The Pakistani Spectator

“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” - Jonathan Swift.

No religion is immune to the dangers of ideological absolutism. By the time the Roman Empire ended the Church was a heavy political player in its own right. It claimed that kings and emperors ruled by its sanction - which they did.

The term fundamentalism was originally coined to describe a defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the US Protestant community in the early part of the 20th century. These religious principles stood in opposition to the modernist movement and espoused the strict adherence to and faith in religious “fundamentals”

In this era, Christian fundamentalism grew from an early 20th century movement. It centered on a series of pamphlets published between 1910 and 1915 titled “The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth”. These writings emphasized the literal truth of the Bible.

After the historic “Scopes Monkey” trial fundamentalism became a more vocal, conservative and reactionary movement. People began calling themselves fundamentalists so as to distinguish themselves from liberal Christians.

Present day America takes pride in its system of governance. It is said that they have a total separation of the church and state. On the contrary evangelists like Bob Jones, Hal Lindsey, John Walvoord, and Jerry Falwell had succeeded in pushing religion and the fundamentalist agenda to the forefront of American politics during the Bush era.

Wielding enormous power, they control the federal government, finance election campaigns and canvass for chosen politicians. Since so much of their ministry revolves around politics, votes if cast for specified candidates is termed akin to saving the voter’s soul. Their myriad representatives dominate the airwaves and their churches engulf entire communities. With a remarkably insane persecution complex taking roots, they help transform society into a smoldering tinderbox of raw religious fervor, a powder keg poised to explode.

Walvoord wrote and published more than thirty books with more than three million copies in print. His New York Times bestseller, “Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis”, sold over 1.5 million copies. When the first Iraq war, Desert Storm, was still in its infancy, Walvoord received a request from the White House for a copy of the book. Reportedly President Bush and his senior staff read it to apparently grasp the importance of Biblical prophecy and how it related to their attack on Iraq.

An excerpt from the book says: “The world today is like a stage being set for a great drama. The major actors are already in the wings waiting for their moment in history. The main stage props are already in place. The prophetic play is about to begin…All the necessary historical developments have already taken place…Since the stage is set for this dramatic climax of the age, it must mean that Christ’s coming for His own is very near. If there ever was an hour when men should consider their personal relationship to Jesus Christ, it is today. God is saying to this generation: “Prepare for the coming of the Lord.”

This fundamentalism, not a recent development, has always been ingrained in American psyche. 52 of the 55 signatories to America’s Declaration of Independence were fundamentalists - deeply orthodox and committed Christians. The remaining three too were keen believers of the Bible and the Christian faith.

Then there is the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which declares “religion” necessary to “good government” and thus to be encouraged through schools. It was also the Congress which formed the American Bible Society immediately after the Declaration of Independence. The Continental Congress voted to purchase 20,000 Bibles for the people.

In 1776, American revolutionary Patrick Henry of “give me liberty or give me death” fame, wrote: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ”.

Thomas Jefferson, third US President and principal author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote these words in his well-worn Bible: “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our creator.” He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society considered by him as his highest and most important role; this though he accomplished the so called triple crown being Secretary of State, Vice President and President.

On July 4, 1821 , President John Quincy Adams said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was that: “It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this by writing: “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: “The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.”

William H McGuffey, named “Schoolmaster of the nation” by President Lincoln said: “The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our nation, on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free Institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. From all these extracts from the Bible, I make no apology.”

He was also the author of ‘McGuffey Reader’, which was used for over a century in American public schools. 125 million copies of lessons such as “Bible the best of classics” and “Religion the only basis of society” were sold.

Of the first 108 universities founded in America , 106 are distinctly Christian. This includes the first one chartered in 1636 - the Harvard University. The first requirement in the original Harvard Student Handbook mandated fluency in Latin and Greek so that when admitted students could study the Scriptures.

“Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States, said: “We have staked the whole future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of us to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

Lithograph images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush deep in prayer were distributed by the presidential prayer team. This team also claims to have organized nearly 3 million prayer warriors on the president’s behalf. Evangelist Pat Robertson said: “God’s blessing is on him (George Bush). It is the blessing of heaven on the emperor”.

We zoom down to present day America and had President Bush telling Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and former foreign minister Nabil Shaath: “I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan,’ and I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.” The joke doing the rounds after the ‘divine mandate’ was: ‘Bush is talking about the God of Oil - not the Holy Trinity of Christianity’.

President Bush had vowed that he would not leave office without ensuring a non-nuclear
Iran. He had probably sought his justifications from misconstrued Biblical prophecies. Let us hope sanity prevails. President Obama, with his promised change, should not follow in the footsteps of his predecessor who justified his actions invoking the will of God, thus believing himself divinely ordained.