More on Bush and History

In the comments to my previous post, Valentine catches a gaping hole in my historical analysis:

You can't forget the antiintellectualism of the fundamentalist movement, which has its roots in a peculiarly American Protestantism that arose as, during westward expansion, people took with them their religious fervor but not the educated clergy of New England. On the frontier, American values of independence and self-reliance led to a strain of folks who wanted the chance to interpret the Bible for themselves, without being told how to do it by elitist Yanks or hidebound Europeans. The deep suspicion of being told how to think and of intellectualism in general by the people on the frontier, who had to worry about livelihoods over education, only contirbuted.

By the time Europe managed to export Higher Criticism to the US--with its ability to reconcile Christianity with the difficult questions raised by critical looks at Scripture--American Protestants were already primed to reject it for a system of strict literalism and removal of the Good Book from any kind of historical context, hermeneutics, or scholarly/theological precedent. If someone didn't like your reading, you could just schism and go home.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Fundamentalist strains of the various denominations, failing to purge the influence of progressives and liberal Christians from their churches, seceded and became a movement in earnest. They very quietly built an infrastructure of schools, Bible colleges, homeschool programs; funded smallscale political candidates and lobbies; and printed out Bibles with built-in commentaries that would encourage any reader to believe that their interpretation was the only correct one. They organized, and did it well. And when they saw an opening, they used all that preparation to explode onto the political scene as what we now think of as the Religious Right. You combine -that- movement with the roots of the neoconservative movement you theorize, and you have...well, G-dub.

(Ahh comments, what did I ever do without them)

While thanking Valentine for helping give a more complete analysis of recent history, I should mention that any historical analyses I write on this blog should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't really do research for them, they are merely insights that are based on what historical knowledge I have at the top of my brain, which I'd like to think is enough to make substantial posts. If anyone when reading such posts can think of anything I missed, like Valentine did, or if I'm just getting something way, way wrong, please correct me.