Chance encounters with the Moral Majority?

During the 1980s, I realized how powerful and pervasive an influence the idea of spirituality had become in a growing number of people's lives. Being a dyed-in-the-wool humanist and thoroughly secular Jew, I didn't pay close attention to the phenomenon, except to register a general sense of distrust for forces that put the supernatural above the daily needs of the planet's suffering majority. I knew this rediscovered conservative deity-worship was a reflex action of individuals viewing their lives as subservient to larger forces. I even could tolerate their moralizing to a degree, until they began touching me in very personal and direct ways. I found this personal contact more troubling than the regular admonitions from civil-libertarian organizations of the danger these individuals and groups represented. National groups and local activists, of which I was one, seemed to be holding at bay the book burners, anti-abortionists, militarists, and a host of fellow travelers.

In a college course I teach about secondary-school study techniques, the topic of foreign-language instruction is discussed. There are always a few foreign-language teachers and majors in the course each semester. Following the completion of the course one semester, a student expressed an interest in tutoring me in French. I looked forward to the weekly lessons since I realized how inadequate foreign-language tapes and grammatical exercises were. After several weeks of lessons, my tutor looked across the table where we conversed and asked matter of factly, "Has Jesus spoken to you?" Her question was delivered in a normal speaking tone. She related that Jesus had spoken to her at the beginning of the 1980s during a period of personal anguish and had led her on the path to salvation. The French tutor's theme is not uncommon among the converted: personal salvation from suffering that existing social-political, economic institutions and human relationships cannot solve.

My next encounter with the growing movement came in a way that was equally unexpected. Between schedules working in the public schools and teaching part-time at the college level, I worked out at a YMCA in a large sub-urban Rhode Island city. While doing sit-ups in the center of a room filled with exercise equipment, I recognized a past instructor I'd had while studying for my counseling degree. We chatted for a while, and he asked me to get in touch with him so that we could begin running together. Yet I have balked at calling him--ever since an acquaintance told me he had been dismissed from his full-time position as a family counselor because he had begun to read from the Bible during counseling sessions.

An old activist and good friend recently returned from one of his many trips to Nicaragua. Each time he returns from Central America and we meet, he reminds me of my responsibility to be witness to the struggle of the Nicaraguan people to create a democratic culture in the shadow of the global giant. Whenever our discussions turn to personal responsibility as an activist, he begins sermonizing about the need to incorporate a spiritual element in my life to avoid the depression that often accompanies activism in an increasingly conservative society. During one of our conversations, he related the ecstasy of approaching a "white light" while he held his dying father in his arms. While my friend reports turning back before reaching the light, his father enter.

Another friend--indeed, a friend and neighbor since childhood--is a dedicated adherent of transcendental meditation. He is committed to the idea that through meditation the political land, scape can be transformed for the better. His naive pronouncements reflect the transcendental meditation movement's unfounded claims that, when sufficient numbers of people gather to meditate, there is a measurable drop in the incidence of violent crime. Viewing the global landscape of the last century, even the most casual observer must admit to bloodletting on an epidemic scale. While meditation may be personally rewarding, it hasn't made an iota's worth of change in this deadly global environment.

Even superficial chance meetings seem to carry the risk of being indoctrinated by the spiritually inclined. Following class a few years ago at graduate school, a fellow class member asked if I could give her suggestions about where to search for sources to assist her in publishing children's literature. Not knowing her name, I called across the darkened parking lot to make that inquiry. Stating her name, she added quite gratuitously as she slipped into her car, "Don't worry, it's not a Jewish name." On several occasions following her parting remarks, I overheard her discussing religious issues with other students. From what I could gather from the gist of these conversations, she is active in a fundamentalist church.

In the mid-1980s, I began writing grants for a local homeless shelter that sought a permanent site for its growing clientele in southern Rhode Island. As the 1980s drew to a close, the shelter group settled into a permanent building. I suggested that our group expand its role beyond sheltering the homeless and reach out to a significant portion of that population to provide transition housing. (Many women and children required more long-term assistance than the 30-day stay the shelter could provide). I ultimately resigned from the shelter board when I learned from another board member that several religiously inclined board members envisioned transition housing as an anti-choice mechanism to provide housing for single mothers who wished to carry their pregnancies to term.

Recently, I questioned why the rise of a fundamentalist mentality was so widespread among so many people with whom I had direct contact. Was it a reflection of the New Right's ascendancy to power? I believe something more profound has taken place in US. culture, of which the religious right's power base is only one manifestation. A growing isolation among people is apparent, coupled with the sense that the individual is powerless to control or affect the conditions of his or her life (note the dramatic rise of the 12-step addiction movement and its gospel of victimization as opposed to activism and change).

In addition to isolation, there is the degradation of the community ethos that isolation breeds. The stranger is viewed as a threat, a neighbor as some, one to compete with or avoid, and the culturally different to be kept apart--especially in times of economic malaise.

That spirituality would capture the imagination of so many is not surprising. Allowing forces beyond the realm of our immediate experience to inspire is the ultimate result of rugged individualism and self-serving economic interests. There must be something beyond the walls of the suburban shopping mall--and fundamentalism is there with the easy answers to salvation.

I was amazed just recently when I corrected book reviews as part of the requirements of the college course I teach. The book No Contest by Alfie Kohn is a plea for cooperation in our cultural institutions. Yet one student quoted scripture relating to the "war" between the flesh and spirit to refute Kohn and support her arguments in favor of competition. I was aghast at reading her review. There was absolutely no connection between the scripture she quoted and Kohn's thesis!

The spirituality movement, albeit wrongheaded, is a statement that our society leaves unmet the most basic of human needs of cooperativeness, cohesion, and human interaction. That fundamentalism has so successfully capitalized on this discontent is a tragic commentary on the contemporary historical epoch.

The damage wrought to the fabric of society by right-wing religious zealots is great. A few cogent examples will suffice: the assault on reproductive and women's rights, a thoroughly militarized foreign policy, homophobia, book and music censorship, and, of late, the at, tempt to win political office, from local school boards to Congress, and then to impose their narrow religious doctrines on the populace as a whole. The thin veneer of so-called traditional family values is scant cover for their reactionary agenda, which seeks to return society to some artificial pristine past.

Howard Lisnoff is an educator and counselor.