Christian Nation Page 6

  Emilie looked momentarily uneasy. We both knew from prior experience that Sanjay’s earnest frankness, especially on matters of religion, could easily offend.

  “Yes, yes,” the investment banker exclaimed. “Brilliant. You are right. I’ve seen the opera a half dozen times and never thought of it this way. But that’s it. A carefully disguised polemic against religion. Faith and religious enthusiasm leading where they always do, to tragedy. Heh. Heh. I wonder if any of the French clerics got it. You had to be careful back then, you know.”

  “You have to be careful now,” Sanjay observed.

  “Oh, don’t worry. We’re Episcopalians; we’re not offended. We don’t believe; we go for the music, and so our kids have someplace nice to get married.”

  “I am glad that you and Mrs. Mettrick are not offended, but that is not what I meant. I was referring to the evangelical political movement. They are easily offended. Did you know that 40 percent of Americans believe that blasphemy should be a crime?”

  “No,” said the wife. “You don’t mean America; you must mean Afghanistan or Pakistan or some such place. It’s the Islamics who go on and on about blasphemy.”

  “You are right—but actually it is all fundamentalists—Islamic, Christian, and even Hindu—who are not only offended by blasphemy but believe that it should be a crime. A capital crime, by the way.”

  An uneasy silence settled over the table, and Emilie shot Sanjay an imploring look.

  “But,” said Sanjay, “I think what is far more interesting is the structure of the violin meditation. Have you ever studied the music? Its structure is fascinating.”

  And at this the wife of another young banker—she had played violin at Brown—took the bait and engaged in a discussion with Sanjay about the musical form of the famous instrumental interlude.

  The evening was a great success, and Emilie told me the next day that all the guests were fascinated and enthralled by Sanjay. It was typical of Sanjay at the time. He could capture any audience, but he had not yet figured out how to work his preoccupation with the religious right into his everyday interactions.

  The next weekend we started to settle back into a mode of regular visits with Sanjay. He came over Sunday morning, one of the few times when Emilie and I were unlikely to be needed at the office. Emilie was on the couch reading the paper wearing, without having asked, a pair of my boxer shorts and one of my shirts. It was, in fact, a shirt that I had intended to wear that week to an important meeting in Dubai. Also, I resented that it cost me eight dollars every time I had to send it to the laundry.

  “Fucking unbelievable,” she said. Emilie had not only picked up anglicisms from the bankers with whom she worked but also a casual vulgarity that had not been part of her vocabulary when we met.

  “What’s that?”

  “Look. Pakistan. A stoning. Of a couple. She’s only seventeen. She ran off with this boy, and they were both convicted of sex outside of marriage and sentenced by this mullah judge person to death by stoning. Stoning? It’s completely medieval. What are these people thinking?”

  This was not an isolated incident. After 9/11 and the fascination with the Islamic world which it engendered, Western media coverage of Islamic punishments exploded. Sentences of lashing, whipping, stoning, flogging, amputation, and the like were reported with shock and outrage. Humanitarians, lawyers, and assorted do-gooders were dispatched to Arab capitals to plead for suspended or commuted sentences. What was largely unnoticed at the time was that American evangelical leaders were not among those condemning these barbaric practices. And what went largely unreported at the time was the newly public enthusiasm of the Christian reconstructionists for the literal application of Old Testament penalties.

  I found a clipping in Adam’s file from 1998, my sophomore year in high school. It reported a speech made by Gary North, Rushdoony’s son-in-law, to an evangelical audience. He did not even bother to make the general case for capital punishment for adultery, homosexuality, and blasphemy (among other crimes), as he would have correctly assumed that his audience already accepted this as a biblical imperative. Instead he addressed the method of execution and explained the great wisdom of the Bible in specifying stoning as the required method for these particularly heinous crimes:

  Why stoning? There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost … Executions are community projects—not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do “his” duty, but rather with actual participants. That modern Christians never consider the possibility of the reintroduction of stoning for capital crimes indicates how thoroughly humanistic concepts of punishment have influenced the thinking of Christians.

  As usual, North was being utterly transparent. Those who focused simply on the perceived barbarity of stoning entirely missed the point. He was correct that the essence of stoning as a punishment is indeed community participation. In the accounts of stoning in Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Africa, and Indonesia, the detail most often overlooked is the determination of the religious authorities to force entire villages to participate. And why? Because afterward the entire village is complicit and completely invested in the continuance of religious rule for the absolution of its guilt. Only religious law can justify the stone thrower’s act. Without religious law, the villager has been reduced to a brutal thug who killed his neighbor in a particularly heinous manner.

  I could tell that Sanjay was hesitating to engage with Emilie on this topic.

  “Did you know,” he said, “that there are many people here who believe that all Old Testament punishments, including stoning, should be restored?”

  “No way,” said Emilie. “Impossible. Maybe some nutcases in Oklahoma.”

