Why Obama Must Not Work With Republicans

Ever wonder why the Republican Party's foreign "policy" got so off the wall and bellicose? Want to know why we're in two wars? Want to know why so many evangelicals hate Obama for saying he'll negotiate with Muslims? Want to know why President Obama should not try to work with Republicans?

All you need to know is that the Republican/Sara/Palin base of evangelical support is rooting for war, death and killing as a longed for -- even prayed for -- conclusion to human existence. No kidding! Understand what I'm going to tell you here, and you'll understand what went so wrong with America with W. Bush and why we are the most dangerous country on earth. Shorthand: we have nukes and risk being run by kooks. And, until the election of 2008, an evangelical born-again kook was running our country.

Disclosure: I'm the son of one of the evangelical's foremost thinkers, the late Francis Schaeffer. And until I left the fold in the mid 1980s I was intimately involved with the Religious Right and have been (until quite recently) a life-long Republican. I knew Jerry Jenkins' and Tim LaHaye personally and both are followers of my father.

The wild financial success of Jerry Jenkins' and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of sixteen novels is about belonging to the winning side. The books have made hundreds of millions of dollars while spawning an "End Times" industry, inclusive of Left Behind wall paper, screen savers, children's books and video games. The evangelicals -- and hence, from the early 1980s until the election of President Obama in 2008, the Religious Right as it informed US policy through the then dominant Republican Party -- are in the grip of an apocalyptic "Rapture" cult centered on revenge and vindication.

This End Times cult is built on a literalistic interpretation of the book of Revelation. The book was the last to be included in the canon of the New Testament. It was only recognized gradually as canonical late in the process -- after the year 400 AD -- of collecting the gospels and various letters included into the New Testament. The historic Church remained so suspicious of the book Revelation that to this day in the Orthodox Church it has never been included as part of the cyclical public readings of scripture. In other words the book of the Bible that the historic Church found (and finds) most problematic and dangerous is the one that American evangelicals have latched on to like flies on spilled jam.

According to Jenkins and LaHaye the "chosen" (in other words born-again evangelicals) will be airlifted to safety in the "Rapture" when the "End" comes. At last evangelical Americans will know "we" were right about everything and "they" were wrong. We'll know that because Spaceship Jesus will come back and take us away leaving everyone else to ponder just how very lost they are because they failed to say the words: "I accept Jesus as my personal savior."

Evangelicals not only wish to be proved right they also want revenge on all other religions and peoples. Not unlike Islamic terrorists who behead their enemies, the evangelicals relish the prospect of God doing the messy killing for them as they watch from on high. It isn't enough for them to cast the individual "apostate" out of their midst, or to denounce the Roman Catholics as the "whore of Babylon," they want revenge on all people not like them. The Left Behind novels provides access to vicarious revenge . No need to wait for the End Times, you can get your violent jollies now!

Jenkins and LaHaye describe various deadly scenarios proceeding and following believers being "snatched away" to safety leaving the infidels to their punishment. The authors cash in on years of evangelical paranoia and imagined victimhood. (A strange belief imbued with losers' self pity by people who have run Congress and the White House until this election!)

Jenkins and LaHaye provide an entertaining book version of a cosmic I-told-you-so from the backward earthly losers (as evangelicals perceive themselves in this the age of science and secularism) to the earthly winners (as evangelicals think of all those clever big city, over-educated progressive secular "elites"). Glory be! As God kills them, including those "secular Jews" running the New York Times who will have to admit we were right all along just before Jesus blasts them!

The promotional copy for one of the books -- Shadowed -- promises plenty of we-told-you-so entertainment; "After God intervenes with a miracle of global proportions, the tide is turned on international atheism!"

God Is Great! Kill them God! Kill those "international atheists!" They made fun of us because we refused to believe in evolution and built a creationist theme park! They laughed at us for opening our Friday night football games with prayer! They even laughed at Billy Graham, our one and only saint, when his son Franklin raised 28 million dollars to build the Graham theme park! Strike them Lord!

Jenkins and LaHaye are End Times revenge pornographers. Reading about violence against unbelievers is the evangelical Viagra. Take this passage from Glorious Appearing in which Jesus slaughters unbelievers;

The riders not thrown leaped from their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted, and their tongues disintegrated... the soldiers stood briefly as skeletons in now-baggy uniforms, then dropped in heaps of bones as the blinded horses continued to fume and rant and rave. Seconds later the same plague afflicted the horses, their flesh and eyes and tongues melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons standing, before they too rattled to the pavement.

