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What's Wrong With The Christian Right

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Christians in the US who do not share the convictions of the Christian Right often feel frustrated that the news media ignore us altogether. At last a bold and powerful voice has arisen to set a lot of records straight. Jan Linn's forceful and carefully reasoned analysis of what's wrong with the Christian Right sets out an agenda for dialogue that needs to be taken very seriously, especially in this pivotal election year. The demonizing of the opposition, the linking of a particular way of reading the Bible with in-your-face patriotism, the baptizing of a single brand of political engagement, all are exposed here with page-turning potency. What Paul Waldman has done on presidential fraud and Al Franken on lying liars, Jan Linn has done on the radically politicized right wing of American Christianity. And not a moment too soon!

This book offers another viewpoint of Christian thinking by challenging the thoughts of the Christian Right and exposing the non-bibical and political agenda that are behind their ways of thnking and acting. This book is very enlighhtening and thought provoking. As the author states, 'Enough is Enough.'

Anyone who has ever hesitated, or even squirmed quietly, upon hearing the Christian Right define God or Christianity MUST read this book. It will spring your eyes and mind open, reminding you of what you already knew and factually detailing things you were afraid to learn. It will make you angry as it pulls the curtain on the play that's been twisting cherished American values. By the end, you will have taken an intellectual and spiritual journey of which you can be proud. You will find yourself saying, "Thank God this book was written."

Obviously the Christian Right isn't a new phenomenon that only recently emerged in the U.S., but unless you happen to either be American or find yourself to be extremely interested in American domestic politics you're quite unlikely to have ever heard of them or their ideas before George W. Bush happened to become president. This man is - to his own open admittance - a so-called born-again Christian, who since he took power has packed the entire White House with fanatical Christians, done several changes or adjustments to the separation of church and state (with countless millions of dollars given to the former), and pushed for a politics that not seldom has been the result of his own super strong Christian beliefs.

However, the politics and religion according to George W. hasn't seen its share of criticism; and not only from secularist points of view. The Christian Right has, after all, a whole lot of representatives and spokesmen (and women) - for instance Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Rush Limbaugh - who often deliver rude, degrading, and outright hostile comments about and against dissidents. And the fact that a great many of the ultra conservative American Christians look forward to the country becoming a total theocracy is no secret.

Still, it becomes extra interesting when the criticism is delivered by other Christians, and that's just the case in What's Wrong With the Christian Right. The author, Jan G. Linn, is himself a Christian, but a liberal one, and his look at the Christian faith is fundamentally different from the one the Christian Right promotes. Linn is simply merciless in criticizing his antagonists, but not only that, being the liberal that he is he furthermore isn't afraid to say a harsh word or two about his own faith:

"The Christian Right claims to speak truth. Yet the truth it wants to deny is that Christians have no moral basis for speaking about the judgment of God on anyone. None. At best we might hope that God truly is gracious and forgiving and that the sins of the past we seem determined to perpetuate today will not cause us to be left outside divine mercy, should a day of reckoning actually come. If any group should worry about the Great Day of Judgment, history would suggest it should be Christians." (pg.82-83)

In fact, the entire book is filled with hardcore criticism about everything the Christian Right stands for:

"Violence is a major issue in America today, but the Christian Right is too busy trying to post the Ten Commandments in courthouses to notice. Kids are killing kids on school grounds, but the Christian Right is too busy making sure they pray every morning in the classroom before the violence begins. Is this being too critical? We don't think so. Parody underscores the absurdity of their positions. They are worried about saving people's souls, but don't seem at all disturbed by the social inequities that nurture violence that kills the body." (pg.118)

Unfortunately, no representative from the Christian Right really gets a chance to defend this particular belief, but the book is nonetheless an extremely interesting read. Because just as Linn himself points out again and again, not all Christians think and act like the ones from the Christian Right, but since the latter group is the one that most often get its voice heard then naturally most people think that this is the way all Christians see their world. Just like in Islam. Too much of something is never a good think, religious faith included.

Despite being the devoted critic that he is, Linn still makes sure to plea for understanding and co-operation, and reaches out for the fundamentalist in an attempt to make both parties understand each other a little better. For the well-being of American society, let's all keep our atheist fingers crossed for this to indeed happen.

