Frank Schaeffer: The GOP's Evangelical Subculture is a Fifth Column of Insanity
By Heather Thursday Sep 17, 2009 10:00am
Rachel Maddow talks to Frank Schaeffer about why a good deal of conservatives when polled said they weren't sure if President Obama was the anti-Christ.
Maddow: I do not know what possessed this polling firm to ask whether or not that people think the President is the anti-Christ, but they did. Does the response rate among conservatives surprise you? More than one in three saying yes or they don’t know.
Schaeffer: Well I was a child when President Kennedy was assassinated and my mother thought that because he died of a head wound foretold in scriptures of the anti-Christ he would be resurrected as the anti-Christ. She thought this might be a possibility. So those of us who come from the evangelical subculture have been weaned with our mother’s milk on a changing case list of villains. It might be Kennedy to one generation, Obama to the next.
But the larger point this brings up is that the mainstream not just media but culture doesn’t sufficiently take stock of the fact that within our culture we have a subculture which is literally a fifth column of insanity that is bred from birth, through home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever to reject facts as a matter of faith.
And so this substitute for authentic historic Christianity, and I may add as a little caveat here, I’m a church-going Christian, really brings up the question. Can Christianity be rescued from Christians? And that’s an open question. And when you see a bunch of people going around thinking that our President if the anti-Christ you have to draw one of two conclusions.
Either these are racists looking for any excuse to level the next accusation or they’re beyond crazy. And I think beyond crazy is a better explanation and that evangelical subculture has rotted the brain of the United States of America. We have a big slice of our population waiting for Jesus to come back. They look forward to Armageddon. Good news is bad news to them. We talk about the Left Behind series of books that I talk about in my book Crazy for God.
What we’re really talking about is a group of people are resentful because they know they’ve been left behind by modernity, by science, by education, by art, by literature—the rest of us are getting on with our lives. These people are standing on a hill top waiting for the end and this is a dangerous group of people to have as neighbors. And they’re our national neighbors. And this is the source of all these insanities that we see leveled at the President. One way or the other they go back to this little evangelical subculture. It’s a disaster.
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I really hope Rachel (and Keith) keep bringing this guy back. He speaks the truth; he speaks with very strong conviction. We need him to keep flushing out these right wing haters and racists.
Mr Schaeffer does seem like a reasonable person, and he knows of what he speaks, but yet he says he's a Christian. It always puzzles me how a thinking person could also be a person of "Faith".
Because faith is not a replacement for intelligence and vice versa.
They can both coexist quite nicely...thank you very much.
It's also about following the teachings of Jesus and striving to be Christ-like. That's the kind of Christian I was, but it just confused people. I just quit calling myself a Christian in light of the ones that are out there beating the empty trash cans.
I hope to work from the inside: redefining what exactly it means to be Christian (hopefully for the better), but also chaning people's perceptions of them. Unfortunately, most people hear the yelling and the sane people get overshaddowed.
Are you talking Catholic or Protestant?
Sorry, but one of my peeves is the failure to acknowledge that the term "Christian" is much too broad to have a clear definition.
I mean nobody thinks that Methodists are the same as Pentecostals, or that the Church of Latter-Day-Saints, has any connection to the Episcopalians.
I understand that it is very difficult to determine exactly how many variations Protestants have developed, (last # I heard was approx. 33,000), but people know what doctrine they ascribe to as individuals, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHWbsvgQUE
"Because faith is not a replacement for intelligence and vice versa.
They can both coexist quite nicely...thank you very much"
The very basic foundations of "faith" flies into the face of reality when a scientific intelligent approach is taken... creationism, Adam & Eve, Noah's Ark... are just a few preposterous "facts" that can't coexist with reality... thank you very much.
The “documentation” to support a god is so full of preposterous folklore most written thousands of years before and hundreds of years after Jesus are a stretch to ones intellect.
Not to mention there is NOT one scintilla of hard evidence that a god exist. To worship a god with the power to create the entire universe and then brings kids into the world with terminal cancer can not fit into anybodies framework as a true and loving god. There are names for people who do cynical things like this but god is not one of them.
Please spare me the metaphors the church creates along with their rituals as an “explanation” to their misguided rationale.
Very well spoken.
...Religious Moderates
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82YIluFmdbs ](5:16)
You assume that all faiths are concerned with creationism, Adam & Eve, the Ark, or anything else in the Bible. I have found that many atheists forget that "religion" != "Christian", although it can be quite amusing when one gets in an animated rant to "disprove" the Bible to me and I don't seem to care one wit.
