Why Is Palin Such a Good Liar For God?
Speaking as a former right wing Evangelical who helped organize the Religious Right in the 1970s and early eighties, nothing instills conviction like believing you're on a mission from God. If you're going to fool others, you have to fool yourself.
It takes sincerity to tell a series of barefaced lies with enough conviction to carry the day. As we close in on the 2008 election, the increasingly desperate Republicans will do what they have learned to do best: court the sincere but misinformed Evangelical voters by lying to them.
Let me explain...
The Evangelicals live in a resentment-fueled, inward-looking subculture. They are convinced that the world is out to get them and put them at a perpetual disadvantage. They equate knowledge, facts and education with an elite that they feel belittled by.
The Evangelical "base" have unwittingly become the enemy of democracy. They are democracy's enemy because a grossly misinformed Evangelical public that celebrates its ignorance is the antithesis of an informed people who can manage their own affairs. Bush was their boy... twice! Enough said.
It is to the white ghetto of willfully ignorant Evangelical Americans to whom Sarah Palin is aiming her smears and lies (and not so subtle racism) about Senator Obama and his "terrorist connection" and his being "not a real American like us." Palin's lies depend for their success on those who are willfully blind to facts. It's the same obdurate blindness that allows a segment of the American public to still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of 9/11. But it goes further than that.
The Republican leadership and John McCain are counting on Palin's grass roots sincerity that most Republican leaders no longer have. Palin is a true believer. And true believers put the mission they sincerely believe in -- that God has "laid on their hearts" -- above mere details such as truth or honesty, let alone honor. They also speak with conviction.
Palin doesn't actually believe the rehearsed smears she's telling about Obama, but she does believe that she is morally right in lying.
If lies will help her win, Palin believes God's will is being done. McCain just wants to win an election. Palin has bigger fish to fry. Her "call" is to restore America to its "Christian heritage." In that sense Palin is the product of my late father Francis Schaeffer, who helped politicize the Evangelicals into the Religious Right through his incendiary books such as A Christian Manifesto (1980) wherein he called for the takeover of America in the name of Christ if, need be, by force if all else failed.
You can't understand Palin without understanding her movement's mentors that crafted the modern Evangelical involvement in politics "for the cause of Christ." These mentors include my late father and also the so-called Dominion Theology movement, led by people even more radical than my father was. Dominion Theology is a subset of Dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism or the "Theonomy" movement. Followers believe that the God revealed in the Bible is the sole source of all human law, and that "God's law" must be established in America. This is the American version of the Taliban.
The key Dominionist leader, the late Rousas John Rushdoony, said that Christians should have "dominion" over the earth and every nation in it in the name of not just Jesus Christ but also in the name of the God of the Old Testament. Thus in the best of all worlds we'd be enforcing Old Testament law. We'd be the new version of Calvin's harsh Reformation Geneva wherein heretics were burned and women with illegitimate pregnancies were drowned along with their unborn babies.
The Dominionists have a wide and under-the-mainstream-media radar following in many Evangelical circles. Palin is an ardent Dominionist. I know what her agenda is because I know who shaped the theology of Evangleical political movement she is a product of.
I remember sitting down with Dominionism leader Rushdoony (over 30 years ago) and him telling me this:
"Frank, we must establish God's kingdom by degrees. We can't start by saying that God demands that we put homosexuals to death!" (He laughed heartily) "We need to begin with things like helping form home schools and electing our people. Someday we'll be in a position to establish biblical law in America."
McCain and Palin are two very different people. McCain was never able to energize the Evangelical base because the base knew that as a world-weary, philandering, gambling-addicted, hard-living fly boy, politician McCain lacked the sincerity of fundamentalist conviction. When trying to speak their language of absolutist morality McCain's words rang hollow. But Palin is the real thing.
Palin is by the very nature of her beliefs a born, in fact eager, liar. She can do no other. She must lie or admit she is wrong, about just about everything she believes in, from a young earth, to dinosaurs roaming the planet alongside men, to the nature of global warming, to Israel's place of primacy in the prophetic "End Times" and, lately, as to the causes of the economic meltdown. Get inside Palin's head and you'll hear a little girl telling herself biblical stories where she's always the hero. Palin's fantasy world is about being "called" -- Esther-like -- to "save" her people. And lying for God is okay, in fact it's good. Her biblical heroes (King David, Samson, Queen Esther...) all lied for God when they needed to in order to defeat God's enemies.
Palin is the female version of Bill Murray in the movie Caddyshack fantasizing... "A hush falls on the crowd..." about her destiny of insane godly glory. Only it's not insane, but real, real as McCain's calculated I'll-win-at-all-costs ploy in choosing a fanatic as a running mate.
