1998-English 201
Second Place
Christian Misogyny and the Rising Power of the Religious Right: Portents of the Monotheocracy in The Handmaid's Tale
By Patti Phillips
American society has had certain cultural and political forces which have proliferated over the past few decades-described as the return to traditional Christian values. Television commercials promoting family values followed by endorsements from specific denominations are on the rise. As the public has become more aware of a shift in the cultural and political climate through the mass media, Margaret Atwood, in writing The Handmaid's Tale, could have been similarly affected by this growing awareness of the public consciousness. This may have led Atwood to write of a bleak future for the country where a new regime is established and one religion becomes so powerful as to take over the nation by a military coup, subjugating women into archaic stereotypical female roles.
Two of these forces, as reflected in the novel, are misogyny among Christian men and the rising political power of the Religious Right. Both are insidious because the real agendas are often couched in the authority of the Bible, and both serve to oppress women and their rights. Christian misogyny, like the brainwashing at the Red Center and ceremonial scripture readings preceding sexual intercourse in The Handmaid's Tale, keeps its foothold on the necks of women by distorting the meaning of Biblical scripture. In the case of the Religious Right, its tenets would abridge not only some of women's rights, such as the availability of abortion, but would also infringe on religious freedom for all Americans. In its forays into the political system, more recently through its Christian Coalition, the Religious Right, like Christian misogynists, interprets scripture to support its movement to meet its own agenda-the establishment of a Christian nation.
The distorted meaning of scripture in The Handmaid's Tale occurs in two contexts--during the ceremonial reading of scripture by the Commander before he has intercourse with Offred and at the Red Center as read by the Aunts. Though the Commander reads accurately from Genesis 30: 1-3 to the household--
Give me children or else I die. Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children by her (Atwood 114)--
the Biblical context, however, is irrelevant to the modern society which existed before the coup. The context of the scripture is that of an ancient patriarchal society where men often had multiple wives whose value was to produce progeny, and the Judaic laws accorded women few rights. Though there are some similarities between ancient times and Gilead-the high infant mortality rate and death in childbirth--scripture is used by Gilead as a means to an end. In order to increase the birth rate, the regime forced the wives to accept their roles as barren women, hence inferior people, and surrogate mothers. Consequently, the handmaids are not seen as whole people at all, just reproductive machines. Offred observed that her uterus made her like a womb on legs. At the Red Center, the women listened to a tape of the Beatitudes, and Offred knew the reading was incorrect. She recollects, "'…Blessed be the meek. Blessed are the silent.' I knew it was wrong, and they left things out, too, but there was no way of checking" (115). In this context, the scripture is used to condition the women to accept their roles as subservient, passive reproductive mechanisms and, most of all, not to resist the regime.
Distortions of the meaning of scripture are also present in some Christian marriages. According to Dr. Margaret J. Rinck in her book Christian Men Who Hate Women, Christian misogynists often use the Bible as a means to control their wives. Rinck's case studies conclude that "Christian misogynists have a seemingly foolproof weapon in their campaign to control their wives" (Rinck 71-72). Rinck goes on to explain that "…Scripture can and has been used to justify everything from slavery to the Holocaust. In the hands of a misogynist, we see a more subtle, but nonetheless serious, distortion" (72). Rinck gives the example of a husband who refuses to let his wife take college courses, though they have plenty of money and their children are in high school, because, as he puts it, "the Bible says, 'the wife is the keeper of the home'" (72).
Misogyny, Christian or secular, has probably existed from time immemorial. However, it has only been openly brought to the fore more recently by feminists and other watchdog groups, such as the Center for Democratic Studies which studies the Promise Keepers, an all male organization attempting to advance the agenda of the Christian right. The Center states on its web site that
"Promise Keepers' leaders understand that they can never reach their goal of creating a theocratic, male supremacist society unless they reverse the legal and social gains made by women." (1)
Misogyny is certainly a problem in our society that, if left unexposed and not dealt with, could be a presage for the oppression of women in The Handmaid's Tale such as women's loss of their rights to work, own property and have money. Before the regime in the Republic of Gilead took over completely, women were forced to become totally dependent on husbands or the closest male relative.
