The 5,000-plus emails and letters generated by my memoir Crazy for God (about why I left a leadership position in the religious right) made it clear that I still had questions to answer about my family's role in the rise of the American extremism, even violence.
People liked the book but some people knew that I'd ducked some questions, like the fact we were responsible for the murder of several abortion providers. It takes a while to work up the courage to be honest and after I got Crazy for God off my chest I wanted to take another step (and my gloves off) before moving on.
The reason I've written my (just published) new book Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics -- and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway is because of the insane rightward tilt of the Republicans post-Obama's election has meant that the path taken by the religious right (the movement that most informs the present day Republican Party) was something I felt needed to be better understood and exposed... from the inside.
When I'd be interviewed on NPR or by Rachel Maddow it often seemed to me that the questions asked about the Religious Right showed that even at best there is a lack of understanding of what it is that has pushed America in the direction of a theocracy where people like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck et al seem to want to turn the US into a "Christian" version of Iran.
In Sex, Mom and God, I use my life as a lens through which to view a larger narrative: the rightward lurch of American politics since the 1970s.
What is happening in America is an expression of mass sexual dysfunction "inspired" by the allegiance of millions of individuals to the Bible. That is all the culture war really is. I wanted to write a book about this but told as a personal story.
In Sex, Mom and God I go back to where I -- and millions of others -- began our journeys: in the grip of our bedtime Bible stories! From a child's perspective peering out at the larger world from deep in the cocoon of a "Bible believing home," every word of the Bible is understood to be true in ways that nothing else is or ever will be even if, years later, that child grows up and changes his or her mind.
To be true to what I hope is the heart of the best of the universal religious message, I want to say that redemption through selflessness, hope, and love necessitates a new and fearless repudiation of the parts of holy books and traditions -- be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim (or other) -- that bring us messages of hate, exclusion, racism, ignorance, misogyny, homophobia, tribalism, and fear. To find any spiritual truth within any religion's holy books, we must mentally edit them by the light God has placed in each of us. As Anne Hutchinson put it at her trial, "The Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me."
Those who wish to live as Christians, Jews, Muslims, agnostics, or atheists by following the humble thread of what I'll call divine uncertainty, as opposed to those who wish to force others to be like them by using Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or doctrinaire secularism as a weapon, must shift from unquestioning faith in their books, the Bible, Koran, Torah, (or science) to a life-affirming message of transcendence.
The "big issues" really do boil down to sex, mom and God. "Modernity" has changed nothing. We human animals seek out meaning that transcends the sum of our physical parts. That never changes. And we make the same mistakes in every age. What has changed is that the stakes have gotten intolerably high because of our growing capacity to do global harm.
Anyone raised in a home where one or more parent or sibling was driven by a sense of passionate mission, be that of the left, right, religious, political or social will "get" my book. How does one separate one's self from a driven tribe? That's the individual's question. Our larger societal question is: How do we box in, contain and then reverse the evil the American right is doing to our society? For instance, if anyone can look at the way religion has treated and treats women and not be pissed off they have something wrong with them.
I intend on pissing off every misogynist homophobic religious conservative and/or empire-building neoconservative imperialist supporter of our permanent war economy stuck in the ideological straight jacket that I used to so proudly wear.
I'd also like to plant a seed that changes a few minds.
Sex, Mom and God also makes an argument for rediscovering the human values that are what is far more important than politics. Or put it this way; at age 58 I've discovered that nothing beats a tea party with a two year old who loves you unconditionally.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book is Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
Please note, I handled the personal copies of Benjamin Rush's 'Essays', Boudinot's 'Age of Revelation', and Wm. Tennant's manuscripts at a Princeton library, just to make sure... .
Declaration Signer Rush:
"In order more deeply to affect the minds of the citizens of the United States with the blessings of peace, by contrasting them with the evils of war, let the following inscriptions be painted upon the sign, which is placed over the door of the War Office.
