John Sutherland
Monday May 3, 2004 "The Guardian" -- The word "fundagelism" has never
appeared in the columns of this newspaper. The term is, however,
current in the blogosphere - that cyberforum which nowadays carries
the most interestingly paranoid political debate. "Fundagelism" is not
a word that trips easily off the tongue. It's a crunching together of
the even more mouth-boggling compound "fundamentalist evangelism".
George W Bush is a fundagelist. Dad wasn't. George H Bush (not
renowned for his Wildean wit) delivered his most memorable wisecrack
on walking into a room full of fundagelists: "Gee! I'm the only person
here that's only been born once."
His son is truly twice born, with two dads. Nor are the parents equal
in the eyes of their son. The journalist Bob Woodward, as he recalls,
asked the current president if he ever turned to the ex-president for
help. "Well, no," replied Bush Jr: "He is the wrong father to appeal
to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of
strength. There's a higher father that I appeal to."
There are, it is estimated, 90 million evangelical Christians in the
US. If they can be mobilised, they will form a rock-solid foundation
for November victory for the Republican incumbent. Chads need hang no
more.
Of course, not all American evangelicals are fundagelicals any more
than all Muslims are Islamic extremists. But lukewarm evangelicals
(like the Islamists) are more likely to vote for their own kind - even
if extremist - than the opposition.
What do fundagelicals instinctively oppose? Gay marriage, abortion,
gun control, taxes, the UN (and the currently top-rated candidate for
anti-Christ, Kofi Annan), withdrawal from Iraq, Michael Moore, Janet
Jackson's left breast.
What do they believe in? Christian values and the future as foretold
in the Book of Revelation. According to a Time Magazine poll (which
strains credulity but seems to be valid) 59% of Americans trust that
St John's prophecies will be fulfilled - probably during their
lifetime. November could be a last opportunity to vote for God's
preferred candidate. Iraq (ancient Babylon) figures centrally in the
fundagelist vision of things, as does the Rapture, and the imminent
mass conversion of the Jews (hence fundagelist-Zionism).
The White House has recently been accused of inveighing (via Nasa)
against the movie The Day After Tomorrow (out on May 28) because it
narrates the wrong apocalypse. One caused by man-made global warming,
that is, rather than God's white-hot rage against sinners. The
apocalypse depicted in Tim LaHaye's Left Behind books is, we assume,
the US government-approved version.
Fundagelism presents problems for the Democratic party as it girds
itself for the coming campaign. John Kerry is a Catholic. A former
altar boy, he is (to the irritation of Catholic bishops) in favour of
women's reproductive rights. Last week Naral Pro-Choice America, the
country's leading lobby for legal abortion, endorsed Kerry's
candidacy.
Kerry so-called. Until a couple of years ago, the Democratic
front-runner was assumed to be as Boston Irish as his namesake county.
Newspaper sleuthing discovered that his paternal grandfather was, in
fact, a Czech, Fritz Kohn, who changed his name. Kerry lost relatives
in the Holocaust. Race-hate websites nowadays routinely abuse him as
"Kerry (Kohn aka Cohen)". Famously, Kerry is a decorated Vietnam war
hero who, like Siegfried Sassoon, threw his medals away in disgust at
what he came to see as a futile colonial war.
Was ever a candidate for the presidency more triangulated? Pro-choice
Catholic, Shamrock-Jewish, warrior-pacifist? In any rational contest,
to be all things to all voters should be an advantage. But with
fundagelism riding high, Kerry looks 110% flip-flop.
Last Thursday, the American PBS network ran a programme The Jesus
Factor. It made (for Democrats and, dare one say it, democrats)
depressing viewing. America, it suggested, is aching for certainty.
Any certainty. Fundagelism supplies it. God help America is all I can
say.
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