I have a family member, an older cousin, who is a (once-fearsome) born again evangelical in a very over-the-top Southern Baptist Conference connected church who is becoming quietly estranged from the movement. He and his family have had social problems within the church for the last few years over money (he has a bunch of kids, 9/11 wrecked the tourism dollar here for two years solid, and he just doens't have money anymore), and it has been humiliating for them, so the family let me in on the backstories and who was safe to talk to and who wasn't in their church. This past election has turned a part time curiousity into a passionate quest, but I believe its time we started fighting this culture war with weapons and insights gathered on their turf. I know that, to some extent, the left has been in the dark previously, but I am not going to surrender to that darkness, I went and got myself a flashlight and 'went digging', and "they" are all a lot more vulnerable to counterattack that I think we have been aware of.
Quick Background:
According to their own legend in the rapidly growing church that certain members of my family belongs to, it all started in the late 1980`s, when "the founder" came out west to Nevada from his bible studies in Missouri and paid just over 10 grand for his first trailer, and "2 grand for some rocks and sand" out in the desert. It was his fourth attempt, as his first three attempts at garnering a "flock" ended up with him blowing an inheritance the first time and his declaring bankruptcy twice in the following five years. He was in his mid-twenties when this saga began, and he was just shy of thirty when he finally hit pay dirt.(Note: For all the hemming and hawing that born-agains and ultra-conservatives make about lawyers, the courts, and how its `too easy` to do things like declare bankruptcy to get out of credit card debt... you will discover with research, as I did, that there is very little hesitation for newly certified born-again ministers to use the courts and bankruptcy law to start over and over and over until they have a stable flock.) He has been divorced twice, is on his third wife, and he has almost no contact with his `old' families because they are not among the faithful. The man was so poor when he finally started to stick that he made his own crude sign that was pounded into the silt out in front of his ministries trailer for the first eight years of his church. He did such a pisspoor job painting it that the sand and grit blasted it illegible before he had the money to replace it. This man now lives like a king now. Hummer. Big Ford truck. Nice house. That trailer is still used today, its an office for mostly administration purposes and only higher ups go in it. His drive to collect funds and consolidate power in his hands was pretty fearsome to me. (In the `Don`t be stupid enough to miss paying in to the system routinely, or you will be socially singled out and embarrassed` mode. As the church swelled in size there were social cliques that came up, and they appear to be extensions of the Pastors family to keep an eye out for unacceptable behavior. You would think that you were back in high school, but gossip and shame is a big weapon, and everyone will not only know that you can`t pull your weight... but the speculation will be deliberately juicy as to why. There are people who go to my cousin`s church who are literally made miserable there out of the blue because of things we would consider insignificant social faux pas or just life interfering with being able to help out.)
The followers in the church often refer to him by his full name long after its clear you know who he is... like "Pastor Joseph John Blow said..." and it is disturbing when you aren`t one of them. The passive/aggressive nature of this church is staggering. You screw up and you either get a cold shoulder or overwhelmed with attention. The leadership has these people who chose to stay involved long term tightly in hand. But if a family or person gets fed up and quits, there is always somebody new walking right in the door. There is higher turnover in these kinds of churches that we have been led to believe as outsiders because of this focus on growth, money, and the resulting lack of personal contact and connections as the flock explodes in size. Growth is their big key. Unlike the Catholic church, where there is a rigid church hierarchy leading back to Rome, a born again can go through an approved of Bible college or Certification center, and can immediately go out and start his own flock and he/she needs to start raising cash ASAP. No apprenticeship is necessary. No long term experience is needed. You are just instantly wise when you have your piece of paper apparently. Don't be fooled into thinking that having some form of certification isn't important. Having your piece of paper from an acceptable source is the key to starting to successfully fundraise because in the beginning oftentimes you have nothing but your first trailer or storefront to build on. Being in the Southern Baptist Conference will not only give you a network to use, it will shave years off of your efforts by giving you a predigree. We might consider some of these places 'diploma mills', but some of the most revered bible colleges are not certified by anybody. This man here bought a trailer he could afford and some cheap land, and took immediately to building his flock and raising money. These folks tithe, or dedicate a portion of their annual income, and if the church gathers up enough folks the money begins to flow in tax free. Then the church begins to grow. From the point that the money is flowing in, they are building additions and expanding facilities because it is important to them to get their kids out of the public schools as soon as possible. Yes, there are old institutional evangelical churches... but this is a movement now based on a steady constant growth and networking new independent operators into the system as much as it is about maintaining old and longstanding evangelical institutions.
