LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) – More than anything, Robert Minor views his new book as cultural commentary. But he hopes it serves another role.

“It’s sort of like an intervention,” he says.

The Kansas University (KU) professor’s eighth book, When Religion is an Addiction, may become his most controversial. He suggests that some members of the religious right have become so addicted to their church activities that they have to continue advancing their causes to get new “highs.”

“It’s like any addiction,” he says. “At some point, it doesn’t do the trick for you, so you need to strengthen it. Religion wasn’t enough for them, so they entered politics to get a stronger affirmation of righteousness.”

Before any liberals think they’re off the hook, Minor has a message for them: “I’m not really writing it to convince people they’re addicted to religion. It’s more written for people who are liberals, who are enablers.”

Minor is expecting to rile people on all sides of the political spectrum.

Minor has been a professor of religious studies at KU since 1977. His areas of study and teaching include religions of south Asia, sexuality and religion and gender.

His previous books include Scared Straight and Gay and Healthy in a Sick Society.

He says he’s been thinking about the concept of religious addiction for years, and he admits it’s not a new concept. Religious scholars and authors such as John Bradshaw and Leo Booth have written about it before.

But Minor hopes to cast it in terms of the rise of the religious right in the past 20 to 30 years.

He says the high of advancing beliefs through political activism has replaced the highs of church activity.

“Like the family drunk,” he writes in the book’s introduction, “they are high on a bender, and their current drink is political.”

The addiction can manifest itself in other ways, Minor says, including “winning a political battle, doing political work, feeling like you’re doing the work of the Lord ... more Bible readings, more studies, more testimonials.”

He gives the example of same-sex unions and marriage as an issue. Passing the federal Marriage Protection Act wasn’t enough, he says. Conservatives then decided to work for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, or work so gays can’t adopt children.

“The fix never lasts, so you need another issue,” he said.

Minor doesn’t profess to be a psychologist, so he doesn’t know the exact cause of the religious addiction. But he thinks it is connected to low self-esteem issues, because some fundamental Christians believe they “deserve eternal child abuse from a heavenly father,” and that “you can only be OK if somebody else (God) likes you,” he says.

And, he says, the media has helped further the right-wing cause. He notes a study by the watchdog group Media Matters of America that said right-wing religious leaders were interviewed, quoted or mentioned 3.8 times as often as other religious issues.

Minor blames liberals for enabling conservatives in their religious and political changes through the years.

Though the concept of religious addiction has been around for decades, it’s “safe to say that field is still in its infancy” in terms of scientific and clinical research, says Steve Ilardi, a KU associate professor of psychology.

Ilardi says chemical or substance addictions tend to activate the same reward pathways of the brain that “process addictions” – such as gambling or binge eating – also activate.

But, Ilardi says, there is “enormous controversy in the literature right now” when it comes to determining what qualifies as a process addiction, which is the area where Minor’s idea of religious addiction would fit.

The big factor clinically speaking, Ilardi says, is whether there’s harm in religious involvement.

“’Religious addiction’ – what does that mean?” he asks. “Does it mean a person who spends hours a week in religious practice at church or at meetings, who reads the Bible daily or prays daily, and it’s somewhat rewarding to them? Are they addicted? From a clinical perspective, I would say no, unless it’s something that’s clearly harmful.”

That would include neglecting other relationships, work or other life responsibilities, Ilardi says.

“Is it impairing a person’s functioning?” Ilardi asks. “That’s the question I would want to see addressed before I’d consider labeling something a religious addiction.”

Shaun LePage, pastor at Community Bible Church, 906 N. 1464 Road, is among those questioning Minor’s logic.

“The book is just another in our psychobabble-hungry culture to declare something an ‘addiction,”” LePage says. “If it was sarcasm or parody, it might be funny. But I think Dr. Minor is completely serious.”

Bill Bump, pastor at Lawrence Free Methodist Church, 3001 Lawrence Ave., says he doesn’t consider himself part of the “Christian right.” But, after reading the online version of Minor’s book, he says he feels uncomfortable with the broad generalizations Minor makes.

“I think he’s writing from his perspective, which is fine,” Bump says. “But it’s not a book I would read or recommend. I think he paints people with too broad a stroke, talking about their personality. I can’t say everybody has the same psychology, whether they’re Democrats, Republicans, liberal or conservative.”