Darksyde writes:
I would add that most of the religious people I know, even those who would eagerly identify themselves as members of the Religious Right, don't seem as fanatical or as political as their leaders.
And I'll tell you what else: most of their leaders don't seem as fanatical as their leaders. The blogs are a booming, cacophonous echo chamber that takes the worst rhetorical excesses of our enemies and amplifies them a hundred times, then repeats them a hundred more. That's got its utility. And Pat Robertson, to be sure, is an enthusiastic conductor on the crazy train. But Robertson didn't arise through his inventive theories on the gays, and his television show doesn't attract advertisers on the strength of his political rants. Mainly, The 700 Club is about religion. And human interest stories. And interviews with authors. And Trinity Broadcasting Network, the source of a couple crazy quotes a week, mainly talks about redemption, companionship, and love. It's all rather inoffensive; Good Morning America with a bit more Jesus.
We in the blogs experience the Religious Right as a political force, waxing crazy on abortion and gays and modernity. But the believers powering that force don't experience it as a political venture at all. They experience it through community, or sermons on forgiveness, or charity, or neighbors. We look at the Christian Right and see crazy because, when we see them on Crooks and Liars or Kos or The Daily Show, they're acting nuts. But we're not watching the world's most representative snippets. The excesses exist, but were the bulk of these ministries not palatable and relevant to the everyday experiences of lower middle-class Americans, they wouldn't have the political relevancy that's forced us to perk up and notice. Darksyde says his theistic acquaintances seem normal. It's a pretty good bet that, to them, the Christian Right seems normal too.
Update: I worry the point here isn't as clear as I can make it. What we experience as a fully political operation is not, in nature, very political at all. Rather, it's a social organization, which derives its legitimacy and strength from its relevance to the more mundane aspects of life. But since we just see the worst rhetorical excesses, we tend to doubt its durability and be puzzled by its strength, leading either to frustration and contempt or efforts to start alternative political vehicles for believers.
Both responses, however, miss the strength of these organizations, which is their remarkable reach and impact in the more quotidian aspects of their believer's lives. They offer community, guidance, advice, charity, social capital, entertainment, and even the occasional shot at transcendence. And in return, their member's trust their politics. That's the conveyor at work -- but since we see only the politics, we just end up bewildered by how so many could support such a vicious movement. The movement, mostly, is not vicious, and the politics are a tiny part of the whole. And that's why it's dangerous -- because the politics gain legitimacy through primarily non-political ends, they're thus almost invulnerable to attacks coming from the political sphere. Pat Robertson can say something crazy and then move onto the recipe, and if the recipe is sound, the craziness of a moment before is legitimated, or at least forgotten.
