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Article Excerpt
Since the reelection of George W. Bush in November, the rhetoric on the Christian right has grown triumphal and proud; rumors of spiritual war are abroad in the heartland, and fervent whispers of revolution echo among the pews and folding chairs of the nation's megachurches. I have traveled to Anaheim, California, to observe the rising power of the evangelical political movement at first hand. Orange County, along with Colorado Springs, is a center of the new militant Christianity, and it is here, among friends, that the National Religious Broadcasters association--which brings together some 1,600 Christian radio and television broadcasters, who claim to reach up to 141 million listeners and viewers--is holding its annual convention.
I am standing in line at the Starbucks in the Anaheim Hilton with Dee Simmons and her friend Samantha Landy. Around her neck Simmons wears a cross of gold studded with diamonds, and her face, which betrays neither line nor crease, is carefully highlighted with heavy makeup. Scores of men and women, all conservatively dressed in coats and ties or skirts, stand expectantly, waiting for a sign to beckon them next door to the Anaheim Convention Center, where speeches, booths, and seminars await.
We've known each other just a few minutes, but already I can tell you that Simmons once led a life of constant sorrow, that in 1987 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and before long underwent a modified radical mastectomy. That tragedy led her, she says, to turn her focus away from the designer-clothes boutiques she owned in Dallas and New York. "When God gave me my life back," she says, "I decided to make a difference in people's lives." And so she embraced nutrition.
Simmons reaches into her purse and draws out several pamphlets from her company, Ultimate Living. She tells me about her books, which include It's a Miracle/It's a Green Miracle & It Saved My Life!, and mentions the numerous Christian talk shows she regularly appears on, including Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, Hope Today, Praise, Something Good Tonight, and The Armstrong Williams Show.
"I was saved and found Christ when I was three," she says. "I'm sixty-four. My daughter is thirty-six." She waits for the effect of her age, which she will repeat more than once, to sink in. I can't take my eyes off her smooth face and sculpted cheekbones.
Landy is also active in the life of faith. She tells me that she runs "Christian Celebrity Luncheons" in Palm Springs as part of her "salvation outreach for snowbirds." Her ministry focuses on country clubs and golf courses, she says, because that's where people feel comfortable. Landy, a redhead, never stops smiling.
"I bring in celebrity speakers," she says, "like Gavin MacLeod, he was the Captain on Love Boat, and Ronda Fleming, she was in over forty films and starred with Brag Crosby."
Landy, like Simmons, appears on Christian television shows. She has published books with titles such as A Shalom Morning and God's Creatures. Her list of celebrities includes Donna Douglas from The Beverly Hillbillies, Ann B. Davis, who was Alice on The Brady Bunch, and Lauren Chapin, who played Kathy on Father Knows Best.
My new friends, evidently minor celebrities themselves in the world of Christian broadcasting, have come to Anaheim for the yearly convention because it is the only time they can see all the major Christian broadcasters in one place. They are picture-perfect members of a new Christian elite, showy, proud of how God has blessed them with material wealth and privilege, and hooked into the culture of celebrity and power.
I carry my coffee across the stone courtyard to the curved glass and gleaming towers of the convention center, the largest in California. Within the exhibition hall on the first floor, 320 display booths--and, at the far end of the hall, the twisted remains of an Israeli bus blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers in Jerusalem--float on an enormous sea of soft blue carpeting. The Israeli tourism ministry has one of the largest display spaces in the hall. People from the Christian Law Association hand out yardsticks filled with gum. A Virginia web-design company offers "church websites the way God intended." A bearded man dressed as a biblical prophet is pushing tours of the Holy Land. I see anti-abortion booths and evidence of fringe groups such as Jews for Jesus and Accuracy in Media, one of whose representatives hands me a report with the title "American Troops Cheer Attacks on U.S. Media."
All the seminars and workshops are taking place on...
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