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

Comments

[HeevenSteven]

Mr Schaeffer, your essays should be required reading for everyone. Thanks of all of them.

[TimSledge]

Extremely insightful, as always! The only thing more disturbing than Palin is the number of people who buy in to everything she says.

[gettysburg]

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. In my opinion, so is radical religion, be it Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism or whatever. Hiding behind the robes of Jesus is a safe place where one can't be judged. To judge negatively is to be a liberal and unAmerican. It makes me sick to my stomach. I was raised in the Baptist Church, but this was not what I was taught. Thank God.....no pun intended.

[sleek]

Real American Patriots defend the United States Constitution - and nothing else.

[jealousmonk]

Thank you for a great article. I have been tracking this phenomenon since about 1980 but I have not seen it articulated as well as you have articulated it here. Much of my family falls into this strange crew. Their success in energizing the Republican party and dominating the national discourse to-date has been alarming but, in reality, they haven't made any real political gains, imho. They have been used by opportunist Republicans (non-believers). I am truly hoping W's incompetence extends here and sets back the agenda a long way. Maybe real conservatives will be able to take their party back.

[Freesia2]

"Someday we'll be in a position to establish biblical law in America."

Mr. Schaeffer, that is the mirror image of the Taliban. Biblical law overrides constitutions or state law. If they succeeded, it would be the American Taliban.

[sandpiper1]

Mr. Schaeffer, you should be out there on the campaign trail spreading the word about these would be funda-taliban christians. Why is it people can't see these people for what they are. Will we back to the days of burning witches, stoning, excomunication, branding etc? They are an intolerant, hyprocrital, immoral lot. They have religion but no spirituality. Someone needs to push back before it's too late.
My impression was that their ancestors came to America to get away from that very type of religious intolerance and hatred. Why would the decendants want to go back to that time. Have they no knowledge of their history.

[IolantheLA]

>> My impression was that their ancestors came to America to get away from that very type of religious intolerance and hatred. Why would the decendants want to go back to that time. Have they no knowledge of their history.

That is exactly what I thought, the first time I (in one of those churches) was tricked into raising my hands, while my eyes were closed, in worship to ... a picture of Ronald Reagan in front of a waving American flag!

I thought, then, of how the separation of church and state had actually been *good* for the churches, and how so much of our freedom in America derived from the fact that Americans cannot impose our religions on one another!

Then, when the Speaker told us all that "America was founded as a Christian country", I remembered my history lessons, and Franklin's agnosticism and Jefferson's and Paine's Deism, and the zero mention of God in the Constitution, and I realized I was being lied to, outright.

I left that church not long after. For a few years, I told this story about the Ronald Reagan picture to anyone who would listen, but no one seemed to realize why it was important.

I guess folks are getting it now, eh?

[luziannagirl]

sandpiper1

Knowledge of their history, their Constitution, the value of separation of church & state and the importance of the American principle of religious freedom---it doesn't matter whether they know of it or not, because none of it matters to these people!

Of course they say it does, but it doesn't. They just spout talking points they get fed every Sunday. So, if they lie to themselves on a daily basis, they certainly don't feel bad about lying to you.

Insight, irony, juxtaposition, drawing parallels, metaphors-­observatio­n of facts & drawing logical conclusions, critical thinking---MAKE NO MISTAKE---it's all lost on these people. They don't have these skills. Those skills lie along cognitive pathways in their brains that have long been sealed shut, and just for good measure, are re-sealed EVERY SUNDAY. And, covered up with an Orwellian world-view.

It's as if they are an army of Clones. Automotons. Terminators, if you will. They've turned into machines which stay "on mission", regardless. They don't use logic and reason. They stick to their programming.

Get it now?

[jalyn]

There is a twisted logic in this Palin/McCain team to lie for the greater good. I am really trying hard not to judge, but seems Palin doesn't read her bible. Lying, manipulating, exaggerating, ambitiously driven at the expense of her family, children, unable to admit her failures, smug accusations, laughing at those who she thinks are destined for hell, cold-hearted, no humility; and she believes she's being unfairly treated. She has a persecution complex. It's unbelievable that some are falling for this.

[deezerd]

Oh, she reads her bible, I'm sure. The parts she likes. And passes over the parts that require her to think, or put herself second to anything. Jesus had quite a few words for such people throughout all four Gospels. None of them flattering in the least.

(Unless one is flattered by words like "vipers", "hypocrites", "whited tombs filled with bones" etc ... He wasn't one to mince words.)

[caterpol]

Excellent article.

Before I struck up a friendship with an Evangelical over the past few years, I wouldn't have agreed with your point of view. But after listening to the arguments of said Evangelical, I couldn't agree with you more.

But I do have a question. You say that if you're going to fool others, your first have to fool yourself. But what makes these people so easy to fool? What are they so hungry for that they'll throw their own intellect and judgment out the window? Surely, these people of faith must believe that the gift of reason came from God?

