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16. Conclusion

While more than 80 pages of this Paper have been spent on describing the problem, there are very few solutions. To paraphrase Jerry Falwell, the Religious Right is a potent voting bloc, and cows are not, so any solution that attempts to restrict their influence will fail. In addition, their strength comes from their ability to label their opponents "anti-God," which means a lot in a country where people are more than twice as likely to believe in the devil as in evolution (Kristof, "God, Satan and The Media", p. A25). Thus, any solution is extremely difficult.

One possible solution involves improving the quality of education in the United States. As the statistics given in the beginning of the previous section show, most of the evangelical Christians have an income below $30,000, and many of them did not attend college, and most of those who did attended Bible college. This lack of a science education is the exact reason why the fundamentalists are able to gain new converts. However, this solution faces many problems, and it is unlikely that it can be implemented. First of all, the Religious Right is wary of any new ideas that contradict the Bible. Billy Sunday said, "When the Word of God says one thing and scholarship says another, scholarship can go to hell," and that certainly has not changed for many fundamentalists. Any attempts to bring a real education to the Bible belt would undoubtedly end in more book banning, and more claims that the evil "secular humanists" are spreading their godless lies to the "true" born-again Christians. Thus, it is highly unlikely that this solution has any chance of success.

Another solution that is possible is to increase the attention of the mainstream America to the Religious Right. The importance of the Religious Right is increasing, yet most of America is out of touch with them. There are only 3% of mainline Protestants, 4% of Roman Catholics, and 7% of people who described themselves as "non-religious" that are "very familiar" with what evangelicals stand for (Smith, American Evangelicalism:…, p.181). Almost half of those surveyed had no idea what evangelicals stood for (Smith, American Evangelicalism:…, p. 181). This shows that most of mainstream America is ignorant of the Religious Right and what they stand for. This probably due to the lack of media coverage of the Religious Right activities. The problem with this solution is that most of the time the Religious Right does not make interesting news, and, thus, is unlikely to gain the attention of today's media corporations. Also, since the fundamentalists shun the outside world, most of their contact with mainstream America is limited to attempts to convert the "unsaved." As a result, there are very little fundamentalists in positions that are known to the general public, and, as a result the public is ignorant of the Religious Right. And, even if some brief event tied to the Religious Right does make the news, it is dismissed as nothing out of the extraordinary and quickly forgotten.

The only way to change this is for the media to pay closer attention to the happenings in the Bible belt, and to alert mainstream America of the growing danger. Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago argues that America is now experiencing a fourth Great Awakening (Kristof, "God, Satan and The Media", p. A25). If this is true, then it is likely that the Religious Right will grow even more powerful before its power declines.

Another possible solution to this problem is to rally the political left. If more progressive lobbying groups, like the People for the American Way are created, the fundamentalists' influence might be held in check. This solution seems to be the best option, however, even it is likely to face some difficulties. For one thing, the Religious Right is able to portray its opponents as "godless" secular humanists, who seek to corrupt American society. Another thing that is just as important is that the majority of the people seem to support the godly fundamentalists rather than their opponents. And, finally, even if the fundamentalists' power is held in check in Washington, there is nothing to prevent them from gaining power on the local level.

As the situation is today, there is no absolute solution to this problem. It is impossible to stop the onslaught of the Religious Right without violating the Constitution.

The Religious Right today is continually growing stronger, and is attempting to impose its ideas of what's right on America. However, they do not realize that they are doing that. In their opinion, the only thing they are doing is defending the Christian values expressed in the Constitution from the onslaught of the secular humanists. In their own opinion, they are not attacking mainstream America, they are counterattacking. According to them, it were the humanists that fired the first shot by abolishing school prayer, bible study in school, legalizing abortion, and giving equal rights to homosexuals. It is the secular humanists who attacked biblical morality in their textbooks, and seek to undermine the true story of creation in Genesis by their false theory of evolution. In their opinion, taking God out of the classroom will lead to Communism and brutal dictatorships. In fact, it was foretold in the Bible. The Religious Right sees the Left as the weapons of Satan to bring about the Tribulation period, and they are trying to slow it down, to "save" as many people as possible before the Rapture comes. So, it is no wonder why they are fighting the "godless" religion. The only problem is: no one is attacking them. What they perceive to be a conscious attack by the "evil" secular humanists, is in reality, the inevitable process of modernization and response to the changing times. The theory of evolution is not some clever lie purposefully created by the devil to ensnare and corrupt the minds of unsuspecting Christians, it is a fact that has been discovered. The idea of pluralism arose as a response to the increasing diversity in America, not because Satan is trying to create a world government. The problem of the Religious Right, however, is that they are living in the past. It is impossible to apply biblical standards to today's world, but they continue to try. They reject modern science, and they are continually trying to return to simpler times. Unfortunately, this is not possible. However, the Religious Right does not understand this. Prayer in schools might have worked when most of America was Protestant. However, when there are Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other groups, this is not possible. It is completely beyond the Religious Right's capacity to understand this, however.

What the Religious Right views as a perfect society, is not only imperfect, it is deeply flawed. The Puritans thought that only their way of worshipping God was correct, and the rest were heretics. The Religious Right has similar ideas. This Paper has proven that the Religious Right equals, if not surpasses, the Puritans in their intolerance, and that ther goals are similar. Thus, the Religious Right is the biggest threat to American civil rights and civil liberties today.

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Acknowledgements

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