Frank,
While I agree that GWB and the Republican Party have been lying to the Christian right for years. I disagree that Obama is the answer.
Lets face it, Christians today want very little:
Abortion banned or at least brought to a state level (once you understand that Evangelicals believe that those fetus's are children you can understand how It seems a horrible holocaust of murder, not a person choice)
Evolution being taught as religion in school (sure keep religion out, but then keep atheism out to, it is being taught as fact with atheistic connotations, so if anyone evangelicals want all religion (including atheism) out of schools)
Freedom of Religion
Now once Abortion is banned will the republicans have as much to hold Christians? God forbid we decide to go after poverty next. In 2004 George W Bush won 31 states as a (supposedly) anti abortion candidate. It takes 34 states to amend the Constitution with 80% of the country in favor of more restrictions on abortion 31/50 states large majorities in congress and 5/9 SCOTUS judges its inconceivable that an anti abortion president wouldnt at least TRY to get it banned.
Good News For the Democratic Party: The Collapse Of Evangelical-Right Wing Is On The Way -- They Want Change Too
Senator Obama has a unique shot at doing something unheard of, at least in the last 30 years: corner a sizable chunk of the evangelical vote. Now that he is being attacked (re his perfectly true, if poorly phrased remark on "bitter" voters) I want to mention the fact that if the Democratic Party throws away his candidacy on such nonsense (or lets the Clintons and Republicans trash it) the Democrats will have wasted a historic opportunity. Why? Because Obama -- as with no Democrat in recent years -- is liked by not just many Republicans, but especially by a growing number of evangelicals.
Obama speaks the authentic language of ethical and spiritual leadership. (Here's a link to a historic and well received talk Obama gave to a group of evangelicals and here's the link to the transcript and/or audio.) Many evangelicals are tired and ashamed of Bush. So put Obama's spiritual eloquence, sincere personal Christian faith and ethical approach to politics together with the evangelical's disappointment with Bush and their anger about the war in Iraq, and Obama has a once-in-a-lifetime chance with a huge group of voters who haven't ever considered voting for a Democrat. I know because they are telling me. I know because I was one.
As someone who was in on the start of the Religious Right in the 1970s and who left the movement and abandoned my right-wing childhood conditioning, I bring good news to the Democratic Party: the Evangelical right is a movement made up of the walking dead. It still seems formidable. It's over.
Progressives have been appalled by what has amounted to a 30-year coup attempt by the Evangelicals to impose a soft theocracy on the United States. Progressives look at this threat as a constant fact of life that they will be battling in the 2008 elections. They won't.
How do I know? Because since the publication of my memoir (CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back) a very unexpected thing has happened to me.
I expected a torrent of abusive email. To be sure I got my share of nasty comments on various blogs and websites and a few harebrained, "strike him Lord" emails, but what did NOT happen has amazed me. I have gotten less than a dozen nasty emails and over a thousand emails from former and current Evangelicals, almost all of which are glowingly positive. What is going on?
In the mid eighties I left a resolute and determined self-confident movement full of people with the fiery conviction of their superior holiness vis-a-vis the rest of America. But the letters that have poured in since Crazy For God was published have not been denunciations of my "heresy." What I've been reading are an outpouring of people's stories of getting out and/or doubts about the evangelical enterprise. The Evangelicals are still around, but they have lost their fire.
What the stories people are writing to me have in common is this: post-Evangelical and post-right wing disillusionment runs through them all. I have letters from former leading pastors of huge churches, from men and women still busy working in "full-time Christian ministry" (and trusting me not to blow their cover!) emails from several leading evangelical authors whose books have sold literally millions of copies and from hundreds of ordinary people raised and/or having spent lifetimes within the evangelical subculture who now want out. Some have already left. Some are living a bitter existence and remaining in the movement while doubting -- and in many cases abhorring -- what they once believed. Those folks admit their hearts aren't in it and they remain, as one pastor wrote me: "because I frankly can't figure another way to support my wife and four children."
Here are just a few excerpts from the letters representative of hundreds more:
I make my living as a composer and I am also a Christian... I really appreciate your honesty in speaking the truth in love and with a justified anger. I feel the same way. I have been beat up over the years. I am an artist who happens to love Christ but at the same time has grown to hate the Church...
I have yelled YES so loud I know neighbors had to hear me when I could see you were describing the past 30 years of the Church life in America like I was also seeing it...
