The Real Lesson Of Iran -- Beware America's Republican Mullahs

The Republicans are faulting President Obama for not taking a "strong enough stand" in support of the freedom marchers in Iran. Yet if the Republican/Religious Right/Neoconservative agenda had come to full fruition over the last 35 years the Republicans would have plunged America into our own version of the misbegotten theocracy destroying Iran today. I know. As a former Religious Right leader I worked to make America "safe" for "Christian values" and dangerous to everyone else. Thankfully I, and those like me, failed.

Had we succeeded America would be another version of Iran. Instead of people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson having become marginalized they'd be sitting in Washington advising whomever was the next Republican president. Instead of environmental protection and new mileage standards for cars there would be new anti-gay laws on the books.

What are the real lessons of Iran for the USA?

1) Don't mix religion and politics.

2) Thank God for the separation of church and state.

3) The Republicans are utter hypocrites.

Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America.

If the far right of the Republican Party and we of the Religious Right had had our way by now there would be a constitutional amendment and/or laws forcing prayer in schools, disenfranchising gay men and women, banning all abortions under penalty of death, banning gay men and women from serving in the military, launching a neoconservative led and religious right backed holy war against Islam, fixing Israel's borders permanently to incorporate all the land taken in 1967 forever into a "Greater Israel" based on the "fact" that "God gave the Jews" the land "forever," capital punishment would be used routinely to punish a variety of crimes including being gay, civil rights for blacks, women, gays, unions would be in retreat, and -- other than enforcing "morality" - George W. Bush's style of "free market" non-governance would be permanent.

Think this is all far fetched? Then you never sat in secret meetings with Pat Robertson or the late Dr. Kennedy -- as I did when I was a religious right leader -- fomenting plans to "bring America back to God." If we'd won America would be a slicker more dangerous version of Iran.

Picture America if Sarah Palin was president, both houses of Congress had a deep Republican majority, and the last 30 years of appointments to the Supreme Court had all been far right choices. Picture Fox News as the only TV news with access to the government, and the editors of the New York Times in jail for "treason."

The Religious Right has been awash in anti-democratic (even anti-American) religious ideologues for the better part of 40 years. For instance I knew the founders of the so-called dominionist or "reconstruction" wing of our movement personally, people like the late Reverend Rousas John Rushdoony the father of "Christian Reconstructionism" and the modern Christian home school movement.

Rushdoony (who I met and talked with many times) believed that interracial marriage, which he referred to as "unequal yoking", should be made illegal. He also opposed "enforced integration", referred to Southern slavery as "benevolent", and said that "some people are by nature slaves". Rushdoony was also a Holocaust denier. And yet his home school materials are a mainstay of the evangelical home school movement to this day!

Rushdoony's 1973 opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law, says that fundamentalist Christians must "take control of governments and impose strict biblical law" on America and the world. That would mean the death penalty for "practicing homosexuals."

Many evangelical leaders deny holding Reconstructionist beliefs but Beverly and Tim LaHaye (of Concerned Women for Americaand the "Left Behind" novels that glorify religious violence), Donald Wildmon (American Family Association) and the late D. James Kennedy (Coral Ridge Ministries) -- served alongside Rushdoony on the secretive Coalition for Revival, a group formed in 1981 to "reclaim America for Christ." I went to the early meetings. I first met Tim LaHaye at one such meeting. And what Dobson, Falwell et al were pushing, and what the "tea parties" and Fox News are all about today, is one or another version of the Rushdoony/theocracy version of the Iranian mullahs American-style.

When there are tens of thousands of Americans sitting in evangelical churches every Sunday wherein President Obama is vilified as an "abortionist," a "Communist," a "secret Muslim," and even as "the Antichrist," when the former vice president accuses our President of what amounts to treason, all because President Obama won't allow the torture of prisoners in an American version of holy war, all because he has decided it is wise to build bridges of respect to Muslim countries, we've left recognizable political territory and entered the realm of violence-inciting hate and delusion of the kind Iran's "supreme leader" indulges in.