For some, "faith" is simply that there is a soul and a higher power, and calling to become a better person. My religion is why I recycle. My faith is why I run distributed computing applications for Folding @Home and World Community Grid. My faith is why I tend to donate at least a paycheck a year to charity. My faith is why I have a degree in the sciences (Geology), and why about half my reading is academic.
So, please, don't assume that because you have issues with one religion or a "bronze age" religious text that I don't have the maturity to balance faith and reason. Lots of people do it quite well.
I agree with what you said, faith in fairy tales or the vindictive childish god of the far right nutcases, is totally ridiculous.
There are other forms of faith though, faith that is not excluded by thought. For instance, I generally have faith in people, I believe there are good people out there, that there are more who would be good people if they understood what that meant.
I am realistic, there are also some ignorant and petty people out there. The great thing about the GOP shift to the far right is that they are much easier to pick out now, many of them carry signs proclaiming that the way to protect "democracy" is to get rid of our duly elected president or have "Sarah!" bumper stickers.
I have faith that things will generally turn out well. Not always mind you, generally. This one would be difficult to prove, there are plenty of examples of things not turning out well. This faith is based upon noting that you often get what you expect to get and on watching a lot of people who won't even try because they are so negative.
Ultimately, I have faith in myself, that I can have a positive impact and I am up to the challenges. I can't prove it and ultimately, I will be wrong at least once but, it gets me through the day.
Faith and thought can coexist
As far as faith in a supreme being, I haven't the foggiest idea.
I wouldn't call myself an atheist. There are too many wonderous things in the universe to completely rule out a god. Get yourself a good telescope or watch the 'Planet Earth' series again. There is just a lot of stuff no one can explain.
I certainly don't believe in any of the organized religions. I pretty much quit going to church as soon as I was old enough to not go on my own. Actually, I probably quit going earlier than that come to think of it, but I did have to sit there.
Most of what I witnessed while sitting there is what I call 'organized whining'. It was really annoying, a bunch of people sitting around in a poorly lit stuffy building, usually on a nice day, "praising god" by which they meant whining about stuff, "deliver us from evil", "smite our enemies", "give us our daily bread", etc. Geez, grow a pair, you want to praise god, go sit out in the woods or on a beach and watch all of the interesting things go by and say "Man, that is really cool!".
The problem with both the athiests and especially the religious is that they both miss the wonder of it all.
I've started my own faith. I am an absurdist. I believe in absurdism, i.e. Since you can neither disprove or prove the existence of god, all questions about god's existence are absurd and sitting around talking about it is generally a waste of time (although not as bad as watching Glenn Beck or O'Reilly).
I put some thought into this, the way I got it figured, one of two cases exists.
Case 1: A god does exist and god chose to deny us proof of his existence because he gave us everything we need to live a good life and expected us to make a go of it on our own. Thus, we have to get up everyday and do our dead level best to live and have a good time of it.
Case 2: A god doesn't exist. Being as we have arrived at this point, we must have everything we need to live a good life and have to make a go of it on our our own. Thus, we have to get up everyday and do our dead level best to live and have a good time of it.
My path is clear.
Donations are welcome. I'm not promising anything mind you, but if it makes you feel better, they are welcome.
should one necessarily exclude the other? Part of our problem on the left is that we have lots of people that want to negate or put down those of faith. If they are people that are reasonable in their faith and do not want to impose that on others then what is the problem?
Schaeffer was clearly talking about "fundamentalist" faithers. Of course, there are sensible religious people out there - but they get drowned out. Empty trash cans make the loudest noise.
I can't think of any nationally-known "reasonable" avowed person of faith
other Jimmy Carter.
Thank you, boocilla, that was very well put! To say otherwise is akin to equating someone that has a glass of wine or two with dinner occasionally with someone that off's a gallon of straight vodka every day. Aren't we supposed to be the party of inclusion and tolerance?
I, personally, am a Christian and I am convinced that these people are anything but.
Anything in excess is not good, religion included!
including moderation.
And boocilla, ya nailed it.
I can get along great with anyone of any faith, as long as they're not a-holes about their beliefs.
More my kind of temple:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:/...
You were responding to the question of how a thinking person could be a person of faith.
In other words reason versus faith. We employ reason to understand the universe. We may employ the scientific method.
Our understanding comes through logic and observation of cause and effect.
One is reasonable by only believing those things that can be proven. That can demonstrated to be true.
Faith on the other hand is the belief of things for which there is no proof offered, or sought, or possible.
We know that snakes do not speak. We know that bushes do not burn suddenly for no reason.
We know that people do not walk on water, or come back to life after dying.
We know that the universe began some 15 billions years ago. We know what the speed of light is. We know that the laws of physics are the same through out the universe.
