THE IMMORAL TACTICS OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
by JON NELSON

Anyone who pays attention to the mainstream news media in these United States is aware of the enormous political clout wielded by what is known as the Religious Right. What is generally not known is just how dangerous this movement actually is. What is even less known is that they are operating from erroneous premises and that, as a consequence, their false ideas make for a shaky moral foundation. This pamphlet will examine the tactics of the Religious Right and expose the generally immoral ideas they are trying to impose on all Americans.

This pamphlet will not examine the errors that underlie theistic rationalizations for the existence of a god. Suffice it to say that if such an existence could be demonstrated, there would not be a need for the field of religious apologetics.

Let us begin by pointing out that there is no such entity as the "Religious Right." The term is a general one that points to a huge conglomeration of organizations, political action committees, think tanks, conservative Christian churches, and other groups that share a common political goal: the Christianizing of America. Such organizations as the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Eagle Forum and others are enormously well financed and exert an enormous influence on today's political scene. The daily newspapers attest to this influence. To insist as many Christian leaders do that Christians are "discriminated against" is to ignore the literally countless churches and political organizations that dominate not only Washington politics, but state and local politics as well.

It must be emphasized at this point that when we are speaking of the "Christianizing of America," we are not referring to all people who call themselves Christians. What we are referring to is fundamentalist Christianity, based upon a literal interpretation of the New Testament and, more often than not, the Old Testament as well. This leads us to the first immoral tactic their leaders employ: the claim that all they want is "a place at the political table." Religious Right leaders harp on this over and over again; to hear Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell talk, one would think that Christians were the last persecuted minority in the United States. This tactic is dishonest as well as supremely arrogant because it ignores those Christians who do not agree with the political agenda of these right-wing Christians. The oversimplification not only divides U.S. citizens into a false dichotomy of "Christians" (meaning Religious Right Christians) vs. "anti-Christians" (meaning everyone else), it also promotes bigotry, hatred and superstition.

As but one example of the tendency of Religious Right leaders to demonize everyone including their fellow Christians, consider these words of Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition in a January 14, 1991 "700 Club" program: "You say 'you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that and the other thing'--nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the anti-Christ!"

Religious Right leaders have come up with some truly frightening statements. Their plan for those who disagree with him is revealed in the "25 Articles," published by the Coalition on Revival: "We deny that anyone, Jew or Gentile, believer or unbeliever, private person or public official, is exempt from the moral and juridical obligation before God to submit to Christ's Lordship over every aspect of his life in thought, word and deed." Every aspect. In other words, nobody has the right to disagree with them. What does this say about their view of those who oppose their particular religious views? What does it say about what lies ahead should they attain power? Is this statement ideologically any different from those of the most tyrannical and oppressive regimes in history?

The "us vs. them" attitude of the Religious Right wing is frighteningly similar to the same ideological attitude displayed by the Christian Inquisitors of the late Middle Ages. This mindset is a recurring theme in Christian history and accounts for the schismatic nature of Christianity since its inception. Intolerance is as much a foundation of today's Religious Right as it was in the Inquisition.

This "us vs. them" attitude manifests itself in countless ways.

One of these is in the area of education. The Religious Right's agendas in this area are certainly no secret: they want biblical creationism taught in our schools. They also want vouchers installed as a national policy, as well as the return of forced public prayer at the beginning of each school day. Their goals were clearly stated by Robert Thoburn, a minister associated with Christian Reconstructionism, a fundamentalist Christian movement: "Our goal is not to make the (public) schools better?Our goal is to hamper them, so that they cannot grow?Never lose sight of this long-range goal. Our goal as God-fearing, uncompromised?Christians is to shut down the public schools."

The bottom line is very simple, although the Right will never acknowledge it as such: science, logic, history, philosophy and all other non-religious disciplines contradict the primitive notions of the Bible. Medicine is not based on the idea that illnesses are caused by demons, as the Bible insists. Astronomy is not based on the biblical idea that the earth is the center of the universe. Human psychology is not based on the notion that all humans are innately evil, as traditional Christian doctrine so blithely states. Any objective reading of history will show that Christian leaders fought these advancements with every fiber of their being. Their fears and suspicions were based on a literal interpretation of scripture. It should therefore come as no surprise that their spiritual descendents today are fighting the modern world with the same vehemence. They hate the idea that homosexuals deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. They abhor the notion that a woman's body belongs to her. And, perhaps most significantly, they detest the fact that their version of Christianity is no longer the ubiquitous influence it had been in previous centuries. That is why they are fighting modernity with every fiber of their being. Today's Christian fundamentalists, like their Dark Age ancestors, look longingly backward at the pre-rational society that birthed the Bible--and subsequently dominated Western thought.

