Why Christian Fundamentalism Is Sweeping Across The Country

I have a very simple answer as to why Christian fundamentalism is sweeping across the country. It's doing so because the economy for the past 30 years, going all the way back to the 70s, has robbed the common man of having any economic control over their lives. From stagnation, to de-industrialization, to sweeping layoffs, the common American faces a life of economic uncertainty. Christian fundamentalism gives them the false belief that they can control their lives once again.

to simple minds.

I agree with you.
Perhaps a tie in with the original message is that people with simple minds cannot make sense of our more complicated lives and are increasingly turned to fundamentalist religions so they don't have to think.

You're correct I believe.

to think for themselves again. Just do as they are told, and life is a easy. No having to think and make tough decisions.

:mad: *just kidding*

Bushite minions that have control of the media would like people to think so, but it is just another one of the lies that they are spreading.

My family is from Missouri. Back when I was growing up, Missouri was a fairly middle-of-the-road kind of place, the "show-me State" all of that. Nobody talked about religion of politics that much. People kept it to themselves.

In 1980 that all changed. The fundies started coming out of the woodwork.

Now you can't drive across the state without seeing billboards for all kinds of whacko fundie shit.

Everyone in my entire family who's still in Missouri have turned into raving fundie nutjobs.

I can't explain it. I really can't.

A friend of mine (from Oklahoma where he's seen the same thing happen) thinks it started with cable TV. Around 1980 suddenly everybody had R-rated movies being piped into their living rooms. Hell, I remember watching a movie with my pareants when I was about sixteen where suddenly the heroine in the movie was riding a guy, totally naked, and covered in oil, and reached into a bowl of icecubes and put them on his crotch to make him come. I was watching this with my Mom and Dad. I think we were all pretty shocked and embarrassed (and I was turned on as all hell -- I just remembered the name of the movie -- "The Other Side of Midnight").

Anyway, as soon as people started having this sort of thing just appear on their TV screens they FREAKED OUT.

And they have been ever since.

It's a theory, and it's as good as any other I've heard.

that may be a factor why people are more RECEPTIVE to it, but it's not a major reason.

The reason is the fundamentalists have made a very concerted effort in our schools, our courts, and most importantly, our media, to enforce their vision on the country.

especially rapid social change. It's happened countless times before. The pendulum always eventually swings back - you can't unwind a watch for long before you break it.

Doesn't anyone else remember Toffler's book Future Shock? He pretty much predicted a lot of this crap.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise at the same time as Christian fundamentalism.

Yes, fundamentalism rises during times of rapid social change, in an
effort by the powers-that-be to stop and even reverse those changes.
The pendulum swings back if the fundamentalists don't actually take over.
Unfortunately, this time they have taken over.

the point of no return

fundamentalist: one in whom something is fundamentally wrong, usually a lack of reasoning ability and a vicious intolerance for those not sharing the fundamentalist's delusions. Thus, fundamentalists are particularly intolerant of those able to draw obvious conclusions from observed facts, those who refuse to seek shelter in comforting falsehoods and those wishing to lead their own lives.

fundis: posterior
mentis: head

ergo, 'fundamentalist' = 'butthead'

for themselves and these are the people who are breeding in large numbers.

The more fundie you are, the more children you have....at least as far as I can tell...with a few exceptions. After all, who cares about overpopulation if the rapture is coming? Who cares about economic problems if we are all going to "a better place" whne we die. Just follow the fundie plan and you and your family will go to heaven no matter what happens on the earth...or something like that.
:shrug:

I heard her speak in Portland, and she claimed that throughout the world, fundamentalism was appealing to people who had been harmed by the modern world and who were therefore susceptible to fantasies of a golden age when everything was right.

She gave herself as an example of someone who has benefited from living in contemporary society, able to live on her own as a single woman and to earn her living as a writer. However, a woman who has to work at a low-paying, unpleasant job AND do all the housework and childcare might look back fondly on her mother's life of doing ONLY the housework and childcare and might blame feminism for "forcing" her to do live a stressful life, not realizing that it was actually economic changes that forced unwilling women into the workplace.

Huge sectors of the American population have never adapted to our loss of economic dominance following WWII. Throughout the 50s and the 60s, one wage earner could buy a house, a car, and put multiple kids through college. That economy has long since vanished, but instead of the people being told the truth about the economy, politicians and the media, have hidden behind pandering to them through fundamentalism.

want to believe they have control of their lives again. If that was the case, they wouldn't turn to Fundy Christianity. To believe you have control over your life means you don't believe in fate or destiny, which they do because everyone has a determined "plan" by God before we are even born.

if we were going for simplicty..then I'd probably agree..I would add that the deterioration in the media has added an element of being uniformed...Marx said this years ago...deprived of information...the regular poor person would be lulled by the easy, fast, seductive call of right-wing ideology than the more truthful (but more complex) ideology of struggle.

