Extremely Influential:
The Christian Right in America 2005
Part One: Learning to be more Judgmental
When Faithful Progressive was growing up, there were many religious leaders to admire. First and foremost was Dr. Martin Luther King--who taught a whole generation to stand up for what was right. After working with hundreds of young people on the recent election, one thing is clear to me: many liberal young people hold Christianity in very low regard. The Simpsons captured this view well when it sent cartoon character Ned Flanders to Bible camp "to learn to be more judgmental." A whole generation associates religion with hate, intolerance and war--exactly the opposite of what my generation learned from Dr.King. How did this come to be? How did the faith-- what King called the "warm and reviving breeze of hope"-- become the harsh wind of self-righteousness and triumphalism? When and how did Christianity become so ideological and rigid? Faithful Progressive will explore this issue at length over the next weeks.
Here's our essential premise: there is a new right-wing "orthodox fundamentalist Christianity" that has penetrated American religious culture at a level that makes it the semi-official religion of the U.S. It strives to be the semi-official culture in society as well. It is a view of religion, politics and culture that is urged upon us by a group of multi-layered corporations, foundations and co-religionists that have access to government at the highest levels. Further, the movement seems to have a high tolerance for extremist elements that operate within or just outside the broader movement. There is a significant and powerful group that hold extremist views and subscribe to bizarre conspiracy theories. We start off by trying to describe the common features of this broad movement.
What is the Christian Right?
...I think any decent historian, or even a mere Blogger, could find plenty of commonalities. What are the common features of the Religious Right?
It is a fundamentalist movement that largely rejects any modern method of Biblical interpretation and believes that the most widely used Christian Bible reflects absolute moral truth; many of its adherents focus a lot of energy on End Times prophecy, which accounts in part for less emphasis on the Gospels, the actual ministry of Jesus; it is anti-intellectual and hostile to science; it has great confidence in its own moral judgments, particularly those relating to sexuality and reproduction, and focuses its efforts at spiritual and moral renewal on 'the other' rather than 'the self'; it rejects the separation of church and state, pluralism, and is hostile to the moral claims of tolerance; it is politically reactionary and often seems rooted in nostalgia, like so many previous movements of the right; finally, while it has some variations and ideological cleavages, there are many common cultural, political and financial linkages. Look at Time’s list-- these folks have a lot in common. This series will explore some of these themes. We’ll start with the political influence of this group.
http://faithfulprogressive.blogspot.com/2005/02/what-is-religious-right.html
The political ascendancy of the Religious Right is really not in serious dispute. It works in part by marginalizing moderates, and demanding almost absolute fidelity to its agenda. Its power starts with President Bush, but doesn't stop there, as David Batstone and Mark Wexler write in Sojourners magazine:
"The Religious Right has been institutionalized within the Republican
Party," confirms Kenneth Wald, a professor of political science at the
University of Florida at Gainesville. "Just look at the leaders of the
GOP."
Note the top seven ranking Republicans in the U.S.
Senate: Bill Frist, Tennessee; Mitch
McConnell, Kentucky; Rick
Santorum, Pennsylvania; Bob Bennet, Utah; Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Texas; Jon
Kyle, Arizona; and George Allen, Virginia. Other than party affiliation, what do
these senators all have in common? Each has earned a 100 percent rating on the
Christian Coalition's scorecard, voting in accordance with that organization's
positions on key legislation."
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0407&article=040720
Message discipline is key--it is no surprise that they are all 100 percent faithful to the agenda. There are consequences to stepping outside the box on an issue such as abortion, just ask Sen. Arlen Specter. The GOP Values Action Team (VAT) currently claims 85 members of Congress, all having committed to sending a staffer to a "weekly VAT meeting." That's how you keep your agenda on the frontburner. http://johnshadegg.house.gov/rsc/106.htm
While their political clout is apparent, the cultural impact of the religious right is harder to demonstrate. But the same single-minded agenda and ideological style is apparent. It begins with the assumption that only pre-Enlightenment Christianity is the real Christianity. Writing just before the election, moderate minister Rev. Brian McLaren, http://www.anewkindofchristian.com/biography.html made an important observation:
"Sometimes I think that the most powerful and popular denomination in
America is a stealth one. It's not the Baptists or the Catholics or the
Methodists or the Assemblies of God. It's "radio-orthodoxy"-the set of beliefs
promoted by religious broadcasting. Do you doubt the power of radio-orthodoxy?
