In the story,
United States of America is under
fundamentalist rule by church. It's vaguely
Christian in origin (high ranking guards are
angels of whatever, children are given very
biblical names and compulsive
Bible-reading is common in schools. Although, the
inconvenient parts of Bible are conveniently explained off; for example, that
psalm about
breasts,
thighs and
love is explained to be about anything but what it sounds like), but ruled with hard control by
Prophet.
The cult/government employs mind control heavily, and not even so secretly; officers, even those of high rank, are taught as one subject in school the methods of mind control and mass manipulation. And, of course, there's quite Big Brother'ish organization keeping an eye on too freethinking individuals.
The description made me think about the Catholic church according to Jack Chick, and the same idea of hyper-control yet corrupted system continues; even though sex out of marriage is forbidden, along with any inpure thoughts that might lead to thinking about it, behind the scenes it's not uncommon to, mmm, twist the rules. And unsurprisingly, the Prophet himself has a steady supply of virgins and not-so-virgins ready to make His Holiness' stay on earth as comfortable as possible.
Despite all these measures, it seems to be ridiculously easy to escape and break the system; the main character, young officer working in the guard of capital city, a citadel where Prophet lives, falls in love, decides he wants to get away with her, hooks up with underground organization and in few hundred pages the entire 100-year fundamentalist state collapses as a result of simple hologram display sabotage.
One thing I found rather amusing, although only later when I realized where I had heard the name Robert Heinlein before, was how this cult sounds vaguely like what Scientology is claimed by some to be. Mind control, corruption, all sorts of abuse, supreme leader, you name it. I wonder if L. Ron Hubbard designed his cult after Heinlein's book, or maybe the other way around?