Hysterical Reaction
Some of those of the opposite political persuasion have attacked these "conservative" Christians with a shrill vengeance.
James Dunn, a Southern Baptist official in Texas, denounced the "evangelical right" as "uninformed, unrealistic, unfaithful to their highest ideals, uncaring, unbrotherly and untruthful."
Carl Henry, a respected evangelical theologian, warned of the "goose-step mentality of a handful of vocal religious leaders."
A Jesuit magazine, America, called the platform of the Christian Right "moral fascism."
Jimmy Allen, head of the Southern Baptist Radio/TV Commission (and active himself in Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign) said Christian Right leaders were guilty of "dishonesty in oversimplification" about the abortion issue.
Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, declared that it was "no coincidence that the rise of right-wing Christian fundamentalism has been accompanied by the most serious outbreak of anti-Semitism in America since the outbreak of World War II." (It is a little surprising the Rabbi should make such a statement — these groups are among the most enthusiastic supporters of Israel you will find among non-Jewish American voters anywhere!)
And the Los Angeles Times ran an article from one of their staff writers warning of book censorship in the wake of the November elections. Prompted, we were asked to believe, by conservative fundamentalist ministers.
Norman Lear, the prominent television producer, who gave the American public "Maude" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" (hardly "profamily" shows) organized his own media campaign to warn that the Christian Right represented a threat to American democracy and the "American way."
The big worry, of course, is the mixing of church and state. The American press has fed this worry over the last year by calling the supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran "Moslem fundamentalists." The point is to link the Christian Right — made up largely of Christian "fundamentalists" — to the practices of Khomeini's regime. The press is thereby subtly propagandizing that if the Moral Majority got its way, the United States would resemble Khomeini's Iran.
In actuality, if the Moral Majority and like groups got their way, the laws on the books would merely return to something like what they were in the 1950s — when America was probably a freer society in many ways than it is today. The United States was hardly like the Ayatollah's Iran in the 1950s when it had stronger laws against abortion and pornography, and it permitted prayer in schools.
Old-Fashioned Hypocrisy
Much of the outcry over the Moral Majority and like groups is plain old hypocrisy. Remember the 1960s? Remember all the prominent clergymen who got involved in political causes — like opposing the Vietnam War or working to increase welfare: William Sloan Coffin, the Berrigan brothers, James Groppithese men of the cloth were not at all bashful about supporting liberal political causes. Indeed — you don't even have to go back to the 1960s — Andrew Young, the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN who called the Ayatollah Khomeini a "saint" and said the Cubans were a "stabilizing" force in Africa, is a minister. Where were all the concerned voices of protest about breaching the wall of church and state when they were advocating their causes?
The National Council of Churches issued, in the wake of the election, a high-sounding statement saying it is "wrong for any religious group . . . to seek to Christianize government. It is arrogant to assert that one's position on a political issue is Christian and all others are unchristian."
(The National Council of Churches, incidentally, has funneled money to revolutionaries under the guise of fighting "racism.")
For years, religious groups have used their religious credentials to push causes like disarmament, higher taxes and more welfare, and harsh campaigns against South Africa (but never, ever the Soviet Union).
Now that some religious leaders are pushing other causes, there are hysterical shrieks about "goose-stepping," "fascism," and "book-burning," all to imply that the Moral Majority and like groups are some variety of Nazism.
If the Christian Right may pose a possible danger, it is in an area largely overlooked by the left-leaning critics. While there is a smattering of Jews, the Christian Right is made up almost completely of Sunday-keeping churches. It would be a tragedy if the Moral Majority — which has fought against secular atheistic humanistic propaganda being forced on believers in the public school system — were to try to enforce Sunday keeping under the guise of blue laws, which forbid work or shopping on Sunday. Thus far, Sunday keeping is not one of the causes of the Christian Right. We hope it will stay that way.
Biblical Ignorance
It doesn't take any special spiritual understanding to realize that family life and morality have been seriously eroded by the secular humanistic spirit that has dominated the major U.S. media and many left-leaning politicians over the past years. The Bible is so plain on these basic issues that no one who professes to take it seriously can possibly doubt that the Bible is a pro-family book.
Jerry Falwell and other leaders of the Christian Right profess, of course, to follow the Bible. It is a shame, then, that, outside matters of basic morality, many of their doctrines are nowhere to be found in Scripture. Mr. Falwell should know, for example, that reverend is a title appropriate to the Eternal God (Psalm 111:9), and therefore not something that he should attach to his own name. Likewise, nowhere to be found are beliefs that you go to heaven when .you die, that you should worship on the first day of the week, that you should observe Christmas and Easter instead of God's revealed Holy Days, that God is a Trinity — or that it is a sin not to vote, as Mr. Falwell claims.
And most assuredly, Mr. Falwell is not "born again" (when you are born again, you are composed of spirit — read John 3:57).
And it is a special irony — in light of their support for the modern state of Israel — that Mr. Falwell and the Moral Majority do not profess the basic key to Bible prophecy: the knowledge that modern Britain and America — as well as the Israelis — nationally make up the descendants of the biblical 12 tribes of Israel of old.
A Modern Josiah?
The candidate of the Moral Majority — Ronald Reagan — won the election. The Senate changed hands — something not expected in this generation. The House of Representatives became more conservative.
Does this mean the course of the country will change? The ERA now looks dead. But changing the laws regarding pornography and abortion will require a change at the Supreme Court — the Moral Majority still doesn't have the clout to pass a constitutional amendment. The drive for the affirmative rights of homosexuals to force others to rent to or to hire them may slow — but homosexuality will probably remain acceptable in the eyes of the liberal media.
The realistic odds are that the Christian Right will fail to stem the decline of the family. It is, for example, afraid itself to do much about laws that do more than anything else to promote family breakup — the no-fault divorce laws that sanction divorce for even the most frivolous of reasons.
Nevertheless, it is possible that at least a temporary change of direction — or slowing of the decline — is in the offing. Such would parallel events of about 2,500 years ago. Just before the ancient nation of Judah fell, it had one last king who stemmed the tide — Josiah.
Mr. Reagan has made the appropriate pro-family statements. He seems as if he will be against the subtle antireligious and antifamily bias that pervades federally funded programs in sex and moral education in the public schools, as well as many other activities of the government.
"When I hear the First Amendment used as a reason to keep traditional moral values away from policymaking, I am shocked," Mr. Reagan has said.”The First Amendment was written not to protect the people and their laws from religious values but to protect those values from government tyranny."
When Josiah came to office, Judah was already in a state of advanced decay. National character does not change easily — or quickly. Can anyone really expect a reversal of the trend toward sexual and moral permissiveness at this late hour? From a hardheaded point of view, and from Bible prophecy, we know that such is extremely unlikely.