The Fundamentals of Extremism
Presented by Kimberly Blaker, author and syndicated writer
About the Speaker
Kimberly Blaker’s parenting and women’s interest articles have appeared in more than 150 regional parenting and women’s magazines throughout the U.S. and Canada including Nevada Woman, Atlanta Parent, Gulf Coast Woman, South Florida Parenting, and San Diego Families. Her articles have also appeared in the national Complete Woman Magazine.
About the Event
Announcements
There were 82 people in attendance at this meeting.The next Freethought Movie night was announced. It is scheduled for April 13 at 7PM and hosted by Jason and Deanna Pittman at their house. Call 616-634-2471 or e-mail for more info on this or upcoming movie nights.
As a reminder, the American Atheists Convention is slated for April 18-20 in Chicago, IL. For more information visit: http://www.atheists.org/convention.
Our Board Meeting is scheduled for April 23 at 5:30PM at the Yankee Clipper Library. We will be discussing long term planning and all members are welcome to come early for this meeting that is held prior to our regularly scheduled meeting at 7PM. The regular meeting is on the topic of “US Foreign Policy in the Middle East,” presented by member and Political Science Instructor at GRCC, Keith St. Clair.
Camp Quest, the secular humanist youth camp that has been eight years in coming to Michigan, will begin its first week of operation on the 1st week in August of this year. It will be at a YMCA camp area near Battle Creek, MI. For more information on how you can help with volunteer services, to learn more about Camp Quest and/or to look into sending your own child/ren there, contact Jeff Seaver directly or via .
Presentation
Our topic for this meeting was “The Fundamentals of Extremism” presented by Kimberly Blaker who edited a well- researched and accessible book with the same title, which is published by New Boston Books, Inc., Michigan. She also contributed three chapters and the introduction to this book. Ms Blaker is a syndicated columnist and writer, social advocate, and staunch supporter of the separation of religion and government. Her column, The Wall, covering issues pertaining to the religious right and civil liberties, appears regularly in news publications around the country. Her commentaries have also appeared in The Detroit Free press. Detroit News, San Francisco Examiner and Los Angeles Daily Journal. Her syndicated articles have appeared in more than 90 regional magazines. She has also been published several times in the national Complete Woman Magazine. The Fundamentals of Extremism was inspired by her award- winning research paper, “Christian Fundamentalism: A Growing Danger.”
The Religious Right knows the importance of capturing the minds of the very young. As James (“Focus on the Family”) Dobson said: “Those who control what young people are taught, and what they experience-what they see, hear, think, and believe-will determine the future course for our nation.” This is an understood tactic for all forms of indoctrination. It is easier to foist blind obedience to authority figures when the child is dependent upon such figures; easier to lay a belief system that will be powerfully resistant to new information when a youth is still innocent of critical thinking skills and operating on a more emotional level. Organized religions have long known of the effectiveness of very early programming in creating an often- unshakable worldview and we see creationists working tirelessly to insinuate their anti-scientific sectarian creation myth in the public schools while students are still highly impressionable.
Blaker’s book examines how the Religious Right, whom zoologist, Richard Dawkins (who enthusiastically endorsed her book) called America’s Taliban, is not content to work its will only upon children, but has a well- funded, highly energized agenda to transform all of America into a Christian theocracy. It opposes reproductive choice, homosexual rights, free speech, liberal sex education and the right to die with dignity.
The links to terrorism, violence and abuse by fundamentalists is very strong and they often feel they are waging a war against their perceived enemies, be they abortion providers, civil libertarians, those associated with public secular education or equal rights advocates, among others. The rhetoric takes on a dichotomous us versus them approach, with fundamentalists on the side of God and others as the enemies of God and morality. They allow no alternative approach to any view outside of their narrow constructs.
Christian fundamentalists, being Bible literalists, believe they have the definitive truth for every occasion to draw from. They consider themselves to be the sole purveyors of “family values.” Their form of child rearing, often employing extreme corporal punishment and the undermining of individuality and liberty of thought, is the only right way to bring up children for them. Their view of women and minorities as inferior beings, are seen by them as biblically endorsed. When a fundamentalist from the Army of God slays a doctor who performs abortions, or someone with ties to the Christian Identity Movement kills innocents to send a message to our secular government, or fundamentalist Christian homophobes beat and leave a homosexual to die tied to a fence, they are all doing “God’s will.”