What is wrong with the Christian Right is the same thing that is wrong with the other fundamentalist interpretations of the so-called great world religions. At bottom it is the idea that one religion is true and the others are false, and that if you follow the dictates of the One True Religion you will be rewarded with everlasting life (or possibly have your way with virgins in heaven) while you walk the streets of gold and/or drive a brand new Lexus and sit at the right hand of God. If you fail to see the light, you will be consigned to the flames of hell where you will be tortured for eternity.

Fundamentalist religion is in fact a pre-scientific, tribal expression of the human psyche. Its gods are caricatures of tyrannical human tribal chiefs with bad tempers and murderous inclinations. They came about in reaction to the fertility religions that proceeded them. The Abrahamic gods triumphed over the Dionysian gods mainly because they were able to more cohesively persuade the flock to follow a war-like leader in times of conflict, effectively destroying or forcibly converting the vanquished. They were also more effective ("adaptive" in the Darwinian sense) because they kept a tighter rein on reproduction so as not to overrun resources--which is why all the fundamentalist Abrahamic religions are obsessed with sex. This obsession has come down to us especially through attempts to harness females and maintain paternity.

So it was with some trepidation that I began reading Pastor Jan G. Linn's attempt to reconcile the ways of Christianity and the postmodern world. He makes a useful distinction between the right wing branch exemplified by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and various opportunistic politicians on the one hand, and liberal Christianity on the other. Clearly the latter are more in tune with the spirit of Christianity in which forgiveness, compassion, and a Christ-like honesty and forthrightness predominate. Nine of Linn's chapters are devoted to what the Christian Right is doing that is wrong. With titles like "Enough of Biblical Abuse," "Enough of Venomous Attacks," "Enough of Hypocrisy," "Enough of the Wrong Issues," etc., Linn delineates the problem. In a nutshell it is this: the Christian Right has bullied its way into religious prominence in this country while its hypocritical and essentially unChristian leaders like Falwell and Robertson are giving the rest of the world the idea that their distortion is what American Christianity is all about.

An example of the "wrong issues" is the charge by the Christian Right that America is in the hands of a "liberal press" when in fact it is manifestly the other way around. The corporations that control the media in the US are largely conservative, think Murdoch, Moony, Fox News, etc. Another wrong issue is the fight over prayer in our public schools. As Linn puts it, "If America is experiencing moral decay, the real battlefront is not prayer in public schools but the greed and corruption commonplace in corporate America." (p. 100)

An example of "Biblical Abuse" is the literalization (and misinterpretation) of the Bible in which hellfire exists, the "rapture" is coming, and the Jews must be converted, effectively destroying their religion. Linn writes, "They [those of the Christian Right] turn metaphorical language the Bible uses to describe a state of 'estrangement' from God into time and space language that makes 'hell' an actual place." (p. 23)

The Christian Right loves hellfire because it helps them frighten the flock into doing what Falwell, et al. want, which is a return to the ignorance, superstition and clerical control that characterized the Middle Ages.

In these and many other issues, Linn does make a fair distinction between the ignorant, intolerant and backward-looking stupidity of the Christian Right and that of progressive Christians. However, I don't think he goes far enough. He writes on page 19 "We [Christian liberals] do believe that it is rare indeed when one person can tell another what God thinks about any controversial issue." I would change the "rare" to "never" and add that it is the height of presumption to presume to speak for God on any issue. Linn shows that he understands this when he writes on the same page, "We believe that no one has a corner on truth...and no one...should dare speak as if he or she has special access to the mind or the heart of God."

However I think Linn fails to adequately condemn the Christian Right for its anti-scientific attitude, and especially for the very unChristian invasion of Iraq, that they supported, and the continued occupation thereof. I also think that the long-running, wasteful, ineffective and hypocritical "war on drugs"--a favorite delusive preoccupation of the Christian Right--should have gotten condemnation as well.

Unlike some people whose views I respect (e.g., Richard Dawkins of "selfish gene" fame and Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith") I believe there is room for religion, and in fact I believe that at some point, confronted by the vastness of the universe and enormity of what we don't know and can never know, there is a place for faith. For all of us the fact of death is inescapable, and to face that fact perhaps it is good that we can have faith in something greater than ourselves, even if that faith is only--as it is with me--in something impersonal and ineffable. If some people choose to imagine that there is a personal God watching over their lives who has a place for them when they die, that is all right with me as long as they do not insist upon condemning me to their imagined hell just because I don't have the same beliefs, which is what the Christian Right does, and which in a nutshell is what is wrong with them.