1. An office for butchering the human species.
2. A Widow and Orphan making office.
3. A broken bone making office.
4. A Wooden leg making office.
5. An office for creating public and private vices.
6. An office for creating a public debt.
7. An office for creating speculators, stock Jobbers, and Bankrupts.
8. An office for creating famine.
9 An office for creating pestilential diseases.
10. An office for creating poverty, and the destruction of liberty, and national happiness.
....Above this group of woeful figures,—let the following words be inserted, in red characters to represent human blood,
"NATIONAL GLORY." pp. 183 ff.
Google books Rush's "Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical, 1806.
Any thoughts?
Ha, beautiful Frank. Just this morning I had a parishoner ask me what I thought of so many church ministries today being filled by and, heavens forbid, even led by women (we have 2 female pre-med students working in unidentified countries in North Africa this summer). The Lord didn't immediately bring a Baptist response to mind so I said, "well, over 25 years of church life, I've concluded that since men don't have the ba*ls/inclination to do or go what/where women don't hesitate to do/go, that's the last thing I'm losing sleep over." I remember when I was in seminary (where I met your Dad not too long before he passed away), one of the widows of the Ecuador/Auca Indian five American martyrs (not Betty Elliott) told me how bemused she was that once they became "celebrities" scores of churches where they had previously not been allowed to even step on the platform b/c they were women couldn't sign them up fast enough to speak on Sunday morning. "Theological" convictions, indeed.
Keep stirring the pot, Frank, I'm looking forward to reading your new treatise!
The original intent of our constitution was precisely to prevent the oligarchic plutonomy from having these almost limitless powers. Our system has been usurped by the very legislative controls we sought to limit in our government.
Change comes from education and broad scale INTEREST -none of which we have, and our press is obviously catered to the wishes of corporate America. Our watchdog has become a fat, lazy lapdog. Getting the word OUT, and discussing change with your representatives is the only peaceful way to bring change about.
Then, there is always the Second Amendment...
I am appalled that Christianity has been used so cruelly to oppress the children of God.
Lord have mercy on us all.
Considering how much I enjoyed your previous book, Crazy for God, and how insightful I find your blogs here on HP, I am enthusiastically looking forward to reading Sex, Mom, and God.
I would like to state that I am basically Jewish, with a strong streak of what I call Smorgasbordianism (which, as the name suggests, means I sample a little bit here, a little bit there, from other religious/cultural traditions). I mention this only because I think it should be known--or better known--that your readership is by no means limited to Christians or former Christians.
Thank you for sharing with us your thoughtful, inspiring, and often poignant writings.
My mom caught me stuffing splooge-stained sheets into the washing machine at the age of 13 and told me, "Awww! That's God's special way of taking care of you until you're married!" Through years of hard personal work and self-development, I have healed from such bizarre messages. Your book let me know that I was not the only one! Thank you for sharing your journey in such a vulnerable and authentic way.
Then I realized that I grew up in a family driven by craziness, high, conflicting expectations and enough denial to isolate my brothers and myself from the world around us. The three of us have been wrestling with the world and with the ghosts of those old expectations ever since.
So I really *do* have a lot in common with you. I'm sure it will be an interesting book to read this Summer.
tt77
I just adore you for this. xoxox
I am sincerely looking forward to reading your new book, and I thank you for sharing your life with us so that we can better understand how exactly the political situation in this country has become what it is.
I am working to re-elect the President. I do it because of what he stands for, which is so much bigger than any one man can be. But the compromises he has made (probably because of pragmatism) and the daily stories that twist my gut into knots are almost too much. And I don't even watch TV! I am almost (almost) ready to give up involvement in politics- as much as I love my President- and just parent and paint.
One of the things I'm getting from your work is the possibility of transformation, and the realization that fulfilling one's purpose takes a lifetime. And that art and stories are important. They may be all that saves us in the end.