Or DO WE? Do we know that.
Do we believe that snakes speak, that waters part, that bushes burn, that people come back from the dead or walk on water.
You are free to believe those things, but I don't hold that it is reasonable because you cannot prove any of it.
That is faith. It is your option.
I don't put them down. I would like to understand why it is that some people believe the things I have mentioned and some do not.
This is a problem because people cannot be reasonable in their faith. By definition.
They can be quiet about their faith and keep to themselves with it and I am fine with that.
They cannot, however, be reasonable, per se, about faith. By definition.
We can be tolerant. Hitchens is an ANTI-THEIST. I am sympathetic with that position also.
----
There are aspects of ethics which religions also deal with. These are different questions and can be held quite apart from the basis of the religion.
Thus we have secular humanism.
we have a subculture which is literally... bred from birth....to reject facts as a matter of faith.
He rather misses the point doesn't he.
Religions are passed on in early socialization.
The parents believe one set of things, they pass it on to their children.
There have been thousands of primordial religions, the basis for them when recounted now sound absurd.
Giant birds that carry an egg which turns into the world, or what have you.
If a single one of the ancient texts were written, or even inspired by a supernatural omniscient being, it, they could have at least dropped in one single clue of cosmology that any human being at the time would not have known.
There is no such revelation anywhere.
Someone bring one forward so I can be astounded.
The human brain finite is completely incapable of understanding something that may be infinite.
I defer to Terry Pratchett:
"I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is."
The English language is one thing, mathematics is another.
E=mc2 does not describe where the best fruit is.
I didn't know we could look at Mathematics as some sort of indication there's some greater being that exists in the universe.
Second, don't you think it's rather presumptuous to believe that English is the sole language of the human race? I don't think Pratchett was necessarily referring to English alone, but rather any human language. However, I may be wrong with that interpretation.
Your point it well made. I was just saying that humans are incapable of understanding God in any capacity because language (not math) is rather limited.
Mathematics is the great language of science. If there is a greater being in the universe, then mathematics will describe something about it.
As far as spoken languages, Chomsky in his great work showed that all human languages are essentially the same. The human brain is hardwired for language, the wiring is what is fundamental.
Thus it matters not which language we talk about.
You describe some 'god', I will not capitalize it as a political matter.
You thus impute existence.
Proving a negative is not possible.
Asserting that something exists, thus is positive, that can be proven, if it is true.
Demonstrate it.
That is all I ask.
Otherwise the conversation is entirely one sided.
the existence of God.
We lack the language and understanding for such an endeavor.
It's my belief system that tells me that there's a God. Just as it's your belief system that tells you there is no god.
It's just what we believe and we try to rationalize it just to make ourselves feel better about what we do and do not believe.
For me, with that very much in mind, there is no god.
This a rationalization.
It is not by belief system but rather the lack of facts. My parents told me there was a god. When I was young, I actually believed it because they were intelligent people and I thought they would tell me what was true.
The more I thought, the more I realized that it was not true.
It is not my belief SYSTEM but rather the lack of demonstrable verification of the facts.
There you have used the word rationalize. To make the irrational rational.
I do not consider you defective in any way to say this, but you are not logical. By definition.
when it comes to this sort of discussion. I can't do it, and I suspect that 99.999% of the population that possess that sort of belief system (a belief in a god or some sort of higher power) can't do it as well.
I know I'm not rational or logical, but I live in an irrational and illogical reality. However, I've seen and experienced too many things (all of which has no logical explanation) to make me believe contrary to what I do.
Thu, 09/17/2009 - 12:18 — ThunderMonkey
The Pythagorians certainly thought so.
belief in that which cannot be proved. Sets up the disaster and foolishness right from the start.
IMO intelligence and faith comes down to intelluctual honesty. Those intelligent people who also profess faith are IMO simply not being intellectually honest. At some point they are so smart that they can rationalize their professed faith. And, to add, the more atheists (and those without faith) that come out of the closet the easier it is for the intelligent faithers to become honest with themselves.
I am an atheist, make no mistake about it.
Even Hitchens who has the best mental firepower I have yet encountered vis á vis debunking religion seems to be prepared to say that people can be intelligent and sincere. And have faith in things they cannot prove.
This is the same Hitchens who supported the war in Iraq.
Credit when credit is due and shame the rest of the time.
There are plenty of examples of insincere hucksters that are out to take advantage of the gullible.
There is much of that going on with the Oligarchs who encourage the wingnuts.
the sincerety comes from their after the fact rationalizations of their faith. intelligent people are good at rationalizing.
To rationalize is to make rational the otherwise irrational.
That may not be exclusive to intelligence.
