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.
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I wish for a day when we, the peoples of the world, can look at the other without the warped lenses of identity, religion, nationality, politics, creed, class, etc., etc. and see and realize that the other human being standing in front of us is our own reflection. Whether that person is a beggar or a CEO, religious or atheist, Christian or Mulism, man or woman, he/she bears the mark of same joys and sorrows, tribulations and insecurities, wishes and desires. We are human beings. We share this earth with millions of other living beings. If we can only feel and empathize the "other" for one moment, let our heart feel the "other's" happiness and pain as our own, we would know that no other human being is fundamentally that different from us. Just being able to have this presence of mind, even for a few moments, has helped me tremendously to overcome nationalistic, cultural, linguistic, religious, etc., barriers during my travels around the world.
Thank you, Frank , for your insights. We need a new category of personality disorder in the mental health professionals diagnostic paradigm - Fundamentalist Personality Disorder. Most religions have at least one sect infested with these mentally deranged folks.
"Elmer Gantry" comes to mind as some of the first warnings about the big business/evangelical connections.
I am a former moderate Republican, now an independent. I left because of the fundamentalist right.
I used to hope that a successful period of moderate Democratic control of Congress and the Presidency would force Republicans to reform and to minimize the influence of the fundamentalists. But really, because of the fundies' numbers, its hard to see how that could happen.
So now I hope that a centrist Democratic party will attract more moderate Republicans and become more or less perpetually in power, with the Republicans reduced to being exclusively (rather than mainly) about religious extremism.
But this is an issue that goes beyond politics. Look around the world. Most of the problems of the world could be solved if there were no religious fundamentalists of any stripe. And when you look at what it is that makes these people believe what they do, you realize that religious fundamentalism is really a combination of ignorance and mental illness. (Disclosure, I have to admit that I think this is true of ALL religious belief, but non-fundementalist versions are much more benign.)
What I don't understand, is how can so many people subscribe to beliefs that are so evidently unsupportable? Especially when we it is now so clear that when we require evidence before accepting something as knowledge, that such knowledge is predictive, reliable, and useful in ways which NO religious beliefs have ever been.
once you've seen someone healed by prayer within a 48 hour period (maybe sooner but that's how long it took to get retested) you know God is.
Right, because god liked that person better than the thousands of others he refused to heal by prayer. I get it.
Psychosomatic illness can always be "healed" by prayer if one is susceptible to believing in it! Same results as sugar pills!
I do not doubt there have been some "miracle cures" in modern medicine, but as a long time registered nurse, I can assure you that "GOD" has nothing to do with it! Hard to believe the anyone in the 21st century still subscribes to myths and fairy-tales!
"Especially when we it is now so clear that when we require evidence before accepting something as knowledge, that such knowledge is predictive, reliable, and useful in ways which NO religious beliefs have ever been"
equals:
"once you've seen someone healed by prayer within a 48 hour period (maybe sooner but that's how long it took to get retested) you know God is."
All or nothing: Nothing metaphysical, anywhere, not ever: and the power IS CHRIST, none other!
Two equally close-minded individuals, both with some truth. And both of you point at each other without a hint of honest self introspection. (there is always 3 fingers pointing back)
Thanks for typifying the real problem.
Saying these two statements are equal is fallacious. The believer's states there IS a God. I question why people believe things that have no empirical support. I don't say there definitely ISN'T a God.
This is difference is essential. I don't have a belief there isn't a God. I also don't have any knowledge that there isn't a God because I don't have any evidence there isn't. But if for the first time some evidence arose that there is a God, my approach would allow my knowledge to be changed to include it.
There is plenty of reason to be tolerant of unsupportable views, but no reason to compromise about their status as more than belief. For example, if a large number of people started believing - and demanding that I believe - that the sun is blue, should I say "Well, maybe." I would rather say, "I hear that you have such a belief, and that's fine with me, but I don't have it, and I'm not going to suggest - in order to achieve some dubious compromise - that it offers "some truth" for me or others But I don't want to restrict your freedom to hold this view, that I will point out in debate with you that it is unsupported by evidence."
