Tick, Tock

Dr. Bruce Prescott has an important post today on his Mainstream Baptist blog in which he demolishes a common obstacle to clear thinking about the threat of the Christian Right to constitutional democracy.

It is my experience that many otherwise sensible people dismiss concerns about the Christian Right. I think there are many reasons for this. Perhaps they don't know very much about it, and don't know how to evaluate what they are hearing or reading. Perhaps the subject makes them uncomfortable, or afraid.

Whatever is going on, one of the stock responses is that the rise of the Christian Right an arc in the "pendulum" of history, and that the pendulum will soon swing back.

There are alot of problems with this notion. To me, the most important implication is that we should not be concerned, at least not concerned enough to think about it very deeply -- let alone act -- because, well, this too shall pass. Another problem is that the pendulum metaphor suggests that whatever happens is inevitable, as inevitable as the mechanism of the pendulum swinging back and forth -- as if human actors, organizations, ideologies have nothing to do with history and its outcomes.

Prescott notes that when rightwing fundamentalists were busy taking over the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest protestant denomination, in the 1980s, "moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention were using the same metaphor and precisely the same words to allay 'alarmist' concerns that the SBC was being taken over by Fundamentalists."

"The 'alarmists' were right," Prescott explains. And he should know. He was there.

"The pendulum got stuck. The SBC moved to the right and the moderates who are awake have left."

Referring to the current attacks on state and federal courts by the Christian Right and their allies in Congress, he continues:

"Now, literally the same Fundamentalists are organizing rallies to takeover the courts. If all moderates do is wait 'quietly' for the pendulum to swing back to the center, it won't happen in their lifetimes. It may not happen in the lifetimes of their children and grandchildren."

"We are dealing with patient revolutionaries who are using democratic processes to install a theocracy. When they are through, democratic processes will no longer be operative."

I'm with Bruce Prescott. I say whether or not the pendulum theory has any validity in the great sweep of human history, applying the idea, dismissively as a way of justifying one's own ignorance, and inaction is in a word, bullshit. The pendulum metaphor is more like a form of personal hypnosis, something to chant whenever the politics gets challenging, uncomfortable. Dangerous.

Tick, Tock.

Bruce recently interviewed me on his radio show "Religious Talk." He has archived two, half hour podcasts on his site. We invite you to listen in on our conversation.