William F. Buckley Jr. was, like most American conservatives, a traditionalist Christian who was appalled at the secularization of western culture. And like most who share his right wing world-view, he made a mistake that is astonishing in its naivety — a mistake that is helping wreck western religion while it promotes the very secularization of the population Buckley et al. decry. It is the Grand Alliance between the religious right and corporate capital.
The Bible was written by Bronze and Iron Age peoples who had little concept about modern free enterprise. Nor did Jesus talk about stock options or hedge funds. Many early Christians lived in communistic communities where property was considered sinful. The fundamentalist Protestant William Jennings Bryan used to rail against the secular forces of capital. The Roman Church Buckley belonged to has always looked askance at capitalism. Yet, especially since World War II, the bulk of the conservative Christian cause — mainly evangelical with a number of Catholics going along for the ride — have embraced free wheeling, deregulated, laissez-faire, corporate capitalism as though it is God’s way for his human creations to manage their large scale economics.
What explains this peculiar and unprecedented amalgamation of economic modernity with social and religious traditionalism? Obviously corporate capitalism has become the modern American Way, and is a source of pride for most on the right. It is equally obvious to these people that God is pro-America, so it follows that God must think that free enterprise the best way for his creations. Intellectual justification for this notion derives from Buckley’s argument that individual free will is critical for human salvation, another innovation that would perplex traditional Christians. The Christian right goes on to imagine that the free market of commerce and ideas will somehow return the nation to the traditional religious culture they crave. The ultimate expression of this world-view is found in Protestant, Charismatic Prosperity Christianity, the self-help megachurch phenomenon in which self-aggrandizing ministers contend that the Lord wants all of his followers to be as rich as possible.
Horrified by the rise of the counterculture starting in the 1960s, major elements of the religious right decided to fight back by allying with the corporate interests under the aegis of the Republican Party, allowing them to leverage their political power well above their minority status. But this alliance of convenience is a deal with the corporate devil. In their incessant need to maximize the market base and profits, a fundamental aim of corporate capital is to transform western citizens into materialistic, hedonistic, sex, violence, celebrity and sports obsessed consumers whose life goals and values deviate from those associated with traditional piety. And to a large degree the population has gone along with the project even as it complains about it — people want to be free to have a lot more fun than the churches want them to.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/03/buckleys-big-mistake/
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