Just try contradicting it, especially in an election year."
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2004_167/news/11399-1.html
Learning to be more Judgmental: Part Two
What is the new orthodoxy of the Christian Right? It is first of all conservative and fundamentalist. What do we mean by fundamentalism in the Christian context? The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, a group of diverse clergy dedicated to mutual understanding, define fundamentalism as follows:
“In Christianity, the term fundamentalism is normally used to refer to the
conservative part of evangelical Christianity, which is itself the most
conservative wing of Protestant Christianity. Fundamentalist Christians
typically believe that the Bible is inspired by God and is inerrant. They
reject modern analysis of the Bible as a historical document written by authors who were attempting to promote their own evolving spiritual beliefs. Rather, they view the bible as the Word of God, internally consistent, and free of error.
The term "Fundamentalist" derives from a 1909 publication "The Fundamentals: A testimony to the truth" which proposed five required Christian beliefs for those opposed to the Modernist movement.”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/reac_ter9.htm
Karen Armstrong has argued that fundamentalism is essentially a reactionary response to modernity. She defines fundamentalism as "embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis." The essential crisis is the fear that modernity will erode or even destroy the accepted faith and morality.
This is an important insight into the nostalgic and backward looking orientation of fundamentalist movements. But in many ways, the new orthodoxy looks a lot like the old. The belief in the inerrancy of the Bible was essential to pre-Enlightenment Christianity. Gotthold Lessing, the towering figure of the German Enlightenment, coined the term “Bibliolatry” to describe what he believed to be worshiping the Bible (the Christian understanding of God) instead of the mystery and greatness of God. Lessing, of course, is best known for his enduring parable of religious tolerance, Nathan the Wise. But he was also a serious theologian whose work still resonates in the context of the American Religious Right. Lessing argued for a “Christianity of Reason” that was true to “the religion of Christ” as opposed to” the “Christian religion.”
See: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Gotthold+Lessing
In his famous 1784 essay "What Is Enlightenment?", Immanuel Kant defined it as follows:
"Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the
incapacity to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. Such
immaturity is self-caused if its cause is not lack of, but by lack of
determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by
another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Have courage to use your own
intelligence!"
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/the%20Enlightenment
In a provocative editorial, "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out" just after the 2004 election, historian Gary Wills raised the following question:
"Can a people that believe more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution
still be called an Enlightened nation? America, the first real democracy in
history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence,
tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the
founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then
modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of
Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for
evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the
elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either
worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.
The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the
fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced
from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than
we do our putative enemies."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-25.htm
I believe Wills, in his frustration after the election, overstates where we are at--though not by much. Rather, Prof. Wills takes as accomplished what is still very much at issue--who will win out in the struggle for the soul of America?
But Wills is correct about one thing: traditional American values that correspond to those of the Enlightenment (a belief in reason, law and tolerance) are under attack. Ironically, these longstanding values are threatened by a reactionary group that sets itself up as the very guardian of traditional American values.
Part 3: Extremism in Defense of the Christian Right is no Vice
What could possibly lead a highly-respected professor of history like Gary Wills, http://www.history.northwestern.edu/faculty/wills.htm,
himself a practicing Catholic, to declare even in frustration that the Enlightenment "went out"on the day of the re-election of George Bush? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/opinion/04wills.html?ex=1257310800&en=6a9cb65ee1a3a176&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
What would lead an obscure but serious-minded Blogger to suggest that the Christian right seeks to establish itself as the semi-official culture of the U.S.?
