It appears evident that myth-making is characteristic of the religious right. Or I could say that the religious right tries to peddle and impose its Christian mythology.
Whatever the case, there have been so many myths, contradictions and nonsensical rhetoric within right-wing religion. I would call it an attempt to impose a form of totalitarianism. Conservative evangelicals in particular are determined to do just that although they don’t realize it.
But I’m not saying that all religious individuals want this. There are people of the faith who have done some good and those who have established a revolutionary concept called Liberation Theology. So, my focus is on religious reactionaries.
One hard-core myth was the idea that “pro-lifers” wanted to overturn abortion. Nowadays it is so ingrained in the psyche of the religious right. But it wasn’t always that way. The origins of this go back to the to the time of segregation. And the original goal was to protect segregation of schools. But that became too unpalatable to promote, given the emergence of the civil rights movement.
But there was the situation where most evangelicals were not taking sides on the abortion issue. They didn’t concern themselves with it. In a 1968 symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today (a magazine favored by evangelicals), there was a refusal to call abortion a sin, and also citing the “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as being acceptable to end a pregnancy.
Enter the religious conservative and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation Paul Weyrich. This was the man who figured out how to justify the agenda of the religious right. It wasn’t a good idea to impose segregation, so Weyrich latched on to an issue that would be worthy of pushing if a large number of evangelicals were persuaded to adopt it: abortion. Today, most, if not all, evangelicals are “pro-life” (while those among them are fond of killing those who are not 100% “American”).
In recent history, the religious right has gotten more influential within the Republican Party. It has been to a point where there is hardly a “moderate” left in the GOP and most Republicans have fallen in line with the cult of Trump. And the evangelicals have approved of the insanity. For one thing, evangelicals have labeled the United States a “Christian nation,” which significantly contradicts the intentions of U.S. founders. The founders put up a barrier between church and state, realizing what happened in Europe when church and state were entwined. It’s not too far-fetched to say the religious right has the long-term goal of establishing a theocracy.
In the 1990s, a fanatic named Dr. Steven Hotze had the goal of restoring the “Christian heritage” of the U.S. where the “god-ordained role” of the government would provide “justice based on God’s laws, restraining wickedness, punishing evildoers, and protecting the life, liberty and property of law-abiding citizens.” But Hotze’s rhetoric is a relic of a long-gone past. And it reads like a comic book. His choice of words about “God’s laws” may imply the imposition of totalitarianism. One is not allowed to question or criticize the one “true” God, despite his/her/its’ flaws. (For example, God has the flaw of jealousy.)
Besides the GOP, the religious right has been hell-bent on being a major influence on various issues. One that stands out is its imposition into education. In the magazine, Church and State, put out by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Hannah Santos, a member of AU’s Youth Organizing Fellowship, wrote a book review (January 2022). The title of the book is Hijacking History: How the Christian Right Teaches History and Why It Matters by Kathleen Wellman, a professor of history at Southern Methodist University. Santos wrote about Wellman’s investigations into how publishers like Abeka, ACE and Bob Jones University Press present history in textbooks.
Santos wrote that Wellman argues against these textbooks, that “are commonly used in private Christian academies” and present “oversimplified histories crafted to serve contemporary conservative interests and fail to provide students with rigorous historical analysis.” Santos further wrote that “Wellman asserts these textbooks codify a ‘fixed beliefs mindset’ in which God is the singular historical causation. By cherry-picking historical narratives and oversimplifying nuanced issues, these Christian publications boil down all historical conflicts to the belief that scripture is infallible.”
But, no, scripture isn’t infallible. It was written by humans with whatever flaws they had in their nature. The religious right would fervently disagree, only seeing perfection in their myths. This is one way that they are a potential threat to the further progress not only of education, but in the overall sense of being. Their agenda, if fully carried out and eventually succeeding, would possibly set us back 500 years, at least symbolically.
The religious right/conservative evangelicals are dwelling in a past that is no longer viable. Their imposing of it in today’s modern framework is a recipe for continuous conflict. It’s fortunate that there are progressive-minded people who are opposing them
