Christian Nation by Frederic C. Rich Read Free Book Online Page A

interrupted and changed the subject. Sanjay clearly wished to probe and explore the woman’s beliefs and views, but with one look I warned him off. He looked very thoughtful during the rest of the dinner.
    In the car on the way back, Sanjay was animated and clearly fascinated by the experience. I was driving, and Emilie was in the back, with a hangover.
    Sanjay was looking down at his Palm Treo. “Amazing. Did you know,” he asked, “that 84 percent of Americans believe that Jesus is the son of God, 80 percent believe in the Day of Judgment and in miracles, 50 percent believe in angels, and 40 percent believe in the literal truth of the Bible? Fifty-five percent say God created humans in their present form, and only 13 percent believe in evolution without divine guidance.”
    “Impossible,” said Emilie. “I don’t know anybody who believes in angels or who doesn’t accept evolution. Who are these people?”
    “Those numbers are true, I am afraid,” continued Sanjay. “I am looking at the latest Gallup Poll. It says that 25 percent of Americans describe themselves as evangelicals and 40 percent self-describe as born-again Christians—40 percent. I had no idea.”
    “So what?” asked Emilie. “I mean, these people say ‘I believe this, I believe that.’ I’m supposed to care? Why? I mean, these people cannot get the small stuff right. Did you see on the news that Miss South Carolina said on TV that she thought Europe was a country and she had never heard of Hungary? Unbelievable. So if they can’t get the small stuff right, why should I care about what they believe about the really big stuff, like creation and infinity and the universe? It’s absurd. Why do we pay attention to these people?”
    “I am not sure, but I found the weekend very interesting,” Sanjay answered. “Those people are not what I thought fundamentalists were like. We were not in the Deep South or a stereotypical ‘red state.’ We were in Pennsylvania. And the family. Well, they did not appear to be unreasonable people. But the sister at dinner …”
    “Wasn’t that a scream?” Emilie interrupted. “When she started explaining to you why yoga was satanic … oh my God, it was classic, classic. Sanjay, dear, it’s not often that I’ve seen you at a total loss for words. And she’s an accountant. What an idiot. Unbelievable. My head hurts.”
    That weekend in Pennsylvania is what first got Sanjay interested in the evangelical movement and eventually in its quest for political power. Would something else have triggered the same interest, or would he and I have had completely different lives if our friend had married someone else or if Sanjay hadn’t gone to the wedding? A frivolous thought. Coincidence and randomness create opportunity and choices, and our lives then take a path determined by the opportunities we take and the choices we make.
    Within days I realized that Sanjay had become fascinated by the mega-church phenomenon, by the theology of fundamentalist Christianity, and by the rapid rise of the Christian right to the pinnacle of political power. Running You and I at that point was not really a full-time job, and Sanjay immersed himself in the topic and spoke of little else. It was not, at the time, a topic of great interest to me. In fact, as I immersed myself in my work and had my eyes opened to the worlds of business and finance, Sanjay’s preoccupation seemed to me to be more than a little quirky. I had the sense that, after years of academics, I was finally learning how the world really worked. The people with whom I spent my days were what we pretentiously called at the time “players,” and San—despite his success with You and I —seemed to have taken a turn back to a world of abstraction, theory, and academic speculation. Despite our closeness, I occasionally was tempted to see Sanjay as an artifact of my past life as opposed to a major part of my current life—a view that Emilie did nothing to