An Open Letter to All Republicans From a Former Religious Right Activist

Dear Republicans: This election all Republicans who love America must vote for Obama. A vote for business-as-usual and a continuation of the Neoconservative/Religious Right/ party of corporate American alienation is a vote against America. As a former Republican activist, I appeal to your patriotism and honor.

Unless you haven't been paying attention to the recent history of the Republican Party you will know that today Republican ideology and energy is derived from three sources:

* The Religious Right,

* The Neoconservative Movement,

* Corporate business interests.

You also should know that when it comes to the Religious Right my late father and evangelist, Francis Schaeffer, was the intellectual voice that made it happen. As his young sidekick (in the 70s and 80s) I helped take his message to a huge evangelical audience.

I mention this by way of saying that even if you hate my guts -- for having dropped out of the Republican Party, for writing novels that make fun of you, and for reregistering as an independent voter, let alone for supporting Senator Obama -- perhaps you should listen up. I happen to know what I'm talking about.

So let's look at the three power centers that drive the Republican Party today.

The Religious Right
The Religious Right came about for one reason and one reason only: it was a reaction to Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion in 1973. The Supreme Court essentially created the culture wars. (A state-by-state approach to legalizing abortion would have been better and resulted in much the same situation we have today in terms of the availability of abortion.) Take Roe out of the political mix and there would be no Religious Right.

That said -- certain power-hungry individuals (Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, Rove, Reed et al.) took the energy of our original pro-life movement and used it to build a hate campaign reminiscent of the early momentum that drove European Fascist parties in the mid-1920s through the mid-1940s. Fear of the "other" gays, immigrants, intellectuals, artists, the media, feminists, etc., morphed into a general critique of "the elite" which turned out to be anyone with an education or even big city dwellers. The Religious Right became a crude populist movement pitting the resentful rubes against the rest.

Take a hard look at yourselves. Play back this year's Republican convention and you'll see an all-white crowd of people screaming for offshore oil drilling -- fat lot of good that will do! more carbon! more polution! -- and essentially reacting like starved hyenas when presented with a piece of juicy carrion. At the convention Sarah Palin and others produced nothing more than a snide list of smart ass put downs aimed at the really dumb, with so little substance that former conservatives such the late William F. Buckley, for instance (let alone my late father) would simply have been ashamed to be in your company. You have become a hate-filled rabble proud of your ignorance and resentful of the rest of your own country, resentment that's exceeded only by your maudlin (and false) sense of victimhood.

People that hate half the population of their own country can scarcely be called patriots. On the contrary, people who exult in mocking as their only way to "contribute" to solving our huge environmental, energy, military and economic problems are true subversives.

The smell emanating from your convention was that of a beer hall putsch circa 1930s, not anything remotely like participation in a democracy. Now you all know what it felt like to be in a lynch mob minus the hanging. You should be ashamed. But shame is something that apparently Republicans are no longer capable of feeling, at least when you get together in a mob.

If you could feel shame there would have been a series of contrite public apologies at your convention for the incredible fiasco of non-governing that has typified the Bush administration. My pension, other people's pensions, our homes, jobs and economy are in chaos because of you. Young Americans are dying in Iraq because of you. The world is a more dangerous place because of you. America is hated because of you. Yes, that is you personally. I blame all of you.

You are the people who gave us eight years of Bush. My Marine son fought in his wars. Cowards, where were most of your sons and daughters? The President's daughters were getting arrested for under age drinking and harassing their Secret Service detail. The rest of you were shopping.

Far from saying you're sorry for the state our country is in you're trying to change the subject by reviving a culture war that has nothing to do with the principled fight against abortion of the 1970s that my dad and I began, and everything to do with simply hating people not like yourselves. The ultimate irony is that you're doing this in the name of Jesus Christ, someone, by the way, whom I try to follow as a Christian. You have become blasphemers by dragging our Lord into your political games.

The Republican Party and the Religious Right have become "Christian" warmongers who applaud the use of torture, start needless wars, fight against civil rights for gays and other disadvantaged Americans, and perhaps worst of all, in terms of the long-term impact, have literally turned your hands against God's creation.

