Since Fred Clarkson and I (and others from Talk 2 Action) participated in a conference on Dominionism in New York in April 2005, writers of the purple prose have saddled their horses for the counterattack. Among the first were Stanley Kurtz, “Dominionist Domination: The Left runs with a wild theory,” National Review, May 02, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200505020944.asp; and Jon Ward, “Liberals Gather to Plumb Depths of Christian Right,” Washington Times, May 3, 2005, http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050502-111313-2664r.htm

Now Ross Douthat in First Things and Mary Eberstadt in Policy Review have raised the stakes.

Ross Douthat penned “Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy, in the August/September 2006, issue of First Things, which dubs itself “The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life.” http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=130

According to Douthat, “This is a paranoid moment in American politics. A host of conspiracies haunt our national imagination.” Then Douthat singles out the main target: “Perhaps the strangest of these strange stories, though, is the notion that twenty-first-century America is slouching toward theocracy.”

Douthat is reviewing four books:

• Randall Balmar, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament (Basic Books).
• Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (W.W. Norton).
• Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Viking).
• Rabbi James Rudin, The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plan for the Rest of Us (Thunder's Mouth Press).

First Things is a weighty journal published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, with Richard John Neuhaus as Editor-In-Chief. Douthat’s reviews serve as the superstructure for the Straw Jeremiad:

This is an old paranoia: Back in 1952, the science-fiction libertarian Robert Heinlein’s Revolt in 2100 envisioned a religious tyranny toppled by a Freemason-led rebellion; in 1985, Margaret Atwood’s feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale imagined America as a Christian-fascist “Republic of Gilead,” with its capital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its public executions staged in Harvard Yard. But the fear of theocracy has become a defining panic of the Bush era, reaching a fever pitch in the weeks after the 2004 election, when a host of commentators seized on polls suggesting that “moral values” had pushed the president over the top-and found in that data point a harbinger of Gilead. http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=130

Later statistical analysis of state-level polling conducted on Election Day revealed that Christian conservatives, in part motivated by Christian Right campaigns, did help elect Bush in 2004. Solid facts are so inconvenient when you are striking matches to ignite a Straw Jeremiad.

Mary Eberstadt is the author of another journal article that crafts a Straw Jeremiad. In Policy Review for December 2006 & January 2007, Eberstadt writes about "The Scapegoats Among Us: Blame Shifting After 9/11," http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/4884201.html

The article covers much ground, but one section is on “ The ‘Christianist’ scapegoating.” in which it is claimed that we and others:

... have turned into a blogging bonanza and cottage publishing industry [a warning about the] overwhelming threat posed by religious fundamentalists . . . again not Islamist fundamentalists, but rather American Christian fundamentalists, known variously in this new canon as “theocrats,” “Christocrats,” “Christianists,” “fundamentalists,” “Christian nationalists,” and the old familiar, “Christian right.” http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/4884201.html

Eberstadt, like also reviews Balmer, Goldberg, and Rudin; and reviews two other books:

• Damon Linker, Theocons: Secular America Under Seige (Doubleday).
• Alan Wolfe, Does American Democracy Still Work? ( Yale University Press).

Policy Review, now published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. It began as the journal of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. In her article, Eberstadt cites the article by Ross Douthat in First Things. Eberstadt takes on the critics of theocratic, dominionist, and Christian Nationalist tendencies, by claiming:

At the heart of their case is an obnoxious positing of moral equivalence among “fundamentalists” and “theocrats” irrespective of religious stripe. Accordingly, anyone believing anything based on any holy writ whatever is suspect, no matter whether the message being received is that two hundred babes must die in Chechnya tomorrow or that two hundred trees should be planted in Tel Aviv by Texan evangelicals to hasten the second coming. As with the example of illegal immigration, this rhetoric all makes perfect sense — or would in a world where Jerry Falwell calls down fatwas on [NARAL] , the 700 Club sends suicide bombers into the Key West Fantasy Fest, and Richard John Neuhaus posts death warrants on [EWTN] whenever he wants the members of Moveon.org decapitated. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/4884201.html

Omitted from Eberstadt’s Straw Jeremiad are inconvenient facts like the murders of physicians and staff and bombings at reproductive rights clinics by persons motivated by their belief in a particular militant vision of Christianity. Also omitted is how the relentlessly nasty and bigoted rhetoric from some Christian Right leaders demonizes millions of our gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, and family members. How do we measure the weight of that oppression? How do we tally the lost lives?

Some critics of theocratic, dominionist, and Christian Nationalist tendencies have drifted into hyperbole and demonization, and it is fair to raise criticisms of their claims and rhetoric. But this is not what is happening in these long essays by Douthat and Eberstadt. By erecting Straw Jeremiads they seek to conflate critics of the Christian Right into one undifferentiated mass—exactly what they falsely claim we are doing in our criticism of the Christian Right.

An author needs to be careful when putting that match to a Straw Jeremiads. It’s so easy to get burned.

Sources

Ross Douthat, “Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy,” First Things, August/September 2006, pp. 23-30, http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=130

Stanley Kurtz, “Dominionist Domination: The Left runs with a wild theory,” National Review, May 02, 2005, http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200505020944.asp.

Mary Eberstadt, "The Scapegoats Among Us: Blame Shifting After 9/11," Policy Review, 140, December 2006 & January 2007, pp. 25-46, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/4884201.html

Jon Ward, “Liberals Gather to Plumb Depths of Christian Right,” Washington Times, May 3, 2005, http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050502-111313-2664r.htm

Books being reviewed by Douthat and Eberstadt

Randall Balmar, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament (Basic Books).

Damon Linker, Theocons: Secular America Under Seige (Doubleday).

Michelle Goldberg's recent Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (W.W. Norton).

Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Viking).

Rabbi James Rudin, The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plan for the Rest of Us (Thunder's Mouth Press).

Alan Wolfe, Does American Democracy Still Work? ( Yale University Press).