Religious right

From Hobson's Choice

This article is under construction

Political movements linking religion to rightwing ideology are a well-nigh universal phenomenon. The doctrinal positions of the religious text are usually irrelevant to the likelihood of this being done; usually religious clergy are very amenable to political involvement. However, it needs to be understood that religiosity and the dogmatic right, while overlapping categories, are not even remotely coterminous: athere is not a lasting and reliable correlation between actual belief and political affiliation.

Contents 1 Context 2 Religious Affinities to the Right 3 Religious Right in the United States 4 Notes 5 External Links 5.1 Religious Right in the USA

Context

Rightwing ideology is informed by a protectiveness towards the existing social relations of production; it identifies those who suffer under such relations as adversaries, or even social enemies. This is inherently difficult, since nearly all systems of economic management favor a minority at the expense of the majority.^[1] The solution, ready-made, is identity politics. The right insists that it is not defending the prevailing economic system, but rather, the cultural distinctiveness and honor of the polity.

The existence of a strong religious tradition or identity plays into this. Nearly all religions emerged with a strong social message, but this message is usually attenuated by the sheer existence of the community itself: in theory, the community has already adjusted to accommodate that social message, and the poor are imagined to benefit from it. Participants in the religious community are therefore likely to imagine they are absolved from all future concern for aforementioned social message. Instead, the main concern is defending the moral authority of the traditional social order against criticisms or nonconformity. The clergy frequently finds itself a natural ally of the political right in this regard.

Religious Affinities to the Right

While religious leaders often oppose individual rightwing agenda, there are certain matters on which clergy (as opposed to worshipers) have a natural affinity to the political right.

1. Conformity to social mores
2. Apologia of the past history of the community
3. Perfectionism
4. Magical thinking

Nearly all religious instruction in all of the world's traditions focuses on conformity to social mores; this is at least one aspect of religion that is different from the radical left. Even "social gospel" teachings tend to emphasize social activism as a personal virtue, and thus either evidence of God's grace, or a contribution towards a fund of merit. Mature parties of the far left do frequently keep a watch over the personal morals of their membership, but as a positivestrategy, not as a normative goal. In contrast, sermons in Christian churches are almost exclusively devoted to the personal moral duties of the worshipers. This tends to undermine the holistic linkage of personal virtue towards the community with social virtue towards the members that is a touchstone of authentic radicalism.

The clergy also derive their authority from the widespread belief that they have always had strong influence in the community. There is something inherently threatening about any new power in society; old power is naturally regarded as legitimate, whoever unfair it may be. Additionally, humans naturally identify with their community as the source of their traditions, mores, and identity. They want to believe that they are historically more righteous, more decent, and more noble, than anyone else. They most emphatically do not want to believe that they are any less. The clergy appeals to this image of the community as members of an "elect" of God, and worthy of special favor. Typically effective appeals to public outrage at some ongoing atrocity usually contrast the virtuous past with the wicked present; hence, exhortations against segregation focused on the novel atrocity with which it was enforced. This was actually an effective tactic since it used the conservative narrative against the conservatives who had spun it.

Perfectionism is a philosophy of morality that claims the chief end of justice is to cultivate individual merit. While perfectionist systems of justice vary dramatically, they tend to demand a remorseless code of rewards and punishments: hence, religious zealots are often enthusiastic proponents of capital punishment, capitalism, corporal punishment for children, and impunity for the police and military. Religion links the ethical component of individual behavior with rewards and punishments of some kind (of which an afterlife is only one example). The political right likewise favors the maximal application of incentives, with minimal regard for any countervailing moral and practical considerations.

A final point of affinity is magical thinking, in which the main aspect of God is the willingness or ability to disrupt the usual natural order in order to protect the elect. One logical inference from this might be, "Be scrupulously ethical in your conduct towards others and God with protect you," obviating any perceived "need" to use torture or unjust violence in the defense of the nation. Unfortunately, the more likely inference is that any barbaric acts committed by the authorities is compatible with the perfectionist outlook of the believer, and therefore righteous zeal; and that insufficient zeal gives even inconsequential enemies superhuman powers. Another corollary is that poverty is God's punishment for moral turpitude, and that efforts to address poverty through state action amount to a questioning of divine providence.^[2] Contrary to widespread belief, magical thinking is neither essential to religious belief, nor is it decisive in theology. It is invoked to purge religions of the social content, and leave them as pure identity politics.

Religious Right in the United States

At the time of this writing, the religious right is most prominent in the USA. There is not one religious right, but several. In the late 1960's, they began a lengthy process of fusion closely related to the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. By the 1980's, the process was complete and it was possible to speak of one religious right instead of a dozen.^[3]

Prior to fusion, the Usonian religious right consisted of the following denominational strands:

• Southern Baptists
• Missouri Synod Lutherans
• The Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)
• Calvinism
• Judaism
• Roman Catholicism
• Charismatics
• Eastern Orthodox
• Others not categorized

Southern Baptists are the most famous, because the history of the contemporary religious right is basically their story: the re-writing of the US Civil War as a heroic struggle to preserve a traditional, righteous society against an invading bureaucratic one; resentment at the cultural pollution of the large cities (and, less frequently mentioned, their underdevelopment of the countryside); religious populism successfully beating out economic and social popularism; antipathy to science; defense of segregation; later, embracing anarcho-capitalism to thwart any further racial progress of African Americans. Despite the great importance of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to the modern-day Conservative Movement, however, it must be understood that the SBC's congregations have long been deeply divided on these issues. Typically, when a community such as White Southerners come under moral and legal confrontation from the outside, this galvanizes militant reaction and defensiveness. The White South was prone to shame about its cultural status in the broader Western milieu; therefore, it was inevitable that the SBC, largest denomination in the region (by far) would be heavily implicated.

