The United States, a Christian Nation?

The United States, a Christian Nation?
Janet Johnson
SOC315 Cross Cultural Perspectives
Michael Mayo
July 7, 2008

The United States, A Christian Nation?
Summary:
This paper tries to look at the similarities of the methods used by the extremists in the Christian religion, the Religious Right, and in the Muslim religion, the Al Qaeda. Both of these movements are trying to obtain a purity and a consistency which is highly unlikely to ever exist for a large group. This paper further explores the success of these methods to raise money and bodies for the cause. Then the paper looks at how, with money and effort, the methods ultimately work or don’t work in achieving the lofty goals set out by these organizations.

Introduction, The Reagan Years
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the fortieth President of the United States and has been the vaunted hero of the religious right. (The Biography of Ronald Reagan, 2008) He is invoked at almost any political speech. His presidency is still proclaimed as the high mark of Christians in politics. Regan promised to use his morality and his religion to guide him in his presidency and he often sought the council and advice of religious leaders. (Marley, 2006) This popular view of the Reagan Era, according to the article by D.J. Marley, Ronald Reagan and the Splintering of the Christian Right, is actually backwards. He claims that it is best to view the Reagan administration as a period of growth, high profile, but little success. Regan spoke of his beliefs concerning abortion, his belief in the need for prayer in public school, his desire to move the government towards Christian values, but he did not use his considerable clout towards any of these issues. Marley even quotes an anonymous Reagan official as saying, "We want to keep the Moral Majority types so close to us they can't move their arms."
Thesis
During the Regan years, there was a connection between the religious of the United States and the Republican Party. In the last 25 years the religious right has changed how the Republican Party is defined. I will look at the connection between religion and government in the last 25 years and compare the methods and the progress of the self-described Religious Right in trying to remake the government into a Christian organization with those methods and the progress by Bin Laden.
Discussion
The Beginnings of the Religious Right
According to Rob Boston, in his article “Reconsidering the Religious Right” (The Humanist, 2008) the movement of the Religious Right would never have taken off had it not been for the books, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” and “How Should We Then Live?” written by Francis Schaffer (January 30, 1912 - May 15, 1984), a Presbyterian pastor and American Evangelical Christian theologian. (Hamilton, M.S., 1997) He and his son, Frank Schaeffer were activists. Francis, through his books after his death in 1984 continuing until today, and Frank, until 2006 when he left the Republican Party and became an Independent (Boston, 2008), both were activists against the spread of “secular humanism” and godlessness. Frank described his standard recipe for a speech (his emphasis): “Abortion is murder; secular humanism is destroying us; turn back to our Christian foundation; vote Republican.”
In an article written for The Humanist in 2007 titled “Down but Not Out: The Religious Right and Election ‘06” Rob Boston wrote that he saw a very non-American unifying theory in the Religious Right, one that hints, implies, and outright claims that the founders were wrong when they did not make the United States a “Christian Republic”. The basic foundation of the country as a secular government, a government indifferent to religion, is a basic “mistake” and is the premise from which bad laws are justified. In the New King James Version of the Bible, Luke 23:11, the verse is , “He who is not with me is against me, he who does not gather with me scatters.” A government is seen by the Religious Right, according to Mr. Boston, who is assistant director of communication for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, as either actively promoting conservative Christianity or it is hostile to that faith.
Who Is Up the Religious Right and Who Are Its Leaders?
Pat Robertson is a televangelist, host of “The 700 Club“, and unsuccessful 1988 Republican presidential nominee. He is considered a founder of the Christian Coalition and is also an advocate of Christian dominionism, the idea that Christians have a right to rule. (Shields, 2007) Tim LaHaye, coauthor of the Left Behind series and one of the original founders of the Moral Majority with his book, “The Battle for the Mind” published in 1980. He said that secular humanism was going to destroy America . (Boston, 2008) Jerry Farwell (August 11, 1933 - May 15, 2007), a evangelical Christian pastor, a televangelist, and a cofounder of the Moral Majority. He will be remembered for having said that the attacks of 9/11 were “God’s punishment” and further for saying on the 700 Club, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'“ He did later apologize on CNN and said that he only blamed the terrorists for the attack. (CNN.com, September 14, 2001) Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, is referred to as "a power-crazed political manipulator cynically abusing his followers," by Frank Schaeffer. (Boston, 2008) These men, among other, lesser known men, began the Christian Right in and around 1979 and 1980. Their combined political influence has been very strong in the House of Representatives and with the Presidency of George Bush. The financial contributions of the members of their respective groups, while not enough to guarantee the presidency, can get a Republican elected to the House of Representatives. (Boston, 2007)
The Conservative Republican Party 1970 and Now
Senator Barry Goldwater, conservative Senator from Arizona, once said of the religious extremists “Our problem is ... who want to destroy everybody who doesn't agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles of conservatism. A lot of so-called conservatives today don't know what the word means.” (1994, The Washington Post) Adam Bellow wrote in his article for World Affairs, “Skin in the Game: A Conservative Chronicle,” that when he worked for Bill Buckley, founder of the National Review and leader in the conservative Republican Party, that he had attended a dinner at Bill Buckley’s house when the author wrote for the National Review, and there was a seminar of sorts where the guests, all conservative Republicans, discussed and debated the topics of illegal immigration, late term abortion, and bilingual education with grace and wit. He compared that with how the conservatives now face intellectual collapse (his phrasing), going from a movement of ideas to a decayed hash of meaningless slogans and sound bites. (Bellow, 2008)
