Barbarians at the Gates

How sad for Jerry Falwell that he died before the rapture was to take place. He assured us that the rapture is imminent--wouldn't it suck for him if the rapture happens, oh, say, this Thursday? If he had just been able to hang on for two more days...

I remember, back in the seventies when I was a teenage fundamentalist, coming across a faux post-rapture newspaper that some fundie Christians had printed; the paper reported with horror on the front page that millions of people had suddenly disappeared. Funnily enough, one of the people this fake newspaper reported to have have disappeared in the rapture was an unnamed President of the United States. The President at that time happened to be Richard Nixon. Make up your own joke here.

Part of the fun of the rapture for fundamentalists would have to be that it would serve as a kind of vindication. Once in heaven, the True Believers could look down on the world that was left behind and say, "Ha Ha", to all those doubters and skeptics they had lived and worked with who didn't buy the fundamentalist line and were now forced to deal with mass disappearances that served as the miraculous proof that the fundies were right after all.

The standard theology that I was taught back in the 1970s was that humanity was hopelessly depraved, and that this depravity was leading to an ever worsening situation that would culminate in the end of the world. This cynical view of humanity and the fate of the world dominated fundamentalist thinking. It saw humanity as being full of sinners and non-Christians who were destroying the world, and at the same time threatening and seducing true Christians with temptations and evil at every turn. According to this view, the world--and certainly Western culture--was becoming increasingly immoral. This always seemed to be especially borne out by changing sexual mores--books and movies were full of sexual depravity, people were having premarital sex, and so on. Christians had to take pains to avoid watching such movies or reading such books, lest they succumb to lustful thoughts. Fundamentalists always seem to have a particular problem with human sexuality.

These true believers saw themselves as an embattled minority, fighting what was in the short run a losing cause that could only be redeemed by direct Divine action. Falwell himself epitomized this view. Among the many offensive things that he did and said, his claim that "pagans", "abortionists", "gays and lesbians", and others whom he disapproved of were responsible in some way for the attacks of 9/11 was certainly one of the worst. But say what you will, it did reflect the prevalent view among his ilk that they lived in a world of human depravity.

The funny thing is, these people now have one of their own in power in the White House. You'd think that this whole "barbarians at the gates" paranoia wouldn't make much sense when one of your minions controls the most powerful country in the world. Their views were, or at least seemed to be in 2004, in political ascendancy in American politics. So how is it that the barbarians were taking over? In reality, the whole idea of Falwell's "Moral Majority" would seem to defy the logic of the impending end of the world. If you believe that the world cannot be redeemed from its evil, that the world is getting worse and is hurtling irrevocably towards its own self-destruction, what is the point in organizing in order to alter the political landscape in a way that you think will make things better? Isn't that a monumentally counterproductive waste of effort? Aren't you just trying to stave off the return of your Lord? But there you have it.

The best thing about my own liberation from the fundamentalist straitjacket was that I was able to view culture in terms of something other than this narrow-minded us-versus-them mentality. Certainly, there is still much of American culture that I don't have much use for. But no longer do I feel like the barbarians are at the gates, that I am constantly having to resist temptation, that the devil is trying to seduce me. Is American culture sometimes, or even often, stupid? Sure. Is the current world situation depressing, what with global warming, war, and the declining bee population? Sure. Are these world problems due to Satan, inherent human depravity, or evils that are tempting me on the road to hell? I don't think so.

So now, after all is said and done, Jerry Falwell has gone the way of all flesh. His hate-mongering continues, unfortunately, without him. Also living on are the eschatological hopes of millions of fundamentalist Christians for a violent end to the world that will usher in their Lord. Jerry Falwell's death should serve as a reminder to all of us that our hope lies not in hatred or bigotry or a hoped-for final act of carnage that would usher in the rule of Christ, but in seeking first the Kingdom of God--a kingdom built on love and universal inclusion.