You have a little fool for a vice presidential candidate who says she doesn't believe that human beings have anything to do with the phenomena of global warming and the endangering of all human life on this planet. Dream on. This fool claims to know what she knows because of an absolute "I don't blink" confidence in herself. So on top of everything else this fool who says she is a Christian, proves she is not. She lacks any shred of decent humility, the most basic biblical virtue.

The Neoconservative Movement
Let's be honest: the Neoconservative Movement is nothing more than an kill-all-the-Arabs, pro-Israel-at-any-cost, morally bankrupt lobby that actually turns out to be anti-Israel. Why? Because taken to the logical conclusion the neoconservative's position on everything--from illegal West Bank settlements, to making war on Iran, not to mention the absolutely useless waste of life that's taken place in Iraq, warlike preparations against Syria and just about every other Middle Eastern country, no, scratch that, every other country in the world--puts Israel in worse jeopardy than ever before.

Fortunately for everyone, it seems that most Israelis "get" this, as well as most Jewish Americans (who vote Democratic) even if a few Neoconservative Jews, most Evangelicals and all the other Republican zealots don't. (Most Jews also know that the idiot fringe so-called Christian Zionists like Rev., Hagee, are no friends to Israel, rather they are perpetuating a doomsday nineteenth century Armageddon/ "Rapture" cult that wants to use the Jews as cosmic "End Times" cannon fodder.)

Get it through your thick heads: a state of permanent war between the West, including Israel and the United States, and the Muslim world is a war that Israel will eventually lose. Do the demographic math!

Republicans: You have been tricked and misled by; Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Frank Gaffney, Jr. Dick Cheney. These neofools have unwittingly set in motion the destruction of Israel (probably in our lifetimes) and have maybe killed America too. Bastards! Republicans: It will be remembered that you embraced these world-hating self-deluded paranoid blabberers and made their twisted sound-bite polemics your own.

Those who, like me, actually believe that Israel has the right to exist should look on the Neoconservatives listed above with the same loathing that we look back on the idiots who goaded Europe into World War I, also in the name of "nationalism," "democracy" and "freedom."

Belligerent posturing is not a policy, it is idiocy. You Republicans have become the party of perpetual fear and aggressive non-provoked war, seeing enemies where there are none and/or provoking former friends to become our enemies, and/or faking reasons for war and/or wasting our soldier's blood in places such as Afghanistan, where our cause was just but you fumbled the ball.

Your moron vice presidential candidate is still at it! While turning her son's deployment to war into a flag-dishonoring political circus stunt she repeated the Bush lie and said that her son was going off to fight the perpetrators of 9/11. This is a barefaced lie and you all know it. Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. The only reason we attacked them is because the fools listed above decided it would be good for Israel and our stupid "president" went along.

Now you belligerent asses are supporting the same idiot (McCain) that helped bring us Iraq. He is now champing at the bit to revive the cold, and maybe a hot war with Russia! Have you gone mad? Can't you see you have an old foolish semi-senile man mired in the bathos of post-Vietnam "we were denied victory" psychosis for a candidate? Don't you know that Bush has made us weak?

You Republicans did to our military what the USSR could not do: demoralize it, stretch it beyond breaking and set it back decades. And now you want MORE wars?!

Corporate Business Interests
The Republican Party claims traditional values. It has propagated a laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests and has -- literally -- stood back and encouraged the rape of the earth. You are the party of the earth-hogging SUV. You have literally sowed the wind and reaped the hurricanes.

This is as self-defeating as it is embarrassing for those claiming the moral high ground, particularly those who say that their philosophy represents traditional Judeo-Christian values. We all live here for crying out loud! Will you now fight our God and Creator too for the "right" to burn the last drop of oil while on a weekend jaunt to nowhere in your all-terrain piece of garbage?

Conclusion
The Republican problem is a systemic disparagement of government, community, faith in our institutions, family, God's creation and the mitigating institutions that put a check on something any party aligned with a religious movement should know all about: sin. Greed is not the only problem. Human weakness and stupidity (i.e., "sin") is the problem! And the genius of the American system is supposedly that we have a system of checks and balances to mitigate our fallen state. You have destroyed those checks and balances.

