Edith Schaeffer 1914 - 2013 RIP

My mother Edith Schaeffer died today. She was the author of many books on family life and spirituality and co-founder with my father Francis Schaeffer of the evangelical ministry of L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. She has just gone to be with the Lord, as...

I'll make a prediction: within 10 years or less mainstream evangelicals like the editors of Christianity Today magazine (and whomever/whatever is running the Billy Graham empire et al) will "come around" on issues like gay marriage equality, choice for women and premarital sex. They'll suddenly find they're really, really pro-immigration too!

They...

I wrote about the real Francis Schaeffer in 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 and received many wonderful emails and letters. I also got some rather...

The debacle that is the movie version of The Hobbit, part one, reminds me of an old story that Dr. C Everett Koop told me over drinks just after he became Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General. "When I was surgeon in chief at Philadelphia Children's Hospital," Koop said, "a lot of...

Having elevated the Bible -- or at least the nicer bits that they like -- to the status of a magic book  evangelicals  have demoted God. Their "god" is trapped in a book and kept somewhat like a tame rat inside the cage of "biblical inerrancy."

Since the evangelical/fundamentalists...

On the morning after the reelection of President Obama American Christians of a conservative-to-far-right bent typified by the leadership of the evangelical establishment and the Roman Catholic bishops have to admit that along with the Republican Party they have just been resoundingly repudiated.

Since I was one of the minor...

Given my religious right background I'm one of the president's most unlikely fans. Maybe that's because I know the alternative-- from the inside. I fear the alternative to the president -- far right loons of the Tea Party/evangelical religious right ilk -- and have never felt I had the luxury...

Not all Evangelicals are Right-leaning Republicans. But according to polls 73 percent are. That's the folks I'm talking about here.

No one sane disputes the fact that the base of the base of the Republican Party -- post Roe V Wade and with a big "assist" from my late Religious...

According to polls 73 percent of WHITE evangelicals will be voting for Mitt Romney.

If the polls are correct here's the question I'd like to ask evangelicals using their own style of language/concerns/theological thinking as applied to their choice:

What's the explanation for the fact that WHITE...

Lurking in the heart of the Republican Party is a strange take on sex that keeps exploding into public view. The Mourdock "scandal" is just the latest episode proving that certain types of religion make people sick.

Calvinist-style retributive woman-hating religion is the illness that's infected the Republican Party.

But...

Meanwhile in the alternative USA somewhere on a planet far away and not so long ago....

With the announcement that along with his tax returns Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has kept his conversion to Islam a secret the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association removed language labeling Islam a "cult" from its website.

And so it's come to this: the American evangelical religious establishment is busting a gut to elect a pro-abortion Mormon multimillionaire predatory tycoon with multiple offshore bank accounts who may or may not have paid his taxes while protecting the money he's made from "harvesting" American...

In the world of wishful delusion, prayer "changes" us. In reality we're stuck on this blue flyspeck in space on the edge of a cyclical multi-universe no one understands. In the context of the fraction of the cosmos we can observe sometimes it seems like we are less significant than...

It's not poor Mitt's fault. Jesus could be the Republican candidate this year with Lincoln as his running mate and the Republicans would still lose. That's because the American people don't have a death wish. You see we may all wallow in our own delusional fantasy lands but we want sane...

Is it any coincidence that the latest war of religion that started on September 11, 2001, is being fought primarily between the United States and the Islamic world? It just so happens that no subgroups of humanity are more ingrained with the doctrine of hell than conservative Muslims and conservative...

What German wants to defend WWII or National Socialism or Hitler? Most people stuck with the most insane parts of their history are glad to move on. So you have to wonder what's wrong with a "Christian" publication so attached to hell that they have to smear a great new...

When I was a Republican/religious right activist many years ago Reagan made us proud by being upbeat about America, politics and our place in the world. The Republican Party (rightly or wrongly) was all about a great optimistic future. Reagan and people like my friend Jack Kemp counted on the...

Anything that leads to murder should raise doubts about its legitimacy when put in service of so-called spiritual truth. That killing was done "for God" and yet didn't lead to a complete re-think about the theological "approach" to a relationship with God is simply insane. Yet this madness persists today....

With friends like this, God needs no enemies. People "defending" God have completely screwed up America and our politics. And their version of "God" fucked up the first half of my life too. Yes, this IS a movie review as well as a theologically-induced PTSD-unhinged RANT. I could have been...

There are so many reasons to be ashamed of the label "Christian" these days. One reason that my shame is not completely crippling is because of a one man army for decency, compassion and common sense-- author, raconteur and all around lovely person Brian McLaren.

All McLaren is and...