War’s in the name of Religion are never holy, including the so-called Culture War
Images are etched into our memories, arousing fears and prejudices that stir conflict and deepen rifts. The historical epochs in which colliding worlds sought to dominate one another have come to an end, yet their legacy continues to be felt. History tells the story of the struggle between the Orient and the Occident, of religious conflicts waged in pursuit of victory and glory. Yet whenever people fought wars in the name of God, they left behind trails of death and destruction. There has always been an alternative: the path of tolerance and understanding. So why do religions that preach peace continue to fight one another? Perhaps because they became lost in their pursuit of earthly power. No war has ever been holy.
During the course of the Sixties, "everything changed," says Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who was born in 1953 and came of age during the Sixties. "It was very different in the Sixties from what it was like growing up in the Fifties." He points to the women's rights movement, the civil rights movement for Black Americans, increasing tolerance for differences and diversity, and technological breakthroughs as among the most important trends of the decade. "The sky literally became the limit in terms of what was technologically possible," he says. There was affluence on an unprecedented scale for most Americans, but there was also a growing sense of social conscience based on the belief that millions of people of color and other disadvantaged groups were being left behind.
As the decade wore on, the federal government expanded dramatically under President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, bringing about a social revolution of federal activism that extended far beyond Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s and 1940s. The Vietnam War led to widespread disillusionment and cynicism about the truthfulness and integrity of both the government and the military. The decade ended with conservative Richard Nixon in the White House and a deeply polarized electorate, as the South turned solidly Republican after having been reliably Democratic for a generation. It also marked the rise of the Sun Belt as a powerful conservative force in national politics, producing conservative presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan of California, and George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush of Texas. Centrist Democrats Jimmy Carter of Georgia and Bill Clinton of Arkansas also reflected the political influence of the Sun Belt.
In summary, sociologist Todd Gitlin writes in The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage: "The genies that the Sixties loosed are still abroad in the land, inspiring and unsettling and offending, making trouble. For the civil rights and antiwar and countercultural and women's and the rest of that decade's movements forced upon us central issues for Western civilization—fundamental questions of value, fundamental divides of culture, fundamental debates about the nature of the good life."
Christian fundamentalism became overtly political in the 1980s with Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and, with it, the Culture War. There can be no doubt that the heyday of Christian fundamentalism in America came during the George W. Bush administration. Conservatives craved reassurance that they were defenders of "morality," despite supporting the invasion of Iraq, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But those deaths were overwhelmingly Muslims, not White American Christians. Claims of moral superiority were expressed primarily through support for the anti-abortion movement, the "traditional" role of women, opposition to gay and lesbian rights, religious bigotry directed at Muslims and others, anti-immigration efforts intended to preserve a White majority, and the embrace of the prosperity gospel—all while claiming a right to Christian forgiveness when their own leaders were caught committing adultery, patronizing prostitutes, soliciting gay sex, or committing financial crimes.
White evangelicals still hold considerable political power and remain key constituents of Donald Trump, along with non-college-educated White voters. Civil rights, abortion rights, and gay rights are still under threat, as they have made significant inroads into the federal judiciary.
Perversely, however, the cultural power of White evangelicals is clearly fading, both in terms of their numbers and their relevance, and that process began long before Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr.'s name was ever associated with a "pool boy." Bibles have been largely replaced by MAGA. Public prayer has given way, among right-wingers, to chants of "Lock her up." You hardly hear anyone on Fox News these days promoting premarital abstinence anymore. They're too busy arguing that it's no big deal that Trump has routinely cheated on his wives or that it's "pearl-clutching" to be angry that he bragged about committing sexual assault.
White evangelicalism is in decline, but in the Trump era, another movement has risen to take its place: QAnon, a movement that scratches the same right-wing itch for false piety and elaborate tribalist mythologies that are incomprehensible to outsiders.
With the continued corruption of its leaders and its full embrace of Donald Trump, it's hard to see how White evangelicalism can survive in its current form as a political force in America.
