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Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy

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There are some books that forever change the way you see political reality. This is one of them.

In this short and accessible work, Clarkson shows that there are important differences between conservatives who believe in constitutional democracy -- and the antidemocratic theocrats who advocate conservative social issues. The latter are all too often using issues like abortion and homosexuality for a broader purpose -- to destablize constitutional democracy. Real conservatives know the difference or ought to. So should everyone else. Practitioners of identity politics need to look beyond the blinders of such worthy concerns as race and gender and understand more clearly the nature of the threat. Whether you are a progressive engaged in issues of social justice, or a libertarian concerned about matters of personal liberty, the dangers of the Christian right will be more hair raisingly evident to you after reading this book than you might imagine.

Eternal Hostility should be on the required reading list of every American who still thinks religious and reproductive freedom, and constitutional democracy itself are worth preserving.

So-called social conservatives are given a pretty free ride on TV news programs, don't you think?

Have you ever heard a TV journalist use the word "theocracy" or "theocrat" when discussing the Christian Right? If they had read Eternal Hostility, they would know that the word theocrat is not an epithet, its a religious and political point of view held by many -- but certainly not all on the Christian Right.

Wouldn't it be helpful if Americans who think democracy and pluralism are good things, were informed that there are totalitarians in our midst and that they play important roles in influencing public life? Frederick Clarkson thinks so, and his very readable book is an excellent primer for the otherwise politically literate.

I was so glad to see that ABC's 20/20 recently had the good sense to feature his expertise in a segment about antiabortion terrorism. I hope we will hear more from him in the media.

I also I hope you will buy and read Eternal Hostility. If you do,you will never look at politics and political reporting the same way.

This is one of those books where you find yourself talking back to the page. Clarkson presents a well-researched, well-documented history of American theocracy and its threat to the democracy -- and personal freedom -- we cherish so dearly in the US. He makes a strong argument for the history and preservation of the second amendment as it pertains to the separation of church and state. Our "founding fathers" were not the born-again christians Pat Robertson & Co. claim they were: Jefferson, Madison, Paine, Franklin, Adams et als were all deists. Making claims for Jesus in the constitution was specifically overruled at the Constitutional Convention. Clarkson points out the dangers inherent in eroding the wall of separation, all the more frightening in this day and age of "faith-based" social programs. The scariest point he makes over and over again is that when politicians and religious activists talk about prayer in schools and the role of religion in government, they mean christianity: not islam, not judaism, not earth religions, christianity only. That alone is reason enough to uphold the wall of separation.

This book is an interesting examination of theocratic elements within the Christian Right and more generalist theocratic impulses and influences shaping the agendas of many of the leaders and founders of the Christian Right religio-political movement, the beginnings of which can be traced back to the 1970's.

I only recently discovered this book. Its publication date (the soft cover edition anyway) is 1997--nearly a decade ago.

Reading some of the reviews that were written closer to the time of the book's publication, it's clear that Clarkson's analyses were deemed alarmist or overblown by some. This probably seemed somewhat reasonable given that at the time many print and TV commentators (not Clarkson, obviously) were declaring the demise of the Christian Right, and given that a center-left moderate was in The Oval Office.

However, since the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 and the openly-declared efforts by Christian Right leaders and Republican elected officials to codify in law their vision of an essentially "Christian 'democracy,'" if you will (my term, not Clarkson's), and given the now more widely-understood influence of genuine theocrats, like R. J. Rushdoony, on neo-conservative and conservative thinkers like Paul Weyrich, Clarkson's book seems prescient.

Consider also the recent "Justice Sunday" event, at which any Americans--be they elected officals, judges, or private citizens--who support the continuation of the practice of filibusters in the U.S. Senate were brazenly branded "enemies" of "people of faith." Events such as "Justice Sunday" render impotent the dismissive complaints of earlier reviews of this book that Clarkson was somehow off-base to argue that Christian Reconstructionists, dominionists, and many conservative leaders of the Christian Right could or would influence or had influenced American law and society.

Clearly they could, did, and continue to so.

Agree or disagree with all of Clarkson's arguments or analyses; but, to deem his book crazy, off-base, or otherwise irrelevant is reckless at best.

