Magic City Books is delighted to welcome Scott Latta for a free in-store event on Wednesday, November 12 to celebrate his new book, Gods of the Smoke Machine: Power, Pain, and the Rise of Christian Nationalism in the Megachurch. This event will take place at Magic City Books, 221 E. Archer Street in the Tulsa Arts District.
Gods of the Smoke Machine releases on October 28, 2025, and you can purchase a copy through Magic City Books.
About Gods of the Smoke Machine
We are entering a new era of religion in America: For the first time, fewer than half the country belongs to a church.
But within that group, growing numbers are consolidating in megachurches, which are amassing social and political power in our age of convenience and easy celebrity.
Megachurch pastors have never been more influential—with media empires, networks, and entire colleges under their control. But their churches have also never been more prone to abuse and hurt. Gods of the Smoke Machine goes inside America’s largest churches to uncover the hidden stories of trauma happening within our most powerful Christian institutions and meet the survivors, attorneys, and advocates fighting for accountability. It is a cloaked world of sex, power, politics, and money, but also a human story of pain, betrayal, and resilience.
Combining personal storytelling and original reporting, author Scott Latta pulls back the curtain on a dangerously insular institution of more than seventeen hundred churches nationwide that is answerable to almost no outside accountability.
Even those who have never set foot in a church can feel the implications of this societal shift. Megachurch pastors were the kingmakers of Donald Trump and drove the rhetoric behind the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. For decades, they have crafted their own laws even as they fought to influence ours.
About the Author
Scott Latta is an award-winning journalist who has spent a decade reporting for humanitarian organizations on conflict, displacement, and climate change around the world. His writing has been featured in the Believer, CityLab, Modern Farmer, The Awl, and The Southampton Review, which awarded him the 2016 Frank McCourt Memoir Prize. He lives in Oregon.
About the Moderator
Tim Landes is an award-winning journalist and photographer, who has two decades of experience in local media. He is the Food, Arts and Culture Editor for Tulsa Flyer, and previously covered all aspects of Tulsa as an editor for TulsaPeople Magazine. He has also contributed nationally to National Geographic and 60 Minutes. He is a proud Cherokee Nation citizen raised in Claremore and worked for his tribe for a decade in media relations. He currently serves as Vice Chair of the Editorial Board for the Cherokee Phoenix and also serves on the board for the Tulsa Press Club. In his free time he can be found at local concerts, a movie theater or a bookstore.
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