Tyranny of the Christian Right

The Left is insular. The Left is instructive. The Left is very afraid. Of Christians.

Michelle Goldberg's column in yesterday's AlterNet (a Left-leaning publication) addresses the threat evangelical Christians pose to the fabric of life as we know it in America.

But before I address her concerns about Christians, I have to expose the fallacy of her simile:

Thus for those who value secular society, apprehending the threat of Christian nationalism is tricky. It's like being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating up so slowly that you don't notice the moment at which it starts to kill you.

It's a frog in a pot with the water heating up slowly. You throw a lobster into a pot of boiling water, which kills it immediately. If you can't even get your similes and metaphors right, how are we going to respect the actual points that you make?

The subtitle to Goldberg's column (I used her title as the title to this post) is, "The largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- evangelical Christianity -- has set out to destroy secular society." I hadn't realized that's what I had set out to do. Not that I am a "mass movement" all by myself, but I am an evangelical Christian.

This is a really long article, and it's followed by about a million comments, mostly from liberals in complete agreement with her about the dire threat to society, so I won't try to highlight all of her scintillating points--just a few of the shiny ones.

The phrase ["Christian worldview"] is based on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every aspect of public and private life, and that all -- government, science, history and culture -- must be understood according to the dictates of scripture. There are biblically correct positions on every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those with the right worldview can discern them. This is Christianity as a total ideology -- I call it Christian nationalism.

She's kinda-sorta right, but still wrong. Christian faith must govern every aspect of an individual Christian's life, public and private, and that includes expressing one's voice as a citizen of the country to try to influence the direction our society takes. And this is nothing less than what secular people do. We just disagree on what that direction should be.

As Christian nationalism becomes more militant, secularists and religious minorities will mobilize in opposition, ratcheting up the hostility. Thus we're likely to see a shrinking middle ground, with both camps increasingly viewing each other across a chasm of mutual incomprehension and contempt.

It's the Christians who are becoming militant. Secularists are only reacting when they get hostile. Uh-huh. She's right about the incomprehension and contempt, though. I think we might be there already. Her column indicates that the Left has reached it.

In the coming years, we will probably see the curtailment of the civil rights that gay people, women and religious minorities have won in the last few decades.

I'm really glad she didn't include racial minorities in the list of who she thinks Christians want to curtail. That would be beyond contempt. But women? What makes her think Christians want to take away women's civil rights? Are we out to stop women from voting? Or is she only thinking of women's "civil right" to have an abortion?

I understand her inclusion of gay people in this list, since the Left seems to believe that civil rights for gays includes the right to be approved of and the right to be hired by churches that hold strong religious beliefs against the practice of homosexuality. But does she think Christians want to stop Muslims or Wiccans or Buddhists from voting or getting jobs? Just what rights have Christians tried to curtail?

Here's how Goldberg concludes:

Writing just after 9/11, Salman Rushdie eviscerated those on the left who rationalized the terrorist attacks as a regrettable explosion of understandable third world rage: "The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings," he wrote. "Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multiparty political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex."

Christian nationalists have no problem with beardlessness, but except for that, Rushdie could have been describing them.

It makes no sense to fight religious authoritarianism abroad while letting it take over at home. The grinding, brutal war between modern and medieval values has spread chaos, fear, and misery across our poor planet. Far worse than the conflicts we're experiencing today, however, would be a world torn between competing fundamentalisms. Our side, America's side, must be the side of freedom and Enlightenment, of liberation from stale constricting dogmas. It must be the side that elevates reason above the commands of holy books and human solidarity above religious supremacism. Otherwise, God help us all.

According to Michelle Goldberg, evangelical Christians are against all of the following things: "freedom of speech, a multiparty political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, evolution theory, sex."

What planet does she live on? What hallucinogens does she consume? What synapses in her brain are misfiring?

Freedom of speech. Christians would like an equal right as everyone else to speak our minds in the public square.

Multiparty political system. Who says we don't want that? We want our side to win. They want their side to win. What's the big deal?

Universal adult suffrage. What??? Christians want some adults not to be able to vote? Does she want felons to vote? Does she want illegal aliens to vote? I don't get this one.

Accountable government. We want it to be accountable. We just don't think that the first response to a disagreement with government policy should be to throw Karl Rove in prison.

Jews. Ask Dennis Prager (a religious Jew). Evangelical Christians in America are the Jews' best friend.

Homosexuals. Christians are not against homosexuals. Homosexuals are people, and Christians actually like people. What the Christians I know object to is having homosexuality shoved in our faces and then being called bigots when we disagree with the practice. Gays say they want to keep us out of their bedrooms. Fine. Let them keep their bedrooms out of our faces.

Women's rights. I assume she means abortion rights. She's right. Evangelical Christians tend to be against that.

Pluralism. I'm not sure what she means by this one. Christians like America and its ideals. We like the melting pot. I am the melting pot (eight nationalities). If she means we want immigrants to assimilate rather than balkanize, that's more of a conservative rather than a Christian viewpoint.

Secularism. She's sorta right on this, too. Christians don't want our country to become a completely secular society, like France is. We want God to still be allowed to live here.

Short skirts. Oh, please.

Dancing. That used to be the Southern Baptists, I think. I don't know if they still frown on dancing or not. But nobody is out to remove dancing from America.

Evolution theory. There is no unified Evangelical Christian view of evolution. Many Christians believe varying combinations of creation/evolution. Some are creation-only. Some are evolution-only. Some are creation-via-evolution. Some don't care a whole lot about beginnings, just about endings (heaven/hell).

Sex. We like sex. We just prefer it to be married sex.

Lefties, get a grip. We're not a threat. We have the right to participate in the political process and to be part of the public arena. If you can't stand that fact, go to France.

Either way, God help us all.