The Methods of the Religious Right
John Shields, writing for the Political Science Quarterly (2007), wrote “Between Passion and Deliberation: The Christian Right and Democratic Ideals. He spent a great deal of time looking at direct mailers from the Christian Right, the Christian Coalition and CWA, to their followers. He concludes that they use deliberate wording to arouse moral passion and to motivate into deliberative activism. He compares their methods with those of Islamic fundamentalism and skinhead groups. He quotes the findings of the Fundamentalism Project, a major interdisciplinary undertaking at University of Chicago that attempted to trace fundamentalism across major world religions. Half of the mail, he observes, explicitly compares contemporary moral conflicts to a war. He argues that while direct mail is a kind of public discourse, it is carefully targeted to those will be sympathetic. There is no need to change convictions of those reading the mailings, so the goal is to create a kind of unrest which hopefully the reader will address by either funding or acting in the interests of the Christian Coalition.
He looks at the specific wording of some of the mailings by The Christian Coalition, they used the strongest language available in one of its mailings: "NEVER AGAIN will we be subject to a government that dishonors our Lord." In 1992, after the elections, the Christian Coalition compared a Democratic led Senate with Moses’ years in the desert when leading the Jews from slavery, "Remember, God sent Moses and his people into the wilderness for a time before delivering them to the Promised Land."
The Methods used by Osama Bin Laden
In the article written by Dale Eickelman called “Bin Laden, the Arab “Street” and the Middle East’s Democracy Deficit” (2002), Eickelman describes Bin Laden as trying to motivate the alienated Arab youth. They are often unemployed and living in poverty and dire conditions. Bin Laden uses the vivid language of popular Islamic preachers. He uses his speeches broadcast on al-Jazeera satellite television to build on resentment against the West and the local powers who are identified with it.
Bin Laden quietly sits and narrates the flight of the Prophet Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, when the early Islamic movement was threatened. And he describes how Mohammed returned and conquered. Those who are not for the fight led by Bin Laden are called Zionists and crusaders. (Eickelman, 2002)
Desired Outcomes
If Roe v Wade is overturned and the decisions go back to the states, the debate will shift to making abortion illegal nationwide. If homosexual marriage is made unconstitutional, homosexual unions will be attacked. If it becomes legal to harm a person who burns the flag, the fight will switch to making it an impressionable offense. The fight is not about these particular issues. It seems that the desired outcome of the American Religious Right is more than to make homosexual marriage illegal, to make abortion illegal, to make flag burning punishable, to limit immigration. No matter the law passed, it will not be enough until the American Government is declared officially a Christian Government, one which rejects the religions of the East. This debate, or battle as it is rightly named by the Religious Right, is for more than any grouping of issues, it is for the control of the federal government.
Osama Bin Laden asserts himself and the image of the Al Qaeda terrorist network as guardians of Islamic values. His fundamental tenet is that Muslim is being poisoned, and that the only way the desecration can stop is if all the outsiders are driven out and strict Islamic rule is established everywhere Muslims live.
Conclusion
I set out to compare the similarities of the methods used by both of the extremist branches of the normally peace loving and reasonable religious organizations, the Christians and the Muslims.
During the Regan years it became apparent that there was a branch of the more conservative leaning members of the Republican party which were aligning themselves with the money and power of the Christian evangelists who were gaining a large audience on television. As they gained power, their message has hardened from one which calls for certain things in our society to one which demands nothing but complete acceptance of those same things and more.
Can the extreme right of the Republican party be satisfied? This country was designed as one which separates church and state. It recognizes no religion, and will not grant power to those who also head religious organizations. The connections between the so called Ultra-Conservatives and the more middle leaning rest of the party are currently threatened, but there is no evidence that they will be broken or even weakened.
The stated desired outcome of Osama Bin Laden’s crusade is also one that seemingly will not be obtained. He wants a pure Muslim world, where the power is not challenged. The Al Qaeda terrorist network only gains in strength where unrest is there for another reason. (International, 2008) Can the Muslim extremists be appeased? It is impossible to finish the fight that Osama Bin Laden has waged for the last 30 years.
I conclude that the methods used by extremists in both the Christian and the Muslim religious organizations are effective and comparable. But, ultimately, neither will work. The Religious Right has waged an effective campaign against the pet issues of gay marriage, abortion, and flag burning amendments for the last thirty years, with seemingly unending financial support, but all ground gained has been lost again. Bin Laden and the terrorist network have tried for thirty years to ‘drive out the infidels’. In that time, the United States has invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Peace is coming to the Middle East and he still has very little foothold in the sympathies of his own countrymen or that of the world.