  “Well, since you mention Oklahoma, did you know that most statewide executive offices in Oklahoma are now held by an evangelical? Together with 85 percent of the state legislature. Most of them support the entire agenda—criminalization of homosexuality, adultery and blasphemy, the death penalty for abortionists, reinstatement of school prayer, a requirement that creationism be taught in public schools—and all based on the Bible as ultimate law. They call their vision of America a Christian Nation—and all that stands in the way of that vision is the federal court system.”

  “Well, if that’s true, and I doubt it is, then it really doesn’t matter. Who’s ever been to godforsaken Oklahoma? They can worship corn for all I care.”

  “They do,” said Sanjay, “have two United States senators. You would not believe how bad things have gotten there. It’s this ugly mix of anti-immigrant sentiment, over-the-top patriotism, and Christian fundamentalism. Did you know that in a poll, 60 percent of Oklahomans said they did not believe that Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Even on the subject of their own religion, they display astonishing ignorance. Most believe, like the bride’s sister at Jim’s wedding, that God created man and the dinosaurs at the same time. This is possible because almost a fifth of the children are homeschooled and exposed only to Christian fundamentalist doctrine. They’ve never been to a public school and never been exposed to any non-fundamentalist views. And it is not just Oklahoma; Idaho and some other western states are not far behind.”

  When he noticed that Emilie wasn’t really listening, he stopped.

  I reflected on all this the next day in one of the places I did my best thinking, the first-class cabins of the really good international airlines, such as Emirates. En route to Dubai, I was settled into my own small cabin, with a sliding electric door cutting off the distractions of my fellow passengers, sipping Arabic coffee and—through four windows—enjoying the view of the clouds below and the dark edge of the atmosphere above. During my first two years at RCD&S, much of the actual work was ministerial—routine research, drafting documents based on precedents with little need for variation, and the review of large stacks of contracts and corporate documents known as due diligence. But instead of complaining that the work was not sufficiently challen
ging, I forced myself to think about the reasons the transactions were structured the way they were, and I tried to figure out whether I could conceive a more efficient or less risky alternative. This critical and creative habit of mind stood me in good stead, and I quickly was given more advanced work than was customary for associates at my level. Powerful partners with interesting work, including a senior partner in line to be the firm’s chairman, increasingly sought me out to be assigned to their transactions. To emerge as a star in a group of the country’s brightest and hardest-working young lawyers was, honestly, a source of some surprise to me, but I was truly delighted by the fast pace at which my career was advancing. My determination to stick it out and become a partner was firming.

  Six hours later, after a good sleep on a flat bed covered with a starched linen comforter, I was eating a breakfast of freshly scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and fresh figs. The flight map on the large plasma screen at the opposite end of my small cabin indicated that we were directly over Baghdad. Here I was, cosseted with every indulgence, and 39,000 feet below me were other Americans my age fighting a needless war and dying by the thousands, mostly by being blown up by a faceless enemy. I wondered why I was here and not there. The skies were cloudless, and I could see the Euphrates and even make out the Green Zone, familiar from so many maps on the television news.

  Perhaps being in the air so much contributed to a feeling of separation from the rest of humanity. I realized that the way the world really worked—how things got done, who had power, and why things actually happened the way they did—was almost completely opaque to ordinary people. I felt an increasing sense of estrangement from those not living a similar life. They didn’t “get it,” we would say. The handmaiden of justifiable pride is an ugly undercurrent of arrogance from which I was not exempt. Many of my colleagues came to see the rest of humanity as idiots, ordinary people bumbling through life in a fog of imprecision with no real knowledge of the world, easily duped, analytically handicapped, and generally clueless. I suppose you could say that I had “drunk the Kool-Aid,” but at least I remained aware that I had done it. During the rare times Emilie and I were not working, we tended to socialize with other bankers and lawyers who lived in the same world. They shared our experience and understood our lives. It was easier.

  ONE WEEKEND Emilie proposed to me that we ask Sanjay to dinner the following weekend.

  “I want him to meet George. He’s the cutest associate in Financial Institutions. I mean, really, really cute. I don’t know a girl who wouldn’t want him if he weren’t gay.”

  “You’re trying to set up Sanjay?” I asked.

  “Why not? He may be filled with yogic equanimity, but he’s still got to fuck.”

  “Jesus, Emilie. I wish you wouldn’t be so crude.”

  “Yeah, so what, you think he doesn’t want to fuck cute guys? He doesn’t want a relationship? I guess you think as long as he’s got you as his best friend, he doesn’t need another man? Is that it?”

  The long argument that ensued ended, like all arguments during that time, with Emilie doing exactly as she intended. She invited Sanjay and her friend George, neglected to tell either of them he was being set up, and then fussed to create a “romantic” atmosphere. To this day I don’t know whether this was the “good Emilie” actually trying to do something nice for two friends, or the “bad Emilie” desperate to drive a wedge, any wedge, between Sanjay and me. Although I was careful not to let her know, the later mission was unnecessary. I already was distracted by doubts that my closeness with Sanjay could survive my turning into the person I was becoming. Could I really talk to him about my life, which was now dominated by my work? And I just didn’t want to hear any more about the fundamentalist Christians. I was not looking forward to the dinner.

  Upon arriving and meeting Sanjay, the Credit Suisse associate, George, instantly deduced Emilie’s intentions and flushed with embarrassment. Sanjay later told me he found this most charming.