The recent Time magazine listing of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” offers numerous clues. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050207/photoessay/index.html? All but two or three are extremely conservative politically and theologically; only two are women cited primarily for their own accomplishments (although there are also two prominent couples listed); and only one is African-American. By ignoring moderate and progressive Evangelical leaders, the list both suggests and reinforces the extent to which the New Orthodoxy has established itself as dominant in both the public perception and in the places where influence asserts itself as power.
One thing is very clear from the Time list: extremism in defense of the radical fundamentalist orthodoxy is not considered a vice. There are far more extremists on the list than there are moderates. How extreme are the Most Influential Evangelicals?
Let’s start with one of the couples, the Ahmansons, Howard and Roberta. They are wealthy financiers of what Time calls “a cornucopia of faith based activism,” including an institute linked to the anti-evolution movement and other conservative causes around the world. As Time reports, “The couple has been accused of having an extremist agenda, mostly because a onetime pet charity, the Chalcedon Foundation, advocates the Christian reconstructionist branch of theology that says gays and other biblical lawbreakers should be stoned.” I’m not making this stuff up, and neither is Time magazine.
Howard Ahmanson has tried to distance himself from Chalcedon in recent years- severing formal ties to its board- and for good reason. But ask yourself this: if a multi-millionaire Muslim advocated stoning or beheading of perceived infidels, and if he funded a group dedicated to this purpose would merely resigning from its operating board be sufficient to take him off a terrorist watch list? Perhaps, perhaps not. But one thing is certain: he would not be celebrated by a leading newsweekly as one of the most influential Muslim leaders in America. But the same views are acceptable for a person claiming to be a Christian.
And the Chalcedon Foundation is still alive and well-funded. A recent Vermont Union Democrat article by Sunny Lockwood provides a frightening portrait of how mainstream religious extremism has become in 21st Century America:
"From the start, the senior Rushdoony's ideas were controversial. Yet, many of
them caught the imagination of the political right.
In 1981, Chalcedon's influence was noted by Newsweek magazine in an
article about how Christian conservatives helped re-elect Ronald Reagan president.
The article identified Chalcedon as the think tank of the religious right. But the "think tank" term makes Mark Rushdoony uncomfortable. He says it "puts too much emphasis on a political strategy that we don't really have. We see ourselves more as speaking to the culture and society in a much broader vein." Broad is the word.
Christian Reconstruction advocates restructuring every aspect
of life and culture to conform to Biblical law as R.J. Rushdoony described it in
his 800-page volume, The Institutes of Biblical Law, first published in 1973.
Specific ideas, such as Christian home schooling and reducing the size of
government, detailed in his prolific writings, have been embraced by the
Christian right.
"More than a few people have said he was the founding father of ideas for the religious right," Rushdoony says. "I believe he was one of the most important theologians of the 20th century — and as time goes on and more people read his ideas, this will be born out."
Yet other Christian Reconstruction ideas — such as the Biblical punishment of stoning to death those who practice homosexuality, engage in adultery or who are incorrigibly rebellious against their parents — have kept many from taking up the cause. Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group, calls The Institutes of Biblical
Law "an ugly theocratic book" because it advocates stoning, voices support for
slavery and condemns all non-Christian faiths. "The ideas produced by this
little foundation are unalterably opposed to democracy in any form," he said.
"This is a medieval theology."
Christian Reconstruction had quite an influence on mainstream Christianity in the 1980s and '90s, Potok said. "Butthere was so much bad publicity about some of these ideas, in particular the stoning of incorrigible children, that people got frightened off and reconstruction theory (has become) marginalized," he said. "Now it's on the defense." As for the references to stoning, Chalcedon Foundation
Communication Director Chris Ortiz acknowledges that they indeed are part of the Christian Reconstruction ideology but, "We haven't spent a single sentence on
the topic in God knows how long."
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=16337
Part Four: Father Figures Know Best
The fact that a wealthy and (Time-designated) Influential couple would fund a group dedicated to stoning certainly suggests that we are battling for the Enlightenment. Foundations such as Chalcedon actively seek to bring these extreme views to the mainstream, to the pages of a leading newsweekly. There are other suggestions of pre-Enlightenment culture that are extremely popular in the radio orthodoxy described by Rev. Mc Laren.
