Meditation – 29 July 2007
North Chapel Universalist Society
Woodstock VT
By Alan W. Perkins
Several months ago, Marta Flanagan was talking about UU theology with a
group of new members of this church. She commented that preaching to
Unitarians was a difficult thing, and now I think I know what she was
talking about. At this moment I kind of wish she hadn’t said
that.
For several years I have been keeping an eye open following the
activities of two Conservative Christian movements —
Reconstructionism and Dominionism. I thought I might share with you
some of what I have learned — so here we are.
Let me open with a brief vocabulary lesson — or an explanation
of how I’m using certain words in the current
context. The first is the word
“Evangelical” by which I mean persons who believe
it is in th
eir interest — and perhaps their God’s
interest — to “spread the
faith” In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus is reported to
have commanded his followers to proselytize to the world. This is
called the “Great Commission” and is a part of the
package of ideas subscribed to by most Christians. There are liberal
Evangelicals as well as the more often encountered conservative
Evangelicals.
The next word is “Fundamentalist” about which I
need to say more. The Fundamentalists fit into the “more
conservative” part of the religious spectrum, also called the
“far right wing” of the faith. It is important to
note, however, that the majority of “Conservative
Christians” do not consider themselves to be Fundamentalists.
The 18th century Enlightenment occasioned revolutionary new ideas in
politics, science and theology. The 19th century saw further
developments in these areas, and in mid-century, Darwin’s
Origin of Species was published, opening a hornet’s nest of
theological thinking along with scientific thought.
The major Protestant churches responded to these new ideas and by the
turn of the 20th century had become notably liberal in comparison to
their earlier teaching. Their message had become as concerned
with peace and justice as with personal salvation.
In the heartland of America, as opposed to the more urban regions, and
especially in the South, most people did not attend churches where the
clergy were well educated with graduate degrees in theology and an
understanding of science, Biblical criticism and philosophy as
requirements for ordination. Much of the nation’s churches
had clergy with little education at all and a large difference appeared
in the preachments of peace and justice matters in the mainline
churches and the personal salvation matters of the smaller and more
conservative churches.
Fundamentalism developed as a rejection to the new notions of science,
education and the religion being taught by the mainline churches and
adopted by society. The name comes from the five "fundamentals" of
Christian belief that were enumerated in a series of 12 paperback
volumes containing scholarly essays on the Bible that appeared between
1910 and 1915. The “Fundamentals” included a belief
in:
• Biblical inerrancy (with a
special favoring of the King James Bible)
• The divinity of Jesus
• The Virgin Birth
• The belief that Jesus died to
redeem humankind, and,
• An expectation of the Second
Coming, or physical return, of Jesus Christ to initiate his
thousand-year rule of the Earth, which came to be known as the
Millennium.
This last idea comes from their reading of the Book of Revelation which
they see as a prediction of things to come, and a factual account of
how the world will end quite soon. Mainline and secular Biblical
scholars understand this book quite differently — as a
visionary statement of what the author would like to see happen to the
hated Roman Empire and its leaders. It is basically a book on politics
of the Roman Empire, but the Fundamentalists instead read it as a
recipe book for the end of the world.
A personal note here:
Included within Fundamentalism is the notion of “the
Rapture”, whereby the True Believers will be wafted up into
heaven, leaving the rest of us here to suffer the torments of hell. I
have a Fundamentalist cousin who once told me that she was hoping to be
alive when I died so that she could stand on the edge of hell and enjoy
watching me suffer therein. So much for Christian love!
The Fundamentalists at first tried withdrawing and separating
themselves from the rest of society and especially the more modern
churches. Subject to ridicule by the liberals, both secular and
religious, they retreated until the very end of the 20th century when
their more prominent leaders convinced them to join forces with the
political neo-conservatives, and the right wing of the Republican
Party.
A number of neo-conservative notions fit the beliefs of the
Fundamentalists — the idea that people are basically bad and
need to be forced into good behavior, that poor people are basically
responsible for their own poverty, that workfare is better than
welfare, public schools are all failing, and so on and so on. When
President Bush came out with the slogan, Compassionate
Conservatism” for his 2000 campaign, many of the
Fundamentalists thought they had found a friend. The election of 2004
shows the result of this alliance.
Recent news reports, however, suggest that the Fundamentalists are
reconsidering this alliance. There is even talk that many of them will
boycott the next election.
Let us now look at the Reconstructionists.
In a Mother Jones article, “A Nation Under God”,
John Sugg wrote:
“Let others worry about the rapture: For the increasingly
powerful Christian Reconstruction movement, the task is to establish
the Kingdom of God right now—from the courthouse to the White
House.”
He goes on to say of the Reconstructionist movement,:
“[it is] an obscure but increasingly potent theology whose
top exponents hold that Christian crusaders must conquer and convert
the world, by the sword if necessary, before Jesus will
return.” … “Reconstructionism is the
spark plug behind much of the battle over religion in politics
today.”
