- The word "fundagelism" has never appeared in
the columns of this newspaper. The term is, however, current in the blogosphere
- that cyberforum which nowadays carries the most interestingly paranoid
political debate. "Fundagelism" is not a word that trips easily
off the tongue. It's a crunching together of the even more mouth-boggling
compound "fundamentalist evangelism".
-
- George W Bush is a fundagelist. Dad wasn't. George H
Bush (not renowned for his Wildean wit) delivered his most memorable wisecrack
on walking into a room full of fundagelists: "Gee! I'm the only person
here that's only been born once."
-
- His son is truly twice born, with two dads. Nor are the
parents equal in the eyes of their son. The journalist Bob Woodward, as
he recalls, asked the current president if he ever turned to the ex-president
for help. "Well, no," replied Bush Jr: "He is the wrong
father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to
in terms of strength. There's a higher father that I appeal to."
-
- There are, it is estimated, 90 million evangelical Christians
in the US. If they can be mobilised, they will form a rock-solid foundation
for November victory for the Republican incumbent. Chads need hang no more.
-
- Of course, not all American evangelicals are fundagelicals
any more than all Muslims are Islamic extremists. But lukewarm evangelicals
(like the Islamists) are more likely to vote for their own kind - even
if extremist - than the opposition.
-
- What do fundagelicals instinctively oppose? Gay marriage,
abortion, gun control, taxes, the UN (and the currently top-rated candidate
for anti-Christ, Kofi Annan), withdrawal from Iraq, Michael Moore, Janet
Jackson's left breast.
-
- What do they believe in? Christian values and the future
as foretold in the Book of Revelation. According to a Time Magazine poll
(which strains credulity but seems to be valid) 59% of Americans trust
that St John's prophecies will be fulfilled - probably during their lifetime.
November could be a last opportunity to vote for God's preferred candidate.
Iraq (ancient Babylon) figures centrally in the fundagelist vision of things,
as does the Rapture, and the imminent mass conversion of the Jews (hence
fundagelist-Zionism).
-
- The White House has recently been accused of inveighing
(via Nasa) against the movie The Day After Tomorrow (out on May 28) because
it narrates the wrong apocalypse. One caused by man-made global warming,
that is, rather than God's white-hot rage against sinners. The apocalypse
depicted in Tim LaHaye's Left Behind books is, we assume, the US government-approved
version.
-
- Fundagelism presents problems for the Democratic party
as it girds itself for the coming campaign. John Kerry is a Catholic. A
former altar boy, he is (to the irritation of Catholic bishops) in favour
of women's reproductive rights. Last week Naral Pro-Choice America, the
country's leading lobby for legal abortion, endorsed Kerry's candidacy.
-
- Kerry so-called. Until a couple of years ago, the Democratic
front-runner was assumed to be as Boston Irish as his namesake county.
Newspaper sleuthing discovered that his paternal grandfather was, in fact,
a Czech, Fritz Kohn, who changed his name. Kerry lost relatives in the
Holocaust. Race-hate websites nowadays routinely abuse him as "Kerry
(Kohn aka Cohen)". Famously, Kerry is a decorated Vietnam war hero
who, like Siegfried Sassoon, threw his medals away in disgust at what he
came to see as a futile colonial war.
-
- Was ever a candidate for the presidency more triangulated?
Pro-choice Catholic, Shamrock-Jewish, warrior-pacifist? In any rational
contest, to be all things to all voters should be an advantage. But with
fundagelism riding high, Kerry looks 110% flip-flop.
-
- Last Thursday, the American PBS network ran a programme
The Jesus Factor. It made (for Democrats and, dare one say it, democrats)
depressing viewing. America, it suggested, is aching for certainty. Any
certainty. Fundagelism supplies it. God help America is all I can say.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1208413,00.html
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