Evangelicals can't get enough of this trash. The video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces was developed by a publicly traded company, Left Behind Games. The player controls a "Tribulation Forces" team and allows the player to "use the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world." The game blesses and encourages religious violence.

Guided by a literal reading of the prophetic sections of the Bible the expanding Left Behind entertainment empire also feeds the delusions of Christian Zionists who are convinced that the world is heading to a final Battle of Armageddon. Christian Zionists led by the likes of John McCain's Jabba the Hutt lookalike and big fan -- the Reverend John Hagee -- believe that war in the Middle East is God's will. Hagee predicts in his book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, that Russia and the Arabs will invade Israel and then will be destroyed by God. This will cause the Antichrist -- the head of the European Union -- to stir up a confrontation over Israel between China and the West. Armageddon will ensue and the Second Coming of Christ.

This would all be a joke except for the fact that sixty million Americans identify themselves as evangelicals. That's a lot of crazy voters -- as McCain proved he recognized when he nominated the religious Right's pet evangelical goof Sara Palin to be his running mate to re-energize the army of goofs who gave us the 8 years of W that brought us to war and economic ruin.

Note to Jews: the evangelicals say they are the State of Israel's friend, love Jews etc., etc. Wake up! In the evangelical "game" Jews are just apocalyptic Jesus fodder! With friends like these you don't need enemies. Friends of Israel -- and I am one -- don't see Israel as nothing more than a pawn in the End Times. Dig under the surface and you'll find Hagee, Jenkins, LaHaye are profoundly and fatally anti-Semitic. Follow their uncompromising "Rapture logic" and Israel will be destroyed. These people will always push the US government to take the hardest line against the Arabs. That is no long term favor to Israel. Eternal war is no answer. Check out the area's demographics. Make peace while there is time!

Christian Zionists support all violent actions by Israel for any reason because in the fevered evangelical mind the nation of Israel is presently standing in for Jesus-the-avenger-on-evildoers everywhere, i.e. Arabs, all of whom (according to the born-again porn peddlers) are soon destined to burn anyway! So, who cares if 10 Israeli deaths from Hamas' rockets fired into southern Israel are avenged by the killing of 1,300 men women and children in Gaza?USA! USA! Go Jesus! Time for another godly session on my Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game! Hurry Jesus come back and kill em' all.

And that is the Republican's base. Good luck to President Obama trying to find bipartisan solutions to our world wide problems with these folks.

Frank Schaeffer is 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.

Comments

[NoSeriously]

Wow - I finally really started reading HuffPo a few weeks ago, and I am so glad that I am not alone in my view of the Republicans and Religious "right." I see very little difference in attitude between zealous Republican evangelicals and Islamic extremists. All you have to do is substitute "Allah" with "Jesus" and the talking points are the same.

Kudos to you for exposing these hate-mongers for what they are. I wonder if they understand what it means to take G-d's name in vain?

[edva]

Just saw your interview on Hugley. Perhaps the most cogent, honest, and succinct exposition of the enormous Bush debacle, and the amazing Obama promise, that I have heard. Bravo.

[Sunlituplands]

I appreciate your writings. President Obama should continue on this course of though. It will split the GOP, by giving the non loons a reason to leave that they will find legitimate. The GOP will likely become a minor, regional party over the next two election cycles.

[MajorKong]

I think Obama could work with the sane Republicans. Unfortunately you fit all the sane Republicans into a phone booth right about now.

[aussiegal77]

Some believers think that having illness means you are out of favor with God and that having Health, this is a sign of God's blessing.

Utter rubbish. Jesus himself teaches that suffering and trials is a part of the Christian walk. The point is - God should be soverign in the life of a Christian.

My uncle was a very sucessful surgeon who decided to give up his lucrative medical practice and serve full time as a minister. He felt it was his calling. He also later developed a brain tumour. We prayed for God to heal him but we also prayed for God's will be done. And that we would be obedient to that will, no matter how difficult it was. Because we walked by faith and we trusted in God's goodness.

My uncle was diagnoised with the brain tumour. It was there one day and one day it was gone. But 15 years later, it returned. Did we pray for healing? Yes. Did we hope? Yes. Did my uncle survive a second time? No. He died and we mourned him. I mourn him still.

