I have always considered myself a person of faith. When I was young, I was a devout Christian. Then . . .things changed. I'll never say that Christianity is anything other than beautiful, but it was not for me.
As someone who has undergone a spiritual transformation (and a political transformation along with it), and who made a serious study of theology on both ends of my change, I believe that I understand, more than the average Kosmopolitan, what the Religious Right is about.
The power of the Religious Right is predicated on fear. Not fear for your immortal soul kind of fear, but a fear they'll stuff you into ovens like they did the Jews flavor of fear. I don't think it beyond our grasp to defuse that fear and thus to defuse the power of groups like the Christian Coalition.
The political solidarity of conservative Christians comes largely from a persecution process. The worldview I was taught as a child is a vastly different one than that which I have come to see as true as an adult. To begin with, America was founded as an entirely Christian country, or so I was taught. The pilgrims who provided the moral backbone of the fledgling nation were devout, almost monks in their piety. Christopher Columbus was primarily an evangelist.
Taxation without representation barely registered on the scale of reasons that the colonies revolted. We had to separate as a statement against the godless behavior of King George. The founding fathers, then, were practically saints.
Anyone who has taken a history class can tell these things are not true. Remember, though, that facts do not matter when dealing with religious beliefs.
The above explanation is actually the source of a Strict Constructionist legal viewpoint. You see, I learned about the Constitution as a child, but not as a legal document. The Constitution was for the government what the Bible was for the Church. When we talk about law, we can talk about the spirit of the law, and we can talk about the letter of the law.
When a theologian talks about the Bible, there is no such distinction. The official position of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, is that the Bible is both literally inspired (that is, God dictated every word) and that it inspired in the ideas (that is, God is in charge of the big picture).
Having studied Deconstructionalism since my spiritual reformation, I now understand that the above is a contradiction. When dealing with words, the idea behind the words is always uncertain, because words themselves are uncertain. There is no such uncertainty in theology, because a theologian has the writings of centuries of previous theologians to look to. That is, the meaning of the Bible has been made entirely certain. There is no longer room for interpretation.
The above explanation should explain why change can be especially frightening for a member of the Religious Right. Change makes things uncertain.
The viewpoint I was raised with was that early America was basically a utopia of Christian harmony, and that liberals have spent the last two centuries chipping away at that utopia until we have the mess we're currently in.
True or not, the RR has adopted a paradigm which causes fear of change. Once this paradigm, this frame, is established, any social change is open to demonization. Liberalism is, by definition, change, and that is why "liberal" seems like such a dirty word to the RR. More importantly, liberal carries with it undertones of a revolution by the people, for the people. And here we must examine a second important point.
The RR is dominated by authority figures. God gave the Bible, which is then interpreted by centuries of theologians who are practically canonized. The Founding Fathers gave us the Constitution. Conservative churches, at least the ones I was a part of, are often authoritarian and libertarian in much the same way an abusive and dysfunctional family would be. The pastor leads the church. The father leads the family.
Closely paired with this authoritarianism is an emphasis on symbolism. The father figure is the most important symbol for transmission of authority. The nuclear family is a symbol for the function of the church, which is in turn a symbol for God's relationship with humankind.
People much smarter than I am have identified far more influences on Christian thought than this. The preference for the far past and dismissal of the near past. The finite nature of time. The absolute nature of morality. Countless others. For now, I will content myself with these three: fear of change, appeal to authority, and emphasis on symbols.
To a person steeped in such an ideology, liberal positions are intensely frightening. The RR works upon such fears, painting the direst scenarios imaginable, and people, tending toward lostness as they do, believe them. When Republicans distribute flyers in the south saying Kerry wants to ban the Bible, people believe it. When Falwell says that gays are recruiting, and they're coming for your children, people believe it. When pundits blame the liberal media for spreading lies, people believe it.
I'm not sure, really, how this mechanism came about. It seems incredible that a sect of people who are actually in the majority could view themselves as so persecuted. I could speculate on the origins, but that would be for another diary. Much could also be said about the psychological reasons for that fear and persecution complex, but that likewise belongs in another diary.
I've been thinking about three big, underlying issues that tend to get lumped off on liberals, and why those issues scare the shit out of the RR. That's what I'm going to talk about. I think that if these issues were addressed, it would take a lot of wind out of the RR's sails.
