Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right
The bestselling author of Stranger at the Gate provides an inside exposé of the Christian Right's agenda-and a playbook in how to resist it.
This Fall's midterm elections will see much discussion about the enhanced power of the Christian fundamentalist Right, leaving many people to wonder: just who are these people and what exactly do they want? What are their ultimate goals? The Reverend Mel White, a deeply religious man who sees fundamentalism as "evangelical Christian orthodoxy gone cultic," believes that it is not a stretch to say that the true goal of today's fundamentalists is to break down the wall that separates church and state, superimpose their "moral values" on the U.S. Constitution, replace democracy with theocratic rule, and ultimately create a new "Christian America" in their image. White's new book, Religion Gone Bad, is a wake-up call to all of us to take heed.
White is singularly qualified to write this exposé of the Christian Right because he himself was a true believer who served the evangelical movement as pastor, professor, filmmaker, television producer, author, and ghostwriter for such fundamentalist leaders as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Billy Graham, all of whom he got to know well. As he writes, "These are not just Neocons dressed in religious drag. These men see themselves as gurus called by God to rescue America from unrighteousness. They believe this is a Christian nation that must be returned forcibly to its Christian roots."
He is also a gay man, who made news when he came out more than twelve years ago. White has gained a unique understanding of the fundamentalist agenda because, since the fall of "godless Communism," homosexuality and abortion have become the primary targets through which fundamentalists have created fear, raised money, and mobilized recruits. Religion Gone Bad documents the thirty-year war that fundamentalist Christians have waged against homosexuality and gays and lesbians and offers dramatic, heartbreaking evidence that fundamentalist leaders-Protestant and Catholic alike-are waging nothing less than a "holy war" (jihad) against sexual minorities. By focusing on the current plight of gay people in this country, White addresses the wider issue that fundamentalist Christianity-like fundamentalist Islam-has become a threat not just to gays, but to all Americans who disagree with fundamentalist Christian "values."
Customer Review: These People Know They are Correct
To me the biggest single point in this book is that the leaders, and the main followers of the Christian Right are indeed true believers. This is not some kind of political gambit on their part, God honestly talks to them and they know, positively know that they are right -- that's lower case right, as in correct.
Also sincere, I believe, are the leaders of the Muslim fundamentalists. They truly believe their view of the world. What's strange is how the fundamental bases of the religions are so different, yet how similar these beliefs are when it comes to issues like homosexuals, abortion, and the desire to control the political process. When you know you are right, of course other people will agree with you and you can create a perfect political system.
In this country, if you want to see a theocracy, go to Salt Lake City. In elections, the church lets you know who to vote for, and they get elected. The United Way supports the Boy Scouts, but not the Girl Scouts, the Girl Scout equivalents are through the church.
This book concentrates on the Christian Right's attitudes towards gay and lesbian issues. Un-Intelligent Design for instance where 150 years of the best science the world has been able to find is thrown over for what was written down in the Middle East a couple of thousand years ago. I guess it is biology's turn. Physics and Astronomy had their turn when Galileo was given a life sentence of house arrest for saying the earth went around the sun.
Customer Review: White over-stretches his case
While I completely support the political objectives of the author, Mel White, regarding liberty and equal protection for all Americans; this book is a partially flawed effort in terms of its warnings of doom regarding the Christian Right's political objectives. Not because White didn't convince me of their leaders' willingness to destroy American values; White was unable to convince me they are able to destroy those ideals. So while I can't unequivocally recommend purchasing this book, I do recommend purchasing under certain conditions I'll describe below.
Mr. White's main thesis is to correlate the Nazis' treatment of Jews to the American Christian Right's treatment of gays. White warns us that the trail the Nazi's led Germany down is a possibility for America if the Christian Right maintained and enhanced its control of our government.
I don't believe Mr. White is able to convincingly make his case that gays are at the same threat level of risk that Jews were in Germany in the early 1930s; however he does make the case the leaders of the Christian Right are theocratic fascists that are directly opposed to our founding American ideals (while disingenuously claiming those ideals for themselves). White provides strong corroborative evidence justifying the use of terms such as theocracy, dominionism, and fascism in terms of their political objectives though this book is not designed to be a good source to analyze the Christian Right's ideals vs. the founding ideals of the framers (see Randy Barnett's "Lost Constitution" for an indirect, but devastating take-down of authoritarian ideologies like the Christian Right's).
Mr. White begins by describing his ideological enemies, from Francis Schaffer and Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson and D. James Kennedy. Mr. White describes these men as true believers who are not hypocritically in the game for money and power but instead because they actually believe in the hatred and bigotry they propagate.
White's past provides a unique and valuable perspective, having served as a ghost writer for Billy Graham (whom White holds out as example of a good evangelical though still a man of his time), as well as ghost writing for Pat Robertson, and also having worked with Jerry Falwell and Kennedy on a variety of media events published by these people. In terms of "know thy enemy", the book fails due to White's obsessive focus on their hatred of gays at the cost of a broader analysis of these men and their objectives given his exposure to them.
