Christian Nation Page 5

  MUCH LATER, WHEN working for New York governor Bloomberg, I read a lot about revolutions. Revolutions are rarely if ever majoritarian but instead are usually propelled by a small group that is disciplined and fanatical to which a passive majority then acquiesces. Incredibly, by 2005 the first phase of the Christian revolution was already over, yet few people other than its proponents understood at the time that this had happened. The small band of fanatics, headed by James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Doug Coe, among others, inspired by Rousas J. Rushdoony and funded by Howard Ahmanson, Jr., had succeeded in bringing their brand of fundamentalist Christianity from the fringes of American life to the very heart of political power. A theology that had been intolerable to mainstream Christianity before had achieved legitimacy. In 1981 Gary North had written that “to smooth the transition to Christian political leadership … Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure, and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.” This was, they were clear, to be a revolution from within. Twenty-five years later, evangelicals, through carefully incremental political work at the precinct, county, and state level, had seized control of the Republican Party. It was a movement that was at once cultural and political, and it was the largest such movement in the country by far. All that by 2005.

  Very few people at the time noticed what had happened. There were, admittedly, many moderate Republicans who fully understood this takeover of one of our two major political parties, without, of course, anticipating its eventual implications. But the general public was largely blind to the enormous role that religion was playing in politics, in part because evangelical Republican candidates used a veiled code in their communications with the faithful, what political pros referred to as “dog-whistle politics” for its ability to arouse the faithful while passing undetected by others.

  As a result, the rest of America still associated the word “Christian” with benign mainstream Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism, which had no theocratic tendencies and for whom the dominionist, reconstructionist, and similar theologies were heretical and abhorrent. Non-fundamentalist Christians thought that John F. Kennedy had disposed of the issue of religious belief and politics when he said: “I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters—and the church does not speak for me.” But the world had changed. Now, when it came to politics, “Christian” meant something very different.

  By 2005, Christian fundamentalism, self-identified by various types of congregations referring to themselves as “Bible-believing churches,” had migrated from the Deep South to northern suburbia, where loss of community and empty consumerism had left a void that the evangelicals were all too ready to fill. They filled the void not with a traditional Protestantism but with a dumbed-down Christianity where “faith” was not a private embrace of the mysteries inherent in the human condition but a requirement for complete dogmatic credulity—where the ultimate measure of devotion and religiosity was the willingness to dismiss empirical reality and profess absolute belief in bold and improbable lies (such as the coexistence of man and dinosaurs), and where the primary values were not the dignity and integrity of the individual and the realization by that individual of the whole and spiritual self but total submission by the individual to biblical law and Godly authority. And perhaps most tragically, what had migrated north was a redefined Christianity in which the singular voice of Christ called the faithful not to modesty, charity, meekness, love, and social justice but to a theological imperative for the accumulation of wealth and political power in order to establish Christian dominion over the country.

  The evangelical Christianity that spread from the south to the rest of the country was, in effect, an ideological system demanding complete obedience to the word of God as revealed by the Bible. The Bible was no longer a book of instructive parables whose teachings were limited to the sacred and the moral. Instead, the Bible had become what the evangelical faithful called a “guide to everything”: facts, history, science, politics, and civil life. The non-evangelical majority was bemused by the evangelical preoccupation with biblical literalism as manifested most prominently by creationism, but in retrospect these specific beliefs were trivial distractions. What so few people saw at the time was that this mind-set of credulity was a form of brainwashing that completely undermined the role of rational argument that lies at the heart of democracy. This, more than anything else, laid the groundwork for the totalitarianism that would follow.

  Like any populist movement, the evangelical right depended on enemies. By 2005 they had largely settled upon what their prime enemies would be: secularism (which, they argued, was really a competing religion) and “the homosexual agenda.” Anti-Semitism, which had served other nascent totalitarian movements so well in the past, had been rendered off-limits by the Holocaust; and communism, the prior bogeyman, had faded as a credible threat following the fall of the Soviet Union. By the 1990s, the anti-gay message had proved itself as a successful vehicle for crystalizing political action, largely centered around repeal of civil rights laws protecting homosexuals. Christian broadcasting was filled with ridiculous canards: Nazism was really a gay movement; gays were born with a missionary zeal to convert others (especially children) to the “gay lifestyle”; a whole range of diseases, not just AIDS, was spread by homosexuals; all male homosexuals were pedophiles. Preachers preached that the rise of homosexuals was the surest sign of the coming end times; they were the Antichrist’s army, predicted with startling clarity by the Bible. They reminded the faithful again and again that the rise of homosexuality was God’s way of testing humanity—if we tolerate the abomination, then we are irrevocably lost and abandoned by God. They preached that the idea of homosexual “rights” was absurd, no more sensible than speaking of the “rights” of murderers, rapists, and child molesters. The relentless preaching had the desired effect. By 2004 the official platform of the Republican Party of the state of Texas stated: “… the practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.”