Atheism, Secular Humanism, and Existentialism
The RR fears atheism. Many things get equated with atheism: among them, debauchery, anarchy and, to my constant irritation, pantheism. Atheism is feared not just as a competing ideology, but as a threat to the fabric of society in general. If America was indeed founded on Christian principals, then it stands to reason that non-Christians could be a great force for destruction. When I was a child, other religions were seen to be not only wrong, but, perhaps more importantly, easier.
Catholicism was easy because all you had to do was go to confession, and everything was ok. Islam was easy because all you had to do was pray five times a day and you were right with God. Ironically, Judaism was seen as easier because it allows Jews to reject the change that occurred with Christ's life. Atheism was the easiest of all, because it required nothing.
We know different. Atheism is not doing whatever you want. It is not refusing to go to church. It is not shaking your fist at God.
I think, though, that if we even use the word atheism, we love. Theism/atheism is a frame that was set up long before the Declaration of Independence was drafted, back when excommunication was still a harsh social blow and people accused of my faith or no faith were tortured and burned. If I were an atheist, I would be offended at being called an atheist. To all you atheists out there: why would you want to be defined by a term which is the negation of something you don't believe in? Even a non-belief in God presupposes the existence of the idea of God. Please, reject that.
It's hard to be an atheist. Well, it should be. More importantly, people should know it's hard. Step one is to stop using the term atheist. Use something else. Secular humanist or existentialist are the two terms that come readily to mind. The word, atheism, isn't even really useful as a description of someone. It's a cosmology without an ideology. It says nothing about how a person will act.
Sartre once wrote that the true existentialist mourns the fact there is no God, because the absence of God makes life harder, and that not all people are capable of living as existentialists. He was right. Kierkegaard wrote that achieving true faith is hard, and that not all people are capable of it. He was right, too. What's easy is everything in the middle. Distinctions based on belief in deity are useless to use as liberals. Atheist, Agnostic, Deist, Theist, Duotheist, Pantheist: these words do nothing to advance our causes. Let's abandon them.
The real divide, the one that should concern us, is between those with and those without convictions. People without convictions are impossible to motivate for change. Christmas Catholics and Pretend Protestants are unacceptable, and a blight on our society; get thee to church! Equally unacceptable are people who are just atheists; read some fucking philosophy already!
If we make that our position, and make it clear that's our position, we steal some thunder from the RR. We're not out to destroy religion. We want everyone to believe in something.
Atheism is not anti-Theism.
Evolution
This section is going to be much shorter. In fact, I can summarize the position we need to take in one sentence:
Science cannot prove God doesn't exist.
There is no reason why creationist theories cannot be taught side by side with evolutionary ones. Each theory of the origin of life includes a point where known laws did not apply. There is no good reason for why Deity cannot be an acceptable explanation for that knowledge gap. There is no reason why scientific explanations could not be nestled within religious imagery.
Most people will never understand much science. What is not understood is likely to be feared. Block that tendency toward fear by not threatening religion. Allow religion an "out", if you will. Scientific discoveries seemingly at odds with religious beliefs do not automatically trump religious beliefs.
Religious Symbols
I disagreed with Judge Moore's decision to post the 10 commandments in his courtroom. I also disagreed with the way opposition to his decision went about. By attacking a religious symbol, you immediately stir up all the fear the RR could ever hope for.
Just like most people don't understand science, most people don't understand law. Most people won't see a difference between saying that displaying a religious symbol in a federal building is wrong and saying that the religious symbol is wrong. This subheading actually feeds into my conclusion.
When dealing with issues of religious liberty, one's approach must be very careful. I explained the issue to my very, very conservative family thusly: imagine a Buddhist judge displayed a gold Buddha and a tapestry woven with the 10-fold path in his courtroom. They immediately got the idea.
Separation of Church and State does not mean a lack of public symbolism. It means a lack of preference in symbolism. Moore's display of the Commandments is one thing; that was clearly prejudicial. It's quite another thing when public Christmas trees come under attack. It is both ridiculous and counter-productive to argue that Christmas should not be publicly recognized. Ridiculous, because the holiday has immense penetration into the mainstream mindset, so much so that it is barely recognizable as a religious holiday at all. Counter-productive, because the public is precisely where religious celebrations should take place. Don't forget that in utopia-land, one of the positive forces religion exerts is solidarity.
At this point, I'm getting tired, so I'll cut myself short. Be very careful about what symbols you criticize, and even more careful about how you present your criticism.
In general, what I was trying to say with this diary is: don't feed into fear. The RR politicos have spent decades ingraining paranoia into the Christian mindset. Now, we have to work hard to get them to believe that we are not making war on them or their way of life.
Only after that can we persuade them to stop trying to make war on us.