As demonstrated in Chap. 6 , court decisions since the 1960s have played an outsized role in the Christian conservative imagination. These cases, so the narrative runs, have increasingly turned the nation against God with deadly dangerous consequences. In cases like Engel v. Vitale and Roe v. Wade, and now in Obergefell v. Hodges, Christian conservatives believed secular humanist judges rejected the nation’s binding covenant with God by interpreting and applying the law in a way that was too elastic, and by reaching conclusions that were not anchored solidly enough in the realm of divine truth (the first plot move of the master narrative). The Supreme Court had based these decisions on solidly liberal values that were consistent with Judeo-Christian principles, such as the right to be free of government compulsion of religion and intrusion into private matters, and the right to participate in the ennobling and even “sacred” institution of marriage. Applying and then broadening Christian-inspired norms of individual dignity can even be seen as a redemptive civil religious move the court’s part. But, as Christian conservative opposition to the results in those cases demonstrated, they had already mentally replaced America’s liberal democratic constitution with a fictional Christian constitution (the second plot move). As a result of judicial betrayals such as these, Christian conservatives believed, a domino effect of social ills had been triggered as a divine judgment against a prodigal nation, prompting Christian conservatives to rebuke the existing constitutional order (the third plot move). This chapter will detail a distinct set of dire consequences that Christian conservatives anticipated to flow from the Obergefell decision.

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The Great Divorce: Fears of Anti-Christian Persecution

  • Jason E. Whitehead

摘要

As demonstrated in Chap. 6 , court decisions since the 1960s have played an outsized role in the Christian conservative imagination. These cases, so the narrative runs, have increasingly turned the nation against God with deadly dangerous consequences. In cases like Engel v. Vitale and Roe v. Wade, and now in Obergefell v. Hodges, Christian conservatives believed secular humanist judges rejected the nation’s binding covenant with God by interpreting and applying the law in a way that was too elastic, and by reaching conclusions that were not anchored solidly enough in the realm of divine truth (the first plot move of the master narrative). The Supreme Court had based these decisions on solidly liberal values that were consistent with Judeo-Christian principles, such as the right to be free of government compulsion of religion and intrusion into private matters, and the right to participate in the ennobling and even “sacred” institution of marriage. Applying and then broadening Christian-inspired norms of individual dignity can even be seen as a redemptive civil religious move the court’s part. But, as Christian conservative opposition to the results in those cases demonstrated, they had already mentally replaced America’s liberal democratic constitution with a fictional Christian constitution (the second plot move). As a result of judicial betrayals such as these, Christian conservatives believed, a domino effect of social ills had been triggered as a divine judgment against a prodigal nation, prompting Christian conservatives to rebuke the existing constitutional order (the third plot move). This chapter will detail a distinct set of dire consequences that Christian conservatives anticipated to flow from the Obergefell decision.