Saying otherwise opens the door to some believers' false claim that their beliefs are actually knowledge and should be accepted by all (or at least the chosen ones) and our laws based upon their
Yes, the books are awful, and the motivation of the authors, to bring in the dollars, is clear. What is not made clear to me here is that those who read the books and say they believe in end times really do believe it, as if, behave as if they do. I like to match a person's beliefs with his/her behavior.
It has always seemed to me that the belief that one is living at the end of history is a pathetic but very human trait; when I am gone the world will be gone. It is certainly true that we are living at the end of our personal histories. Some people with these beliefs, it seems to me, are too much attached to the world and wordly things, do not want to give it up and leave it to others. I agree that such people, and I don't really think there are 60 million of them, are dangerous to the body politic. But all Repubicans are not of this type. I have little use for the Republican party, but they are not all End Times goons.
There are two basic types of Republicans, fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. The fiscals are the party of the rich. They take every advantage to become more rich, and even the current economic crisis presents them with opportunities because if people lose their houses, in the end the rich will end up owning them, as long as the country doesn't get too involved in spreading the wealth. By their nature, the fiscals don't have the votes to stay in power, so they must use their wealth to work out deals for voting bases.
The social conservatives provide the votes. They think and act as a group, and somehow they have been influenced to vote against their own best interests. I would love to find out how this happened and why, but they have a strong resistance to ever talking about it, at least to outsiders.
The social conservatives are the voting base.
Well, this article is very entertaining and certainly has a lot of ugly truth in it.
However...I've got to say: "Hey, Mr. Schaeffer, put down the giant paintbrush, step away from the canvas, take a few deep breaths, and maybe search your art supplies for something you can do a little more detail work with..."
Geesh. Yes, there are a gillion wing-nutty Jesus freaks out there. And, also, yes, as a progressive (not to mention a homosexual), they sometimes frighten the hell out of me. Third yes: they are, largely, the Republican base.
But, again, whoa! There are some moderate GOPers out there, fella! And anyone who thinks the course of the ol' ship of State is going to be righted after veering so far of course with only the left side rowing is nearly as crazy as those that think they are going to be sucked upward into Heaven when the poop-storm begins.
Just sayin', people...
http://TheSnarkingLot.blogspot.com
WOW! Now this is the discourse that I joined HuffPo for! There are some astoundingly intelligent people who have commented here. It is so wonderful to read all of you and, for once, think: "where are the so-called tr^lls?" It is really amazing that this is the only thread I have read on here for months that we don't have to listen to the adolescent one liners that they get from Rush, designed only to agitate and keep from having an intelligent discussion. How refreshing, and I commend you, Frank, for touching on a topic that seems to frighten them.
I agree! When faced with science and reality, they seem to fade into the woodwork!
It is gratifying to read the comments that have been posted in response to Mr. Schaeffer's article. Even professed Christians are profoundly disturbed by the antics of some of their crankier co-religionists. It is not enough, however, to merely bemoan the fact, to provide anecdotal testimony of past association and fortunate escape, or express vague hope that one day some of those people will 'see the light'. It is necessary to call for action. We must urge Congress to include investigation of the role that SOME fundamentalist groups and individuals have played in influencing the formulation of government policy as they begin to scrutinize the activities of former members of the George W. Bush administration.
We must urge Congress to:
1. Identify and make public the connections between various lobbyists and PACs with fundamentalist Christian organizations.
2. Identify and make public the connections between those entities and members of Congress
and administration officials, past and present.
3. Establish what, if any, influence fundamentalist Christian organizations have had over the formulation of:
a. Our policy in the Middle East in general.
b. Our policies with regard to Israel and Iraq in particular.
4. Reconsider and redefine the criteria for tax exempt activity on the part of ALL religious organizations with regard to influencing public policy in ANY way.
Some of this information is already available to the public, albeit in often rather arcane form. It must be highlighted, brought sharply into focus, and considered as grounds for possible action!
"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... "
And it begs the question... Is democracy the best organizing principle to run a mental institution?
(I can't imagine the framers of the constitution were anticipating this situation)
There are over 300 million people in this country. If you subtract out the 60 million evangelical/fundamentalist rightwing crazies, that still leaves 240 million. I think democracy can still work for us.
