The Perils of Fundamentalism and the Imperilment of Democracy
by Kimberly Blaker

Those who control what young people are taught, and what
they experience -- what they see, hear, think, and believe --
will determine the future course for the nation.
-- James Dobson¹

Who could say it better than Dr. James Dobson, former Professor of Pediatrics and founder of Focus on the Family? He is known to Christian conservatives as America's foremost parenting authority and is the calm voice parents across the country turn to daily on more than 2,000 radio stations. From Dobson, they seek answers to questions regarding marriage, relationships, and childrearing.

To others, Dobson is known for his strong web of ties to the Christian Right. In fact, his ability to wield power over the Republican Party suggests he is the Christian Right. Dobson, an evangelical, a patriarch, and an advocate of corporal punishment is an opponent of reproductive choice, homosexual rights, free speech, liberal sex education, and the right to die with dignity. Yet, he has a remarkable ability to manipulate unsuspecting Americans who otherwise might not agree with his views. His sly maneuvering through the political arena unseen and unheard-except by those whose chains he pulls-has been a key to his power and success. Dobson's pronouncement, however, which opens this work, is a revelation into the evangelical and fundamentalist mentality. It displays a hunger for mind control of youth, scarcely different from Pakistan and Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalists.

Many Pakistani children are raised in such a controlling environment. Pakistani Muslim boys as young as six, mostly from poor families, are often given over to madrasahs, or religious schools, where they spend their youth learning an extreme form of Islam. In the madrasahs, boys are given little opportunity to socialize, spending most of their first three years memorizing the Qur'an in Arabic, a language they do not even understand. They are taught no science or math, and the only history they will ever learn is of the Muslim world. It is the graduates of these madrasahs who "swell[ed] the ranks of the Taliban" in the mid-1990s.² The Taliban continues to gain adherents through the training of children, from an early age, to think dogmatically-as do the Taliban leaders.

Similarly, Christian fundamentalists frequently home school their children or send them to ultra-conservative Christian schools in an effort to limit socialization that would otherwise open doors to critical thought. The key concept of fundamentalist education is controlling what children learn. As do those funding and running Pakistan's madrasahs in preparation for the Jihad, Dobson realizes, "If the salvation of our children is really that vital to us, then our spiritual training should begin before children can even comprehend what it is all about [emphasis added]."³ Dobson further reveals:

I firmly believe in acquainting children with God's judgment and wrath while they are young. Nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to skip over the unpleasant scriptures in our teaching. The wages of sin is death, and children have the right to understand that fact.⁴

Christian fundamentalist schooling is known for indoctrinating children through recitation and memorization of Bible verses and prayers, reinforced with hellfire and brimstone lectures. Moreover, these children are taught from textbooks that distort scientific and historic facts. As you will learn in Chapter 3, these children learn only what neatly fits into the myopic views of their parents and teachers. In math, they are taught only mechanics and absolutes. New math that teaches problem solving skills is abhorred because it reveals that everything is not black and white.

Fundamentalists know too well that children who learn to think on their own may someday stray from their indoctrination. The ideology of children in fundamentalist families is predetermined. Mind control, therefore, is the mode by which fundamentalists, whether Christian, Islamic, Jewish, or any other group, gain adherents. Authoritarian in nature, their interpretation of sacred texts calls on them to dominate society and to "determine the future course for the nation," as Dobson suggests. If fundamentalists do not guard against children learning to think on their own, they risk turning out adults who will choose a path inharmonious or even opposed to their own. For many fundamentalists, this path is simple, to serve God by bringing him loyal servants. However, a large proportion work to raise leaders and followers who will bring about political change and build a society ruled by an ideology not conducive to democracy. Equally troublesome, some fundamentalists intend to raise an army of puppets who will kill-and even die-for their predetermined cause.

America's new war on terrorism, resulting from the staggering death toll of the September 11, 2001 attacks, has made one thing clear. Those who threaten our lives and security, even those who stand in the way of capturing terrorists will be wiped out for the good of the world-that is, providing they are neither Christian nor American. There has been a disturbing double standard in the United States' way of dealing with extremist factions. The Bush administration's objective to exterminate terrorism abroad, neglects to recognize and address the dangers we face from within our own nation. In fact, President George W. Bush has called for more of what contributed to such an atrocity in the first place-the intrusion of religion into government.

America is not immune from breeding such extremism, as was seen when Christians Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Nichols and McVeigh were influenced by the extremist Christian Identity movement. The bombing was McVeigh's way of speaking out against the government invasion of the Waco Branch Davidians, a Christian sect. It was also in retaliation of the shooting deaths of the white supremacist Weaver family at Ruby Ridge, followers of the Christian Identity faith.
 

Kimberly Blaker is an advocate of the separation of church and state, a columnist, and editor/coauthor of The Fundamentals of Extremism: the Christian Right in America. Her Fundamentally Aware tour begins summer 2003.
 

Notes

1. James C. Dobson, Children at Risk, 27.
2. Philip Smucker and Michael Stachell, "Hearts and Minds," U.S. News & World Report, 15 October 2001 [online], [cited 15 October 2001]; available at www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/011015/ideas/taliban.htm
3. James Dobson, Parenting Isn't For Cowards (Word Publishing, 1997), 104, cited in Albert J. Menendez, Three Voices of Extremism: Charles Colson, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy (Silver Spring, MD: Americans for Religious Liberty, 1977), 52.
4. Dobson, Parenting, 106.