What do you call a Right Wing Christian? What do you call a Right Wing Christian? What do you call a Right Wing Christian, ear-lie in the morning?

According to Peggy Noonan, there's a large market for books aimed at Christians who want to have their faith debased and destroyed.

Noonan, you may have heard, is in a fluster---well, ok, she's always in a fluster.  This time she's flustering over The Da Vinci code. She's aghast that that nice Ron Howard and that nice Tom Hanks have collaborated to make a movie that's so blasphemous, so subversive, and so...so...so insulting!

I do not understand the thinking of a studio that would make, for the amusement of a nation 85% to 90% of whose people identify themselves as Christian, a major movie aimed at attacking the central tenets of that faith, and insulting as poor fools its gulled adherents. Why would Tom Hanks lend his prestige to such a film? Why would Ron Howard?

Beats me, Peg.  As Scott Lemieux says, it's a puzzle.

I'm guessing Noonan's heard that the novel The Da Vinci Code's something of a bestseller.

In fact, it's an industry.

That she apparently can't see any connection between its bestseller status and it's being turned into a movie is just another sign that she needs to get out more and spend less time communing with angels in the form of dolphins.

But her assertion that 85 to 90 percent of Americans are Christians shows that A.) she doesn't bother to look things up before throwing numbers around and B.) she has the same understanding of math and fractions as Bertie Wooster, who has observed that half the world doesn't know how the other three-quarters lives.

Surely it should have occured to her that if 85 to 90 percent of Americans are Christians and The Da Vinci Code is selling like...well, like a book that everybody and his brother are buying, then some of those books must be being bought by Christians.

Unless she thinks that the 10 to 15 percent of Americans who are godless Liberals are buying up multiple copies and forcing them on their Christian friends in order to shake their faith in the divinity of Jesus, there must be a lot of Christians who want to be told that Jesus didn't die on Golgotha that day 1973 years ago.

Because, you know, no one reads potboiler novels or goes to the movies just for fun.

Now, there are folks of the Right Wing persuasion who believe that seeing movies about prepubescent children learning magic will inspire a generation of witches and warlocks, and others who believe that movies about gay cowboys will cause their sons to run off to go fishing with their best guy pals, and others who argue that movies about crusading journalists exposing lying demogogues as the liars and demogogues they are will teach us all that Communism is the cat's meow and way cooler than democracy.

So, if Noonan believes that a movie about the murderous adventures of an albino monk and how Tom Hanks' physical charms are irresistable to the likes of Audrey Tautou will lead to crises of faith all over God's Country, she's simply conforming to a type, and God bless her and save her.

Not much I can do to help her, except point out that generations of kids have grown up quite certain that real mice don't talk or wear red shorts and white gloves.

The real danger in what she's saying is in the continuation of two ideas: A.  America is a Christian nation. B.  Somehow the great Christian majority is being oppressed by a tiny minority of Liberal elitists.

The truth is that a minority of people who identify themselves as Christians feel themselves to be oppressed by the existence of a majority of people who don't agree with their idea of what Christianity is or ought to be.

It is true that most Americans are, nominally, Christian.  Something like 5 out of 6.   But most of them are not of the type of Evangelicals, Pentecostals, or the various non-denominationalists that make up what goes by the name of Christian in the Media these days.

Most of them are Catholics, Episcopalians---you know, those people with the gay bishop---and the other more established Protestant churches. In other words, most Christians are of the type of Christian that those who speak for "Christians" in the media these days think aren't truly Christian or aren't Christian enough or aren't Christian in the right way---right as in correct in their religious beliefs and practices and right as in correct in their Right Wing politics.

Right Wing Christians refer to themselves as just Christians, naturally, because in their minds they are the true Christians.  It turns out to be useful politically to refer to themselves this way because it blurs the distinctions between themselves and other types of Christians, helping to disguise the differences between themselves and those other Christians so that not just all those other Christians don't realize what the Right Wingers really are and want, but also so that their non-Christian political enemies fall into the trap of using the term Christian as an insult and an accusation.

When Liberals speak or write dismissively of "Christians" and their reactionary politics and general assaults on reason, science, art, and a democratic, pluralistic culture, other Christians instinctively close ranks, joining their votes with people who are even more contemptuous of their faith than the godless Liberals.

Once upon a time the Media used to identify Right Wing Christians as Fundamentalists or Evangelicals or Born Agains or Right Wing Christians.  But because there are many Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and Born Agains who are not Right Wingers, either because they are apolitical, liberals, or merely somewhat conservative, the terms have been generally abandoned and replaced with variations on Conservative Christians.