We evangelicals are grossly ignorant of our heritage between the life of the apostles and the start of Protestantism (if we even go back that far!)... No church body has cornered the market on truth, arrogance, doctrinal purity, or love for their fellow man, of this I'm certain. I'd love to see a group of [new] leaders rise up to champion this unity...
I'm at about page 300 in 'Crazy.' You are very direct about your opinions on Dobson, Falwell and Robertson... I mean, it's one thing to write thinly veiled stories depicting some of these things, but this couldn't be any more open. I love it by the way. Thank God for free speech. I was attending Regent [Pat Robertson's College] on 9/11 and on 9/12 Falwell had already issued a statement to the media saying that the attack was God's punishment due to the homosexuals. Robertson came out and supported him and within forty-eight hours retracted that same statement trying to create distance between himself and Falwell.... There are a lot of similarities in our stories, but mine breaks off into a whole other sordid area of pain and sorrow.
I too, have a big disconnect from the faith of my childhood. I often feel like I have committed full and final apostasy and am somehow marking time until my eternal damnation. Thanks for 'telling it like it is' about the tellevangelists. My words for James Dobson (before I read your book) was that he is a 'whiny little weasel.' Don't get me started on Benny Hinn and Rod Parsley... I enjoyed you allowing me to take a peek at it and share in your journey. Here's hoping that I too can 'get my shit together...'
I spent nearly 20 years of my adult life as an Evangelical in various new-Pentecostal groups... Now, the longer I'm out (and reading again) the more sane (I think) I'm getting! Thanks for 'being the voice' for so many of us! I'd love to buy you coffee sometime!
We are not to be silenced....Would you consider taking your message further? I have been requesting a televised roundtable discussion from the Obama campaign. If we are who we have been waiting for, then let's begin!
[Your] book also reminds me that it's one of the recurring tragedies of US history that, from time to time, various movements of self-righteous, ideology-driven Christians decide it's time to try to impose their ideas on society at large. [You] live with the painful memory of having been one of the key figures helping to create one of the constituencies that did the most to put George Bush in the White House....
A little over a year ago, I realized I didn't know what I believed as far my faith was concerned, and that maybe being in ministry wasn't the place for me. It's really refreshing, challenging (and perhaps a bit depressing) to read 'Crazy For God,' to hear you saying a lot of the things I've felt.
For those who were not raised in the Evangelical ghetto many of my readers will have no idea how are earthshaking all this is to me. It's as if American Jews -- en masse -- declared that they were going to vote for candidates opposed to the existence of the State of Israel, or for Roman Catholics to say they'll be voting for some candidate calling for the immediate arrest of the Pope.
Why did this happen? A very brief synopsis of recent Evangelical history is in order.
In the 1950s to 1960s Evangelicals bought into the Billy Graham evangelistic simplistic Jesus-saves "method" and began to lose their denominational distinctives. They did this because the "Graham method" worked. It worked because America had become a consumerist society and Graham's easy Jesus-lite was perfect for folks buying religion just like they bought the rest of the American "good life."
Evangelicalism became about the "born-again" experience, that silver bullet that would solve all your problems at a stroke, another product to make life better without all that dreary liturgical struggle of the Puritanical past.
The Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, etc., etc., became less Methodists and Baptists and so forth than they were born-again, Graham-style generic Evangelicals. Then the Evangelicals, having lost their denominational and historical roots became politicized by my late father, myself, Falwell, Dobson and others. Graham offered them born-again salvation, we offered them born-again politics.
Our politics became the politics of hate and exclusion, and we Evangelicals became the hit men for the Republican Party. But individual evangelicals wanted to find more meaning in their faith. So they formed huge "mega-churches" to imitate the secular market-driven consumerist culture around them. This Wal-Mart faith wasn't enough and people began to either drop out or move on, back to more traditional less consumer orientated faith and/or no politics at all. Many just left altogether and are still leaving.
The result is that there are millions of been-there-done-that former Evangelicals either looking to separate politics from faith or looking for new moral leadership and/or wanting out altogether. Either way the movement as a mass movement is over. No one calls the shots any more. The day of the Billy Graham experience is past. The televangelists have also lost their luster and have sunk under the weight of their own venal corruption. And the super churches are losing their allure, just like all the other box stores in our consumer culture.
Enter Obama.