Recall Immanuel Kant’s definition: "Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another." Many voters, particularly Christian conservatives, felt that President Bush was a Godly Man, and this was enough to overwhelm any concern they had about mistakes during his first term in office. They had a simple faith (perhaps even an admirable but a nonetheless dangerous faith) that the Good Lord would anoint a Good Man to tend to the Godly American nation in its time of trial.
Other Father Figures broadcast weekly on the radio, few with more devoted listeners or more perceived clout than Dr. James Dobson, another name on Time’s list. New Republic editor Michael Crowley wrote a disturbing portrait of Dobson in Slate.
Although the notion that the religious right's "moral values" determined
the 2004 election has been roundly debunked (for example, here and here), perception is reality in politics—and the indelible perception in Washington is now that George W. Bush owes his evangelical Christian base big-time.One corollary to this idea is that no one helped Bush win more than Dr. James Dobson... Dobson earned the title. He proselytized hard for Bush this last year, organizing huge stadium rallies and using his radio program to warn his 7 million American listeners that not to vote would be a sin. Dobson may have delivered Bush his victories in
Ohio and Florida.
He's already leveraging his new power. When a thank-you call came from the White House, Dobson issued the staffer a blunt warning that Bush "needs to be more aggressive" about pressing the religious right's pro-life, anti-gay rights agenda, or it would "pay a price in four years." And when the pro-choice Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter made conciliatory noises about appointing moderates to the Supreme Court, Dobson launched a fevered campaign to prevent him from assuming the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which until then he had been expected to inherit. Dobson is now a Republican kingmaker...
Dobson's clout emanates from Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs-based ministry he founded that is awesome in scope: publishing books and magazines, disseminating Dobson's weekly newspaper column to more than 500 papers, and airing radio shows—including Dobson's own—that reach people in 115 countries every week, from Japan to Botswana and in languages from Spanish to Zulu. The ministry receives so much mail it has its own ZIP code...
It was the gay-marriage debate that finally hurled Dobson into politics wholeheartedly. The subject of homosexuality seems to exert a special power over him, and he has devoted much idiosyncratic thought to it...
To Dobson, gay marriage is a looming catastrophe of epic proportions. He has compared the recent steps toward gay marriage to Pearl Harbor and likens the battle against it to D-Day. While Dobson maintains that he'd prefer to stay out of politics, he has said that "the attack and assault on marriage is so distressing that I just feel like I can't remain silent." Earlier this year, Dobson started a new offshoot of Focus on the Family called Focus on the Family Action, which he used to campaign openly for Bush. And during the campaign he joined Ralph Reed and born-again Watergate conspirator Charles Colson in regular conference calls with Karl Rove and other senior White House officials.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2109621
Time notes that Dobson maintains an e-mail list of 2.5 million, just short of that said to be maintained by John Kerry (and viewed as one of his chief political assets). Dobson is quick to admit that his group has a sweeping cultural agenda. He told Time, "We're involved in what's known as a culture war that is aimed right at the institution of the family."
It is a war that is fought on many fronts, only a few of which draw the attention of the mainstream media. Much was made of Dobson's paranoid fears that the cartoon character Sponge Bob--not previously known to be sexually active-may be a stealth figure in what Dobson sees as the gay agenda. Dobson makes it clear that it was this "gay agenda" (a concept as hard to discern as the Sex Life of a cartoon sponge) that he is really after when he issued his stren warning against Sponge Bob. http://family.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/family.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=17669
But while this part of his "ministry" draws attention, there is much more to his weekly radio address. He offers retrograde advice on parenting, urging parents to spank their children. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia offers some revealing specifics.
Dobson advocates the spanking of children from 15-18
months to eight years old. According to Dobson, "pain is a marvelous purifier." (Dare to Discipline, p.6) He argues that "it is not necessary to beat the childinto submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (Ibid., p.7.)