Excellent article, thanks. From a very early age, when I was growing up in a small town in the bible belt, I knew there was something really off kilter with the fundies. There seemed to always be this righteous anger, a very "us and them" type attitude. When I was a kid I was afraid of those people, they seemed dangerous and unstable. As an adult my fear of them is that they seem to have an insatiable quest for power and they often seem to be gaining ground. American Taliban indeed.
Frank,
I agree with your take 1000%. I am also a Christian and former lifelong Republican who proudly supports President Obama and sees how LOONY today's Christian right is.
Its frightening how brainwashed and blood-thirsty so many so-called believers are. Makes me think of the scripture where Jesus said "...I never knew you." Must be folks like that He was speaking to/of.
Keep speaking the truth, Frank. Who knows, maybe a few of the "elect" will come around to see reason.
Here's what we were taught in my fundie church: The Book of Revelation purports to have been written while the Apostle John was on the Isle of Patmos, which was used by the powers in that time for prisoners were sent into exile or life imprisonment. Supposedly the patterns (or lack thereof) of the wind and wave patterns drove people insane. Even when I was a faithful member of that church, when I heard that I wondered, is this just the rantings of an insane man? How scary that it is now the basis for a whole culture.
It reads like a bad acid trip to me.
Funny you should say that--when I was in college, my required humanities course featured biblical literature in the first semester. One of my class assignments was to write a short paper about a book of the Bible which I hadn't read. Since I'm Jewish, I wasn't familiar with the New Testament and so I chose to read Revelation. I also thought that the whole thing sounded like a bad acid trip, and indicated in my paper that the writer might have been hallucinating when he wrote Revelation! End of the story: I got an A on my paper, and a compliment from the instructor (a Catholic priest, no less!) on my "original" interpretation!
Another great post, Frank!!
Well, actually, the Book of Revelations is neither a bad acid trip nor a book about the end times, but a book of battling your own demons - inside yourself. As such it's a fascinating book and "reveals" what is inside of us all - the demons of hatred, bigotry and so on that we face every day. Read it like that and investigate your own motives in life. Maybe you will get "raptured" in the realisation you truly can do something about it.
Excellent article. But something to keep in mind. As repulsive as their beliefs are, they do have precedent. Most people who consider themselves religious, read the bible, and ponder its mysteries, probably ignore their god's frequent imperialism, his several genocides, and his mind-numbingly stupid laws and codes.
Noah's flood was the first genocide. Their god asked the Jews on several occasions to slaughter every man, woman and child in particular cities. Like Jericho. Why? Because they wouldn't submit to worshiping Yahweh. Yeah, that teaches us some kind of great moral lesson, right? Submit or die.
In Deuteronomy and Leviticus are death sentences for the following:
Wearing the wrong clothes.
Eating the wrong foods
Talking back to your parents
Adultery
Working on Saturday
In reality, all three religions of the Levant share disturbing and dangerous "values". Two of the three -- Christianity and Islam -- account for more death and destruction than all other major world religions combined. I think there are observable reasons for this.
(For all three religions, there are movements and individual adherents throughout the centuries who recognized how problematic their holy books really are. Many have done much to make up for gaps in real understanding.)
Quick addendum:
Noah's flood being the first in the context of the Old Testament. There were, of course, other flood stories which were older.
"Wickedness". The god of the Levant tended to see people who were having too much fun as guilty of that. Having too much fun was often punishable by death. I don't think it's any real coincidence that so many religious leaders follow that pattern of blasting humans for making the most of their brief time on earth.
A bit off the subject and I'm not kidding here, but....
Was Noah a woman?
That's one of the many contradictions of the Bible I don't hear talked about much.
Noah being described as a son of ...and a daughter of in different parts.
The god of the israelites was but a tribal god. in the psalms there is a passage that all the gods came together and devided the nations of the earth among themselves. Jahweh got the 12 tribes of israel and he is equated with Chronos of the greeks or Saturn the old goat = devil.
So what are we talking about here?
It's important to understand just how led astray so many Christians are by their leaders. For example, one thing many Christians do not understand is there are two Covenants - one for the Jews (Old Testament) and one for Gentiles, etc. (New Testament).
