Can I get an Amen for sister Robyn???

Backward, Christian soldiers

By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published November 14, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is it possible to be both backward and forward at the same time? Take a look at Cobb County, Ga., where a retrogressive court battle over teaching evolution may be telegraphing the future.

In 2002, in a nod to more than 2,000 parents who complained that the public schools were teaching evolution as fact, the suburban Atlanta district slapped a sticker on science textbooks proclaiming evolution as "a theory, not a fact." Another group of parents sued to get it removed, in hopes of returning their community to the ranks of the scientifically literate. The trial was last week.

Real scientists get exasperated when talking about the evolution teaching skirmishes that occasionally flare up in the redder parts of this country ("redder" as in embarrassments).

"That sticker in itself shows (ignorance)," said Michael Howell, an associate professor of marine geology at the University of South Florida, who is also a biblical scholar. "Because to say that evolution is a theory and not a fact shows that you don't understand what a theory really is. It is an explanation of phenomenon, not a hunch or guess.

"Evolution from scientific standpoint is the only scientifically valid theory. (It is based on) a tremendous preponderance of evidence from all kinds of different disciplines. Whereas something like intelligent design (which says divine intervention directed the origins of life) is nothing more than an unsupported hypothesis."

Now normally Cobb County's errancy wouldn't merit all that much attention. The church-state issues are so extreme that the courts should be trusted to dispense with them, as they generally have in the years since John Scopes was convicted.

But the last election demonstrates that a core of Americans want the very concept of church-state separation back on the table and they are now firmly in charge of two branches of the federal government and a majority of the states.

To see what this side is thinking, I recently spent a day watching Christian broadcasting. What struck me most was the emphasis the preachers and talk show hosts placed on the need to get religion into government. They were positively obsessed with it.

These Christian leaders were far less interested in discussing Jesus' teachings than how to get prayer back in public schools. It wasn't good enough that granite statues of the 10 Commandments could occupy every inch of Christian-owned private property; they wanted hulking renderings in courthouses and other government buildings. These shows were not about building better Christians. They were about building a Christian nation.

We used to worry about the so-called stealth candidates of the Christian Right - candidates who would run for public office and hide their fundamentalist views in order to appear electable. Well, the last election proves that those views can be fully unfurled without risking voter flight. The 2004 Texas GOP platform audaciously stated: "The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States is a Christian nation."

What we are experiencing is the rise of Dominion Theology. This ideology says Christians must begin to take over all secular institutions of government, reclaiming them for Jesus Christ. It is seen as a readying for the Second Coming. See www.theocracywatch.org for more information.

"Our aim is to gain dominion over society," Pat Robertson told a gathering in 1984. He later described how this would be accomplished: By gaining a working control of the Republican Party.

And they've succeeded.

In 2004, 41 out of 51 Republican senators were given 100 percent ratings by the Christian Coalition for their votes on behalf of fundamentalist issues. Meanwhile, 31 out of 48 Democrats scored zero. Similar splits can be found in the House, where Minority Leader Tom DeLay expressly uses dominionist language.

During a "Worldview Weekend" conference in 2002, he said: "(God) is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do."

It is only the judiciary that is not completely overrun. For now, that means the antievolution forces can be held at bay. But changing the judiciary is the issue for dominionists, and President Bush has been happily accommodating. Already he has appointed more than 200 judges, some, such as William Pryor and J. Leon Holmes, elevated primarily due to their fringe fundamentalist views.

No wonder the Christian Right went bleary-eyed crazy when Sen. Arlen Specter, who is on tap to be chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dared suggest that judges seeking to overturn Roe vs. Wade will have trouble getting confirmed. He is a rare Republican who hasn't bought into the master plan, and for that Christian Right forces want his chairmanship blocked.

Cobb County school officials may soon be directed to scrape off a bunch of antiscience stickers, but unless this country wakes up soon it won't be too long before a different judiciary welcomes them back, and more.

[Last modified November 13, 2004, 01:02:05]