References (annotated Biography)
Bellow, A. (2008). SKIN IN THE GAME: A Conservative Chronicle. World Affairs, 171(1), 26-38. Retrieved July 8, 2008, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1504957911).
Summary: The "movement of ideas" I had joined (or into which I had been drafted) in the 1980s had decayed into a hash of meaningless slogans and sound bites. In twenty years of publishing on the front lines of the culture war, I had rarely stopped to ask myself this question.\n When that happens, as eventually it will, the intellectuals will be there to translate his or her political instincts into a new conservative ideology.


Boston, R. (2007). Down But Not Out: The Religious Right and Election '06. The Humanist, 67(1), 36-37. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1189109231).
Summary:
Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), one of the most vociferous opponents of church-state separation in the House (he introduced the Public Expression of Religion Act which bars the awarding of attorney's fees in establishment clause challenges), lost his seat to Brad Ellsworth, a conservative Democrat, in a 39 percent to 61 percent loss. [...] on balance, the results can't be seen as anything but a disaster for the religious right which, since 1994, has used the House of Representatives as a playground for absurd, constitutionally questionable bills lauding the Ten Commandments, stripping federal courts of their ability to hear church-state cases, and curbing citizens' power to bring legal challenges under the First Amendment's establishment clause.


Boston, R, (Mar/Apr 2008), Reconsidering the religious right: Schaeffer and the new wave of theocratic apostates, The Humanist, Washington DC, vol 68, iss 2, p. 31, searched on June 23, 2008 on the ProQuest Database
Summary: For many years Schaeffer worked with John W. Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, a group that was one of the early pioneers of the religious right's legal movement. Whitehead's early books flirt with Christian Reconstructionism, a radical movement that seeks to impose a fundamentalist theocracy on America where the harsh codes of the Old Testament would be elevated to law. This paper explores the relationship that the religious right has had with the government since that movement began.
Eickelman, D.F. (January 2002), Bin Laden, the Arab “Street,” and the Middle East’s democracy deficit, Current History, Comparative politics 07/08, p 193, 3 pgs.
Abstract: Bin Laden speaks in the vivid language of popular Islamic preachers, and builds on a deep and widespread resentment against the West and local ruling elites identified with it. The lack of formal outlets to express opinion on public concerns has created a democracy deficit in much of the Arab world, and this makes it easier for terrorists such as bin Laden, asserting that they act in the name of religion, to hijack the Arab street.
Hamilton, M.S. (March 3, 1997), The Dissatisfaction of Francis Schaeffer, found on Christianity Today website with the search engine Christianity Today Library.com, http://ctlibrary.com/ct/1997/march3/7t322a.html
Summary: This article discusses the life of Francis Schaeffer and his death. The article tries to convey how thirteen years after his death, Schaeffer’s vision and frustrations continue to haunt evangelicalism.
International: When religions talk; Islam and the West. (2008, June). The Economist, 387(8584), 74-75. Retrieved July 8, 2008, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1495458991).
Summary: Debates about Islam and the West can throw up unexpected tensions. That doesn't, and shouldn't, stop faiths from trying to talk to each other. Since Osama bin Laden launched the war he describes as the renewal of an ancient conflict between Islam and the Crusaders and Jews, there have been many initiatives to head off global confrontations involving religions and the cultures they have spawned. Al-Qaeda's war on the West is by no means the only religious or pseudo-religious dispute in the world. Recently, however, most of the high-profile efforts to stave off civilization war by talking about it have focused on Islam and the West--without ever answering the question of whether it is useful to treat Islam as a single block, or of whether the West is best defined as Christian, Judaea-Christian or secular. Perhaps al-Qaeda's proclamation of a civilisational war has been, in part, self-fulfilling: millions of Muslims regard their faith as being in a state of confrontation, along many fronts, with the West. Some Westerners, including prominent and influential ones, return the compliment.