But here is what is left from my uncle's life: People whom he shared the gospel with and who have accepted Jesus as their Savior. The example he showed when he was suffering every day from his illness. The servant attitude. The gentle spirit. The faith in his God who never failed him.
He's gone but God's good work in him and through him

[lewes17266]

Frank Schaeffer,

I have spent some time at your official website.

I am so redundant here so do not comment to every essay but never miss reading you. I think I have read all your Huffington Post essays now. You always have a lot of comments and I am so happy people are listening.

Thank you.

[nottaken]

Retrofuturistic,
I do disagree with you. It is unacceptable for you to chuck up religion as a product of non or anti-intel­lectualism­. I am an intellectual, a scientist for that matter but religion do have a place in my life. It is religion that helped the AA get through slavery. It is religion that has helped most poor African Nations survive from day to day. Religion gives you hope and a reason to wake up the next day and stop you from committing suicide. Just because some IDI0TS have hijacked Christianity and turned it into a weapon of hate does not mean that it has to be dismissed as something only practiced by dead brains.

[BCubedReg]

"It is religion that helped the AA get through slavery."

Actually, you have that in reverse. It is religion that put AA into slavery. It is religion that still insists that the "Bible" justifies slavery, stoning, the Crusades, jihad, murder in gods name and a vertible smorgasborg of criminal acts against our fellow person.... yes ... all in GOD'S NAME.

RELIGION HAS KILLED MORE PEOPLE THAN IT HAS SAVED.

[nottaken]

Sandpiper1,
I feel exactly the same way you feel. I have been so discouraged by this Christian fundamentalists. I have been a born again Christian for more than 20 years but I feel like this people are reading a different bible than the one I read. They have totally distorted the teaching of the bible and the Lord Jesus, it is down right scary. If this is all they have to offer, I am afraid to say that they will never get anyone to believe in their God. Jesus condensed the 10 commandments into two.
1. Love the Lord your God.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself. He never say only if he is wh.ite or bl.a.ck, straight or g.a.y, Christian or Muslim, believer or Atheist. The fact remains that Christ Himself associated more with the poor, the outcast and the non believers.

[aussiegal77]

Amen. Amen.

It's a sad state of affairs when Christians - who are supposed to have seen the Light - become even darker than the world around them.

I consider myself an evangelical but I would run, not walk, away from the evangelicals that we see today here in the US.

Sad. Sad. Sad.

[konastephen]

What?? You actually buy Schaeffer's analysis? You know nothing about Christendom or politics and power if you do.

[knerd]

Jeff Sharlet's "The Family" is one book that reveals the troubling nexus of politics and religion at the highest levels of power. It is amazing to me that fundamentalism is so "under the radar" of most Americans yet its adherents and influence have been operating as a shadow culture in Washington.

[WarriorLemming]

Frank Schaeffer, has spoken the absolute truth how do I know? I've been hanging out at one of these, Christian Zionist, forums who call themselves, "Preppies" ("preparing" for the end times) trying to understand their bizarre mind-set. These people become gleeful with each down-turn of the economy and I have to admit to biting my tongue on more than one occasion. They talk often about a hope that President Obama would meet an untimely death but are cautioned by moderators and fellow posters not to get too descriptive.

If you have a strong stomach the website link is: http://www.thetreeofliberty.com/vb/index.php

Another interesting read try googling "The Tenth Cow".

I agree that President Obama shouldn't try to work with these people because they care nothing for peace.

[JimReed]

They are just people unless you have friends or family involved. That could be your motivation for trying to understand. Once you understand, you can try to reason with them, but that seems to always cause people to harden their hearts and become even more locked into their views. Is there any solution?

[LiteSleeper]

Thank you so much for saying this. I've been seeing this from these nuts for years and it only got worse since we've gotten to 2000 and beyond. It's my theory that most of their "fervor" is only fear that we are in the end times and they have to make up for their sinful ways. So they make up for it by hating all those "undesirables" even more. Some how hate equals clean Christian living. I think the further we get away from 2000 and their is no rapture or second coming, the less the younger crazies will want to believe it and the whole movement will simply cease.

[Zanti]

My favorite end-times scenario is one I picked up from progressive blogs like this one. Namely, the notion that science and religion are fighting an epic battle--a war of logic vs. reason, the outcome of which will likely determine the fate of the species.

It's all happening NOW, in OUR time. The vital survive-or-perish issues just happen to be the ones WE'RE faced with. We are just SO important. Too bad about those losers who preceded us. A lot of those folks didn't even have computers.

