The Man on the White Horse

Diane's story reflects the personal side of Holy Terror, but today the movement's greatest dangers have risen to higher levels. On the national scale, Holy Terror is masked by a broad coalition of fundamentalistright political-action committees, lobbies and foundations--and by the amiable smile of the President of the United States.

Most Americans still don't associate Ronald Reagan with the fundamentalist right--in fact, fundamentalist leaders claim he hasn't come through on pre-election promises. But as far back as 1969, during his first term as governor, Reagan gave the Biblical creationist movement its first victory, when the California State Board of Education declared creationism to be a valid alternative to evolution. A decade later, it seemed that there was nothing candidate Reagan wouldn't say in his all-out quest for the Christian vote. At the Religious Roundtable's National Affairs Briefing in Dallas in 1980, his prepared text ended with a line that brought down the house: "I can only add to that, my friends, that I continue to look to the Scriptures today for fulfillment and for guidance. Indeed, it is an incontrovertible fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us world-wide have their answers in that single book."

It was an astonishing comment by a man aspiring to world leadership in an age of nuclear weapons, space travel, trillion-dollar economies and sensitive international relations. But through the end of the campaign, he kept up a breathless flow of fundamentalist patter; and two weeks after his Inauguration, in a segment of the 700 Club TV show, host Pat Robertson touted the arrival of "the man on the white horse." Then he introduced the Reverend Harald Bredesen, a member of the board of directors of the Christian Broadcast Network, who told the viewers about a spiritual encounter he had had with Reagan toward the end of Reagan's first term as governor. The incident was revealing--if not exactly inerrant:

Bredesen: Actually, it was right at the height of the campaign that he invited us to come. . . . I can still remember his face as it was framed in the door receiving us. It had such a boyish, carefree expression. . . . He showed us around his private home. . . . And then Governor Reagan, to my great joy, began to tick off the prophecies that have been fulfilled. Now, I'd been in his home . . . when he was an actor, and to see the difference that had already taken place in his character and in his closeness to the Lord really impressed me very much, because he seemed to be amazingly consonant with the Scriptures. . . .

Robertson: I understand after the discussion of Bible things, you began to pray. Did you join hands, you and Pat Boone, George Otis [another fundamentalist broadcaster] and Ronald Reagan?

Bredesen: Yeah, that's right. . . . George had his left hand. I had his right hand as we prayed, and George let out in prayer and suddenly his prayer changed into prophecy. I'm sure you've seen this happen. And in it, God was saying that if [Reagan] would walk in His ways, He said, "I will put you in 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue," which is the address of the White House.

Robertson: Whoa! Wait! That's 1970, and George Otis, speaking in prophecy as unto the Lord, said, "I will put you in 1700"? Whew! That's electrifying.

Bredesen: Well, I'll tell you--was Reagan electrified! I had his right hand and, Pat, it was wobbling like this. Honestly, I've never seen an arm wave so under the anointing of God!

Robertson: It's incredible!

Bredesen: Interestingly enough, Pat Boone tells me that he called him right after the election and said, "Mr. President, do you remember that day?" and [Reagan} said, "Do I ever!"

Robertson: Somebody just said, by the way . . . it's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That was my fault. It's 1600 Pennsylvania. . . .

One month after he took office, Reagan met in the White House with virtually every important figure in the fundamentalist movement. Within another month, the national media reported a massive infusion of fundamentalist-right ideologues into key Administration positions. In addition to James Watt at Interior. Reagan nominated for Surgeon General a controversial Philadelphia doctor, C. Everett Koop, an ardent fundamentalist and a nationally prominent anti-abortion crusader. As director of the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, Reagan named Marjory Mecklenburg, president of one of the nation's largest anti-abortion committees. Fundamentalist-right kingpin the Reverend Bob Billings--former president of the National Christian Action Coalition and once executive director of Moral Majority--was named to a $50,000-a-year post as director of the Education Department's ten regional offices and as special "Christian-school liaison officer," a newly created position with no counterpart for other religious denominations, Soon after, Reagan, who had expressed intentions of abolishing the traditional post of White House religious-affairs advisor, named Morton C. Blackwell--former editor of movement heavy Richard Viguerie's New Right Report--to the position.

So, behind the smoke of Reagan's emergency economic initiatives in 1981, America's fundamentalist-right shadow government was quietly installed in Federal policy-making posts--affecting vital areas of our life.