Reply #31: Where Does the Christian Right Get Its Politics From?

[Octafish]

Here's why the conservatives HATE public education. It makes people THINK:

Where Does the Christian Right Get Its Politics From?

by Matthew Lyons

Speech to the Annual Brunch of the Broome County Coalition for Free Choice, Binghamton, New York, 12 February 1995

I'm going to offer you a few brief thoughts about the Christian Right. The primary focus of my work over the past two or three years has been on the history of ultraconservative, fascist, and right-wing populist movements in the U.S. When I think about what's dangerous about the Christian Right today, a lot of what I think about is how this movement has built on the work of past right-wing movements, but has moved beyond them in important ways.

There is a long tradition of right-wing Christian political activism in the United States. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux-Klan, which at that time included millions of members, was very closely tied to various Protestant churches. In the 1930s, Father Coughlin's "Social Justice" movement, which was led by a Catholic priest and had special appeal for many Catholics, was the largest pro-fascist movement in this country at the time. In the 1950s and 60s, there were a number of Christian anti-Communist organizations.

And yet the Christian Right of today has built a social base which is broader and more cohesive than any of these earlier movements. It has done a lot to set aside sectarian theological disputes between different factions. It has brought millions of Christians into political activism for the first time, including major groups such as Pentecostals and charismatics, who traditionally have avoided political activism. And the Christian Right has been working hard to build political unity between evangelical Protestants and right-wing Catholics -- especially using issues such as abortion and homophobia to recruit Catholic support. These are major political changes.

The Christian Right has also pulled itself out of the trap that many of its predecessors faced, of simply reacting against secularism and liberalism in society. Since the 1970s and 80s, the movement has presented itself as working for an active, positive program. A major unifying principle of the Christian Right today is "Dominion Theology" -- the belief that Christians should exercise "dominion" over all spheres of society. The most frightening form of Dominion Theology is a doctrine called Christian Reconstructionism, which has been very influential within the movement. Reconstructionists advocate a totalitarian, explicitly patriarchal theocracy based on their interpretation of Biblical law. In their vision, for example, only men from Biblically correct churches could vote or hold office. And the death penalty could be applicable as punishment for: homosexuality, adultery, heresy, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and in the case of women, having an abortion or "unchastity before marriage."

CONTINUED...

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~lyonsm/CRspeech.html

PS: Thanks, Cleita! You are always most kind. Gee. That's what a truly religious or spiritually evolved person is all about.