Part II (here) showed how US capitalists used evangelical Christianity to attack social welfare programs and promote sexism, anti-communism, the Cold War and the Vietnam War.
In the 1980s and 1990s the emphasis of the Christian Right shifted from opposing social welfare programs (even food stamps) and supporting US wars to promoting sexism. Organizations like Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority,” Phyllis Schlafly’s “Eagle Forum” and James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” promoted male domination of women under the guise of “family values.” These groups applied the usual evangelical view that husbands were the leaders and deciders in families and wives should submit to their husbands. One variation of this idea was that leaders were “servant leaders” of those they lead, so submitting is good for those who submit.
While more and more women began to work for wages (as well as at home), these Christian Right groups said that women should not work outside the home and attacked equal legal rights for women at work. They organized mass campaigns against abortion and homosexuals, seeing these as threats to husband-dominated families.
These groups’ sexist ideas were adopted and promoted by Walmart, the giant retailer supposedly run on Christian principles. Walmart portrayed itself as a family. Walmart founder Walton said that “As servant-leaders, we must do all we can to exceed our associate-partners’ [workers’] expectations daily, one on one.” Like all capitalists, however, Walmart exists by exploiting workers’ labor. Its mostly male managers rule over a mass of poorly paid workers who are mostly women. Both in the US and in Central America Walmart recruits managers extensively from Christian colleges, managers likely to buy into the company’s “family” scam.
The Moral Majority and similar groups got significant support from big capitalists like Texas oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt. Together with Moral Majority leader Tim LaHaye, Hunt formed the secretive Council for National Policy in 1981. Leaked membership lists show that this group has contained almost all of the leaders of the Christian Right, including Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway and Christian fascists like Trump advisor Steve Bannon. The CNR brings together right-wing activists and the capitalists that fund them. It interviewed the Republican presidential candidates and gave Trump a “thumbs up.”
Christian Liberals
It is not only right-wing religion that serves US capitalism. US rulers constantly rely on ministers, especially black ministers, to hold back militant action and prevent protest from turning into rebellion or revolution. Liberal ministers urge people to pray, reject violence and vote for Democrats.
Like all religions, US Protestantism misleads workers. Right-wing versions defend capitalism, promote sexism and endorse the policies and wars of the US Empire. It discourages people from fighting for a better future by denying that progress is possible or insisting that religious practices are the only way to achieve it. Liberal religion sometimes involves people in opposing racism and poverty, helping the homeless, etc., but it also preaches reformism and pacifism.
Belief that history is in God’s hands does not help the masses, but undermines our efforts to fight our way out of the hell of capitalism. The idea that prophecy and sacred books contain real knowledge is refuted by the fact that those who interpret them can never agree about what they mean, and often change their interpretations to suit their politics, as Falwell did. Communists understand that knowledge comes from practice and from theories proved and improved by practice. Religious ideologies don’t enlighten us. They keep us in the power of the capitalists, who create and change religious ideas and movements to suit their interests. Religions can be bent to the rulers’ needs precisely because they are not derived from reality.
In communism the suffering, oppression and social divisions that attract people to religion will end. Communism will mobilize the masses into a worldwide community that overcomes the corruptions of capitalism and provides the basis for great advances in human culture and values. Like racism and sexism, religious ideology will not disappear at once or without ideological struggle. With history in our own hands, however, the masses can use real knowledge to create the real millennium.
Further reading:
Frances Fitzgerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America.
Kevin Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.
Clyde Wilcox and Carin Robinson, Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics
Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise
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