God's Own Country: Tales from the Bible Belt, By Stephen Bates

Gordon Brown has followed his predecessor's example in one important regard. Asked about his own faith background – Brown is a son of the manse – and the impact it has on him, he was careful to draw a clear line between the personal and political. Tony Blair used to do exactly the same, although in his dying days in office, freed of the influence of Alastair "We Don't Do God" Campbell, he did stray into using the G-word.

The distinction, when it comes to faith, is nonsense. If you hold a religious conviction sincerely, its wide-ranging moral implications cannot but affect how you operate in every aspect of your life, domestic or professional. Past and present incumbents of No 10 were making a false distinction, no doubt for good reasons – the fear of seeming to exclude those of other faiths and none.

George W Bush, by contrast, doesn't worry about treading on toes. He's happy to bang on about the Lord and how He saved him from alcoholism. The link between Bush's fairly hard-core Christianity and the political process in the US is the subject of Stephen Bates's travelogue on Bible Belt America. The Bushes come from Texas, and so represent the coming wave in American politics, Bates concludes. Demographics have a role here – the Southern states are where the population is growing – as does playing to the gallery. Away from the liberal communities of the East and West coasts, the vast middle of America is ever more Christian-fundamentalist in its outlook.

This isn't, Bates observes as he travels from religious convention to revivalist prayer meeting, simply a knee-jerk reaction to 11 September. It is rooted deep in the American soul. Religion was there in the founding principles of the Pilgrim Fathers, not men known for a progressive or broad religious outlook.

Bush fils – a Methodist now, though his parents remain more middle-of-the-road Episcopalians – is an odd mixture of sincerity and showmanship. It is clear, as Bates demonstrates, that he is profoundly influenced by his faith. Yet eager as he is to court the well-organised though diverse Religious Right in American politics, he has failed to deliver many of its key objectives. There is, for example, no ban on abortion.

With a Presidential election coming up involving one potential candidate, Hillary Clinton, routinely labelled a witch by many Christian fundamentalists, Bates's observations provide a fascinating, sometimes disturbing, backdrop to the good fight ahead.

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