Since theirs is not a private, quiet, contemplative system of thought but one that espouses cultural revamping and domination, all women are affected, whether from fundamentalist homes or not. Lack of reproductive choice, educational and career opportunities, spousal abuse, rape, sexual and mental disorders, and welfare dependency are all highly related to Christian fundamentalism. And while the Fundamentalist woman is sharply discouraged from seeking a divorce and is given to understand that suffering is her lot in life; statistically, Fundamentalist Christians have the highest incidences of divorce among all religious groups. Frustration mounts for many women trapped in living only to give and feel ashamed or sinful when they have thoughts of pursuing their own interests. Sex is limited to procreation in the extreme Fundamentalist mind, but if sex is experienced for pleasure it is the man’s sole domain and to be yielded to him on demand regardless of circumstances.
This secretary in his own research on fundamentalism and abuse found connections going from pre-birth, to skin-level, to familial, on outward all the way to the entire planet. Women are “supposed to suffer” in childbirth as decreed in the fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible and they are to propagate abundantly, regardless of the conditions the child is born into and the burden upon the woman. Babies learn through their skin before their other organs play a significant role in their development and since there is more corporal punishment inflicted upon babies and small children by patriarchal authoritarian fundamentalists, they begin to associate themselves with helplessness in the face of forces larger and more powerful than themselves. A dominating, capricious and cruel God can replace the same sort of mortal parent experienced. Self abuse in and of itself has been highly correlated with a fundamentalist upbringing, but even more specifically, only those brought up in the Christian faith traditions where the inerrancy of the Bible is taught are known to number among self abuse cases who amputate their own hand or remove their own eye(s), in response to the Bible verses about plucking out the offending eye and cutting off the offending hand. Female genital mutilation (as well as the less severe male circumcision) and rites involving torture of self or others are a part of many religious rituals. Then there is spousal and child abuse, relating to educational and other developmental and achievement areas besides physical abuses and then onto attempts at curtailing the liberties of, and inflicting violence upon, others outside the kin group and finally all the way to environmental abuses since those who believe as did fundamentalist James Watt (Reagan Appointee to Secretary of the Interior) did, that the End Times are nigh and care for the environment is therefore unnecessary. And since humans are to have dominion over all the rest of Earth’s biota, the plundering of natural resources and the abuse of animals is in keeping with fundamentalist beliefs.
Extreme fundamentalists make a sharp distinction between “Man’s law” and “God’s law” and they see the policies of the nation as needing to conform to their belief as to what their god dictates. This fosters a holy mission to institutionalize discrimination against blacks (who suffer, in their view, from the Curse of Ham) or a woman’s place as subservient to men, since they believe a male God made woman from and for man and that men rule over women as Jesus rules over the church, or to undermine public education (“Our goal is not to make the schools better…the goal is to hamper them, so they cannot grow…Our goal as God-fearing, uncompromised…Christians is to shut down the public schools…step by step, school by school, district by district.” [Robert Thoburne in The Children Trap]) in their plan for a Christian theocratic rule. The overthrowing of secular society is to be achieved by any method necessary and is fueled by a hatred and intolerance that is seen as righteous. “I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty; we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.” (Randall terry, founder of Operation Rescue).
In dealing with our “godless” Constitution and secular government, spokesmen for the Religious Right resort to historical revisionism and outright falsehoods to portray America as a “Christian nation.” They harken more to the Puritans than they relate to the mostly deistic Framers who founded a country based on strong disentanglement of government and religion. They ignore the Treaty of Tripoli that actually proclaims that our nation was not founded on the Christian religion. They turn a blind eye regarding how the Founders knew from bitter personal experience the problems arising from state decreed religion. They do not recognize that American law was set up to protect the rights and freedoms of the infidel and minority religion while not actively undermining the majority religious beliefs. Various bills have been propagated and heartily endorsed by the Religious Right allegedly to instate “religious freedom” even though these anti-constitutional bills would favor and garner governmental endorsement for only one religious sect, thereby annihilating any sense of the already existing religious freedom that our country enjoys. As Ms Blaker noted, America is the most religion saturated industrialized country on the planet and this is in large part due to the liberty all religious faiths have to flourish here.