Far too many believers today do not understand this very important difference. The Old Testament dealt with Jews. Those who take Old Testament scriptures so out of context are terribly mistaken, for example, Deuteronomy says that homosexuality is an abomination to God. That scripture does NOT apply today, however, and is used totally out of context. Today's believers are bound by the New Covenant in the New Testament (the Doctrine of Grace). God realized humans were completely fallible and could not be held to that old standard (Doctrine of Law/Old Testament).
Folks who throw around all that Old Testament fire and brimstone are beyond lost. They would do well to focus on Jesus' message of grace found in the Beattitudes, etc. Unfortunately, that Jesus, the REAL hope (who preached true brotherly love and forgiveness), has been so lost and his message has been so trampled and muted, by preachers(!) (wolves in sheeps clothing), its heartbreaking.
Something YOU have to realize is that Jesus never once disassociated himself from anything written in the Old Testament. If anything, there are a couple of passages in the NT that has him supporting the OT wholeheartedly.
So, my friend, no matter how much you try to disassociate yourself from the OT, you're stuck with this (from Leviticus) :
7: And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
8: And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9: For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.
Read it a weep.
Thank you so much for this article, Frank. These evans are so dangerous. I have never been able to pinpoint, why, even when I was young, they made me so mad. Even now, I feel so depleted and guilty when I challenge one. They get so smug and say things like, "well, I don't judge you, but we will all stand before God someday," nah nah (which translates into "I will laugh when I get lifted up during the Rapture, and YOU who questioned will be left to an ocean of fire.....").
I just had this sort of interchange with a beloved friend. I have been left the last few days feeling spent and ashamed. Why couldn't I just keep my mouth shut? Why did I have to challange them? Why do I feel compelled to an.ger when I hear their lamentations of what is "right" and what is "wrong"?--in this case, killing of civilians in war is just fine and dandy, but a 2 month fetus is precious.
I think I know now. They can only be "scared" into being "good." It doesn't come naturally to them, so they have to be frightened. That fright translates into revenge--if THEY have to believe ho.gw.ash to go to heaven, then why don't the others? If THEY had to deny their human inclinations to question the "good book," then why should the ones who asked questions be able to get off scott free....?
(part one)
Well, it took so long for this to post, that I thought it had been ba.n.i.shed. In fact, it only appeared after I sent you a message saying that I was really tired of everything being moderated right off the page.?????????
Meanwhile I lost my train of thought and forgot what I was going to say in part 2--something about how I hope everyone gets to rest in peace in the end--even if the "end" is only a very deep sleep for eternity--even the se.ri.a.l. k.i.l.l.ers. I don't wish revenge for anyone if it means that we ALL can be at peace at our de.aths. When I told the evang. that I wondered if de.a.th was only a long sleep for eternity, they told ME it was very "sad" that I thought that........(thy much prefer knowing some will roast).
Oh, but they don't judge me.......
I think Christianity has become the god it worships. The members of the group mutually confirm each others rightness. Bible interpretation and conservative politics become a function of who the group elevates to listen to, and those who are elevated understand their responsibility of leadership. This is a powerful god model, and it can be directed for good as easily as the recent destructive directions. I think it becomes dangerous when it locks in to things not true, such as opposition to anything Charles Darwin. It needs to find a way to stop opposing what is true. If it can't, it won't destroy the world, but it will eventually destroy itself.
Just as Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the great Turkish secularist, decreed that religion must be removed from the sphere of public policy and restricted to that of personal morals, behavior and faith, so too must we, for our own survival, decree that the beliefs espoused and tirelessly worked for, by these evangelical nutters be removed from public policy decisions. "Religion" has no place in public policy. It is high time that voices of reason challenge the psychotic beliefs of religion and try to extricate us all from their grip, whether Christian, Zionist Jew, Islamic extremist, or any other group that cannot restrict their phantasies to themselves, but must impose them on others or all the rest of us by any means, up to and including Nuclear Armageddon.
I do see some slight trend to speak out against these extremist views by others in the greater group, and that includes Hebrew, Christian and Islamic speakers. This piece is one of them. Another is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/honor-killing-and-islam_b_168401.html
and there have been more than several recently on Zionist extremism and Israeli colonization and occupation.
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