How the Christian Right is reimagining U.S. history

The current Harpers features an article by Jeff Sharlet, "Through a Glass, Darkly: How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history." The article is interesting in the way it historicizes contemporary fundamentalism. Sharlet rightly points out its recurrence in American history. We might say that the struggle over religion is one of the organizing struggles of American life, intertwined with struggles over race (with some Christians leading the abolition movement even as others attempted biblically to ground their authority over their slaves). Sharlett notes as well that the thirties were the least religious decade--we might consider the rise of the welfare state in this context. The article begins:

We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism. Those of us not engaged personally or emotionally in the biggest political and cultural movement of our times--those on the sidelines of history--keep trying to come up with theories with which to discredit the evident allure of this punishing yet oddly comforting idea of a deity, this strange god. His invisible hand is everywhere, say His citizen-theologians, caressing and fixing every outcome: Little League games, job searches, test scores, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the success or failure of terrorist attacks (also known as 'signs'), victory or defeat in battle, the ballot box, in bed.
...
We don't like to consider the possibility that they are not newcomers to power but returnees, that the revivals sweeping American with generational regularity since its inception are not flare-ups but the natural temperature of the nation. We can't coneive of the possibility that the dupes, the saps, the fools--the believers--have been with us from the very beginning, that their story about what America once was and should be seems to some great portion of the population more compelling, more just, and more beautiful than the perfunctory processes of secular democracy.

In the context of a criticism of efforts to 'explain away' fundamentalism in terms of class envy or the desire for a father figure, Sharlett writes:

The old theories have failed. The new Christ, fifty years ago no more than a corollary to American power, twenty-five years ago at its vanguard, is now at the very center. His followers are not anxiously awaiting his return at the Rapture; he's here right now. They're not envious of the middle class; they are the middle class. They're not looking for a hero to lead them; they're building biblical households, every man endowed with 'headship' over his own family. They don't silence sex; the promise sacred sex to those who couple properly--orgasms more intense for young Christians who wait than those experienced by secular lovers.

Readers of I Cite with Lacanian or Zizekian inclinations might start to get a little excited at this point. For, it seems that Shalit has provided us with an interesting clue regarding the current link between neoliberal capitalism and Christian fundamentalism, namely, enjoyment. Rather than preaching abnegation or renunciation (and structuring enjoyment sacrificially as worked in the good old days of the Protestant work ethic), Christian fundamentalism today commands enjoyment. In a way, it out does the superego injunction to enjoy linked to consumerism by urging and extra intensity that doesn't conflict with the market but amplifies it. Perhaps it makes sense to say that Christian fundamentalism channels (brands?) market enjoyment into the whole fundamentalist way of life--Christian bookstores, music, movies, scrapbooking accessories, seminars, radio, etc.

Shalit writes (in a way that suggests he's read The Time that Remains):

Intensity! That's what one finds within the ranks of the American believers.'This thing is real!' declare our nation's pastors. It's all coming together: the sacred and the profane, God's time and straight time, what theologians and graduates of the new fundamentalist prep schools might call 'kairos' and 'chronos', the mystical and the mundane. American fundamentalism--not a political party, not a denomination, not a uniform theology, but a manifold movement--is moving in every direction all at once, claiming the earth for God's kingdom, 'in the world but not of it' and yet just loving it death anyway.

Loving it to death. Amen.

Comments

[Bob Allen]

Hate to show my age, but "Love It to Death" was Alice Cooper's first big album. Somehow, I find that relevant--seriously, one of the few books I've actually bought recently was Michelle Goldberg's excellent "Kingdom Coming" on this topic...

[Sinthome]

Don't forget Christian rock concerts and edgy styles! Another excellent book on this topic is Sharon Crowley's _Towards a Civil Discourse_. Crowley, a rhetorician, gorgeously weaves both postmodern rhetorical theory (especially Laclau and Zizek)and rhetorical theory from the ancients together in analyzing the rhetorical situation in the United States today, and what possibilities there are for discourse. The most valuable aspect of this book for me was her careful analysis of rightwing apocalyptic discourses in the middle chapters of the book, that draw heavily on Christian literature, speeches, and social statistics to make her case. A very enjoyable and eye-opening read.

[Secret Rapture]

My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions!
Read My Inaugural Address
My Site=http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman

[Bob Allen]

In the Goldberg book, I was struck by the story of Marvin Olasky( a big player in the Christian right), an ex-communist who actually shopped around for a church that was as far to the right of Leninism as possible, and it was a Southern Baptist sect(noting Jodi's background) . As a midwesterner whose family lineage goes back to the early Mormons and was married to a Southern Baptist I have plenty of experience with these Calvinist mindsets, and didn't become an atheist/Marxist until 1997, pushing forty. Religion is powerful stuff, but my point is, intellectuals might spend less time trying to figure out how to communicate with these folk and more time tracing out how they were able to overcome this "inner fascism" (Foucalt, Fromm) and mapping out ways for others to do so. As with everything else in the USA, it is a marketing problem, the commodity being mental freedom if you will..

[old]

Good post, especially the bit about religion as "one of the organizing struggles of American life" along with race, etc. Wishing for myself in the New Year a chance to return to blog writing.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

A recent piece by Alberto Toscano has some bearing on the recent discussions:

http://eurozine.com/pdf/2006-12-07-toscano-en.pdf

[old]

Thanks APS. When Toscano and others invoke Munzter et al, I'm always wanting time to explore the way, up until the mid to late twentieth century, catholics and protestants continued to identify all anabaptist movements with the revolt there (with schwarmer being one of the chief epithets) in the 1520's.

[Anthony Paul Smith]

Was that an anabaptist thing?

[old]

yes and no. At Munster, adult baptism was the impetus for the break, but they ended with violence, polygamy, etc. and protestants and catholics for long after wanted to say that all anabaptists would do such things if they only had the chance. Menno wrote a response to the munster crisis saying why taking up the sword didn't mesh with radical protestant principles.

Another thinker whom anabaptist still claim for their own, even though he too wasn't against violence is Balthasar Hubmaier who was widely considered at the time to be the author of the 12 Articles, a document at the core of the peasants revolt and responded to directly by luther in the 1525 document mentioned by toscano.

[Stan Moody]

I fail to see this as an awakening...Instead, I find the Christian Right to be duplicitous in their insistence that God is in charge...In fact, God has been moving too slowly for these Dominionists...They are in control mode because of their comfort in addictive systems...

If this "movement" continues gathering momentum, it will attract all the fascist wing nuts who speak the language without the faith...

Christian Zionism is the most recent push for this "movement."