This concept of heterodoxy isn’t simply that these works contain themes or ideas counter to Christian teaching; the central belief about ideas is that they are akin to demonic possession, much like the New Testament accounts we heard in Sunday school. This belief—that ideas themselves have a unique, uncontested power to infiltrate and corrupt our minds and souls—reflects the fundamentalist evangelical worldview, one deeply skeptical of intellectual engagement and critical thinking. Rather than the notion that ideas can be critically analyzed and either accepted or rejected, it held that dangerous ideas can indoctrinate and possess you if you are merely exposed to them. To read a book or discuss a theory, in this worldview, is not to exercise one’s intellectual faculties but to risk being overtaken by a seductive, malevolent force with no hope of resistance.
This framework rests on a central belief in human moral weakness that has been present in Christian theology since at least Augustine. For him, humans are naturally depraved and thoroughly corrupted by original sin. If humans are inherently sinful and malleable to any influence, then exposure to challenging ideas—those not central to the evangelical worldview—becomes dangerous. This theology becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: Because humans are weak and must accept only the orthodoxy of their scriptures or church leaders, they never develop the critical thinking skills that might strengthen their intellectual facilities or their resistance to indoctrination. Christian theology and secular ideas can be, and are, reconciled by many. Despite his somewhat pessimistic view of humanity, even Augustine actually encouraged intellectual engagement and reason. He argued that Christians should study secular knowledge and philosophy, viewing them as tools that could be used in service of understanding divine truth.
They capitalized on fears of moral decline to mobilize voters and influence policy, solidifying evangelical influence within the Republican Party. This relationship deepened with the rise of culture wars, as issues like banning abortion, putting Christian prayer in schools, and limiting LGBTQ rights became rallying points for evangelical activism. Under George W. Bush, this alliance reached new heights with the establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which provided federal funding to religious organizations for social services, and the emphasis on “compassionate conservatism,” which appealed to religious voters while advancing right-wing political goals.
The alliance between evangelical Christianity and conservative politics has fostered a cultural paranoia that seeks to limit the range of acceptable ideas. Today, we see this legacy in mounting campaigns against public education. According to PEN America, documented book banning attempts in American schools rose by 33 percent in 2022–2023 and an incredible 197 percent in the 2023–2024 school year, with over 4,000 titles targeted. This wave of censorship disproportionately targets books by or about people of color and LGBTQ individuals, with 40 percent of banned titles explicitly addressing these themes.
The coordinated efforts to ban books addressing racism, LGBTQ identities, and systemic inequality frame these ideas as corrosive forces capable of undermining young minds. They have co-opted the language of inappropriateness that Tipper Gore once applied to explicit lyrics in rock and rap, the better to use it as a smokescreen for creating a white supremacist, heteronormative curriculum. Similarly, the rhetoric surrounding “cultural Marxism”—a decades-old McCarthyesque conspiracy theory revived to stoke fears of leftist infiltration, which has its roots in the antisemitic Nazi campaign against “cultural Bolshevism”—posits that schools, universities, and media are indoctrinating an unsuspecting populace with Communist ideas.
The effort to control school curricula—whether by banning Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer or opposing teachings on systemic racism—is part of a broader project to sanitize history and obscure systemic injustices. By labeling these narratives as dangerous or un-American, right-wing activists effectively demonize the act of questioning political power, as if it were another Christian god. This conflation of political and religious authority is particularly dangerous in the context of rising authoritarian movements. When political leaders can frame dissent as not just politically incorrect but spiritually corrupting, they create a powerful tool for suppressing opposition. The January 6 insurrection, in which Christian symbols and prayers mixed freely with political violence, demonstrated how thoroughly this fusion of religious and political authority has penetrated American conservatism.
Treating ideas as possessing forces rather than subjects for critical examination actually makes people more vulnerable to manipulation, not less. When we don’t develop the skills to critically evaluate ideas—to question, analyze, and assess them—we become more susceptible to actual religious and political indoctrination and groupthink. When we frame certain thoughts as too dangerous to encounter, we create the conditions for authoritarian control.
In an era of rising authoritarianism and deepening social division, our capacity to think critically about ideas rather than fear them may well determine whether democracy survives. The question isn’t whether we can protect ourselves from ideas, but whether we can develop the intellectual resources to evaluate ideas thoughtfully.
The possession model of ideas, with its roots in evangelical theology and its branches in contemporary politics, represents more than just a religious or educational philosophy—it is fundamentally undemocratic, replacing the ideal of an informed citizenry capable of responsibly wielding individual rights and freedoms with an infantilized vision of humanity where everyone must be under constant supervision at the hands of autocratic strongmen. Democracy requires belief, not in our invulnerability to ideas or to our infallibility, but in our capacity to engage critically in our cultural and political conversation. The most dangerous idea of all is that we must be protected from the act of questioning, thus surrendering to those who would think and act for us.
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