There is a far greater risk of a fundamentalist Christian overthrow of Western democracy than an Islamic one.
While the media and popular culture are rife with accusations that Islam is a fascist religion bent on world domination, and that Muslims living in the West are part of a plot to gain hegemony there, the actual evidence is slim. On the other hand, looking at the evidence for Christian fascist tendencies reveals a much more plausible threat. I'm going to develop a ten point argument here to justify this assertion, based on the ten things that history shows are necessary for any successful overthrow of government.
As you'd expect from me, it's going to be quite long, with logical arguments based on verifiable facts, in accordance with my devotion to a fundamentalist rationalist agenda ;D
I'm going to focus on the US, for two reasons: it is the hyperpower in the world, with greater military and (despite recent woes) economic might than any other nation, and it is the most fecund breeding ground of Christian ideas in the Western world.
History gives us good examples of the requirements for a successful revolution.
In order to take control of a nation and install a theocratic government there,
Muslims and Christians are faced with much the same basic problems.
They need to have at least most of these ten things:
1: An ideology that justifies such an act
2: The commitment to perform the act
3: The numbers to successfully do it
4: The organisation to control the numbers and use them effectively
5: The wealth to build that organisation
6: Connections in political offices to legitimise their actions
7: Connections in legal positions to help
8: Support of big business
9: Connections in the mass media to justify their actions to the masses
10: Support of the military to at least not intervene
I'll try to work on one of these points each day and present them here, starting with:
1: An ideology that justifies such an act
What sort of ideology would be able to justify the overthrow of the current system of government? In order to recruit people to its cause, an ideology must have four traits:
a criticism of current system, an alternative model of government to work towards, a sense of 'destiny' and a belief that their goals cannot be achieved by working through the existing system. It is also useful to support the belief that there is an organised, secretive, corrupt force that is working against the ideology, that must be opposed in order to avert a catastrophe that will destroy all that people hold dear. I'm sure there are other factors that you can think of too, but I hope you'll agree these are crucial.
Every successful ideology works first by criticising perceived failures in the current system.
For instance, the Nazi Party in Germany was able to criticise the Weimar republic as unworkable, influenced by Jews, capitulating to foreign powers and stifling the German people. The Communists in Russia criticised the feudal and capitalist influences in their society to similar effect. Christians make their own criticisms of the current system, on a range of issues:
Abortion as violating the sacred nature of life.
Homosexuality as leading to the corruption of sacred views on marriage.
Secularism as leading to immorality that leads to high rates of crime.
Feminism as leading to poor upbringing of children.
Divorce as leading to broken homes and fatherless children.
Science as leading to anti-scriptural views on evolution, creation of the universe and so on.
I'm not going to reference these claims - I think most will agree they are valid, and support the conclusion that Christians have many things in society that they are unsatisfied with.
In order to capitalise on their critique of the existing system, an ideology must propose an attractive alternative. The Nazi Party adopted Fascism, the Communists obviously Communism.
There is no single model that the Christian right adopts uniformly, but there are strong contenders. The Dominionist movement claims that there is Biblical justification for a Theocratic system[1][2], and there are already a number of organisations espousing variants on this theme. A growing number of Christians believe that some other form of government is needed.
Christians have been trying for several decades to work within the existing system to achieve their goals, starting in the Sixties in opposition to the cultural revolution of the hippies, civil rights movement and so on. This culminated in the Moral Majority under Falwell that put Ronald Reagan in power, and the Christian Coalition that did the same for George Bush Junior[3]. Christians have been active every level from school boards through to the Supreme Court to enforce their vision. By and large, they have failed to do so; abortion is still legal, homosexuality is rampant, secularism on the rise, feminism is entrenched, divorce is a normal part of life, evolution is taught in schools. As a result of their nearly uniform failures to alter policies in secular state institutions, Christians are frustrated at the failure of democracy and courts to do what they want.
