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READING:
(from The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong)
"(By the early-20th century), modern people had, in various ways,
become aware of a void at the heart of culture. The French
existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre called it the God-shaped hole in human
consciousness, where the divine had always been but had now disappeared.
The astonishing achievements of scientific rationalism had made the very
idea of God incredible and impossible for many Western people.
Still, the world was in many ways a much better place, and people
were evolving new secularist spiritualities, seeking in literature, art,
sexuality, psychoanalysis, drugs or even sport, a sense of transcendent
meaning that gave their lives value. By the middle of the 20th century,
most Western people assumed that religion would never again play a major
part in world events; it had been relegated firmly to the private
sphere, and this seemed right: in Western Christendom, religion had
often been cruel and coercive; the needs of the modern state demanded
that society be tolerant. There could be no going back to the age of
crusade or inquisition. Secularism was here to stay.
At the same time, the world had to come to terms with the fact that
the "void" was no longer just a "psychic" vacuum, but had been given
graphic and terrifying embodiment. Between 1914 and 1945, 70 million
people in Europe and the Soviet Union had died violent deaths. It was no
longer possible to assume that a rational education would eliminate
barbarism (after) the Nazi Holocaust. The horrors of the 2nd World War
only ended with the explosion of atomic bombs over Japanese cities; now,
it appeared, human beings no longer needed a supernatural deity to end
the world.
The death camp and the mushroom cloud must be taken to heart so that
we do not become chauvinistic about modern scientific culture. But these
icons can also give us insight into the way some religious people regard
modern society, the way in which they also experience the absence of
God. Some fundamentalists see modernity as equally evil and demonic;
their vision of the secular city fills them with something of the same
dread and helpless rage as overtakes the liberal secularist who gazes
into the darkness of Auschwitz. It is important that we understand the
dread and anxiety that lie at the heart of fundamentalism because only
then will we begin to comprehend their passionate rage and frantic
desire to fill the void with certainty to stop ever-encroaching evil.
MEDITATION
(the last lines of the poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats, 1920)
Surely, some revelation is at hand;
Surely, the Second Coming is at hand.
…The darkness drops again; but now I know
That 20 centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
MESSAGE
 ast week, I
showed the foundations of Fundamentalism, a reaction against the modern
emphasis on Pure Reason as the sole path to Truth; we saw how
fundamentalism exists in a symbiotic relationship with an aggressive
liberalism or secularism such that, whenever they feel under attack,
they will invariably become more isolated and more extreme. Their
successes in the early 20th century, which aimed to drive liberals out
of their denominations, culminated in the Scopes Trial in Dayton,
TN—Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryant—which, even though
John Scopes was found guilty of violating that state’s laws by teaching
Darwin’s theory of evolution, the liberals were the victors, winning the
war of public opinion.
After their humiliation following the 1925 Scopes Trial, fundamentalists
retreated from society. They were not simply withdrawing out of pique at
not having their vision accepted by mainstream culture; they were
impelled to do so by the fear of extinction that is at the heart of
their vision. Liberal Christians thought the fundamentalist crisis was
over and the mainstream denominations again drew most of the believers.
But instead of disappearing, fundamentalists were putting down deep
roots at local levels. There were still conservatives in those
mainstream denominations and, while they had lost all hope of expelling
the liberals, they had not relinquished their belief in the
"fundamentals;" they stayed their distance from the majority and the
more radical formed their own denominations. They also began to found
new organizations, their own colleges, publishing houses and radio and
television stations. Replacing the old traveling revival preachers, a
huge broadcasting network linked fundamentalists across the nation.
In the counterculture they were creating, fundamentalists established
safe, sacred enclaves against the surrounding profaneness, retreating
from the world to protect their faith from assaults by the enemy.
Believing they had been displaced from the center of American life, they
were a religion of rage rooted in deep fear and finding scapegoats was
not difficult: the "Jewish menace" and Roosevelt's "Jewish New Deal"
were denounced as satanic, as was everything liberal; they were
continuing their swing to the political Right.
For them, World War II proved that there could be no world peace, for
the Bible contradicted such a utopian liberal dream. The atomic bomb had
been foretold by Peter, who had predicted that on the last day, "with a
roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart,
the earth and all that it contains will be burnt up." They had been
right all along: the Bible was, indeed, inerrant and must be read
according to its plain, common sense.