Bush felt no guilt about promoting completely unqualified people to high posts merely on the basis of social, ideological or political connections. I'll take that a step further: I don't think Bush ever wanted the government to work. You Republicans hate our government as bitterly as our terrorist enemies do. You have been trying to deconstruct it. Since the government is seen as the enemy of freedom by you, if it doesn't work so much the better!

We have met the enemy and he is us! When Islamists tried to destroy our country by flying planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers, we rightly called them terrorists. When the Republicans in the Congress and the White House set about destroying our country, our standing in the world, our military and our economy, but much more effectively, you called them statesmen. It is time for all Americans -- including all you who are patriotic Republicans -- to sweep away these putrid earth-consuming, family killing, government bashing "me" worshipping individualistic fools--that or to watch our country be swept away by them. We can't afford eight more years of this willful ignorance. Obama in 2008!

Frank Schaeffer is the 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.
NOW IN PAPERBACK

Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer

Comments

[theway08]

Oh my Frank!!! What in the world???

I can’t believe your hypocritical views. Do your liberal buddies know that you write for a living on what it is to be an Orthodox Christian?????????? I believe you don’t understand yourself. Let me remind you. Living like Christ transcends all cultural and historical events. Living like Christ means taking responsibility for your actions. Living like Christ means not to live in fear and not to be a victim. How can you endorse a liberal candidate that doesn’t understand any of these points? It doesn’t matter if the candidate is Obama, Clinton or Homer Simpson. As a supposed expert on Orthodox Christianity you always defend the most helpless, which are unborn. By supporting a liberal candidate you support killing the innocent! I don’t care how you want to spin it! Spare me on the liberal spinning points!! I would love to have a debate with you on what it is to live like Christ. As quoted from the early church fathers, you seem to have “missed the mark”! Do you remember The Way? “Do this in memory of me” I am shipping all of books back and want a refund! And I expect the Regina Orthodox press to refund me! P.S. this is going out to all Orthodox Christians on my email list!

[bardgal]

Then why aren't you all as a group against in-vitro fertilization and the death penalty??? Why aren't you FOR birth control? And, no the PILL does not cause abortions. Do some fraking research and learn something. The PILL tells the body it's pregnant and stops ovulation.

You are a hypocrite and not even smart enough to see it or know there is more than one issue on the table.

[mommadona]

"The smell emanating from your convention was that of a beer hall putsch circa 1930s, not anything remotely like participation in a democracy. Now you all know what it felt like to be in a lynch mob minus the hanging. You should be ashamed. But shame is something that apparently Republicans are no longer capable of feeling, at least when you get together in a mob."

THANK YOU FOR PUTTING THE TRUTH DOWN IN BLACK AND WHITE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP0APvTSMMw

[LouisRatz]

Well somebody say Amen.

To Jesus? Oops, I mean to the Hindu Goddess Kali, the Goddess of Death, of which Palin must be an incarnation. (Why else does she have such confidence?)

To war with Russia ? " Why Yes, Charlie, that's what you have to do sometimes..."

Armies gathering in the plains around Megiddo ? Somebody hold this baby and give me the launch codes.

-------

We probably need to say a prayer for Bernanke. Oh, to be an expert on the Depression and then see the whole thing repeating before your eyes -- and you're the only one who can stop it.

It seems to me Frank, that whether humanity is smashing atoms or financing derivatives or running a nation, we are not much more than sticking our child hands into the fire built by a more adult figure., but thanks for warning.

[kellygrrrl]

watching the crowds chant "Drool Baby Drool!"

and then hearing them cheer YAY! when McCain called for the firing of the SEC chair

reminded me of seeing wild animals when red meat is thrown into the pen

[kellygrrrl]

Get this piece to the MSM immediately!!!!

[kellygrrrl]

the hijacking, corruption and perversion of
CHRISTIANITY
CAPITALISM
PATRIOTISM

has broken the Heart and Soul of this Nation

Take It Back America!!!!!

[jayburd]

As always, Frank, thank you for your stark and undeniable assessment of the Republican Problem.

