BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

Let's begin with the end. Michelle Goldberg tells it like it is in the last paragraph of her journey through the Christian Nationalist movement: "It makes no sense to fight religious authoritarianism abroad while letting it take over at home....Our side, America's side, must be on the side of freedom and Enlightenment, of liberation from stale constricting dogmas. It must be the side that elevates reason above the commands of holy books and human solidarity above religious supremacism."

In this fascinating and scary journey through radical Christian communities who want to assume control of the American government and turn America into a Christian state, we fully come to understand that we are living in two parallel universes: the one of reality, and the one of fanatical Christian zealots whose belief system conveniently discards science, the age of Enlightenment, modernity and simple facts. It is, in large part, the unreal world that George W. Bush inhabits.

Goldberg unfolds the story of Christian nationalism (also known as Dominionism, although the word has other connotations) through travels across America. You meet many of the people she talks about and get a feel for the mindset and religious environment that they inhabit.

For many of them, daily life is but a patient waiting game for the resurrection of Christ (although there are difference beliefs as to how and when he will appear). They view the world differently because this life is just a right of passage to the splendors of meeting up with Christ in soulful bliss, as the expendable earth and our temporal bodies are left behind.

This is the parallel universe that they inhabit, and they believe it is their duty to control the government. Rather chilling isn't it? And Bush has appointed many of these people to policy making positions in Washington. And then there are variations on the theme, such as Bush himself, Scalia (of the Catholic Opus Dei variety), and our former Attorney General, John Ashcroft.

Goldberg appeals, in her conclusion, for non-fundamentalists to unite against the tyranny of the belief systems of religious zealots, whether they be Islamic, Christian or of any other religion.

"At a time when religious extremism seems everywhere ascendant," Goldberg writes, "I see a different struggle, one between modernity, humanism, reason and progress on one hand, and fundamentalism, tribalism, Puritanism, and obscurantism on the other. Liberals the world over are fighting religious tyranny."

Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists are in broad agreement on many issues: sexual issues (anti-gay, pro-abstinence, anti-abortion); family issues (patriarchal structure); the role of women (anti-feminist); science (the explanation for life is in the holy book and nowhere else); and so on. The difference, in large part, is only in the God they worship. The values of their belief systems are really quite similar, particularly in believing that their belief system is the only one ordained by God.

As Goldberg writes, "the things so many Islamic fundamentalists hate about the West -- its sexual openness, its art, the possibilities it offers for escaping the bonds of family and religion, for inventing one own's life -- are what the Christian Nationalists hate as well."

One part of the Republican Party, the Cheney wing, is trying to conquer the Middle East for oil. The other part of the GOP, the Bush wing, is trying to conquer the Middle East for Christ. It's a shame when George really has so much in common with the president of Iran. They both are fighting for the same thing, just for different Gods.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS