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5. Ideas do Have Consequences: Apocalyptism and the Christian Right
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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133 In the election of 2004 ballots in eleven states featured initiatives to deny marriage and other civil rights to gays. As I watched the election returns, I saw relatively early in the evening that these initiatives had passed in all of the states considering them. I knew then that the Republican party would win the presidency even though all the votes cast for national offices would not be counted for some time. For a brief moment I wondered whether I needed to continue working on this chapter, the burden of which is to establish a link between apocalyptic theology and conservative politics. I could muster no more convincing proof of the connection between conservative religious belief and political activism, I thought, than that provided by the approval of these initiatives. The election of three born-again Christians to the Senate (Coburn, DeMint, Thune) and of several pro-life, anti-gay-rights conservatives to the House of Representatives confirmed that organizational efforts undertaken by the Christian Right continue to pay off handsomely on the national level. But the victory was ideological as well as electoral. When more than half of the voting citizens of a representative democracy support a given political agenda, one is surely justified in suspecting that the ideology undergirding that agenda is a contender for hegemonic status within that polity. The success of conservative Christian activists in the election of 2004 does not establish my main line of argument, however: that apocalyptism 5 ideas do have consequences Apocalyptism and the Christian Right 134 ideAs dO hAve cONsequeNces might be in hegemonic contention with liberalism. For one thing, professional proselytizers are more intensely committed to apocalyptism than are lay believers. Indeed, I suspect that some if not many centrist and right-of-center voters who support born-again Christians and anti-gayrights legislation would be appalled by apocalyptic belief, were they aware of its implication with conservative Christian politics. Nonetheless, apocalyptism is densely articulated with born-again Christianity if only because fundamentalist Christians accept the principle of biblical inerrancy. But apocalyptism infuses conservative Christian politics in more subtle ways as well, and the task of this chapter remains: to establish a relationship between apocalyptist theology and conservative Christian political activism. With this in mind, in what follows I attempt to articulate the Christian Right’s political agenda with conservative Christian beliefs about family and nation and to connect both to the apocalyptic belief system that underpins and motivates them. What Do They Really Want? In his book on Ronald Reagan Garry Wills notices the necessarily close tie between conservatism and religion: “Attitudes toward the divine tend to be stable, as their object is thought to be. They look back to a past revelation . They observe a prescribed ritual, repeat sacred words, replicate the requirements for priests or initiates. They judge the world against some otherworld of the supernatural and find it wanting—this life is but a falling off from, a dim reflection of, or arduous preparation for, a better one” (453). Belief in an ideal, respect for the past, for standards, and for authority— these aspects of religious belief are all consonant with the traditionalist conservatism associated with modern American thinkers such as Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver.1 In addition, however, Christian political activists are interested in defending the authority of the Bible and a Protestant fundamentalist tradition of interpretation, chiefly Calvinist in orientation. But religiously motivated conservatives can have a more radical agenda as well. Over twenty years ago Paul Weyrich, a founder of the Christian Right and still one of its most important activists, asserted that “we are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of the country” (qtd. in Conway and Siegelman 94). For my purposes here “Christian Right” designates (a) a group of organizations that promote a conservative social and political agenda and [44.206.248.122] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 14:46 GMT) ideAs dO hAve cONsequeNces 135 (b) people who subscribe to an ideology—a set of beliefs—that drives this agenda.2 There are literally thousands of conservative Christian political groups in the country. Those that most often make national news are the American Family Association, the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family; these organizations were founded by or are chiefly associated with Donald Wildmon , Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed, Beverly LaHaye, Gary Bauer, and James Dobson respectively...