Onward Christian Soldiers

Surprise, surprise. According to the December 17 Rasmussen poll, former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee is now leading the Republican field, beating out Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and John McCain, faux evangelicals all.

How can a poorly funded, marginal candidate possibly vault to the front of the pack when all he has going for him is support from Christian evangelicals? How can that be -- less than two months after a cover story in the New York Times Magazine proclaimed the advent of the "Evangelical Crackup?"

The Times story is just one of many premature obituaries of the Christian Right that have been published in the secular press again and again over the last 15 years or so -- and they have always been wrong. To be sure, there are real contradictions in the evangelical movement this time -- the rise of environmentalism among evangelicals, the Iraq War, and a growing distaste for President Bush. But the Christian Right remains an extraordinarily powerful populist movement because it is a broad, deeply-rooted, highly-organized movement and it speaks to something that is an elemental part of America.

As I explain in my new book, The Fall of the House of Bush (for more information go to www.craigunger.com), most secularists, who refer to the culture wars or the red state-blue state conflict, still don't understand that what is really going on is an age old battle between faith and reason. After all, America is not only the country that put a man on the moon, that unraveled the human genome, that invented the iPod. It's also a country with tens of millions of people who don't believe in evolution, who think the earth was created 6,000 years ago and who think that the Final Conflict may bring the world to an end any day now.

The Christian Right is part of America's DNA. One can trace its roots back to the early 17th century Puritans who proclaimed America the New Israel, the new Zion, the new Promised Land. And one can see in their theology the early stirrings of Christian Zionism (the belief that the return of Jews to the Holy Land is in accordance with Biblical prophecy) that today ties the Christian Right to the neoconservatives and the Israeli right.

In modern times, it was Roe V. Wade in 1973 that transformed evangelicalism into a powerful political movement. By 2004, no fewer than 41 out of 51 Republican senators had a 100 percent rating by the Christian Coalition. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) compared environmentalists to the Nazis and argued that American policy in the Middle East should be based on the Bible, that Israel had a right to the West Bank "because God said so."

In the '60s and early '70s millions of people who listened to Bob Dylan and smoked marijuana were overwhelmingly likely to be against the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon. Likewise, the strength of one's "walk with Jesus" is an equally reliable gauge through which evangelical Christians distinguished friend from foes of the pro-life movement or marriage-protection amendment. "The church played exactly the same role as the counter culture in the '60s," one lapsed Evangelical told me. "Everything that happened in the church environment was a pale carbon copy of secular culture. The pastor was the equivalent of a pop star or a TV star." When it came to politics, he added, that meant that "you vote for that which reinforces your belief system rather than that which will help you economically. How you will appear in the eyes of the God you believe in -- that's your anchor."

Today, there are as many as 80 million adult evangelicals and over 200,000 pastors who operate effectively as precinct captains in a political machine that serves the Republican Party much as organized labor once served the Democrats. That doesn't mean Huckabee is a shoo in for the GOP nomination. But it does mean that when November 2008 comes around, the Republican candidate will be marching as closely as possible with his army of Christian soldiers.

Comments

[nikto]

Most organized religion is not spiritual.

Most self-professed "Christians" today are PAULIANS, not disciples of Christ's
teachings in the slightest.

Religion fools most of the People
most of the time.

Know this:
God awaits you.

But not in church.

[tumblewind]

Great! That's all we need in the White House another evangelist who is going to force feed us his religion. You would have thought the evangelicals would have learned from the last disaster they put in the White house to leave people like Huck alone!

[darker]

I support our US Troops.

But "up yours" X-tian "soldiers".
They can go live on Mars.

[Dunnage]

It is not between faith and reason. It is between religion and reason.

[Dap]

Dear Mr. Unger,

Quite an outstanding essay/post. Seems we, (You and I) are in the same stream of consciousness on this one. Agape.

[Malkintent]

Huck now seems to be slipping a bit in the polls. No doubt the republican establishment's panic is really beginning to set in.

[PaxChristi]

*

One cannot carry the Cross and the sword!

Huckabee for Peace, in the Middle East.

[speakingtruth2power]

How could Huckabee rise so easily to the top?
Sorry for using such common vernacular but
look at the sordid pile of crap he is climbing!

[enoughalready]

Huckabee is beginning to give me the "ick" feeling.

His Christmas ad with the bookshelf cross in the background is just plain using your religion for political purposes. As my departed grandmother used to say - taking the Lord's name in vain!

He knows what he is doing. He doesn't have the money to actually compete so he uses the Lord's name to try to get ahead. ICK, ICK, ICK!!!!!

Those right wing evangelicals fall for this stuff every time. You would think they would have learned their lesson with Bush.

[mommamia526]

Mr. Huckaby is dangerous not only because he is a Baptist preacher and knows how to speak to people and make them listen. And it is not only because many are indeed believers. That side of him may speak not only to christian believers but to others as well. No, Huckaby has been somewhere he does not want to go back to. He wants to hurl himself forward. And he appeals to people not only because he has a down to earth sense of folksyness about him. No, he is funny too. Funny, yes, maybe, but deadly as well. One must see beyond the funnyness of this guy. For example there was this nice christmascard video this week, well intended, and of course well planned as well. There is separation of government and religion, but Huckaby was just sending everyone a nice christmascard, knowing full well, that there would be comment. And he had an answer to this comment, ready to go: "yes, and if you run the message backwards, you will hear, Paul is dead, Paul is dead, Paul is dead". Ridiculous, of course, and Hucky got off placing this message: Paul is dead, Paul is dead, scotfree. And that, while we are all laughing and saying,jeez, that guy is so funny!! Let us listen, and especially HEAR and SEE all candidates. WHAT, if anything, will they do for this country, and for us, the people who give them the job they are applying for? What are they willing to do to get that job? Scruples?

[fullkelly]

I want to see the faces and hear the comments of the christian fundies who literally hang on every word in the bible when Hillary becomes President. Such as their teaching of scriptures that say "I do NOT ALLOW a WOMAN to have authority over a man" and/or "If a woman wants to learn, let her learn at home from her husband". LOL! Hypocritical sobs.

Besides I would like for the women of America to have the opportunity to prove they are right when they say "ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE MEN'S FAULT" seeing as how they run the country. Maybe they can do better who knows.

The WOMAN named DEBORAH was a judge over Israel in OT times. Another thing, all women are not married who would like to learn and besides who in hell would want a husband like GW Bush teaching them?

[Clarabell]

Well, at least it's out in the open now. Before the 2004 elections we were getting all kinds of "nutty" emails from my husbands fundamentalist Christian sister about the election. Didn't realize at the time how organized this campaign was (and she doesn't even live in this country).

[CactusTom]

I wouldn"t become too afraid of America turning into some sort of theocracy. At least 60 percent of the citizens of this nation are rational, thinking folks. They may not seem as well organized as the super religious lot, that is until they feel seriously threatened, which as yet they are not. But even more important, the insane portion of society (religion having sometimes been described as a mild to intense form of insanity) as it grows ever more powerful will inevitably facture and war with itself more than with its secular cousins. As history and current events prove, religion has an enormous capacity for self-destruction.

[Steamboater]

Huckabee may get the GOP nomination but he fortunately loses in the national polls to all democratic candidates. The last thing we need is another religious freak like Bush in the White House.

[MrJoyboy]

Like alcoholics, drug addicts and criminals, the nation itself turns to religion when it hits rock bottom.