This fatalism gave the fundamentalists a sense of superiority: they had
privileged information denied to nonbelievers; they knew that the
catastrophic events of the 20th century were heading toward Christ's
final victory. Their fantasies were fueled further when the State of
Israel was proclaimed in 1948, Jerry Falwell declaring this “the
greatest single sign indicating the imminent return of Christ, the most
important date in history since the ascension of Jesus into heaven.”
Still deeply suspicious of Jews, support for the state of Israel became
mandatory since Israel’s history was beyond human influence, determined
only by God, and Jesus could not return, the Last Days could not begin,
until Jews were living in the Holy Land. But their support had a darker
side, believing Israel had come into existence solely to further a
Christian fulfillment: Antichrist would help the Jews rebuild their
temple, show them he was their hoped-for Messiah, then convert them to
Christianity so they could die as martyrs before hideously persecuting
and slaughtering those Jews who had not converted, leaving only a few to
greet the true Christ at his Second Coming.
In response to their own suffering at the hands of a rationalist modern
world, the fundamentalists were determined to unleash their fury as
revenge against those who "had started it all," reading their scriptures
literally and denying the true test of Christianity to help believers
celebrate Jesus' central teaching, the cardinal virtue of compassion.
Then came the chaos of the 1960s with its permissive youth culture, the
sexual revolution, the promotion of equal rights for blacks, women,
gays; it shook the very foundations of society and re-energized the
fundamentalists. For some 40 years, they had been creating their own
separate world that rejected both secularists and liberal Christians.
They saw themselves as outsiders but, in fact, they were part of a large
constituency of Americans united against the cultural and political
values of the Eastern Establishment; the time was ripe to open their
doors to cultural conservatives and begin to realize their potential as
a political movement to redeem American society.
In 1979, the year the Fundamentalists staged their comeback, George
Gallup's national poll indicated that one out of three adults had
experienced a "born-again" conversion and nearly 50% believed the Bible
was inerrant. With around 1300 evangelical Christian radio and TV
stations having an audience of about 130 million and profits estimated
at "billions" of dollars, the fundamentalists had the people and the
resources to exercise their power.
Another contributing factor that led many traditionalists to become
fundamentalists was the expansion of States Rights. Fundamentalists were
mistrustful of strong centralized government and were outraged by
Supreme Court decisions outlawing worship in public schools. The Court
was responding to the increasing pluralism of American culture and had
nothing against religion, just insisting that it be confined to the
private domain. But fundamentalists and evangelicals saw this as one
more proof of American culture's godless crusade; they believed that
Christianity should be sovereign and were offended that the Courts
extended the principle of Freedom of Religion to other faiths.
They had to fight back or there might not be another generation of true
believers: between 1965 and 1983, enrollment in Christian schools
increased 6-fold with another 100,000 fundamentalist children
home-schooled. By the 1990s, their were over-3300 Christian schools:
they studied the Christian history of America, examined the religious
credentials of American Presidents, read only literature that supported
biblical teachings, and stressed "family values,” all with the objective
of preparing militant Christians to fight the satanic secularization of
America.
In order to mobilize effectively, any group needs an ideology with a
clearly defined enemy: for American fundamentalists in the late-'60s and
'70s, the enemy was "secular humanism," a caricature of liberalism, in
general. Fundamentalists saw secular humanism as a rival religion that
had its own creed and its own objectives; they saw it as a conspiracy
controlling the government, the public schools, and the television
networks in order to destroy Christianity and the American family.
In the past, Fundamentalists had remained aloof from politics: after
all, since the world was already doomed except for believers swept up in
the Rapture, there was no point in trying to reform it. But as cultural
changes expanded and urgency increased, they were no longer content to
simply sit back and watch for signs that the Last Days were nigh; some
even began to argue that, if America came to its senses, it could remain
a world power right through the millennium. In any case, they were
ready: they had an enemy to fight, an ideology to inspire them, and, at
last, the belief that they were powerful enough to succeed in such a
crusade.
The man of the hour was Jerry Falwell; like typical fundamentalists, he
had wanted to build a separate, self-sufficient world within his
ministry and his college, but as his televised message spread across the
land and as the money poured in, separation from satanic society was no
longer enough. He wanted to take on the establishment by training "a
spiritual army of young people who are pro-life, pro-moral, and
pro-America” that would save society. It was no use arguing there was no
“secular humanist conspiracy;” they needed their paranoid fear of
annihilation. Across America and much of the world, great strides in
democracy, freedom and tolerance were experienced as liberating, but the
fundamentalists and evangelicals could not see this…not because they
were stupid or perverse, but because they saw the modern age as an
assault on their most sacred values, threatening their very existence.
In the late-1970s there was an explosion of militant faith throughout
the world, from an obscure Iranian ayatollah toppling the Shah to the
founding of the Moral Majority to challenge the "secular humanist"
agenda. Fundamentalists had become aware of their strength, believed
they were facing a unique moment in history, and were determined to
change the world. But they had a lot to learn; it is very difficult for
a religiously inspired movement to maintain its integrity once it enters
the rational, pragmatic, pluralistic world of modern politics. It is
very dangerous to try to translate a mythic, messianic vision into
practical, day-to-day strategies. But, after decades of humiliation and
oppression, the fundamentalists believed they were now chosen to
re-conquer the world for God.
It is interesting to note that the inspiration for the Moral Majority
came not from fundamentalists or evangelicals but from right-wing
political organizers (two Catholics and a Jew) who had already created
some political action committees. Frustrated with the Republican
party—alienated, even, from Ronald Reagan—they saw the emerging strength
of evangelicals and believed Jerry Falwell to be the perfect foil for
their political needs. While the Moral Majority was not approved-of by
all fundamentalists or evangelicals, it led to what became known as the
New Christian Right which went on a crusade against the evil threatening
to overwhelm America.
An interesting aspect of their crusade was the place of women: the
women's liberation movement filled fundamentalist men and women with
sheer terror; to many, feminism was a "disease," the cause of the
world's ills ever since Eve disobeyed God seeking her own liberation.
They knew the proposed Equal Rights Amendment was a government plot to,
in effect, castrate all males. It was up to Christian women to take
steps to straighten-out their husbands and return the male of the family
to center-stage while re-educating themselves in the value of female
self-sacrifice, believing there should be a return to the traditional
subservient position of women. American men were becoming too feminine
which, among other things, led to that "perversion of the highest
order," homosexuality, the result of failed homes fallen prey to secular
humanism. This also explained the Moral Majority's hostility to gun
control which was aimed at stopping the revival of potent and combative
Christian manhood.
At first, the evangelical activists tended to be inept; after all, they
were preachers and televangelists, not natural politicians, and the
toughest lesson for them to learn was that politics requires compromise;
they found they had to dine with the devil, but gradually they learned
to play the game. They had some early successes, particularly blocking
the ERA, but did not manage to change either federal or state
legislation on basic issues like school prayer and abortion, although a
couple of states did pass bills allowing for the teaching of Creationsim
alongside evolution. But this lack of success did not bother them: their
main objective was to build an ultraconservative majority in both houses
of Congress; once that had been achieved, everything else would follow.
But their great crusade came crashing down in less-than a decade, the
result of scandals from the usual human suspects: power, money and sex.
Why did this happen? Was there anything about American fundamentalism
that, in effect, set it up for failure? Yes! By perverting their
Christian myths to make them scientific facts, they created neither good
science nor good religion, running counter to the very nature of
spirituality: religious truth is not rational and cannot be proved
scientifically; American fundamentalists lost touch with the
unconscious, with the deeper impulses of the personality. And, with so
many so anxious about potency issues, it should not be surprising that
the scandals were primarily sexual, involving some of the most prominent
of their preachers. And the vast sums of money they demanded, so
incompatible with the Gospel’s teachings, pushed other televangelists
over the edge as they, too, lost touch with their religious center; they
came to believe that there were no limitations, no moral absolutes of
right and wrong; they became performers of spectacle, acting-out their
fantasies.
With the New Christian Right being discredited in the mid-‘80s, it was
generally assumed that the fundamentalist threat was over. But
fundamentalism was not dead; in fact, today it has entered a new
two-pronged phase, one becoming far more extreme in practice and the
other even more dedicated to traditional political activism to better
fight secularism and its government.
On the one hand, there are groups like Christian Identity, Operation
Rescue and Aryan Nation: denouncing the pre-millenialist hope for being
swept up in the Rapture at the Last Days, they organize and train to
fight the forces of evil during Tribulation, the kind of ideology that
inspired Timothy McVeigh. They see conspiracy around every corner and no
longer concern themselves with difficulties of doctrine and biblical
literalism; they want to carve out a separate state just like earlier
fundamentalists wanted to do after the Scopes trial but with an
unparalleled ideology of rage and practice of terror.
