Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero

When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation's sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father's sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American.

Consider a few passages from my father's immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies.

Here's Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience:

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable.

And this:

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union....

Then this:

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation...

Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop).

Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad's statements.

Take Dad's words and put them in the mouth of Obama's preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words "godly" and "prophetic" and a "call to repentance."

We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.

My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany.

The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to "bear arms" as "insurance" to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as "fallen away from God" at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.

Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the "progressive" Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post "[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/im-already-against-the-n_b_90628.html )

Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days.

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

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

Comments

[Immolate]

Frank,

Sorry, but which Republican presidential candidate did your father have a relationship with comparable to the relationship between Wright and Obama? As far as I know, nobody I know has ever heard of you or your father. Perhaps he's known inside the beltway or by the moral majority people, or perhaps his celebrity is just too ancient for me to recall (I'm 45), but your pop's name doesn't ring any bells.

If you hear a Republican griping about what Wright has said, and you know that Republican has supported your father, then I would suggest that you point it out for us and call him a hypocrit. But you're calling all of us hypocrits, when the vast majority of us have no earthly idea what you're talking about. I think you simply have a seriously inflated opinion of your father's importance.

[ultrabop]

Why does it matter how important his father was or who knew about him? The reason nobody knows about him is becaue the news media didn't make a big stink about nothing in those days.

[MickyD10]

Um, the fact that YOU nor anyone you know isn't aware of who Franks father was plays more to your ignorance than anything else. Please explain just who "The vast majority of us" are and how you came to know them all. Take your time. I'll be here all day.

[Rowena]

You are revealing your own ignorance. Francis Schaeffer was a HUGELY influential Christian writer and thinker. Frank's point is that no one thought anything of what he said, which was no less "treasonous" than what Jeremiah Wright said.

[thinkb4uleap]

It's unfortunate that the clarity of your perspective is missing from the mass media discourse. Is it possible that the corporate mass media really does not want your perspective to be heard, or that the masses are unwilling to hear it?

[BigBen]

It just goes to show that what is wrong is wrong. Because republicans were wrong is no reason for us to line up behind them.

[clintonius]

Maybe, but I still haven't heard anybody refute the claims that Jeremiah Wright made. Was U.S. foreign policy hypocritical? Did it foment animosity?

Read the N.I.E. This shouldn't even be an issue. Next the Republicons will be saying that the intelligence agencies are anti-american.

[jbsouth]

I think what might be gripping people is not the political issues that Wright was speaking to so much as it was............What kind of a church cheers while the preacher says God D.... America. You know G.D. in the pulpit. What else is going on here.

[ElderZinger]

I assume your questions are rhetorical.

[ernieson48]

It looks like the smear Obama campaign of distraction is having its effect with the media dispersing the drivel to an ignorant public. If guilt by association is the fault, then Hillary must be a philanderer, because she has lived with one for as long as she has been married. Do we want a philanderer as our next president?

[BigBen]

I thought that America was crazy to elect Bush but after reading Buzzflash I realize they were more crazy to elect Clinton twice. According to Buzzflash the "Clintons" are the most evil people who ever lived.

[ultrabop]

They are kind of evil, being Republican enablers. I never realized how evil they were until Hillary started up her ridiculous campaign and started coughing up lies about her 35 years of experience...blah blah blah.......

And then I began to realize that Bill was not only brilliant but also duplicious...giving the Republicans the ship so that he could steer it. He made his pact with the devil and now we're living in hell. sorry to get biblical on you but that's kind of what this blog is about.

[jbsouth]

It's not guilt by association. It is guilt for worshiping at with your family in this church for twenty years and then you say, "I did not know!" It is a credibility and judgement issue. Although I know you prefer the guilt by association route, it might be that you are the ignorant one.

[ultrabop]

Yeah...but what the guy said was so benign....why would Barrack know....and if he did know, why would he think it important to acknowledge that?

There was no crime committed here! Criticizing your government is not a crime. In fact in this day and age it's rather a crime not to raise a stink about what's going on. Bush is destroying our country and you can't say "Damn America?"

It's like we're in the McCarthy era all over again.

[GeoNorth]

This is just annother example of how religion screws up the debate. When it comes to America, the Bible, The Torah, the Koran and all the other books are insignificant. These are all books that apply to the individual. The only writing that applies to all of us is the US Constitution. Without that, the other books would not see the light of day.

[RyanHartman]

Are we surprised that the right-wing is hypocritical? Are we pretending that the left-wing isn't?
http://www.ryanhartman.wordpress.com

[ultrabop]

What left wing? There is none that I know of. Isn't Abby Hoffman dead? What we have now are moderates and right wing oil barons. We can't even mount a decent protest against the slaughter in Iraq.

[transendentilist]

Spot on ultra!!! The young people don't know any different. They weren't around to see the way genuine protest should be handled. Hoffman was a consummate organizer. Jerry Reubin also. They could really fire up a crowd.
And you are absolutely correct about there being no left wing in America anymore. Bush and cheney have taken the country so far to the right, that we are now just slightly left of the Third Reich!!
Today's youth don't know what real radicalism is like. They seem content to meander right into the roped off areas allowed for "protests." Real protest is never restricted by those now being protested.

