Conservative Is the New Progressive
by Jen Brea

America is at war. Defeat, though not yet inevitable, looms on the horizon. However, this time around, impending doom comes not in the form of North Korean missiles, Iranian nuclear reactors, Al Qaeda suicide bombers, or even Mexican immigrants. No, so some say, the handmaiden of the next apocalypse was grown right here in America. It is the loose women, the sodomites, the baby-killers, the career mothers and the liberal academics who have turned places like New York, San Francisco and New Orleans into a thousand Sodoms and Gomorrahs just waiting to be smote. But just when all hope seems lost, an army of the faithful grows in influence, wielding a weapon with the power to save us all from the hells of our own moral relativism: the Bible.

This is the underlying message of It's Coming Back... And It's Our Constitutional Right, a 30-minute television special/ infomercial arguing for universal Bible education. Its doomsday-speak might seem as easy to dismiss as those big-haired southern preachers who fill the 3 a.m. Christian television airwaves with laments over the country's moral decay, or those news shows providing in-depth "analysis" of how events in the Middle East signify the coming of one or more horsemen of the Apocalypse. But things have changed. Evangelical Christians are no longer the lone voices of righteousness howling in some wilderness on the political fringe. Today, they constitute a movement that feels its moment has finally come.

And so It's Coming Back attempts to craft a new vision of the religious right by borrowing some labels from the politically correct mainstream. Religious conservatives are no longer conservative; they're the new progressives. They're the true humanists, the energetic proponents of equality, liberal education and a civically-engaged society.

Making this case in It's Coming Back is a barrage of "experts" (who, in addition to advancing the infomercial's propaganda, do much to explain where President Bush formed his particular concept of expert opinion). Many of them argue that the Bible is the cornerstone of comprehensive education. Like aging D-list actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who expertly explains that, "Along with the works of Shakespeare, [the Bible] is a model for all later development of the language."

Or David Barton — historian, author and founder of WallBuilders — who describes how the abolition of slavery, the American legal system and civil liberties would not have been possible without the Bible. WallBuilders is an organization that promotes an evangelical interpretation of American history, and Barton is the author of such titles as "Original Intent," "Restraining Judicial Activism," "America's Godly Heritage" and "The Role of Pastors and Christians in Civil Government." He holds an honorary D.Litt. from Pensacola Christian College.

Then there's Rev. James Kennedy, founder of both the Center for Reclaiming America and the Center for Christian Statesmanship. He even argues that modern science — or at least Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion — would have been impossible without the Bible. Aha! So Christian fundamentalism is not anti-Renaissance or anti-Enlightenment at all. In fact, it may be the very foundation of all human progress since the Middle Ages, a truth lost on us when Bibles were expelled from public schools.

Thus It's Coming Back reminds us that learning the Bible is central to public school students' sound understanding of the humanities and of science. Moreover, it adds, studying the Bible is every student's legal right. As Elizabeth Ridenour, founder of the National Council for Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, constitutional expert and certified paralegal explains, teaching the Bible in public schools does not violate any law as long it is taught as literature and history rather than for evangelical purposes.

Not only are reason, science, law and art all on the evangelicals' side — so are the people. It's Coming Back goes to great lengths to play up the image of the Christian right as a grassroots social movement. Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, invokes the Civil Rights Movement, telling the audience "the law is on our side" (Brown v. Board of Education, anyone?) and asking the audience, "If not us, who? If not now, when?" Bright urges Christians to "move while the door is still open" (i.e., Bush is still President). Enter Deanne Groseclose, soccermom everywoman. Clipboard and petition in hand, Groseclose describes how she was able to get her local school board to adopt a new elective Bible study class through local activism. Marvel at the power of one ordinary woman standing up for her ideals.

Of course, as with any makeover, there are unsavory remnants of what came before. When not advancing the myth that fundamentalist-style Christianity and intellectual progress go hand-in-hand, the mouthpieces featured in It's Coming Back still like to spew their share of fire and brimstone. After all, what would propaganda be without fear? Christian gospel superstar Carman, in what can only be described as "Revelations: An American Musical," shows that America is on the verge of destruction, warning that "the only way this nation can even hope to last the decade is to put God in America again." Pronouncements of social chaos are punctuated by footage of the L.A. riots flashed across the screen at almost subliminal speed. How do you play on peoples' subconscious racism? Show them their worst fear: black men gone wild. Even the war on terror is manipulated so as to have some relationship, however tenuous, with the issue of Bible study. Captain Scott O'Grady, an Air Force pilot whose plane was shot down over Bosnia behind enemy lines, tells us that our country is under siege, that the only way to "help this generation come home safely," the only way to prevent more Americans from falling "casualty" to a social chaos that threatens to swallow us all is to "bring it back."

And thus the irony of this little piece of conservative propaganda comes full circle. Many religious conservatives see the Civil Rights era as the beginning of the end of American society. Blacks ceased to know their place, women left the kitchen and stopped wearing bras, and Bibles were ejected from public schools (Abington Township v. Schempp, 1963). For liberals, that time period has become almost sacred. And yet in It's Coming Back, conservatives try to legitimize their cause by embracing the symbols of that era. At the same time they employ their tried and true tactics of inciting racism and "wars and rumors of war."

Why the façade? Why even bother painting the image of an enlightened and progressive cause? In the past, religious conservatives responded to the decadence of American society and pop culture by creating parallel systems. They built their own schools, organized their own social networks and even created their own forms of popular entertainment. Now, they seek to reposition the mainstream, to reclaim the public sphere for God. No longer content with freedom to pursue their alternative vision, they demand to be coequal. It's not enough that children learn the Bible in church; it needs to be taught in school alongside Dickens and Shakespeare. It's not enough that children learn creationism in Sunday school; intelligent design must be taught alongside evolution. It's not enough to dismiss the concerns of this world and await the next; history must be rewritten from a Christian perspective and the future reclaimed for God. America the Theocracy may be a long way off, but It's Coming Back shows there's reason to be scared.

E-mail Jen Brea at jenbrea at gmail dot com.