Their Will Be Done: Creating a theocracy in America
Tempest
Creating a theocracy in America
by James Heflin
http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:59396
What does it mean that, along with the steady numbers of dead soldiers
in Iraq, there are two other categories of American casualty? There
are occasional deaths among civilian contractors, Halliburton
employees and others who are under contract to help rebuild what was
destroyed. And last week, because of more tragic deaths, we had to add
a third category: Southern Baptist missionaries. It is the curious
relationship of the religious Right and the Republican Right which has
allowed these fundamentalist missionaries to be in harm's way in Iraq,
the ultimate recruiting tool for the Islamic Right. The Islamic
fundamentalists can point to direct evidence of Bush the Christian
Crusader, not Bush the benevolent exporter of freedom. And that's just
fine with Christian fundamentalists, who view America as not just a
Christian nation, but a Christian nation that is directly favored by
God in world affairs.
I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, and I am the son of a
minister. Baptists have been strong supporters of the separation of
church and state -- until recently. I watched as the denomination's
foundational beliefs were trampled in the '80s and '90s by a minority
who forced it from conservative evangelism to rigid fundamentalism.
That transformation was accomplished through cynical manipulation of
the Southern Baptist Convention's democratic procedures, a
no-holds-barred, unethical ruthlessness that used every loophole and
ugly smearing of anyone who stood in the way. A self-declared
righteous few left Christian behavior far behind, and through
fearmongering about "liberals" turned popular Southern Baptist
sentiment ever further toward absolutism (see "Wonder-Working Power,"
April 3, 2003).
When, in 2000, the fundamentalist faction managed to change the
Southern Baptist statement of belief, the takeover was complete;
ex-president Jimmy Carter left the denomination and Jerry Falwell
joined. The Southern Baptist Convention of my childhood is gone
forever, and in its place stands a monolithic power structure bent on
imposing its version of Christianity -- a rigid, exclusive, Old
Testament, fire-and-brimstone, fear-and-loathing, un-Christlike
Christianity -- on more moderate Christians, on the federal government
and the rest of the world.
The agenda of these Christians of the Far Right is brazen and clear.
They have turned a zealous minority into a ruling class once, and they
have learned from that success. This is not a wild-eyed conspiracy
theory; their plans are preached in pulpits weekly, and have now taken
shape as proposed legislation. Look no further than the recently
introduced "Constitution Restoration Act." If we do not pay attention
to their manipulation of American democratic processes now that they
have gained remarkable power among Republicans, the principles of our
democracy will eventually be as distant a memory as the kinder,
gentler Southern Baptist Convention of my childhood.
Iraq's draft constitution attempts to bring democratic freedoms to a
Muslim culture. It was therefore important -- and a source of
contention -- that Islam be acknowledged as "a source" of law, not
"the source." And while Iraq's Christian minority may find it irksome
that Islam is declared the official religion of Iraq, at least some
bulwarks against an Iran-style Islamic government exist. The notion of
a fire-breathing, radical Islamic Iraq is merely a notion. Good thing
they modelled their protection from strictly religious law on
America's constitution. After all, we're a country founded by those
fleeing religious persecution, those who understood that when it comes
to protecting the rights of religious groups, every group, no matter
who is the majority, must be equally protected to preserve that heady
concept "religious freedom." The framers of the Constitution were so
adamantly opposed to the theocratic-style governments of the American
colonies (Massachusetts among them) that they expressly forbade
religious tests for public servants.
In the remarkable book about the religious Right Eternal Hostility:
The Struggle Between Democracy and Theocracy , Northampton author
Frederick Clarkson explains: "Before 1787, most of the colonies and
early states had required pledges of allegiance to Christianity and
that one be a Christian of the correct sect to hold office. Part of
the struggle toward democracy at the time was the disestablishment of
the state churches -- the power structures of the local colonial
theocracies."
In a time when a clearcutting proposal is named the "Healthy Forests
Initiative" and the "Clean Air Act" allows for more rather than less
air pollution, "Constitution Restoration Act" is a worrisome moniker.
Little surprise that it seeks to circumvent that central premise of
the Constitution.
If its backers get their way, Americans will no longer receive the
same protections that Washington has carefully insisted that Iraqis
have. The Constitution Restoration Act was introduced Feb. 11 in the
House by Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), co-sponsored primarily by
Alabama Republicans. It was introduced in the Senate by Richard Shelby
(R-Ala.), co-sponsored by, among others, Zell Miller (D-Ga.). The act
was drafted by Herb Titus, the legal counsel for Alabama's
controversial judge Roy Moore, who was recently removed from office
for his refusal to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a
courthouse. The act calls for exemption from Supreme Court
jurisdiction of all cases in which public servants, including judges,
"acknowledge" God as "the source" of law. The restricting of Supreme
Court jurisdiction is a strange maneuver, but one which the hazy
language of the relevant part of the Constitution may allow. The Act
would disallow the Supreme Court from referencing any source other
than the Constitution or English common law in its decisions. It would
retroactively exempt from Supreme Court jurisdiction cases such as Roy
Moore's. A judge who attempted to rule in such cases could be
impeached. It is unclear exactly what actions a public servant could
get away with under the banner of invoking God as the source of law.
