Part of this desire for security is the way we've been brought up. After all, as supposed 21st century rational beings, we've been indoctrinated with scientific thought all through our lives. Medieval people reasoned by analogy: phlegm is analogous to water, and water is the opposite of fire, so if we have a stuffy nose, eating some fiery hot spices will clear it up. Modern people analyze: Codeine relieves congestion with a minimum of side effects in 95% of cases, so if you have a head cold, taking some Sudafed is the thing to do. Thus, whereas medieval theologians could deduce how many angels could dance on the head of a pin by elaborating on evidence found in divinely-given books, the modern person demands experiment and deduction, backed up by verifiable proof. First, one must prove the existence of angels; then one must experimentally verify how many will fit on a pin of a given size.

However, what modern, "rational" people fail to understand is just how prevalent non-rationalist thought is in our society. By this, we don't just mean the way we eat up Stephen King novels or the Weekly World News, but the number of people who believe in a literal, charismatic-Protestant interpretation of the Bible, and use this belief to guide their day-to-day lives. The #1 fiction bestseller this summer was Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series, which details the trials and tribulations of a group of people living in the End Times spoken about in the Book of Revelations. Though any attempt to quote a figure of how many belong to this silent majority will, perforce, be inaccurate, the sheer number of white clapboard churches visible in any town of America are a testament to this new "Great Awakening."

The First Amendment ensures the separation of church and state, and rightfully so: The framers of the Constitution had a quite reasonable fear that those whose sense of religion was so strong that they could no longer fit into civil society in Europe, and thus fled to America, would seek to establish a theocracy in the New World—or that the excesses of state religion in Europe would be repeated in the new republic. Too many people today forget that the ancestors of modern evangelical Christian sects were such groups as the Anabaptists who, believing Christ's return to be imminent, took over the German city of Münster in 1534, proclaimed it "God's Republic," and tortured any dissenters to death before being slaughtered themselves by the Catholic and Lutheran forces besieging the city.

Time has not tempered the intolerant tendencies of those who believe themselves to be living in the stream of Biblical narrative. The extent to which faith is still allowed to dictate public policy is frightening. In twenty-first century America, groups of believers still seek to persuade the unbelievers whose very existence is a reproach to their cosmology. For example, Georgia and Alabama schools have been required to place stickers on textbooks saying that evolution is a "theory." Likewise, Kansas, recently elected a conservative new school board that is likely to require the same.

Whereas this sort of policy-dictating might seem limited in effect to a few states, in actuality, such events set into motion waves that affect everyone in the country. As this Corporate Mofo article shows, what a pressure group in one high-profile market demands becomes de facto law for the entire country. It is far easier for the four major textbook publishers simply to leave out some material, than to jeopardize sales throughout the country.

Though it is frightening how the obstinacy of the few can translate into the ignorance of the many, the argument over evolution is, in the long run, inconsequential. It could, if you will, just as easily be about making high school girls take class in a tent in the schoolyard several days a month, so as not to pollute the school with their menstrual blood (as it says in Leviticus 15:19-24). The important thing is that these special interests are capable of organizing, making their influence felt, and exerting their will over others. Their attitudes become the de facto reality even for those who do not share their magical world-view.

The ramifications of such fantasy-thinking on public policy are frightening. To someone with the perspective that current events are a continuation of Biblical history, everything from unrest in the Middle East to the events of September 11, 2001, are signs that we are living in the End Times. Possible war in Iraq (the site of the original Babylon), global warming, or, indeed, any of the daily tragedies that news anchors report with the breathless authority of Biblical prophets-all are assimilated into the matrix. The belief in an end-times or a special destiny is not limited to Nike-wearing comet-worshippers; from Joseph Smith and the Mormons to William Miller and the Jehovah's Witnesses to David Koresh and the Branch Dravidians, millennial movements have been an integral part of the American character.

Furthermore, those whose world-view involves the imminent destruction of the world by supernatural means, and whose egotism promises them everlasting salvation, feel no need to plan for the future. Why conserve natural resources, if God will send manna? Why teach sex education, or the necessity of population control at all? Perhaps Malthusian pressure on natural resources is in God's plan for humanity. Perhaps the worse it gets, the closer we all are to the Mother Ship beaming us up. To such a mindset, there is only the eternal present, perched on the pinnacle of history. This ties in neatly with American consumerist culture: why else would we be living in the most prosperous nation in the history of humanity, if God did not have some special plan for us? Didn't He tell us to do what we wanted to with the Earth after he kicked us out of Eden?

Just as we expect our own universe to be rational, most of us assume other people will act on logically defensible grounds. The greatest failure of liberal thinking in the United States, and the greatest source of consternation for our European friends, is the failure to realize how many people in this country simply don't do this . Rather than basing their support for public policies on logical, cause-and-effect relationships, they believe in using outmoded, superstitious ideas of revealed truth. "God will provide" is one of the most insidious bits of pablum one can bring to the political arena.

This is not to say, of course, that everyone who votes Republican is a born-again Christian; far from it. However, part of the sales strategy of conservative politicians is to appeal to this image, the fantasy of a Norman Rockwell America where everyone grew up in a small, conservative town and goes to church every Sunday. Until such time as progressives provide as united a political front as do conservatives, or at least as compelling a marketing spiel, history will not reverse itself. Rather than realistic family-planning education designed to halt generational downward spirals of poverty, we will have unrealistic "abstinence-based" policies. Rather than conservation of natural resources, we will continue the rape of the natural environment that some see as being condoned in Genesis. And, rather than a sound foreign policy based on a respect for our neighbors on this planet, America will continue to blunder about the world stage, wearing the public face of God's elect nation even as it acts the part of the Beast of Revelations.

Pledge your allegiance . Write editor@corporatemofo.com

Posted August 26, 2002 12:05 AM