Are the Christian Right political leaders and nationally known figures proto-fascists setting the table for future fascists, or are they fascists themselves willing to destroy our Constitution and implement a Christian Dominionist government? I would have liked to have reviewed some differentiation in White's analysis between the leaders and their objectives and the willingness of their followers to support these efforts if they gained enough power to implement their policy objectives.
While I understand and agree to a point that White's position is that the fundamentalist perspective and policy positions on gay people is a key to understanding their bigger objectives regarding the control of our government; I would have preferred White dedicate more time on other issues as well, especially the Christian Right's leaders' perspective on how they plan to maintain their numbers of adherents in this country given their future inability to keep their followers ignorant of the corruption of early dogma as the Internet provides access to all people on the actual history of the corruption of the Canons as they developed along with Science continuing to destroy Christian myths prevalent in the Bible as we learn more about our Universe and its laws (the retreat since Galileo is actually accelerating which may be why these men have a sense of desperation to their rhetoric).
I would have also liked a better discussion of how they control the media in terms of continuing to be allowed the moral equivalence of their opposing positions (e.g., "right to die", stem cell research, their attacks on Science) relative to overwhelming opposition along with reason and evidence directly contradicting their claims. Just recently the far right lost its ability to frame the ID v. Evolution debate as competing theories as the media wised up on the actual controversy that there is no scientific controversy but instead this an attack on science by religious ideologues. How will they continue to threaten our country and make things worse if they lose their moral authority in the media as they have been recently as their ideals are scrutinized and found morally repugnant and/or easily disproved? White doesn't elaborate and yet we're supposed to worry they are the next coming of Hitler, sorry but I can't make that leap based on White's book, I need more evidence, especially given the explosion of information becoming available that will make it easier to discredit their propaganda efforts along with young people in general, even young Evangelicals, rejecting their parent's hatred of homosexuals, intellectualism, and the scientific method.
White provides a section of the book to show how the Christian Right's leaders fight and have won some of their wars, especially by hiring discredited "scientists" to create "research" that allows them to communicate "facts" to support their conclusions. While the Christian Right argues that their policy positions are supported with sound data, the media has caught on that wackos like Paul Cameron, David Barton and William Dembski are illegitimate conveyers of "truth" and instead incompetent hacks paid to create propaganda for people like James Dobson and D. James Kennedy. So the question again is raised, why should I continue to be concerned about these nut cases, won't they die out just like the people that stopped people of color from having equal rights and marrying between the races died out? Nowadays Christian Right zealots like Sen. Brownback hypocritically claim the civil rights movement as their legacy, why won't the Brownbacks in two generations claim the fight for gay rights as their heritage as well? White provides no preemptive argument for these obvious challenges to his premise. A great book on this topic is Mooney's "The Republican War on Science".
The next two sections of the book are like a complete reversal and highly enjoyable reading and why I conditionally promote purchasing this book. White defines 14 aspects of fascism and does a convincing job of showing that at the least, the Christian Right leaders possess fascist tendencies by showing examples, sometimes multiple anecdotes, to corroborate an aspect of fascism with a policy position supported by the Christian Right. Once again though, White fails to convince this reader that these leaders would have the ability to enjoin their followers to actually make the leap to theocratic fascism if provided the opportunity - its one thing for a populist Christian to rail against the peccadilloes of Pres. Clinton's sexual scandals or an atheist trying to get "under God" out of the Pledge, its quite another to vote to amend the U.S. Constitution to prevent judges from protecting the rights of Americans from its government when your side is in power. President Bush learned this lesson in 2006 when 1/3 of evangelicals rejected his party and voted for Democrats, i.e., that ideology at the extreme end is shared by an insufficient number for an automatic quorum; a lesson Liberals learned in the 80s.
I also like Whites' thesis that people who truly aspire to live up to the principles of the two greatest commandments and aspire to live a life where grace is superior to justice is contained within the founding American civil ideals espoused historically by freethinkers and liberal Christians, a concept currently demonized by Fox News (as secular progressivism). White, like Jim Wallis, has the moral high ground but hasn't figured out how to get their message out into the media effectively; the knee-jerk reaction by the mainstream media is that the Dobson's speak for Christians when in fact, millions of Christians reject his message of dominionism and hatred. White's movements' effectiveness will be measured in getting media access like Dobson, Falwell, and Robertson, an effort in which he's currently failing.
I had one inspiration reading Mr. White's book, the gay rights movement needs a Martin Luther King. It needs a person who is charismatic enough while possessing the humble dignity and obvious wisdom, like Dr. King, to immediately remove the Christian Right from its unearned moral high ground. Mr. White, after having seen him speak at a book review broadcast on CSPAN II, is not that person nor does he seem to aspire to that position. I hope and pray Mr. White's movement finds its Dr. King; Mr. White will be a very able disciple to such a person and movement.
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