The Religious Right Self-Destructs

By Rabbi David Eidensohn

 

 

            In a previous piece, we discussed the failing of the Religious Right, despite its tens of millions of people, to defeat the radical Gay Lobby. We mentioned three fights: sodomy legislation, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the removal of the Ten Commandments from an Alabama Courthouse, and the refusal, at least now, of a major company to distribute Mel Gibson’s film, Passion.

We asked why the Religious Right is not doing what it should be doing: winning battles for moral America and the family. (You may wish to refer to the previous article, at our website www.gendercentral.com. It is entitled The Religious Right in Three Fights.)

There are tens of millions of deeply religious Americans, mostly Christians. They are well organized; at least, they could be well organized.

Religion is a powerful thing. The Religious Right has never learned to use it properly. Remember when Pat Robertson defeated Bush Senior in the Wisconsin primary? Pat’s powerful army was just getting started. Then, Robertson began talking in ways that turned off even his own followers.

Today, the Religious Right is struggling. The army is there. However, our people see the failures and have little hopes for recovery. The faithful are frustrated. Some are now doing things that will lead to extreme reaction and further decline. Yet, we still have time. We can turn it around.

In fact, there is no way that a tiny minority of gays can so bulldoze tens of millions of religious people. Those tens of millions of people, the family people, are destroying themselves. The Gay Lobby could never do it alone.

What we have today is a frightening dance to the death being played out between the anti-religious element and the Religious Right. It goes like this. The left attacks and wins something. The right is frightened and aroused. What should it do? It fights but cannot reverse the gains of the left. Frustrated, the right has three paths.

One path, taken by some in the religious community, is to get out. Despairing of returning to power with traditional values, these religious people change with the times, and accept the dictates of the left. An example is the Episcopalians who chose a gay bishop.

Another path is for religious people to see atheists gaining power and to say, “Why should this country be atheistic? Let us make it Christian.”

Still another path is for religious people to say, “Let us defeat the left in a secular manner, similar to what the Right to Life people did so successfully.”

Many people in the religious community have made peace with the Gay Lobby. This is the first path. This of course strengthens the gay lobby in the Dance of Death for religion in America.

Step two, remember, is for people to say, “If they can make America atheistic, we can make it Christian.” This is a triumph for the Gay Lobby, because they claim that religious people want to dominate government and destroy the freedoms of many people. Any talk about making America a Christian country is music to the ears of the Gay Lobby.

In this group is an element bitterly opposed to failure, so much so that it refuses to accept the authority of the Federal courts, for instance. The Gay Lobby isolates its enemy and rejoices. Now the gays are in control and the religious people are in the closet!

Step three is to battle the Gay Lobby politically, not religious people fighting as a religion, but in a secular mode. Very few people are doing this. Many of them, such as me, do so. Our goal is to emulate the Right to Life party and its brilliant successes.

 One pro-gay group, People for the American Way, has a list of enemies. I am number two. In the first two selections, there is nobody from the Religious Right. The left isn’t afraid of the Religious Right spouting religion. They are afraid of people like me who speak secular language. (Number one is NARTH, the conservative therapists. Boy, am I upset!)

Some religious leaders are top activists in family values. However, many who struggle in the street at the political level are pretty lonely and beleaguered. I will not detail the gory details because people are sensitive, but the situation for activists is appalling, even those working for religious organizations.

When we fight as a religion, we preach to the converted. We cannot reach beyond the limited believers, however, because those who do not believe do not want to hear religious messages about social matters.

Most Americans are not with us when we speak in the name of a religion. They would listen if we explained our thoughts in secular terms. This is what the Right to Life people do, and they win, win, win, while the Religious Right fighting for family values lose, lose, lose.

            We must fight with facts, and we cannot begin our battle until we understand completely what the enemy is. Know your enemy! This does not mean we know his name, organization, or what he says to the media. Know your enemy means to analyze closely his strengths. Why is he dangerous? What are his assets? What are his weak spots? Identify these, and then reply, with facts, with cool analyses, and answer his points.

