Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 31, 1994 TAG: 9407240012
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by THOMAS SMEDLEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Losers in a culture war find themselves in a round room, with a mandate to sit in the corner. Dysfunctional coping mechanisms appear when the old maps of life are shredded.
The alcoholic reservation Indian is one example. Carl Jung spoke of the African shaman who no longer received the `big dreams` needed to interpret life for his tribe, since the white newcomers were assumed to have the dreams.
A more poignant example of cultural defeat and demoralization is closer at hand, here in the Bible belt. Douglas Frank's book "Less than Conquerors: How Evangelicals Entered the 20th Century" provides insight to thoughtful readers within and outside of the sub-culture described, American fundamentalism.
In the second half of the last century, Frank explains, the dominant position of the conservative Protestant in American culture succumbed to a number of forces. Urbanization and immigration diminished the influence of the little country church. Advances in technology sped up the pace of life. The old virtues of thrift and self-denial lost their charms in the face of ad-driven consumerism. At an even more fundamental level, Charles Darwin made it possible for the man in the street to view the universe as an artifact without an artisan.
Around the turn of the century, fundamentalists awoke to realize that the world had passed them by. World War I further altered the cultural landscape; as the rag-time lyric ran, "how ya gonna keep him, down on the farm, after he's seen Pa-ree?"
During this vulnerable period of self-doubt and redefinition, says Douglas Frank, dysfunctional coping mechanisms took malignant root in the evangelical subculture.
Like the fortune teller's fearful customers, fundamentalists who had lost faith in their ability to shape the future began trying instead to divine the future. "Prophecy teachin," the speculative attempt to read current events into holy writ, flourished. Lurid pulp literature anointed one candidate after another as The antiChrist.
"I may be a loser now," the prophecy enthusiast could say, hugging his latest charts and paperbacks for security, "but soon, any day now, you're going to be an even bigger loser! So there!"
Others coped with external frustrations by turning their focus inward. The "victorious life" movement offered a subjective "spiritual power" to anxious, impotent seekers. "Victorious living" was redefined to mean, not mastery over one's circumstances, but staying cheerful under one's circumstances. By following self-hypnotic techniques, the seeker could acquire the longed-for nirvana. "I might look like a loser," the victorious believer could say, "but on the inside, where you can't see it or disprove it, I'm winning!"
Frank's most pointed and relevant analysis deals with the one cultural battle the fundamentalists won, prohibition. Using the metaphor of the lynch mob, Frank draws upon the career and writings of Billy Sunday to support his point. A demoralized, defeated people demonize some token of their impotent rage, some extrinsic entity that can be safely, righteously hated. The frustrations of the mob are summed up, focused, and laid upon the designated victim, whose sacrifice symbolically lays that floating anxiety to rest.
Like today's "rescuers," Billy Sunday's mobs were known to break things and hurt people in their righteous rampages against "demon rum." It was more than conviction that shut down all the saloons in Rochester, NY during a Sunday "crusade." "I may look like a loser, but I can make you stop drinking," said the seeker after token absolution through intimidation.
In retrospect, the growth of organized crime, and of widespread contempt for the law, made prohibition a Phyrric victory indeed. Prohibition is gone, but its negative consequences are still with us. At the moment, though, it looked like a good idea to people too bewildered to look beyond the moment.
Speaking from within the evangelical milieu, Douglas Frank knows where the bodies are buried. As popular "prophecy" writers Hal Lindsey, Texx Marrs, and David Hunt demonstrate, chiliaism is alive and well; you can still fleece gullible sheep by crying wolf. Proponents of a deeper life, higher plane, more spirit-filled Christian life find ready listeners, as they turn their followers away from knotty problems in the objective world.
Finally, Christians can still be deflected into political fool's errands, complaining about the FCC's latest (mythical) attempt to shut down Christian broadcasting, or trying to impose pointless prayers to a nameless deity in government-run schools.
As the title of this book suggests by its ironic evocation of Romans 8:37 ("...in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us..."), true faith faces and engages the issues of life, rather than seeking false refuge in quick fixes and quack nostrums.
- Thomas Smedley is a local contract technical writer.
by CNB