If the Act passes, Iraqis would have stronger protection from
religious extremism than Americans. It's a change with dramatic
consequences, and our political landscape under Bush is ever more
receptive to such ideas. Roy Moore and his fundamentalist brothers and
sisters have far more in mind.
Westerners get outraged at the barbarity of calls for imposition of
Islam's laws, called sharia, in which, for instance, an adulterous
woman is to be stoned. Many of the fundamentalists are -- really --
actively pursuing an America in which a judge who says that adulterous
women are to be stoned according to biblical law would be allowed to
impose that sentence, not to mention execution for such things as
heresy, apostasy and homosexuality. They seem unbothered by New
Testament descriptions of Jesus' stand against the imposition of such
death penalties. Appeal to the Supreme Court? The Constitution
Restoration Act begins the process of removing such matters from their
jurisdiction. This is the opening salvo in a federal-level assault
with the goal of American theocracy.
Alarmist conspiracy theory? The Constitution Restoration Act will
probably disappear as quickly as most extremist bills. It's out of
touch with the will of the majority, and, ironically, at odds with the
principles of religious freedom which allow fundamentalists to openly
espouse such ideas. But the act is important not because we are
necessarily close to adopting it, but because it is a brazen play to
further the wishes of an insatiable, power-hungry minority convinced
of God's exclusive blessing.
The backers of the bill, both those who support theocracy and those
who've fallen for the less radical argument that the bill is seeking
to rein in "activist judges" (no matter, of course, that the bill
allows for Christian activist judges), realize its importance. They
are perfectly happy that it has gone largely unmentioned in the press.
Conservative writer Craige McMillan gleefully describes it this way at
WorldNetDaily online: "The left, it appears, has been too busy reading
homoerotic poetry tucked away inside an upside-down Marx and Engles
[sic] book cover to notice, but two U.S. senators have reread the
Constitution. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. and Zell Miller, D-Ga., have
decided to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to regulate the
federal courts." He goes on to relish the notion of judicial
impeachments.
Conservative talk-show host and former Florida Moral Majority leader
Chuck Baldwin, after disingenuously hyping the specter of those
terrifying liberal judges, states, "The passage of H.R. 3799 and S.
2082 [The Constitution Restoration Act] should be regarded as the most
important item on the conservative agenda this year! It is no
hyperbole to say that the passage of this bill is significantly more
important than who wins the White House this November."
The supporters of theocracy are "dominionists" or "Christian
Reconstructionists." The movement sprang from conservative
Presbyterianism, and its main sourcebook is R. J. Rushdoony's 1973
work Institutes of Biblical Law . Reconstructionist thought is
pervasive among fundamentalists of several denominations. The idea is
a simple one: Christians, they say, have not only the right but the
duty to take the reins of government and establish a secular
manifestation of God's power. It is theirs, they believe, to enforce
biblical law on the rest of us, at least the Old Testament kind, not
the "turn the other cheek" New Testament variety. They feel themselves
exempt from certain things like eating kosher food, but besides such
exceptions, dominionists would enforce on our nation the complex
mountain of regulations followed by ancient Israel. It's hard to find
a fundamentalist who would actively oppose such a rule of law.
Herb Titus, the drafter of the Constitution Restoration Act (along
with, presumably, Roy Moore himself), was also the founding dean of
Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. As the 1996 United
States Taxpayers Party vice presidential candidate, he espoused
prosecuting abortion providers on murder charges, in open resistance
to Roe v. Wade.
One prominent financial backer of Reconstructionist causes is Howard
Ahmanson, an extremely wealthy man who also owned a majority stake in
a company called American Information Systems. The company is now
called ES&S and is a major provider of highly controversial
touch-screen voting machines.
Roy Moore himself may parlay his newfound fame to run for president as
the candidate of the Constitution Party (as detailed in a forthcoming
article on Salon.com by Clarkson), the political party that's openly
Reconstructionist and farther right than the mere Republican Right.
The Constitution gives these fundamentalists the right to espouse such
views and protects them from persecution. In return, they would
destroy those rights and protections for everyone who disagrees with
them. Gary North, Rushdoony's son-in-law and the author of an appendix
to the Institutes of Biblical Law , wrote that Reconstructionists
should be careful to wait for the public to accept the "case laws of
the Old Testament before we attempt to tear down institutions that
still rely on natural law or public virtue (I have in mind the U.S.
Constitution)." Constitution Restoration indeed.