The election of 2008 is best be understood as (what I and all sane Americans hope) is the last gasp of the desperate born-again religious movement that that has been running America into the ground for the last eight years. A pessimist might see it otherwise. Maybe it's the first shot in the next phase of our internal wars of religion, otherwise known as the culture wars, wherein an ignorant hate-filled, frightened American minority is trying to impose on the United States its own version of religion, in the same way that Saudi fanatics have imposed strict Islam on their unfortunate fellow citizens.
Palin was actually correct when, in her debate with Senator Biden, she said we need to stand up and "fight for freedom." What she didn't mention was that the greatest threat to American freedom is coming from the unhinged religious fanatics who are feeding on her poisonous lies, re-energized by a vision of overt "he's not like us!" racist politics on behalf of their God.
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. Now in Paperback
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
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This is as good a description as any I've read. I grew up knowing people who think (I use the term loosely) like Sarah Palin. It's often crossed my mind that, should the anti-Christ so often warned of in evangelical churches, actually arise .... he (or she) will rise out of the fanatical, radical right Christianity in the U.S. Thank you, Mr. Schaeffer, for another great article.
I know of no evidence that Palin is a Dominionist. On the other hand, she comes from a church which condemns it-- which serves as some evidence that she is not. Claiming to be able to read people's minds and finding nothing but scary, despicable things there, serves only to fuel bigotry and intolerance.
If Palin is elected and tragedy does strike and she becomes President it will galvinize the religious right the likes not seen since the Middle Ages. While Bush convinced us (I being a former fundamentalist) that he was one of us, he was still selected by the people ( a little something called democracy). However, if McCain passes in office and Palin is sworn in then the fundamentalists will view her as God's chosen leader annointed like a modern King David and they will believe their time to act is now. It's scary to believe that it is a real possibility that the world could see a leadership in Iran who believes the Islamic messianic age will come only after a nuclear war to end Israel and the West, while a President who believes in literal interpretations of the Biblical End Times would be in the White House....
How stupid does Palin get! I'm a little girl my age is still only one digit and i under stand every thing that this article says. I am a Buddhist and I bet if McCain gets elected, Palin will make buddhism illegal. Well boo hoo hoo to me :(
Ah, the religious right - the hypocrites and pharisees of today. Rest assured that if Christ were to come back and the world did not end, evangelicals would be the ones who would put Him to death all over again, because He would reject them and their wicked, un-Christian ways.
It's hard to believe that such things as a female misogynist can exist, but Sarah Palin is living proof. This is someone that doesn't want other women to think for themselves, but wants them to think as she does.
I heartily endorse the calls by commenters to Schaeffer to spread the word about the nature of conservative evangelicalism and the various shades of fundamentalism in America. But it's important to note that there are many commentators who have been writing about the religious right for years--many who have been doing so for longer than has Schaeffer--and they have been as ignored as is Schaeffer.
I encourage patriots determined to keep secure the blessings of our liberty under the Constitution of the United State to read:
Talk2Action.org,
rightwingwatch.org, and
splcenter.org/blog ("Hatewatch")
in order to stay informed about the religious right's actions.
Thank you, Mr. Schaeffer.
How do we know Palin is a Dominionist? By her actions? By her associations? Or has she actually admitted it?
FS, what you just wrote should be required reading for every Democratic Party strategist, operative, and leader, and they should be required to pass a test on it to keep their positions.
And if they make a joke, giggle, or roll their eyes ONE TIME, they should be fired on the spot!
It's exactly what several of us down here, steeped in this culture, have repeatedly tried to tell anyone who'd listen, including some very high up in the party eschelon. Unfortunately, by the time anyone started taking us seriously (if they ever did), it was far too late.
If my new printer can figure out how to print this, copies of it are going to get surreptitiously placed everywhere I can think of.
Surely, surely, SURELY, the Democratic Party has FINALLY found you, has tuned in to your insights (without giggling), and has placed you on its payroll. Heck, I hope the Republicans, have, too, for all our sakes.
There's no bigger, thicker cloak of rationalization and righteous indignation than being on a Mission from God. It's a cloak that covers treason, torture, unjust war, bigotry, prejudice, and even murder, just as well as it covers lying, stealing, smearing, willful ignorance, and denial of the facts.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for bravely lifting this cloak better than anyone I know of.
Schaeffer is wrong about many things. President Bush is not a fundamentalist Christian. I know because I'm one, and Bush is never at the meetings.
The fundamentalist Christians I associate with are not trying to install a theocracy. We understand that won't happen until Jesus Christ returns to rule. ( By the way, Schaeffer and his fans are not going to like the theocracy that Jesus installs.) We Christians understand that things are not going to get better and better; just the opposite. American society is deteriorating on every front, and will continue to do so. But Jesus is soon coming back to straighten everything out. And liberals will not be pleased.
