Randall Balmer's account suggests a fundamental underlying hypocrisy in the motivations of leaders who engineered the new religious right, and Balmer accuses the movement of having broken with the historical tradition of American evangelical Christianity. Balmer notes

"abolitionists, even the temperance movement which was a progressive cause in the Nineteenth Century, the Women's Movement, Universal Education - all of those were causes that were supported by Evangelicals in the Nineteenth Century and I don't find any correlation in the agenda of the religious right today."

As evidence of a fundamental rupture from historical evangelical tradition, Balmer notes the apparent support among leading Christian right organizations for the US practice of torture - Balmer says he has contacted eight of the major Christian right organizations about their positions on torture but only heard back from two so far - in support of torture.

The proposition that the US antiabortion movement did not arise organically but was specifically manufactured beginning in the late 1970's makes sense in light of the bizarre and anachronistic nature of an early antiabortion protest in the US ( maybe the first ) in which protest members dressed up as Carlists. [ see Talk To Action contributor Frank Cocozzelli's analysis of the protest and Carlism's relationship to Catholicism here ]

On June 6, 1970 the Society for a Christian Commonwealth, which published Triumph, and the "Sons of Thunder" under the leadership of (Frederick "Fritz") Wilhelmsen and (L . Brent) Bozell, conducted "the Action for Life," which was probably the first anti-abortion demonstration in the United States. Fritz, students from the University of Dallas, and others appeared on the scene dressed like Spanish Carlists, or requetes, with red berets, khaki shirts with Sacred Heart patches, and rosaries around their necks. Wilhelmsen, brandishing a twelve-inch crucifix, read from Matthew 25 and the Book of Revelation, warning America that it must someday face God and receive judgment for the killing of its children.

                                           Donald J. D'Elia, Citizen of Rome

Digg
del.icio.us
Newsvine
Reddit
stumbleupon
Facebook