There Is A New Need For The Christian "Right"

Regardless of one's position on hot button issues such as the teaching of evolution in public schools or women's reproductive freedom and rights, one has to admire the dedication and tenacity of the Evangelical and Fundamentalist communities as well as other Christians to the perceived requirement of their faith. In publicly witnessing the tenets of their belief system these people have run very real risks ranging from physical oppression to social ostracism.

Various concomitants of the recurrent acts of witness--including the murder of physicians, the bombing of clinics, the harassment of children--have called the Evangelicals and their fellows into deserved but overly broad disrepute. The failures of excess, the demonstrated impotence of the Christian "Right" in national elections, the overblown rhetoric, the seeming rejection of the discoveries of science whether in biology or astrophysics should not be taken as an indictment of the "Right" nor a sign that the people who constitute this assemblage are either marginal to the American experience or lack relevance to the challenges confronting the nation and its state today.

As a secularist historian the Geek appreciates (in the intelligence community usage of the word) a fundamental reality which eludes many of his occupational coworkers. The various denominations which conjointly comprise the so-called Christian "Right" are not as individuals let alone witnesses to a particular confession are not marginal to the American past.

The faith(s) represented by Evangelical and Fundamentalist denominations constitute vital components of the warp and woof of the American tapestry. Whether any of the hoi oligoi are comfortable with the notion, there is no way that the crucial role played by Protestant Christian beliefs in the evolution of the US from the days of the colonies forward can be denied, ignored, or minimized.

As they have been, they remain--central to all that constitutes the American nation. The power and persistence of their beliefs, which have been reinforced by the seeming successes of the secularists before the courts and in the public square, gives these individuals and the churches in which they congregate a unique cohesiveness and capacity to render service to the nation.

Notice carefully, the Geek wrote "nation" not "state": the artifact created by the politically active component of society called the polity. The greatest impact enjoyed by Christian denominations historically has been when it has acted in keeping with the prophetic role. When standing aloof from politics per se, when not seeking to directly employ the state as its functionary, the Christian denominations, particularly those which now are covered by the pejorative appellation, "Right," have had very real impact on how society perceived events, actions, policies. These perceptions, in turn, informed the acts of the polity.

The power of faith must never be underestimated. This commonplace applies just as well to those religiously motivated individuals and groups hostile to the US as a state and Americans as a nation--such as the Islamists and their armed twin, the jihadi--as it does to their most natural and potent opponents--Christians.

It is both pathetic and tragic that the secularists of our nation are so driven by the fear of seeming to assert some sort of cultural superiority that they dare not even name accurately those who wage war upon us in the name of a specific religion. Equally if not more pathetic is the reluctance of adherents of "mainstream" denominations to speak a religious truth--that the attacks upon our people and our land are made by worshipers of one particular faith, one specific view of God.

In order to protect successfully not only our territory and our people but our values, aspirations, view of the world, it is necessary both to explicitly identify the nature and character of our enemy and muster the will to defeat the ideas, words, and acts of this enemy. To do this strongly enough, often enough, requires a depth of conviction, a certainty of belief beyond the reach of all too many Americans. To do this requires a willingness to accept vilification, epithets, false and maligning accusations.

In short, to do this--to name the enemy and describe what moves the enemy and, thus, what must move us if we are to survive and more--demands prophetic actions rooted in a prophetic faith bolstered by a prophetic tradition.

The people, the denominations, the confessions grouped together under the Christian "Right" is the only visible candidate to fill the awesome void described. There is no doubt but these folk know what they believe in, know who they are and where they stand in the order of the universe. There is equally no doubt but these people understand better than many just what we are fighting.

More importantly, perhaps, the members of the Christian "Right" have shown again and again that they possess the fortitude necessary for the prophetic role. The faith imbued moral courage of these people inspires respect even within the minds of those who have opposed the political positions taken by the "Right."

Moral example causes emulation. A prophet by the courage and firmness of his argument, his stance, his goal both deserves and gains adherents. No prophet--Biblical or otherwise--has stood alone for long. Presence, perseverance, and patience are words that prophets have lived by from the long-ago of ancient Israel down to the battle for minds and votes which has been and is being carried out around the country in furtherance of faith-rooted ideas.

There is a new, very pressing mission for the Christian "Right." The people under this flag of faith are central to any American success in the very long war with the jihadi and the Islamists. Faith must be countered, finally, not simply with physical means, with Predators, M-4s, elections and money. Faith must be countered by faith.

This in no way means an updated Crusade. It means simply that someone must take the lead in showing, telling, witnessing to the truth that while the American state, has not and is not explicitly Christian, the American nation was predominately based upon and informed by the traditions, values, aspirations, and, yes, the faith of Christianity.

Regardless of just how diverse the American nation may be or become in its component faiths, the nation as a totality, in its very intellectual structure, its mythic underpinnings is and will remain into the foreseeable future a Protestant Christian one. Even as resolute a secularist as the Geek must admit this, even find joy in it, or be guilty of intellectual dishonesty.

The people of the Christian "Right" know all of this. That is why they are the people in our midst best equipped in all ways to witness to and for us in our confrontation with the True Believers whose view of their religion demands our destruction. It is to be hoped the Christian "Right" sees the need, takes up the cause, becomes the essential prophet, perhaps even one with honor in "his own house and land."