How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1%

[NorthCarolina]

How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1% to Exploit the 99%

AlterNet / By Frank Schaeffer



As the Occupy Wall street movement spreads across the country and the world, we must bring attention to the enablers of the top 1 percent exploiting the 99. Fundamentalist religion made this exploitation possible.

Evangelical fundamentalism helped empower the top 1 percent. Note I didn't say religion per se, but religious fundamentalism.

Why? Because without the fundamentalists and their "values" issues, many in the lower 99 percent could not have been convinced to vote against their (our) economic self-interest; in other words, vote for Republicans who only serve billionaires.

Wall Street is a great target for long-overdue protest, but so are the centers of religious power that are the gatekeepers of Republican Party "values" voters that make the continuing economic exploitation possible.

Fundamentalist religion -- evangelical and Roman Catholic alike -- has delegitimized the US government and thus undercut its ability to tax, spend and regulate.

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Link: http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/152724/how_christian_fundamentalism_helped_empower_the_top_1_to_exploit_the_99/#disqus_thread

[eleny]

1. And wealthy fundy preachers with wide audiences could be top 5%ers

They wouldn't want to lose a good thing.

[Major Nikon]

2. There really is no central Republican ideology anymore

The entire party is just a collection of single interests. You can say the same thing about the gun nuts, the Israel first Neocons, and the bigots.

[truedelphi]

3. This is very true. First tenet - and it is all important - of the

Fundamentalist movement is to abandon rationality.

So it all becomes faith based. A good Fundie Christian attends church every Sunday in order to find out which group they should put on this week's hate list (though they say that they only "Fear the gays" and "Fear the Muslims.")

They never need any rationale for anything - all they need is their minister telling them the newest meme. But a person outside that group has to wonder: "Just how is it that this "religion" seems to have the same meme announced at the same moment by so many different churches and ministers?"

this is why so many Fundamentalists supported George W. God "told"him tow age war on Iraq, during a prayer session that Georgie had with the Lord, before Georgie would confirm the National Security people's assessment.

And the fact that God the Almighty had directed the Presidency meant that every Fundie out there had pressure on them to follow that particular leader.

[LAGC]

4. I think this might be appropriate here...

[slay]

9. +1

i've always loved that pic - that truly is the way it is.

[Ship of Fools]

12. Is this in poster form? I'd love one ...

[Quixote1818]

5. No doubt about this. Republicans USE the religious right and play them like a top. nt

[AnnieBW]

6. All they have to do is say that they're against abortion

and people will vote for them. It doesn't matter if they're killing babies by taking away their mothers' AFDC and WIC. All for the Holy Fetus.

[Aerows]

7. They aren't against abortion

It has never been about abortion. First it will be abortion, then it will be birth control. It's about legislating patriarchy and morality - that's what it has ALWAYS been about. Don't doubt it for a second. If they abolish abortion, next they will be abolishing birth control because it is "a woman's place" to be a baby factory, in the illustrious opinions of patriarchs, religious and otherwise.

[slay]

8. Most definitely

great article - hope everyone reads it - truly does explain a lot - stuff which i thought to be the case - but put into words in a way better than i've seen before.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Indeed

Religion can inspire Right or Left. But there are aspects of some forms of religion that can be very readily exploited by the right-wing, to protect those in power.

(1) Emphasis on 'traditional morality'; easily used to endorse the protection of all kinds of tradition, and therefore to protect the status quo, or even try to replace it with a more authoritarian past. The rich and strong and powerful *deserve* to be rich and strong and powerful, because God put them in that position; questioning their position is questioning the will of God. In 17th century Britain, there was the explicit doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. In Victorian times, children were taught to sing the hymn, 'All Things Bright and Beautiful', including the verse:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high or lowly
And ordered their estate.

(The hymn is still popular; though usually with that verse omitted.)

Thus, a lack of church/state separation is not only dangerous through giving the church excessive power, but, often even more, through investing the already-powerful with divinely-ordained authority.

(2) Encouraging people to focus on the afterlife, rather than the current life. Endure economic injustice now, and you will have your reward in Heaven! Joe Hill said it all 100 years ago:

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
Chorus
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die...

(Chorus)
If you fight hard for children and wife-
Try to get something good in this life-
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell...

(3) Dividing and ruling; deflecting people's attention from the evils committed by those in power, by providing scapegoats: the irreligious and 'immoral'; those of other denominations; Muslims; Jews; gays; abortion; etc.

Of course religion has inspired left-wing as well as right-wing movements; and nonreligious state-imposed ideologies such as fascism and (very ironically, but frequently) communism can also be used to justify and entrench existing power and inequalities. But certainly the religious right props up the economic right and every form of authoritarianism.

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. Moonies included.

[Initech]

13. C Street is every bit as corrupt as Wall St. is, maybe even more so.