Marley, D.J. (2006), Ronald Regan and the Splintering of the Christian Right, The Journal of Church and State, 48(4), 851-868, Retrieved June 23, 2008 from Research Library database. (Document ID: 12125921)
Summary: The earliest and still popular conception of the Reagan era marks it as the high water mark for the Christian Right and they went into decline after 1988; however the opposite is true. It is best to view the Reagan administration as a period of growth in which the Christian Right enjoyed a high profile, but had little tangible success in politics. While the president spoke of his personal dislike of abortion and the need for prayer in public schools, he was unwilling to expend any of his considerable political capital to move those issues forward. Many Christian Right leaders realized that being granted a meeting with the president was no substitute for having their agenda made into law. Ronald Reagan's presidency was hugely inspirational for religious conservatives and continues to be so. While he did very little for them, Reagan did give them a sense of belonging. The very fact that the president of the United States appeared to agree with the agenda of the Christian Right gave them tremendous power. This gift of rhetoric was inspirational and continues to fuel today's Christian Right. Reagan continues to serve as an example of the limitations of political influence and a reminder that it is better to be in power than to be a constituent. The Christian Right's understanding of this lesson can be seen in their early support of George W. Bush in the presidential campaign of 2000. In the end, Reagan's presidency was more important to the Christian Right as a symbol than as an era during which they achieved any of their political goals.
Biography of Ronald Reagan (2008), from the website of the White House, searched on July 7, 2008, www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rr40.html
Summary: This website gives a brief history of President Reagan’s life and his presidency. Mostly it is a factual page, with dates and names. It also gives an optimistic summary of his actions as President of the United States.

Shields, J.A. (2007). Between Passion and Deliberation: The Christian Right and Democratic Ideals. Political Science Quarterly, 122(1), 89-0_10. Retrieved June 23, 2008, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1256049341).
Abstract (Summary)
Shields discusses American democracy in relation to the Christian right movement, focusing on the fundamental tension within most Christian right organizations between the exigencies of mobilization and successful political activism. For this purpose, he examines how Christian leaders attempt to shape the public behavior of activists by analyzing a wide variety of elite communications in what have been the largest Christian right organizations over the course of the last two decades, especially the Christian Coalition, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), and Concerned Women for America (CWA). He further supplements the evidence with interviews of Christian right leaders. After briefly surveying scholarship on the right and discussing some of its shortcomings, he analyzes mobilization messages and then contrasts the strident exhortations with the deliberative messages particularly found in training seminars. Furthermore, he turns his attention to Christian radicals and highlight both their marginality and the grounding of their militancy in a bellicose reading of the Bible. The discussion then concludes by drawing out the larger normative implications of the findings by highlighting the deep tension between participation and deliberation.