Besides the strong desire for science to be supplanted by creationism and other Bible “truths”, Fundamentalists have labored long and hard to have prayer reinstated in public schools. Of course, this would be their approved version of prayer-they do not seek to have students on mats facing Mecca, or for them to honor Hindu deities, Allah, Zeus, etc. They claim that society has slipped into a moral abyss since “God was kicked out” of public schools, though the evidence actually runs counter to this, showing a decline in violent crime, teen pregnancy and a whole host of other societal ills, upon the heels of Engles vs. Vitale, Murray vs. Curlett and other cases that removed coerced prayer and Bible recitation from public schools. Blaker’s book notes that nothing frightens the perpetrator of a bad idea so much as education (literally: “leading out”). Along with this thought there is the quote from Adolf Hitler touting religious instruction for youth and the need for believing people. Prayer has never been excluded Constitutionally anyway as a personal freedom, but for the Fundamentalist, quiet personal private prayer is not what is sought. Rather all must participate in the worship of their god and savior, no matter what faith or non-faith background the students come from in schools that are precisely for a diverse student body. They seem to look the other way as to Jesus clearly forbidding public prayer (Matthew 6:6) as a hypocritical activity.
The spate of school violence that shook America was not found in hotbeds of secularism but exclusively in Bible-believing U.S. locations.
There is also the push by Fundamentalist Christians to have the Ten Commandments placed in public spaces. It is seen as a panacea, as if seeing “Thou shalt not kill” would cause a would- be murderer to slap his head and say: “Oh yeah—-whew, that was close-almost slew a bunch of people today. Good thing I re-read the Decalogue!” There are many other problems besides direct Establishment Clause violations in posting this sectarian document (with its many dictates for monotheism) including that woman is seen as chattel, people are not allowed to make images, etc. Also there are different versions of these ten religious laws, creating further division even among proponents of such postings. Little riles the masses more than religious disagreement, as can be seen throughout the history of humanity. Therefore the endorsement of one sectarian view by government can only lead to trouble (to be euphemistic).
In addition to the high divorce rate and spousal and child abuse found in Fundamentalist homes, teen pregnancy is also higher in these settings. Children from Fundamentalist families are often ill equipped to deal with sexual matters. Sex education is taboo, condom use or distribution or any other birth control information is considered evil and these children learn only guilt and shame for their natural, sexual feelings that are wrapped up in sin. Unquestioning obedience, easy, pat answers, a single source for authoritarian decrees and a fear and shunning of progress, change or any of the trappings (for good or ill) of modernity all make for a youth who will not likely explore issues deeply or examine other modes of thought critically. “Because the Bible says so!” is an easy out but no more helpful in developing a thoughtful individual than “Because I said so!” The young person becomes ill prepared for life in general, not just in dealing with his/her own body.
In the chapter “Little Ones to Him Belong”, Bobbie Kirkhart relates a personal Bible-belt experience where teen friends lost their parents in a car accident. They were denied a eulogy at the funeral but instead were forced to listen as the gathered people were told that their dead parents were going to Hell (though no explanation was given for this declaration by the Fundamentalist clergyman). He then used this personal tragedy solely for a sermon to the congregants to leave their sinful ways. The orphaned children’s parents were completely dehumanized; used as a tool to win souls, while devastating the already traumatized, grieving children. The author goes on to say: “If Americans can do no more than protest many of the cruelties and bad judgment that belie the loud protestations of ‘family values,’ then we must speak out. When ideology rules over reality, people suffer, and the most vulnerable suffer most.”
Christian Reconstructionism (or “Dominionism”), founded by R.J. Rushdoony was discussed in both the book and Ms Blaker’s oral presentation. This branch of Fundamentalism advocates the stoning to death (“Stones are cheap and plentiful.”) of homosexuals, adulterers and disobedient youths (among other “offending” groups) is too extreme to gather a large overt backing, but is, nonetheless, highly influential to Fundamentalist thought and many of its most outspoken proponents, including D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell, among others, who have publicly endorsed Reconstructionist literature. And those who temper their comments to exclude the more unpalatable aspects of Reconstructionism, still believe fully that the Bible provides a blueprint for running government. This sentiment has driven conservative Christians into the political arena and has found great success in promulgating their agenda in recent times.
