So as I said in my previous post (see 11/14's General Hodgepodgery), I recently saw the movie Jesus Camp. Ever since then I’ve become more curious about the definition of “evangelicals” in present day America. To be honest I was raised in evangelical church – but evangelical in sense of protestant nitpicking (designating European churches that were Lutheran versus those of Calvinist origin). Even still, I do remember periodic updates regarding missionaries in Zambia – so I suppose there was definitely evangelicalism in the "get 'em while they're hot" sense. But I’ve never really been one to thump a bible, or even care to convert anyone...and to be honest my Germanic quibblings extend no further than "Am I really in the mood for a hefeweizen?". But I’m still left with the question at hand: what does modern evangelicalism stand for?
Well, in overly simplified terms there basically seems to be two major modern pushes; centered on global versus local involvement.
- Global Involvement – Bono loving, do-gooders. Big fans of missionary work on continental Africa and pro-family values. More focused on the “do unto others” aspects of Christianity, though still pro-life.
- Local Involvement – Über-conservatives who desire to fix the US, from the top down. They totally hate abortion and homosexuality*. More focused on the vengeful God aspects of Christianity. (Yes I know there is a link to an article written by a self-proclaimed atheist, but I do it out of love for paradoxical juxtapositions!)
And let’s be honest, it’s the locally involved evangelicals that everyone really needs to be aware of, if not concerned about. You see, the thing that hit me the most in that movie was the home-schooling. There are upwards of 2.4 million kids being home-schooled, and 72 percent are done so for religious and moral reasons. Don’t get me wrong - if you don’t like what the schools are teaching, you’ve got every right to yank your kid(s) out, just so long as they’re still getting a well-rounded education and adequate amounts of social interactions to prepare them for adulthood. Now, I have no problem with the idea of home-schooling. I’ll even agree that there are a lot of flaws with the current standard public education model (for more on this read a little John Gatto), and for some people home-schooling does a world of good for their child. My problem lies with the fact that we, as a nation, are allowing anyone, anywhere to pull there child out of any educational institution and be taught at home by parents who needn’t meet a single standard of academic excellence…so long as the basis for their child’s academic withdrawal is religious. Call me crazy, but shouldn’t we be mandating some sort of rigorous baseline that any home-school teacher has to meet, moral dissatisfaction or not?
This leads me to my next startlingly sad revelation; American’s have an incredibly hard time dealing with the idea of evolution…as in only Turkey has a harder time swallowing the idea. I mean seriously people, what the fuck!?!? Not only did we evolve from a similar ancestry as modern chimps (Over 90% gene similarity! Our brains just got badass faster...which is why Planet of the Apes is set in the future), but many believe that we’re still evolving. And they present a pretty convincing argument. I just don't get how people have a hard time buying into Charlie Darwin's radical new ways of thinking. Seriously people...intelligent design? And I've got to tell you, it doesn't help anyone when the gub'ment goes and feeds conspiracy theorists everywhere.
*On a side note, there was a delightful little exchange on last night’s episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip between Matthew Perry and Sarah Paulson:
SP – What’s wrong with civil unions? And why shouldn’t we-
MP – Because there’s no way to get to the end of that sentence without saying that homosexual love is something less than heterosexual love. And watching you trip all over it makes me want to hit you in the head with Liberace.
The idea of beating someone with Liberace is exactly why I love what Aaron Sorkin does.
rock.m$
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