I don't know about you, but I have been totally bewildered by the rise of the Religious Right and religiosity in general in America. I was raised a Protestant but don't even go to church. I have very strong spiritual beliefs and great respect for the teachings of Christ and could probably be described as living by Christian ideals, i.e. trying to help others, giving to charity, treating everyone equally, not lying, stealing or cheating and so on, but I'm not a Christian. I grew up in the socially activist `60s and `70s so our current culture seems retrogressive, especially the component who is turning to a paternalistic God to punish all the unbelievers.
What's going on here?
I'm reading Jimmy Carter's "Our Endangered Values" (2005, Simon & Schuster) and a wonderful editorial by Rabbi Michael Lerner in Tikkun magazine called "Hostile Takeover: Theocracy in America" and I think I'm starting to understand what's going on.
Jimmy Carter describes fundamentalist movements as follows (pp 34-35):
* "Almost invariably...led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers."
* "...usually believe that the past is better than the present, they retain certain self-beneficial aspects of both their historic religious beliefs and of the modern world."
* "...draw clear distinctions between themselves, as true believers, and others, convinced that they are right and that anyone who contradicts them is ignorant and possibly evil."
* "...militant in fighting against any challenge to their beliefs. They are often angry and sometimes resort to verbal or even physical abuse against those who interfere with the implementation of their agenda."
* "...their self-definition [is] increasingly narrow and restricted; [they tend] to isolate themselves, to demagogue emotional issues, and to view change, cooperation, negotiation, and other efforts to resolve differences as signs of weakness."
They sound like assholes to me, so what's the attraction?
Rabbi Lerner thinks that a lot of people are "sick and tired of a world based on competition, materialism, and selfishness" and "that they hunger for some framework of meaning that can connect them to a higher purpose." They may not be attracted at first to the specific content offered by the Religious Right, but are drawn in because the Right is addressing these issues. "They find in these religious communities people who act in very caring ways towards others who have bought into the religious worldview. Buying in seems a small price to pay for the nurturing and sense of meaning and purpose that these communities provide." And buying in means swallowing hook, line and sinker, the idea that the godless Left is the cause of all the problems in society and offers no real solutions.
The Religious Right organizes itself to provide social supports to its community and believes that church-initiated programs do a better job than the government. The only caveat there is that they only help those that believe as they do. They distrust a government made up of people who don't believe as they do and advocate minimizing government as much as possible. An underlying theme of their discourse is that government programs aren't really effective, for instance at ending poverty, reversing climate change, rebuilding cities, and so on, so why bother?
Rabbi Lerner goes on to warn us that electing the Democrats next time is not going to reduce the impact the Religious Right has on the public discourse. They have done such a good job of building a vocal, on-message, grassroots base that the Democrats are going to have to listen to them. Furthermore, the policies of the Democrats and the Republicans tend to favor corporate interests anyway. (This is such an often-discussed theme here at dKos that I'm not going to expand on it here.)
Rabbi Lerner sees the solution to the Religious Right being the need for the Left to offer a clear and coherent progressive spirituality that will provide the framework of meaning that people are presently seeking. He describes The Spiritual Covenant with America in his book "The Left Hand of God."
Jimmy Carter also articulates a clear spiritual framework that has guided him all of his life, including during his presidency. I think it could be a good starting point for the Democrats if they want to win over all of the people looking for a greater meaning for their lives.
Carter's Christian values include:
* "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
* Treat all people, men and women, equally
* Though shalt not kill, i.e. no death penalty
* Protect the environment
* Tolerance of those with different beliefs
Carter, on America:
* "...A country will have authority and influence because of moral factors, not its military strength; because it can be humble and not blatant and arrogant..."
* "I want our country to be strong enough in all elements, military and otherwise, so we never have to prove we are strong."
* "What are the goals of a person or a denomination or a country? They are all remarkably the same: a desire for peace; a need for humility, for examining one's faults and turning away from them; a commitment to human rights in the broadest sense of the words, based on a moral society concerned with the alleviation of suffering because of deprivation or hatred or hunger or physical affliction; and a willingness, even an eagerness, to share one's ideals, one's faith with others to translate love in a person to justice."
Carter, on a just war:
* "The preeminent criterion for a just war is that is can only be waged as a last resort, with all non-violent options exhausted."
* "Weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants."
* "Violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered."
* "The attackers must have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent."
* "The peace to be established must be a clear improvement over what exists."
I should add here that Carter put the US Constitution ahead of his religious beliefs when he was president. For instance, Carter didn't think that Jesus would approve of abortion but put his responsibility to uphold Roe v. Wade ahead of his personal beliefs. Having said that, he also did everything within his power to minimize the need for abortion, such as providing good sex education, birth control and programs to support mothers who wanted to keep their babies. I don't want to get into any arguments here about abortion but just want to use this as an example of how a devoutly religious person can balance his duty to the Constitution and his personal beliefs, something that GWB would do well to study.
If an articulated spiritual message is what is needed to turn back the tide of the Religious Right, then I could certainly live by the ideals of Jimmy Carter and Rabbi Michael Lerner. How about you?