Sunday, March 12, 2006
Dressing For the Occasion
Setting aside the incongruity of having serious discussions about morality among the parrotheads, Pulitzer Prize winning historian and former Discovery Institute fellow (from back when it was attempting some academic respectability) had occasion to speak of the "fundamentalist subculture" that resulted from the perception of conservative Christians that they have suffered repeated blows from Darwin's Origin of Species, Biblical criticism, positivism, Marxism, and Freudianism. Following the Scopes trial, the media was less respectful of religion, denominational universities adopted modernism and the courts struck down religious instruction, mandatory school prayer and government sanctioned Bible readings in public schools. According to Larson, the religious right retreated to its churches, radio stations, and home schools. Saletan continues:
I've always thought of subcultures as decadent and left-wing. Key West is full of them. Down the block from the conference site, you can buy penis-shaped lighters and bikinis that say "your face here." In our hotel rooms, the staff has left fliers announcing "Fantasy Fest 2005," which begins the day after we depart. On our coffee tables, Key West magazine shows what's in store: drag, geishas, nudity, leather, S&M. The lobby is already festooned with movie stills from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
This, more than monkey ancestors, is what alarms creationists. Larson lists the social ills they blame on the teaching of evolution: abortion, eugenics, homosexuality, effeminacy, divorce, communism, long hair. He's been told that Phillip Johnson, the founder of the intelligent design movement, brought up cross-dressing three times in his most recent book. "And those are important issues," Larson adds, trying to sound even-handed, but the journalists laugh. "It is important," a colleague next to me whispers. "There's a lot of shopping involved. You have to buy for two."
What used to be shocking is now just fun or silly, even to those of us who think of ourselves as believers. Fundamentalists have lost the media, the colleges, and the science academies. The battleground has been reduced to public schools, and creationism has been reduced to intelligent design -- a pathetic, agnostic, empty shell. Creationists can't teach a dogma, so they "teach the controversy." They accept more and more of Darwin's theory, narrowing the dispute to isolated systems -- the eye, the flagellum, the blood-clotting system -- that they say Darwinism can't explain. They just want science to stop short of denying God's possibility. A little bit of mystery, a parcel of unspoiled divine wilderness, is all they ask.