The political and cultural wars are fought with words. The Gay Lobby, like the Communists and Nazis before it, is a focused group of fanatics. They study and proceed scientifically, systematically. They make plans, issue manifestos, and work towards specific goals. Years or decades later, they control us, and we ask, “What happened?”

What happened is that we did not study them carefully. We did not know their strengths and our weaknesses. Therefore, we lost.

The Communists and Nazis were the most vicious butchers, but they did not advertise as such. They found a weakness in society. They hammered away at it until they convinced more and more people to follow them. Ultimately, they destroyed their enemies and conquered entire countries.

The rabbi of Brisk said, “Why do the wicked win and we lose? Because the wicked (Communists) pursue lies with true effort, and we pursue truth with a false effort.”

The churches have to support churches. Fighting the gays is only one item of a hundred. We need a separate organization just to fight gays, nothing else. If we are not focused, we fail. It is that simple.

We must write our position so strongly and so honestly that the most anti person will respect our position, and so that people in the middle will agree with us. If we honestly present our position, and don’t try tricks or “advocacy” writing, our most bitter enemy will respect us. Why? When we respect them, and their intelligence and decency by telling them all that is in our heart in a rational way, they will respond, at least many of them will. One of the major hippy atheist writers is now pro-life.

We must reach the middle. We must explain ourselves to our enemies. We must defang their writers.

Alternatively, if we speak only to our own religious followers, we will thrill the believers and embolden the enemy.

An example of all this is the Gibson movie and two articles in World Net Daily. Although I have no dog in this fight, I use it as an example of how the Religious Right is clobbered.

Many people protest Mel Gibson’s Passion. A major distributor refused to distribute it. This incensed many people who feel that if anti-Christian movies and music are condoned in America, why not the Passion? The objectors reply that art and music does not incite. However, the Passion is likely to provoke anger and hate.

The Religious Right presents two articles to defend Gibson. One is from Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the head of Towards Tradition, a movement of Religious Right Christians and Jews. The other is from Elizabeth Farah, the wife and co-publisher with her husband Joseph of the prominent Internet daily World Net Daily.

You can look high and low, but you will not find such fine people. Rabbi Lapin is my friend. I asked him to write the article! He did so together with a dear friend of mine who is a genius. The Farahs, of course, are genuine heroes to the Jewish community and to anyone interested in honesty, values, and good reporting. And yet, I completely disagree with their defense of Gibson. I am sure, that after all is said and done, nothing personal will remain but good feelings! (Actually, I sent this article to the rabbi who helped Rabbi Lapin write his defense of Gibson. The rabbi made some suggestions and I accepted them. However, regarding the basic thrust we are poles apart.)

First, let us quote Elizabeth Farah in her column (World Net Daily www.wnd.com 8/27/03) Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’: Most offensive film ever made. She defends the film, but introduces it as offensive. To her credit, she explains exactly, with utter clarity a) what the movie is about b) why some people object to it and c) why she feels these objections are wrong. Technically, then, this is a very good article, although you can agree or disagree with her conclusions and beliefs.

In her seven pages, I do not remember any name-calling, only detailed quotes and deep and sincere religious feeling. She worked very hard on that article. I have to commend her for that, even if I may have some comments or corrections. One more thing. Her article, intensely religious with all of the trimming, nowhere frightened me. I felt, despite the incredible differences in religious ideas, as an honored guest treated with respect as I read it.

Rabbi Lapin's column, on the other hand, is only three pages. Nowhere does he state clearly what the movie shows. Nowhere does he explain honestly why people object to it. His column is heavy on advocacy technique. Most of it has nothing to do with the issue.

However, when you finish his column, if you are a believer, you shout for joy. Somebody has taken on the disgusting heathens who hate religion. Somebody has spent seven paragraphs spitting mud at Jews in various positions either who insult Catholics or who refuse to condemn artwork offensive to Catholics.

In fact, that is all Rabbi Lapin does. He calls names. The believers will shout for joy, but others will turn sullen.

Rabbi Lapin presents the issues about the Passion as a battle between the atheist Jews who hate religion and the good religious Christians. In his entire article, there is not one good word about Jews. Seven paragraphs out of fourteen in the entire article, half of it, name and blame Jews and call protestors names.

