Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism

233 Pages·2006·3.277 MB·English

by  Michelle Goldberg

KINGDOM
COMING
The Rise of Christian Nationalism
Michelle Goldberg
W. W. Norton & Company
New York London
Copyright © 2006 by Michelle Goldberg
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
Manufacturing by Courier Westford
Book design by Rhea Braunstein
Production manager: Amanda Morrison
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goldberg, Michelle, 1975-
Kingdom coming : the rise of Christian nationalism / Michelle
Goldberg.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-393-06094-2 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-393-06094-2 (hardcover)
1. Dominion theology. 2. Christianity and politics. I. Title.
BT82.25.G65 2006
277.3'083—dc22
2005036593
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.
Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London WIT 3QT
4 5 6 7 8 9 0
For Matt, of course.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
•
T
his book was born in a Brooklyn coffee shop during the summer of
2004.1 was talking to my soon-to-be agent, the indefatigable Larry
Weissman, about another idea entirely, when the conversation veered
towards the parallel culture—an amalgam of extreme nationalism and
apocalyptic religion—that seemed to be ascendant in much of America.
Again and again while reporting for Salon, I'd had the sense that liber
als and conservatives no longer merely had divergent values—they
occupied different realities, with contradictory facts, histories and epis-
temologies. As I remember it, I grew increasingly animated, until finally
Larry interjected that that's the book I should write. So I did, but it
never would have happened without him.
I'd already had the opportunity to delve into the culture and politics
of the right thanks to my editors at Salon, who give their writers the
rare freedom to follow their curiosity wherever it leads. I'm particularly
grateful to Joan Walsh, who took a gamble on hiring me four years ago.
Without the priceless reporting opportunities she offered me, I could
never have developed the ideas that became Kingdom Coming.
Many people helped me with my research. Chip Berlet of Political
Research Associates, an invaluable resource for anyone who studies the
right, offered me insight, archival materials and a home-cooked dinner.
I'm also indebted to Al Ross of the Institute for Democracy Studies;
Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network; Adrienne Verrilli of the
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States; and
Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The Reverend Don Wilkey, pastor of First Baptist Church in Onalaska,
Vi'll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Texas, gave me access to his considerable files and an inspiring
reminder that Christian nationalism and Christianity are two very dif
ferent things. I learned an-enormous amount about the religious right
from the pioneering work of Frederick Clarkson and Sara Diamond,
who were both too far ahead of their time to get all the credit they
deserve for their prescience.
My good friend Cassi Feldman read these chapters as they were
written and gave me both crucial suggestions and constant encourage
ment. Morgen Van Vorst, my wonderful editor, rescued this project, and
my sanity, at a particularly hazardous juncture and made it far more
lucid than it would be otherwise. I'm enormously thankful to Trent
Duffy, my fabulous copyeditor, who saved me from several mortifying
mistakes.
Like almost everything worthwhile in my life, this book would
never have been possible without the support of my husband, Matt
Ipcar. Our chance meeting over a decade ago—also in a coffee shop
where I'd gone with other plans—remains the only miracle I believe in.
Contents
Introduction: Taking the Land 1
Chapter 1: This Is a Christian Nation 24
Chapter 2: Protocols of the Eiders of San Francisco:
The Political Uses of Homophobia 50
Chapter 3: Lord of the Laboratory: Intelligent Design
and the War on the Enlightenment 80
Chapter 4: The Faith-Based Gravy Train 106
Chapter 5: AIDS Is Not the Enemy: Sin, Redemption, and
the Abstinence Industry 134
Chapter 6: No Man, No Problem: The War on the Courts 154
Conclusion: Exiles in Jesusland 180
Afterword: Solidarity 207
Notes 211
Index 225
INTRODUCTION
Taking the Land
•
M
ichael Farris, the founder and president of the evangelical Patrick
Henry College, calls his campaign to turn Christian home-
schooled students into political cadres Generation Joshua. The name
has a very specific biblical and martial meaning. Joshua was Moses's
military commander and successor as leader of the Israelites; while
Moses brought his people out of Egypt, Joshua led them in seizing the
holy land. Farris's Generation Joshua has a less bloody mission, but it is
imbued with an Old Testament dream of exile redeemed by conquest.
The holy land is America as Farris imagines it. The enemy is America as
it exists right now.
A veteran right-wing activist and the nation's premier advocate of
homeschooling, Farris was speaking at 2005's annual Christian Home
Educators of Colorado convention. Thousands of parents had con
verged on the sprawling Denver Merchandise Mart, a conference and
exhibition center, for three days of lectures and workshops with titles
like "Conquering Corrupt Culture by Raising Christian Communica
tors" and "Restoring American Values." The parking lot teemed with
SUVs bearing Bush/Cheney decals, metallic Jesus fish, and magnetic
Support Our Troops ribbons. Inside, several women wore stickers say
ing "I'm Married to the World's Greatest Principal."
Farris refers to these parents and their peers nationwide as the
Moses generation, because they have successfully led their children out
°f the bondage of the godless public schools. But permanent exile from
1
2 MICHELLE GOLDBERG
the American mainstream was never the goal. As Farris wrote in his
book Generation Joshua, the homeschooling movement "will succeed
when our children, the Joshua Generation, engage wholeheartedly in
the battle to take the land."
He admits it's a large task. "This is the land of MTV, Internet porn,
abortion, homosexuality, greed, and accomplished selfishness," he