If you are right about Jesus coming back, and I fervently hope you are, then I also hope Jesus comes back SOON and removes everyone like Palin and Pals off to wherever.
After you're gone, may I have your car?
Libsmasher, You misunderstand. It is wrong the way the Religious Right has manipulated faithful souls for political maneuvering and for personal power and profit. It is wrong the way the Bible has been misused for political purposes, enlarging certain sins while ignoring its heart for sinners and for the needy. Please read my profile, Libsmasher. I appreciate what Frank Schaeffer is trying to do.
Libsmasher, I hear "spiritual pride" and "spirit of deception."
"Come out of her!"
I'm sorry, libsmasher, but you are the one who is mistaken. If and when Jesus does return, anyone with hatred in their heart will not be among the chosen. Jesus does not look kindly upon those who advocate violence against other human beings, and no amount of fake gibberish "tongue speaking" on Sundays will change that.
An American Taliban speaks.
How odd, that this should happen in the youngest Republic, The New World, the One founded by a people escaping such oppressions, seeking to establish a gov't based on freedoms, MOST importantly that of Religion, even most importantly, the separation of it from the law of the land. And look at us now! Who would've thought, our old European counterparts, the ones our forefathers ran away from, are today, even after thousands of years of Christian tradition, completely capable of separating the two, while still honoring both. What happened to the USA? Where did we go wrong?
I only have one answer for now, we MUST start by putting Obama in the WH. Change this course, the other answers, will follow.
Thank you Frank, once again, for your truth.
I spent the years between 1978 and 1984 in a sweet little Evangelical church that, by 1982, had become a hotbed of this same Dominionist heresy.
Schaeffer is not exaggerating in the least.
I will always support a person's right to believe whatever nutty thing they want to, and worship whatever they feel like worshipping. But I cannot support the right of *any* religious group to force the rest of us to bend the knee to its dicta, tenets, and specific version of God.
When I began at that Evangelical church, our motto was "Win the world for Christ!" through prayer and witnessing and teaching and service to others.
By the time I left, it was a lot closer to "Win the world for Christ!" through pride and deception and manipulation and lies.
This broke my heart, and I damned near became an Agnostic after this experience. I figured, though, that this madness couldn't possibly ever catch on in America. How wrong I was!
Thank you, Francis Schaeffer Jr., for bringing this vile and ... unGodly! ... situation to the light! As the angel said in Revelation, "Come out of her ..."
I grew up in that evangelical pit of vipers. Trust me, Frank is telling the truth. Be afraid of these people, VERY AFRAID!
Mr. Schaeffer, thanks for this article. I've been wondering and wondering JUST WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!! Couldn't they see the nefariousness of these people they were adoring?? Couldn't they see that they were acting against their own interests?? You say that,on some level, they could and can see - - but their resentment, wrapped within a fundamentalist faith, trumps their self-interest.
("And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;" - Romans 1:28)
People shouldn't criticize Obama for having a faith-based segment to his campaign. If you don't want true believers to become mixed up with the fundamentalist crowd, you should be glad that they now have somewhere else to turn.
Exactly what I've been thinking! Both McCain (the "son of" Cain) and Palin are running after the carrot of "glory" to fulfill different--personal--ambitions; and both will do just about anything to succeed. In Palin's case, even the Ten Commandments can be ignored--you know, that worthless old piece of rock forbidding adultery and false witness.
I think what's been going down, during these last seven years of vicious greedy "revelry" and now with the huge disparity of intention between the candidates in the 2008 presidential election, is about a leap in human consciousness from the energy of the gut (ego--material, money, power) to the energy of the heart (spirit--peace, love, tolerance). The election results will determine whether, as a species, we've decided to grow up into kindness or destroy ourselves with fear. Armageddon is a battle taking place within the human psyche. I sense the positive outcome of this imminent challenge is the true "second coming."
> Armageddon is a battle taking place within the human psyche. I sense the positive outcome of this imminent challenge is the true "second coming."
What a beautiful thought, so well-expressed. This is very close to something I had been thinking. Thanks for the confirmation.
Do I have your permission to pass this along?
An extremely informative way of helping me understand one of the reasons I can't stand this person, at least politically. She may have good in her somewhere, but it's sure not running for VP of the USA. Let's hope that intelligent, thoughtful articles like this are read by as many voters as possible by Nov. 4. These people are beyond scarry. They make my head hurt and my skin crawl. There seems no dungheap too tall for McCain to climb to get his presidential "entitlement".
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