End-of-the-world mythology--it never changes from one version to the next.

[knerd]

I am sure with you on this one. There are too many of us for too long who have never taken these people seriously. Their ignorance plus their fear and righteousness is anti-life. My take on the future is a bit more pessimistic than yours, however. These guys have always been able to blithely advance their End Times date since the theology of Paul. Reality does not seem to faze these people.

[Freesia2]

Great article, which has scared me spitless. Thank you. (??)

I grew up in the Bible belt. Scarlet red evangelical. I don't live there now and looking back, or reexperiencing it on visits, there is much that has puzzled me about the nonsensical views of some of the people. Such as one relative who assured everyone "We Christians are opressed. We're opressed!". Hearing this I scratched my head. Where was that coming from? Did someone pull him over and threaten his family on the way to Bible study? Is his house attacked because he has a picture of Christ on the wall? I didn't understand the paranoia.

This article explains it very well. Not that it's reassuring. And coupled with the politicians who foster this mindset it's bone chilling. This kind of thinking has nothing to do with real Christianity. And it certainly doesn't help the country. I'm not sure there's a bi-partisan olive branch that can reach across this insanity. I hope Obama realizes that. I wish he would read this article.

[harriscrl3]

Heres my thing the majority of republicans are difficult hard headed and live for the purpose of undermining a democratic president. Then they are some that you can genuinely work with. So with the country in the mess that it is, is it worth going to battle with the many rather than steamrolling over them. I think thats a question that Obama has to answer for himself. But personally I would roll the heck of them.

Did you hear what Alan Keyes said about Obama and they are many who feel that way. ROLL OVER THEM!!!

Carol

[Freesia2]

I saw Alan on tv right before I read this article. I just sat there feeling my dinner roil around in my stomach. Roll over them indeed. You can't reason with people like that.

[jfor]

Religion and the believers of those religions are given a level of respect that they have not earned or deserve. Having faith does not trump reality.

Humanity will either step up and stop this religious foolishness or it will pay the ultimate price committed by the fools who are religious.

A bishop who does not believe in the Holocost regardless of the evidence is also the man who expects the rest of us to believe in God regardless of the lack of fact to support it.

[aussiegal77]

The reason why Religion has done more Wrongs and killed more people than anything else in this world is because Religion has nothing to do with GOD.

The God of the Bible, whether you believe in Him or in the Bible, has never advocated or praised Religion. In fact there are multiple examples of God condemning Religion in that it takes men far away from what God wants for this world and enslaves in rules and regulations.

It's too bad that the majority of Christians today find their comfort in their Religion and not in the GOD they are supposedly worshipping.

[konastephen]

What? Who ARE you? Religion is simply human effort to find God (whatever you want to posit as "God"). Of all religions, Christianity in it's unadulterated form is the most humane, compassionate and life-affirming. Anyone who says otherwise has an agenda.

There is Truth. And there is human effort to find it. Condemning Truth because some people are awkward or gauche in their religion, or worse yet, dishonest and corrupt, is like condemning food because some people are rude and uncouth in how they eat.

[RobertHenryEller]

"Note to Jews: the evangelicals say they are the State of Israel's friend, love Jews etc., etc. Wake up! In the evangelical "game" Jews are just apocalyptic Jesus fodder! With friends like these you don't need enemies. Friends of Israel -- and I am one -- don't see Israel as nothing more than a pawn in the End Times. Dig under the surface and you'll find Hagee, Jenkins, LaHaye are profoundly and fatally anti-Semitic. Follow their uncompromising "Rapture logic" and Israel will be destroyed. These people will always push the US government to take the hardest line against the Arabs. That is no long term favor to Israel. Eternal war is no answer. Check out the area's demographics. Make peace while there is time!"

Note to William Kristol and all your neo-con buddies: Print the above in reverse, and have it tattooed on your forehead (Don't worry, it's swelled enough; You'll have plenty of room!), so that you have to read it everyday when you (ugh!) look in the mirror.

You really think you've been playing Sarah Palin, don't you, Billy? Your Harvard degree is worth about as much as W.'s or Fredo's.

[OneLiberalLady]

Great comment, Robert. I found that paragraph chilling, and profound. It just surprises me that any serious Jews would accept the religious right as their "friends," since friends don't held beliefs that other friends are going to hell because of an accident of birth. What are people like Kristol thinking?