Tyranny of the Christian Right

[Guest guest]

Tyranny of the Christian Right

 

By Michelle Goldberg, AlterNet

 

Posted on May 30, 2006, Printed on May 30, 2006

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/36640/

 

Whenever I talk about the growing power of the

evangelical right with friends, they always ask the

same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a

joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current.

I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine.

It's one thing to have a government that shows

contempt for civil liberties; America has survived

such men before. It's quite another to have a mass

movement -- the largest and most powerful mass

movement in the nation -- rise up in opposition to the

rights of its fellow citizens. The Constitution

protects minorities, but that protection is not

absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic

majority, a tightly organized faction can get around

it.

The mass movement I've described aims to supplant

Enlightenment rationalism with what it calls the

" Christian worldview. " The phrase is based on the

conviction that true Christianity must govern every

aspect of public and private life, and that all --

government, science, history and culture -- must be

understood according to the dictates of scripture.

There are biblically correct positions on every issue,

from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those

with the right worldview can discern them. This is

Christianity as a total ideology -- I call it

Christian nationalism. It's an ideology adhered to by

millions of Americans, some of whom are very powerful.

It's what drives a great many of the fights over

religion, science, sex and pluralism now dividing

communities all over the country.

I am not suggesting that religious tyranny is imminent

in the United States. Our democracy is eroding and

some of our rights are disappearing, but for most

people, including those most opposed to the Christian

nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty

much as normal for the foreseeable future. Thus for

those who value secular society, apprehending the

threat of Christian nationalism is tricky. It's like

being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating up so

slowly that you don't notice the moment at which it

starts to kill you.

If current trends continue, we will see

ever-increasing division and acrimony in our politics.

That's partly because, as Christian nationalism

spreads, secularism is spreading as well, while

moderate Christianity is in decline. According to the

City University of New York Graduate Center's

comprehensive American religious identification

survey, the percentage of Americans who identify as

Christians has actually fallen in recent years, from

86 percent in 1990 to 77 percent in 2001. The survey

found that the largest growth, in both absolute and

percentage terms, was among those who don't

to any religion. Their numbers more than doubled, from

14.3 million in 1990, when they constituted 8 percent

of the population, to 29.4 million in 2001, when they

made up 14 percent.

" The top three 'gainers' in America's vast religious

marketplace appear to be Evangelical Christians, those

describing themselves as Non-Denominational Christians

and those who profess no religion, " the survey found.

(The percentage of other religious minorities remained

small, totaling less than 4 percent of the

population).

This is a recipe for polarization. As Christian

nationalism becomes more militant, secularists and

religious minorities will mobilize in opposition,

ratcheting up the hostility. Thus we're likely to see

a shrinking middle ground, with both camps

increasingly viewing each other across a chasm of

mutual incomprehension and contempt.

In the coming years, we will probably see the

curtailment of the civil rights that gay people, women

and religious minorities have won in the last few

decades. With two Bush appointees on the Supreme

Court, abortion rights will be narrowed; if the

president gets a third, it could mean the end of Roe

v. Wade. Expect increasing drives to ban gay people

from being adoptive or foster parents, as well as

attempts to fire gay schoolteachers. Evangelical

leaders are encouraging their flocks to be alert to

signs of homosexuality in their kids, which will lead

to a growing number of gay teenagers forced into

" reparative therapy " designed to turn them straight.

(Focus on the Family urges parents to consider seeking

help for boys as young as five if they show a

" tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike

the roughhousing that other boys enjoy. " )

Christian nationalist symbolism and ideology will

increasingly pervade public life. In addition to the

war on evolution, there will be campaigns to teach

Christian nationalist history in public schools. An

elective course developed by the National Council on

Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a right-wing

evangelical group, is already being offered by more

than 300 school districts in 36 states. The influence

of Christian nationalism in public schools, colleges,

courts, social services and doctors' offices will

deform American life, rendering it ever more pinched,

mean, and divided.

There's still a long way, though, between this damaged

version of democracy and real theocracy. Tremendous

crises would have to shred what's left of the American

consensus before religious fascism becomes a

possibility. That means that secularists and liberals

shouldn't get hysterical, but they also shouldn't be

complacent.

