On December 16, 2012, U.S. evangelicalism uttered its last breath.
On this day Fox News pundit Mike Huckabee (a.k.a. Mr. “More Conversation, Less Confrontation”) joined forces with Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer to proclaim that the school massacre in Newtown, CT should be blamed on the gays.
Following this news, Jesus of Nazareth left the building.
Just last month, as the movement struggled for breath, other far-right pastors blamed the gays for Hurricane Sandy. And just recently evangelicals kicked sand in the Supreme Court’s face after these sissies dared to question their biblical understanding of family. (Justice Scalia and Rick Warren joined in this sandstorm by equating “gay marriage” with sodomy and getting punched in the face.)
But it took the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to deliver the fatal blow to this once-hardy American monolith. The Newtown tragedy gave evangelical pastors the opportunity to attribute a brutal mass murder to the “homosexual” lifestyle, along with other key religious right talking points—abortion, lack of prayer in schools, and feminists.
In a mid-month op-ed in the NY Times, pastor John S. Dickerson raised up his voice in lamentation, crying out that evangelical America’s decline could be halted if only pastors and pundits would put on their man pants. And he boldly offered a vision of Americana that only exists in TV-Land reruns.
Many biographies have already been written of right-wing evangelicalism, as prior to its demise this mighty movement loomed large in the U.S. religious landscape.
In recent years, even after decades of ebb and flow, US evangelicals managed to throw a well-funded tea party sponsored by Citizens United. Even Billy Graham rose out of retirement to hum an anti-gay Nixon era tune as they prayed away the gay, vetoed vaginas, and kicked science to the curb. The ghost of Joe McCarthy rose up from the dead, turning progressive prophets into fair-trade-coffee-drinking toothless zombies.
When evangelicals did the Mormon Mash and began droning “rape is a gift from God,” voters dealt them a hard blow. But those still espousing a Victorian-era muscular Christianity found purpose in their driven life. They stood firm against the rising tide of secular humanism, calling out the US Supreme Court for being too queer for words. Even the thrice-married Newt Gingrich could not revise history and steer the party back on course.
Having left Jesus at a bus stop, waiting to catch a ride with some voyaging nuns, right-wing evangelicalism leaves only a few weary survivors.
Cartoon (c) Naked Pastor.
This piece originally appeared in Religion Dispatches.
Am I to understand that God is so upset with the Gay Community that he decided to let a bunch of little kids be shot to death at an elementary school? Why are evengelicals blaming this on gays when they could be blaming the NRA?
Love the cartoon.
I’m actually shocked. I though Bryan Fischer had reached the lowest depth of the gutter already but evidently not, he can still get more disgusting. The idea that an “all-loving” god will just let 20 CHILDREN be murdered in their school because he is upset that not enough people are bowing and scraping before him is repulsive. As is Fischer.
Oh, Becky, this corpse has a long way to go until it is past resurrection. Never underestimate the power of the stupid when it fornicates with the religiously self-righteous.
True, true – but that’s my overall point – it’s now a graveyard. So for those who feel they are actually putting the beatitdues into action by participating in the US evangelical system, I suggest they find other more inclusive and faithful places to exert their energies.
Do these Christian Right activists really constitute a graveyard, though — or a zombie clan: spiritually dead persons who seek to seize for themselves the spiritual and physical life of others?
Corpses or zombies, they lost their soul and humanity. :)
It seems to me that the Right Wing’s big argument now is ‘shouldn’t you tolerate my point of view?’ – and that is very telling… what that one phrase exposes is a total bewilderment that the anti-Gay nonsense (as one example) that could be blasted out without dissent is now being vigorously denounced, torn apart, and seen for the nonsense it is by an ever-growing chorus of pro-equality American voices.
Of course my response to such a ‘plea’ is simple – No, I am not obligated to tolerate their intolerance. Yes, I will use the same Freedom of Speech to defend myself and my LGBT and straight allies from such vitrolic bigotry.