Evangelical Assault On Pluralism

When Christian evangelicals complain about a growing assault on Christianity, what they really object to is a growing assault on their assault on pluralism.

Christian evangelicals, like all fundamentalists, want the United States to be an explicitly Christian nation, with their literal interpretation of the Bible codified into law and imposed on all the non-fundamentalists around them.

They are only interested in Democracy as long as it serves their aims. But the minute it doesn’t, they turn their backs on Democracy in favor of the Bible--a conglomeration of hand-picked fables from a variety of scribes written over several centuries, ending roughly two thousand years ago.

When non-fanatic citizens try to limit or criticize such objectives, they are accused of assaulting Christianity. Listening to fundamentalists in recent months, one gets the impression that they are a tiny, beleaguered minority being oppressed. But of course, 80% of Americans consider themselves Christian. And anywhere from 30 to 50% consider themselves evangelical or born-again, which is to say, fundamentalists.

Notice that when they try to mandate prayer in schools, they’re not leaving room for meditation or prostration or any other non-Christian form of worship. When they try to get the Ten Commandments installed in a public building, they aren’t also making space for the Precepts of Buddhism, the Sutras of Patanjali or the wisdom of any other worldview.

Contrary to their claim that they aren’t against other religions, their vision of public religion doesn’t include a beautiful rainbow of other ways of thinking. It isn’t about more religion in the public square, it’s about more Christianity.

After all, they point out, this nation was founded by Christians. But they miss the fact that this nation was founded by a variety of profoundly different Christian factions, most of whom disagreed with each other about the nature and expression of faith.

So of our “founding fathers,” whose Christianity would we follow? Fundamentalists don’t want to ask that question. They want people to embrace only one kind of worship--theirs. To them, other forms of worship--Progressive Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.--are irrelevant and illegitimate.

So the next time you hear someone assert that Christianity is under attack, keep in mind that they are complaining about the constraints being placed on their sectarian dream of a slow, methodical spread.