I will take it a step further and urge all patriotic Republicans to take your party back. Or, better yet, scuttle it and join the True Conservatives or the Libertarian party. As spelled out by Mr. Schaeffer, The Republican party has the bane of our existence as Americans. It is time for them to completely go away.

My conclusion: I urge every American to actively vote and campaign against all Republicans. No matter how admirable they are as people, no matter how much integrity they have, no matter how rational they may seem, they are Republicans and they must be defeated purely on that basis.

[larryMI]

Too bad I am here too late. Well said. I have to take it one step further..... Muslim extremists twist the Karan to what supports their position. Holy war...... not much different than the Bush administration. The America I know doesn't torture and would never allow the Patriot act. I do support safety but unlimited surveilance? Not in my country. Thank you for your article.

[Arkangel3]

An absolutely stinging indictment, succinctly written, that just completely says it all. I have been left speechless for the first time during this election season. Bless you for telling the Truth!

[demfriend]

I have been a life long Democrat and I still can look and see the truth on both sides. I was angry 4 years ago. I was more angry 8 years ago when the Supreme Court went againest every thing I believed that the Supreme Court stood for. 04 I was just more resolved to being cheated out of my vote based on fear mongering. I hated the Iraq war from the begining as Bin Laden was not Saddam. But what disturbs me is that people like you, Frank, and many others like myself, we should know better and totally reject anything and anyone who is another form of Bush. That there are so many who are willing to vote for McCain with all we know and are finding out that both on the GOP ticket are as close to the evil we have had in the white house for 8 years and it escapes me as to why. Is it hidden racism that people do not realize they have? Is it racism they know they have? Is the desire as humans to know evil and feel safe with holding it rather than having the opportunities to change and fear that so much as a unknown?

[ringroam]

This Sunday, I'll head off to church like I usually do. Only this time when I pull up in the parking lot and look at all the Republican/McCain bumper stickers, I won't feel like I'm entering a nest of vipers. It will be a relief knowing that maybe, just maybe, one member of my congregation may be hiding their true feelings about the state of our country and will vote their concience on election day. This Republican party has not behaved in a Christian-like manner. Jesus must be weeping!


Thank you for speaking up!

[Manchurian]

Print this article out and leave stapled copies in various pews around the church before the service. People get bored during sermons; if they pick this up and give it a read, it could lead to some interesting results...

[portwes]

Ringroam, how can you bear to keep going to a church like that? I tried for years, realized that as one of the very few progressive Christians that no one there even wanted to hear another point of view other than their own narrow, spiteful and negative ones, I gave up. I can no longer even call myself evangelical, and in fact when I finally jettisoned the teaching that we had a God who would quite easily send the vast majority of his human children to suffer eternally in hell unless they "accepted Jesus", I experienced a liberating freedom I had never known before.

I have not the slightest fear of going to hell, whatever that is/was, and am free to go about the business of what Jesus actually taught, to love others as myself (damn hard to do, but a lot more satisfying than trying to convert everyone!).

[portwes]

You're damn right we're angry, and you conservatives need to realize why we are so angry with you. It's not just conservative versus liberal.

We honestly feel as if you people, since 1994, have brought this country to the brink of destruction. You have bankrupted this country, invaded other countries, caused the death of 4000+ American soldiers and over 500,000 Iraqis, rewarded greed and corruption, and made us ashamed of our country around the world. We may well be entering a period that makes the Great Depression look like a polite tea party.

Are we mad? You bet we're mad! And the fact that you folks seem blind to all of this, and take absolutely no responsibility for any of this stuff, makes us even more mad! This is not a time for reasoned, polite dialogue. It is a time to take our country back, and we don't need to convince hard-core Republicans of anything, because you will never change. All we need is to everyone else to wake up, and deny you folks any chance to ruin things further. If it's not too late . . .

[Centaur]

Congrats Frank. It's good to know that you've weaned yourself off the "kool-aid" and you're no longer "blinded by the right"! Now, if only those who still are on the "kool-aid" and still "blinded by the right" will read your post, they too can finally "see the light".

[TenaciousC]

Umm, seriously? This is an open letter to Republicans? This is meant to get Republicans to vote for Obama? I can sum this article up in four points:

1. Republicans, you are stupid.
2. Republicans, you are evil.
3. Republicans, everything you believe is wrong.
4. Republicans, everything bad is your fault.

