How Christian Fundamentalism Was Born Again

… David French is a former litigator for Christian conservative causes. He admits that he was a "combatant" in the culture wars; in 2007, he spoke at a conservative convention and identified "far-Left radicals at home and jihadists abroad" as the two greatest threats facing America. Later that year, French deployed to Iraq as a military lawyer. One of his roommates was a liberal Mexican American Army captain, who told French he belonged to "the church of the Hubble telescope," because he believed only in what he could see. The two men spent hours sparring like Darrow and Bryan, debating religion, politics, and other subjects. "We didn't change each other," French says. "He didn't become like me. I didn't become like him. But he was my first friend in Iraq." French says that his roommate helped him begin to see his political opponents as neighbors. Today, he remains anti-abortion, but he's also a prominent Never Trump Republican, and has been outspoken about racial disparities in policing. "Time and again, the more I learned, the more I regretted my previous combativeness," he says. "I was trying hard to win arguments, when I now realize I wasn't even right."

The authors of "The After Party" remind believers that "reconciliation to God inherently leads to reconciliation with others." They encourage Christians to draw on the resources of their faith to model a more relational, less tribal approach to politics. It's a stirring admonition, but Wineapple's observation about the tragedy of the Scopes trial is that both sides failed to see the other. The "self-appointed arbiters of culture" can seem just as contemptuous of faith as they were a century ago, even as their own beliefs become an altar unto themselves. The divide may very well be unbridgeable, but Marsden suggests that both sides keep in mind the wide angle of history and what it reveals––that "cultural conflicts are not simply products of the machinations of the warped minds of one's opponents, but rather reflect deeply embedded cultural patterns." A clear-eyed explanation of fundamentalism's resilience might include a recognition from nonbelievers that there is something wanting in the secular consensus, a lacuna that scientific, technological, and social progress has failed to address. The values of humility and hope could benefit us all. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/05/keeping-the-faith-brenda-wineapple-book-review