Picture the harshest Old Testament laws applied at home and the harshest neoconservative military policy abroad and that would be America if the Republicans had everything they wanted. We'd be in three wars now instead of two - Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. It would be open season on domestic surveillance. Torture would be legal. Habeas Corpus would be a thing of the past. Women would be in prison for having had abortions. Gay men and women would be hounded and if they were murdered there would be leaders saying they had it coming. The CIA and FBI would be operating inside the USA to crush dissent. Blackwater (and other companies like it) would be taking over more and more military duties and operating internationally as a mercenary death squad.

Look at Iran and give thanks that the Republican Party -- the tool of America's mullahs married to the Neocon war mongers -- is in decline and has been rejected by the American people. Work to keep America secular, free and democratic.

Stay vigilant. Having failed at the ballot box the Republicans and their far right hate-filled supporters are beginning to foment violence with their crazy anti-Obama talk and hysteria. As Bob Herbert said in his NY Times (June 20) column; "I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help feeling as if the murder at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the assassination of the abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., and the slaying of three police officers in Pittsburgh -- all of them right-wing, hate-driven attacks -- were just the beginning and that worse is to come."

The battle between oppressive religion and freedom is not over yet-- not in Iran, nor here in America.

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 and the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism)

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

Comments

[PNOGUY]

Yes, everything is still all about you and what you did in the 70s, Frank. The broken record still spins.

What we should be learning is that a weak president will benefit all the crackpot dictators of the world. It's happening. Wake up.

[trebmald]

If we don't like these Christians why not round them up. We could stick them all in camps and make them do something useful. As soon as they're not useful, I'm sure there are things that can be do to them. We can come up with some sort of Final Solution to the Christian problem.

[JimReed]

The solution is to get things out in the open, talk about them.

[Zanti]

(Gasp.) Shocking. Edgy, even.

That was rock and roll, dude.

[fbr79]

I'm an Atheist and people like Dobson and Robertson make me sick. However, to compare their ridiculous agenda, the murder of the Doctor and the Security guard to what has been going on in Iran for the past 30 years is just ridiculous. Of course the war in Iraq is a sham, but that has nothing to do with the religious aspect of the American Right, it was just W.'s way to make his daddy and his oil buddies happy. People seem to forget why we ended up in Afghanistan, and we were never even close to actually getting into a conflict with Iran. These comparisons Americans in the Left and Right like to make between domestic and international situations are nothing new, have no merit and do nothing but get people on their side of the aisle all riled up.

[cyranorox]

{{{{Frankie}}}}
Good work. Deconstruct reconstruction!

[JimReed]

So lets take a step back and evaluate where we now stand. The Christians sold their soul to the party of the rich in a votes for promises deal. The rich rode the conservative gravey train for all it was worth, and now that it is questionable how much longer it will deliver the gravey, and ever mindful of their own self interests, they have stepped off the train so that they can put some distance between it and themselves before the train reaches the final stop. Meanwhile, the Christians have closed their eyes so they don't see the end coming, and in any case they are happy to ride the train into the pit of hell because they have no place better to go.

[Zanti]

"The Christians"? This Christian voted for Gore, then Kerry, then Obama. As did many other Christians. A weird way of showing our allegiance to the Republican Party, wouldn't you agree?

Unless you can refer us to statistics which show that Christians, without exception, "sold their sold to the party of the rich," then shouldn't you refrain from such strange claims? In fact, show that so much as a sizable majority did so.

A link to Pew Research, or the NYT, or even Fox News, would be cool. Let's have your basis for asserting that "the Christians" sold out to the GOP. Thanks in advance.

[JimReed]

It might seem a little bit harsh, but I think Christians are too tolerant of what other Christians do. Where were the protests when the Christian world got involved in rapture books and movies? Some must have seen the potential problem, but nobody spoke up. What about Hagee and his insistance on more war in the middle east? He is accepted into the body of the Christian church as someone who might have political disagreements with some others, but those disagreements are minor compared to the more important issue of indoctrination into the belief in the name of Jesus Christ. What about President Bush who after the torture revelations was rewarded by the evangelicals with an even higher percentage of the vote than he got the first time? There is a collective spirit in Christianity that is speaking to the people, and the people are believing, and sometimes speaking for. Christianity has become its own god. I see this as a problem, and I think we need to get to the point where we can sit down together as Christians and non-Chritians, and try to come to some agreement and understanding about this conservative nightmare that our country became involved in.