Quietly choosing to study my cousin`s church... and its neighbors... and its national machinations, although there is a lot to worry about, I believe the keys to turning back the tide are there to take. My cousin was a real ultra-serious wingnut the first time I came out to visit the family in Nevada. The first time he got into financial trouble and couldn't just dole out time and money to his evangelical church, they turned on him. They shunned his kids and humiliated his wife (about her being overweight when they had 'no' money for their obligations) in front of all of their friends. Just to be clear, they didn't talk to me knowing that I was going to do this. They are taking their social beating and going back for more. But the pain has loosened their tongues. A lot.
Infiltrating the TNPG (Tuesday Night Prayer Group):
Prayer groups and bible study groups are important all across the evangelical spectrum, the flock will tell you, because prayer and knowing your bible is the most important thing in a believer`s life. If you are in an evangelical institution you are going to get asked why weren't you in church, why you didn't come to last Tuesday's prayer group, why weren't you in bible study this week by the people that you come to know. But here is the thing: as you get closely involved in the prayer meetings... you soon discover that actual prayer and bible study is less than a quarter of what is actually going on week to week. The rest is politics, planning for political action, and pushing/selling products that have to be purchased to `understand` Christ's will. This was how Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was 'cocoanut telegraphed' into its success. Preachers didn't call from the pulpit to see the Passion nearly as much as we thought they did, that is a misunderstanding of how the evangelicals operate based on remembering TV evangelists ranting on a screen. Its much more sophisticated and tailored than that, but rather they showed videotaped movie previews of the film in the more intimate setting of their prayer groups. It's a spiritual Tupperware party. Even in these churches have grown so large, and unwieldy in some cases, that standing up in front of two thousand people and saying `go see this' is the show, but the scale of these crowds can lessen its punch. They do use the pulpit, sure. But by having cells of believers subdivided into manageable groups for individual selling sessions, you get the control of a salesman making a presentation to a small group of consumers to really drive it home. Like a Tupperware lady gathering up 12 of her friends to push Tupperware sets as opposed one man or woman alone on a stage. It works in large and small churches. It is done in large and small churches. And almost all of the "stuff "at their disposal is carefully prepared by conservative Republican groups, think tanks, and evangelical `franchise' organizations that are run like McDonalds. (You pay a fee, or pay as you go, and your particular church is folded into the network as a 'partner' church or an affiliated church and you are now an outlet -part of that nationwide 'fast religion' information franchise- for their materials and you get packages of carefully consumer tested materials to aid you in your goals. )
I decided that I could not make these points and descriptions with any legitimacy to the Kos community without experiencing it all firsthand at more than one church, so after attending a number of prayer functions at the one, I personally attended a string of evangelical prayer meetings as I investigated how all of this networking functions. I am a Christian with enough of an active religious background that `people have seen me around'. I feed and cook meals for the homeless in the area where I live. I work with Catholics, Episcopalians, and sometimes evangelicals when I do this and I have done this work for a while. Since I arrived in Nevada. My cousin's connection to his church buys me what I call a 'cushion' with the born agains who know me from that family connection. Its obvious that I am an 'Outlander', but I am a religious 'Outlander' to them, and that means that I am a potential free agent they are trying to get to hop on the 'true path to Jesus'. (I take a lot of hell over the Episcopal church`s gay bishop in New Hampshire issue, but so far my `I don`t want to talk about it` has been taken as shame. Its not. Its just not my place to clear up their assumptions and make my life hell.) I did most of my pinching of political packages at a large nearby evangelical church after scoping out my cousin's church to compare and contrast. (I didn`t want to hurt my cousin by getting caught being too obvious or doing anything that could be traced back to him, so I spread out my field work.) Each political issue is woven into the conversation, in print and in the vocal presentations, in a way that was... to my ears anyway... something like a serious version of Kevin Nealon's Mr. Subliminal sketches from Saturday Night Live, and it works on the true believers in a way that makes it hard not to roll your eyes. Partial Birth Abortion: (Bible quote) (Political Talking Point) (Bible Quote Fragment Taken Out of Context to Justify a...) (Hateful attack on opponents) (Bible quote) (Political Action Point) (Bible quote) (And... let us pray) (Prayer is actually a subtle call for God to attack/undermine