In addition to Christian misogyny in the novel, another perilous abridgement of rights occurs-the right to religious freedom. In Gilead, a state government is engaged in combat against resistant religious factions such as Quakers and Baptists. In today's culture, we see the Religious Right's threat to religious freedom and pluralism by its assault on the Constitutional "wall of separation" between church and state. This attack is being waged on all political fronts from the movement's effort to influence the Republican party to grassroots takeovers of school boards, city councils and state legislatures (2). The Palm Beach Post reported on September 27, 1996, that
…millions of conservative Christians, frustrated and angry at what they see as a decline in morality, have become politically active. And other Christians, Jews and secular Americans are worried they may lose their freedoms to the religious right's demands. (1F)
The journalist, Steve Gushee, goes on to write that
…conservative Christians are organized, disciplined and have enormous power, from clout on local school boards to influence in national political parties. (1F)
The Religious Right through its Christian Coalition has a number of weapons in its arsenals. On a campaign of disinformation based on fear about many issues, this political group, like the Christian misogynists and the Republic of Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale, misuses scripture to validate its political message. F. Thomas Trotter of The Nashville Banner wrote on September 28, 1995, of this particular problem. He described a recent convention of the Christian Coalition where Patrick Buchanan, a Religious Right ideologue, gave a rousing speech heavily peppered with Biblical quotations. Trotter wrote:
Buchanan brought the convention to its feet with a passage from Second Chronicles. It was a warning from the Lord to Israel "to turn from wicked ways," and that he would "heal their land." The passage was taken out of context from the story of Solomon's decision to build the temple. (A7)
Trotter points out in the article that "it is risky to use biblical texts to 'prove' a particular personal position. That is usually the best sign that the text is being misused" (A7).
The Religious Right believes that the United States was founded by Christians as a Christian nation and is overtly hostile to the separation of church and state as set forth in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment states, in part, that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Thomas Jefferson later referred to this as a "wall of separation" between church and state. (3) In describing the Republic of Gilead, Atwood evokes gruesome images when writing of the wall where Catholics are hung and left on public display. In this case, the wall in Gilead may be symbolic of the enmeshment of church and state.
Today, critics see a movement toward enmeshment as precariously close to becoming reality in American society. In his manifesto, Why the Religious Right Is Wrong: About Separation of Church and State, Robert Boston writes:
I am convinced that the concept of separation of church and state stands in grave peril today, thanks primarily to the Religious Right's propaganda war. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated. We are dangerously close to demolishing Jefferson's wall. (Boston 11)
Boston carefully outlines the group's campaign of disinformation to abolish Jefferson's wall, citing examples of their rhetoric claiming the intention of separation was to keep government out of church affairs-a one way street-but not to keep religion out of the business of government.
Throughout The Handmaid's Tale, we see the results of the marriage of church and state and the regime's agenda to subjugate women and reorder society along strict Biblical lines. Women are relegated into a caste-type system in a patriarchal society where the church governs as a police state. The women wear colored uniforms designating their roles as handmaids, Marthas, econowives or commander's wives. Transgressions on the parts of men or women result in salvagings where wrongdoers are torn apart by mobs or, in the case of women, sent to the Colonies to cleanup toxic spills. In Gilead, there is no tolerance for religions other than the state religion-Jews are deported or forced to convert, Catholics are executed and the military is engaged in a battle to quell such denominations as Baptists and Quakers.
This lack of religious tolerance and the establishment of a government run by the church in The Handmaid's Tale is echoed by the most conservative of the group in the Religious Right camp--the Christian Reconstructionists--who claim that not only is the Bible the inerrant word of God, but that the founding fathers never intended a religiously tolerant and pluralist society (184). Boston quotes Reconstructionist Byron Snapp in a 1987 issue of The Counsel of Chalcedon analyzing the dangers of toleration and pluralism. Snapp declares:
The Christian must realize that pluralism is a myth. God and His law must rule all nations….At no point in Scripture do we read that God teaches, supports or condones pluralism. To support pluralism is to recognize all religions as equal. Such a recognition denies God's glory that belongs uniquely to Him. Clearly our founding fathers had no intention of supporting pluralism for they saw that the Bible tolerates no such view. (184)
Boston goes on to summarize the reordering of society according to this group where national government would be decentralized and given to local churches. As in The Handmaid's Tale where all power belongs to the church, the Reconstructionists propose that all security and police services be provided by local militias controlled by the churches (184). In fact, Boston notes, Reconstructionists advocate the death penalty for a wide variety of offenses and that if their type of society were ever implemented in the United States, "few will be left to live in it!" (184). This movement toward a reconstructed society along strict Biblical interpretation is frighteningly close to the dystopia in The Handmaid's Tale where people were picked off the street without warning by church's militia, women were not allowed to read or do anything beyond their prescribed roles and dissension was a capital offense.