In the chapter “Inerrancy Turned Political” Herb Silverman quotes Pat (“700 Club”) Robertson regarding his vision for the Christian right take-over of this country. The Religious Right’s political savvy has grown over the years. Stephen L. Carter, author of God’s Name in Vain is also quoted in this chapter: ”…the Christian Coalition has been a force in the Republican Party. With its member churches, its ability to drum up letter writing campaigns as well as votes and its stated goal of training 10 political activists in every electoral district, of any size, in the United States-a projected 1.7 million activists-it has been, for many conservative candidates, a welcome source of energy and on the ground troops…and a group nobody wants to have as an enemy.”
In other parts of the book there is much about the tremendous censorship and bullying done to prevent any negative information to leak out about the Religious Right, its stealth tactics, unconstitutional activities and the abuses in Fundamentalist churches, homes, daycare centers and camps. What does manage to seep out to the public is only the tip of the iceberg. The former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed said: “I do guerilla warfare, I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know till election night.” Continuing the war analogy he said another time that this was a war…one fought not with bullets but ballots.
Realizing that their more extreme views are not mainstream (and therefore unlikely to garner political success) political advisor for the Christian Coalition, Antonio Rivera said: “You keep your personal views to yourself until the Christian community is ready to rise up, and then wow! They’re gonna be devastated.” Rob Boston (assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church & State) claimed that the Coalition was “essentially a far-right political action committee dedicated to getting the most conservative Republicans possible elected to public office.” This, even though they had tax- exempt status as being a religious organization. The Family Research Council was founded (by Gary Bauer) to serve as a political wing for Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” to keep him just a step removed from direct political involvement in the public perception. Dobson’s attacks are generally of the typical Religious Right variety. He outdid himself however in attacking the Girl Scouts for promoting “humanism and radical feminism.” Feminism itself has been tied to lesbianism, and even witchcraft by other Religious Right spokespersons. In summing up the political objectives of the Religious Right, Conway and Siegelman (culling from a wide variety of interviews) said this: “To Christianize America, to fill all government positions with Bible- believing Christians, to gain ascendancy over the national media, to have fundamentalist beliefs taught as science in public schools, to dictate the meaning of human life and ultimately convert every person on Earth.”
In the chapter “Winning the ‘Battle Royal’” Edward M. Buckner states the core reasons fundamentalists are dangerous and extraordinarily difficult to counter are: They ”…are absolutist and unyielding in their certainty they are right; are sure an all-powerful, all-knowing God is directing them; are part of churches demanding strict obedience to doctrine and expecting unquestioning loyalty; are more emotional than rational in maintaining their beliefs than others, and…are aggressive, militaristic, militant in their approach-in short, willing to be violent in the course of doing ‘battle royal.’” This chapter also, more than the rest, compares Christian fundamentalism with that of other fundamentalist religions. The comparisons are many and the tactics employed and goals gone after are also quite similar. Nearly all the chapters, however, take pains to not generalize their critique to religion itself or devout persons in general. All who address this label state repeatedly that not all fundamentalists engage in the more objectionable and horrific activities and beliefs recounted in the book as a whole. It is noted however that those who see things in a very dichotomous, black and white fashion, have deep- seated prejudices, hold a strong belief in men’s authority over women, are more reactionary and less tolerant of other belief systems and “lifestyles” are much more likely to find a comfortable home in Fundamentalism.
In the question & answer period there was discussion over the rejection of AD/HD as a real medical condition and using medication for its treatment by many Fundamentalist spokespersons (as explored in the book and oral presentation); the high incidence of Rapture belief in the U.S.; the ties of religion, money, power and political influence; the problems associated in healthcare with religious organization- owned hospitals (where some conditions are seen as “sins” rather than health issues to be tended to); the Catholic Church being the country’s second largest land-owner; the possible links to Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist activity and the mindset of Christian counterparts; a quoted statistic of 47% of Americans believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible, End Times, etc., with Fundamentalist church growth seen, while mainstream churches are losing congregants; the troubled times fueling a search for comforting, simple and absolute answers; the potential problem of news agencies under religious influence or control; and questions about what can be done in the face of all this. Is awareness enough, or is a more concrete plan of action called for?
Secretary: Charles LaRue