On the other hand, that is not the most alarming manifestation of
fundamentalism facing the nation as a whole: the Religious Right has
become stronger politically than it has ever been; the top leaders of
the majority party in both houses of Congress—who control whether an
issue will even be brought to the floor for debate—all received a
ranking of 100% on the Christian Coalition scorecard, meaning they voted
to support that group’s positions on all their key legislation. By
wanting to believe that the Religious Right had finally gone away,
opponents allowed it to make huge inroads into established political
channels without any close scrutiny of their agenda and resources.
Placing traditional family values at the core of its efforts, they have
also been able to coax cultural conservatives into a reinvigorated
political activism. And, having already succeeded in their original goal
of controlling, at least, the leaders of Congress, their considerable
resources of people and money are now aimed at retaining the presidency
with its power to appoint new Supreme Court Justices and all other
federal Judges in the 2000 election, Bush received 83% of the
evangelical vote, 40% of his total votes.
The Constitution is the best friend religion in America has, religious
life flourishing precisely because our government (at least usually) has
stayed out of the religion business. Efforts to undermine the separation
of church and state with an evangelical agenda of returning prayer to
public schools, school vouchers, faith-based initiatives (which received
billions of tax dollars from federal agencies last year) or having the
Ten Commandments posted in public places ultimately destroys the
vitality of religious life by making one religious expression mandatory.
Still, Fundamentalism is not going to disappear. Widespread
disappointment and disillusionment still feed a fear, alienation and
rage that no individual and no pluralistic, democratic government can
ignore. Efforts for peace and justice, for equality of opportunity, for
healing and compassion—the issues that inspired Jesus’ ministry—seem to
have been forgotten by the great majority of fundamentalists and
evangelicals. So, what to do? What lessons can we learn that will help
us deal more creatively in the future with such expressions of fear and
fury by the faithful?
First, we need to remember that, despite of all the scandals—from the
‘80s to today—that seem to discredit the whole of religion, faith
remains a force to be reckoned with. Since the beginning of our nation,
American Protestants —including Unitarians and Universalists—have used
religion to protest against what they saw as unfair policies and conduct
of the establishment, and the members of the Christian Right are
carrying on this tradition.
Second, do not deny that fundamentalism has empowered and enabled
millions to live happier, healthier lives. Yet it has also dented our
self-image as a nation: at the same time our rational worldview
proclaimed that humans are the measure of all things, it has reminded us
of our frailty and our vulnerability At the start of this 21st century,
the liberal myth that humanity is progressing to an ever more
enlightened and tolerant state looks as far-fetched as any
pre-millennial myth; the 20th century has shown that Reason can be as
demonic and commit atrocities at least as great as those committed by
fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is not going away and, in some of its
newest forms, it is more extreme and more dangerous. So what can we
rational, liberal religionists do?
Obviously, suppression and coercion are not the answer for they only
lead to backlashes that turn fundamentalists even more extreme.
Likewise, attempting to co-opt them, courting them for pragmatic secular
ends is, also, counterproductive, for sooner-rather-than-later—as they
have done for over-75 years—they will withdraw to their separate
enclaves to regroup for future battle.
It is important to recognize that these theologies and ideologies are
rooted in fear. If a patient brought such paranoid, vengeful fantasies
to a therapist, he or she would undoubtedly be diagnosed as "disturbed"
if not downright deranged. It is impossible to reason away such fear. A
far better response would be to try to appreciate the depth of such
neurosis.
And we must be mindful that this movement is not an archaic throwback to
the past; it is modern and innovative. They successfully swell their
ranks by preaching a theology and an ideology tailor-made to the
oppressed of their time and place; an activism that had hitherto been
seen as irreligious now fed by a deep-seated hunger by peoples to be
religious, despite—and because of—the modern secularist trend.
And so, needless to say, this sermon will have no neatly wrapped
solutions. The best I can come up with are suggestions trite-but-true:
respect their freely chosen faith; understand their fears and be wary of
their fury; and, finally, do unto them as you would want them to do unto
you. But when they won’t—and they won’t—then don’t take it personally;
remind yourself that it is ideological on their part, not something
you’ve said or done to them…and then try to do unto them anyway.
CLOSING WORDS:
(attributed to St. Francis of Assisi)
Where hate rules, let us bring love; where sorrow, joy.
Let us strive more to comfort others than to be comforted,
To understand others than to be understood,
To love others more than to be loved.
For it is in giving that we receive,
And in pardoning that we are pardoned..
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