Former Fundies, Evangelicals, and Death of a Salesman

I have mused over the last week about an exchange on Facebook with a friend who, like me, is an Evangelical and Reformed believer. She was sincerely adamant about certain conservative thinkers using terms like "objective legal standard" or "food stamp president" as code words for white racism.

So, I asked some other friends who are conservative, and are black. The scratched their heads figuratively.

I later listened to Congressman Allen West, who himself has been black for some time, and is a conservative by birth - - or is it the other way around?

I also heard J.C. Watts, former QB of the Oklahoma Sooners, former Oklahoma Secretary of State, Former Congressman, and I would say a potential Veep candidate.

He supports Newt, one of the code-speak offenders.

So, why do white liberals, who are former fundamentalist Christians and/or current Evangelical Christians (there is a BIG difference) buy into the code-speak thing?

Well, I worked it in reverse. I WAS a liberal, so much so that I could have made Nancy Pelosi look like Jesse Helms.

I protested outside the South African mission to the UN protesting apartheid. I still think the policy was wrong, by the way.

I was the typical Southern white liberal student who wanted to change things. I was angry.

And I did not want to be looked down upon by people from up North.

Then it hit me!

The unseen actor on the thinking of liberal former Fundamentalists and liberal Evangelicals was and is -

WILLY LOMAN!!!!!

You know. The protagonist in the Tennesee Williams play, Death of a Salesman

He wanted everyone to like him. He was obsessed with the idea. He guided his sons with exhortations that the way to succeed in life was to get everyone to like you.

So, liberals and progressives in general are hypersensitive to anything that remotely looks like it could offend.

As such, discourse is chilled, otherwise acceptable words are relegated to a trash heap of language, and

Grace is sacrificed on the altar of a legalistic moral code.

The bad news, the ex-Fundamentalists are still Fundamentalists, but in a better part of town.

The good news - the right people like them!

By the way, Willy's obsession eventually led to self-destruction.