Propoganda of the Christian Right
Author's Note: This essay was the last of three assigned by my former Sociology instructor, Leonard (a proponent for "values" and a conformist of cloying political correctness), in the Fall Semester of 1999 at WWTC. Leonard had simply assigned our class an essay on the topic of any religious issue of our choice.
��� One contributor to the movement of the Christian Right has been Major Edgar C. Bundy who served as director of the Church League of America for 25 years. Founded in 1937 by George Washington Robnett, a Chicago advertiser, the Church League of America was created to accumulate and distribute information to implicate and blacklist suspected Communists, Marxists, and other leftist groups. Major Bundy, an Air Force intelligence officer from 1942 to 1948, possessed staunch anti-Communist sentiment. Although Bundy had accurately predicted to fall of South Korea to North Korea as well as the Communist collapse of China, he had additionally forecasted the potential fall of Japan, India, Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia to Communist influence. His latter prophecies never came true.
��� Through its religiously affiliated establishment, the Church League of America attempted to link as many people as possible to Communism. The League searched numerous files, letterheads, newspaper clippings, petitions, and other written records in its attempt to connect as many individuals as possible with Communist treason. After subjects were entangled by accusations through either direct association or guilt by association, the League would meld politics and religion to deem that the Christian God viewed any form of Communism as blasphemy. Bundy spearheaded much of this frenzy, although his hysteria did not remain completely unnoticed. In 1954 The Chicago Sun Times revealed that brochures dispensed to the public by Bundy�s Church League had been obtained from Harry A. Jung, a known fascist sympathizer.
��� Still, during an era of rabid McCarthyism, Bundy continued his social tirades throughout the 1950s. Among the groups Bundy accused of Communism were the Girl Scouts of America, the Ford Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Foreign Policy Association. Similarly, a backlash occurred as the Political Research Associates, a legion of leftist activists, blacklisted members of the Christian Right including Bundy and his sect. Radical leftists would link those groups� religious rhetoric to the domineering and genocidal tendencies of neo-Nazis and European fascists (as in the example of Harry A. Jung). Finally, Bundy was forced to resign from the Church League in 1982 after it was revealed that he had engaged in homosexual relations with boys and young men who were Church League office workers or children of Church League members. Incidentally, Bundy himself had been a fervent denouncer of homosexuality as a dogmatic abomination in relation to church policy. Of course, homosexuality per se is neither a crime nor a sin; but the hypocrisy of Bundy�s actions and words demonstrated his obvious false sense of values.
��� Another misrepresentation of Christianity exhibited by some leaders of the Christian Right is their tendency to release inaccurate information. Moral Majority leader Reverend Tim LaHaye of the American Coalition for Traditional Values is known for his writings as an anti-humanist. In his book The Battle for the Mind, LaHaye makes the false claim that Australia and Brazil are each larger in area than the United States. He also asserted that Sweden had the world�s highest suicide rate, when in fact, Hungary did at the time of his publication. LaHaye generalizes humanists as "amoral, one-world socialists," yet he makes no distinction between religious humanists and secular humanists. One theory is that LaHaye has confused the term "secular humanism" with "social pluralism" regarding the tolerance of various social lifestyles. LaHaye has further made the allegation that humanists ridicule work ethic, private ownership, free enterprise, and capitalism. There is no valid evidence of such accusations.
��� Reverend Jerry Falwell, who originally founded the Moral Majority organization, has made it clear he has no doubts that he is right on matters of religion and politics, often intertwining the two. As an expression of his own social philosophies, Falwell has been known to dissuade his congregation from reading anything other than the Bible or Christian literature. An infamous social comment from Falwell�s mouth has been, "Many women have not accepted their God-given roles. They live in disobedience to God�s laws and have promoted their godless philosophy throughout our society." He has also stated, "Christians, like soldiers, ask no questions." Falwell used biblical scripture to argue that the Supreme Court decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) was "a satanic conspiracy." Perhaps Falwell�s most notorious blunder was his claim that while visiting the White House he once asked former President Jimmy Carter why the president had so many homosexuals working in the administration. Carter allegedly responded that it was because he represented all Americans. In reality, no such conversation ever took place. Falwell later admitted his lie, apologized for it, and defined it as an anecdote.
��� In the 1988 presidential election, Reverend Pat Robertson claimed that the Christian God had commanded him to run for president. Robertson has been caught in several lies upon his religious pulpit. For example, Robertson once stated that the Humanist Manifesto (1973) says, "unbridled sexuality is not immoral. In fact it is healthful and good." In truth, the Humanist Manifesto does not contain that quote. Robertson coined an urban legend where a young girl in El Paso was praying on the bus with her rosary but the bus driver stopped the bus and told her to put her rosary away due to the separation of church and state. According to Robertson, Jim Matthew, former Attorney General of Texas, said in 1988, "The state owns your children. And it owns you too." This was also a false account. When Congressman Paul McClosky of California revealed that Robertson had been given preferential treatment in the army, the reverend sued McClosky for defamation. But Robertson had indeed asked to be reassigned away from Korea during the Korean War, and arrangements had been made by the reverend�s father, U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson of Virginia. Reverend Robertson�s lawsuit was unsuccessful.
��� Other extremists have found ways to tarnish the image of Christianity while promoting their own personal beliefs. Reverend Bob Jones III referred to former President George Bush as "a devil," called the United States a "God-hating devilistic country that I can�t be loyal to anymore," and cited Pope John Paul as a "perfect example of the anti-Christ." Different Christian denominations have even turned on each other. Tele-evangelist Jimmy Swaggart has openly exerted anti-Catholic sentiment; and in 1981 Daniel Fore, the former Moral Majority leader in New York, held that Catholics are not really Christians. Not to be outdone, Gary Potter of Catholics for Christian Political Action declared, "After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil, and the state will not permit anyone to practice evil."
��� As society continues to progress and evolve, volatile issues arise regarding matters such as sexual conduct, provocative entertainment, drug use, abortion, questionable literature, and international relations, among others. These dilemmas cause many people to turn to the Christian Right for answers and guidance. Unfortunately, several religious leaders insist upon claiming privileged and exclusive access to "the truth," by portraying the Bible as the literal word of the Christian God that must not be questioned or challenged. Such extreme fundamentalism causes followers of certain faiths to unfairly condemn women, non-whites, and/or homosexuals based on biological circumstances.
��� Yet, many radicals of the Christian Right persist in thrusting their personal "morals" onto other citizens by trying to integrate such guidelines into the law. Religious freedom and pluralism cannot exist when followers of certain faiths attempt to legally force the general population into conforming to their religious codes of conduct. Religious leaders are doing a terrible disservice to their congregations by advocating hatred and by viewing specific groups in society as "inferior," thus instilling in people the exact opposite of what Christianity truly stands for. When extremists of the Christian Right mangle the words of the Bible to comply with their own agendas, these radical individuals are stomping all over the concepts of love and acceptance that are supposed to be conveyed in the Bible by Jesus Christ and the Christian God.
Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, and Others on the Fringe
George, John and Laird Wilcox
Pgs. 234-250
Prometheus Books, 1982
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