Dobson directly connects parental authority to social authority: "By learning to yield to the loving authority...of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life -- his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers." (The Strong-Willed Child, p. 235.)
He frequently portrays the child as the natural enemy of the parent and emphasizes that it is necessary to punish the child to uphold parental authority. "When you are defiantly challenged, win decisively." (Dare to Discipline, p. 36.)
In The Strong-Willed Child, Dobson draws a strong analogy between child rearing and dog rearing. He tells a story in which the family dog refuses to leave his resting place on the lid of the toilet seat. According to Dobson, a "vicious fight" between him and the dog resulted in which he "fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt [sic]." He concludes that "just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, so will a little child--only more so." (emphasis Dobson)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dobson
A recent visit to his website Focus on the Family offers up advice on Valentine's day, Bedtime Battles, and Being Perfect vs. Being Real.http://www.family.org/ Focus on th Family brings the right wing agenda to every aspect of daily life and the stern and conservative psychologist Dr. Dobson offers himself up as Father Figure for 7 million devoted listeners.
In 1996, U.C. Berkeley linguistics prof George Lakoff wrote a book called "Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't," in which he asserts that one of the principal differences between left and right is how they view family relationships, and father figures in particular.
In the book, Lakoff proposes that conservatives and liberals split the political world into opposing camps, based on different ideals of family
life. The "strict father" model guides conservatives and the "nurturant parent" model reflects liberal valuess.... As Patricia McBroom writes:
A major difference between the systems is that conservatives give the values of "moral strength" and "moral obedience" top priority. This means that anythingthat promotes weakness is immoral, says Lakoff. The "good" father seeks to
develop self-discipline in his children by using rewards and punishments. Punishment is seen as nurturing in that it teaches discipline, self-reliance and respect for authority.
"To be morally strong, you must be self-disciplined and
self-denying. Otherwise, you are self-indulgent and such moral flabbiness ultimately helps the forces of evil," said the linguist.
Carried into the political realm, this moral system with strength at the top of the list of valuesleads to the belief that "your poverty or yourdrug habit or your illegitimate children can be explained only as moral weakness and any discussion of social causes cannot be relevant," Lakoff explained.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1996/0828/politic.html
Dobson exemplifies this strict parent value system, and millions hunger for his stern guidance. But let's not forget that this guidance comes with a very specific political agenda buried in every Valentine card: men naturally dominate in the family and society, children are trainable creatures one notch above dogs, political and parental authority must not be questioned.
A pre-Enlightenment "immaturity"(in Kant's phrase) characterized by a lack of independent critical thinking is the natural outgrowth of such a world view.
Part 5: David Barton, History as Idealist Christian Myth
David Barton, another member of Time’s list of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals, has been a co-chair of the Texas Republican party for eight years. Time notes that “he was tapped by the RNC during its election sprint as liaison to social conservatives.” He is a close friend of powerful House majority leader Tom Delay. He is also an amateur historian who is trying to re-write the separation of church and state out of U.S. History. Take it from Time:
“(Barton’s) thesis: that the U. S. was a self-consciously religious nation from
the time of the Founders until the 1963 Supreme Court school-prayer ban (which
Barton has called “a rejection of divine law”). Many historians dismiss his
thinking, but Barton’s advocacy organization, Wallbuilders, and his relentless
stream of publications, court amicus briefs and books like The Myth of
Separation, have made him a hero to millions.”
The Wallbuilders site explains the somewhat ironic name for a group dedicated in part to tearing down the separation of church and state.
"In the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, the nation of Israel rallied together in
a grassroots movement to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and thus restore
stability, safety, and a promising future to that great city. We have chosen
this historical concept of “rebuilding the walls” to represent allegorically the
call for citizen involvement in rebuilding our nation’s foundations. As Psalm
11:3 reminds us, “If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous
do?”http://www.wallbuilders.com/aboutus/
A recent article in Belief Net by Deborah Caldwell picks up the story:
The back cover of his 1989 book, “The Myth of Separation,” proclaims: “This book proves that separation of church and state is a myth.” Barton is also on the board of advisers of the Providence Foundation, a Christian Reconstructionist group that advocates America as a Christian nation. (Click here for an explanation of Reconstructionism.)
