Last week I asked for help with a list of the many Christian right groups so I could distribute the information to my congregation following a sermon. I had a couple of people ask me if I would share it when I was through so here it is. Pardon the bad writing, keep in mind it's intended for spoken delivery.
This sermon was presented within the context of a worship service adapting Workshop #7 "The Radical Right" in the
Welcoming Congregation Handbook: Resources for Affirming Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and/or Transgender People for small congregational use.
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The Religious RightIdentifying the Religious Right is tricky as terms are thrown about indiscriminately.
Conservative Christians
Fundamentalists
Evangelical Christians
The Religious Right is comprised of all of the above, but not all of the above are part of the Religious Right. Clearly not all Christians belong to the Christian right, but neither in fact, do all fundamentalists. President Jimmy Carter identifies himself as an evangelical Christian and he couldn’t remotely be considered a member of the Religious Right. In fact, he was one of their earliest victims of concerted political attack.
The Religious Right and the Political Right are not synonymous although they overlap quite a bit. This relationship is fairly difficult to dissect. Who is using whom?
A recent book by David Kuo, a special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003, deputy director of the White House office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is highly damning in its disgust with the politicians openly mocking the religious leaders who believe they have the president’s ear. Previously, John J. DiIulio Jr., described his tenure in the White House in a January 2003 Esquire article in which the phrase "It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis" was coined.
It is important to keep in mind the Religious Right is one wing of a conservative movement that includes the secular, political right and the neo-Nazi far right. The Religious Right should not be confused with either one of these groups, but should certainly be given proper credit for providing the grassroots activists doing the groundwork for the social change they envision and desire.
Quite frankly, I’m of the opinion the Religious Right is being grossly exploited by the secular political right whose idolatrous worship is restricted to capital gains and power accumulation. Their only concern regarding family values is valuing families whose votes they can sway.
The Religious Right has been a part of our religious, social and political environment for the last several decades. Too often they have been dismissed as inconsequential, a temporary aberration, a radical fringe movement not to be taken seriously or simply just ignored. On occasion they have been regarded with an over-inflated degree of power. Only in the last several election cycles have alarm bells begun to ring with the appropriate intensity. This is a group that most definitely should not be ignored, but neither should they be considered omnipotent. They can, and should, be challenged.
The Religious Right began as a counter to the Civil Rights movement. They seriously believed the civil rights movement and the liberation movements for women and homosexuals to be the cause of the breakdown of society. In a way they were right. Not about liberation resulting in the breakdown of society, but society does change when power relationships are altered. Of course, the Religious Right believed the changes were for the worse.
They countered the democratic call for justice, liberation and inclusive participation of diverse groups with an authoritarian cry for exclusion and oppression. They feared the social change of the 60s would undermine and rent the social fabric of the United States. They urgently desired a return to the past and their perceived norms of the 1940s and 50s. A time when male authority was unchallenged by women and lesbians and gays were invisible—in short, they desperately cling to the supremacy of the white heterosexual male.
In the 70s and 80s, the movement experienced early success attacking gains of the Civil rights movement, initiating a campaign against homosexuals led by Anita Bryant, the defeat of the ERA and an attack against abortion rights. Of course their most visible political success was the coalition formed to elect Ronald Reagan. We cannot fail to appreciate the impact of Reagan’s 425 judicial appointments to federal district and US circuit courts of appeal.
The Christian Right is riddled with irony and hypocrisy. Look at some of the founding public faces. Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker—paragons of virtue all. The quality of character in the movement’s leadership has hardly improved. These days it seems as if someone is resigning from a pulpit in disgrace on virtually a weekly basis. Maybe there really is such a thing as miracles. I find it absolutely miraculous this movement can continue despite the conclusive and consistent proof of personality-flawed leadership.
It’s important for us to understand some of the key tenets and goals of the Religious Right. As opposed to the majority of Christians who firmly support the Separation of Church and State, the Religious Right is firmly committed to the merging of politics and theology. Why? To produce a system of social control. Their approach to the separation of church and state is that while the state should not interfere in religion, it is perfectly acceptable for their religious beliefs to not just influence, but direct and control the power of the state.
