Moral Force

 

The Erinyes hound Orestes

Comrade Xerxes writes recently that power corrupts. 

           “Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Government… Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu… In the U.S., white evangelical males… All lash out at perceived threats. All double down on preserving their own power, whatever it is.”

I find it interesting that he identifies “white evangelical males” as the power in the US, parallel to Vladimir Putin in Russia and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. A white evangelical male is not in charge in the White House, as Putin is in the Kremlin, or Netanyahu in the Knesset. Nor has been, since Jimmy Carter. And before him? Can’t think of anyone. It is conspicuous fact that, even though it is America’s largest Protestant denomination, there have been few even nominally Baptist presidents. And none from any other “evangelical” denomination.

So why does he come to perceive “white evangelical males” as the real power in the US?

It is not that they are such a large voting bloc. They come in at 9% of the population, according to Pew Research; fewer than blacks or Hispanics, both at 11%. And they are less inclined to vote as a bloc.

It is not that they have overwhelming economic power, that might buy or command influence over policy. Evangelicals are disproportionately the rural poor—the “hillbillies.”

Is it because they are especially fierce in defending their power? Doesn’t work, if they don’t have significant power to begin with. What weapons do they have? Banjoes? Church organs?

Nor, speaking of church organs, are they overrepresented in the media or the arts, another way a minority might punch above its weight. There’s country and gospel music, and Christian fiction, but this is proverbially unpopular outside the ranks of the evangelicals themselves; there is little “crossover,” only preaching to the choir. Your typical current American journalist or artist is urban, middle or upper class, female, and irreligious.

So why Xerxes’s perception that white evangelical males wield great power in the culture?

And it is not just his perception. Everyone is aware of the evangelicals, and what they think about a given issue, and everyone talks about them as though they have influence and either must be taken into account—or resisted at all costs. Why?

This demonstrates what “soft power” is, also known as moral force. It is the weapon wielded so effectively by Martin Luther King Jr., or by Gandhi or O’Connell to defeat the military and economic might of the British Empire. It is what has given the Jews immense cultural influence, though a small minority, wherever they have lived. It is the tactic Jesus advised, in cases of facing overwhelming force, as “turn the other cheek.”

It is the spiritual authority that comes of being right, and in the right. 

Ultimately, everyone recognizes the difference between right and wrong. When they realize they are in the wrong, their conscience pursues them like the hounds of heaven. Subjectively, it feels to them like an overwhelming force.

Because it is. Over the longer term, it is indeed the strongest force of all.