Posted by
Jack Fisher on Sunday, November 29, 2009 10:45:33 AM
Christianity has always had leg up in the Western world. Going back to the pre-modern days in Europe and continuing into the modern era in the American Republic, the Christians have had a privlidged position in society. Over half of the founding fathers were Christians. Every president that ever took office has had a Christian background. Most congressmen are Christian. The Republican Party is largely dominated by Christians. Many influencial figures in both the public and the private sphere enjoy special exposure because of their Christian faith.
Yet despite all this power and prestige, Christians still have the audacity to claim that they are victims and are being oppressed.
Less than two years ago, the Christian Right had nearly every branch of the government in the hands of like-minded individuals. Both houses of Congress were dominated by Republicans. President George W. Bush, a devout Christian and friend of the Christian Right, was in the White House. Right leaning judges like John Roberts was appointed as Chief Justice to the Supreme Court. Various positions in the government were handed out to like-minded Christians such as Monica Goodly, who was a graduate of Pat Robertson's unaccreditted law school. Even the now disgraced reverend, Ted Haggard, famously had a weekly conference with the president. All this power and access and somehow Christians are being oppressed? No other group in the history of the country had enjoyed such privlidge. Even with all this power, access, and support it still isn't enough.
Many Christian groups, especially within the Christian Right, claim victimhood on the social issues. These issues include the civil rights of homosexuals, teaching evolution in public schools, and abortion access. They'll even touch on smaller issues like violence and sex in the media, singling out video games, pornography, and swearing on TV as a threat to so-called family values. The logic seems to be that anything that goes against their worldview is somehow an affront to their faith. These issues that are largely products of non-spiritual matters are seen as direct attacks on them personally. In a sense the Christians are on one side of the culture war and the biggest threat to them is the secular world which they seem to believe is robbing them of their spiritual power.
Now this mindset is an important aspect of this movement because it carries with it a dangerous connotation. Human beings are psychologically wired to respond to attacks. It's a purely survival instinct, refined through countless generations of evolution (although the Christians would probably scoff at this). Experiments have shown that test subjects will respond with near equal fortitude when they feel threatened just as they do when they actually are threatened. It's as present in humans is it is to lab rats. So when Christian leaders tell their flock they're under attack, their instinct kicks in and they don't stop and think logically about what they're doing. There is not even a second of consideration to wonder whether or not someone living differently or seeing the world differently gives them a right to stick their noses in other peoples' business. There isn't a moment's hesitation to ignore the law and the liberty of others in the name of morality and family values. It's easy to forget in this mindset that individual rights are meant to protect one group from imposing their will on another. It was why the US Constitution set such strict guidelines as to what rights individuals (not certaing groups) have and are protected under the law.
Yet this is lost on the Christians that feel threatened. They believe this country is a Christian country and should somehow reflect a Christian set of values. What is lost in this mindset is the fallacy of correlation versus causation. Or in a more appropriate context, are the tenants of American liberty because of or in spite of the Christian majority? Religious idealogues will point to any number of examples, but they'll never give anything of substance that proves the concept of life, liberty, and property is somehow strictly a Christian idea (often ignoring the contributions of the ancients like Greece and Rome and the secular thinkers of the Enlightenment). This notion of entitlement carries with it the same consequences of all entitlement. It leads the group to believe they are somehow entitled to more power and resources than other people that don't agree with them. They may sincerely believe that their values are the values that will make society better, ignoring the fact that every group like them religious or otherwise thinks the same thing. It is that conflict of intent that requires the rights of individuals be protected and not groups so no one group may impose their will on the other group. But that doesn't stop the Christians.
Just this past week, a faith-based group including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York issued a public statement entitled "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience." What it says is nothing new. Christians of many demoninations including Catholics and Protestants assert that Christian values are under attack and Christians everywhere must rise up and buck the trend of secularism. It's a fairly natural response to a group that feels threatened by a changing world. This same argument has been make many times before, since the very beginning of the Christian Right and the Moral Majority. The greatest irony is the terms 'secularism' or the 'secular world' is never clearly defined. Bill O'Reilly will throw out terms like 'Secular Progressive' without really citing the underlying meaning of this term and the philosophy behind it. He and others like him will only point out that these non-Christians are against their cherished beliefs and are seeking to rob them of their right to exercise it.
It should be a laughable notion, Christians being the victims after all the power and prestige they've enjoyed. Just as laughable as the notion that whites are the victims of attacks by minorities after all the privlidges they've had over the years as well. But it is dead serious. These misguided crusades are never questioned by the flock and never critically analyzed by those leading them. So long as society is not to their liking, Christians and other groups like them will protest that they are victims. The problem is society will never be to their liking because society is always changing and always will change. It fits the very definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It's only bound to continue and the best defense is freedom and liberty, not just for religious idealogues but from them as well.