They are reformist in the sense that they wish to reform our institutions through influence and infiltration to put in place a Christian authority. I must emphasize that using the modifier “Christian” is, in my opinion, a grossly inaccurate use of the word. The fundamentalist and literal biblical interpretation is flawed to say the least. The hermeneutics applied by the Christian right not only ignores much of contemporary scholarship, but scorns and ignores it as irrelevant. The fact that the word homosexual never even existed until the late 19th century does not prevent them from using scriptural translations that bandy it about with abandon.
“Loretta Ross of the Center for Democratic Renewal has said that for white fundamentalist Christians the original sin is considered to be sex whereas for Jews and African Americans the original sin is thought to be slavery.” A belief in the origin of sin being associated with sex helps explain why the Christian right is so shrill in its positions on abortion and homosexuality. These two areas strike at the heart of male power and control—one through freedom of choice and the other through freedom of expression.
The Christian Right has been so successful because they did not seek control in the very first election cycle. Their agenda is not one of a temporary exercise of power, but one of permanent dominion. The battle has been fully engaged at the local level. School boards, county commissions and county courts serve as the training ground for future Senators, governors and federal judges.
I use the word agenda deliberately. I have heard the phrase “right wing conspiracy” and while I have no doubt there are backroom deals being made from here to Timbuktu, the Religious Right is not conspiratorial. They have been from the beginning, and still are, quite open with respect to their beliefs and goals. I couldn’t put more bizarre words into their mouths if I tried. Remember, we are talking about a group of people who still advocate Judge Roy Moore of Alabama for a federal judicial appointment—a man who openly proposed the death penalty for practicing homosexuals. The movement has leaders who openly threaten Supreme Court justices and call for the assassination of foreign leaders.
The political and religious left has thus far countered the Religious Right ineffectively to say the least. The response has been one of extreme secularism providing a smidgeon of legitimate ammunition for Christian right attacks. Now it is hardly fair for the Religious Right to host Justice Sunday and claim the Democrats are appointing activist judges who hate Christianity and want to eradicate religion entirely. This would be a ridiculously hilarious double-standard if it weren’t taken so seriously by far too many people subsequently energized to vote—against their own self-interests.
The Religious Right, with their behavior on Justice Sunday and this inane accusation of a purported “war on Christmas” reminds me of the Siamese cats in Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp.” These two obnoxious felines absolutely wreck the joint. When the human walks in they immediately roll over on their backs and assume a victim stance casting the innocent dog as the egregious aggressor. Come to think of it, such behavior reminds me of the political right as well.
Unfortunately, the words and deeds of the Religious Right have not only given Christianity a bad name to the detriment of our liberal Christian brothers and sisters, but it has soured many progressives and liberals on religion entirely. A pity since religion does have a legitimate and fulfilling role to play in our lives. Religion isn’t the problem, misuse of it is.
Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Network of Spiritual Progressives is challenging the misuse of religion, God and spirit by the Religious Right while also challenging the many anti-religious and anti-spiritual assumptions and behaviors that have increasingly become part of the liberal culture. There is a place for spirituality to help guide our political choices. I highly recommend Rabbi Lerner’s book, “The Left Hand of God” and urge everyone to check out spiritualprogressives.org. Spiritually needy people have become the foot soldiers of the Religious Right, amazingly effective even when directed to act against their own self-interests.
If the Religious Right succeeds as a tool of the Political Right, our democratic principles will vanish in the wake of theocratic self-righteousness. It will take a concerted effort to successfully counter a religious movement that is well-funded, operates media outlets, and administers a variey of educational institutions from summer camps to universities.
They have correctly identified a spiritual hunger rampant in the United States and used the weapons of fear and hate-mongering against minorities to satisfy it. They are feeding us junk food. It’s time to get Americans off this unhealthy diet. Our spiritual and political leaders on the left must satisfy our spiritual appetite with a wholesome meal of inclusion with love and justice.
ResourcesLerner, Michael.
The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right. Harper San Francisco. 2006.
Moser, Bob.
The Crusaders,
Rolling Stone, April 2005.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7235393/the_crusadersNetwork of Spiritual Progressives:
http://www.loveembodied.org/nspnew/Pharr, Suzanne. The Christian Right: A Threat to Democracy in
The Welcoming Congregation Handbook 2nd Ed. Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, 1999.
Peace,
Rev. Ann
Edited: To fix a particularly glaring typo.
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