The movement’s founder, theologian Rousas John Rushdoony,
claimed 20 million followers—a number that includes many who
embrace the Reconstruction tenets without having joined any
organization. Card-carrying Reconstructionists are few, but their
influence is magnified by their leadership in Christian right crusades,
from abortion to homeschooling.
Reconstructionism has slowly absorbed, or taken over, congregation by
congregation, many churches in many denominations, notably among the
Southern Baptists. Such is the case with several of the churches of the
UCC in Vermont following the church’s discussions of same-sex
marriage which were held several years ago. The Christian Far Right has
found followers when moderate and liberal ideas are presented to what
are basically conservative congregations.
From the Reconstructionists, let us turn to the Dominionists…
Dominion theology is predicated upon three basic beliefs: 1) Satan
usurped man’s dominion over the earth through the temptation
of Adam and Eve; 2) The Church is God’s instrument to take
dominion back from Satan; 3) Jesus cannot or will not return until the
Church has taken dominion by gaining control of the earth’s
governmental and social institutions.
Dominionism got its start in the 1970’s and 80’s.
Its main source seems to be a book by Francis A. Schaeffer,
“Whatever Happened to the Human Race? co-authored by C.
Edward Koop. Its thesis is that through Christian
inattention, Western Civilization had slipped its Judeo-Christian
moorings, and has drifted into a "post-Christian era", under the sway
of a secular civil religion that Schaeffer called "secular humanism".
The landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade served as
Schaeffer's iconic portrait of the radical cheapening of human life
which he predicted must accompany this cultural shift, producing a
culture increasingly bent on self-destruction. Schaeffer’s
tract, called upon Christians to directly resist these influences, in
the public sphere.
To summarize these two movements, the Reconstructuralists want to
re-construct society as it used to be according to their
misunderstanding of history by making it over into a Christian
replacement for secular society. And, the Dominionists want to dominate
the world, or at least our part of it, in order to enable their version
of Christ to return.
These two forms of extreme religious conservatism overlap and are
confusing. Most members of either group won’t admit to either
label being attached to them, but both are rapidly increasing in
importance and in the number of their adherents. Their leaders are very
effective in communicating – radio by the millions, TV, DVDs,
Christian bookstores, preachers — often with minimum
education but effective voices — and their numbers are
growing. How many? I haven’t seen any firm figures,
but there are millions and millions of them — enough to sway
elections.
George W. Bush’s administration is heavily populated with
Reconstructionists and Dominionists and other flavors of the Religious
Right. Many of his top administrators and appointees favor governing
with what they call a “Biblical worldview” — one of the Reconstructionists’ signature
phrases. Yet for all its influence, Reconstructionism and
Dominionism is almost invisible to the media and secular society.
Should these folks win the battle they are fighting, what would we see
in America?
The Old Testament—with its 600 or so Mosaic laws—is
the inflexible guide [for the [Christian] society [they] envision.
Government posts would be reserved for the righteous — as
long as they are male. There would be thousands of executions a year,
with stoning a preferred method because it would turn the deaths into
“community projects,” as movement theologian Gary
North has noted. [I might add that North also likes stones because they
are cheap!]
Sinners in line for the death penalty would include women who commit
adultery or lie about their virginity, blasphemers, witches, children
who strike their parents, and gay men. Lesbians, however, would be
spared because no specific reference to them can be found in the Books
of Moses.
Besides facilitating evangelism, Reconstructionists believe, government
should largely be limited to building and maintaining roads, enforcing
land-use contracts, and ensuring just weights and measures. Unions
would not exist, and neither would unemployment benefits, Social
Security, and environmental protection laws.
Public schools would disappear; one of the movement’s great
successes has been promoting homeschooling programs and publishing
texts used by tens of thousands of homeschooling families.
And, perhaps most importantly, the state is to become “God’s minister,” “taking
vengeance out on those who do evil.” A major task for the
government, key Reconstructionists envision, is fielding armies for
conquest in the name of Jesus.
Reconstruction’s premises may fly in the face of mainstream
Christianity, and some of its leaders’ beliefs would probably
surprise even the movement’s own foot soldiers, but what has
made their theology such an explosive addition to public life is not
its dogma on individual issues so much as its trumpet call to action.
This is a faith in which religion is not an influence on politics; it
is politics.
Not all Dominionists are Reconstruction apostles—but the
differences are a matter of theological finesse, and political
strategies are largely indistinguishable.) Adam and Eve broke their
covenant with God, and Satan seized dominion. Christian Reconstruction
claims it has a reconstituted covenant with God and the right to a new
dominion in his name. … In this worldview, the mandate for
Christians is not just to live right or to help their neighbors: They
are called upon to take over or eliminate the institutions of secular
government.