I received a email from a senior editor at the leading Evangelical Christian magazine telling me of his intention to vote for Obama. He mentioned that plenty of other Evangelicals he knows feel the same. Obama inspires them. I've had similar emails from hundreds of other Evangelicals responding to my articles on why I am voting for Obama and supporting him.
The impact of the disillusionment and/or abandoning of the theological and cultural certainties that once formed the backbone of the Religious Right of the 1970s is going to change everything in American politics. The big surprise is not only how many people have read my Crazy For God and written to say that they share my background (and also share my leaving that background) but the response of so many current and powerful evangelicals who have told me that they like my book because it's "time to shake things up." The biggest surprise of all is the growing depth of support for Obama.
Why? Because lots of people have grown up and/or changed their minds. Many others are just tired of the empire-building gross money-grubbing hypocrisy. Still others have just seen to many stupid predictions -- from the return of Christ that was supposed to happen for sure in the 1970s, then 80s etc. to the collapse of "godless America" -- not come true. Bluntly the Evangelicals are running out of BS. And George Bush has finished them off. They feel the shame of having been his facilitator.
Bush was the Evangelical's man. And except for the most unenlightened, evangelicals now know they chose wrong.
The beneficiary of this move to sanity is going to be Senator Obama. For reasons I have discussed elsewhere here and here, Obama transcends easy categories and definition. His prophetic and inspirational edge also makes evangelical types comfortable with him in a way they aren't with Senator Clinton or McCain.
I was at a concert in Boston recently and the head of the English department at one of the big evangelical colleges in the Boston area came up to me and asked me who I was voting for. When I told him it was Obama he leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. The fact that Obama is a Democrat, a progressive and a black man would have made this response the truly impossible 20 years ago. These days I wasn't surprised.
It would also not surprise me if the group that puts Obama over-the-top when he goes up against McCain (yes, it is going to be Obama) will be disaffected former Republican Evangelicals desperate to affirm something positive after spending so much of their lives wallowing in hate and negativity. They won't vote for Clinton because she is too much like the negative world they are trying to escape. They want hope and real change.
The media have -- of course -- missed this story just as they missed the rise of the religious right in the 1970s something I describe in detail in Crazy For God. People "like that" just don't show up on the media radar screen as "important." And the media are lazy and only talking to the has-been leaders.
When I wrote my memoir I fell lonely. I'm stunned to find that have plenty of good company and that Crazy For God is simply a first drop in what is about to become a tidal wave sweeping away the divisive politics of the last 30 years. This tidal wave is also about to help Obama realize his dream of bringing us all together in a better America. If you don't believe me, just wait.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back"
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Now realizing that Bush has stabbed evangelicals in the back, I fail to see how Obama could do anything but win Evangelical votes And by this I mean when he wins our votes is he really going to care what we think about abortion? Not a hair more then Bush does, Obama's church is more of a social activist church solidly wedded to the liberal leftwing as strongly as people like James Dobson were to the rightwing.
The leftwing (including Obama) have misused the liberal churches in America as badly as the post Reagan rightwing. Illegal Immigration has hurt most of all the innercity minorities that attend these churches. In the 1980s when Reagan announced amnesty people like Jesse Jackson spoke against it. Yet today they are being forced to support things by their leaders (Kennedy Clinton Obama) that are hurting them. Innercity abortions are high yet they force their congregations to believe they are for choice.
So no, Obama is not MLK who was a man that cared about the entire country a man who cared about God, and was willing to take it as far as he could to see that the people of this country be happy safe and well fed, to eliminate racism, to restore pride in heritage and as Americans. Nor is president Bush Ronald Reagan who was so touched by a womans condemning letter of his antiabortion views that he personally called her on the phone to show her the reasons behind his views.
No, Obama isnt MLK any more then Bush is Reagan, they are midgets standing on the shoulders of giants. I see no answers in an Obama Presidency, I realize that his view that people cling to guns because the government screws up shows a lack of understanding of human nature and government. It is BECAUSE governments devolve into tyranny that the government shall not take away rights related to God or Guns.
The Declaration of Independence
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Honestly, if they want to go off the crazy train and let you guys (Obama or Hillary) win.. they can learn the hard way. Irony is these Republicans this time around can get states like PA, MI, CA and even states like NY, MA can go RED so most of the South of the Mason Dixion line.
Oh did I forget Florida be RED also!
