How fundamentalism affects society - includes related article on one woman's escape from religion

Social movements by their very nature demand change, and Promise Keepers is certainly no exception. But exactly how the group's agenda would affect our nation can't be learned from PK rhetoric and maudlin ceremonies. Furthermore, the research community is only beginning to study the social consequences of this relatively new group. There is, however, considerable research describing the effects of Christian fundamentalism on personality and lifestyle. Given PK's underlying fundamentalist agenda, such studies are thus able to forecast risks posed by PK's way of life.

The most important value espoused by Promise Keepers is the building of strong marriages and families by the reestablishment of the patriarchal family structure. But such a structure -- prompted by PK's inerrant belief in the Bible -- has been linked to a variety of harmful behaviors.

The July 19, 1993, issue of Christianity Today cites the book Battered into Submission: The Tragedy of Wife Abuse in the Christian Home (1989) by James and Phyllis Alsdurf, whose research suggests that "the probability of wife abuse increases with the rigidity of a church's teachings, especially teachings pertaining to gender roles and hierarchy." Fundamentalism has also been found to hamper the process of helping battered women. According to Vicky Whipple in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (1987):

Five major factors ... complicate working with

fundamentalist, battered women: (1) a strong "we versus them"

mentality, which encourages members to seek help only

from the church; (2) a reliance on faith, which leads to a

passive approach toward life; (3) an insistence on

forgiveness, which tends to countenance aggressive

behavior among family members; (4) the dominance of males

over females; (5) strong prohibitions against divorce or

remarriage.

Although Marshall H. Medoff and I. Lee Skov of California State University found fundamentalists more likely to marry and have children, Thomas Snow and William Comptom of Middle Tennessee State University found that membership in a fundamentalist Protestant church is not a predictor of marital satisfaction. Even PK itself, despite its opposition to divorce, reports that 20 percent of the men who attended the group's first eight stadium conferences this year described themselves in surveys as either "divorced" or "remarried."

Within this rigid fundamentalist family structure, children also become victims. Researchers express alarm about the use of corporal punishment by fundamentalist parents, given its link to spouse abuse, sibling violence, delinquency, aggression, hatred, and a general pro-violence attitude. in Violence and Victims (1991), Harold Grasmick, Robert Bursik Jr., and M'lou Kimpel of the University of Oklahoma say, "In fact, the child abuse rate for parents who approve of corporal punishment is four times the rate of child abuse for parents who do not approve of corporal punishment." They also warn of court cases in which day care centers run by fundamentalist churches have insisted that hitting preschoolers is their religious obligation.

The corporal punishment of preschoolers is detailed by Christopher Ellison, John Bartkowski, and Michelle Segal in Social Forces (1996). These University of Texas researchers found that parents who hold that the Bible is inerrant spanked or slapped their toddler or preschooler (aged one to four years) .884 times more per week (or nearly fifty times more each year) and are 50 percent more likely to have spanked or slapped their grade-school-aged child than nonfundamentalist parents. They also found that boys of all ages receive corporal punishment more often than girls, and adopted children are 50 percent more likely than other children to be spanked or slapped.

In surveys of adults who were asked how frequently they had been spanked by parents as a child, H. Erlanger reported in the American Sociological Review (1974) that the strongest predictor of corporal punishment is religious affiliation, with Baptist affiliation having a greater direct effect on the frequency of spankings than gender, race, size of residence, age, and parents' social class.

This link between corporal punishment and fundamentalism builds on consistent findings that fundamentalists tend to be authoritarians. To measure this, Bob Altemeyer's Right-wing Authoritarianism scale is generally accepted as reliable. As discussed in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1995) by Gary Leak and Brandy Randall, "individuals who score high on the RWA scale are prone to aggress against unpopular or unconventional groups, feel morally superior and self-righteous, possess a mean-spiritedness that is coupled with vindictiveness and a `secret pleasure' when others experience misfortune, and appear prejudiced toward out-groups."

Given the indiscriminativeness of authoritarians' prejudice, Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger labeled them "equal-opportunity bigots, disliking all `different' people regardless of race, creed, or color." Research by Linda Wylie and James Forest of the University of Manitoba also found that authoritarianism is highly correlated with religious fundamentalism and an important predictor of racial and ethnic prejudice, homophobia, and punitiveness. Lee Kirkpatrick at the College of William and Mary surveyed college students and found that "fundamentalism was correlated more positively than Christian orthodoxy" with discriminatory attitudes toward blacks, women, homosexuals, and communists.