  Emilie painfully tried to steer the conversation to gay topics, and I, mortified, pushed around my plate the forty-dollar-per-pound white asparagus that Emilie had ordered from the most expensive market on the East Side.

  Sanjay, largely oblivious to everyone else’s discomfort, was excited by his most recent research. It was the first time that I learned about The Institutes of Biblical Law, a tedious text in excess of a thousand pages on which I later became expert, having been asked by Governor Bloomberg time and time again to search out clues about the strategy and behavior of our theocratic foes.

  “Have you ever heard of Rousas John Rushdoony?” Sanjay asked, “… usually known as R. J. Rushdoony?”

  We all looked blank.

  “Neither had I, but I have finally found what I was looking for … the intellectual underpinning of the more extreme parts of the Christian Nation movement. This is it. The Institutes is the Bible, so to speak, of reconstructionism. Rushdoony was funded by Howard Ahmanson, Jr., whose father founded and owned America’s largest savings and loan. The son was at one time a committed reconstructionist and provided much of the funding for Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation. These people don’t always completely agree with Rushdoony—for example, just three years ago one of them said that he ‘no longer consider[s] [it] essential’ to stone people to death for certain crimes of immorality. But it is Ahmanson’s money that allowed Rushdoony to promote—and successfully move toward the mainstream—what started out being viewed, even by evangelicals, as pretty extreme views.”

  “It always comes down to money, doesn’t it?” Emilie observed.

  “In this case, yes. The Chalcedon Foundation is still going strong, run by Rushdoony’s son. Gary North, who is Rushdoony’s son-in-law, carried the project forward with Jim Dobson, Tony Perkins, and the others we all have heard of. It all fits together now.”

  “I haven’t heard of any of them,” Emilie said, with an inflection that signaled boredom and the hope that Sanjay would change the subject. He was oblivious.

  Sanjay continued. “Rushdoony started out as a fairly traditional Calvinist but then promulgated the simple and powerful view that no law made by man can ever have authority or legitimacy. Instead, the civil man-made law must be replaced with, or at least be subordinated to, the law of God as revealed in the Bible. They argue that man cannot create law; man can only embrace or reject God’s law. Under this view, of course, the idea of individual rights is anathema or, as one of them said, ‘an assault on God’s sovereignty.’ Is that not fascinating? Within their frame of reference, it makes perfect sense. If God is supposed to be omnipotent and rule all things, then to speak of men as having rights is nonsense. And of course you will appreciate the other implication.”

  No one answered, but George had the courtesy to say “What?”

  “Democracy, of course. Democracy is rule by the majority, not God, with the minority protected by inviolable individual civil rights. So democracy too is anathema. As Rushdoony himself has said, ‘Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.’ ”

  George looked shocked.

  “And here is the most important thing,” Sanjay continued. “This isn’t just a philosophy or political ideology. Rushdoony believed that living in a society ruled solely by God’s law is so important because this in turn is required as a condition for the return of Jesus, for the second coming of Christ. Do you understand? No theocracy, no second coming. Before Rushdoony, most evangelicals were, and I believe still are, what is called ‘pre-millennial,’ believing that when Jesus returns, all born-again Christians will go up to heaven, physically, in the rapture, leaving the unbelievers to endure the tribulation and the apocalypse. But Rushdoony believes in ‘post-millenialism,’ meaning that Jesus will come only after Christians succeed in establishing Christian rule over the earth. This urgent imperative for Christian rule over civil institutions in order that Jesus can come again is at the heart of what they call dominionism. Dominionism simply means that Christians have a God-given right to rule, an
d that in preparation for the second coming of Christ, Christians have responsibility to take over every aspect of society and to govern solely in accordance with biblical law. The pursuit of secular power, of control over the legislature and the courts, is a theological imperative, and the most important one there is. And all this with its roots in a man you never heard of, R. J. Rushdoony.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” said Emilie, impatient at the turn of the conversation, “please Sanjay, not all the theology. Although I like his name. Rushdoony. Rhymes with looney. Rushdoony is a loony. Easy to remember.”

  “We also have Rushdoony and his followers to thank for home schooling. It is hard to get a precise number, but some scholars estimate that 10 percent of American children are either homeschooled or taught in fundamentalist Christian private schools. As a percentage of all children, this is significantly higher than the proportion of Pakistani children attending fundamentalist madrassahs. That translates into roughly two million children in homeschool, almost all from evangelical families. And it was largely Rushdoony’s idea—he argued that establishing Christian rule required little more than indoctrinating a couple of generations of children. It is not just about filling them with Christian doctrine and protecting them from immorality; it has the effect of undermining reason and science as a mode of knowing the world. Children are taught that faith and acceptance of the revealed wisdom of God are the highest values and the only legitimate and reliable ways to know the world. With children thus trained, it is an easy step to get them to accept as true the things that are manifestly false, such as that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that Iraq was behind 9/11, or that Senator Obama is foreign born. As one writer said, they are ‘redefining faith as deliberate blindness to big lies.’ ”