Frank, I don't think you're going to get a lot of Republicans to switch with that pitch. Do you seriously think that hurtling insults at people is going to get them to come around to your point of view?

EVERYTHING in this is just hate and insults. I get it, this is the kind of thing I expect to find at The Huffington Post. But to say that this is anything but hate is a lie.

And the hate from the commenters is just as bad. Republicans have no honor or patriotism? Seriously? You people believe all this? Liberals seem to have a deep seeded hatred for people who disagree with them. Try to look through this article and the comments from an objective point of view and tell me that it's not filled with hate, condescension and name calling.

Liberals seem to have a superiority complex. People who believe in religion are robotic sheep with no free will of their own. People who are pro-life are control freaks and "resentful rubes" who want to take away your rights. If you're not a liberal you must be uneducated. Seriously, get over yourselves and act like grownups.

[SuperMommy5]

Thank you TenaciousC.
100% agreed.

[carpenterale]

As a Gen Xer who was reading Francis Schaeffer in Christian academy and college I find Frank very much in line with his father.

The folks who try to discount this over the fervor of his verbiage apparently haven't been reading their major and minor prophets lately.

What Amos, Isaiah, et al did is the same as Frank, in that they speak strongly (do you want your ears tickled?) from passionate love for God's people. And like the Biblical narrative of prophets warning believers who are compromising their values for political power and the comfort of xenophobia, exploited by their religious leaders and kings, we again have too many who simply dismiss it as not nice enough and miss the larger picture - Republicans have been fostering a culture of consumerism, creation exploitation and actual cynicism toward Christians.

Jesus said some words about prophets in their own country and there are some verses in which people from Nazareth dismissed his words, saying: "who does he think he is? He and his disciples think that they are better than us." This sort of aggrievement blinds us to the true state of our country and ourselves and is the real revelation of a moral superiority complex.

[tjohnsn]

Tenacious. I attended the Francis Schaeffer series seminar on "life" at the Chicago Theater with C. Everett Koop in 1981 (I broke the rule at Moody, going to a theater, just to attend). It's really hard not to sound angry when you are angry. Frank makes some good points. Sometimes the truth hurts. I don't know how old you are, but doesn't any of what Frank says ring true with you? If you're really honest with yourself?

[TenaciousC]

I'm 33, white and technically not a republican although I usually vote that way. I completely understand sounding angry when you are angry. And I understand why Frank and so many here are angry. You strongly disagree with republicans and President Bush. Although Frank uses the largest possible brush I can imagine to lump all republicans into one huge, evil target.

Frank and other posters go way beyond angry. As distasteful as it may be read this article and the comments again in their entirety and pretend you're a republican. Read what he calls you and what you, personally, are responsible for, according to him. It's hate speech.

The huge issue here is that it can't be, "I believe this and you believe that and we disagree". Even your question to me about being honest with myself is condescending. Because I disagree with you I'm not being honest with myself? And if I would only be honest with myself I would come to think as you do? That's where the "elitist" tag for liberals comes from. That, "If only these morons were more sophisticated they'd understand" mentality.

Even if there's truth in Frank's article it's like giving someone a nice gift wrapped in razor wire.

[telebob59]

Anyone who comments on this post by claiming there's "hatred" in it or that its author has "issues" either is lacking in intellectual honesty, reading comprehension or a clue as to what has actually occured under the watch of G.W. Bush & Co. that has served to destroy our republic, the principles on which it was founded and the planet we all share. Mr. Schaeffer, I salute you for your concise and honest message. I wish there was more I could add that hasn't already been said; therefore, I'll repeat what nikto stated in calling your assesment "pretty near ironclad." Frank, I honor you, good sir who also shares my surname (right down to the spelling).

[mountains04]

this was an insightful and piercing article. however, i think it would be far more effective in influencing it's true target audience if the excessively derogatory name-calling were left out or made much more subtle. it's hard for people to open their eyes when they are being kicked in the face.

[jayburd]

We've tried the rational approach, remember? It's time to call these people out for what they are: Un-patriotic, un-American and, most of all, unsafe.