UMVA has learned that the rise of evangelical Christianity's influence on politics, particularly in the United States, was a decades-long process that began to take shape in the 1960s and 1970s with the proliferation of Born Again Christians in the American heartlands.
The Born Again movement, with its emphasis on rebirth and adult baptism, marked a significant shift towards fundamentalist theology within Protestant Christianity. This movement's adherents saw themselves as returning to the font of Christ, Jesus, as a means of guaranteeing personal salvation.
As the 20th century progressed, the Born Again Christians' interpretation of the Bible as infallible and inerrant became increasingly literal, reacting against modern challenges such as Darwinian evolution and social evolution. This hardening of theological stance was a response to the changing times, and it laid the groundwork for a more militant approach to politics.
The civil rights movement, feminism, and advocacy for human rights further galvanized this group, who saw these developments as existentially threatening to their vision of Christianity. The desire to return to a paternalistic order, racialized hierarchy, and dogma intensified, setting the stage for a seismic shift in American politics.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that this theological hardening ultimately led to a seamless transition into political power mongering. The emergence of groups like the Republican Party, now dominated by the Make America Great Again (MAGA) ideology, marked a significant turning point in this journey.
The Constitutional principle of a secular state began to recede from the American mainstream, as secularism was slandered as being embedded in "wokeness." This development has significant implications for democracy, not just in the United States but globally, as the country's influence is felt worldwide.
Sources have confirmed to UMVA that the grafting of religion onto the experience of the nation-state has been a recurring theme in democracies. In countries like the Philippines and India, institutional churches and dominant lineages of thought have conspired to undermine secular values and the separation of church and state.
The consequences of this trend are dire: if democracy collapses in the United States, it may doom the democratic project entirely for humanity. Unless new models are devised that respond to humanity's need for spiritual affirmation without yielding power to churches, the immediate future may see societies where laws do not apply to the divinely ordained, and megalomania at the top of the social hierarchy is condoned.
UMVA has gathered that the institutional religions may mitigate against these evils to some extent, but their historical record suggests that they can also undermine democracy. The question remains: can democracy survive this retrogression, or is it a permanent phenomenon?