To take this a step further, Deborah Byrnes and Gary Kiger of Utah State University studied whether religious affiliation and gender would impact a person's willingness to confront racial discrimination committed by authority figures, strangers, and peers. Their results, published in the Journal of Psychology (1992), found that women expressed more willingness than men, and nonfundamentalists expressed more willingness than fundamentalists to challenge discrimination. Such research foretells a losing battle in Promise Keepers' fight for "racial reconciliation."

There is also some evidence that being fundamentalist increases a person's chance of committing murder. This is supported in a 1995 study by David Lester of Richard Stockton College and by Medoff and Skov's 1992 study, which look at both murder and suicide. Although the results were mixed on suicide, both studies found that fundamentalism has not been successful in reducing murder. Medoff and Skov go so far as to conclude that fundamentalism may cause murders. In the Journal of Socio-Economics (1992), they say fundamentalists who find their religion's strict moral code oppressive "may be unable to conform ... and suffer emotionally and spiritually with adverse consequences."

Dennis L. Gibson also found indecision, procrastination, doubting, perfectionism, and obsessiveness -- that is, repetitive, inflexible, personally tormenting ways of thinking -- rituals common among evangelicals. Mark and Gordon McMinn found that an over-emphasis on the New Testament's model of learned helplessness may lead to self-esteem deficits among evangelicals and deter them from correcting feelings of inadequacy. And Ryan W LaMothe concludes that "evil imagination" -- which includes diverse forms of hostility, hatred, and violence -- is a response to the anxiety and fear associated with powerlessness and absolute dependence on faith.

Where fundamentalism's strict moral code appears to have had some positive effect is in the reduction of premarital sex. However, Raye Rosen and Jack Stack, in a North Central Sociological Association paper (1982), found that teenagers who consider religion secondary in their lives are more likely to have better communication with their mothers about sex and are more likely to use contraception during their first intercourse.

Highly religious people also report less substance abuse. However, J. W Fowler in Alcoholics Anonymous and Faith Development (1993) found that most alcoholics come from a negativist, punitive religion. One alcoholic in Fowler's study reported that she had "to rid herself of the accusing God whom she felt cursed her." Other studies looking at personality traits may cause one to wonder whether fundamentalists fully report their alcohol and drug use and whether they would assess their own use of alcohol and drugs as abusive. For example, Douglas H. Spinney of the Cornerstone Counselling Center in Alberta, Canada, says a fear of rejection is commonly seen in Christian fundamentalists and that this fear can lead to depression. Reporting his findings in Counseling and Values (1991), Spinney says, "Clients defend against depression by developing conformism, reality blocking, anger, manic behavior, overwork, and clinging."

Especially frightening as we approach the year 2000 are fundamentalists' cataclysmic visions of the future. In the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (1992), Stephen Kierulff predicts that the end of the century will produce an upsurge in apocalpytic expectations by premillennialists, or Armageddonists -- those who believe that Jesus is coming before the millennium and that conditions on Earth will get worse before he comes. Kieruiff estimates there are as many as 50 million premillennialists in the United States, of which as many as 25 million are evangelical, born-again Christians.

He cites such believers as former presidential candidate Pat Robertson, who wrote that a nuclear war "could help pave the way" for the second coming of Christ, and former Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who thought it unwise to spend money on protecting the environment "because he knew that everything would be devastated soon during the Tribulation." Imagine, Kierulff continues, Watt or another premillennialist as secretary of defense or the pilot of a B-2 bomber. He concludes by actually advocating screening procedures to prevent such believers from holding positions of power.

Clearly, Promise Keepers deserves continued study -- not only because of the harmful behaviors that have been linked to its fundamentalist beliefs but because of the effects of fundamentalism which have yet to be explored. For example, unequivocal information is needed about how fundamentalism affects such things as the education of children, criminal arrests and convictions, and economic policy. Prominent fundamentalism expert Martin Marty of the University of Chicago's Divinity School warns that fundamentalists wage cultural warfare by trying to create a world based on their values, creeds, and dreams. To the extent that these are not in the best interests of families and the nation is the extent to which we need to remain vigilant in relation to groups like Promise Keepers.