I'd be curious about your take on Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell ... myth, dreams, universal unconscious. Both of them spent their lives trying to reconcile faith and reason. Both came up with approaches that work. Yet both say, outright, that the fundamentalist "believer" is mentally ill and in the grip of a severe psychosis.
That we have an "unconscious" part of our mind is scientifically proven. But how a person can plumb its depths and come to terms with it is quite the problem -- there's no direct approach.
Immediately I must plead that I was a failed academic.
All I wanted to do was play music, most all of the fine books which I bought and sat on the shelf, stayed on the shelf.
Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell on and on, works that I have that I intended on reading but I didn't.
From that standpoint I am pretty worthless.
I did read nearly all of the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and those that followed them. So I am not a complete waste as a human being. But life is too short.
I did listen to Joseph Campbell speak several times and it seems to me he was illustrating a universal description of the gods as created by man.
Man creates gods, not the other way around.
Thu, 09/17/2009 - 12:51 — Col. Kilgore
I'd be curious about your take on Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell ... myth, dreams, universal unconscious. Both of them spent their lives trying to reconcile faith and reason.
______________________________________
The Anglicans have a saying that their religion rests on a stool of three legs: faith, tradition and reason.
Alice, I'm a big fan of the Jungians, Campbell, mysticism, ..... I've always been curious about why we do what we do. The Jungians are so rich!! Glad I encountered them in my 20's!! Had lots of Jungian therapy, too. Also in my 'Tercero edad', the ultimate part of life. You always are a contribution that I look forward to. I'm not atheist, very spiritual, but anti-religion.
You are, of course, correct. But intelligent people can rationalize with ease precisely because they are intelligent. The less intelligent folk don't need to rationalize because they don't need to justify their professions of faith with reality. Intelligent people however, to avoid cognitive dissonance, must.
Anyway I don't believe the polls about what people believe because for most of them it's not about really believing it's about professing belief. For these people to answer [i]honestly[/i] would require them to break with their faith. People do not do this for pollsters. I can even remember being a child and answering surveys (given out in public schools) about religion in the way my religious instructors would want me to answer, not what I really believed on the inside.
ok ok i'm rambling...RL calls
You have certainly hit the nail on the head as far as politicians go.
They are a particularly cynical lot.
So are idiots. Depends on one's point of view, doesn't it?
Michael Shermers's "Why People Believe Weird Things" talks about this. Do some googling for more info.
But here's a quote from a review of the book
"According to Shermer, the number one reason why people believe weird things is because they're smart – they have a high IQ or they have an exceptionally creative intellect. Because he can rationalize away evidence, an intelligent person is better able to defend weird ideas to himself. "
I'm a fan of yours but I-- and others -- might point to Bertrand Russell's publication "Why I am not a Christian" circa 1927 on the reason-based arguments against formal religion generally and the Xtian "spin" specifically. Old Bertie never met an anti-Enlightenment Romantic (religious, ideologue, Hegelian) than he didn't challenge and, from my perspective, toss in the dustbin.
Too bad there isn't video a la Hitchens.
That would be something to cherish.
But thank you, I do know, of course, of Bertrand Russell the mighty, may I add.
sober or a la Hitchens?
There you are being silly again.
"This is the same Hitchens who supported the war in Iraq."
Ron Reagan, self-described "unabashed atheist," well-known radio host, Seattle resident and son of Pres. Ronald Reagan, will headline the Freedom From Religion Foundation's 32nd annual national convention in Seattle on the weekend of Nov. 6-8, 2009.
Christopher Hitchens debates Iraq with Reagan Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d7fHvHXeiQ&fe...
Why did he support the war? Because he was daft.
He is arguing with Ronnie Reagan Jr. that Saddam Hussein was exporting terrorism before 2003.
He doesn't say it here but he concurred with the debunked claim by the Bushoviks that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda.
He also concurred with the debunked claim of WMD.
This is Hitchens low point. I cheer him on when he is eviscerating pompous huckster religious types but I would personally strangle him for his support of the war.
Alex Cockburn tallks about Hitchens support here
"He also concurred with the debunked claim of WMD."
That claim, if true, seems to be refuted in this clip, at about the 1:50 minute mark. No?
Christopher Hitchens - Iraq
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcjAsowr6sc ]
At 3:29 he says there were weapons of mass destruction.
I happen to think that Hitchens is trying to rewrite history and his own previous position on it.
He is war monger.
> It always puzzles me how a thinking person could also be a
> person of "Faith".