Since most Americans consider themselves conservative, although surveys of their actual beliefs on most issues show that they aren't anywheres near as conservative as they think they are, the term Conservative Christian might as well be read as simply Christian, and in fact that's how it's often read and abridged, allowing Right Wing Christians to pass themselves off as mainstream and portray opposition to their agenda as attacks on Christianity in general.

It would be nice then if we could come up with a term, and convince the Media to use it, that would strip away the Right Wing Christians' camouflage.

Lately, Andrew Sullivan has suggested the word Christianist.

David Neiwert points out that he and Tristero sort of came up with the same idea a while ago, but while Tristero still uses it, Neiwert himself decided it's a poor choice.

I had some reservations about the term, particularly because it seemed ripe for mau-mauing from right-wing pundits -- say, Rush Limbaugh or Hugh Hewitt -- who would almost certainly twist it into an attack on "ordinary Christians." I didn't necessarily think it was an inaccurate coinage, but it was one that lent itself to misinterpretation in the wrong hands.

Neiwert prefers another term,  Dominionist.  David's post is too long for me to summarize here, but as usual for him, it's thorough and informative and well-worth reading.  In it he lays out the Dominionist agenda, which is, in a nutshell, to make America a Right Wing Christian quasi-theocracy.

I have two objections to the word Dominionist.

One, it's not punchy.

Go ahead, say it out loud.  You'll sound all mush-mouthed to yourself.

Two, it's not going to catch on without lots and lots and lots of repetition and patient explanation.

I don't think we've got the time.

I've always liked the phrase Right Wing Fundamentalist.  It's punchy, it's got a history, it distinguishes between Fundamentalists who are not Right Wingers and those who are, and it denies the Right Wingers the words conservative and Christian, which is not just useful but accurate, because they are neither.

Its weakness is that it wouldn't seem to include Right Wing Catholics of the Scalia stripe.

The Media in its currently cowed state will be hard to bring round.  They seem wedded to the idea that the Republican Party is a conservative party.  Conservative is for them a synonym for Republican and Republican is a synonym for small town, Middle American, traditional, flag waving wholesomeness.

Right Wing Christians vote Republican, therefore they are conservative, wholesome, traditional, Middle American.

You know, the mainstream majority.

Cross posted at the little church known as St Michael's in the Groves.

I first heard of Dominionism from Shakespeare’s Sister.

Another way to take the word Christian away from the Right Wing Fundamentalists/Dominionists/What you will may be for Democratic, Liberal, and Progressive Christians to start inisting on their Christianity in the public square too.  Yellow Dog Sammy reports at the American Street that this is going on in Ohio these days, not to everybody's comfort.

Neddie Jingo doesn’t like the novel The Da Vinci Code, not now, not ever, and probably doesn’t like anybody who does.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Dominionist wouldn't work because I am guessing The Decider would decide it meant someone who came from the Dominican Republic or Dominica and next thing you know, a Dominionist will be mixed up with the immigration issue.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

Dominionist is a specific term for right-wing Christians who are specifically and actively interested in an American theocracy. Are you generally using the phrase "right-wing Christian" to mean the same?

To my mind, there may be a difference. I'm thinking Branch Davidians here, for example. I would certainly classify them as right-wing, but not Dominionist. There are some exceedingly conservative Christians who are very wary about the blurring of the lines between church and state.

Activist right-wing Christians who seek to codify Biblical law into state law are Dominionists, whether they call themselves that or not, whether we (or the media) call them that or not.

Perhaps it's not useful in a political discussion to draw distinctions between right-wing Christians with separatist tendencies and the political activist breed, the latter of which is really our only concern. But as the impetus for the discussion is "not lumping," I thought it might be worth a mention.

[Keith Demko]

I like the term Christianist .. unfortunately, it seems that no matter what we call them, they're not going anywhere soon .. though I won't be going to see the Da Vinci Code and told people why, I just can't see getting worked up into such a lather over it

[Kevin Wolf]

Right Wing Fundamentalist is okay. It's at least useful. I tend to say Right Wing Christian, though. I think it's the "Right Wing" part that's most important as that emphasizes the political aspect of their views.

I'll have to think about this, next time I'm writing and need an appropriate term.

[joanr16]

I use "fundinazi." Not just for Dominionists (as defined above), but also for evangelicals for whom faith has devolved into spiritual fascism. The "One Way" and "No Jesus, No Peace" crowd.

Anyone afraid of a silly book made into a crappy movie is terribly weak in their faith, anyway.