opponents families/health/social standing) All carefully couched with crafted and honed position papers and the most over the top propaganda on social issues and politicians put out in measured doses like medicine. This material, from books and pamphlets prepared by big time graphic designers and professional writers in the religious/conservative publishing empires to individual talking points prepared and outlined by conservative think tanks is available with a email or a phone call. All of this is tax free, the publishers are often ministries themselves, and all of these evangelical churches are literally built to be independent money generating engines. You can come, you can go, but if you come you are more than likely going to be cutting these people checks on a regular basis for this kind of stuff. Some books, like `The Purpose Driven Life' -which I thought was better deserving of a spot with touchy-feely self help books- will spawn their own study sub-groups with material and data to be bought and studied. Cha-Ching! Another important topic of prayer group having nothing to do with prayer involves debunking of anything that is deemed `dangerous' in religious pop culture. Believe it or not `The DaVinci Code' has spawned almost a dozen and a half `debunking' books because of its main blasphemy: that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, had kids, and that distant relatives of Jesus still walk the Earth today. Provacative? Sure. But its fiction. FICTION. Fake. Not an attempt to smear or alter Christianity. Doesn't matter. Cha-Ching! There is money to be made by pretending its real.
So, here is the lay of the land in the part of the system I stuck my head into... (and I know that it looks terrifying on the surface, but look closer as I have and you will see that this system, like any institution, has exploitable and potentially devastating flaws beneath its surface that we can attack) ...accredited and unaccredited bible colleges certify hundreds of new pastors annually, and new independent evangelical churches are started up like fast food restaurants in store fronts and trailers all over the country. They are independent, expandable, pay no taxes, and can be broken down and started again and again until they are viable because their creators willingness to fleece the flock and liberally use bankruptcy laws they condemn politically as conservatives. They mandate that you have to give them a portion of your money. Unless you are destitute, or have skin thicker than rhino-hide, if you don't pay you don't stay. They answer to no one unless they choose to, as the leadership of these individual churches are the `owners' of these churches, but they benefit, and are willing to pay for, affiliations with larger umbrella organizations that give them legitimacy and aid in their ability to grow and raise money. They are their own marketplaces for the buying and selling of products specifically targeted to increase their ability to buy and sell their products and influence legislation. They most successful of them use peer pressure and shaming to control the flock and are ever expanding.
Taking it to them in the Culture war:
Sound like the Borg: Resistance is futile?
Wrong.
If you had been where I had been, talked to who I had talked to, and seen what I had seen... you would want to brawl with these people. What were some of the things I heard behind closed doors that makes me think we can win a war with these people?
Here are a few of my favorites:
1. Losing not possible?!?
You haven't lived until you have been trapped in a conversation with a conservative Republican zealot who thinks that you are a conservative Republican zealot too. The religious right has, a 'higher-up' told me gleefully, spent a ton of money on think tanks and political groups that do faith based studies/polling for both national parties (I made the decision to just nod and listen) and the info is solid. Its 'sophisticated', its on a 'wide range of issues', and... it was claimed... that they know exactly how far they can go, and as you can imagine, its pretty much the moon. Remember George W. Bush's attitude during his 'I have earned capital and I intend to spend it' speech? They have bought the 'mandate' hooey hook, line, and sinker. They think they know what their new limits are. I don't buy that. What I did hear that interested me was that the same person who assured me, with alleged polls, about how solid the ground is that they stand on, that things are not perfect. The 'leaders' on the national movement stage have accepted that there is, in fact, a rather large mass of `Christian Americans' (odd, that the religious right can be politically correct) that are definitely non-conservative in their politics. There were claims that 'research' shows that these Christians are not a worry because they don't vote consistently and that because they belong to a cross section of different Christian denominations, they don`t believe that these people can be organized into a voting block of any consequence... (I say, maybe because nobody is even trying to.) These Christians, I was told, are `Citizen's first, Christians second'. Born agains are the exact opposite. They are Christians first, Citizens second. (Treason?!?) So, somebody who is Christian... but who isn't 'born again'... isn't actually organizable huh? Hmmm. I would love to put THAT to the test.
