and thoughtful religious and humanist leaders.”

Note: This endorsement can be read in its entirety in the Foreword to The Fundamentals of Extremism.

“As Kimberly Blaker and her colleagues illustrate in this powerful exposé of the aims, purposes and programs of the Religious Right, the real threat comes from within. And if ever the caution uttered by President James Madison is to be heeded it is now. He stated, 'I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.'  In page after page of carefully researched and well-documented evidence Blaker shows how those who would have the United States recognized as ‘a Christian nation’ and ‘under God’ are ready to disregard ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’ and impose their religious beliefs on others.

In other words, this book is a "must read" volume. It cautions against the tendency to dismiss as minor the efforts to take over local school boards by the Religious Right so as to control of curriculum and indoctrinate future voters. It alerts readers to the importance of actions by powerful governmental appointees (such as the Attorney General) who bring their personal theology into the official decisions and actions. The Fundamentals of Extremism constitutes a call to action by citizens whose theology and vision of America recognizes our right to be free from the efforts of zealots to limit our cherished freedoms."