Holy Terror, part 1: Fear

I'm reading the book Holy Terror, Lies the Christians Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality by Mel White. There are lots of important things from this book to share, so I'll be doing it over several days.

Mel White is an Evangelical Christian and he is clear to say while all Fundamentalists are Evangelical, not all Evangelicals are Fundamentalist. He's definitely not a Fundie. White was a ghostwriter, writing the biographies of some of the top Fundies, including Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. White is gay and spent 30 years trying desperately not to be. He finally admitted it wasn't working. He acquired a partner and started the organization Soulforce, which works to combat the harm the Fundies are doing to us. All of that is recounted in his autobiography Stranger at the Gate. You can get both books on the Soulforce website.

The book Holy Terror was published in 2006 at the height of the Bush II presidency and just after a bunch of states (including Michigan) voted in Marriage Protection Amendments. This was about the time that such an amendment didn't make it through Congress though there was a strong push for it. White added a preface in 2011 for the paperback version.

But now it is 2014 and those same-sex marriage bans are falling like dominoes. Is White's book still relevant? One need only look at last week's election and check out the nuggets in the various state GOP platforms that specify what Fundies intend for us – both America and sexual minorities (and anyone who isn't a straight, white, male fundamentalist).

In the week before the election NPR did a piece featuring an Evangelical pastor who complained that the GOP doesn't seem to be listening to his fellow Fundies as intently as they had in the past. Or at least not talking up the issues as much as before. This pastor warned that his flock might become disillusioned and decide not to vote (Yay!).

But White says part of that is because the Tea Party is championing many of the Fundie issues and many on the religious right are glad to have a secular cover for their religious goals.

White begins with definitions of fundamentalism from a variety of writers. Here are some of them.

From Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth:

I define fundamentalism as the attempt to impose a single truth on a plural world. … What really lies behind fundamentalism is fear, a profound insecurity that makes you feel when you meet someone who doesn't like you or who doesn't agree with you that that challenges and threatens your very being. Aggression is always a sign of insecurity, and insecurity is always at bottom a lack of faith, not the presence of it.

John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop:

[Fundamentalist Christians are] those whose religious security is rooted in a literal Bible. … they do not want that security disturbed. Fundamentalists are not happy when facts challenge their biblical understanding or when nuances in the text are introduced or when they are forced to deal with either contradictions or changing insights … For biblical literalists there always an enemy to be defeated in mortal combat.

Edward John Carnell, former professor and president of Fuller Theological Seminary:

Fundamentalism is orthodoxy gone cultic. … The mentality of fundamentalism is dominated by ideological thinking. Ideological thinking is rigid, intolerant, and doctrinaire; it sees principles everywhere, and all principles come in clear tones of black and white; it exempts itself from the limits that original sin places on history; it wages holy wars without acknowledging the elements of pride and personal interest that prompt the call to battle; it creates new evils while trying to correct old ones.

I want to branch off White's story to look at that first definition, that behind fundamentalism is "fear, a profound insecurity." White doesn't look any deeper. For that I turn to a book by John Shelby Spong, who has also been battling fundamentalism. The book is Why Christianity Must Change or Die. I both do and don't recommend this book because the change Spong is talking about is much deeper than avoiding fundamentalism and turning to love. Spong says that fear is a fear of death, or more likely, a fear of what happens after death. To me this means Fundies are desperate to get into heaven and afraid they won't make it. So Fundies are ordering their lives in a vain attempt to please God. They load up on rules, thinking that by doing these things and not doing those they attract God's favorable attention. They see God as the sheriff ready to make the bust, not as the embodiment of love. To order their own lives Fundies need to block out the rest of the world, or better yet, make sure the world conforms to their understanding. That combined with their fear means the Fundie is after power, and when one has power one inflicts violence to keep it.

Spong discusses another fear, that of not being able to control everything. If they can't control something directly, they want a God who will control it for them. That control is desired (begged for) for such things as health (about as controllable as the weather) and riches. They're desperate for that control while some of us understand that control isn't possible and are able to deal with that. This idea will be important in White's book later on.