The sense of destiny affords a view that the changes the ideology wants are inevitable. The Nazis based their sense of destiny on a racial interpretation of history, which although fundamentally irrational, was so heavily documented that it was able to persuade many. The Communists had the economic and social theories of Marx to justify their sense of destiny. Amongst the Christian right, the ideas found in Biblical prophecy serve the same purpose. Many believe that the second coming of Christ is at hand, and look for signs that this is the case[4]. This is also supported by the idea of Christian nations as the descendants of the missing tribes of Israel[5]. Many Christians accept that radical changes are going to occur in the world in the near future, and that the Western world will be pivotal in those events[6].
Hitler pointed to a global conspiracy by the Jews to oppress the German people, while the Communists pointed at the machinations of Capitalists to oppress the workers. It took them decades to generate enough 'evidence' to convince the masses of their views. The conspiratorial views of Christians have been on the rise for decades too. Climate science is damned as a massive conspiracy of scientists to impose world government[7]. The gay agenda is corrupting the sacred roles of the sexes and the marriage institution[8]. Islamists want to impose a Caliphate over the entire world[9]. Satanists commit atrocities in secret[10] and so on. Ultimately, in the view of Christians, all of these people are, knowingly or not, servants of Satan. Christians increasingly believe that there are secretive groups working against all that is good, and they don't believe in the corrupt systems of governments to put a stop to them.
While I don't think there is a single Christian ideology out there that includes all of these points,
all of the ingredients are there, waiting to be put together into a coherent system of ideas.
The analogy would be to the post WW1 years in Germany, with many independent organisations, each with its own agenda based on its own views, out of which eventually coalesced the final form of the Nazi ideology. All the evidence shows that the necessary components for a Christian ideology that seeks to overthrow the government are present in Western culture, and although they have not yet formed into one system of thought, the ferment of ideas will eventually throw up a combination of ideas and a charismatic leader to espouse them to a receptive Christian audience.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D
[2] http://chalcedon.edu/topics/ch
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
[4] http://pewresearch.org/databan
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B
[6] http://www.lcg.org/statement-o
[7] http://blogs.courier-journal.c
[8] http://pewforum.org/Gay-Marria
[9] http://pewforum.org/Christian/
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S
While the media and popular culture are rife with accusations that Islam is a fascist religion bent on world domination, and that Muslims living in the West are part of a plot to gain hegemony there, the actual evidence is slim. On the other hand, looking at the evidence for Christian fascist tendencies reveals a much more plausible threat. I'm going to develop a ten point argument here to justify this assertion, based on the ten things that history shows are necessary for any successful overthrow of government.
As you'd expect from me, it's going to be quite long, with logical arguments based on verifiable facts, in accordance with my devotion to a fundamentalist rationalist agenda ;D
I'm going to focus on the US, for two reasons: it is the hyperpower in the world, with greater military and (despite recent woes) economic might than any other nation, and it is the most fecund breeding ground of Christian ideas in the Western world.
History gives us good examples of the requirements for a successful revolution.
In order to take control of a nation and install a theocratic government there,
Muslims and Christians are faced with much the same basic problems.
They need to have at least most of these ten things:
1: An ideology that justifies such an act
2: The commitment to perform the act
3: The numbers to successfully do it
4: The organisation to control the numbers and use them effectively
5: The wealth to build that organisation
6: Connections in political offices to legitimise their actions
7: Connections in legal positions to help
8: Support of big business
9: Connections in the mass media to justify their actions to the masses
10: Support of the military to at least not intervene
I'll try to work on one of these points each day and present them here, starting with:
1: An ideology that justifies such an act
What sort of ideology would be able to justify the overthrow of the current system of government? In order to recruit people to its cause, an ideology must have four traits:
a criticism of current system, an alternative model of government to work towards, a sense of 'destiny' and a belief that their goals cannot be achieved by working through the existing system. It is also useful to support the belief that there is an organised, secretive, corrupt force that is working against the ideology, that must be opposed in order to avert a catastrophe that will destroy all that people hold dear. I'm sure there are other factors that you can think of too, but I hope you'll agree these are crucial.
Every successful ideology works first by criticising perceived failures in the current system.
