When Christianity Is UnAmerican

There is a growing chasm between the values of America’s founders and the values of the theocratic Christian right, who claim that their version of authoritarianism is a more authentic interpretation of American values than the Enlightenment values so cherished by our nation’s forebears. But their values are irreconcilable with those of America’s past. Hence they are not giving a more authentic interpretation of American values but replacing those values with an entirely different doctrine, while attempting to transfer the prestige of the label American to their own antithetical doctrines. This prestige is not theirs to own, however, as it comes from the very principles they reject. As with all of the debates they have undertaken to win their culture war the Christian right’s pundits control the cultural conversation by controlling the discourse -- shifting the meanings of words to reflect an agenda alien to the referents that once gave those words their meaning. The best way to stop this abuse of language is to refuse to accept their terms, and to demand that they define them before deploying them in new contexts with new referents.