These are speculations. I am trying to understand the apparent popularity of fundamentalist Christianity, its impact on the political process in the U.S., and what can be done to respond to it. I invite your responses as I think my way through all this.
In this post I address the questions: 1. How can fundamentalists ignore the "reality" of Bush policies and their effects, and therefore the celebrated question: 2. How can they---overwhelmingly middle class Americans---vote against their own economic interests?
Though I am no longer a member of any Christian church, I did put in 12 years in Catholic schools, which meant dealing with religious issues every day. This was in the 1950s and 1960s, so I am not deeply familiar with what teachers are saying now. But based on this background, I've had problems understanding the evangelical point of view. As a Catholic I was used to dealing with some paradoxes inherent in the doctrine: for instance, that the Church spoke for God, and we were to obey external church authority, but that "the kingdom of God is within you" and the final arbiter is one's own conscience.
This and related paradoxes, along with "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and God the things that are God's" enabled Catholics to live in a pluralistic society governed by democratic means. So John F. Kennedy was completely within Church doctrine when he declared that the Church would not determine his policies, and as President his sworn duty was to the office and the nation.
With this background, I tried to understand how fundamentalists could 1) ignore the "reality" of Bush's policies and their effects, while maintaining loyalty to him, and 2) vote against their own economic interests in supporting Bush and Republican policies.
My interest in the first question became more acute during the campaign as the result of survey results published by the Center for Policy and International Studies at the University of Maryland in October, which you can find here: http://www.pipa.org:
- 72% of Bush supporters (B.S.) still believe that Iraq had WMDs.
- 56% of B.S. assume that most of the experts agree that Iraq had WMD and an ongoing program to develop them.
- 57% of B.S. supporters believe that the Duelfer report concluded that Iraq, at the very least, had a major and ongoing WMD program.
- 75% of B.S. believe that Saddam was providing substantial support to Al Qaeda. 60% believe most experts agree with this conclusion and 55% believe that was the ultimate finding of the 9-11 commission report.
All of this is evidence of buying the Bushie/Limbaugh/O'Reilly line, even after considerable evidence had accumulated against these suppositions. However, another set of statistics seemed even more illuminating:
- 72% think that the Bush administration supports the international ban on land mines.
- 51% think W supports the Kyoto treaty.
- 53% of B.S. still think W favors U.S. participation in the international criminal court (even though he said just the opposite during the debates).
- 74% of B.S. think Bush favors the inclusion of labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.
Now not all Bush supporters are evangelicals, and vice versa, and when it comes to humans, most effects are "overdetermined"-that is, the result of multiple causes, any one of which might be sufficient but in reality they are all present. But these numbers did suggest questions: why do Bush supporters believe that Bush takes positions opposite to those he has publicly taken?
I have one tentative answer, which follows from the suggestions I'm about to make about why evangelicals are not "reality-based" as we understand the term.
My insights, or maybe they are simply intuitions, are based on impressions from several unlikely sources. Not published philosophies or statements by scholars, but on implications of three wildly different sources: an online essay on why the Star Wars movies are anti-Christian, a comment by author Dale Maharidge made at a bookstore signing covered by C-Span, and a segment on Larry King last week in which representatives of several faiths commented on the relationship of God and the recent tsunami.
The Star Wars article, entitled "Star Wars and the goals of mankind " is
by Joel H. Linton, and can be found here:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/standard/Mar97/Opinions/Opinions_Story7.html
Linton writes of his view of the classic Star Wars triology of the 1970s and 80s both before his conversion to Christianity and after. "The philosophy behind the Star Wars trilogy, which I used to hold, represents the apex of secular meaning. It spurred me, even in elementary school, to desire glory, to do good works for mankind, to save the universe." Later: "Star Wars epitomizes the goals of mankind without God, the height of non-Christian achievement. Strength comes from within. One must discover and use this strength to do good and glorious things. These glorious things include striving for the good of mankind, fighting evil, and winning recognition, fame, and power. By so doing, though you will cease to exist, you will live on to affect future generations. Your name will be held dear by the people of the future, and in their memory, you will become immortal. These concepts are so strong in the movie that even as an second grader, I grasped them. In fact, I adopted them."
The "strength from within" he attributes to "The Force," that the movies say permeates all things and is generated by all living things. Linton calls this an Eastern religious concept, presumably meaning Buddhism and its offshoots: "It flows through you and controls you, but you can control it with your mind and your feelings. It is a power within...This Force can be harnessed to do an individual's will. Along that line, the solutions to life's problems can be found within."
But according to the view Litton identifies as "Christian" (and which I take to mean evangelical or fundamentalist Christian) is that this very idea, that the solution can be found within, is an expression of humans trying to be like God, which is the Original Sin that led to the Fall of humanity from Paradise.
Litton then provides a concise summary of the Christian view: "Christian beliefs are contrary to that philosophy: The troubles in the world are caused by each person's own sin and the effect it has on creation. God created us. He is personal and active in the world. He is the source of all power and goodness. Christians and non-Christians alike are sinful and cannot save themselves. Instead of good works and self-reliance, all must look to Jesus Christ, who alone can give new life. Salvation comes from an external source. Humans exist to obey, enjoy and worship this personal God, not shape a destiny by learning to manipulate an impersonal god-force. The Holy Spirit, who is God, empowers all people who embrace the power of Jesus's Gospel. He is distinct from humankind, but convicts all walks of people, strengthening and enabling them to do good."