Journey Out of Darkness

President Clinton, Michael Jackson, and others have been accused of reinventing themselves recently, and I must confess that I, too, am guilty. What virtue is there in never questioning, never reassessing, never changing? I have changed my mind about some frivolous things in my life -- that was easy. But when it came to rethinking my religious convictions -- it was an odyssey.

I stood at the kitchen sink in a rented house in North Carolina in 1973 and marveled at how new the world felt after my conversion; my born-again experience was the beginning of a fifteen-year journey into the dark, seductive world of Christian fundamentalism. At first it seemed a philosophy of enlightenment, the source of all freedom and truth, the cure for all human ills. My sins were forgiven; Jesus was my friend, my confidant, my savior. I experienced a period that born-again Christians call growth, as I studied the Bible and prayed for answers to all my questions. I was devoted and sincere.

When the novelty of my conversion started to fade, however, I began to experience a great deal of anxiety. I was hyperaware of every tiny infraction, every "un-Christian" thought, every shadow of insensitivity that was not "worthy" of the name of Christ. I felt guilty, morally bankrupt, and hopelessly inadequate. These feelings were reinforced by exhortations to "godliness" from the pulpit that fell heavily on my defeated spirit. Prayer became a chore, but I continued going through the motions. I questioned everything. Doubts and frustration about the senseless and selfish prayers of the Christian community surfaced. I felt as though we were all trying to manipulate a God who couldn't care less.

By 1988, I was miserable. The religious right was on the rise and I was at odds with its cruel agenda, disgusted by the paranoid finger-pointing that was rampant within its ranks. For the religious right, evil was everywhere -- from Care Bears[R] to rock 'n' roll. Worse, the leaders of the movement were falling left and right (mostly right), caught in the clutches of greed and sexual misbehavior that made a mockery of their piousness.

I questioned the goodness of a God who appeared so removed from the world in general and the arrogance of a chosen few who claimed to enjoy his special favor. If there was a God, why didn't he make himself clear? And why didn't my faith make sense anymore?

When I sought a divorce in 1988, my fate was sealed. Divorce was forbidden; I was breaking a vow made before my heavenly father. Seeking out evangelical Christian groups which ministered to the divorced and separated, I discovered that their primary goal was to heal and mend the original union. Lonely divorcees called, urging me to abandon the divorce proceedings. When I informed them I intended to proceed, I found no friendship or support.

After two years, my divorce was granted, and I separated myself from the church. A five-year journey out of darkness then began, as I gradually relinquished my faith. At the same time, I began learning and growing in a fresh and exciting way, breaking away from codependency and the religious addiction that had enslaved me.

Soon I was a freethinking person -- free to believe what I found rational and what made sense to me, free of the bondage of crippling indoctrination and mind control. How ironic -- I could finally understand the title of the gospel song "Free at Last, Free at Last!" The chains that had slowly strangled me, choking my individuality and uniqueness, were gone. Those people I left behind will assign to me the responsibility for the "failure" of my faith. Not one will consider the possibility that the problem lies within the faith itself.

Today, my faith is correctly placed in humanity and myself. "If it's to be, it's up to me" makes a lot more sense than praying and waiting for a distant entity to arrange my life. Whether or not there is a God. I cannot say, but if there is, it is a far different god than any religion, past or present, has conjured up. Religion was created not by God but by people -- created to control and impose morality on society and to interpret what people could not explain.

But religion as a force for establishing or maintaining morality is actually unnecessary, as morals and values can be taught outside the framework of faith in a supreme being. Most humans value the concepts of fairness, justice, honesty, respect, kindness, and responsibility -- even if they are too weak to practice them. Throughout history, society established rules for the well being of the community and the individual.

Neither is religion the source of morality. The immorality of some who claim to be righteous and holy, as well as the goodness of those without religion, demonstrate this. Morality and religion are two separate ideas and, while they sometimes overlap, they are truly independent. Furthermore, religion encroaches upon freedom when it proclaims there is only one true faith and attempts to convert or destroy all those who will not follow. This is not morality but immorality of the most dangerous and cruel kind.

Religious organizations can be, in ignorance and bigotry, the enemy of freedom. Frightening though their agenda may be, however, their members are not my enemies but my fellow human beings whose freedoms must also be protected. To this end, I am dedicated to fight not against any person or group but for freedom and the right of every individual to possess it.

COPYRIGHT 1997 American Humanist Association
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group