In an appearance on D. James Kennedy’s radio show, "Truths That Transform," Barton says: "Was America ever a Christian nation? Well, according to the eyewitnesses--yes." And he adds:
"I would say if 88% call themselves Christians, I would say, yeah, you probably have a fairly good basis to call it a Christian nation."
In a July 2002 interview on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting
Network, Barton had the following exchange:
Robertson: "The question is asked, was America founded as a Christian nation? We have said yes, yes, yes. But you have the proof."
Barton: "There is a lot of proof. Not the least of which is
a great Fourth of July speech that was given in 1837 by one of the guys who fought in the revolution, who became a president, John Quincy Adams. His question was why is it in America that the Fourth of July and Christmas are the most celebrated holidays? His answer was that at Christmas we celebrate what Jesus Christ did for the world [with] his birth, and on the Fourth of July we celebrate what Jesus Christ did for America, since we founded it as a Christian nation." http://www.beliefnet.com/story/154/story_15469.html
Barton believes very much in a specifically Christian American Exceptionalism, referring to the U.S. as the Promised Land in his agi-prop tract, er book, The Myth of Separation. Further, oversized American Nationalism, an idealized vision of the past, and Christian virtue are equated constantly. At times his idealized vision becomes truly Wagnerian (and I don't me that as a compliment since Wagner inspired a lot of Nazi culture).
As in this typically gauzy passage: "Our Founders believed we could endure only if our people lived honest, morally upright lives. If the practice of virtue gives way to moral and cultural relativism...Americans would lose their republic, their freedom, and the blessings that their once Promised Land bestowed."
This makes me think of Tolstoy's comment that "History would be a wonderful thing if only it were true." Barton's flowery nonsense stands in stark contrast to the real words of the founding fathers and the harsh realities that led to the creation of the wall of separation of church and state. As James Madison put it: "
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
See Also: ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state
Nonetheless, Barton's effort to re-write history enjoys great influence among those who have the power to re-write the future. The Wallbuilders site includes quotes such as this from U.S. Senator Sam Brownback:
“While watching [your] tape The Spirit of the American Revolution, I wept thinking how far our nation has moved away from the concepts of the Founding Fathers . . . . What can we do to get back to the founding concepts and blessings that our forefathers received?”
And it describes its own efforts as follows:
WallBuilders outreach to ministers has paved the way for exclusive Congressional Pastors’ Briefings on Capitol Hill where hundreds of clergy have been impacted bysome of the country’s top conservative political leaders in these educational and informative sessions...
Throughout history, elites have sought to re-write history to serve their own interests and agendas--that's what Henry Ford really meant we he said it was bunk. The key is the reaction to such efforts at political propaganda: so far, David Barton's views seem to be on the rise and their is little outcry from any quarter.
But beyond this, there is a danger when a people no longer look at the world, past and present, with realism as their guide. History does not submit to the myths we try to make for it, no matter how well intended.
As the great cultural historian George L. Mosse p://mosseprogram.wisc.edu/bio.html (FP's friend and mentor), wrote in his classic The Culture of Western Europe:
"Men have tried to organize and restrain the onrush of time through stressing rotedness and looking forward to a time when it (history) would finally stop. But there is no end to history and no predetermination of how it will work out.
We might attempt to transcend history with our eternal values intact, but as we hope to have shown, historical reality can only be denied and ignored at our peril. There is always a rude awakening after the dream."
Part Six-A: End Times Fiction, Good Bye to All That
Let me start off by confessing that this is the part of our series on the Christian Right that is the most personal for me. My discussion of the exaggerated role given to Revelations and other apocalyptic prophesies by millions of right-leaning Christians might be colored by my own personal history. Five years ago my family left a church we had been active members of for a decade--in no small part because they started showing those ghastly Left Behind movies to our children. http://www.leftbehind.com/ It was a wrenching change for our whole family: our children had not known another church.