None of the people he names has anything to do with Passion. The Brooklyn Museum episode was about an artist who insulted a Catholic deity. Many Jews were either silent or stood up for artistic freedom. Does this have anything to do with Passion, a movie that surely has powerful potential for actual incitement? No.

Rabbi Lapin then dumps on the Jews who did not protest evil rap music. Does that have anything to do with Passion? Not really. However, Rabbi Lapin is playing to the believers. They want to hear the rabbi slam their enemies, those who do not join the culture wars.

According to Rabbi Lapin, Jews who do not protest this or that artistic exercise which does not incite, may not protest a movie that may turn millions of people into anti-Semites. Rabbi, this will just not do.

In his short article, Rabbi Lapin calls the Jews and those who protest Passion many names. They are:

1)                    Lacking moral legitimacy

2)                    Recklessly ill-advised

3)                    Shockingly imprudent

4)                    Not only wrong, but stupid

To understand just how false this is, we must read Elizabeth Farah’s article on Passion. She describes the movie as:

1)                    The only movie ever made to show the horrifying brutality of the precrucifixion

2)                    the victim was beaten unrecognizable (her italics) by Jews

3)                    the single-most graphic depiction of a true-life torture ever filmed

Now you understand what people are complaining about, and realize Passion’s enormous potential for incitement. Elizabeth tells it honestly, unlike Rabbi Lapin who presents it like Alan Dershowitz defending O.J. Simpson. How does Elizabeth Farah defend the movie?

She says several things, again, in her scholarly way, quoting extensively about her religious beliefs and explaining them in her own words. Here are some quotes in italics with my comments in regular type:

1)                    God categorically declares that no man can earn this salvation with good deeds. We are universally and individually altogether too sinful to pay the price. We have to accept that Christ is the Son of God and died for our sins.

Does this mean that Jews will go to hell?

Will this article win battles for the Religious Right? The Gay Lobby is salivating at this article.

2)                    Jesus was offensive to all who were unwilling or not yet ready to believe his message.

Is that why we should have religion in public schools and courtrooms?

3)                    Many people today feel particularly offended by Jesus’ claim to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” and that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

That’s right. Those who do not believe that a mortal, any mortal, has the right to declare himself god, don’t accept this. Those who believe that G-d gave the Law at Sinai and declared His eternal love of Israel reject this.

4) Elizabeth quotes approvingly the Gospel “I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Talk about family values!

5)This  film must be reviled for its lack of condemnation for those who were responsible for Christ’s death.

Elizabeth, we must do something about those Jews. What do you suggest?

6)Corrupt Jewish religious leaders whipped up the primarily Jewish mob, to demand Jesus’ death

Why were they corrupt? Your deity threatened them if they did reject their religion. That makes them corrupt?

7) The Old Testament prophecied the crucifixion.

Source? I have studied the Torah fifty years and never saw a passage like that.

Her article sounds great to the believers. But for others, a piece like this shows that those who oppose religion in government, or religious values, are right.

We know that nobody loves Jews as much as Joseph Farah/Elizabeth/Rabbi Lapin do. And yet, with this kind of an article, we are not assured. 

This brings us to the biggest problem.

If this is religion, it will never affect the American government, and its influence will decline. The gays can just dance and taste our end when we talk like this. Precisely because of such attitudes, since the middle of Bush senior’s Presidency, almost no religious right purists worked in the White House, although many openly gay people and gay activists hold very high positions, even under Bush, Jr.

In recent months, the family-values religious people have antagonized an important ally, the neo-cons. Important conservative publications such as the New York Post, Buckley’s National Review, and the Washington Times have published pro-gay articles. They used to be our friends. Now our army is much smaller. With articles like this, it will grow even smaller.

Failure will simply incense the remaining faithful to write more articles like the above, and to antagonize more people, and lose more battles, until the end. It is not far away, unless we change, and begin using the power of the populace to win.

Mel, the next movie will probably be about the crucifixion of the family lobby. On the other hand, perhaps a crucifixion is not necessary. The gays only need a few more articles, a few more movies by the faithful, and it is all over.