How I Destroyed the Republican Party

Okay, I had some help. But without me and lots of like minded right wing religious ideologues who put theological "principles" ahead of governing, the Republicans might be set to win again this year.

I dropped out of the Evangelical right in the mid 80s and became a movie director and then a novelist. These days I'm an avid Obama supporter. But long before that we Schaeffers were Evangelical royalty. When I was growing up in my parents' religious community it was not unusual to find myself seated across the dining room table from President Ford's children or Barbara Bush.

Mom and Dad met with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr., stayed in the White House and as their nepotistic sidekick, I was along for the ride. Why?

Did Dad or I have any political, economic or military expertise? No. We had something better: the devotion of millions of right wing Evangelical voters. We had been preaching a "gospel" of making America "Christian again." So the Republican leadership wanted to connect through Dad and I (and through many other preachers) to a base of voters that only asked for "correct" theological ideology, not good governance. It was the opposite of put up or shut up. It was; just say the right things and we'll let you get away with just about anything else.

It is ironic that McCain hammered the final nail into the coffin of the Republican Party by trying to reach out to "my" religious conservatives once again. He did this through nominating Sarah Palin. The only reason he chose her was because Palin is ideologically pure on the culture war "issues" that have motivated the far right: abortion, prayer in schools, gay marriage, a concept of a "Christian America," the usual "End Times" Christian Zionism, etc., etc. And the only reason McCain thought this would work is because in the early 1970s through the mid 80s my late father (Francis Schaeffer) and I, along with many others from Dobson to C. Everett Koop to Falwell et al. preached a new religion: national salvation through religiously correct politics. For a while it "worked." Just ask Rove.

Fast forward to the uniquely miserable W. Bush. He only got elected because the "base" I helped create voted for him. They voted for him because of his theology (born-again) and because he said the correct things on the social issues too. Ability, fitness for office, willingness to govern, none of that mattered to the base.

With Palin, the Republican Party faces the full awful logic of putting theology and ideology ahead of the ability to govern. Here we have the ultimate right wing Evangelical candidate: she's so suspicious of the US Government she is even friends with Alaska's secessionists! Here we also have the Evangelical's evangelical; a member of the Assemblies of God for 20 years who are, more or less, the most fundamentalist denomination in the country.

This time the American people have had enough.

When ideology replaces policy, you get sermons instead of programs. You get people who will no longer trust actual information, preferring their own adjusted reality, devoid of anything challenging to their presuppositions. So it is that if right wing Evangelicals insist that Obama is a Muslim (or "a Arab") he must be one and damn the facts! And so it is that if government is evil, then to hell with banking regulation. And if our guy is chosen by God, then who cares if the reasons we went to war in Iraq aren't even true. God's in charge! Anyone who isn't on board is a socialist, or maybe a witch, sumthin' bad, that's for sure! Never mind the details, such as the economy, health care, or even things as mundane as mere truth.

Facts are what the elite talk about and the elite is bad! What is good isn't facts; its being right with Jesus. Facts say that the earth is hundreds of millions of years old but we know that dinosaurs and men coexisted a few thousand years ago! We also just know that America was a Christian nation. We know that God wants us in Iraq. The President said so and he's one of us...

The Republicans got away with this nonsense for the better part of thirty years. The way things worked was that some very smart people -- Rove, Cheney, the neoconservatives -- took advantage of some very sad "little peole" rubes, funny when interviewed by Borat, or caught on tape in Religulous, but not who you want governing, or rather not who you want putting one of their own (Bush or Palin) in the White House.

For a while the people the religious right wing that I helped form put in office cruised on inertia. Then the bill came due: Katrina, Iraq and the economy, our military stretched, our reputation broken...

It will be a long time before mainstream America allows a vocal minority of wingnuts (of any political party or faith) to elect someone again only because they share their ideology. Obama is winning because he exudes non-ideological competence. He has a strong moral inner compass but also seems to understand that belief is not enough. He actually seems to want to govern and to do so pragmatically. And he is smart, maybe even so smart he is one of (heavens above!) the elite! It's about time, say many Americans, that someone smarter than us calls the shots.

McCain was looking backward by picking Palin, playing the old game my father and I helped invent. Fatal mistake. Times have changed. But here's a warning: if the Democrats sweep, take it from this repentant ideologue, real results, not another form of ideological hubris better be the order of the day.

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

[RobynHerself]

Keep telling the truth, Frank. You'll bear many scars when you enter Heaven, but the one with nail scarred hands will say, "Well done." You were a Saul... you became a Paul. I pray for God's strength and blessing upon you.

