| “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What you sow you shall reap. No matter how carefully Mormon political consultants (some of them paid handsomely by Church members' donations) tried to script a Mormon "grassroots" relationship to the Yes on 8 campaign, talking themselves and the members of their insular world into the legitimacy of these arrangements, it was naive and foolish to think that such a campaign could be conducted without significant consequences.” … One of these consequences is that the Church has now branded itself as the leading anti-gay-rights religion in the country. That's an expensive bit of turf to hold in an unsustainable legal and political fight. Every day, I read news stories from across the country about Mormons. And let me tell you, this movie alone has gotten ten times more coverage than the Church’s incredible humanitarian efforts in Haiti and the greening of its chapels combined. – 8: The Mormon Proposition gets it right. Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches |
My wife and I recently completed listening to the audio-book version of journalist Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, by Max Blumenthal
Blumenthal’s book is an excellent summary going in some cases as far back to the 1960’s Goldwater days of Republican Conservatism.
It’s a long summary that on the one hand was sufficiently informative as to fill in many of the historical and contemporary blanks of information regarding the most prominent conservative religious and political personalities who were on stage for most of my adult lifetime.
On the other hand, once the pattern of behavior, public advocacy, political rhetoric and blatantly partisan manipulation on the part of the radical religious right becomes apparent, the long litany of outrage and hypocritical actions runs the risk of toxic overdose.
Personality after personality parades on stage often with fanfare of adoration on the part of socially conservative religious congregations almost worshipful of these celebrities. Included in the mix of course are the Republican politicians – almost every one of which have been forced to kow-tow to that voting base that came to dominate an old and previously respected political identity. Mitt Romney’s limited choices during his presidential campaign fully reflect the problems faced by all the candidates.
Personality after personality – religious and political – never seemed to make it all the way through their own bizarre political burlesque routine without slipping on the proverbial banana: From the likes of Ted Haggard and his scandalized co-preachers to Tom Delay, Larry Craig and Newt Gingrich, never was “do as I say, not as I do” so meaningful.
If there has been a historical “power that is” behind the god-&-politics crowd, that political godfather would be James Dobson and his weapon of choice, Focus on the Family.
These are the people still at the helm of what has deteriorated to a regional political party whose base of strength has shrunk to a hard coalition of rigid, inflexible and socially abusive organizations.
These are the people the LDS church got in bed with and now - as Joanna Brooks, an active Mormon, and author of 8: The Mormon Proposition gets it right points out – is seen by many as THE church leading the bigot charge in this country.
It also appears that where goes the LDS Church, there goes the state of Utah. Follow the political news cycle and you cannot help but note the radical political and socially conservative viewpoints that in Salt Lake City tend to be treated as required doctrinal purity.
Many good people, devout, totally trustworthy, compassionate and caring – among them my own loved ones who live within the LDS version of physical and spiritual reality – take issue with these sentiments. But these sentiments are hard to contradict factually.
Once persuaded into the murky waters of political activism, as any activist will tell you, lots of stuff you do not want gets stuck between your toes.
Even inside a society where individual moral parameters are often measured and constantly expressed by deep and sincere spiritual vows and covenants, you cannot escape the odor of those with whom you have joined in your Jesus walk.
Perceptually the personal righteousness of individual Mormons gets lost within the judgmental hypocrisy of the pretended biblical righteousness of the Dobson, LaHaye, Hagee and Robertson crowd. The almost mindless and consistently partisan voting patterns of Utah’s national political personalities reflect this same narrow rigidity.
Conscious of their own integrity and heavily invested in sustaining and protecting that personal sanctity, individual Mormons have nevertheless been betrayed by what has been revealed after the fact as a short-sighted decision. It seems to have been a corporate decision by church leadership that was possibly was based on a perceived opportunity to join with the evangelical masses and perhaps take a leading role as part of the imagined moral majority in this country.
Unfortunately, with the help and encouragement of that clique of unsavory religious bigots – the Dobsons, the Parsleys … even the Fred Phelps variety, the LDS church now finds itself strapped to the masthead of the god-politics flagship in a losing war.
However Mormons believed themselves to be supporting their corporate vision of Christ, I don’t think that what has come to pass is what they had in mind.
Arthur Ruger
From Frank Schaeffer whose credentials are revealed in the following opinion.
ReplyDeleteMax Told The Truth About Me, My Father and My Evangelical World
"For me reading Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah is a look into a mirror.
Blumenthal extensively interviewed me and drew rather heavily on my book Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back as a reference for his in-depth exposé of what has gone so very wrong with the Republican Party.
Republican Gomorrah is the first book that actually "gets" what's happened to the Republican Party and in turn what the Republicans have done to our country.
... Blumenthal explains a far deeper pathology: it isn't so much religion as the psychosis and sadomasochism of the losers now called "Republicans" that drives the party.
... Tracing the thinking of the fathers of the Republican Party, including my dad, the late Francis Schaeffer, Blumenthal explains where the current Republican Party came from.
He also details who it's foundational thinkers were, and just why it's still so dangerous.
For one thing this book -- at last! -- will forever put James Dobson where he belongs: onto the top of the list of the American national rogue's gallery of mean-spirited, even sadistic, cranks.
... Blumenthal understands the philosophy, psychology and religion of Religious Right figures like Palin, Dobson, Robertson et al in a way that no other reporter (with the exception of the always amazingly perceptive Jeff Sharlet author of The Family) has done.
... today figures such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson, (the late) Jerry Falwell, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin have led a resentment-driven second American revolution, not just against Democrats and progressives but against the United States of America itself.
There were exceptions to the hard edge, my late father Francis Schaeffer was one.
Blumenthal describes how my father was a compassionate man who opened his ministry to all before something "snapped" after the Roe v. Wade decision when he became a leader in the pro-life movement.
My one -- very slight -- criticism of Republican Gomorrah is that Blumenthal neglected to do something that would have bolstered his arguments and given them deeper credibility: introduce a bit of paradox and nuance into his book. He could have made a better case for the left by frankly looking at some of the extremism on the left that has played into the hands of the cynics who control the Religious Right:
And in the same vein perhaps when it comes to the current ethics of abortion and porn Blumenthal's case would be stronger if he had pointed out that there are many progressives, who have serious moral qualms on these issues as well.
The great service Blumenthal performs is to not only enlighten those who didn't grow up in the movement (as I did, sad to say) but to offer a genuine warning as to the seriousness of what these people will unleash if not stopped, then stopped again and again--because they are here to stay.
Why should Blumenthal's book to be taken seriously?
Take it from this former "insider" he knows what he's talking about. His thesis is less about politics than about the deviant psychology that people like Dobson have cashed in on by feeding delusion, victimhood and failure as a means through which to build a political movement.
What should we "do"?
Read the book!
And maybe (note to progressives!) be a little less critical of President Obama and a little more grateful that he's in the White House!
Once in a while a book comes along about which one can say: If you love our country read this!
Republican Gomorrah is one such book.