What’s that you ask--FP once belonged to a semi-fundamentalist church? No. This was a UCC church-- one of the most progressive of all the Protestant denominations--the same UCC that runs the ads inviting all (including gays) to worship because God is Still Speaking. No one had a secret fundamentalist agenda at our old church. The films were offered for two main reasons: first, because the films were readily available and convenient for Sunday school teachers; second, the films were popular because many of the kids enjoyed them. That this was presented in a UCC church in forward-looking Madison, Wisconsin, reflects the extraordinary cultural reach of both the Left Behind series and the overall appeal of what might be called Christian End Times Fiction in general.
The authors of the most popular series are nothing short of a publishing phenomenon. "Left Behind," the apocalyptic Christian series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, has sold more than 60 million copies. The La Hayes were rightly recognized as part of Time magazine’s list of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050207/photoessay/index.html Their influence is largely devoted to looking for signs that the world is about to end and that God's justice is about to come down on those who are Left Behind after the Rapture. It is a twisted version of Christianity that seems largely devoid of the compassionate message of Jesus. For example, just days after one of the worst tragedies in human history, La Haye was quoted on MSNBC as saying, about the tsunami: "And the good thing about all of this is, it points out that man really has to get right before God, because the time is short." (quoted in Mar-April, 2005, Utne Reader, p.54)
La Haye and Jenkins have created a new literary genre that is a sort of hybrid between science fiction, Harry Potter and an overly literalist reading of the Bible. Because it combines these elements, the popularity of these books reflects some healthy attributes--the hope for a better world, and the creative use of one's moral imagination. But there is also a reactionary political vision that lies heavily on or just below the surface. It is no surprise that the series has now continued with an equally scary and more openly “political series” authored by Nessa Hart.
http://www.leftbehind.com/channelbooks.asp?pageid=1099&channelID=214
But, of course extreme right politics was there all along in the Left Behind books. As Stephen Waldman summed up in Belief Net:
“Left Behind presents a comprehensive conservative Christian agenda. The
Antichrist is the secretary-general of the United Nations. He promotes a hit
parade of classic liberal causes, including family planning, abortion, global
disarmament, amniocentesis, Third World development, assisted suicide, and
higher taxes. Yes, the Antichrist is a tax-and-spend liberal. "We will further
finance our plans to inject social services into underprivileged countries and
make the world playing field equal for everyone," Carpathia declares.
Scarrrrrry.”
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/146/story_14697_2.html
But this crude political agenda was not my only objection to showing my children these movies. I was more concerned with the vengeful and violent quality of the film. Left Behind exudes a dangerous feeling of wronged self-righteousness. There is something very close to hatred for the secular world just below the surface story of malevolent UN leaders and wayward airline pilots. In this it is like the conservative populism, the resentment of elites, that Thomas Frank writes about in What’s the Matter With Kansas. http://www.henryholt.com/holt/whatsthematter.htm
I watched the film again last week, and made some notes. Fear of the world, conspiracy theory resentment at the other, and, most of all, anger. I had the same reaction as I did five years ago: why are these people so angry? I suspect the answer to that question would explain a lot about American culture at this moment. We'll take up that question next and explore La Haye's own bizarre political views that include numerous conspiracy theories past and present. We'll also consider whether Revelations is even properly a part of the Bible.
6-B Tim La Haye's Paranoid Politics
If Left Behind co-author Tim La Haye is one of the Most Influential Evangelicals, as Time reports, then he is surely also one of the Most Paranoid as well. In his non-fiction books he openly admits to believing in various bizarre conspiracies including that of a shadowy group known as The Illuminati. The Illuminati, you ask? Me, too. Here’s how commentator Rob Boston, writing for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, describes it:
“(La Haye) believes a secret society called the "Illuminati" has engineered world events since the 18th century. The Illuminati, a frequent obsession among conspiracy buffs, was supposedly founded in 1776 by a cabal of power-hungry
Europeans. As the story goes, over the centuries its members have sparked wars
and manipulated financial markets to enrich themselves and bring about an
atheistic one-world government…In his non-fiction book Rapture Under Attack,
LaHaye writes, "I myself have been a forty-five year student of the
satanically-inspired, centuries-old conspiracy to use government, education, and
media to destroy every vestige of Christianity within our society and establish
a new world order. Having read at least fifty books on the Illuminati, I am
convinced that it exists and can be blamed for many of man's inhumane actions
against his fellow man during the past two hundred years."
