Re: Gus, America is very diverse. As someone who grew up in Texas, you would be amazed at the diversity within that one state.
I am amazed indeed....
On the rise of the radical religious right and the breakdown of democracy in the United States
How much political power they already wield is hard to know exactly. Certainly they have influence beyond their numbers. They still face challenges to their rule, although that may change during the next few years as they consolidate their strengths, eliminate their opposition, and begin to exercise the prerogatives of their growing power.
As that happens, the United States will begin to look quite different. Several mistakes are commonly made when thinking about the radical religious right (RRR). The first is to assume that the RRR shares the values held in common by most Americans.
In fact, the RRR has an entirely different cultural and ideological background that basically regards those shared values as irrelevant. Fundamentalist Christianity teaches its believers to be "in the world but not of the world"; that is, to live among secular people but to reject their way of thinking.
Among the values shared implicitly by all Americans are 1) that persons ought to be free to do as they please so long as they do no harm to others, and 2) that every person is entitled to hold an opinion, and that no person's opinion is necessarily or intrinsically more valid than any other's.
The radical religious right does not play by those rules at all. From their point of view, those assumptions are secular ("worldly"), and therefore simply wrong.
The notion of compromise is alien to the radical religious right, because from their point of view either a belief comes from God, and is therefore absolutely and eternally true, or it comes from the secular world and ultimately from Satan, and is therefore utterly false, no matter how reasonable it may seem.
In fact, fundamentalist Christians believe that Satan (considered a completely real being) uses reason to deceive the sinful human mind. Reason is bad, faith is good.
Because of those attitudes, most people are totally at sea when trying to understand the RRR. The core perspectives are too different.
. . .
Another common error is that many people who consider themselves Christians, but who are not part of the radical religious right, feel that they can understand the RRR based on shared Christian beliefs. In fact, the religious perspectives of the RRR differ rather markedly from those of moderate nominal Christians.
Extreme fundamentalist Christians actually regard moderate nominal Christians who are "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (II Timothy 3:5) as less preferable to rank unbelievers. "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16)
A further marked difference between the fundamentalist Christians and others is that most people are motivated by the desire to find happiness. Those who adhere to Christian fundamentalism do not regard the pursuit of happiness to be a valid motivation, but instead consider doing the will of God by submitting utterly to the Lordship of His Son Jesus Christ to be the only acceptable reason for living.
Those two motivations lead to very different choices and personal values.
. . .
How could a group with such distinct values have become powerful in a society where power derives from political appeal?
The answers to that question are perhaps complex, but part of the success of the radical religious right has come from infiltrating a mainstream political party. By toning down their more radical leanings, the RRR have been able first to gain a foothold in the Republican Party, and then gradually over the past 25 years essentially to take it over.
For their part, the Republicans have been happy to see their party energized by the fervor and commitment that RRR true believers can bring to the political process. Since the late 1970s the RRR has steadily transformed the Republican Party from a basically secular, conservative, civic-minded party to become the public face of legitimacy for the otherwise alien values of the radical religious right.
The radical religious right is not conservative at all, however, in that it does not wish to conserve the status quo; it seeks to overthrow many longstanding American traditions and institutions or at least to radically change their outworking.
. . .
For almost three decades the leaders of Christian fundamentalist groups have increasingly radicalized their followers by using certain explosively emotive issues. Principal of those has been the legality of abortion, which they consider to be the murder of unborn children.
As driven home by leaders of the religious right, any society that legally sanctions the murder of children must be unreservedly perverse. That conviction further hardens the position that no compromise is possible with the deluded mainstream, and that only radical change is acceptable.
A second area of radicalization has been gay rights and the gradual acceptance by the American mainstream that gay people can be good citizens, and a third area has been the issue of prayer in public schools and the teaching of biological evolution.
Those points have been used to radicalize the religious right in the United States in the same way that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been used to radicalize groups in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
In fact, we can draw many clear parallels between the radical religious right in the US and Islamic radicals in the Middle East.