One flaw of hardline evangelicals is that they make pretty broad assumptions about liberals and `common sense`. It is pretty close to an institutional assumption that liberals don't have any, that we hate Christians and Christianity, so they don`t fear that we liberals are going after 'those' folks. (There is a complacency on their part that we won't try to build a religious left because we `hate' faith so much.) Our opportunity here may be this: a large number of the evangelicals that I spoke to seem to think that they can, in effect, overreach without hesitation now. If they are an accurate reflection of the base nationwide, this is like leading into a fight with your chin. They think that we are really done right now and that we really can't come back from the (51%) `mandate`. I tell you, I believe that its clear they will overreach, that they are far too overconfident across their spectrum that we can't fight back, and that we will have tools to gain ground with non-conservative religious voters provided by their own actions that we can use by pointing out what non-conservative Christians might consider un-Christian behaviour. They aren't really listening to anybody in their ranks who speaks of moderation and caution right now. That's an advantage.
2. Exposure and Ridicule
The born again Christians (and the local color of the religious right that is using them to gain a stranglehold on our lives) that I have observed, met with, and listened to and in on have carefully hidden their more outrageous and embarrassing stances, actions, and positions from the general public because they are savvy enough to know that `the secularists' make a joke of them with it. Ridicule ruins them and that is a worry across the board. Yet many still hold onto their wackier beliefs even though they know are embarrassing and undermining. Like letting a kid read Harry Potter will corrupt their children until they worship the devil or seriously attempt to become real wizards. "We just don't read Harry Potter." That is their answer. But they don't say why... because people would laugh at them. Can you imagine what would happen if an influential movement envangelical, who was a Republican in Congress, stood up on CSPAN and said that the Dinosaurs didn't exist, but that fossils were actually demon bones left over from Satan's fall from heaven? They do, and it scares the hell out of them because they know that its not something that can be taken back. They know what that sounds like; crazy talk. The new 'image conscious' evangelicals just never remark on such things in public. Think about they last time you heard about a public book burning of Harry Potter books? Its embarrassing because its so blatantly ignorant that even they cringe when it happens even as they openly agree with the sentiment in their own social circles. So what do they do? There are still evangelicals and small churches that are still actively ruining Harry Potter books... they don't tell anybody that they do it! Yes folks, private book burnings. I kid you not. I actually attended an event that was called a `CD swap`, it was private and unpublicized outside of the community where new church members could bring music that was, apparently, evil (Marilyn Manson? Oh no. We are talking Brittany Spears and Dave Matthews Band stuff) and swap it for contemporary Christian rock music. Then the 'bad' CD's were smashed by a church pickup truck decorated as `The Truth Mobile`. They placed a big board over the CD's and drove the truck back and forth over them. (I was also told, without asking, that there was something of a Christian urban legend going around about a CD burning that sickened a mass of evangelicals who were witnessing, so they don`t do that. I just figured that it was common sense not to burn plastic... shows how much I know.)
I heard a strategy session and brainstorming occurred about deliberate rentals of controversial DVDs at Blockbusters and West Coast video stores... then subtly scratching them and giving them back saying that 'we were really dissapointed, when we got it home, it skipped'. Blockbusters is a big company that has insurance, they reasoned, so they see this as a no lose situation for all. Going to bookstores, public restrooms, shopping malls, getting on public transportations like the CAT buses here in Nevada and dropping 'are you going to hell?' tracts and `are you saved' tracts. (Chick tracts were banned, actually, because of anti-semitism. Apparently there is a Chick tract about a rabbi going to hell just because he happened to be Jewish. These folks are very much proudly American Zionists.) Getting hired at the local library and, if not chucking un-Christian books, discouraging their purchase or getting certified as librarians and working as the head of public libraries and, being in charge of purchases, suppressing purchases and thinning the stocks of particularly hated books as long as you don`t get caught. But it all has to be hidden. Don't get caught. Don't embarrass the church or the Pastor or whoever. There is a real tangible dread of the political damage of being exposed to the rest of society indulging in their more `moonbat' activities. Time and time again not getting caught doing these things was an issue. They have done so because they are well aware that in the past the evangelical movement has been set back by its own blatant gaffes and laughably extremist moves. Camouflage is the order of the day, and you don't cover up things this overwhelmingly unless you are really terrified about it being widely exposed. One of the topics discussed in one of the longer prayer meetings was that God `is blinding people' (like journalists) from seeing the obvious chinks in their armor as a part of this shift. (No lady, Journalists are that damned lazy was what I probably thought at the time, but in hindsight, it seemed like far too much whistling past the graveyard.) I believe that they are worried that people will start looking for these 'inconvenient' things like the unvarnished truth again. If one of these wingnut Senators that just got elected says what they truly believe behind closed doors, they take a torpedo. A dedicated effort to expose this kind of nonsense whenever and wherever it occurs will help undermine them. They have successfully hidden their lunatic fringe because of a lazy disengaged newsmedia for far too long.
