For the New Year, let’s recall two milestones on the Christian Right from the past year.
One of the key architects of that movement, Pat Robertson, died on June 8th. It’s fascinating to look back at his career. Also, although we should save most of this discussion for a later post, we might well ponder who is currently pushing forward in Robertson's old lane. Who, exactly, are such Trumpist and/or otherwise-conservative preachers? Are the relative proportions of conservative leadership shifting, such that some of the power of the old-school Christian Right is being decentered? How does this relate to recent discourse around “Christian nationalism"-- both what that is and how much of it is new--and/or the prosperity gospel?
I published a piece looking backward: “The Top Five (Less Sensational But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson.” It ran in Religion Dispatches right after he died. That was during a month when this site was quiet for re-organization. So I’m re-publishing it today for the Oldies But Goodies thread. Click on the picture to go over to it.
One puzzle piece to ponder when analyzing the evolution of right-wing religion is what will become of the empire built by Jerry Falwell. Alongside Robertson, he was one of the two top preachers mobilizing white evangelicals to support Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. Wallowing in money from right-wing donors, Falwell built a huge presence in broadcasting (for a time) and (more importantly today) built Liberty University from nothing in 1970 to a major institution. When he died in 2007, his son Jerry, Jr., took over as leader of this school. The younger Falwell has had a continuing media presence, both for regularly throwing red meat to the Falwells’ conservative base and for a series of scandals.
People who pay attention to representations of Christianity in the media—my long-running habit since I taught on this subject for years—likely noted a documentary that aired this year, centering on the Falwells. Both trashy and illuminating, God Forbid: the Sex Scandal that Brought Down a Dynasty was released on Hulu slightly over a year ago. It explores a wide spectrum of corruption and hypocrisy of both Jerry Falwells—Senior and Junior—in a format well-spiced with sensationalism to gain clicks and eyeballs. Its dual structure sets the unfolding scandals within wider historical contextualizations to sustain interest in both.
In the juicier parts, we learn how Jerry Jr. solicited a Miami Beach pool boy, Giancarlo Granda, to have sex with his spouse, Becki (twice Giancarlo’s age) and how this started a chain of events that eventually included Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, using video evidence of the affair to pressure Jerry Junior to endorse Trump. This and several related subplots led to Falwell’s downfall at Liberty, although the university continues to power ahead.
Since I have long followed the ins and outs of high-stakes evangelicals who rose to power as part of the Republican machine—conventionally dated from the rise of Reagan in the 1970s, although better understood as reaching back far longer—I didn’t learn much from God Forbid that I didn’t already know, other than a few smutty details about Becki, Giancarlo, and how Jerry liked to watch them have sex. No doubt there is tangible risk in God Forbid of more sensational things crowding out more important things.
Still, as a primer for folks who might be less tuned into the world of shamelessly politicized right-wing leaders, and who might appreciate a refresher course about a wide spectrum of Falwellian activities, this is generally recommendable. It is far from all sensationalism and is pitched in a way that might draw in people who would click away from interminable talking heads fare on PBS.
Especially welcome is its argument against the grain of a currently fashionable tendency, which is to assume that behaviors by Trump (baptized by Jerry Jr.) constitute new lows-- something more cynical and corrupt than a somewhat less sordid past anchored by Reagan and Jerry Sr.
The point to stress—which the filmmakers do nicely—is continuity between these two pairs. Both Jerry’s have been cynical political animals far removed from what most people can respect as a religion anything short of disgraceful. Both Reagan and Trump outdid each other in cynical indifference to religion, even in its right-wing forms to which they pandered.
As I read some of the fainter praise that God Forbid garnered from some reviewers (its freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes was 89% from critics and 59% from audience) I wondered how many lukewarm responses stemmed from under-appreciating this intervention and/or discounting it as off-message for maximum demonizing of Trump. How many stemmed from worrying about the proportions of sex scandal versus other themes? How many were no more than hate from Falwell loyalists? For me, pondering these questions is an excellent reason to watch this show.
However much we stress continuities, there are also distinctions between these generational pairs. For starters, anyone today who advocated returning to our country’s wealth distribution during the Reagan years would literally be attacked by Republicans as a communist—although, of course, Reagan was trying to make the inequality worse then, it’s just that the extremes today are so much more outrageous and the Republican talking points so much more unhinged.
Also, Reagan’s appeal grew out of classic Hollywood star-making culture and stressed manipulating a more-or-less shared national mediascape. In partial contrast, Trump is a creature of siloed media echo chambers, Twitter, carnival-barker-type hucksters he played on television (for example, a character on a professional wrestling cast), and organized crime. Reagan more often led with feel-good lies and soft-pedaled the underlying demonization, while Trump often reverses these emphases. Lately Trump seems to be making little effort to build any sort of national consensus, no matter how right-leaning.
Probably Trump’s base is built somewhat less out of conventionally-pious church people, compared to the Reagan/Falwell "Moral Majority." However, the exact nature and proportions of what people call “Christian nationalism” remain mysterious amid a muddle of incommensurate definitions. Much of this is the same old brand, reaching all the way back to Billy Graham in the Eisenhower and Nixon eras. Much is newer. Much about this is unclear and merits our ongoing attention in the New Year.