Subconscious Right-Wing Angst

Anyone who regularly reads my blogs knows that I used to be involved in an abusive, aberrant church; that I suffered for a long time as a result of my involvement; and that one day the truth about the real agenda of this church and its leaders was exposed for all us members to see. Seeing this truth enabled most of us to walk away from this church and its corrupt leaders. It also enabled us to recognize the general dynamics of power abuse in religious groups – groups that ostensibly exist to worship God and to study His Word, yet which are too frequently hijacked by mortal human leaders who fool their members into serving and enriching the leaders instead of serving God.

Some of us who left went a bit farther in our realizations. We became able to recognize the patterns of power abuse in other human organizational settings, where selfish leaders of ostensibly selfless groups manage to hijack them in order to serve their own selfish ends. I myself was able to recognize these patterns in the workplace, in the re-ordering of corporate America, and in the political realm as well. That is what led to the changing of a lot of my political views, to my increasing disenchantment with the Republican Party, and my decision to register as an independent in 2006. I realized that the Right was guilty of grievous sins, and that the Religous Right was guilty as well, not only for supporting people guilty of great evil, but supporting them out of evil motives.

I discovered that such realizations and changes of mind regarding politics were common among many people who had left abusive churches and who learned to recognize the patterns of power abuse. But I noticed that there were varying levels of understanding and realization among the fellow victims of my old abusive church. Some still thought this church was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Others were willing to acknowledge that our old group had problems, but they were unwilling to see the larger problems in American evangelicalism. Yet others were unwilling to see the problems in the agenda and leadership of the Republican Party and the Religious Right. As for me, I think I've tried as hard as possible to see things accurately, and to be honest with myself. But I don't think that some of my brethren are being as honest with themselves as they could be – especially when I eavesdrop on some of their online conversations, in which they argue political issues which have already been argued to death, and for which plenty of evidence of Republican wrongdoing was supplied before the last election. I was in on some of the big arguments in 2008, and I dug up and posted much of the publicly-available damning evidence against the Republicans and the Religious Right, and sometimes I get the feeling that some of my brethren didn't read a word I wrote.

I could try to post all of the evidence again, but just the thought of doing so makes me tired. Why bother if people are determined not to listen? Suffice it to say that you can find it on the first blog I ever wrote, TH in SoC (http://thinsoc.blogspot.com), under the posts, “The Anatomy of The Religious Right,” “Fighting With Broken Weapons,” and “The Sins of the Right.” Mine is by no means the only blog or source of information documenting these things. Many have documented the lies behind the Iraq war; the rape of Iraqi natural resources in the aftermath of the American conquest; the attempts to start a war with Iran; the capture, imprisonment and torture of people without due process of law; the hijacking of government at all levels to serve the rich masters of corporations and banks; the abolition of environmental and human rights laws in order to facilitate the gaining of profit by any means while destroying the earth; the removal of governmental protections from the poor; the attempts to overthrow Latin American national leaders such as the president of Bolivia; and so on – and all of this in order to “promote greater economic prosperity and to keep America strong!” All of these things were done under the presidency of George W. Bush.

I could suggest that many of the signs of abusive churches described by sources such as Ronald Enroth in his book, Churches That Abuse, could be applied quite accurately to the Bush presidency, especially such things as control-oriented (read, dogmatic, arrogant, assertive and inflexible) leadership, the fostering of unhealthy dependency, harsh discipline of dissent (Guantanamo and other places), and surveillance of members (think the Patriot Act). And the 2008 Republican presidentian standard-bearers would simply have been a continuation of Bush had they been elected.

Yet the leaders of the Religious Right told us all that we must support the Republicans because they have “Godly values” - or, “their values are at least more Godly than those of the Democrats,” – or, er, um, “Well yeah, I guess they do have their struggles (especially those of them who are now in orange jumpsuits), but at least they go to church!” In the aftermath of the Republicans' significant losses in 2008, there are Religious Right mouthpieces demonizing Obama and the Democrats as the group who will destroy our nation.

When one tells these people that the Religious Right is mistaken in thinking that laws prohibiting two sins are enough to make a nation Christian, they respond by saying that they are trying to be “salt” and “light” in the political arena, and that since the Republicans condemn these two sins, they are more godly than the Democrats. When one mentions the sins the Republicans actually encourage and practice – oppression of the poor, destruction of the earth, murderous wars of conquest, greed, and other forms of materialism, these sins are brushed aside or swept under the rug. Anyone who attempts to prevent the practice of these sins is accused of “Socialism!!!”

I believe this gives us a clue as to the real motivation behind the Religious Right and those evangelicals who are still cheerleading for the Republican party as the party of “Godliness.” On a deep, unconscious level, these people see the Republicans as the party most likely to maintain the priveleged place of the United States in the world, and the priveleged place of these people within the United States. Therefore they support the pro-business, laissez-faire, small-government, individualistic policies of the Republican Party, while doing all they can to portray these policies as “Christian.” They portray wealth as a sign of godliness or of God's blessing, thus justifying their willingness to use any means to get as much wealth as possible. Meanwhile, they are utterly unwilling to recognize the effect their greed and consumerism has on others, and on other peoples and nations. They point to the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving, and extrapolate the thankfulness of those Pilgrims to conclude that it is entirely due to the blessing of God that the United States has such an elevated standard of living.

But they are unwilling to ask hard questions, such as, “If the U.S. has only five percent of the world's population, yet consumes 40 percent of the world's energy, where does the 40 percent come from? How do we get it?” They don't dare to face the real story behind much of our material prosperity. And they demonize anyone who suggests that they might have to share their wealth with others, or – horror of horrors! – to learn to live on less. Thus one former acquaintance of mine, when asked why we don't just get out of Iraq since our war there is unjust, responded by saying “Do you want Iran to get all that oil?!”

Look at the political agendas of many Religious Right organizations during from the 1980's to the 2008 election. See how much of these agendas had to do with economic issues or immigration or environmental issues instead of moral issues. When the world sees this, are they not correct to conclude that many who call themselves Christian in this country are selfish materialists who don't share well with others? As Ken and Peg Balcom once sang,

We have enough

to almost last forever;

Add up our stuff -

The sum is ordinary love.

Ordinary love is nothing new;

We ordinarily love ourselves.

Those lyrics are meant to be a rebuke of the materialism practiced by so many Americans. Let evangelicals hear that rebuke as well. If we were less materialistic – evidenced by a willingness to play fair with the rest of the world and to share what we have – such a testimony might induce more people to repent of their sins (including homosexuality and abortion) and to believe in Christ.

Evangelicals, take a look at yourselves in these mirrors:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/10/torture_and_evangelicals.html

http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/09/frc-racist-obama-waffles-flap.html#more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/13/conservative-political-fo_n_126243.html