Hi Frank,
Thank you so-o-o-o-o much for this post! While I don't agree with all of it (I believe that the Church movement is very alive), I completely agree with you that the GOP has been pandering to us (Evangelical Christians) far too often and comes to the table with broken promises and lies.
Anyway, I am quite glad that you made this post because the Evangelical voting block IMHO is very much up for grabs this year. The GOP has been damaged horribly by Bush and his abuses of power, lies, and corruption (all of which are sinful qualities that us Evangelicals take huge discomfort in and feel alienated by). And McCain does not appeal to us (that is why Huckabee did so well for so long in the GOP race).
Moreover, the GOP has effectively fractured with us Moderate Republicans not being in tune with the Conservative Republicans on pretty much any issue (global warming, illegal immigration, separation of church and state). Evangelicals, of course, are in both camps. I think Moderate Evangelicals could break with Obama while Conservative Evangelicals (like Robertson and Dobson) may break for McCain or may sit this election out. It should be interesting, but I think as you say that, "It would also not surprise me if the group that puts Obama over-the-top when he goes up against McCain (yes, it is going to be Obama) will be disaffected former Republican Evangelicals."
"Barack Obama"s prophetic and inspirational edge makes Evangelicals comfortable with him in a way they aren"t with Senator Clinton or McCain."
And this doesn"t disturb you at all?
I believe it!
Thank you again for an article that reminds us how much we have in common, and not how 'different' we are. It's good to know that the response you received was overwhelmingly positive.
"attacked (re his perfectly true, if poorly phrased remark on "bitter" voters)
This is definately a fundie talking. They couldn't recognize the truth it if jumped up and bit them. Does he really think calling the people in PA and rural America, bitter, will help his cause?
Doesn't he see that people don't like to be called bitter? And you again call them bitter, even after the apology, by Obama?? (wasn't much of an apology)
Obama is pro-choice. (so am I) Do you really think the fundies are going to embrace a pro-choice candidate?? HAAHAHAHAHAHA. They'd be in a constant hissy-fit.
We watched the Faith Forum and couldn't help but notice the HUGE mistake Senator Clinton made. She had the choice of going first or last and she picked first. As a result Senator Obama ran circles around her and, most important he got a big round of applause and got treated like a rock star by the audience afterwards.
Mr. Schaeffer, thank you again for another great article. I hope to God you are right. But can it be enough to make a real difference? Because I fear that for every evangelical or former evangelical out there who is a critical thinker and ready to vote for Obama, there are 20 more who are either racist, closed minded, brainwashed, stubborn, or just not too bright.
Their probably are a lot of former enangelicals out there who could possibly vote for Osama. But you're sadly disallusioned if you believe more than a very few current ones would possibly vote for the biggest liberal on the hill. What could he possibly offer evangelicals other than grief with his group of elitist, goof off friends that are as far from christians as the drs. who perform their abortions!!!
C-R-A-Z-Y-!
Sir, I enjoy reading your blogs. However, I would prefer that people accept the reality that the Dem. Party never intended for Obama to become president but to use his popularity to build the party down to the local level. That is why this race continues as party leadership also searches/awaits an out. Obama, unfortunately, loves the people and the country more and he will desist before tearing it apart (not unlike Al Gore in 2000). He is a patriot of the utmost integrity and it is likely to cause his downfall. Hence, the recent "bitter" flap in which he showed empathy for voters who had become cynical of government failures as the explanation of why certain voters won't vote for him instead of the obvious racial component; his graciousness and excuses for people who can't get past his skin color has cost him again.
I can't tell you thank you enough Frank Shaeffer because I, born into Catholism but no longer practicing, I HATED the Evangelicals (even though I never knew any of them - at least not by the name of Evangelical). The reason I HATED, LOATHED, AND DESPISED them was because I knew they were the primary group who put Bushco into office; not just once, but twice. My sense was that if they had this type of power and yet they allowed this dreadful rotten human being to govern the way he has by invading a country (and keeping our children in that war) that did nothing to us, they allowed this dreadful rotten human being to take our precious freedoms from us (American citizens), they allowed this dreadful rotten human being to cause and allow our economy to slide into an unfathomable decent, and they allowed this dreadful rotten human being to keep other human beings in a prison called Gitmo and torture them despite our treaties and our Constitution, along with many other issues where he has crossed the line, then as a result, Evangelicals could only be like Bushco - the dreadful rotten human beings who promoted this rotten man to be in office and continue in office for two terms. Due to your above report, I finally feel that this HATE is slipping away because you have caused me to think that they absolutely did not know any better and that they are not all exclusive.