[timm0]

I'm guessing that many are terrified that there is possibly only blackness after this mortal life. Pure, unbridled terror. Not too much short-circuits rational thought like abject fear.

[LiberalDem]

It is much easier to believe in a world in which everything is either black or white, good or bad. It is much harder to accept that many issues are more complicated. I think that that is one of the appeals of the kind of worldview that Palin and her fellow believers share.

[IolantheLA]

What makes these people so easy to fool?

In my case, in 1978, I was a young single mother for whom things were breaking badly. I was overwhelmed, and, frankly, lazy! I wanted a quick fix, easy answers, and unshakeable Certainty in an uncertain world.

That's how I contributed to my own deception.

It was a lot easier to join this all-encompassing "family" or "community", easier to find pat answers in a beautiful old book, than to do the hard work of actually weighing all my options and figuring out what to do.

[lewes17266]

Thank you.

[caterpol]

Thanks for the honesty. And good for you. Sounds as if reason won the day after all. Hope things are better for you now.

[lewes17266]

Christians are very trusting souls and are easily manipulated. It is sad.

[shaytoonee]

Thank you.... I love reading ur blogs. You are a 100% correct.

I can't stand this woman and her ideology that is so fanatic and extreme. it scares me and i hope it scares others.

[timm0]

The founding fathers lived through the manifestation of these theocratic dictatorships and tried to form a nation immune to it.

There is no difference between dominionists and "islamofascists" - just the names. The absence of any moral congruity between the practitioners and their dogma is identical, as are the violent and despicable results of their agenda. The ends justify the means.

To get right down to it, anyone capable of blind faith in religions and deities that have no basis in fact or substance is by definition spectacularly more capable of blind faith in something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever (e.g. trickle-down economics, no lapel-pin flag = terrorist, dinosaurs and homo-sapiens were neighbors, etc.).

None of this stuff should be a shock. I forget who said it but there was a quote like, "Anyone capable of blind faith is capable of committing the most incredible atrocities­." It's a deliberate divorce from morality. How ironic.

[IolantheLA]

> There is no difference between dominionists and "islamofascists" - just the names.

Yep. Every time one of these spiritually proud and deceived fools tells me that I need to "leave America" because I don't like the direction it's going, I tell them that it is *they* who need to leave.

And I suggest Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia as a good destination for them.

I explain that all they'll have to do is slightly alter their mode of dress and learn a slightly different pronunciation of the name of the petty insecure deity they claim to "know" and worship, and they'll fit right in.

[LouisRatz]

Have you written somewhere Frank, how the religious conservatives or Dominionists might be persuaded to engage in politics, public life, without feeling that they must dominate it? Will they always feel separated? Won't they eventually feel that must radicalize, like the group in Idaho that was raided by ATF agents, for whom Timothy McVeigh believed he was avenging?

It seems to me, that in Clinton, the Democrats offered a rather centrist politician in economic and social policies, and in Obama, a cultural centrist. Yet both of them are portrayed in the the vilest terms, the first as someone who murdered for political gains and the second as a 60's terrorist.

i heard a commentator say that Carter first injected religion in to politics, but certainly post term he has been exemplary of how religion can guide someone to public good. (Oh wait, i forgot that he wrote critically of Israel...)

If they cannot look at facts, if they cannot find any accommodation for secular people or even other religious faiths, then what?

[timm0]

They will always be with us.

I believe they can be reached and ultimately come to some rational views on reality, but it's very tedious and painful process to reason with them. In most cases you are unraveling a personal philosophy that has been hammered into someone's head since their earliest cognitive awareness. Getting through to them in an election cycle is impossible. It'd take decades for each person - or some sort of life-altering event - to take off the blinders.

[luziannagirl]

timmo

The best we can realistically hope for is to so turn these people off about the election that they stay home rather than vote.

That's why I support the crazy-sounding suggestion to simply ask if Republicans might not in actuality (well, their actuality) be the Party of Satan, since there's plenty of room for that possibility within this bizarro worldview. Their favorite Biblical scriptures are full of references to "false prophets" and the like.

[deezerd]

Couldn't we all wish it so .... I think frank already answered that question, and the answer is NO.

The mistake you're making is to assume that Dominionists and their ilk (Christian or otherwise) are open to compromise or reasoned argument in ANY degree.

A timeless classic on the subject: Eric Hoffer's *The True Believer*, written about the sorts of scary misfits who join "movements" such as these. A key and oft-quoted line: "Mass movements can form without belief in a god, but never without belief in a devil."

My moderate (and somewhat sentimental) Catholicism notwithstanding - and to my everlasting embarrassment - I've spent enough time around people such as Frank describes to know that he's not exaggerating in the least. I'm ashamed to say there are a few in my extended family.

[blaqntelligence]

Homerun, again. Thank you.