  A few years later, the anti-gay message had been honed and refined for maximum effect: The problem was not only that homosexuality was an abomination in the sight of God but that the existence of and tolerance for homosexuality was a vital threat to marriage, to Christianity, and to the nation. This core message was echoed every Sunday, week after week, at thousands of churches around the country: “The religious freedoms of all Americans are under attack from radical homosexual activists … gay marriage will destroy your marriage and your family.” Or, as James Dobson put it quite comprehensively, gay marriage “will destroy the earth.”

  Finally, having enemies was not enough. In a strategy common to fundamentalists the world over, evangelical preachers successfully tapped into the meme of the “persecuted church.” The growth of a modern, secular, and tolerant society, they argued, really is about the tyrannical suppression of Christianity because the idea of a secular and tolerant society is inconsistent with Christian claims to dominion over civil society. In the ultimate Orwellian perversion, the core “secular” value of religious tolerance becomes intolerant and tyrannical. Extension of basic civil liberties to those who engage in a sexual practice that is taboo to fundamentalists becomes an attack on the Christian church in which Christians, and not the historically persecuted homosexuals, are the true victims. Permitting gays to marry becomes an attack on marriage in which married people are somehow victimized, threatened, and undermined. Abortion is seen as an attack on life itself. Even ordinary non-evangelical Christians started to look at modern secular society differently. Perhaps the big city atheist intellectuals
really do not mean “live and let live.” Perhaps, they began thinking, the patina of tolerance really is part of a program to abolish my religion and prevent me from believing and worshiping as I see fit. Fear is contagious and, when accompanied by economic distress and social alienation, turns easily into the comforting cloak of victimhood, providing absolution to the wearer for his misfortune, solidarity with his fellow victims, and an enemy on whom to project his anger and resentment.

  I found in Adam’s file a clipping on Pat Robertson, the strange Christian media mogul with reconstructionist tendencies who ran for president of the United States in 1988. It was Robertson who first introduced the idea of Christian fundamentalists as a persecuted minority. In a 1993 interview he said, “Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different … More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.” Reading that now, I can’t help wondering what the journalists first hearing these words thought. Did they have even a glimmer of their implications? A former candidate for president asserting that the treatment of evangelical Christians by “liberal America” was more terrible than the treatment of Cambodians at the hands of Pol Pot, of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority in Rwanda, the Bosnian Muslims by the Serbs, the Jews by the Nazis, the early Christians by the Romans? Because such an assertion was manifestly untrue as an empirical matter, did the journalists not see that it must have been uttered for a purpose? Did they not sit up in their chairs, faces pale at its enormous implications? After all, what do such victims do? What are they entitled to do? What would we expect them to do? There is no moral or legal code under which a minority so terribly victimized would not be entitled to rise up and vanquish their persecutors and claim the mantle of history—and the mantle of righteousness—in doing so. But neither Sanjay nor I saw it at the time, or could even have imagined how quickly the self-described victims would become the victors.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Striving

  2007

  Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies…. Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy.

  —Rousas John Rushdoony

  It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief.

  —Samuel Johnson,

  The Patriot

  “G, YOU ARE A LAWYER. Please explain something.”

  “I’ll try,” I answered cautiously, as Sanjay’s questions were rarely capable of being answered.

  “I have just read a book called A Christian Manifesto by a man named Francis Schaeffer. This is a popular book; it sold two hundred ninety thousand copies in its first year and is still selling briskly almost twenty-five years later. It advocates the end of a pluralistic secular democracy and advocates violence to restore biblical morality. I understand that the crime of treason includes advocating the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. So tell me, when evangelicals say that God’s law, as set forth in the Bible, should trump all civil law including the Constitution, is that not treason? Should that not be illegal? It is very confusing because instead of prosecuting promotion of this idea as a crime, the federal government subsidizes those who are advocating it by making them tax exempt. What is more, at a time when the author of this book was advocating violent resistance to the US government and constitutional law, two presidents invited him to the White House. You are a lawyer, Greg. What am I missing?”

  “San, I’m sorry, I’m really tired, and that’s not my kind of law. And it’s a naïve question. We don’t prosecute people for treason for writing books.”

  “We did when those books advocated communism,” San said.

  “This is different,” I answered.

  “How so?”

  “San, do you think I can make partner? I want you to tell me honestly.”

  “I do not know.”

  “Come on, you’re supposed to say that I can do whatever I put my mind to.”

  “Sorry, but that would not be true. You know I have great confidence in your abilities. But I do not know what it takes to make partner; therefore, I cannot appraise whether you have what it takes.”