[dutchess2]

REV. WRIGHT NAILED IT!

By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis

To ensure that the men would show up for a painful and potentially dangerous spinal tap, the PHS doctors misled them with a letter full of promotional hype: “Last Chance for Special Free Treatment.”
The fact that autopsies would eventually be required was also concealed.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html


Many African Americans believe that AIDS is a form of genocide, and their fear and suspicion of the health care delivery system is directly related to the history of the Tuskegee legacy.

And it extends even beyond AIDS. African Americans are under-represented as organ donors, under-represented as individuals who donate blood, and this legacy in the black community is now a metaphor for all of the abuses of biomedical research that violate human rights.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/may97/tuskegee_5-16a.html

[Oldfart]

Let see. Which african-american researcher exposed the Tuskegee incident? And when was it exposed? In order to prove your theory, you have to show that prior to the exposure of the Tuskegee incident, african-americans were donating blood, donating organs, getting vaccinations at the same rate as those white folk were.

Even given the horrible nature of the Tuskegee crime and given the fact that un-educated and under-educated ministers and politicians would use such a crime to steer african-americans away from adequate health care and gain political power, where were the intelligent leaders of the community who would say that it was a terrible incident, we know about it, we will see that it never happens again but, if you want healthy kids and you want to be part of the medical revolution, you gotta donate blood and organs. I contend that such people may have existed but kept their mouths shut for fear someone would accuse them of being too white.

[ultrabop]

operative words...."may have existed"

[Dee1]

I have been shaking my head in disbelieve since this story broke ! Americans have sidlelined core isues and are busy chasing shadows. How can the action/inactions of another person be used against Obama ? We go to church week in, week out and how many of us can say that we agree/practice what the preacher is saying 100%. And if you disagree on any issue, will that warrant leaving the church for another.....then you will be in perpetual motion forever. Of course, preacher are free to say what they like, you may not agree and that does not make you leave the church for another.

Why so much emphasis on the fact that Obama is BLACK ? He is not black, he is 50% black and 50% white. In actual fact he is more white than black. He was raised by his white mother/grandmother. Therefore he is naturally a race neutral human being.....or tell me which side can he truly lean towards.

America will surely not be the same if this guy is blown away on ANY flimsy excuse such as this.

[BigBen]

"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses."

[ultrabop]

Why are you down on this admirable old man? Because he doesn't talk in muted tones like some old white guy? Because he actually spoke his mind? Because he's not part of the conspiracy to keep us silent about what's going on in this country? Gee...maybe the guy doesn't have enough stock in one of the four media companies that keep dredging this shit up.

[huh]

Thanks for this article. Great perspective.

[Geminess]

Do you know what the choir sang at the opening of the Values Voters Republican Debate? The choir sang "WHY SHOULD GOD BLESS AMERICA?" to the tune of "God bless America", because America, in their minds is NOT worth blessing...because of supreme court rulings on schools and abortions...ALL of the Republican candidates, stood at their podiums while the choir sang that song. NO ONE...not the candidates nor the news media. nor average Joe America...said a word!!!!!

I find this appalling that this outcry and mob mentality is even happening. WHY THE DOUBLE STANDARD?

[ElderZinger]

Thanks for the reference. If the vast majority of the voters of America buy into Scarborough or Buchanan or any other muckraking jackass it will be a sad commentary on the integrity, morality, and sense of justice and fair play that exists in this country. Instead of "Home of the Brave", we can better be described as "Home of the Coward".

[abellofgrace]

I think this is good. People are talking about a discord in America that somehow needed to be addressed. It stems from an action, the other is a response to the action. Now it's up to you to know which side you're on. If you're on the side of the action, please fix it. If you are the side of the response, allow yourself to be healed. To all, let it go. My God, it is time!!!!

[NtFourSale]

What TIME is the speech tomorrow? Can't find it anywhere.

[rosal]

When is the MSM going to report all day, an in all channels, the comments of the preacher who recently endorsed McSame ( Sorry Hillary, your are not the only one who endorses him). This preacher called the Catholic Church, the White Whore. He also said Catholicism is a cult. Does anyblody remember his name?
McSame says he doesn't agree with his various preacher's comments, the media applauds, and all is forgiven and forgotten. Obama can denounce and reject 24/7, but everbody is so offended, they just cannot forgive him. Typical Repugs tacticas.

[PJay]

The anti Islam guy's name is Parsley. Seriously.

[sandpiper1]

Rosal

I think the preacher's name was either Hagee or Parsley. He also said the RC Church was a whore!!!
but that's ok, he's white and a Republican so it's accepatable and patriotic.
Obama08

[todayslies]

One of the memes that has been appearing in many corners of the web the past few days is the accusation that Sen. Barack Obama's controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is an anti-Semite, and/or that he has made anti-Semitic remarks.

However, despite extension web searching, I have not been able to come across a single statement by the man saying anything against Jewish, or otherwise Semitic, people. I'm not saying these statements aren't out there—I'm saying that I am coming across a lot of online journalists, columnists, pundits and reader comments calling Wright an "anti-Semite", without reference to a quote of any kind to back such a serious accusation up. And I can't locate one either.

