The Christian Right old and new

The novelist Sinclair Lewis had a good sense for things that are enduring. He went to his reward long before the Internet or personal computers came along. But his novels still sound remarkably current in many ways.

For example, his 1943 novel Gideon Planish tells a brief story to illustrate Research, which he calls "[o]ne of the most important activities of any liberal educational organization." The example, set in the late 1930s, is the Rev. Ezekiel Bittery. Apparently he had some problems with his formal credentials, because the narrator refers to him as the "ex-Reverend."

The first step is to gather a bunch of stories from newspapers about Brother Bittery and then write him to get some of his pamphlets. Then you have a few people go listen to his speeches live. With this procedure, it becomes well established that:

... Brother Bittery is a flannel-mouthed rabble-rouser who used to be charged not only with stealing the contents of the church poor-box, but of taking the box itself home to keep radishes in, and who at present if he isn't on the pay-roll of all the Fascists, is a bad collector.

After considering the matter for a couple of years, a Congressional committee proceeds to investigation, establishing for the record that "Mr. Bittery used to be a hell-fire preacher and is now a hell-fire Fascist."

More Research ensues, with scholars applying themselves to the phenomenon, which reveals "that Mr. Bittery used to favor lynching agnostics and now favors lynching socialists."

And during all this time, the Reverend Ezekiel himself will, as publicly as possible, to as many persons as he can persuade to attend his meetings, have admitted, insisted, bellowed, that he has always been a Ku Kluxer and a Fascist, that he has always hated Jews, colleges and good manners, and that the only thing he has ever disliked about Hitler is that he once tried to paint barns instead of leaving the barns the way God made them.

That is Research.

And that is the Rev. Bittery. He's still around, only now he has cable TV channels and Web sites. And the press coverage, and often awareness of his shenanigans among politicians and political activists, is often as spasmodic as the Research being conducted on the good Reverend in Lewis' novel.

Most recently, after the 2004 presidential elections, when the Republicans spun the results as having to do with "values" interpreted as conservative religious values, we saw a similar phenomenon. Columnists and Big Pundits discovered that, golly Pete, there are a lot of people out there who claim to speak for God and all his servants who fervently declare that they're not fond of Jews, colleges and good manners. (Or gays, or evolution, or even Britney Spears!) And there are always some earnest souls at these moments who hope that liberals will be able to convince these folks that the Democratic Party understands their concerns and kinda-sorta sympathizes.

But what we know as the Christian Right is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that they are now one of the most powerful groups within the Party that controls all three branches of the national government. They're making similar demands to those the flat-earthers always have. But now they're getting a more serious hearing in the national government that probably ever before.

And consequently, they are adding a sharp element of hell-fire fury to everyday politics.

Tags: authoritarianism, christian right, christianism, ezekiel bittery, gideon planish, sinclair lewis