The SBC had been formed in 1845 because the other Baptist conventions held that slavery was morally repugnant. Hence, it would adhere to a doctrine of White supremacy until well after World War II. During the period of the 1960's, the SBC was entirely taken over by fundamentalists; it has since become an extraordinary phenomenon of a religious movement re-dedicated to a political agenda.

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) is associated with many of the large megachurches, although it is usually far lower-key and less confrontational than the SBC. The LCMS was taken over by fundamentalists in the 1970's; it is not especially spectacular, except for its size and geographical diffusion. As with other denominations, it has tended to associate conservative theology with conservative politics.

Mormons represent another denomination whose membership is almost entirely conservative (politically). The LDS is a highly patriarchal church, rather like a cross between the Roman Catholic curia and the Central Intelligence Agency. It may be described as a combination of a movement and a religion, with an extremely comprehensive cluster of associations and church functions surrounding every aspect of churchgoers' lives. Unsurprisingly, it is therefore hostile to government functions that provide those services. However, the LDS has reportedly sought to avoid throwing its weight behind any political party, and research conducted within and without the LDS supports the contention that no Mormon political culture exists.^[4] Instead, LDS members are conservative because of their region, and differ from the SBC and LCMS, inter alia in that the LDS is regarded by other conservative Christians as heterodox or worse. Unlike Jewish and Catholic conservatives, Mormons on the right bear an additional burden of "autochthonous nonconformity"--being from here, but different all the same.

Calvinism (Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Congregationalism, and various "Reformed" churches, e.g,, the Dutch Reformed) is actually a theological movement in Protestantism, of which the most famous is the Presbyterian Church. Unlike the aforementioned denominations, the Calvinist ones have more evenly distributed politics. The founder of the American Socialist Party was Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister (he also was an associate editor of The Nation).^[5] However, there are several different synods, and a powerful theological seminary in Philadelphia, which have tended to meld theological conservativism with political conservativism. As with the LCMS, the Calvinist strand of the religious right has tended to be lower key; it also tends to have a strong affinity with Christian Reconstructionism, a political movement related to Dominionism.^[6]

Surveys of practicing Jews in the USA suggest that the majority are relatively liberal. Nonetheless, perhaps because of a combination of the special US relationship to Israel, the high levels of education among Jewish Usonians, and traditional strategies of winning social acceptance, Judaism has become very prominent in the religious right. Both Christian conservatives and Jewish conservatives benefit from the alliance, since a Judeo-Christian coalition allows them to argue that their position does not conflict with the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Notes

1. ↑ An obvious exception would be situations such as Rhodesia, in which the tiny White minority held a monopoly political activity.
2. ↑ Christian secondary literature offers a wealth of examples. Bernard Vaughan, in Socialism from the Christian Standpoint (complete text online) The Macmillan Company (1912), claims (p.110) that socialism makes the state, rather than God, responsible for fulfilling human needs. Vaughan, a Catholic priest, assumes this is impious. Or see Friedrich Julius Stahl, Private Law (trans. by Ruben Alvarado), WordBridge Publishing (2007; originally published in the 19th century), Chapter Two, p.62: "The true rationale for the denial of property by Communism and Socialism, either in general or at least regarding the gifts of nature,.. to a frame of mind... namely, antipathy to God's dispensation." (Emphasis in original). It is unclear if Stahl wishes for us to believe that capitalism is "God's dispensation." At the time (1860's) that was not a widely-held opinion.
3. ↑ Naturally there is debate as to when and how the Religious Right (in the USA) was unified into a unified force. Religious conservatives would deny that it has. One author, John Clifford Green, in Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front, Rowman & Littlefield (1996), "The Moralizing Minority," notes that Jerry Falwell's efforts to create a unified "Moral Majority" was a failure. An obvious counterpoint is that Falwell was a maladroit loudmouth; any Christian conservative of intellectual attainments would prefer someone less crass.
4. ↑ Jeffrey Carl Fox, [Latter-day Political Views], Lexington Books (2006), "A Mormon Political Culture." He also mentions surveys of LDS members; 78% self-identify as "conservative." The claim that the LDS is both a movement and a religion is supported conversations with Mormons.
5. ↑ Thomas attended Union Theological Seminary, in New York (as did Henry Emerson Fosdick). Westminster Theological Seminary, near Philadelphia, was founded in 1929 by J. Gresham Machen.
6. ↑ Frederick Clarkson, "Christian Reconstructionism," Public Eye (1994). Closely related to this is the role of Presbyterian theologian Francis Schaeffer, who relocated to Switzerland shortly after WWII and developed a mainstream version of dominionism (How Should We Then Live?). See Preston Shires, Hippies of the Religious Right Baylor University Press (2007).

External Links

Religious Right in the USA

• John Clifford Green, in Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front, Rowman & Littlefield (1996)
• Linda Kintz & Julia Lesage (editors) Media, Culture, and the Religious Right, University of Minnesota Press (1998)
• Preston Shires, Hippies of the Religious Right Baylor University Press (2007)