“First, there’s the explosive question of the Christo-fascist right’s theology. Just how Christian is it? That is, how does it relate to Jesus’s teachings? For all the movement’s fierce religiosity, it seems to contradict the revolutionary thrust of Christianity on every fundamental point.

“In the face of such a movement, what would Jesus do? Considering its vengefulness, self-righteousness and violence, and its devotion to big money, worldly power and war, I have no doubt that he would see it as a towering evil, like the Roman Empire, and do whatever he could do against it.

“Then there’s the question of the movement’s sincerity. Is it genuinely pious, or do its leaders merely pose as true believers in a ruthless bid for ever greater power? Are Bush, Falwell, Paul Weyrich and Ralph Reed just faking it, and laughing up their sleeves as they bow down in prayer? I think that they do mean it, that they are sincere; and so it’s just as dangerous to dismiss their fervor as it would be to laugh off the fanaticism of the Islamists.

“In fact, they’re all cut from the same cloth, both sides enabling one another to keep up the slaughter. We minimize such madness at our peril. Faced with unreasonable movements, reasonable people often tend to make that very dangerous mistake: projecting their own rationality into the crusading lunatic. It is a common misconception on the left, which always feels most comfortable theorizing that the rational Big Money is in charge behind the scenes, manipulating all the pious dummies for its own cold purposes. I wish it were that simple, but it isn’t. Between the corporate sector (or certain parts of it) and the religious ultra-right there’s a profound convergence. This, and no merely economistic view, can help account for the apocalyptic streak that drives Bush/Cheney and their most ferocious followers and backers.”

— Mark Crispin Miller