3. Betrayal/Disappointment/Payback and the Republican party.
Okay, bad news first, and its ugly so let me say this flat out, unless George W. Bush declares war on Israel and starts dropping bombs on Jerusalem he is pretty much off the table with these people I met. Now, I figure that considering the election this year you would know that anyway, but there has been some doubt about the number of religious voters increasing or staying the same. I say that, no matter what that statistical shift one way or the other, these people are hooked. I saw the same things over and over again. Its scary, but some of these folks have pictures of him with their family photos, and on their pianos at home and in their offices at work/church. He shares spots with pictures of Christ. He screws up, they just explain it away as the fault of others. They don't care about WMD's, outsourcing, or innocent muslims that get in the way of falling bombs. Boom! Must have been the Lord's will. Bush has become such a sainted figure that he will be given a complete pass while in office by the people that I have spent time with even if he fails to deliver a damned thing to them. No judges? No prayer in school? Roe V. Wade still exists? No anti-Gay marriage amendment? They will be upset, and even more mobilized in the short term, but they will blame hated abstractions and boogeymen like 'the liberals', 'the politicians' and 'the media' before they blame Bush the man. (Its amazing, but its the truth, Yucca Flats is going to turn Nevada into America's radiation toilet... and they let THAT go.) But Bush is a lame duck President who cannot run for the office again. As far as the GOP is concerned... with this group of folks... the Republican party is not so lucky as ol' Dubya is in terms of sainthood. If Bush fails to deliver on his promises the longterm stigma of those failures will fall squarely on the GOP like a cartoon anvil on Wile E. Coyote. There is already talk that the GOP might have used them from a small minority. Especially with Israel and moral issues potentially taking a backseat to big business, this could be a big problem for the GOP later.
The born again Christian movement will demand what we consider extremism very soon if they don't see action, and thats a win/win situation for us potentially in two ways... if the GOP capitulates we will be better able to marginalize them as a party of extremists, and if they don't the evangelical vote will not move in lockstep with the Republican party and the electoral landscape will shift as inevitably the tide always shifts in American politics. Simply put, these folks have no permanent loyalty to the GOP... they have a loyalty to their God. Period. If the GOP doesn't deliver what God "tells the faithful that he wants delivered", the Lord will "lead them elsewhere". Those Red states in the deep south may be Red for other reasons for quite some time, but if the evangelical Christians decide to start their own political movement... their own party of God... some of those other big Red states, especially the ones with tiny, tiny, Red populations might very well turn a muddy rust color and be sources of political embarassment later. Not realistically likely to create a map of Red states/Blue states/Muddy Brown states, I know, but evangelical Christians will definitely not prop up the GOP unless they deliver, and George W. Bush is not President for life. We attack, we filibuster, but we also remember our 48% of the vote and remember that patience is a virtue in this fight as well. The GOP controls every branch of government and so they have to be held accountable for what happens next, and there is no compelling reason considering this to pretend to be Republicans if these people might peel away and effect the Republican base later.
++++++
Maybe it was a mistake to do this. I don't know. But what I definately am is a good listener, note taker, and observer of human nature and I had to give being 'on point' in this fight a shot.
From the short time that I have really been submerged in their world, and the time I occasionally stuck my nose in to see what was going on out of being curious, I can say that the era of our 'Being the Nice Guys' has got to be over, dead, and done. The evangelicals around my cousin's family didn't rally to him when his fortunes failed, they kicked his ass for not having the cash anymore. They are willing to maul their own flocks and ignore reality to keep the 'God is currently in the Republican Party' thing going. Un-Christian behaviour in defense of Christianity is no vice. (to paraphrase Barry Goldwater) We should be willing to go negative, use what we learn if and when we learn something is incredibly inflamatory, and go after the 'Culture Vultures' where they live.
In the artificial constructs of their well worn cultural mythologies about their own superior morality.