The Religious Right seeks to reconstruct society along similar moral lines and sought to bring its political agenda to the White House in 1988 through Pat Robertson's failed bid to win the Republican nomination. Since then, Robertson launched the Christian Coalition as a political force to work from the bottom up instead of the top down. The Coalition is formidable and its successes are sweeping the nation on a grassroots level. In Florida, for example, where the Religious Right was previously an annoying but inconsequential presence, the 1997 State Legislature convened with an agenda full of proposed legislation backed by the Christian Coalition. In fact, it's most powerful leader, Speaker Daniel Webster, is a fundamentalist Christian "with ties to a Chicago group that wants to put the values of the Bible back into government" (Wallsten 1D).
The political successes of the Religious Right do not bode well for religious freedom in this country or for women's rights to equal power, an outcome that Atwood may very well have foreseen. Atwood writes of a society where dissenters and non-believers are put to death, and piety and conformity is measured by subscriptions to "soul scrolls." Even the prescribed greetings between handmaids is ordained. The greeting "blessed be the fruit" is appropriated from dogmatic prayer, suggesting that the fruit of the womb is more than cause for celebration-it is the crowning achievement and fulfillment of a handmaid's purpose.
Atwood's predictions of a monotheocracy are surely drawn from the cultural climate existing today. The exposure of Christian misogynists and their efforts to control and oppress women, as well as the Religious Right's major incursions into local and national politics are paving the way for the regime described in The Handmaid's Tale. As the Religious Right's critics point out, the infringement on first amendment religious freedom and separation of church and state is clearly in danger if the present trend continues. All the attendant elements of the state religion in The Handmaid's Tale seem perilously close to reality.
Footnotes
1) "Center for Democratic Studies." Http://www.cdsresearch.org/promise_keepers_watch.htm (April 30, 1997).
2) See Doerr, Edd. "Pat Robertson's Agenda for America: a Marriage of Religion and Politics." USA Today. July 1996. 30. Gushee, Steve. "TV Series Chronicles Rise of Religious Right." The Palm Beach Post. September 27, 1996. 1F. Wallsten, Peter. "Church Meets State." St. Petersburg Times. February 16, 1997. 1D.
3) See Doerr, Edd. "Pat Robertson's Agenda for America: a Marriage of Religion and Politics." USA Today. July 1996. 30.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1985.
Boston, Robert. Why the Religious Right is Wrong: About Separation of Church and State. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1993.
Doerr, Edd. "Pat Robertson's Agenda for America: a Marriage of Religion and Politics." USA Today. July, 1996. 30
Gushee, Steve. "TV Series Chronicles Rise of Religious Right." The Palm Beach Post. September 27, 1996. 1F.
Rinck, Margaret. Christian Men Who Hate Women. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Pyranee Books, 1990.
Trotter, F. Thomas. "Bible Frequently Quoted Carelessly for Political Points." The Nashville Banner. September 28, 1995. A7.
Wallsten, Peter. "Church Meets State." St. Petersburg Times. February 16, 1997. 1D.
(Patti Phillips is a non-traditional student in her junior year, returning to school after twenty years of varied work experience. During those years, she thought she had lost the academic ability to do well in college, so getting a degree was something she was resigned not to pursue. However, since starting school at Armstrong in the 1996, she has maintained a 4.0 average and is enjoying the experience..
Patti relocated to Savannah from Albany, New York, where she had been unemployed in the early Spring of 1996, to "start over" somewhere warmer. She was always a good writer, having used that skill in her various jobs. When she couldn't find meaningful work that didn't require a degree, she began freelance writing for advertising agencies and within a few months had regular by-lines in the weekly Close-Up section of the Savannah Morning News and later the daily paper. This without any formal journalism education. She has since taken a number of journalism courses and has done an internship at the paper during the Summer of 1997. She will continue to write on a freelance basis while in school. She is also pursuing a course of independent study in web site authoring and has a part-time job in the Instructional Media Center.
Patti is a General Studies major with a minor in Communications. After graduation, Patti hopes to work as a web page designer or a related field.)