This view is now key to my understanding of fundamentalists. I felt it was affirmed by what I saw of that Larry King show. Apparently the question of whether the Asian tsunami expressed God's anger has been a topic among Christians---enough of one to merit discussion on Scarborough country. Then rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, wrote an article asking where was God during the tsunami, which seemed to be the occasion for Larry King gathering Lerner, representatives of Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic and evangelical Christian faiths, as well as Depak Chopra, apparently representing New Age spirituality.
I didn't see the whole program, but what I did see was unexpectedly enlightening. All of the participants were in favor of charitable aid to tsunami victims, and each man (as Chopra pointed out, it was an all-male assembly) had something different to say about the relationship of God and human suffering, but I found it striking that the Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist and Muslim representatives (as well as Chopra) cast their own religion's views in language that emphasized similarities and the commonality of the tsunami tragedy. This was especially true on the reason for helping tsunami victims: aiding the suffering was in and of itself a tenet, a responsibility, of Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Catholicism, according to them.
The sole exception was the evangelical minister. He said that evangelical Christians would of course offer aid to tsunami victims, but they must make it clear that they offered it in the name of Jesus Christ. Spreading the word of Christ was more important, because it affected their lives in this world, and especially in the next.
Here's a link to the transcript of this discussion, so you can judge for yourself if I'm interpreting correctly.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0501/07/lkl.01.html
In these two examples, I'm impressed by the view represented as (fundamentalist) Christian that we reject relying on inner resources, which would seem to include one's own judgment. Authority is external: the word of Christ, as recorded in Scripture, and presumably as interpreted by contemporary evangelical authorities, although I'm not clear on this point.
So if you held this view, who would you trust to make and execute public policy? What would be your criteria for choosing the person in charge? It would seem to be whether or not that person has accepted Christ as his personal savior, and therefore as the determinant of what's right and what's wrong. Moreover, ascertaining this is not a matter of looking within, but in looking to God's word in Scripture. So interpreting scripture becomes a vital political power.
According to this view, George W. Bush should be president for the sole and sufficient reason that he is an evangelical Christian. His past indiscretions are only evidence that he, like everyone, was a sinner. By espousing key policies that fundamentalist Christian "authorities" (whatever that may mean) consider to be important matters on which Scripture is clear, Bush signals his membership in the saved.
The other candidates are not saved and cannot be trusted as he can. The secular media is opposed to Christ, and they poison information to fit with their un-Christian agenda. Therefore, Bush is to be believed on matters of fact, because only he can be trusted to tell the truth.
Other than the policies that reflect Scripture, Bush's policies don't really matter, but the assumption would be that because he is in Christ, his policies will be right. This might account for the belief that Bush is, for instance, in favor of the Land Mine Treaty. Because this and other policies sound right and moral, Bush must be for them, since he is a moral Christian.
So to sum up these points, fundamentalist Christians don't view the fact-based "reality" other accept because: (a) they don't rely on their own flawed judgment, but on others who are of Christ, and (b) non-evangelical sources are suspect to begin with, because they are either enemies of Christ or unwitting sinners whose belief in their own judgment renders them unreliable.
All of this is hard for many of us to accommodate in our world views. It's a tenet of many who have different faiths or don't consider themselves spiritual at all, that a person's religion is a private matter, or at least something to be shared within one's religious community, and though it can and perhaps should influence our judgments, in a pluralistic society religion cannot be the overriding basis for public decision-making. This is, for example, the Catholic view that John F. Kennedy expressed, and John F. Kerry. (Today it might be considered a liberal Catholic view, however. The extent to which conservative Catholics today are closer to the evangelical perspective is beyond my knowledge, but on those wedge issues there is apparent common ground.)
But if this is true, we are going to have to come to grips with it. For one thing, it makes religion a bona fide public policy question. More on that in another post.
For now I will add this suggestion. In addition to specific spiritual beliefs, we must not underestimate the power and the role of religion and spirituality in American lives. We are never going to understand the so-called Red States if we persist in not considering spirituality because we insist that Church and State must be separate. Of course they must, but faith or religion or spirituality are not entirely separate from politics or political decision-making. That goes for many people in the Blue States mindset who voted for Kerry.
Spirituality is an important part of life for many if not most people. For example I would suggest the possibility that it plays a role in the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" question. In describing a white supremacist he met, and the views this man had which were not based in fact (for instance that the federal government supports all immigrants), Dale Maharidge (author of "Homeland") recounts the problems this man was having getting affordable health care for his family. If he did have access to health care, Maharidge wondered, would he be so fixated on white supremacy? He thinks, probably not.
Without exploring the psychology that would make this possible, it suggested to me that if this were so, the worse things get for the middle class, the more reactionary the response could be. I think this might apply also to religious belief, especially evangelical Christianity, which takes responsibility out of one's own hands and puts it in the external purview of this religion, and in the care of Christ.
Religion has long been a source of explanation as well as comfort for the poor and downtrodden. Fundamentalists who believe that non-believers can't really improve their lives, may even believe in Bush's trickle-down economics because he's one of them. But in any case, they may be looking to religious explanations for their fate (including the failure of society as a whole to embrace Christ), as well as looking beyond this world, to their salvation and happiness in the next. Voting against a fellow Christian might be a black mark against them. So once again, in a perverse way, the worse things get economically for middle class believers, the more they turn to religion for their public policy decisions.