The absolutest closest statement I have found is one in his Wikipedia entry, as well as dozens of other places around the web: a claim by Wright that Zionism has an element of "white racism" in it.

An interesting feature of this "quote" is that no one posts the whole sentence. Everyone "quoting" it writes the exact same thing: "Wright said that Zionism has an element of 'white racism' in it." I can't locate the whole sentence in its entirety anywhere—all anyone offers is the "white racism" part as a quote. So it's extremely difficult to pinpoint this phrase's original context, other than that which these other writers have placed it in on their own.

It's even possible that the "white racism" phrase is just some random blogger's analysis of Wright's views on Zionism, repeated ad nauseum by lazy bloggers around the globe, until it morphed into a "quote" of Wright's. I see this kind of thing happen all the time in online "journalism". If I'm wrong in my theory, I will certainly post a correction.

That said, if it is his, it's hardly an anti-Semitic statement of any sort. Those who question Israeli occupation and settlement policy are not anti-Semites, no matter what neoconservative dogma dictates, or American mainstream media, for that matter. For what it's worth, Wright's Wikipedia entry also states that "the Anti-Defamation League says it has no evidence of any anti-Semitism by Wright."

There is no question Jeremiah Wright has made "controversial" statements about America's racial and military history, though I think almost all of them deserve more discussion that denouncement. But I have not come across any statements by him that are attacking Jewish or other Semitic peoples in any way. If any reader comes across specifically anti-Semitic statements by the reverend, I would sincerely like to see them, and I will post them on this site, and condemn them and the man who uttered them.

That said, if there really aren't any out there, it is our duty as truth-tellers to prevent a rapidly multiplying lie from being solidified in the media as the truth. That's what's happening right now.

[UrbanRevolution]

Christians by definition cannot be anti-semitic. that would be anti-Jesus. He might have said something political about Israel and Palestine. Because he does believe the Palestinians have not been treated fairly.

[SenorBob]

And he would be right. The Palestinians have been treated horribly.

Just so you know, I'm a Jew, and I know PLENTY of anti-semitic Christians.

[rwe]

that is the same bs that blacks can't be racist... As we see Wright is a hate filled , racist

[Dansden]

The true issue of such 'prophetic pronouncements' from a true biblical preacher is found, not in one's social commentary of the culture, but in one's commitment to social, spiritual and moral justice! It matters not to the true prophet his/her social standing to her/his peers (Moses, Nathan, Amos, Elijah, Jesus, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.)

Political commentary or incendiary speech is NOT the core of 'prophetic pronouncemnet:
TRUTH spoken to power is the ONLY criteria that the ages, history and one's own 'God ' is the core! As in the case of ALL PROPHETS, they are totally misunderstood- that's why they are ridiculed, persecuted, assassinated and prosecuted by those whose 'god' is self- interest, self-absorption and self-comfort!

In the case of Dr. Wright, Sen. Obama knew exactly what his words of 'prophetic pronouncement' meant and means in the context of s[eaking TRUTH to power. The sad commentary for Sen. Obama is that, because he desires to be President more than he desires to be God's leader, he is willing to allow his voice to be one of comfort and convenience for the masses rather than one of commitment and conscience for his faith! That is where great leaders are tempted- they give in to the lower denominator of convenience, cowardice and comfort rather than rise to the vision of spiritual, social and moral justice! Dr. Wright knows why and understands, with a heavy heart, why his brother, Sen. Obama, felt the need to respond as he did.

Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't back down in the face of certain temptation and trial! Abraham Lincoln didn't back down in the face of certain temptation and trial! Martin Luther didn't back down in the face of temptation and trial! That's why they are revered in human and American history! That's why they are remembered for the vision of spiritual, social and moral justice they stood up for!

This is the true issue of prophetic witness and revered leadership-
no nuance; no hedging; no equivication; no backing down because the prophet's very eternal soul hangs on that witness and she/he knows it!

[HistoricalFacts]

Jonathan Mayhew (October 8, 1720 – July 9, 1766) was a noted American clergyman and minister at Old West Church, Boston, Massachusetts. He is credited with coining the phrase "no taxation without representation."

Mayhew, "A people, really oppressed to a great degree by their sovereign, cannot well be insensible when they are so oppressed. And such a people (if I may allude to an ancient fable) have, like the hesperian fruit, a DRAGON for their protector and guardian: Nor would they have any reason to mourn, if some HERCULES should appear to dispatch him--For a nation thus abused to arise unanimously, and to resist their prince, even to the dethroning him, is not criminal; but a reasonable way of indicating their liberties and just rights; it is making use of the means, and the only means, which God has put into their power, for mutual and self-defense. And it would be highly criminal in them, not to make use of this means. It would be stupid tameness, and unaccountable folly, for whole nations to suffer one unreasonable, ambitious and cruel man, to wanton and riot in their misery. And in such a case it would, of the two, be more rational to suppose, that they that did NOT resist, than that they who did, would receive to themselves damnation."

Seems to me like a little mayhem from the pulpit is part of our great American tradition.

[ultrabop]

Brilliant!