One of the easiest cures for loneliness and lack of a social life - join a fundamentalist church.

They really work on making sure everyone is part of the church family and that no one is lonely or left out. If you're going through a hard time in your life, you'll need that structure and acceptance, let alone financial and other forms of support. It's a safety net, in many ways, and then they get talked into other ideas they wouldn't have believed otherwise.

People wanted to find comfort, a simple answer, and a black-and-white world, IMO.

Are you sure that "Christian fundamentalism gives them the false belief that they can control their lives once again." or perhaps does Christian fundamentalism correspond with the belief that they do not control their lives? Perhaps it's more of an "I can't do anything, it's in God's hands" situation

Fundies believe that God and Jesus are in control. They want everyone to be under that control and they are the ones that define what the rules are.

and it can all dismissed with one big "Its in God's hands".

It is in some ones hands but I dare say they are not Gods.

Catch them red handed and they aren't even punished.
Instead they find redemption.

We are facing a far more dangerous enemy here at home, and we are loosing, slowly, the born agains have been taking baby steps.



Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.

Look into the growth of Dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism & realize that there's a Plan. Most of the people being used have no idea of the eventual goal.

The years 1982-1986 marked the period Pat Robertson and radio and televangelists urgently broadcast appeals that rallied Christian followers to accept a new political religion that would turn millions of Christians into an army of political operatives. It was the period when the militant church raised itself from centuries of sleep and once again eyed power.

At the time, most Americans were completely unaware of the militant agenda being preached on a daily basis across the breadth and width of America. Although it was called “Christianity” it can barely be recognized as Christian. It in fact was and is a wolf parading in sheep’s clothing: It was and is a political scheme to take over the government of the United States and then turn that government into an aggressor nation that will forcibly establish the United States as the ruling empire of the twenty-first century. It is subversive, seditious, secretive, and dangerous.

Dominionism is a natural if unintended extension of Social Darwinism and is frequently called “Christian Reconstructionism.” Its doctrines are shocking to ordinary Christian believers and to most Americans. Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written extensively on the subject, warned in 1994 that Dominionism “seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of ‘Biblical Law.’” He described the ulterior motive of Dominionism is to eliminate “…labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.”

www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm

There's a lot more at this link. Don't start if you wish to sleep well tonight.

conspiracy

People could see R-rated movies right in their homes, and when the shock from that wore off, they'd switch over to Pat Robertson who would tell them what they wanted to hear.

I'm telling you, r-rated movies piped right into Grandma's house freaked the shit out of a lot of people.

stay away from that koolaid, ok?

so it is prolific in times of great sorrow and debasement.

But who says it is sweeping the country? I think its dying.

stronger every day.

More generally, it's all the chaos and internalized pre-Enlightenment and pre-Modern beliefs that people have. The transition to the Modern world is difficult attitudewise and economically. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air.

I think you're ignoring the social part of it somewhat, though not intentionally. To function, people have arrange their lives to accept people they considered hostile and alien and opposite to themselves. Lots of foreigners outright, and Arab-Americans and Jewish Americans and Asian-Americans and black Americans, American Indians, and so on. Women who are bossy and not deferential to men. And then the denial/realization that it's people just like themselves are who sell their own group's interests out: managers who sell out their employees and believe in 'company loyalty' as they do the Tooth Fairy, ministers who are just politicians and manipulators, politicians who obey the Money rather than The Cause, men and women who divorce on what seems a whim....

My brother lived in Atlanta a while and said that in his observation the thing the rednecks hate and fear most in the world is: a black man who has money and treats white women well.

see my post #33.

oh what the heck, I'll cut and paste it here:

My family is from Missouri. Back when I was growing up, Missouri was a fairly middle-of-the-road kind of place, the "show-me State" all of that. Nobody talked about religion of politics that much. People kept it to themselves.

In 1980 that all changed. The fundies started coming out of the woodwork.

Now you can't drive across the state without seeing billboards for all kinds of whacko fundie shit.

Everyone in my entire family who's still in Missouri have turned into raving fundie nutjobs.

I can't explain it. I really can't.

A friend of mine (from Oklahoma where he's seen the same thing happen) thinks it started with cable TV. Around 1980 suddenly everybody had R-rated movies being piped into their living rooms. Hell, I remember watching a movie with my pareants when I was about sixteen where suddenly the heroine in the movie was riding a guy, totally naked, and covered in oil, and reached into a bowl of icecubes and put them on his crotch to make him come. I was watching this with my Mom and Dad. I think we were all pretty shocked and embarrassed (and I was turned on as all hell -- I just remembered the name of the movie -- "The Other Side of Midnight").

Anyway, as soon as people started having this sort of thing just appear on their TV screens they FREAKED OUT.

And they have been ever since.

It's a theory, and it's as good as any other I've heard.