Christian nationalism is still constrained by the

Constitution, the courts, and by a passionate

democratic (and occasionally Democratic) opposition.

It's also limited by capitalism. Many corporations are

happy to see their political allies harness the rage

and passion of the Christian right's foot soldiers,

but the culture industry is averse to government

censorship. Nor is homophobia good for business, since

many companies need to both recruit qualified gay

employees and market to gay customers. Biotech firms

are not going to want to hire graduates without a

thorough understanding of evolution, so economic

pressure will militate against creationism's invading

a critical mass of the public schools.

Taking the land

It would take a national disaster, or several of them,

for all these bulwarks to crumble and for Christian

nationalists to truly " take the land, " as Michael

Farris, president of the evangelical Patrick Henry

College, put it. Historically, totalitarian movements

have been able to seize state power only when existing

authorities prove unable to deal with catastrophic

challenges -- economic meltdown, security failures,

military defeat -- and people lose their faith in the

legitimacy of the system.

Such calamities are certainly conceivable in America

-- Hurricane Katrina's aftermath offered a terrifying

glimpse of how quickly order can collapse. If

terrorists successfully strike again, we'd probably

see significant curtailment of liberal dissenters'

free speech rights, coupled with mounting right-wing

belligerence, both religious and secular.

The breakdown in the system could also be subtler.

Many experts have warned that America's debt is

unsustainable and that economic crisis could be on the

horizon. If there is a hard landing -- due to an oil

shock, a burst housing bubble, a sharp decline in the

value of the dollar, or some other crisis -- interest

rates would shoot up, leaving many people unable to

pay their floating-rate mortgages and credit card

bills. Repossessions and bankruptcies would follow.

The resulting anger could fuel radical populist

movements of either the left or the right -- more

likely the right, since it has a far stronger

ideological infrastructure in place in most of

America.

Military disaster may also exacerbate such

disaffection. America's war in Iraq seems nearly

certain to come to an ignominious end. The real

victims of failure there will be Iraqi, but many

Americans will feel embittered, humiliated and

sympathetic to the stab-in-the-back rhetoric peddled

by the right to explain how Bush's venture has gone so

horribly wrong. It was the defeat in World War I,

after all, that created the conditions for fascism to

grow in Germany.

Perhaps America will be lucky, however, and muddle

through its looming problems. In that case, Christian

nationalism will continue to be a powerful and growing

influence in American politics, although its expansion

will happen more fitfully and gradually.

The country's demographics are on the movement's side.

Megachurch culture is spreading. The exurbs where

religious conservatism thrives are the fastest growing

parts of America; in 2004, 97 of the country's 100

fastest-growing counties voted Republican. The

disconnection of the exurbs is a large part of what

makes the spread of Christian nationalism's fictitious

reality possible, because there is very little to

conflict with it.

A movement that constitutes its members' entire social

world has a grip that's hard to break. In The Origins

of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt put it this way:

" Social atomization and extreme individualization

preceded the mass movements which, much more easily

and earlier than they did the sociable,

non-individualistic members of the traditional

parties, attracted the completely unorganized, the

typical 'nonjoiners' who for individualistic reasons

always had refused to recognize social links or

obligations. "

America's ragged divides

Those who want to fight Christian nationalism will

need a long-term and multifaceted strategy. I see it

as having three parts -- electoral reform to give

urban areas fair representation in the federal

government, grassroots organizing to help people fight

Christian nationalism on the ground and a media

campaign to raise public awareness about the

movement's real agenda.

My ideas are not about reconciliation or healing. It

would be good if a leader stepped forward who could

recognize the grievances of both sides, broker some

sort of truce, and mend America's ragged divides. The

anxieties that underlay Christian nationalism's appeal

-- fears about social breakdown, marital instability

and cultural decline -- are real. They should be

acknowledged and, whenever possible, addressed. But as

long as the movement aims at the destruction of

secular society and the political enforcement of its

theology, it has to be battled, not comforted and

appeased.

And while I support liberal struggles for economic

justice -- higher wages, universal health care,

affordable education, and retirement security -- I

don't think economic populism will do much to

neutralize the religious right. Cultural interests are

real interests, and many drives are stronger than

material ones. As Arendt pointed out, totalitarian

movements have always confounded observers who try to

analyze them in terms of class.

