Join us this Sunday at 5 PM Eastern/2 PM Pacific for the Firedoglake Book Salon discussion of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War. Author Dan Gilgoff is a senior editor at US News and World Report, where he writes often about the intersection of religion and politics.

Dobson is probably the most powerful evangelical leader of the last 20 years, and also the most protective of his image and reputation. He doesn’t do the political talk show circuit and very rarely gives interviews to reporters, yet he commands the attention of millions on the religious right through his Focus on the Family empire and has enormous back-stage influence when compared with more visible political figures. If you polled GOP candidates and told them they could have just one endorsement from an evangelical leader, Dobson would be the unanimous choice.

In The Jesus Machine, Gilgoff describes Dobson and the evangelical political machine of the Theocratic Right. Gilgoff brings his knowledge of politics, his background in religion, and his strong journalistic skills to the task, and opens up for all to see the world of the religious right and the political machine they have built.

Whatever you do next Sunday morning, make some time on Sunday afternoon to join Dan Gilgoff here at FDL to discuss his important take on James Dobson and the political machinery of the religious right.