  “OK. Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know either. And I don’t know whether I want it. But I’m beginning to think I do.”

  I waited for his comment. He gave me one of his gently probing looks but did not speak.

  “San, I want to know. I really want to know what you think. Am I cut out to be a lawyer? Should I try to make partner? Should I spend my life being a corporate lawyer?”

  “Those are, perhaps, different questions,” he replied. “I think you can be—I think you probably are—a fine lawyer. You have the brains. Your mind is orderly. Analysis and logic come naturally. You are articulate.”

  It was my turn to be silent.

  “But,” he continued, “should you stay at RCD&S and become a partner? This is a question only you …”

  It was my turn to give him a dirty look.

  “OK,” Sanjay continued. “I have enormous respect for the profession. And to have the opportunity to practice at the top of your profession would be a privilege. But yes, I do have a worry. I know you, G. You are a fine person. But you will be at the heart of Wall Street. It is a culture that does not merely accept self-interest but celebrates it. There is a tendency toward grasping and shallowness that is endemic. There is striving always and, I fear, much disappointment. Such a place could change a person.”

  “San, I’m sorry. And no disrespect, but that’s yoga talking. The world is not an ashram. The economy and political system—hell, the society—is built on self-interest. Evolutionary biologists teach us that even altruism may be a form of self-interest. You know that. Wall Street is no utopia, but it’s a lot of bright people doing things that are really important. And are there sharks? Of course. But give me a little credit, San. I think I can swim with the sharks without turning into one of them.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you have put your finger on the issue.”

  And so went many of my conversations with Sanjay during this period. He slowly and methodically connected the dots and assembled a coherent picture of the Christian Nation to which the fundamentalists aspired. I increasingly immersed myself in my practice and slowly developed the determination to make the sacrifices required to become a partner of RCD&S. If I stayed at the firm, it would be a marathon, requiring five more years of long hours, high stress, and low odds of ultimate success.

  Emilie had no doubt what I should do, and 2007 was the year I moved into her two- bedroom East Side apartment. I asked her to move into mine, but she declined.

  For about six months we did not see much of Sanjay. It was actually Emilie who felt badly about it, and to my surprise one weekend she suggested that we do something with Sanjay. “Friends are precious,” she said, “and it is far too easy to let them drift away.” There were still many moments like these when I was glad I was living with this woman and was completely convinced that she was different from the bankers whom she increasingly resembled, at least superficially. And so Emilie called and invited Sanjay to the opera.

  We were all guests of Emilie’s boss at Credit Suisse. He was an enthusiastic member of the Metropolitan Opera Club—a group of opera fans who maintained a dining room within the opera house and a row of boxes for the use of the members. The club maintained a strict dress code, with black tie for men and evening gowns for ladies and, in an anachronism remarkable even for New York, a requirement for white tie and tails on Monday nights. Emilie’s boss, of course, preferred Mondays.

  We were seated at a large round table in the center of the gold-leafed dining room when Sanjay arrived. There was a noticeable lull in conversation when Sanjay turned the corner from the coat check and sto
od in the front of the room. And it was not simply the relatively rarity of a brown face. Even I was stunned. Sanjay in white tie presented a striking image. The black and white played off his brown face and ebony hair. The long line of the tailcoat emphasized his height and lean body. He could have been an Indian prince entering the court in Edwardian England.

  Emilie was obviously thrilled, and I wondered momentarily if this was all about the plaudits she would earn from her mentor and his wife for bringing such a striking figure to their party. It was an unkind thought.

  The partner’s wife and other women were fascinated, and Sanjay charmed them without effort. The opera that night was Massenet’s Thaïs and the Credit Suisse partner led a spirited discussion of its plot: the monk who leaves the monastery to save the courtesan and ends up with his love for her eclipsing his love for God, while at the same time the courtesan whom he comes to save ends up renouncing her life of pleasure and entering a convent to devote her life to prayer. What were we to make of this, he asked? Was this just an O. Henry–like plot twist, or was Massenet taking sides? Was the hero the monk or the prostitute?

  After allowing others to speak first, Sanjay then offered his opinion.

  “I would imagine,” said Sanjay, “that we are intended to conclude that neither is the right path to follow. Instead, both paths illustrate the same fallacy, the fallacy that religious devotion can lead to real redemption or salvation. The monk learns from hard experience that he cannot be complete as a human if his only relationship is with an imaginary being, and that striving for eternal life is a futile quest. The courtesan spends her life striving for pleasure, but when she finally realizes that she is in need of redemption from an immoral life, she makes the same mistake as the monk in seeking it in an equally futile marriage with God. Massenet is telling us that we humans make the same mistakes over and over—the mistake of striving and of endlessly seeking unobtainable extremes. This opera is, I think you will see, a tragedy.”