Ultimately, a fight against Christian nationalist rule

has to be a fight against the anti-urban bias built

into the structure of our democracy. Because each

state has two senators, the 7 percent of the

population that live in the 17 least-populous states

control more than a third of Congress's upper house.

Conservative states are also overrepresented in the

Electoral College.

According to Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and

Democracy, the combined populations of Montana,

Wyoming, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Colorado,

Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska equal

that of New York and Massachusetts, but the former

states have a total of nine more votes in the

Electoral College (as well as over five times the

votes in the Senate). In America, conservatives

literally count for more.

Liberals should work to abolish the Electoral College

and to even out the composition of the Senate, perhaps

by splitting some of the country's larger states.(A

campaign for statehood for New York City might be a

place to start.) It will be a grueling, Herculean job.

With conservatives already indulging in fantasies of

victimization at the hands of a maniacal Northeastern

elite, it will take a monumental movement to wrest

power away from them. Such a movement will come into

being only when enough people in the blue states stop

internalizing right-wing jeers about how out of touch

they are with " real Americans " and start getting angry

at being ruled by reactionaries who are out of touch

with them.

After all, the heartland has no claim to moral

authority. The states whose voters are most obsessed

with " moral values " have the highest divorce and teen

pregnancy rates. The country's highest murder rates

are in the South and the lowest are in New England.

The five states with the best-ranked public schools in

the country -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont,

New Jersey and Wisconsin -- are all progressive

redoubts. The five states with the worst -- New

Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi and Louisiana --

all went for Bush.

The canard that the culture wars are a fight between

" elites " versus " regular Americans " belies a profound

split between different kinds of ordinary Americans,

all feeling threatened by the others' baffling and

alien values. Ironically, however, by buying into

right-wing elite-baiting, liberals start thinking like

out-of-touch elites. Rather than reflecting on what

kind of policies would make their own lives better,

what kind of country they want to live in, and who

they want to represent them -- and then figuring out

how to win others to their vision -- progressives

flail about for ideas and symbols that they hope will

appeal to some imaginary heartland rube. That is

condescending.

Focus on the local

One way for progressives to build a movement and fight

Christian nationalism at the same time is to focus on

local politics. For guidance, they need only look to

the Christian Coalition: It wasn't until after Bill

Clinton's election exiled the evangelical right from

power in Washington that the Christian Coalition

really developed its nationwide electoral apparatus.

The Christian right developed a talent for crafting

state laws and amendments to serve as wedge issues,

rallying their base, and forcing the other side to

defend seemingly extreme positions. Campaigns to

require parental consent for minors' abortions, for

example, get overwhelming public support and put the

pro-choice movement on the defensive while giving

pro-lifers valuable political experience.

Liberals can use this strategy too. They can find

issues to exploit the other side's radicalism, winning

a few political victories and, just as important,

marginalizing Christian nationalists in the eyes of

their fellow citizens. Progressives could work to pass

local and state laws, by ballot initiative wherever

possible, denying public funds to any organization

that discriminates on the basis of religion. Because

so much faith-based funding is distributed through the

states, such laws could put an end to at least some of

the taxpayer-funded bias practiced by the Salvation

Army and other religious charities. Right now, very

few people know that, thanks to Bush, a faith-based

outfit can take tax dollars and then explicitly refuse

to hire Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or Muslims. The issue

needs far more publicity, and a political fight -- or

a series of them -- would provide it. Better still,

the campaign would contribute to the creation of a

grassroots infrastructure -- a network of people with

political experience and a commitment to pluralism.

