A Down Under Minister’s look at Evangelicals and U.S. Presidential countdown…

THE JESUS MACHINE*

One of the intriguing sideshows of the current American presidential campaign is who believes what, who prays with whom, and which side is God backing. It bemuses, bewilders and frequently causes some alarm for the rest of the world.

Australia, like no other country mimics and mirrors much of American church life, and the way the various candidates are responding to faith issues should be of interest in Australia. The American religious experience pervades Australian churches: Christian bookshop profits are dependent on American publications and music; churches regularly send touring teams of ministers to the States; American prosperity evangelists are either coming or going; and Hinn, Copeland and Myer (all currently under investigation for the way they handle their finances)run weekly programs on Australian television and radio programs.

Providing the background to the presidential campaign is an intense debate on the relationship between faith and politics. Books such as Lindsay’s,” Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite”; Goldberg’s,”Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism”; Hedges, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America”, and Wallis’s most recent book, “The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post Religious Right America” each reflect, in their own way, different aspects of that debate.

Given the pre eminent and very peculiar role James Dobson plays in American political life, and because his organisation, Focus on the Family(FOF), is active in Australian churches, Dan Gilgoff’s book, “The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War”, is an important book.

Gilgoff, a former senior editor of the U.S.News & World Report, covered national politics, as well as, “the intersection of politics with religion and culture”. The chief lobbyist of the National Evangelical Association, on the one hand, describes him as “first rank – dependably honest”, yet, when Dobson hears of the title of this book, Gilgoff receives an email from FOF which he describes as “the nastiest” he’s ever received as a journalist.

Gilgoff, by the way is now responsible for God-o-Meter, the blog which, “scientifically measures factors such as rate of god-talk….click a candidates head to get the latest reading”!

His sources are first rate including access to Dobson, FOF staff, as well as extensive interviews with members of the highly secretive Arlington Group, an organisation which contains the heavy hitters in the political and religious right.

Since the Seventies, Dobson has been building one of the most effective religious political machines in the USA.Described by Gilgoff, as being “remarkably coy” in talking directly about politics, Dobson is highly regarded and respected, as a “behind the scenes political fixer”, who relishes his “growing political power”. First, the Moral Majority, followed then by the Christian Coalition and now FOF. And in the shadows, are the Council of National Policy and a range of White House operatives, including the likes of Karl Rove.

Gilgoff provides a most comprehensive map of FOF and Dobson related organizations, through which influence and power is exercised.FOF, FOF Action (“the political arm of FOF”), Family Research Council (“command central for Washington’s Christian right”), FOF Institute, Alliance Defense Fund, as well as, a plethora of state based councils and organisations, such as the Ohio Restoration Project and its thousand “Patriot Pastors” are described in detail.

The central chapters set out in detail the tactics and strategies which the Religious Right, and in particular, Dobson, utilise. They include everything from discreet black tie dinners up the street from the White House and Congress, side meetings during the National Days of Prayer, targeted lobbying, threats to withdraw campaign support, letter drops on a scale not seen in Australia, collecting denominational directories to add to mailing lists, concerted attacks on political candidates who are not seen to be sympathetic to the Machine’s agenda, mobilising volunteers by the hundreds of thousands, and if things were not going the way Dobson planned, then the strategic use of his vast media empire. The issues of the Machine are the well known agenda of the Religious Right: Christian values, the family, homosexuality and abortion.Gilgoff also explores in some detail some of the changing issues for some of the Religious Right, such as climate change, the campaign against AIDS, and poverty, all of which Dobson opposes.

If there is a fault in the book, it is that there is little analysis of the finances of the Dobson Machine. Apart from a glimpse here and there, the Family Research Institute headquarters in Washington, for example, was financed by the founder of Amway, Gilgoff provides little information on who and how The Jesus Machine is funded.

If readers interested in the relationship between faith and politics want some basic understanding of how the Christian Right works, then this book is an essential read.

When candidates in campaign meetings call for their supporters to enlist in “God’s army” and “to be soldiers for Christ”, then readers of Gilgoff’s book will have some idea as to whether or not they should be alert and alarmed.

* The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, Dan Gilgoff, New York, St.Martins Press 2007

*See also “James Dobson And The Australian Connection”, June 2007 – http://jmm.org.au/articles/19790.htm

Alan Matheson

Retired minister of Churches of Christ.