# If This Goes On— Robert A. Heinlein's 1940 science-fiction novella (first serialized in *Astounding Science-Fiction*; later collected in *Revolt in 2100*) set in a future United States that has become a theocratic dictatorship. The country is ruled by "the Prophet," whose dynasty traces to **Nehemiah Scudder** — a backwoods televangelist-style preacher who is elected and then never relinquishes power, fusing church and state into a surveillance theocracy that a clandestine resistance ultimately moves to overthrow. ## KB significance The book is an early and durable American imagining of [[Christian Nationalism]] and [[Dominionism]] taken to their authoritarian endpoint: a charismatic religious demagogue converting electoral victory into permanent theocratic rule. "Nehemiah Scudder" has become a shorthand reference among writers warning about a religious-authoritarian turn in U.S. politics, which is why the novella recurs in commentary the KB tracks on theocracy and the religious right. Heinlein himself noted the scenario worried him precisely because it required no foreign invasion — only domestic credulity and the ballot box. ## See Also - [[Christian Nationalism]] - [[Dominionism]] - [[Theocracy]]