As Boston reports, the authors of this popular series are not exactly ecumenical in their approach to Christianity. They are old-school anti-Catholic bigots, for example.
In 1999's Are We Living in the End Times? LaHaye and Jenkins imply that the
Catholic Church may be the "whore of Babylon" mentioned in Revelation.
"The present pope," the pair assert, "is on record as believing in the
Trinity and may indeed pray in the name of Jesus Christ. However, his
infatuation with the vision of Fatima and his reverence for Mary (whom he
credits with saving his life from an assassin's bullet) concerns some who fear
he could be setting up his church and the religions of the world for the
fulfillment of Revelation 17, where the 'Mystery Babylon, the mother of
harlots,' unifies all the religions of the world during the first half of the
Tribulation… LaHaye holds other odd views. As an early leader of the Religious
Right, he once insisted that the federal government reserve 25 percent of all
federal jobs for "born-again" Christians, since that is the percentage of the
population they represent. In The Battle for the Mind, LaHaye asserts that since
World War II, most members of the House of Representatives, Senate, presidential
cabinets and the State Department have secretly been humanists who have labored
to disarm the nation and deliver it up to the Soviets.
The millions of readers of the Left Behind books mostly have no idea of just how extreme the views of its authors are. However, people who feel alienated from the mainstream culture readily tap into the anger and resentment that drives the series forward and young and old alike have a somewhat morbid fascination with the Rapture. Why are these people so angry? What resentments does Left Behind address?
Stephen Waldman of Belief Net made these insightful observations about the Christian Right just after the election:
But religious conservatives look at this way: they have clear beliefs about what
is right or wrong. They think homosexuality is wrong, for instance. They turn on
the TV and see it treated as morally okeedoke, and there's nothing they can do
about it. They may have the numbers but they nonetheless feel powerless against
a popular culture that doesn't seem to share their values, and in the face of
aggressive judges who impose their will over the objections of state
legislatures. Why do they care so much? Are they just obsessed with sex? What
that fails to understand is that for many religious conservatives the stakes
could not possibly be higher. They believe that in condoning legalized abortion
or gay unions or even out of wedlock heterosexual sex, America is messing with
morality as outlined in the Bible and so attacking God. As anyone who takes the
Old Testament seriously knows, the consequences of that could not be more
enormous.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/156/story_15629_1.html
One young conservative commentator has noted that obsession with the Rapture is essentially an immature phase that people go through in their faith journey:
“I guess in light of the whole "Left Behind" series, I can see why someone would
think that there is a huge focus on End Times. I've always thought of this as an
immature phase that people go through at one point in their lives. I haven't
read anything on End Times since I was 14, and quite frankly I have very little
interest in the subject…”
He also suggested that progressives overstate the interest that mature conservative Christians have in the topic. http://lawnrangers.blogspot.com/2005/02/faithful-progressive-what-is-religious.html
This may well be, but it is hard to overstate the appeal of the Left Behind series and End Times lore in general. The cheesy Rapture Index, a sort of daily weather report on the likelihood of the end-times, is one of the web-sites with the greatest numbers of hits on the whole Internet. http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html
This brings me back to La Haye's comments about the tsunami-- that it is a good thing because it might bring people back to God in time to avoid being Left Behind. This is what End Times logic is all about in a nutshell: the prophesy of the author of Revelation is given greater weight and priority than the Old Testament or Gospel message of compassion for the suffering. In the next installment (next week) we will consider the question of whether this book was even properly a part of the Biblical canon and use it as a way to discuss various approaches to understanding the Bible.
