REAGAN USED CHRISTIAN RIGHT AS A “TOOL” AND “COVER” FOR HIS MULTINATIONAL $BILLIONAIRE PLATFORM TO EXTRACT WEALTH FROM THE 99% FOR THE O.O1%. = SHRINK MIDDLE CLASS TO CREATE $BILLIONAIRES!

REAGAN = Evangelical Presidency of Christian right|

Click for Source Salon Article by Steven P. Miller

Source: “The Age of Evangelicalism: America’s Born-Again Years”

1976 = Year of the Evangelical
1980 = Year of the Evangelical Right = Reagan Elected for “Christian Right”

Pivot to modern evangelical politics = The Christian Right movement propelled by evangelicals occupied a distinct place in the imaginations of many Americans.

Christian Right’s leaders = Steady dish of spectacles = Proliferation of pious politics

Booming “electronic church” + “televangelism” = A news media staple (1978) = CEOs Jerry Falwell + Pat Robertson = Rally of 200,000 born-agains = “the great silent majority” = Nixon’s term + Falwell, head of the Moral Majority (nod to Nixon) = “Religious New Right.”

1980 campaign: Reagan + Evangelical Conservatives = Very public courting ritual.

1980 GOP convention gave journalists further reason to believe that the Moral Majority had muscles. GOP’s approved the most socially conservative platform ever = Antiabortion + Against the Equal Rights Amendment = Evangelical platform

Reagan = Struck an explicitly religious note in his acceptance speech = Rhetoric of antisecularism: “I’ll confess that I’ve been a little afraid to suggest what I’m going to suggest. I’m more afraid not to. Can we begin our crusade joined together in a moment of silent prayer?”

Falwell’s stomached the VP selection of George H. W. Bush = A long-standing social moderate who recently embraced the antiabortion cause. Bush then vacationed with Billy Graham after convention + Reagan courted evangelical right. In Dallas with his famous lines to the Age of Evangelicalism = “I know you can’t endorse me. But . . . I want you to know that I endorse you.” = Romance of Christian Right = Bailey Smith, speaking at the Dallas gathering, saw fit to aver that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.” Then, Falwell clarified that God heard the prayers of any Jew or Gentile, if they converted to Christianity.

Reagan embraced a much more generous take on God’s sense of hearing and Falwell agreed with Reagan. = God “hears the heart cry of any sincere person who calls on Him.”

“If I backed a Republican for President,” wondered prominent televangelist Rex Humbard, “what about the Democrats in my audience?” A number of Reformed theologians criticized Falwell’s politics as simplistic.

Carter’s branding the Moral Majority as unrepresentative of American society in general and American Christianity in particular. = “the Bible doesn’t say how you balance the federal budget. . . . It’s never been done before, but certain religious groups are trying to say what the definition of a Christian is.”

Reagan won in a landslide, but the Moral Majority’s role was much less conclusive.

Falwell = The new political kingmaker = On “Nightline” = “George Gallup didn’t get a chance to declare 1980 the ‘Year of Born-Again Politics,’ The evangelicals beat him to it.”

Mid-1980s “new Christian Right” + “new Religious Right” became preferred terms

The Christian Right outlasted its organizational parent – Conservative “New Right”

Print coverage acknowledged diversity and used categories—“fundamentalist,” “charismatic,” = Billy Graham’s said Moral Majority did not speak for him.

Reagan was more an evangelical’s president than an evangelical president = Lacking Carter’s Sunday School piety = Reagan wore his born-again skin and many other skins. = Reagan inaugurated the “God strategy” in American presidential politics, as “religious communications increased to levels never before seen in the modern presidency.” = Reagan wanted to be taken seriously by religious voters = Clearest evidence of the God strategy was Reagan’s persistent use of the expression “God bless America” in his 1980 convention speech and throughout his two terms. = “God bless America” appeared ONCE in a major presidential address before Reagan = 1973 Nixon attempt to mitigate Watergate scandal = NO COINCIDENCE REAGAN USED IT TO WIN IN THE AGO OF TELEGANGELISM. = Symbolism

CHRITIAN RIGHT WAS COVER TO IMPLEMENT TRICKLE DOWN SUPPLY SIDE LIES THAT HELPED DESTROY THE MIDDLE CLASS

Reagan = TREATED evangelical conservatives on par with BIG BUSINESS + MIC

Reagan VOODOO SCAMS FOR THE RICH:

 USA #1 in WEALTH INEQUALITY IN DEVELOPED WORLD

USA #1 IN INCOME INEQUALITY IN DEVELOPED WORLD

Reagan appointed James Watt, a Pentecostal and a strong conservative, to join the cabinet as Secretary of the Interior + Antiabortion activist C. Everett Koop became surgeon general + Robert Billings landed a position in the Department of Education.

Reagan declared 1983 the “Year of the Bible.” = Antiabortion + Student prayers

Christian Right expected BIG THINGS = Formation in 1981 of the Council for National Policy (CNP), the “first successful umbrella organization on the right.” = Conservatives dominated CNP = Reagan 1st term produced almost nothing for Right. = NO SCHOOL PRAYER or Anti-abortion = But most Christian Right leaders made a strategic decision to participate in the Reagan Revolution. = Conservative evangelicals had no place else to go in the two-party system.

Reagan delivered his famous address branding the Soviet Union an “evil empire” at the 1983 annual meeting of the NAE. = Burgeoning nuclear-freeze movement gaining support from many religious leaders, including Catholic bishops. Nearly 40% of Americans linked the biblical end-times with a nuclear apocalypse. Reagan fielded a question about a possible “nuclear Armageddon.”

1984, Falwell and Christian Right leaders gave unrestrained endorsement to Reagan = Reagan and Bush “God’s instruments in rebuilding America.” = Reagan published an election-year book titled “In God I Trust” + Robertson called Reagan “probably the most evangelical president we have had since the founding fathers.” = A Mondale commercial began with the line “Ronald Reagan and Rev. Jerry Falwell cordially invite you to their party on November 6.” One of Mondale’s most effective

Reagan ruled religion in 1984 = Religion is dishonored when Americanized and militarized and Reagan did BOTH. Reagan during the GOP convention affirmed the “positive role” of religion in American history, from the abolitionist movement through the Civil Rights Movement. + Religion is a worthy political cause.

1984: Reagan joined Mondale in offering a polite dodge in response to a debate question about whether he considered himself “a born-again Christian.” = Reiterated his reliance on prayer = 80% of born-again ballots in the bag.

1984 was another Falwell’s moment in the sun. 14th most influential person in US

Falwell, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” =“Falwell Goosestep.”

Rapid ascendance of evangelical conservatism unleashed political energy TO COVERUP THE HORRIBLE VOODOO SCAMS REAGAN WAS PERPETRATING ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS.

Francis Schaeffer = Belligerency moved even farther to the right in the final years of his life. His 1981 “A Christian Manifesto” posited a kind of religious-political struggle between secular humanists and Christians. = Said Secular Humanists subverted the nation’s Christian heritage. = “we must stand absolutely and totally opposed to the whole humanist system..” Christians also needed to ponder “what to do if the window closes,” = Civil disobedience argued Schaeffer’s son.

REAGAN USED CHRISTIAN RIGHT AS A “TOOL” AND “COVER” FOR HIS MULTINATIONAL $BILLIONAIRE PLATFORM TO EXTRACT WEALTH FROM THE 99% FOR THE O.O1%.