observed. Giants stalk America, "giants that live in the fields of law, gov
ernment, journalism, and history. And we are going to look in depth at
the elite colleges and universities of our nation. The enemies of free
dom and truth dominate these institutions and thereby dominate our
nation."1
What Farris wants is a cultural revolution. He's trying to train a
generation of leaders, unscathed by secularism, who will gain political
power in order to subsume everything—entertainment, law, govern
ment, and education—to Christianity, or their version of it. That
might sound like fantasy, but it's worth pondering what Farris has
achieved so far.
Short and boyishly handsome, with a full head of sandy hair, Farris
is in his fifties but appears much younger. A protege of Tim LaHaye,
author of the best-selling apocalyptic Left Behind novels, Farris was
chief counsel for Concerned Women for America, the organization
founded by LaHaye's wife, Beverly, before becoming a full-time home-
school advocate in 1983, when he founded the Home School Legal
Defense Association. In 1982, when he and his wife, Vickie, started
teaching the first of their ten kids at home, they didn't know anyone
else who was doing it. In many states, it was against the law. Now,
thanks in large part to Farris's activism, homeschooling is a legal right
in every state. The practice has become a badge of authenticity and
commitment among Christian conservatives, with somewhere between
1.1 and 2.1 million kids, most of them evangelicals, being home-
schooled nationwide.2
The influence of these kids, trained from infancy to be Christian
culture warriors, is already making itself felt. Farris's Patrick Henry
College, located in rural Virginia, caters specifically to homeschooled
KINGDOM COMING 3
evangelical students. It has existed only since 2000, and accepts fewer
than one hundred students a year, yet in 2004's spring semester it pro
vided 7 percent of the White House's interns. Twenty-two conservative
congressmen have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns, and a
Patrick Henry graduate works on Karl Rove's staff.3
Through Generation Joshua, launched in 2004 to involve home-
schooled teenagers in politics, children are becoming Republican foot
soldiers before they can vote. In its first year, Generation Joshua paid
all the travel and living expenses for hundreds of homeschooled stu
dents who volunteered on right-wing political campaigns nationwide,
rewarding the most productive with scholarships to Patrick Henry. It
sent teams to work for the Bush campaign in various swing states and
dispatched other students to help Senate candidates like Oklahoma's
Tom Coburn (who has called for the death penalty for abortionists)
and South Carolina's Jim DeMint (who has said he would like to ban
gays and unmarried pregnant women from teaching in public
schools). Both DeMint and Coburn won their races, as did all but one
of the candidates supported by Generation Joshua.
Generation Joshua's director is Ned Ryun, a former speechwriter for
George W. Bush and the homeschooled son of Kansas congressman Jim
Ryun. He's in his early thirties, with dark receding hair and glasses. Like
Farris, he's a biblical literalist who is fluent in the worldly dynamics of
Washington, D.C., and, as he explained to the parents on the first day of
the Denver conference, one of his responsibilities is training home-
schoolers to bridge the two worlds.
According to Generation Joshua's philosophy, Christianity holds the
answer to every public and private dispute. But because the American
people do not yet accept this, Christian ideas need to be rationalized in
secular terms. Ryun teaches thousands of proteges this rhetorical two-
step through online seminars, chats, and book clubs.
"A lot of time in the public debate, Christians will say, 'Well, the
Bible says so,' or 'God says this is wrong'" Ryun explained. "And that's
true. God is not for same-sex marriages. God believes that the Bible
protects life." In public, though, "usually you have to use terms and
4 MICHELLE GOLDBERG
facts that the other side accepts as reasonable. What I'm trying to do
with young people is, let's take the Bible and the Constitution, and let's
look at current events. What does the Bible have to say about it? Let's
get a firm, solid biblical worldview, and then learn how to communi
cate that in terms that the other side accepts."
Farris and Ryun foresee a government filled with people who think
this way. "Homeschoolers will be inordinately represented in the high
est levels of leadership and power in the next generation," said Ryun.
"You're starting to see them all around the Hill, as staffers on Capitol
Hill." His homeschooled sister, he noted, works in the White House's
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which is in charge of
channeling hundreds of millions of federal dollars to religious charities.
"There are two worldviews that are very much in conflict right now,
especially in Washington, D.C.," Ryun explained. The first, he said, is
Judeo-Christian. "It starts with God as the creator, but then it also pro
tects life, it's about traditional marriage, one man, one woman," he said.
"On the other side, you have secular humanism, which starts with man
as the center of all things. There are no absolute standards, it's all
morally relative, anything goes as long as it has to do with sex."
According to Ryun, everything the government does derives from
one of these systems. "You look at all the various laws that affect us, tax
laws, social security, the life issue, the marriage issue, all these various
laws and policy, you can trace them back to one of these two world-
views," he said.
Thus every political issue—indeed, every disputed aspect of our
national life—is a struggle between good and evil.
•
When Ryun finished speaking to the conventioneers, most of them
wandered out into a vast exhibition hall to shop for school supplies.
The cavernous space—all thirty thousand square feet of it—was
crowded with booth after booth selling Christian curricula, videos, and
educational games for students of every age. There were great piles of
Bible-themed coloring books and creationist science textbooks, count-