What difference does it make if these folks believe as they do? Why
should we care? There are a lot of ‘crazy’ ideas
floating out there. For all I know, there may be millions of people who
think the world is flat — (even Tom Friedman of the Times
says it is). For me, this is no problem, but I
don’t want flat earthers navigating my airplane when I fly
across the ocean and I don’t want self-righteous Christians
running my country.
The right-wing believers are against the teaching of evolution in the
schools because they don’t trust science (and because it is
contrary to scripture). Well, I don’t always trust science
either – look at the atomic bomb for instance. Look at the
pollution so-called ‘better living through
chemistry’ has given us. Look at what modern warfare has done
for us!
What makes what these people I’ve been talking about
important to me is that they have become powerful leaders of our
society. They have — temporarily I hope — taken
over much of our government, the judicial branch, the executive branch
and much of the legislative branch. The military and police forces are
falling into their clutches.
And, it is not just that their ideas are based on a religion I
don’t like, either. A considerable part of my values come
from the Christian religion and the teachings of the same Jesus they
worship.
It is how they think, and how they educate others of like mind to
think, and what issues they decide to take up, and how they distort so
many ideas of our civilization that concerns me. I put a great deal of
emphasis on the human ability to reason. I don’t know why
humans have this ability — and there are some indications
that we are fooling ourselves when we try to use it. I don’t
know if God or evolutionary happenstance is responsible for our having
this ability, but I do believe that reason is the only answer we have
to avoid a very bleak future for the human race and these people who
are taking over are unreasonable!
They repeatedly come up with what I consider to be bad ideas. Bad ideas
such as seeing the Bible as a magic recipe book telling them how they
can make it into heaven — and to hell with everybody else.
Bad ideas such as concentrating on the God of anger and punishment
found in this book instead of stopping to realize how much of the Bible
is about a different kind of God — a God of love, compassion
and forgiveness.
Bad ideas such as considering the Bible to be more scientific than
science. Bad ideas such as the notion that people are born filled with
evil that has to be expunged, that people don’t have to
concern themselves about the environment because after the good people
are raptured into heaven, the rest of the world will be turned into a
crisp. Bad ideas like still thinking the earth is only a few
thousand years old when it clearly isn’t, that more guns make
our streets safer, that the nation’s founding fathers were
all right-wing Christians, that having copies of the Ten Commandments
in our courthouses with provide more justice, that we need a Christian
government to control the people, that wars in the Mid-East are a part
of God’s plan for eventual peace in the Mid-East.
Bad ideas that have resulted in the Christian Rightists playing a major
role in the military which is being turned into a “Fight For
Jesus” force. Our troops are now subjected to orders to
follow Christ from their superior officers, and punished and/or denied
promotion if they don’t. Blackwater, the private security
force with over 20,000 men in Iraq right now, is led by and has become
a Christian Right outfit.
Bad ideas such as thinking that children cannot pray in our schools,
that our public schools should be replaced with Christian madrasses,
that a Hindu should not be allowed to give an invocation to open a
session of the US Senate as happened a few weeks ago. That there is a
specific sized stick with which children should be beaten according to
their age (as is recommended by James Dobson, one of their most
outspoken leaders, a man with a Christian radio audience of millions).
That women are an inferior species and are to be subject to the control
of the men who own them, That God is only concerned with born-again
Christians and all other faiths are wrong.
That this, that that — these people are crazy, they have
hijacked Jesus and are beating up on the rest of us with him.
We should do something about these folks! — Unitarian Jihad
anyone?
Let me close with a few thoughts about how Unitarians and Universalists
and the other churches of the Liberal Left might respond to these
folks. We liberal religion folks have a built-in problem
— we are too tolerant. Wanting to be left alone, we tend to
let others alone. This is a good idea in general, but is it always the
best policy?
I’m not sure. Perhaps it is true that all it takes for evil
to persist is for the good people to keep silent.
One answer is that we could do more proselytizing ourselves.
I believe that there are many people in the community, often non-church
people, who would enjoy our community and already live our Seven
Principles. Perhaps some of them would like to join us, for a mutual
enhancement of ideas and benefits – but I am also sure that
many of them don’t know who we are or what we do. This could
be corrected.
Another answer is that we can be more diligent in speaking truth to
power. When an issue being addressed by one of “Bad
Idea” folks who write letters and give speeches, we could
respond and make corrections that counteract what they are saying.
Another answer is that we could be more active in the political arena – not on behalf of any political party – but on behalf of
liberal, life-enhancing, planet saving, compassion giving ideas.
Support what is good — contradict what is not. That is something
we can do.
And, finally, let me ask you all a question. What do you think we might
be able to do to respond to this Christian chowder of bad ideas, and
bad thinking?
* The Unmentionables? - Religion and Politics, of course!
© Alan W. Perkins 2007