From about 2004-2008, it seemed like the political battle lines were being drawn around Christian fundamentalism and the (professed) moral standards of straight, white, suburban, and Republican attendees of America’s mega-churches. Obviously this was largely because GW Bush was a born-again Christian, and he gave religion an even stronger national platform than usual. He even claimed to talk with God, folks. The Iraq War was his “crusade,” Congress threw the brakes on everything to intervene in the Terry Schiavo case, and there was a widespread aversion to stem-cell research. Meanwhile, the anti-Bush libs fought on the culture-war terrain against religion, producing for example the book and documentary With God On Their Side (2004), the 2005 book American Theocracy, the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, the 2008 Bill Maher movie Religiulous, etc. I remember concern at the time over Congresspeople’s apocalyptic beliefs that Israel must be protected for prophetic Biblical reasons. (This has re-emerged a little bit recently because of the genocide in Gaza).
After Bush left office, it seemed like this entire terrain of the culture war evaporated. No crazy fundamentalist in office, no concern over religiosity in America. So, I was wondering what this means in hindsight. Christian religious fundamentalism had its moment, but does that mean it only rose to prominence because annoying libs, media elites, and the chattering classes talked about it with respect to Bush? As in, they were snide about it, because haha, Bush is legitimately a dumb-ass? If so, where did the 2004-2008 left enter into this debate? Clearly they’re not supporting Bush, so they must’ve linked arms with libs to say that the Moral Majority-flavor of Christianity was bad.
But: what characterizes the left’s interpretation of religion now? Have Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, Cenk Uygur, and Reddit Atheists made the criticism of religion irredeemably cringe? Does the left not care about religion anymore as one of the fronts in the “war of position” against the bourgeoisie? If so, is that because things like Occupy and Sanders’ democratic socialism, which were nascent and unthinkable in 2004, steered lefty concerns towards a more material direction? Or, has the left viewed religion as incidental and co-optable in the struggle towards a classless society?
That’s a lot of stray questions, but I had been thinking about this for awhile and wanted to get the random thoughts down.
I have a very different experience of the post-Bush years. While not necessarily as visible in the media, Evangelical Christianity continued to get more Republican and there was a strong evangelical-flavored rightward swing in downballot races as they successfully organized around local politics. Kim Davis and the religious opposition to gay marriage after the Supreme Court decision had their little field day.
Meanwhile, New Atheism was fragmenting because the waning cultural dominance of Christianity meant that it was easier for non-crotchety old white guys to become more visible in the movement without worrying as much about backlash, leading to an ouster of sex pests and creeps that anticipated the MeToo trend by a few years and conflict between the increasingly crotchety old white guys, who began to embrace conservatism in reaction to the erosion of their positions of privilege and shifting mores. I think the conservative wing and its incredibly loud and obnoxious YouTubers is what leftists tend to label “reddit Atheism,” but it seems like folks are willing throw the term at anyone who voices a critique of religion without being willing to be polite about it. There are still plenty of people in movement Atheism who remain at least anticonservative in their politics and the ongoing marriage of Christianity (notably, not just evangelical Christianity) to the Republican party isn’t going anywhere, so it shouldn’t be controversial or cringe to continue to point out how serving capital is in the DNA of modern Christianity and the two systems have coevolved to be mutually reinforcing and is probably a good way to get liberal atheists on board with socialism.