[The Boy]

The bottom line is...Dominionist, Christianist, Fundamenalist, whatever...they are literalists. Jonah Goldberg's assertion the other day that Joss Whedon isn't sufficiently "skeptical" of the supernatural because he wrote Buffy and Firefly clinched it. They can't imagine that you're writing fiction for fiction's sake. It must have an agenda behind it. If you're writing about vampires, not only must you believe in vampires, but you apparently must be trying to convince others to believe in them too. If you're writing about "prepubescent children learning magic", you're trying to convince children to learn magic. If you're writing a book questioning biblical events, you must be doing it to subvert Christianity, not just to entertain.

[KathyF]

If there really are 90%, they must be wimps, letting themselves get beat up by the other 10%.

[Kate Marie]

Lance, I liked your post, and I agree with you about the need to define certain categories of Christians more precisely.

I apologize ahead of time for being the token contrarian "conservative of the Catholic stripe" in these comments, and the following point may seem rather too much like picking a nit, but could we at least acknowledge that Dan Brown apparently refers to his specious "history" as fact? I don't care whether people enjoy the stupid book (hell, *I* did) or the stupid movie, but I do care whether the book and the movie contribute to the death spiral of dumbification and historical ignorance into which Americans are being sucked with increasing and disturbing frequency. In other words, -- as my dear historian friend Madman of Chu has said -- if Americans are interested in some of the theological/historical issues which Dan Brown makes a hash of, they would do well to read Elaine Pagels. But they'd rather wait for the movie -- which is fine, except when they start to think of themselves as historically and theologically informed because they saw Howard's movie. And that's *not* something that people do when they read or watch Harry Potter. It's also not Howard's fault, of course.

[Slothrop]

I always liked the simple, but eleagant "redneck Christians."
Everyone knows exactly who you're talking about.

By the way, this notion that The DaVinci Code "attacks the central tenets" of Christianity is totally false.

It attacks the legitimacy of the Catholic Church, but that doesn'thave anything to do with Christianity.

Also, how does Jesus being married to Mary Magdeline and raising a family threaten any damn thing? I like the story that way. It feels right.

Dan Brown is a terrible writer. A much better book on the subject is "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" -- a fascinating non-fiction work.

[David Glynn]

Do any of these catch-all phrases encompass my favorite descriptor(stolen from an old family friend), that of "TV Preacher"?

Everyone knows exactly what you mean with that one.

[joanr16]

Re The Boy's comment above, apparently Jonah Goldberg isn't aware that Joss Whedon is a self-professed atheist? Braying ignorami, I tells ya.

[Idyllopus]

Of course mice don't wear red pants and white gloves! Mickey was a carnival sideshow act. We all know real mice are sewing waistcoats for the tailor of Gloucester and dining with little cloth napkins behind the tea cups. At least, those which are city mice.

[tigtog]

Here in Oz we refer to right-wing warhawks as RWDBs - Right Wing Death Beasts - and if they're literalist apocalyptic Christians as well they're just fundie RWDBs.

As a general descriptor I also quite like fundegelical.

[harry near indy]

lance, i call them all sorts of terrible names, but out of respect for you, who once asked us to tone down our comments because of the children who come through here, wondering what kindly uncle lance has written lately about harry potter ... well, i shan't repeat them here.

[mac macgillicuddy]

"Not much I can do to help her, except point out that generations of kids have grown up quite certain that real mice don't talk or wear red shorts and white gloves."

Uh...????!?

[Fledermaus]

the term Conservative Christian might as well be read as simply Christian, and in fact that's how it's often read and abridged, allowing Right Wing Christians to pass themselves off as mainstream and portray opposition to their agenda as attacks on Christianity in general.

To be honest, this may well mark the end of Christianity as we know it. USA Today had an article a few years back about a 2001 poll that showed tremendous growth in people responding "no religion" when asked (albeit it still only amounted to about 14% overall). It also had this nifty state by state breakdown by affiliation.

I probably fall into that category. I spent my youth as a Lutheran: church choir, camp counselor and so forth. Haven't been back to church in over 10 years now. Not because I didn't like it - it's just I like sleeping on Sunday more. Plus I felt I had reached the point where I had absorbed what I considered the most important lessons from Jesus.

Of course I also often hear that the evangelicals are the largest growing sect of Christianity today. I think that this and the no religion rise are two sides of the same coin. My theory is that mainstream organized religion stagnated in the last few decades. And now people are gravitating away - either towards fundamentalism/evangelicalism or towards a more romantic (literary definition) view of religion - such as Buddhism or Gnosticism (the oldest heresy).