This easy-to-read book makes the case clearly and well as to why the religous right is a threat to the religious freedom of other Americans, including most Chrisitians. Since the earliest days of our country, there have been those who have sought to gain and sustain power by invoking thier own idea of God. Clarkson demonstrates that the framers of the Constitution overthrew 150 years of Colonial theocracies to found the first nation in the history of the world based on religious equality and freedom. No small thing that the dissident is equal to the self-proclaimed orthodox, and that the believer is equal to the non-believer. The framers of the Constitution sought religious equality in order to innoculate their new nation against the horrors of religious war that had divided Europe for a thousand years. Clarkson observes that those who would impose theocracy did not give up when the Constitution was ratified. They are alive and well and invoking the "Judeo-Christian tradition" as a cover for anti-democratic politics. Everyone who cares about democratic culture and constitutional government owes it to themselves to consider Clarkson's excellent work.

This book still reads as fresh as when it was first published. I reread it recently, and I must say that it tells the story behind the news whenever there is news about the Christian Right better than any book on the market.

As a religious person, I am also struck by how my own bias against atheists has encumbered me from appreciating the meaning religious equality. Clarkson's book helped me comes to grips with how respect for the right of individual conscience is the underlying glue that binds a pluralist society in our constitutional democracy. The religious supremacism of the Christian Right generally and the Promise Keepers in particular is so profound that I can see how this has begun to translate into the steep erosion of separation of church and state we are seeing under Bush.

The book's emphasis on the "armed wing of the Christian Right" is also still the story of today's headlines. The recent HBO documentary "Soldiers in the Army of God" must have used Eternal Hostility as a briefing book. Certainly anyone who wants to understand the violence that plagues abortion clinics needs to study this book. It was written before the recent round of anthrax threats to clinics, but it explains a lot about the Army of God and why we need to continue to be concerned about this domestic terrorist organization. Anyone who values constitutional democracy needs to consider how those behind the 20 year criminal history of clinic violence is part of a wider effort to destabilize constitutional democracy in the U.S.

Finally its my sense that this book has not reached nearly the audience that it deserves. It is also my sense that those of us who value religious freedom and constitutional democracy need to embrace this book and discuss its implications with likeminded friends. These are dangerous times.

Eternal Hostility is a rousing appeal for freedom of conscience in an age of capitulation to fundamentalism. If you are going to read only one book about the Christian right, this is the one.

This book like no other clearly identifies the theocratic ideologies and institutions that drive the modern Christian right, and describes the threat to democratic pluralism, reproductive freedom and constitutional democracy itself.

Frederick Clarkson is a veteran journalist and a skillful writer who places a corrective lens on the lazy eye of the conventional wisdom -- which periodically declares the religious right dead, even as it quietly gains strength. Here you will fine he has distilled and updated his well known work on the likes of Pat Robertson, the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, the Christian Reconstructionist movement, and the Promise Keepers. Although Eternal Hostility has been out for a few years it remains both a refreshing read and a standard reference. Students and faculty will appreciate the careful documentation and indexing that distinguishes this book from so many on all sides.

In a field filled with hyperbole and propaganda, this book stands out as a clear voice of reason.

Extremely well-researched and documented look at those in the U.S. who self-identify as Christians, believing in the literal truth of the Bible as written in the original manuscripts, and that the law presented in the Old Testament should be applied in a literal fashion in our country today. This movement contains a lot of people who hide behind claims of persecution, and who present one face to the mainstream and an entirely other face in media aimed at their followers and constituency, but Clarkson sticks to specifics and tells you through extensive footnoting where he got the data. Like most Common Courage Press books, this one also tells you where to find more information, and presents a coherent approach to answering the threat to democracy presented by those who want religious freedom . . . to be limited to the orthodox.

Eternal Hostility is an important book for advocates and defenders of reproductive freedom. Clarkson shows that the proponents and practitioners of antiabortion violence see abortion and homosexuality as symptoms of larger problems -- constitutional democracy, religious pluralism and separation of church and state. Most leaders of the Christian Right share this view -- but they are shrewd enough not to endorse the bombing of clinics and the assasination of doctors by the Army of God. If you read Eternal Hostility, you may come to the same conclusion as this reader: they are silent partners, comlicit in the violence.

Clarkson demonstrates that there is a low level guerilla war going on the the U.S., and that the war of attrition waged by these well armed zealots has a twenty year history and a long future. These are theocratic revolutionaries hell bent on detablizing constitutional democracy. Clinics and doctors are but strategic targets in the campaign for a rightwing Christian theocracy. Far-fetched as such goals may seem, that does not alter the fact that there is a small but growing network of determined men and women who see it as their life's work. The short term targets of the violence are abortion providers. Who will be next?

For those who have not paid attention to the creeping desctruction of the American way of life by the religious right, this book will be an eye opener. Mr. Clarkson presents a compelling analysis of this insidious movement that, under the pretense of Christianity, is attempting to turn the USA into a theocratic despotic state, or a despotic theocracy, whichever way you wish to look at it.