[ohioarn]

Partisan blather and Frank's story aside - You talk about the Schaeffers of the 1980s "preaching a "gospel" of making America "Christian again." But isnt that what the social justice movement and BO's programs are all about - making America right by the muscle of government?

Is this not a New Deal, a Compact with America, a better society, that unfortunately uses force to achieve its goals? Do the ends justify the means?

To me, this feels like legislating morality without the religion/Christian overtley discussed. How is it different?

[PNOGUY]

Dear Frank, Thanks again for reminding us of your pivotal role in creating what you now despise. And thanks for telling us your life story for the 4,027th time. You're like a sorry drunk who can't stop repeating his sad, exaggerated life stories. If you could honestly give us ANY evidence that Obama has the capability to govern, I might give you some credence. But you don't. He just gives you that rosy glow that Jesus used to. BO's checkered and non-descript past, his autobiography which clearly shows his race obsession (not transcendence), his crooked friends, his party toe-the-line politics give clear evidence that he can't transcend ANYTHING. Stop sniffing the glue and come back to the real world. OK, now delete this post like you delete all my others.

[lewes17266]

PNOGUY, You know the value in the understanding of Mr. Schaeffer's perspective, in the telling of his past. That "rosy glow" comment is ridiculous and your comment comparing Mr. Schaeffer to a drunk is mean. Every reader of a Schaeffer essay does not know his unique background.

PNOGUY, You too are redundant. I am redundant here. I stopped visiting and commenting at Townhall.com when I realized how out of place I was and I do not understand why you continue here at Huffington Post, unless you have acrimonious intentions - not for respectful debate or for the exchanging of ideas.

Both candidates are mere mortals with faults. For Senator McCain (who I was once in awe of) the loss has come gradually and with the losing he lost his integrity. He pandered to the "agents of intolerance" when he needed votes and chose his running mate to please that group. I pray this is the end of The Right's stronghold on the Republican party. Michelle Bachmann's vacant, wild-eyed comments made recently in public just give me more proof that my decision to leave the very UnChristian Republican party was correct.

PNOGUY, like it or not, you are about to experience TRANSFORMATION, HEALING, and maybe even a BORN AGAIN experience in the "real world" minus miracles and mysteries and signs and wonders and minus an angry, vengeful, Republican, hate-filled God who sends tornadoes and terrorists! Praise God and halleluia for "The One."

[Libsmasher]

No thanks. I want nothing to do with "the Obama Experience". I understand what Obama really is, which is light years away from what he claims and what his admirers choose to believe.

[HeevenSteven]

Thank you Mr. Shaeffer. Please send a letter to Barry Goldwater Jr. He posted a blurb here today about what a never say die Republican he it. He says McCain is a "no-brainer". Many of us agree--Obama has the brain.

[ellwood]

I think the right wing evangelical poisoning of politics would've run its course in due time. But thanks anyway to you, Sarah Palin, John McCain, and most of all George Bush, for hastening its departure.

Goodnight Bush. Goodnight Grand Old Party. Goodnight failures everywhere.

[chucklasker]

Frank - do you agree it's time for a new party for us unhappy Republicans, or do you think it's possible for the GOP to reform? I just don't see it, and think a new, moderate, progressive Republican Party must be formed. I'll be writing about it on my blog soon, but I'd like your thoughts. I sent you an email separately...

[robiform]

Frank, in the last few weeks, I've become familiar with your dad's beliefs. I volunteer at an organization called Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, and our studio just finished recording "How Then Shall We Live?" Since I prepare the books to be recorded, I had a chance to thumb through the book, and I have to say that if your father really believed what he wrote, then I, a liberal-leaning Jewish female, would not be welcome in the country that he envisioned (at least in that book). I'm glad that you have come to see how wrong it is for fundamentalism (Christian or any other type of fundamentalism) to play any kind of role in our country's politics.

[PNOGUY]

Not welcome, or not comfortable?

[mommadona]

"But here's a warning: if the Democrats sweep, take it from this repentant ideologue, real results, not another form of ideological hubris better be the order of the day."

I have only one bumpersticker on my vehicle.

"Just give me some truth."

I think that's all the majority in this country has ever asked for.

[nsiah7]

You right. they better be or else......­..........

[DasBoot]

I don't believe it until Obama is inaugurated. And even then nobody knows what these zealots are capable of. They didn't accept Clinton and worked for 8 years on destroying him. Too bad he gave them an opening. Still, these people think they own the country ("the real America," as Palin puts it) and I am just afraid they won't give it up by simply losing an election.

[llisa]

I have had those same worries, and I hope we are wrong.