Like most radical movements, both are unwilling to compromise or coexist with their adversaries. In their mind, the continuing presence of political or ideological adversaries can only be bad. Radicals feel they must persist in their struggle until the world is completely purged and free of the adversaries.
That political reflex differs dramatically from moderate democratic values, which emphasize tolerance, dissent, competition among ideas, and the formation of alliances based on negotiated compromises.
. . .
What kind of place will the United States be if the radical religious right continues to consolidate power and enforce policies of its choosing?
An obvious change will be that children in public schools, or private schools publicly funded through vouchers, will receive religious instruction based on the ideology of Christian fundamentalists. That policy will perhaps be presented as a way to strengthen the fabric of society, reduce crime, and so on.
Of course, the scientific view of biology will no longer be taught in public institutions, except as a cultural oddity to be rejected.
Those are perhaps some of the least dramatic changes,
although they will eventually lead to the United States
slipping from its preeminent role in science. In the eyes of the
fundamentalist, "the wisdom of this world is foolishness
with God" (I Corinthians 3:19).
Regions where religious fundamentalism prevails can
sometimes produce good science, and very occasionally might
even produce excellent science, but arguably almost never
brilliant or groundbreaking science.
. . .
Another more troubling and less obvious effect of the
exercise of power by the radical religious right will be the rise of militant nationalism in the United States.
Many people fail to understand this because, again, they are thinking of the RRR as being Christian, and that Christianity is a religion that teaches peace. That view misses the mark on several levels.
First, Christian fundamentalists believe in what they feel is a literal acceptance of biblical writings. The Judaeo-Christian bible is actually full of references to war and certainly does not condemn it.
Second, and perhaps more important, is the fact that the RRR is rooted in the American South, which has a strong culture of militarism, going back probably before the war over secession. Many people in the South have lived as professional soldiers or in communities that support military bases, and have done so for generations.
For the radical religious right, an American foreign policy based on militant nationalism has an almost holy virtue.
To question or temper such a policy is to be unpatriotic, and to be unpatriotic is to be un-Christian in the eyes of the RRR, as the United States has been specially dedicated to Jesus Christ for His purposes. This perceived connection between the United States and Jesus Christ is important to understand, as it motivates much of the political activity of the RRR.
Until the late 1970s, Christian fundamentalists were not
particularly involved in politics. From the fundamentalist
perspective, Christian believers are the "salt of the earth, but
if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to
be trodden under foot of men." (Matthew 5:13)
That scriptural injunction, along with others, is taken by
fundamentalists to mean that they are held accountable by
God to stem social rotting and corruption (like salt in meat)
and to actively promote the sanctity of the United States.
That is why Christian fundamentalists cannot simply be
passive in the political sphere, minding their own business
and practicing their religion in private. They believe that
their God has solemnly enjoined them to force their biblical
beliefs upon all levels of government, from local school
boards to Congress and the Supreme Court.
At the same time, Christian fundamentalists believe that
because of their active presence in the US political process,
and because of earlier generations of pious Americans, the
United States is special in the sight of God. Therefore,
patriotism and militant nationalism are consistent with
fundamentalist Christian beliefs.
Such thinking is remarkably similar in tone to that of the
National Socialists in Germany. The Nazis held the absolute
conviction that what was good for Germany and German
supremacy was always right and was to be rigorously pursued
at all costs, no matter how detrimental that might be for
individuals or smaller groups.
. . .
A third change is perhaps less obviously inevitable than the first two. The radical religious right will seek to restrict freedom of thought and ultimately even freedom of religion.
That the RRR would seek to restrict religious freedom is ironic in that their own success in the United States has partly come from a liberal legal foundation that forbids the State from interfering in religious affairs.
It is also ironic because some of the initial complaints of the Christian fundamentalists were that the public school system forced their children to acquire secular humanist values.
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