[Billy Hell]

Great article and thank you for the clear perspective.

[o-please]

The history of church and state was never "one" in the sense that most secularists believe. Modern secularists simply believe definition of freedom is the ability to do whatever you want. Rather, true freedom comes from doing what is right and avoiding evil by living a Christ centered life. The catholic church was and is the shining beacon for holiness and truths that built civilizations, not secularists.

[Sarah AlQahtani]

I wouldn't quite say that the Catholic church is a beacon for holliness. Wasn't it the Catholic church that authorized the inquisition? The popes that authorized indulgences and had plenty of children outside of marriage..­.....its all hypocrisy too.

[powercosmic]

"...avoidi­ng evil..." by living a "...Christ centered life..." ???

You are completely deluded, or more aptly delusional.

Not only that but I'm sure that even you have a difficult time believing it yourself, that you, cannot do right by your fellow man without believing a Roman hoax that was designed to rid first century Judea of Messianic terrorist Judaism.

There is no such thing as a "Christ Centered Life" this is all the Roman hoax spew that American Christians have morphed Christianity into. Quite frankly its PATHETIC.

Freedom has nothing to do with "doing whatever you want" that is the whole point! Tyrants can't get away with tyranny because we have the Rule-of-law that FREEDOM requires. Christianity is about doing away the rule-of-law, dividing society and creating irrational "meaning"

But the days of religion are to wane because humans are tired of the delusion.

[Zanti]

Good point. A 2008 poll found that merely 92 percent of Americans "believe in God or a universal spirit," to quote the Washington Post.

Religion is on its way out, and fast.

Bye-bye, faith. Your day is done.

[LWCochrane]

I love when people have intelligence, sense & faith! That seems to be a quality lacking in this country. It seems as tho for the last 8 years that if you are Christian you must be a far-right-wing-nut! But that is not true! And I hope with a rational Christian as president this type of thinking will become more common place and the fear, hate and intolerance spread by the Republican so-called Christians will be put to rest. I know many Christians who believe in separation of church and state. Who believe it should be left up to a woman and her own personal moral conscious to choose whether she completes or terminates a pregnancy. Who believe diplomacy and building bridges with Muslim countries is the work of a true Christian America, not declaring a holy war! America should lead by example not force it upon the world. Have we learned nothing in the centuries since the Inquisition? Force people to believe in something never works. It is time all Americans soften and open their hearts to this change for and stop filling it with fear and hate.

[coolchange]

Throughout history, especially American history, it's scary and regrettable what has been done in the name of religion. The Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, slavery, racism, the death of Jesus Christ.

My sister called me in a rage just last night regarding Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN). Mr. Schaeffer is right. My sister told me that so called Christians like Jack Van Impe, Paul and Jan are on tv talking about the POTUS like a dog!!! The Bible says that we should pray for our leaders and instead of them praying for the President, they're systematically crucifying him.

But, Bush was A. O. K. Even after he sent people to die in a war we didn't need to fight.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS!!!

It's raw hatred and pure racism. The sheets are coming out of the closets where they have been kept all these years.

You guys really tricked us good.

[roxette]

Finally , Obama governes with intelligence contrary to the previous President who governes with his "guts".

[Icemaan]

Great reading, my only hope that you get on main stream media for all to see and hear.

[like-mind]

The Iranians already know we support them.
It's best to hang back, just as the President is doing.

[stylenease]

I love this heart warming post. Thank you Frank for finding your true voice and for disavowing the radical elements of the religious right. They really are NUTZ.

[LABC]

Frank, you are the go to post on Huff Post! Thank you for your insight and honesty. Keep up the great work!!

[Scytherius]

As long as we never get complacent and always vote, they will never be in charge of anything again. However, if we don't vote in EVERY election . . . we deserve the American Taliban