[lvdragonlady]

I can not understand 'why' Christians are always attempting to convert people to their religion. Why do they think that 'their' religion is the only one? This is what they believe but may or may not be fact.
The is America and it is OUR right to have whatever religious belief we want.
Religious persecution is the reason the pilgrims came here in the first place.

Have we learned nothing from history?

[prog]

Simple answer: religion is irrational, and in order to be religious, you really have to believe your beliefs are fact. It has nothing to do with logic.

[fiorastar]

And logic is discouraged from the very youngest age. It starts with multiple variations on the theme, "Faith doesn't ask God to explain Himself. Faith doesn't question. Look at Abraham, who God told to kill his son. Did Abraham question? God doesn't tell us His Plan, and we will never understand it. Now here, go read this little cartoon story about (insert Biblical tract here), and never mind that the cartoon is a translation of a 20th century American translation of a 19th century English translation of a 16th century French translation of a 12th century Roman translation of a story passed down through oral tradition about a speech a conquering king made to the conquered people who would now give over all their land and culture to avoid being killed."

[PNOGUY]

It seems to me that in this election cycle, it's the Obama crew that is trying to silence all other opinions but their own. Your fear of Christians just echoes beliefs about the 'coming theocracy' that have been spouted for decades but have never come to pass.

[tj73]

There needs to be a clear separation of Church and State once again, just as our founding fathers intended.

[CypressRosehill]

Frank,

I've read you and your Dad. You obviously have rejected him and his phiilosophic perspective. So be it.

But I can't for the life of me fathom how you can slam your father on your every post by repeating your animosity toward everything he stood for. What is it? For your sake, what is it? It sounds like you are immersed in residual, unresolved pain embedded in your soul. I wish you would deal with your unresolved father issues. Then please come talk to us.

I'd like to converse with you, but I can't do it through the filter of your unresolved bitterness.

Be well.

[LardGreystoke]

I think this poster could cure himself of his fantasy-based arrogance by reading Frank Schaeffer's autobiography, "Crazy for God". He by no means rejects his father. Like all people his parent had flaws and made mistakes, but from his son's own story I get the idea that he was a good Christian and an (inconsistently) good father. What happened to Francis Schaeffer was the seduction of fame, power and ultimately hubris.

[BruceHNV]

What is that supposed to mean "what is it?" What is WHAT?

Your message appears to assume that fundamentalist Christianity is so valid, and filial love so to be taken for granted, that the only way for a person to see things differently from a fundamentalist parent is some deep, exogenic, psychological wound.

I submit: a) I have not seen the evidence of "bitterness" toward his father in Frank's writings of which you speak and; b) it is entirely possible for a person to "wake" from the dream of dogmatism without trauma, but merely by way of natural intellectual curiosity. This would make one differ from a fundamentalist parent, but would not engender bitterness or hatred.

I believe I know whereof I speak, as my father was raised by rigid, dogmatic protestant missionaries. He's exceptionally bright, skipped grades in school, etc., has cut his own religious (entirely non-dogmatic) path, and never lost a deep affection for his parents. Such is possible.

[BruceHNV]

What is that supposed to mean "what is it?" What is WHAT?



Your message appears to assume that fundamentalist Christianity is so valid, and filial love so to be taken for granted, that the only way for a person to see things differently from a fundamentalist parent is some deep, exogenic, psychological wound.



I submit: a) I have not seen the evidence of "bitterness" toward his father in Frank's writings of which you speak and; b) it is entirely possible for a person to "wake" from the dream of dogmatism without trauma, but merely by way of natural intellectual curiosity. This would make one differ from a fundamentalist parent, but would not engender bitterness or hatred.



I believe I know whereof I speak, as my father was raised by rigid, dogmatic protestant missionaries. He's exceptionally bright, skipped grades in school, etc., has cut his own religious (entirely non-dogmatic) path, and never lost a deep affection for his parents. Such is possible.

[realpolitic]

Mr. Schaeffer is correct that the religious right did lead to the fall of the Republican party. They are a group easily steered in a certain direction and not used to independent, critical thought. Most are inflexible ideologues that root all their believes in the bible, though they may have to really distort the bible to do so. They elevate a guy like Bush who has never really thought about the issues to the highest office because he is a purist and a fellow fundamentalist. No matter that there is no actual policy wing to his administration rather it is all sound bite oriented, as "Mission Accomplished" indicated. The far right wing of their party does not listen and declares all other ideas as anti -American. It is very satisfying to see their fall, as it was frightening to see their rise.

[Acleacius]

Can't help but admire someone who is willing to question their beliefs to become a better part of the human condition.

Thanks Frank, keep up to good work. :)