ETERNAL HOSTILITY: THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THEOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY

BY FREDERICK CLARKSON  (PUBLISHED 1997 BY COMMON COURAGE PRESS, MONROE, MAINE.  ISBN: 1-56751-08804) 277 PAGES

The Radical Religious Right (RRR) constitutes the biggest single threat to democracy and our civil liberties in the United States today.  The fact that most Americans do not recognize this is indicative of how successful they have been in brainwashing a nation.  If we are to to counteract this menace, we must educate ourselves as well as the general public as to the real nature of fundamentalist religion.

Frederick Clarkson’s book, Eternal Hostility, made our task just a bit easier.  Although now two decades old, it remains a truly invaluable source book of information on the RRR, supplying us with a history of the movement, profiles of the various organizations and their leaders, their agendas and tactics, and their strengths and weaknesses.  The appendices include a booklist and a list of organizations dedicated to opposing their agenda.

The success of the RRR is due to a multitude of factors.  Among these are the Christian revisionists, who re-interpret American history (and religious history in general) to dovetail with their own views.  The Right’s blatantly dishonest stealth campaigns and smear tactics are also discussed.  Most importantly, the Right has managed to take over the Republican party and introduce religiously based legislation that, in addition to being contrary to our non-theistic Constitution, serves no secular purpose.  Together, these and other factors serve to make the RRR the single most powerful and dangerous political faction on the contemporary scene.

As Clarkson makes clear, one of  the most significant catalysts in the growth of this movement has been the lunatic fringe of the right wing: The Christian Reconstructionists and Christian Identity groups in particular.  The Reconstructionists want to abandon the Constitution and replace it with biblical law—complete with death penalty sentences for such “transgressions” as witchcraft (how this will be determined is not made clear), a rebellious son, and of course, any woman daring to have an abortion.

Clarkson tells us that “Christian Identity holds that Anglo-Saxons are the lost tribes of Israel, and that blacks, Jews and other non-white or non-Christian groups constitute inferior, satanic ‘mud people’ who will ultimately be wiped out, and that god’s people, the white Aryans, will rule the world.” (pg. 154)  The connection between fundamentalist Christianity and fascism is laid bare for all to see.

By failing to point out this lunatic fringe and their connections to the “mainstream” Religious Right and the politicians who kowtow to their every wish and demand, the American press has reneged in its responsibilities to inform the American public, and has thus contributed to the growth and successes of the RRR.  This is particularly ironic, given the Right’s constant harping against the “liberal press.”

The chapter on the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification church is of particular interest because this sect is rarely mentioned in connection with the Christian right wing.  Yet as Clarkson makes abundantly clear, their influence has been quite far-reaching.  Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah, sought to impose a totalitarian theocratic state on the entire world—with himself at the helm, of course.  Moon (1920-2012) was no stranger to controversy, having been convicted in 1982 for filing false income tax returns in addition to other irregularities.  Despite this, his church counted among its adherents the Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Ralph Abernathy, and Neil Bush, brother of one president and uncle of another.  Clarkson discusses the church’s mysterious financial supporters, its connection to various intelligence agencies, and its involvement with the World Anti-Communist league (WACL), an international alliance organization composed of different fascist and Nazi groups.

Two well-known books on the RRR are also discussed: James Hunter’s Culture Wars and Stephen Carter’s The Culture of Disbelief.  Despite the professed neutrality of both authors, Clarkson demonstrates how both of these books provide significant misinformation about the Right and their agendas.  He exposes Hunter as a supporter of the RRR and shows how Carter has not even studied the movement; Carter doesn’t even consider the threat posed by the Right to Constitutional democracy and civil liberties, but seems more concerned with the imagined dangers of “creeping secularism.” (pg. 163-164)

In summary, Eternal Hostility covers just about every conceivable aspect of the RRR, and may be the best overall book yet produced on the subject.  Clarkson’s book was quite prescient in its defense of the separation of Church and State, given the subsequent election of a Christian fundamentalist president and his “faith based” initiatives.  This underscores the only problem with the book: it is badly in need of revision as the situation has gotten progressively worse since its publication.  Even so, it remains an invaluable guide to the origins of religious fundamentalism and the threat it poses to our survival as a free nation.