Manas Chakravarty: The rise of Christian fundamentalism

WATCHWORD

Millions of people in the United States believe that the end of the world is very near.

These fundamentalist Christians believe that one fine day Jesus will appear in the sky, and the faithful "" both the living and the dead "" will be snatched up into the air to sit beside Him.

This blessed event, know as the Rapture, has been specially designed by Him to spare true Christians "" that doesn't include Catholics "" the seven years of devastation that will follow, as the coming of the Antichrist leads to wars, famines and pestilences.

After seven years, Christ will return to vanquish the Antichrist at Armageddon, or Har-Megiddo, an ancient battle site near Haifa in Israel. A 2002 survey showed that 59 per cent of Americans believe that the events in the Bible's Book of Revelation will occur in the future.

They also take the Bible literally, which means they believe the world was created in six days, and that it is, at best, a few thousand years old. Evolution is bunk. Abortion is a sin, as is homosexuality. The proper place of women is in the family. Luckily for them, they've found a president after their heart in George W Bush, a born again Christian.

Bush's autobiography is called A Charge to Keep, a title borrowed from a hymn: "A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify, A never-dying soul to save, and fit it for the sky."

Tom DeLay, the second ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, says that he has been "put in the White House by God to promote a Biblical world view", and suggested that school shootings occurred "because our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial mud".

Bush's attorney general, John Ashcroft, anointed himself with cooking oil before taking his oath of office, just as Saul and David did in the Old Testament, and he covers up nude statues in the justice department.

Alabama, Texas and Nebraska teach evolution as one possible explanation for the development of life; in Alabama, science textbooks include a warning that evolution is theory and not fact.

Bush's so-called "faith-based initiative", is a ploy for government funds for social programmes to be dispersed through religious-based charities and churches, instead of through the secular administration. Family planning programmes now emphasise "abstinence" instead of distributing condoms and sex education.

Well, if the Americans believe in such stuff, what's it to us? Don't we have our hands full trying to ensure that our history books aren't revised and trying to keep astrology out of our universities?

The trouble is that Christian fundamentalists also set foreign policy these days. George W Bush's pronouncements are replete with references to "evildoers". Nowhere is this influence felt more deeply than in US policy towards Israel.

The Christian Right believes that one essential pre-condition for the Rapture is the return of the Jews to Israel and the expansion of that state to include all of Biblical Israel.

Put simply, the sooner Israel takes over the occupied territories, the earlier will be the Day of Deliverance. And doesn't the Bible say about Israel "" "I will bless those who bless you. And the one who curses you, I will curse"? And about Iraq "" "every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant (Jeremiah 51: 29)"?

Nor do the Christian revivalists meddle only in foreign policy. One of Bush's very first actions on taking office was to cut off funding for international family planning organisations that even mentionabortion.

Some fundamentalists are opposed to saving the environment, pointing to the Book of Daniel, which predicts that increased earthly devastation will mark the "End Time" and the return of Christ.

But perhaps the biggest reason why we should sit up and take notice is because of the increasing influence these sects are gaining in developing countries.

Philip Jenkins, professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, points out that while in 1900 about 9 per cent of Africa's total population was Christian, today there are 360 million African Christians, 42 per cent of Africa's total population, the vast majority of these being adherents of the new, born-again sects.

In India, last February an astounding 4.8 million people turned up at faith healing evangelist Benny Hinn's three days of prayer in Mumbai, despite Catholic priests warning their flock to stay away.

After the final service, Pastor Benny said, "I have been in many large gatherings through the past three decades, yet there is nothing that could have prepared me for those moments when two million people raised their hands to the skies and began shouting praises to the Lord". Hallelujah.

manas@business-standard