Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Author:
Michelle Goldberg
Publisher:
W.W. Norton & Company
Date of Publication:
2006
ISBN:
9780393329766
Rating:
8
Summary:
I heard about this book as a regular listener to the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s weekly podcast (which I recommend) and thought it might be worth picking up. The author, Michelle Goldberg, is a journalist and describes herself as a secular Jew and ardent urbanite. She wrote this book because she felt America was becoming increasingly hostile toward the cosmopolitan values she cherishes (p. 21).

Goldberg attributes that hostility to the movement she describes in this book, which she calls “Christian nationalism.” Christian nationalism espouses dominion theology, “…the ultimate goal of Christian nationalist leaders isn’t fairness. It’s dominion. The movement is built on a theology that asserts the Christian right to rule. That doesn’t mean that nonbelievers will be forced to convert. They’ll just have to learn their place.” (p. 7). Advocates of Christian nationalism have a different worldview, a Christian worldview. In that worldview, America was founded as a Christian nation (it was not), Puritans were kind to Native Americans (they were not), evolution is discredited (it has not been), men and dinosaurs lived together in the Garden of Eden (please!), the Earth is six thousand years old (try 4.6 billion years), and Christians should rule the world (p. 5). This worldview is totalistic: it influences every aspect of its adherents’ lives.

Christian nationalists make up a small percentage of the US population (maybe 10%; pp. 8-9), which means not all evangelical Christians are Christian nationalists. When you think about the “religious right,” it is probably the Christian nationalists you are thinking of: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Ralph Reed are/were all leaders of this movement. Despite their relatively small size, they are disproportionately influential in American politics and culture, “In 2004, the Christian Coalition gave 42 out of 100 senators ratings of 100 percent, meaning they took the group’s position on every significant issue.” (p. 10).

Goldberg describes several aspects of the Christian nationalist movement, including: the political uses of homophobia (chapter 2), the intelligent design vs. evolution debate (chapter 3), the faith-based initiative of the Bush Administration (chapter 4), abstinence sex education (which is an oxymoron; chapter 5), and the war on the courts (chapter 6).

One of the more interesting topics Goldberg discusses is the penetration of Christian nationalists in the Bush Administration. Seven percent of White House interns are graduates of Patrick Henry College, a Christian nationalist college for home-schooled evangelical Christians (pp. 2-3). While a small school (with fewer than 100 new students a year), the students are trained in Christian nationalism but schooled in how to convert their message into secular terms so they do not appear to be pushing Christianity on the public (pp. 3-4), which is their actual goal.

Goldberg also describes some of the heroes of the Christian nationalist movement, including Roy Moore, the Alabama judge who is most famous for placing a 10 commandments monument in the state courthouse and refusing to remove it. He’s less well-known for his opposition to removing segregationist language from the state constitution (he’s a racist) and for his 2002 court decision awarding custody of three children to an abusive father over their lesbian mother (p. 25). While Moore isn’t someone I would consider much of a role model, he isn’t alone among Christian nationalists in his bigotry, “A 2004 survey… found that 48.3 percent of white conservative Christians said they would disapprove if their child wanted to marry a black person, compared with 21.8 percent of white Americans as a whole.” (p. 70).

Another interesting “achievement” of Christian nationalists is their reframing of evolution as a “debated” scientific idea. This is intriguing because of how they have gone about doing this: Christian nationalists turned to quasi-postmodernistic ideas to subvert the authority of science and rationality, claiming scientific findings are just opinions. While an absurd argument, it is apparently attractive to some. The irony, of course, is that Christian nationalists then want to turn around and claim that they have The Truth, even though they argue against the possibility of truth to undermine evolution (p. 87). I see this as symptomatic of the disingenuousness of Christian nationalists – they have been found lying and distorting in their efforts to turn the US into a theocracy.

Goldberg also highlights the hypocrisy and negligence that is the Bush Administration’s Faith-Based Initiatives. The money given to religious groups under this program is not tracked and many religious charities and therapeutic centers are not regulated (leading to terrible abuses of people). What evaluation of these programs exists indicates they are not at all effective (p. 127). The mismanagement of the faith-based initiatives has even turned off early advocates who now recognize the initiative for what it really was: political pandering and bribery (pp. 113-114). The faith-based initiatives of the Bush Administration were basically huge bribes to Christian nationalists in exchange for their political support. The billions spent on this program have done little to nothing to actually help non-Christian nationalist Americans.

The author points out some additional irony in the Christian nationalist movement, arguing that the leaders of the Christian nationalist movement are actually pulling a “bait and switch” on their Christian foot soldiers, “The leaders of the backlash may talk Christ, but they walk corporate. Values may matter most to voters, but they always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won… Abortion is never halted. Affirmative action is never abolished. The culture industry is never forced to clean up its act.” (pp. 29-30). What many followers of the Christian nationalist movement fail to see is the enormous fortunes of their leaders. Pat Robertson and James Dobson are the leaders of enormous corporate empires; both men are extremely wealthy and powerful (see note at end of review). There are, no doubt, some authentic, genuinely devoted religious leaders; but many of them are in it just for the money, including the leaders of the Christian nationalist movement.

