A Clear and Present Danger?

Since 9/11, we have been told, time and again, about a clear and present danger facing the citizens of the United States. We are told this danger is from outside our borders. We are told this danger is religious fundamentalist who want to either convert all the non-believers among us to their faith, or eliminate these non-believers from the planet.

While this may be true to some extent, it is only half-true at best. The real danger comes from within the borders of the United States. Is this threat, drug dealers, or gangs, or sex offenders, or some other marginalized segment of our society? No. Is this treat, corporate greed and the politicians in the corporate special interest pockets? Close, but not really. So, what is this clear and present danger?

According to Chris Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University, there is a very clear and present danger to freedom in the United States. Hedges, is a former foreign correspondent, reporting from Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years.

His latest work, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, elucidates the fact that today’s Right Wing of the American Evangelical movement shares much in common with well-known totalitarian regimes through out history.

A review in Publishers Weekly had this to say about the book and its author. “As a Harvard Divinity School graduate, his investigation of the Christian Right agenda is even more alarming given its lucidity. Citing the psychology and sociology of fascism and cults, including the work of German historian Fritz Stern, Hedges draws striking parallels between 20th-century totalitarian movements and the highly organized, well-funded “dominionist movement,” an influential theocratic sect within the country’s huge evangelical population. Rooted in a radical Calvinism, and wrapping its apocalyptic, vehemently militant, sexist and homophobic vision in patriotic and religious rhetoric, dominionism seeks absolute power in a Christian state. Hedges’s reportage profiles both former members and true believers, evoking the particular characteristics of this American variant of fascism. His argument against what he sees as a democratic society’s suicidal tolerance for intolerant movements has its own paradoxes. But this urgent book forcefully illuminates what many across the political spectrum will recognize as a serious and growing threat to the very concept and practice of an open society.¹“

Hedges tells us that this movement, which had it beginnings around twenty-five years ago, has many parallels with the early ideology of the National Socialists in Germany, namely, rampant nationalism, intolerance for anyone who does not agree with their ideology, desire for apocalyptic bloodshed, attack on open dialogue and progressive thinking. Additionally, there are similar laws to protect society from a perceived danger (the Nuremburg Laws and the Patriot Act 1 and 2), disenfranchisement and demonization of entire groups of citizens, disinformation of facts and indoctrination of young people.

Better yet, these Neo-fascists, like their forerunners, will tell us that anyone who does not believe as they do, are evil incarnate, a sub-human, and will be wiped off the face of the earth by the righteous believers. There is no room in the world in the Christian Right for discourse, intellectual research, or disagreement.

In the conclusion, Hedges writes, “”The radical Christian Right calls for exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God…”Its members do not commit evil for evil’s sake. They commit evil to make a better world. To attain this better world, they believe, some must suffer and be silenced and destroyed. The worst suffering in human history has been carried out by those who preach such grand, utopian visions, those who seek to implant by force their narrow, particular version of goodness. This is true for all doctrines of personal salvation, from Christianity to ethnic nationalism to communism to fascism. Dreams of a universal good create hells of persecution, suffering and slaughter.²“

Could it be that Hedges seeing something, that is not there? Let’s look at what happened in 2006 at the “War on Christians Conference”. I take my text here directly from a post on Salon.com by Michelle Goldberg (Kingdom Coming: the Rise of Christian Nationalism) who attended the conference along with Hedges. “In the face of lassitude, speakers repeatedly cautioned against giving in to disillusionment and apathy. They reminded the audience that they are one judge away from overturning Roe v. Wade. They warned that Christianity is on the verge of being criminalized in America, and they harped on the manifold dangers of the “homosexual agenda.”

Michelle goes on to say, “These issues are nothing new on the religious right, of course — anti-gay and antiabortion politics have been central to the movement for decades. But the sense of crisis among the speakers was especially acute, and the calls to go on the offensive seemed urgent. Many proclaimed that America’s very survival is at stake. Some suggested that if the country doesn’t purify itself soon, it might not deserve to survive at all… At one point, speaker Herb Titus held up a copy of Kevin Phillips’ “American Theocracy,” offering it as evidence of the putative war on Christians. It was an audacious move, given that Sara Diamond, the preeminent scholar of the Christian right, reported in a 1998 book that Titus was forced to resign his post as dean of the law school at Pat Robertson’s Regent University because he refused to renounce Christian Reconstructionism. Christian Reconstructionism is a theocratic sect that advocates the replacement of civil law with biblical law, including the execution of homosexuals, apostates and women who are unchaste before marriage. Christian Reconstructionists used to be politically radioactive, but a new generation of religious right leaders like Scarborough have embraced them, and some members of today’s GOP apparently see no problem associating with them. This does not mean that America is on the verge of theocracy, but it signals an important shift. The language of religious authoritarianism has become at least somewhat politically acceptable…

Consider Rod Parsley, Pentecostal pastor of the World Harvest megachurch in Columbus, Ohio, a broad-shouldered, suntanned man who, like Scarborough, is emerging as one of the new generation of leaders of the religious right. When he speaks and shouts, his words building to alliterative climaxes as his arms wave in the air, sparks seem to fly off him.

“A spiritual invasion is taking place,” Parsley roared to the packed banquet hall on Tuesday morning, drawing out the “a” in invasion. “The secular media never likes it when I say this, so let me say it twice. Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons!” He paused to take a preemptive jab at his critics, his voice going soft and scolding: “They say, ‘his rhetoric is so inciting.’“ Then he nearly screamed, “I came to incite a riot! Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!” ³ “

We need to be clear on what we are reading, and seeing in the media. Christian Reconstructionism is nothing more than changing our way of life to one that is centered on a Christian ONLY State, in other words, subordination of American Civil and Criminal Law to Biblical Law, as Biblical is defined by the Reconstructionist Christians. They believe in a version of history that teaches the Constitution was founded on the Bible. They believe that the separation of church and state, as stated in the Constitution and defined by the courts is a “lie brought by Satan” and defended by abortionist, homosexuals, liberals, progressive free thinkers, and all other sinners.

Christian Reconstructionism believes that power rests at the local or county level. It calls for the option of the death penalty for homosexuals, abortion doctors, women who are unchaste before marriage and a host of other MORAL crimes. They call the Ten Commandments the “original source” of the Constitution. Just a small amount of research will tell you this is nothing more than a fairy tale. The Constitution contains not one mention of the word God, nor did its authors invoke the power of God for its creation. The majority of them were anything but religious, they were in fact, rebellious.

All Americans, regardless of religious beliefs need to heed this wake up call. A wake up call that is, telling us the clear and present danger to our democracy is not from a foreign enemy, radical clerics, or undocumented workers. It is from within our own borders. It is from the people who would have you lose your freedom for the sake of salvation and safety. It is from the people who would deny you your First and Fourteenth Amendment rights; the right to worship freely or choose not to, the right to keep your government separate from your church, the right to freely post a blog and the right to due process protections for you and your family.

 

For more information on this subject, visit Theocracywatch.

Click here for a speech by Bill Moyers on the takeover of the Republican party by the Religious Right.

 

 

¹ (Jan. 9) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

² American Fascists page 205

³ http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/29/waronchristians/index.html