Born Again , livre ebook

Born Again
Born Again
The Christian Right Globalized
JENNIFER S. BUTLER
First published 2006 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Jennifer S. Butler 2006
The right of Jennifer S. Butler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-10 0 7453 2243 3 hardback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2243 8 hardback ISBN-10 0 7453 2242 5 paperback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2242 1 paperback ISBN-13 978 1 7837 1583 1 ePub ISBN-13 978 1 7837 1584 8 Mobi
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Purposes of the Book

My Research Methods

Guiding Themes

Chapter Overview
1
Born Again: Three Reasons the Christian Right is Globalizing

Reason 1: Secularism (Despite Predictions) Never Completely Banished Religion

Reason 2: Demographic and Political Shifts Favor Conservative Religious Movements

Reason 3: The Rise of Global Civil Society as a Political Opportunity for Conservatives
2
The Christian Right’s Challenge to Global Democracy

Stage 1: Symbolic Protest (2000–01) – Arising to Fight for Faith and Family at Beijing+5

Stage 2: Insiders (2001-Present) – The “New Sheriff in Town” Comes to the Commission on the Status of Women

Stage 3: A Proactive Agenda on the Issue of Family

The Future of Global Civil Society
3
Assembling a Pro-Family Alliance

From Rome: The Conservative Catholic Network

From Salt Lake City, Utah: The Mormon Network

From the American Heartland: Conservative Evangelicals

Conclusion
4
A Global Religious Right? The Prospects and Challenges of International Interfaith Alliances

Attack of the Clones: The Potential of Christian Right Global Partnerships

Neoconservatives and Evangelicals: Towards a Moralist Foreign Policy

Europe’s Problem

World Youth Alliance – Winning the Next Generation

Challenges Ahead

Conclusion
Conclusion: Six Strengths of the Christian Right’s Organizing Methods

1
Openness to New Strategic Alliances: Secular Conservatives Reached Out to Religious Communities, While Secular Progressives Ignored Them

2
Openness to New Organizing Techniques: The Contrast Between Conservative Innovation and Progressive Passivity

3
Openness to New Technology

4
Openness to Young People: Conservatives Mentor New Leaders, While Progressives Have Interns

5
Strategic Funding: Conservatives Fund Infrastructure, While Progressives Fund Causes and Education

6
Rhetoric: Conservatives Speak to People’s Passions, While Progressives Speak in Academic Abstractions

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank Jean Hardisty and Political Research Associates who first encouraged me to write about this topic, as well as James Paul of the Global Policy Forum for publishing my first article. I especially thank Roger van Zwanenberg at Pluto for his energetic support and enthusiasm.
I am indebted to Kirstin Isgro and Glenn Zuber for their insights on early drafts and challenging my thinking on many of the issues in this book. I could not have finished this book without the support of dedicated research assistants: Christina Holder, Christie Brewer Boyd, Rachel Pederson and Ricarda Velez Negron, all of whom also brought unique insights to this work. I’m grateful to Sara Lisherness and the Peacemaking Program of the Presbyterian Church for faithfully supporting my work.
I am also grateful to Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, who graciously opened doors for me to interview many of his colleagues.
And to Max Café at 123 rd and Amsterdam for coffee, croissants, and a place to focus.
Introduction
T HE FIRST TIME MEMBERS OF the Christian Right appeared at a United Nations women’s conference in 2000, they planned their entrance to maximize their exposure. Like Jake and Elwood in the film, The Blues Brothers (1980), they were on a mission from God and they wore the dark suits to prove it. In March 2000, I was sitting in the balcony of a United Nations conference hall with other leaders in the global women’s movement listening intently to the opening speeches of the Beijing+5 conference, given by government representatives. U.N. staff and NGO leaders (representatives of non-profit or activist organizations) sat below us in the plenary hall. As I listened to a speech by Charlotte Bunch, a leader in the women’s movement, a crowd of men from Mormon and Catholic groups suddenly began streaming through the backdoors of the conference hall as if on cue. They represented a contrast in every way from the traditional crowd of activists that attended this kind of conference to observe and lobby governments.
The newcomers were mostly male, white, young, conservative, and religious, while we were female, (mostly) middle-aged, racially diverse, liberal, and (mostly) secular, or at least private about our religious beliefs. It’s worth mentioning how the young group of men and women stood out visually in the crowd in almost every way, because it gives you an appreciation of how their mere presence at first unnerved the old-timers like myself. Many of the American women at the conference favored colorful, free-flowing dresses and carried book bags picked up at previous U.N. world conferences. The book bags were covered with the symbols and slogans of women’s empowerment, and were stuffed full of conference flyers. Their hair was often graying; many had joined the global women’s movement in the 1960s and 1970s. When a group of young, conservatively dressed men suddenly enters this arena, they can easily cause a stir. The men had a contrasting look reflecting their emergence from a very different culture. They wore professional business suits like the ones bankers and lawyers prefer. Their hair was short and clean-cut. The few women among them wore power suits and perfectly coifed hair. All of them wore bright campaign buttons emblazoned with a single word: “motherhood.” One of the young men on the ground floor approached the platform and just glowered at Charlotte Bunch, as if the intensity of his gaze might silence her. He and his compatriots had come to stop, or at least register a protest against, the women they believed had attacked motherhood. They planned to do so through symbolic protests and infiltrating U.N. conferences.
This dramatic entrance proved to be only the first of a series of unusual spectacles that we saw during that conference. The men employed religious practices and symbols to defeat the feminist threat and that choice of tactics only exacerbated the underlying tensions. If they had asked the women they now opposed about their background, the men would have learned that many had actually grown up in religious households, but they remembered when all the mainstream options (Jewish, Catholic, and mainline Protestant) had prohibited women leaders. Many of the women who stayed in those communities often felt estranged and at odds with the leadership. The aggressive use of religious symbols only made a difficult situation worse. After one meeting concluded, the women streaming out of a conference room found themselves surrounded by robed monks with full, long beards. There was no warmth in their face as they softly prayed for the soul of their captured conference participant. One woman told me she only managed to get away by slipping into a bathroom. The experience proved so unnerving that she sought counseling afterward. The monks also made their presence known in subtler, but no less unnerving ways. In some meetings, the monks sat in the back of the room silently moving their lips in prayer while others made sure to arrive early to that they could sit in the chairs in the form of a cross.
When conference participants witnessed these scenes, submerged anxieties developed into apocalyptic fears for the future. A committed feminist who has read her history will tell you that she often wonders if Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) will become reality in her own time. In Atwood’s harrowing story, a nuclear cataclysm leads to a militaristic society where women and their aspirations are violently suppressed. Advocates of women’s rights often wonder if the gains of this generation might be reversed – and when chanting monks pray to save your feminist soul such fears are heightened. When I first told people I was going to write an essay on the origins of these groups, and interview their leaders, the question that many women asked me – “Do you fear for your life?” – came from this deep fear of what the future might hold.
Christian Right groups are also targeting NGO caucuses for takeover. When government representatives met to debate new treaties and agreements, NGO caucuses or subcommittees often met simultaneously. Over the next two years the Christian Right coalition grew larger, more confident and more professional. By 2001 their man George W. Bush was in the White House. There was clearly a complete change in conservative organizing tactics by the time the U.N. Special Session on Children was held in the spring of 2001. Christian Right NGOs became more strategic and more understated.
For example, at the second preparatory meeting for the Special Session on Children, Christian Right youths actually took over the leadership of the Youth Caucus. These young leaders had first traine