That is what is prompting the howls of the religious right over "The DaVinci Code" (which, although I haven't read it, seems like the Gnostic equivalent of Left Behind, poor writing and all). I do think that in the next 40 years or so we will see a split in Christianity the likes of which haven't been seen since the Reformation. I just hope that no one has to be burned at the stake or fed to lions this time.

Anyway getting back to my original point, even though I know that the religious right is not representative of Christianity, they are the only ones I hear about. I can’t help but think “don’t go to church, it will only encourage them”

[Fledermaus]

By the way this blog post has a bunch of spiffy maps showing Christian affiliation by state. It's really interesting how concentrated each sect is. I remember my surprise moving from Minnesota and finding out that there are really not that many Lutherans outside the Midwest (relatively speaking).

[mac macgillicuddy]

Just for the record, we are planning to go see the Da Vinci Code (which, my wife points out, is really misnamed, because the artist's name was --and probably still is--Leonardo, and Vinci was where he was from, but I digress...). We are planning to see it not because we believe it is the chronicle of a verifiable, or even feasible, account of world history, but because Tom Hanks is cute. And so is that guy Opie. He makes good movies, too. And we like popcorn...sometimes, anyway; other times it gets in your teeth. But I digress, again...

Tom Hanks and Ron Howard have each said that the movie is fantasy. "Nonsense," I believe is what Hanks said. They just need work, and this seemed like a pretty good gig.

Nevermind whatever happened to faith, whatever happened to willing suspension of disbelief?

[Mike Schilling]

More Wodehouse references!

[Walt]

I have a suggestion for a term to describe right-wing Christians: Left Behinders.

[harry near indy]

i'll add this: i wonder how many professed christians who despise this movie will pray for the redemption of the souls of all those who were involved with it.

i bet the number will be fewer than the number of professed christians who condemn those people to hell and worse.

their form of christianity gives them sanctification and justification to hate. the object of hatred doesn't matter, just as long as it's something to hate.

[coturnix]

Last night I had an option: go see the Code indoors, or freeze my butt at the outdoors projection of Harry Potter #4. I thought I'd rather learn me some majick - my faith in wizardry was wavering lately. And it was cheaper, too: ticket, small popcorn and a lemonade for $5.50 total.

[Greg]

I'm partial to Dominionist just because it's similar to the name of a evil group of aliens bent on galactic conquest in Star Trek.

[Sister Weasle]

I like the term Dominionist, but it seems like it might be a mouth-full and could be turned to their advantage somehow...

so I wrote a short piece on a term I would like to see gain use:

Christian Nationalists

[eddie d]

I like Gore Vidal's decsription the best. He calls them "Jesus Christers."

One whole wing of my family are fundamentalists and to my ear, "Jesus Christers" fits just about right.

They don't care about anything Jesus actually said or did, just that he is the true godhead and since they have taken him as their "personal lord and savior" they are the saved ones. Of course they aren't, but the rank tribalism, selfishness and greed underscoring their self-absorbtion also underscores their self-delusion.

[theRidger]

A couple of nits - Dan Brown hardly invented calling da Vinci da Vinci; whether correct or not, it's very common. Secondly, the book at any rate doesn't claim Jesus wasn't crucified (although if I recall correctly, Holy Blood Holy Grail does claim that). More substantially - for crying out loud, if their faith is so weak that a novel can destroy it, no wonder they're so terrified of anything the slightest bit different.

[DuWayne]

Slothrop wrote:
By the way, this notion that The DaVinci Code "attacks the central tenets" of Christianity is totally false.

It attacks the legitimacy of the Catholic Church, but that doesn'thave anything to do with Christianity.

I will preface this with the fact that I quite enjoyed "The DaVinci Code" much teh same way I enjoy Robert ludlum novels. But I do have to point ou that the central tenet of Christianity is that Christ died on the cross and the divinity of Christ. If you remove those two concepts, which "The DaVinci Code" does, what you are left with is far from Christianity.

I also have to agree with Kate Marie, Brown does claim that the history described in his book is in fact true and I dislike that for the same reasons she described so elequently. I imagine that that little disclamer has made a vast contribution to the success of the book and the industry that has sprung up around it.

I am hoping that the movie will be better than most of the movies made based on R. Ludlums novels. It did really remind me of Ludlums novels in a big way. Not just the plot but the voice in which Brown wrote it.

[AlanDownunder]

We used to have a great term for them. God Botherers. Shame it's going out of style.

[Paul]

The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. It is interesting and thought provoking, but that is it. I think that many Christians fear that the gullable readers will accept the book as the truth.