203 Chapter 1. On (Not) Arguing about Religion and Politics 1. I am aware that this statement has a certain “well-duh” quality about it, particularly since the 2004 election. But Americans seem to have difficulty naming this antagonistic relation as a source of our refusal to argue with one another, in part because the connection of religion to politics is notoriously off-limits as a topic of conversation. Articulating the precise points of conflict between liberalism and Christian fundamentalism is complicated by the fact that liberalism has recently been reduced to a caricature that papers over the truly deep implication of American thought with Enlightenment liberalism. Moreover, while most Americans are Christians, and while many are aware of the general outlines of the apocalyptist account of the end of the world, the more arcane aspects of the apocalyptist theology that motivates conservative Christian activism, as well as its implications for American democracy, remain relatively well hidden from view. I hope it is clear that this book is not about the so-called culture wars. I am trying , rather, to find ways to negotiate past the ideological differences that seem to be stifling civic conversation. Conflicts between religion and politics are not new in American history, and in some respects the current discursive situation is an instance of a pattern that dates at least to America’s founding. See Morone. 2. For Laclau and Mouffe’s discussion see Hegemony 134–45. I return to the notion of hegemony and its relation to ideology in chapter 3. 3. See Arblaster for a history of liberalism, and see chapters 2 and 6 of this book for discussions of liberal rhetorical theory. The bibliography on liberalism is enormous . Here I can only point to some of its best-known theorists: Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, and (arguably) Richard Rorty. Liberalism has been found wanting by conservatives, of course, but it has also been challenged by communitarians (see Frazer and Lacey), feminists (Hirschmann; Pateman), and postmodernists (for example , Connolly, Why I Am Not). NOTES 4. The study, called the American Religious Identification Survey 2001, or ARIS, was conducted by the Graduate Center at CUNY. Jacoby discusses its results , available at http://www.religioustolerance.org. 5. The definitions of fundamentalism and evangelicalism are contested by historians of religion. See Ammerman, “North American”; Marsden; and Christian Smith, American. As I point out in the text, one may profess either fundamentalism or evangelicalism without accepting apocalyptism. But Nancy Ammerman claims that belief in biblical inerrancy and millennial dispensationalism is definitive of fundamentalist Christianity (“North American” 15–17). If she is correct , apocalyptism and fundamentalism coincide. However, I reiterate that some Christian fundamentalists may not be apocalyptists, and many people who accept apocalyptic narratives are not practicing Christians (Quinby, Anti-Apocalypse; Wojcik). 6. To be saved, one must have a personal experience of Christ (see chapter 4). I borrow the terms apocalyptism and apocalyptist from historian Norman Cohn in preference to the even more tongue-twisting apocalypticism and apocalypticist. Here apocalyptism is meant to refer to a specific kind of end-times belief—that is, millennialist dispensationalism—and so I reserve the term apocalyptic for references to secular visions of world-ending catastrophes, as well as those conjectured by non-Christian religious traditions (see chapter 4). See Cohn, Cosmos for the archaic and ancient histories of apocalyptic idealism. See Cohn, Pursuit; Kyle; and Damian Thompson for histories of apocalyptism during the Common Era. See Paul Boyer for an account of American apocalyptism. See Quinby, Anti-Apocalypse ; and Wojcik for accounts of secular apocalyptic belief. 7. See http://www.washingtonpost.com, Nov. 8, 2004. 8. I define super-patriotism as a variety of American nationalism that brooks no dissent from national policy, particularly during periods of national crisis. That is to say, super-patriotism is a fundamentalist nationalism insofar as super-patriots are given to denigrating those who oppose their beliefs, as in the incident recounted at the beginning of this chapter. It is tempting to argue a stronger case, that super-patriotism interprets difference as antagonism; read this way it is an attempt to articulate a coherent and unassailable American identity, to police the boundaries of “us” so rigorously that citizens who dissent can be read as threats to American hegemony. This reading explains the association of protestors with Saddam Hussein, as well as accusations that liberals are “soft on terrorism.” For a history of American patriotism see Cecilia O’Leary. 9. I am not promulgating a binarist...