The old saw "my freedom ends where your nose begins" is unimportant to
them; they apparently stop at only the first three words of Jesus'
admonition to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This
is not a contradiction that bothers fundamentalists, because they
would, they feel, be stripping away our rights for our own good, for
the saving of our souls. To hold that religious pluralism is good,
they contend, is to hold that moral relativism is good. They know the
Truth, and they know that even more moderate Protestants are
hellbound, in need of saving. Theirs is a world of absolutes, and it
is to them only a matter of our sinfulness that keeps us from seeing
those absolutes. There can be no debate with such a viewpoint, but no
matter: Fundamentalists are not interested in debating. The more the
Left employs careful, nuanced debate, expecting the enlightenment of
reason to moderate the Right, the more the Right will successfully
demonize them for moral relativism. The specter of moral relativism in
turn provides them with a tool for fearmongering and recruiting.
This would be a mere curiosity of modern America's diversity if not
for George Bush's reliance on the religious Right for much of his
power. They have anointed him as the nation's rightful Christian
leader, who was installed by the Supreme Court because God willed it,
even if the American people, in their sinful folly, did not vote
according to the Divine Will. Bush passes the only important
fundamentalist test: the acceptance of Christ as his "personal
savior." That phrase absolves him of all need to justify his actions.
If Bush says God told him so, then God told him so.
And God does, according to Bush, tell him so. Former Palestinian Prime
Minister Mahmoud Abbas reported to Israel's Ha'aretz in June 2003 that
Bush said to him, "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck
them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and
now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you
help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will
have to focus on them."
So far, Bush has not shared God's thoughts on his lack of success in
solving the Israel-Palestine problem.
New Times Broward-Palm Beach writer Wyatt Olson visited a gathering of
the religious Right in Florida last year. Among the many extreme
statements about America's destiny to lead the world as the pinnacle
of Christian civilization came this stunning (and typical) passage
about a South Carolina activist named John Hope: "Whether [Hope]
agrees or disagrees with, say, Bush's invasion of Iraq or his
dismantling of environmental regulations is irrelevant, Hope says,
because the president is a born-again Christian."
Thus does the religious Right relinquish all need for Bush's
accountability to voters. They grant Bush precisely what America
fought a revolution to get rid of: the divine right of kings.
Members of the religious Right hold a great deal of power under Bush,
and their votes come at a heavy price; Bush must continually take
actions directly aimed at keeping them happy, or he will fall from
their grace. This is not the year of gay marriage as a defining issue
by accident.
With the nation on the brink of long-term one-party rule, the Right is
perfectly content for the Left to be consumed with fighting a battle
which, though it may be important, is a carefully crafted red herring.
The immediate outcome of the gay marriage battle is of no consequence
if it is fought at the expense of ignoring the religious Right's war
to replace democracy with theocracy, a war in which Bush represents
their hope for victory.
It's likely that we are mostly ignoring Bush's weak record and
watching the Right define candidates according to their stand on gay
marriage because of Ralph Reed and Richard Land. Reed is a senior
advisor to the Bush campaign, the former chairman of the Georgia
Republican Party, and a leading light of the Christian Coalition. Of
the Religious Right's current standing, he said, "You're no longer
throwing rocks at the building. You're in the building."
Richard Land is a member of the President's Council on Ethics and a
principal player in the Southern Baptist fundamentalist takeover who
is brutally clear on what the Religious Right expects from the
Republicans: "We want a wedding ring, we want a ceremony, we want a
consummation of the marriage."
Such men have applied the same ruthless focus to taking over American
politics that they applied to taking over the Southern Baptist
Convention. They have succeeded brilliantly so far -- that this is not
apparent to many Americans is proof of how well they have insinuated
themselves into the ranks of the political Right. We ignore them at
our peril; we debate them to no avail. They can be stopped only by
countering their ruthless tactics. If we elect George W. Bush next
November, that fight could become unwinnable.
If you wonder why we suddenly seem to be regressing in such matters as
the teaching of evolution, a remarkably good theory that explains the
fossil record far better than strict creationism, look no further than
the methods of the religious Right.
Clarkson has long studied the tactics of the religious Right, even
going undercover to do so. In Eternal Hostility , he details how the
religious Right has taken over the Republican Party from the bottom up
with the same ruthless tactics they employed in the Baptist world.
With George W. Bush in the White House, they have arrived at a
pinnacle of power. They know what they want next; it is a vision of
America at odds with the express intention of its founders. If we
ignore their designs, they will employ their methods until they can
bring about theocracy at any level possible. It is ironic indeed that
those of us who oppose them are defending their constitutional right
to believe as they do. Clarkson points out that their cause lost a
battle when the Constitution was ratified, and they still intend to
win that old battle. Their hope of winning the right to turn states
into theocracies even echoes the Civil War.
This movement can only be stopped, Clarkson says, by employing the
same methods.
"The Christian Coalition invented a new way of doing politics that the
liberal Left has yet to answer. ... They built an independent,
permanent electoral organization that was based on their version of
Christian values that would sytematically find and identify voters who
thought their way," explains Clarkson.
"They could deliver voters and systematically take over Republican
infrastructure. That's what the liberal Left needs to do. It isn't
enough to wait for the AFL-CIO or the Sierra Club to do something.
People have got to start doing something for themselves. Find people
who aren't registered to vote and register them. Learn about the
electoral process. Don't wait for the grant proposal. Just do it."