Christian Nation by Frederic Rich was released this summer. The premise is that in 2008 McCain/Palin won the presidency. McCain dies during the first year. Things go from bad to worse.
First my complaints. The characters are flat, just clumsy tools to get Rich’s point across. The female characters are less than flat. To use a geometry metaphor, they are mere lines to the two-dimensional male planes. Another cringe inducer is the exaltation of Mayor Bloomberg as a secular saint. The dialogue is what I would expect in a “purpose-driven” novel.
Despite my sympathy with Rich’s perspective, it’s impossible to avoid comparisons with Ayn Rand’s novels, The Turner Diaries and I presume The Left Behind series and Glenn Beck’s novels–books that value the readers’ instruction over their entertainment. Rich wants to inspire action, not deepen the human experience. But I knew that going in. Just glancing at the cover tells you this is a polemic in a novel’s clothing.
But for all this, Christian Nation doesn’t deserve to be dumped in the didactic dustbin with the aforementioned and their ilk. Polemic novels can be great. Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, which is Christian Nation’s inspiration, is a great novel.
First my complaints. The characters are flat, just clumsy tools to get Rich’s point across. The female characters are less than flat. To use a geometry metaphor, they are mere lines to the two-dimensional male planes. Another cringe inducer is the exaltation of Mayor Bloomberg as a secular saint. The dialogue is what I would expect in a “purpose-driven” novel.
Despite my sympathy with Rich’s perspective, it’s impossible to avoid comparisons with Ayn Rand’s novels, The Turner Diaries and I presume The Left Behind series and Glenn Beck’s novels–books that value the readers’ instruction over their entertainment. Rich wants to inspire action, not deepen the human experience. But I knew that going in. Just glancing at the cover tells you this is a polemic in a novel’s clothing.
But for all this, Christian Nation doesn’t deserve to be dumped in the didactic dustbin with the aforementioned and their ilk. Polemic novels can be great. Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, which is Christian Nation’s inspiration, is a great novel.
Lewis’s novel allows you to see the fascism and brutality lying just beneath the surface in your friends and neighbors. Given the right political climate people you know and get along with can become your torturers. Lewis conveyed the humiliation and dismay of having the dumb thugs in your town become your bosses and executioners. The Enlightenment values enshrined in the Constitution are unnatural and fragile. They need vigorous protection.
Christian Nation extrapolates from what is already known about the Christian Right in America. Rich provides numerous quotes from the movement’s leaders that explicitly call for the theocracy in the novel. Those who insist the U.S. is a Christian nation and seek to install the Bible as the law of the land cannot compromise. There are tens of millions who seek to make every American submit to their interpretation of biblical law. And they’ve been working for decades to achieve this goal.
Christian Nation extrapolates from what is already known about the Christian Right in America. Rich provides numerous quotes from the movement’s leaders that explicitly call for the theocracy in the novel. Those who insist the U.S. is a Christian nation and seek to install the Bible as the law of the land cannot compromise. There are tens of millions who seek to make every American submit to their interpretation of biblical law. And they’ve been working for decades to achieve this goal.
One aim is to have theocrats occupy elite positions of power. There are political wings of the movement, as shown in Jeff Sharlet’s The Family. They are also active in our military academies, as the scandal at the Air Force Academy has shown. We have retired General Boykin. While serving as Under Secretary of Defense during the Bush administration, Boykin made news for comments that showed his theocratic understanding of the War on Terror and the U.S.’s role as God’s favorite country. Now he is vice president of the Family Research Council.
There is also the homeschooling movement. Fears of evolution, homosexual indoctrination, birth control and other anathema, millions of Christians choose to educate their children at home within the theocratic bubble. They form support groups, purchase textbooks and succeed in raising a generation of children who can become adults without ever having to encounter a single person who thinks the ideas that people coexisted with dinosaurs six thousand years ago and that abortion causes breast cancer are absurd. Here’s Jerry Falwell on the subject:
"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them."
The theocrats have millions on their side. They take a long-term approach to power, and they are able to work as a cohesive unit. As Rich writes, revolutions typically begin with a dedicated minority. The theocrats have made great progress and have already amassed great wealth and power. They have friends in industry and on the Supreme Court. 2008, the pivotal year in Rich’s novel was important because of the likely SCOTUS vacancy that would arise. As civil rights lawyer Eddie Tabash said that year, we are one Supreme Court justice away from theocracy.
They made a lot of progress under the Bush administration with restrictions on stem cell research and Faith-based initiatives. And they’re always trying to funnel public money into supporting private Christian schools. A Sarah Palin presidency would open the floodgates for theocratic legislation and ensure a theocratic SCOTUS majority. Add a little more conceivable bad luck and we could live under the crushing rule of Christian Nation.
They made a lot of progress under the Bush administration with restrictions on stem cell research and Faith-based initiatives. And they’re always trying to funnel public money into supporting private Christian schools. A Sarah Palin presidency would open the floodgates for theocratic legislation and ensure a theocratic SCOTUS majority. Add a little more conceivable bad luck and we could live under the crushing rule of Christian Nation.
A witch hunter anointing Sarah Palin.
The book gets a little boring in the second half, even as the action heats up. Rich, who is a corporate lawyer, takes too much care to elucidate the legal challenges to the new theocracy. And the final battles take place without much emotion, since a) the conclusion is known and b) the drama isn’t in the story, but in the portrayal of the real life threat we face. And I really wish he hadn’t used Bloomberg.
Christian Nation is a rallying call to defend our values, our American values that are under attack. There is a force that claims to be TRUE AMERICAN, but they have no respect for the Constitution or the liberal values enshrined in it.
Most certainly it can happen here. I hope it’s unlikely. But in the great mass of Americans there is the capacity for great cruelty.
Christian Nation is a rallying call to defend our values, our American values that are under attack. There is a force that claims to be TRUE AMERICAN, but they have no respect for the Constitution or the liberal values enshrined in it.
Most certainly it can happen here. I hope it’s unlikely. But in the great mass of Americans there is the capacity for great cruelty.
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