The Southern Virus

That Christianity is a manmade concoction could have no particular importance for the modern world. In modern societies (Europe, North America, East Asia) Catholicism is playing an increasingly insignificant role in society. Seminaries are closing and enrollment numbers are disintegrating. For nearly 2000 years it was Catholicism that constrained modernity and progress but this threat is now fading. Certainly the Church's prohibition on contraception has exacerbated poverty, population growth, and sexually transmitted disease transmission but the Church's influence in these matters is primarily within the developing world. In the developed world the Church's influence is in rapid decline which means its influence is declining within the greater world body politic as well. Pope's simply do not command state accedence the way they used to in ages past.

The real threat to civilization's progress comes from a small pocket of radical Christians that possess a level of power in the world that far surpasses their numbers. Thanks to the American political structure that rewards a unified region, coupled with America's role in the world, ultra right-wing Christian fundamentalism plays a disproportionately large role in world politics.

In a quote at the height of his political power, the late "Moral Majority" leader Jerry Falwell stated: "People get saved by believing that Gospel and by no other means. Whatever happens in America is going to be exported. It works that way for good or bad."

It is the exporting of this belief system which poses the largest threat to the world body politic. It is this small segment of the worlds population that should terrify the world because they want to force their morality upon this world. This is the same moral leadership that had to be dragged into the 20th century kicking and screaming. If the Southern Christians had not been forced to give up slavery because of the American Civil War; honestly, when would they have? They were the last pocket to argue for the moral efficacy of slavery and later segregation. The American South, along with South Africa are unique in the developed world. These are the only two regions that have continued to hold to an ethical perspective on racism. Writer emanating from these regions form the basis for the concepts that one race is naturally superior to another and that separation of the races is warranted. Their commonality is Christianity as the basis for their views. The Bible provides their guidance and Jesus is their justification for the belief system. Plenty of people and governments are guilty of the traffic in human commodities but, with very few exceptions, only Christians make an ethical case for the efficacy of this view.

It is the white American South that holds disdain for international cooperation. This is where the opposition to international treaties stems. It should not come as a surprise that the American South leads the opposition to such international agreements as the Geneva Convention, all international arms treaties, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol. Specifically, they have a reason for opposing all international agreements. No one is going to tell them what to do! It is a peculiar aspect of the white South that they place community sovereignty above all other political objectives. They simply will not be dictated to and will not agree to any cooperative arrangement that potentially requires they act for a greater goal beyond their own self interest. In short, they do not play well with others.

The world has plenty of experience dealing with American leadership derived from this Southern, power base. This is a Dick Cheney world view. When President George W. Bush had a popularity hovering around 25% in the United States, the overwhelming bulk of this support originated in the American South. From their perspective, he did a good job.

It is the Southern, white Christians who believe that world calamities have a positive spin because they foretell the coming rapture. It is the Southern, white Christians that will happily force their morality upon anyone else but will accept no input from outside their region. They rely upon Christianity for their moral direction. Is there a better reason to fear this backwards religious set of beliefs? To reiterate what Jerry Falwell said: "Whatever happens in America is going to be exported. It works that way for good or bad."