Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, something of a backwoods New York Times, sent one of its senior columnists into the American Deep South last week to find out how the religious right is doing. Not well, he reported with undisguised satisfaction. Indeed, he wrote, it might be going the way of the Soviet Union.
Because the whole Bush experience has been so unsatisfactory, writes columnist John Ibbitson, the impending political doom was foreseeable for the Jerry Falwells, the Pat Robertsons and the James Dobsons (of Focus on the Family renown). By putting a born-again Christian in the White House and by electing two Republican Congresses, they have gained very little in return.
Gay marriage was resisted, a pretense was made to find federal financing for faith-based community organizations, the "line was held" on stem-cell research, but much more was expected. (Only 10 days earlier, Republican appointees to the Supreme Court had firmly prohibited partial-birth abortions, but Ibbitson quietly overlooked the decision.) 
And whom, he wonders, will the religious right favor now? Of the three leading Republican contenders, Rudolph Giuliani is twice divorced and marches in gay pride parades. John McCain in the past bitterly attacked the religious right. Mitt Romney, though never divorced and a respected conservative, is a Mormon, and therefore suspect theologically.
Hence, "the religious right is in eclipse, and there is fascinating talk of a new secular conservatism that could reshape the Republican Party and American politics. Like the Soviet Empire, the hour of the religious right's apparent zenith may one day be seen as a final spasm before its collapse." (The fact that the international "religious right," in whose ranks he would have doubtless included Pope John Paul II, was the central agent in the Soviet fall was an irony Ibbitson did not seem to discern.)
He reached all these conclusions after a visit to South Carolina's Bob Jones University and talks with its senior administrators. But here an odd thing appears to have happened to him. His report leaves the impression, however improbable, that the students and faculty at Bob Jones actually got to John Ibbitson. He waxes unaccountably positive about the place.
The day begins, he discovered, with the campus deserted because all 6,000 students, faculty and staff are at prayer. Then it bursts into life. "The student body, though mostly white, comes from every state in the union and overseas. Many of the young men wear shirts and ties and the women wear skirts or dresses. They are invariably intelligent, polite, passionate for Christ, and deeply interested in politics."
"Members of the media," he continues, "often look at places such as BJU with suspicion, if not contempt. Evangelical Christians are, for many commentators, either ridiculous or dangerous, clinging to creationist superstitions and campaigning against the rights of women and sexual minorities."
"This is deeply unfair. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians simply live their faith: They are dedicated to obeying the Bible's teachings as they interpret them, and spreading the Good News. There is among some evangelicals a strain of intolerance toward other religions and toward secular society, but the secular is no less intolerant." Indeed, some universities would be envious of Bob Jones's "student discipline and sense of purpose."
Just how envious, was elsewhere being demonstrated. On the day Ibbitson's article appeared, two highly respected academics from the University of Western Ontario released their book, "Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis," which described widespread abasement of the grading system in Canadian universities. Students, they said, threaten and persecute their professors for a minimum "B" grade on every paper they write. Professors routinely yield, and the whole grading system is rendered meaningless.
"Today's public school students are inculcated with self-esteem at the expense of self-efficacy. Everyone gets a gold star for effort. Every pupil is 'special.' The result is a cohort of semi-literate students arriving on campus quite accustomed to getting A's, even though they are unable to string a proper sentence together."
In short, the New Schools of our New Society are proving a failure, and as with so much else, the only serious challenge comes from Christian institutions. Whether these act politically or assume leadership in some other way, if our society is to survive, their gradual ascendancy must occur. In these circumstances, it might be a trifle premature to compose the requiem for the Christian right. And anyway, who knows? One day Ibbitson may be part of it.  
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