An Unmitigated Disaster

I have only lately begun to recognize the Religious Right for the threat that it is--not only to the future of our moribund democracy but to world peace. Sure, I knew that Billy Graham had been Richard Nixon's "spiritual advisor" during the Vietnam war, that Pat Robertson had been a (risible) Presidential candidate, that Jerry Falwell was a sanctimonious jerk, that Ralph Reed was taking money under the table, etc., but I thought that their power and influence in Washington was fairly marginal. I also thought that they and their followers would have scruples about playing hard-ball politics and, in time, would regret that they had ever dirtied their hands in that business. I did not realize that they were laying the foundation for a new generation of Machiavellian Evangelicals whose interpretation of Christianity is compatible with the advocacy of violence, sexism, unbridled capitalism, and every form of bigotry imaginable. I let the historical associations of evangelicalism with pietism color my perceptions and blind me to the virulent toxicity of this theo-political movement. What an unmitigated disaster.