This hatred of modernity manifests itself in many different ways. Occasionally it is at an individual level, as when a parent objects to a course taught in school that the parent finds objectionable. In earlier times, Christians objected to the "heretical" notion that the earth revolves around the sun. Today, their animosity is seen most often in their hatred of the scientific theory of evolution. The idea that changes can occur without the input or influence of a supernatural agent is as unthinkable to the pre-scientific mindset of the Religious Right as the idea of a heliocentric solar system was to their medieval counterparts. Therefore, today's Christian fundamentalists seek to introduce alternate ideas, based of course on fundamentalist religious doctrine, into the educational curriculum.

In the early years of the Religious Right movement, their creationist ideas were explicitly religious in nature: they sought to introduce the biblical notion of "special creation" as a legitimate alternative to the scientific notion of evolution. When this idea was repeatedly struck down in our nation's higher courts as being religiously based, the Religious Right adopted a new strategy: Creationism was re-named in a variety of ways: "Special Creation," "Intelligent Design," and numerous other ideas replaced the earlier notions of biblically sanctioned creationism. But the religious leopard was unable to change its theological spots: the courts soon saw through the obfuscations and have tended to uphold the theory of evolution as constituting not "mere theory" but of solid scientific fact.

Say what you will about the Religious Right, they are nothing if not determined. Despite one failure after another, they continue to trot out the same ideas, re-worded and re-packaged. Voucher amendments transmogrify into the "Religious Freedom Amendment" (the Istook Amendment). Other ideas are equally deceptively re-worded. All this illustrates a fundamental fact about today's Christian activists: they want their ideas implemented as public policy, and no amount of logical persuasion to the contrary, no amount of legislative failure, and no amount of contrary evidence will dissuade them from their intentions.

Whenever there is a topic in a book the Religious Right finds offensive, they employ a number of different strategies. Some of these are downright crude. For example, a number of high school biology textbooks that discuss evolution have had the offensive pages glued together. Another strategy is to place religious tracts in these books. Many other books that offend the religious have been borrowed from the library and never returned.

Clearly, dishonesty is at the basis of Christian fundamentalism. To cite but one example as proof, one of the Right's leading figures of the last twenty years has been David Barton. Barton produced a video in the 1990s entitled "America's Godly Heritage" in which he introduced one "fact" after another purportedly showing how our Founding Fathers were devoutly Christian men. An extremely popular speaker at various Christian Coalition rallies and other events, Barton gave slick presentations that included various "quotes" from the Founders that gave the impression that this country was indeed founded on Christian principles, as the Right contends. The only problem was that many of these quotes were spurious. When this was exposed in the mid 1990s, Barton disappeared from the scene for about a year. When he re-appeared, he used the same discredited presentations he had prior to his exposure--and his Christian audiences ate up every word of it.

As we have seen, the Religious Right leaders periodically reveal their true colors with some truly outlandish statements. Perhaps even more amazing (although not surprising to freethinkers) is the reluctance of the mainstream media to call them to task for these statements. For example, Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition made a reference to the stealth political campaigns conducted by the Right, in which they dishonestly mask their real agenda: "I want to be invisible. I do guerilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know that until election night." Randal Terry, head of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion organization closely affiliated with the Religious Right, stated in "The News Sentinel," Ft. Wayne, Ind., on August 1, 1993: "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good?our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

Finally, lest there be any doubt that the Right wants the United States to be a Christian version of Iran, consider Terry's words during an anti-abortion rally in Willoughby Hills, Ohio in July, 1993: "Our goal must be simple: We must have a Christian Nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies."

Is there any doubt of fundamentalist Christianity's goal for the future of America?

The Christian Right wing is clearly a fringe religious group that seeks nothing less than the total control of all the major institutions of American life. They often cry that all they want is a place at the table. In fact, what they really want is to own the table and to dictate who comes to dinner. Their agenda poses a threat to every thinking American, whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, or atheist. While they constitute a minority, their influence is measured not in terms of their numbers, but in terms of their energies and determination to force their most un-American agenda on the rest of us.

While they wrap themselves in the flag, the Religious Right's agenda is about as American as monarchy. However, the biggest threat comes not from them, but from uninvolved Americans who dismiss their claims as unimportant, and their numbers as insignificant.

The Religious Right is not the biggest threat to America today. Apathy is. Our country is not a Christian nation, but a free nation. Atheists can only hope that America will recognize what is has before it loses it.

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