Progressives could also work on passing laws to

mandate that pharmacists fill contraceptive

prescriptions. (Such legislation has already been

introduced in California, Missouri, New Jersey,

Nevada, and West Virginia.) The commercials would

practically write themselves. Imagine a harried couple

talking with their doctor and deciding that they can't

afford any more kids. The doctor writes a birth

control prescription, the wife takes it to her

pharmacist -- and he sends her away with a religious

lecture. The campaign could use one of the most

successful slogans that abortion rights advocates ever

devised: " Who decides -- you or them? "

A new media strategy

In conjunction with local initiatives, opponents of

Christian nationalism need a new media strategy. Many

people realize this. Fenton Communications, the agency

that handles public relations for MoveOn, recently put

together the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a

MoveOn-style grassroots group devoted to raising

awareness about the religious right. With nearly 3.5

million members ready to be quickly mobilized to

donate money, write letters or lobby politicians on

behalf of progressive causes, MoveOn is the closest

thing liberals have to the Christian Coalition, but

its focus tends to be on economic justice, foreign

policy and the environment rather than contentious

social issues. The Campaign to Defend the Constitution

intends to build a similar network to counter

Christian nationalism wherever it appears.

Much of what media strategists need to do simply

involves public education. Americans need to learn

what Christian Reconstructionism means so that they

can decide whether they approve of their congressmen

consorting with theocrats. They need to realize that

the Republican Party has become the stronghold of men

who fundamentally oppose public education because they

think women should school their kids themselves. (In

It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum calls public

education an " aberration " and predicts that

home-schooling will flourish as " one viable option

among many that will open up as we eliminate the heavy

hand of the village elders' top-down control of

education and allow a thousand parent-nurtured flowers

to bloom. " )

When it comes to the public relations fight against

Christian nationalism, nothing is trickier than

battles concerning public religious symbolism. Fights

over crèches in public squares or Christmas hymns sung

by school choirs are really about which aspects of the

First Amendment should prevail -- its protection of

free speech or its ban on the establishment of

religion. In general, I think it's best to err on the

side of freedom of expression. As in most First

Amendment disputes, the answer to speech (or, in this

case, symbolism) that makes religious minorities feel

excluded or alienated is more speech -- menorahs,

Buddhas, Diwali lights, symbols celebrating America's

polyglot spiritualism.

There are no neat lines, no way to suck the venom out

of these issues without capitulating completely. But

one obvious step civil libertarians should take is a

much more vocal stance in defense of evangelicals'

free speech rights when they are unfairly curtailed.

Although far less common than the Christian

nationalists pretend, on a few occasions

lawsuit-fearing officials have gone overboard in

defending church/state separation, silencing religious

speech that is protected by the First Amendment. (In

one 2005 incident that got tremendous play in the

right-wing press, a principal in Tennessee wouldn't

allow a ten-year-old student to hold a Bible study

during recess.) Such infringements should be fought

for reasons both principled, because Christians have

the same right to free speech as everyone else, and

political, because these abuses generate a backlash

that ultimately harms the cause of church/state

separation.

The ACLU already does this, but few hear about it,

because secularists lack the right's propaganda

apparatus. Liberals need to create their own echo

chamber to refute these kind of distortions while

loudly supporting everyone's freedom of speech.

Committed Christian nationalists won't be won over,

but some of their would-be sympathizers might be

inoculated against the claim that progressives want to

extirpate their faith, making it harder for the right

to frame every political dispute as part of a war

against Jesus.

The challenge, finally, is to make reality matter

again. If progressives can do that, perhaps America

can be saved.

Fighting fundamentalism at home

Writing just after 9/11, Salman Rushdie eviscerated

those on the left who rationalized the terrorist

attacks as a regrettable explosion of understandable

third world rage: " The fundamentalist seeks to bring

down a great deal more than buildings, " he wrote.

" Such people are against, to offer just a brief list,

freedom of speech, a multiparty political system,

universal adult suffrage, accountable government,

Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism,

secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness,

evolution theory, sex. "

Christian nationalists have no problem with

beardlessness, but except for that, Rushdie could have

been describing them.

It makes no sense to fight religious authoritarianism

abroad while letting it take over at home. The

grinding, brutal war between modern and medieval

values has spread chaos, fear, and misery across our

poor planet. Far worse than the conflicts we're

experiencing today, however, would be a world torn

between competing fundamentalisms. Our side, America's

side, must be the side of freedom and Enlightenment,

of liberation from stale constricting dogmas. It must

be the side that elevates reason above the commands of

holy books and human solidarity above religious

supremacism. Otherwise, God help us all.

Reprinted from Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian

Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. 2006 by

Michelle Goldberg. With permission of the publisher,

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

 

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