Another bit of irony is also adroitly pointed out by Ms. Goldberg, “What about the heartland’s much-vaunted moral qualities? … Here again the image of small-town piety bears little relation to reality in rural America. The states that Mr. Bush won in 2000 boast slightly higher rates for murder, illegitimacy and teenage childbirth than the supposedly degenerate states that voted for Mr. Gore. The contrast is especially stark when it comes to marriage… The lowest divorce rates are largely in the blue states: the Northeast and the upper Midwest. And the state with the lowest divorce rate was Massachusetts, home to John Kerry, the Kennedys and same-sex marriage. In 2003, the rate in Massachusetts was 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas.” (p. 67). The hot-beds of Christian nationalism aren’t practicing what they preach (not that I’m advocating it, I just find it ironic).
Review:
For some reason I was under the impression that this book was going to be more academically oriented. It’s not. It’s more like a really long journalistic article you might find in the New York Times Magazine. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that; in fact, it was somewhat refreshing to me to read a book that simply reported what the author found without developing a complex theoretical framework to explain it (which is what you would find in an academic book). So, I guess my point here is, don’t expect a theoretical explanation for what is happening or how it is happening.

Another problem with the book is that it insinuates in several places that Christian nationalists are, if not outrightly, awfully close to being fascists (e.g., p. 34). I find this insinuation a bit tenuous. Fascism is basically ultra-nationalism or super-patriotism; allegiance to the state is placed above all else. It is often characterized by violent suppression of opposition, which probably would happen under a Christian theocratic government in the US, but I’m not quite sure the author makes a compelling case that Christian nationalists are fascists. As I understand this movement, they speak less about patriotism than they do about religion. Of course, Goldberg may be implying that once Christianity takes over the state, religion becomes the equivalent of patriotism, but that certainly isn’t clear.

The author also seems to give more credence than necessary to some of the claims of the abstinence-only advocates. She claims abstinence only education delays the onset of sexual activity, which most of the recent studies finds is not accurate. She also claims that condoms are not particularly effective in preventing the transmission of Human papillomavirus (HPV; p. 148). While genital warts can certainly transmit HPV and condoms don’t protect against that type of transmission, good sexual education encourages people to inspect their partners prior to sex – ergo, you’ll find the warts. But HPV can also be transmitted via seminal and vaginal fluids, and condoms do protect against that type of transmission. Why the author gives the abstinence-only advocates any credit isn’t clear to me.

There is also no clear progression or logical order to the book. It jumps from one topic to the next without any clear rationale for why things should be ordered the way they are. Perhaps with this particular movement it would have been too complicated to try to document its development chronologically, which is why the author used a thematic approach, but it still isn’t perfectly clear why the order of the book is the way it is.

Criticisms aside, the book does have some really prescient insights. For instance, the authors argues that, “If there is a hard landing-due to an oil shock, a burst housing bubble, a sharp decline in the value of the dollar, or some other crisis-interest rates would shoot up, leaving many people unable to pay their floating-rate mortgages and credit card bills. Repossessions and bankruptcies would follow. Many Americans would lose everything they have, including their houses. The resulting anger could fuel radical populist movements of either the left or the right-more likely the right, since it has a far stronger ideological infrastructure in place in most of America.” (p. 186). While I don’t think it was too difficult to predict any of the above in 2006, it is still impressive that most of the things mentioned above did happen in 2007 and 2008.

The author also argues that, “The religious divide in America isn’t so much between the faithless and faithful-it’s between those who want to maintain a secular, pluralistic society and those who do not. But the growing presence of non-Christians will exacerbate the frightened anger of those desperate to drag the country back to its mythical Christian roots… fundamentalism works in symbiosis with secularization; the more it is thwarted, the more extreme it becomes.” (p. 182). The end result will be an increasing polarization as secularists become more vocal in opposing the Christian nationalists, and this appears to be happening. But there is one more bit of irony in all of this, “The things so many Islamic fundamentalists hate about the West-its sexual openness, its art, the possibilities it offers for escaping the bonds of family and religion, for inventing one’s own life-are what the Christian nationalists hate as well. And so, in a final grotesque irony, we come full circle and see defenders of American chauvinism speaking the language of anti-American radicals.” (p. 208). Christian nationalists may not see it, but they are a lot closer to Islamic Fundamentalists than they realize, even though they claim to vehemently oppose them.

Overall, the book is well-written, though, keep in mind, it is less academic than journalistic. As a result, it isn’t as weighty as an academic book might be. This book is relatively light reading, even if disturbing. However, readers shouldn’t be too worried by this book. In my opinion, the conclusion to this book should read, “Be a little afraid of Christian nationalists, because they do want to subvert the secular history of the U.S. and, if they win, you will lose your rights to think how, believe, and act how you want. But don’t be too afraid because people like you, people who value pluralism and the freedoms that come with secular democracies, make up the majority of Americans. We’ll stop them from turning the U.S. into a theocracy, but you should do what you can to help.” This book does a good job making people aware of a movement in the US that should make people uneasy. I recommend it.

(Note: On the issue of personal wealth of the leaders of the Christian nationalist movement, I looked up some information on James Dobson. Two pieces of property are registered to a James Dobson Trust in El Paso County Colorado. The first one is located at 1453 Smoochers Circle (hilarious name for James Dobson) and is worth an estimated $673,224. The second property is located at 7 Pourtales Road and is worth an estimated $649,785. James Dobson appears to be doing quite well for himself.)