Thank you, Frank. You continue to be a great (and welcome) surprise to me. I appreciate your candor.
You do realize that Bittergate has seriously damaged Obama's standing with these evangelicals. Baseless or not, the charges of elitism and the perception that Obama is suggesting that the only reason people turn to religion is because of economic hardship has cut-off any inroads into the evangelical community. His response where he essentially reiterates his points and only apologizes for his phrasing has done little to assuage those who were most offended by his comments.
Just because you were convinced by Obama's apology, doesn't mean the working class voters that were targeted by his comments were. Clinton has increased her lead in IN and according to a poll that had Obama and Clinton tied in PA just one week ago, Clinton is currently up by 20 points in PA. While no one can be sure whether or not Bittergate was the dominant factor in this massive gain for Clinton, not much else had changed between Clinton and Obama over last week, so it had to have had some effect on voters there.
The sad thing is that I agree that he was poised to do exactly what you said and make a serious play for evangelical voters, but now all that hard work has gone down the tubes.
Actually, speaking as an Evangelical, I don't think Evangelicals are offended by Obama's comments. Even some undecideds that I go to church with that I talked with yesterday think that the uproar over "bitter" is ridiculous (as do I, but I am biased since I support Obama). Obama was just speaking the truth and those of us who read the Bible know that the truth sometimes hurts.
I proudly cling to my faith during all times (but especially in troubled times when things are out of my control...that is part of the reason that there is a popular saying of "let go, and let God"). I think most of the people attending the Compassion Forum yesterday night when Obama and Clinton answered questions / "debated" felt this as well (you could see that by the loud applause that Obama drew and the HRC rarely drew).
Of course, us religious folks focus on what makes us feel safe (for us it is our religion, for others it might be guns, and for yet others it is other things). This makes people smart, not stupid (it would be stupid for people to cling to assertions by politicians who continually break promises). What Hillary and McCain are saying is going to backfire on them I think (because people, especially religious people who view lying as a sin, are sick of being lied to). Hillary already got boos today from the audience at a manufacturing plant when she brought up the "bitter" comment again.
Hmmm, someone forgot to tell the people of faith at the compassion forum that was on CNN last night. Not only did they give him a standing ovation, they gave him and ONLY him loud cheers. And when Clinton tried to bring this up they did some grumbling
Indeed, even though Huckabee is endorsing McCain, there are many parallels in Obama's message and Huckabee's message of being in-touch with the average American and bringing common-sense back to DC. Evangelicals are not embracing McCain because of his stance on the Iraq war and his bomb-bomb-Iran singing (which is clearly not Christian).
Obama's humility and honesty are Christian qualities that first drew me to Obama and which Obama has in spades (you can see it by how he talks and leads his campaign). There is even an Evangelicals for Obama group on Obama's website. Us Evangelicals are sick of the lies by politicians (most notably GW Bush), and while the GOP seems to think that the Evangelical vote is in their pocket, here is a newsflash: IT IS NOT.
Urban; thanks as I did not watch! When I turned it on and saw HRC alone on the stage, I thought it was for her and her alone, so I turned it off since I absolutely cannot stand to hear her voice or watch her transparent facade in trying to convince others that she is a sincere person. Had I known that Obama was going to be on after HRC, then I certainly would have watched, listened and learned. I'm so happy to know that he received a standing ovation and that she got some grumbling!
Because a small sampling of the many different "people of faith" in our country is a definitive portrait of of religious Americans.
Great post, again.
Let's hope Obama can break the Republican strong-hold on conservative, small-town America. He truely represents these people and their interests. I hope he is able to convey that to them before November.
Dear Frank Schaeffer,
Thank you once again for your insight, and another really good post. May I add that the change in direction of these evangelicals will not just help usher in a new political dynamic dedicated to positive change. This is a large group of people who are inclined toward being organized and motivated. If they can be positively guided to help effect change in our government"s attitudes and responses to such problems as poverty, the environment, and the war, this could be of truly immense consequence. When well organized people of goodwill want to do good, good things will surely happen, God Willing.
By the way, my entire extended family absolutely loved your books Portofino and Saving Grandma. Thank you so very much for these wonderful books.
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