For instance, the Nazi Party in Germany was able to criticise the Weimar republic as unworkable, influenced by Jews, capitulating to foreign powers and stifling the German people. The Communists in Russia criticised the feudal and capitalist influences in their society to similar effect. Christians make their own criticisms of the current system, on a range of issues:
Abortion as violating the sacred nature of life.
Homosexuality as leading to the corruption of sacred views on marriage.
Secularism as leading to immorality that leads to high rates of crime.
Feminism as leading to poor upbringing of children.
Divorce as leading to broken homes and fatherless children.
Science as leading to anti-scriptural views on evolution, creation of the universe and so on.
I'm not going to reference these claims - I think most will agree they are valid, and support the conclusion that Christians have many things in society that they are unsatisfied with.
In order to capitalise on their critique of the existing system, an ideology must propose an attractive alternative. The Nazi Party adopted Fascism, the Communists obviously Communism.
There is no single model that the Christian right adopts uniformly, but there are strong contenders. The Dominionist movement claims that there is Biblical justification for a Theocratic system[1][2], and there are already a number of organisations espousing variants on this theme. A growing number of Christians believe that some other form of government is needed.
Christians have been trying for several decades to work within the existing system to achieve their goals, starting in the Sixties in opposition to the cultural revolution of the hippies, civil rights movement and so on. This culminated in the Moral Majority under Falwell that put Ronald Reagan in power, and the Christian Coalition that did the same for George Bush Junior[3]. Christians have been active every level from school boards through to the Supreme Court to enforce their vision. By and large, they have failed to do so; abortion is still legal, homosexuality is rampant, secularism on the rise, feminism is entrenched, divorce is a normal part of life, evolution is taught in schools. As a result of their nearly uniform failures to alter policies in secular state institutions, Christians are frustrated at the failure of democracy and courts to do what they want.
The sense of destiny affords a view that the changes the ideology wants are inevitable. The Nazis based their sense of destiny on a racial interpretation of history, which although fundamentally irrational, was so heavily documented that it was able to persuade many. The Communists had the economic and social theories of Marx to justify their sense of destiny. Amongst the Christian right, the ideas found in Biblical prophecy serve the same purpose. Many believe that the second coming of Christ is at hand, and look for signs that this is the case[4]. This is also supported by the idea of Christian nations as the descendants of the missing tribes of Israel[5]. Many Christians accept that radical changes are going to occur in the world in the near future, and that the Western world will be pivotal in those events[6].
Hitler pointed to a global conspiracy by the Jews to oppress the German people, while the Communists pointed at the machinations of Capitalists to oppress the workers. It took them decades to generate enough 'evidence' to convince the masses of their views. The conspiratorial views of Christians have been on the rise for decades too. Climate science is damned as a massive conspiracy of scientists to impose world government[7]. The gay agenda is corrupting the sacred roles of the sexes and the marriage institution[8]. Islamists want to impose a Caliphate over the entire world[9]. Satanists commit atrocities in secret[10] and so on. Ultimately, in the view of Christians, all of these people are, knowingly or not, servants of Satan. Christians increasingly believe that there are secretive groups working against all that is good, and they don't believe in the corrupt systems of governments to put a stop to them.
While I don't think there is a single Christian ideology out there that includes all of these points,
all of the ingredients are there, waiting to be put together into a coherent system of ideas.
The analogy would be to the post WW1 years in Germany, with many independent organisations, each with its own agenda based on its own views, out of which eventually coalesced the final form of the Nazi ideology. All the evidence shows that the necessary components for a Christian ideology that seeks to overthrow the government are present in Western culture, and although they have not yet formed into one system of thought, the ferment of ideas will eventually throw up a combination of ideas and a charismatic leader to espouse them to a receptive Christian audience.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D
[2] http://chalcedon.edu/topics/ch
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
[4] http://pewresearch.org/databan
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B
[6] http://www.lcg.org/statement-o
[7] http://blogs.courier-journal.c
[8] http://pewforum.org/Gay-Marria
[9] http://pewforum.org/Christian/
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S
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