I do understand where you are coming from. But I DO believe it is possible for a thinking person to have faith. Thomas Jefferson was no slouch of a thinker. He is, in my book, the smartest president that we have ever had -- and he was a Deist! I think that the point is, on what do we base our faith? I have stopped believing in Jesus Christ and now I see him only as a pathetic buffoon. However, I do believe VERY STRONGLY in what I call the "Supreme God." So perhaps I am closer to Jefferson's level of thought than even I realize.
True, Frank Schaeffer calls himself a "Christian". But I wonder how much of that is a cultural thing with him. "Christian" is an awfully big tent. And since he comprehends the damage that his father has wreaked on people and their faith, I wouldn't be surprised if he is a Mainline Christian.
Pre-darwin it was the norm for people to believe in a creator. I think that in a post darwin world, JEfferson would have been a full blown atheist.
I always enjoy hearing him speak. He's calm, informed, articulate and right on the money. He certainly doesn't hold back. I'm sure he'sbeen banned from the rightwing shows.
> I'm sure he's been banned from the rightwing shows.
On one hand, I'm not sure. After all, he IS Francis Schaeffer's son, and Francie is a huge hero of the Evangelicals.
On The other hand, considering what he's saying, I agree with you completely.
Best Clip EVER!!
And remember, things like "under god" "in god we trust" anf "god bless america" empower the village idiots.
It's always struck me as silly how the fundies repeat the "One nation under god" mantra as if it were received wisdom from the Founders, rather than a bit of doggerel added to the Pledge of Allegiance during the Eisenhower Administration.
I think of these references of God as being the personification of eternity, and the hope that our nation, our currency, and our traditions will share in that eternity, instead of ultimately falling which is the fate of most civilizations.
http://books.google.com/books?id=f1gOAAAAIAAJ...
http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_perc...
I'd go even farther than this Schaeffer. Hitchens really is right in a way: Religion really does poison just about everything. Thanks to it these crazy fundamentalists have an unassailable excuse to behave as they do because more moderate theists insist on claiming these fundamentalists aren't 'real' Christians or 'real' Muslims, or being apologists for the very doctrines the fundamentalists use while simultaenously disowning those people, instead of recognizing the horrid flaws about their religion that allow these people to think in these crazy ways; instead of placing the blame on the source of the problem.
Thank you, I was trying to say this in my last post.
The spirituality aspect that attracts people to organized religion, and forces them to defend it, the hope, the caring, the love, always gets pushed to the back burner in favor of political causes.
Such is the baggage religion carries. And add to that the fact that religion is completely unnecessary for hope, caring, and love.
their own natures. That's why they think they need religion.
Yes, of course he's the antichrist. He's dark skinned!
I still think this is just an outgrowth (festering tumor off?) racism. I mean, really, to say two words taken out of context in Aramaic in a book that was most likely originally written in Koine Greek *sound like* his name is proof he's the antichrist...? To me, that seems a bit more far fetched. I find it easier to believe there is an underlying racism, and this insipid drivel is something easy to latch on to so the person's stunted superego can say, "See, I'm not racist! It has nothing at all to do with him being a uppity N*r! It's in thuh BaiiiBhul! Jeezuz said so!"
Mike
My comment above was made before watching this clip. I've seen Mr. Schaeffer before on TRMS, Countdown, and I'm pretty sure he's been on The Daily Show. In this clip, HE WAS ON FIRE!!! I don't think I've ever seen him so close to spitting mad before. You could tell he was reading his notes, which was the only thing dulling the mood. I don't think I've heard him call the fundies "idiots" so many times before, or even at all before. Rachel didn't even have to say much; she could just let him go on, and poke him to wire him back up when he started to get winded. This clip was pure gold.
Frank's slip up was kind of disturbing. I don't want to know what we'd get if Rachel Maddow and Sarah Palin mated.
Sorta like combining matter/antimatter.
One really smart mom and . . "that one".
rachel and sarah are both biblical figures.
n/t
'nuff said.
before and I'll say it again: anyone that claims to "talk" to god or that god "talks" to him/her should be given a psych eval and a lie detector test - they are either liars or crazy or both.
All of those that I've met that are unreasonably religious exhibit one or more mental health issues: asocial, OCD, bipolar, manic, etc. Too much Jesus is just as bad as too much of anything else
I like Schaeffer, he has lived within the culture, he understands how religion can court and feed into those with mental issues and yet he still stands up and affirms himself a believer.
"...anyone that claims to "talk" to god or that god "talks" to him/her should be given a psych eval and a lie detector test..."
THANK YOU!
this is just another reason I am proud to be an atheist!
and it goes back to what Schaeffer was saying, there is no Antichrist (with a capital "A") recorded anywhere in the Bible.
There is a mention of "antichrists" in Revelations in John's letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, but that expression is used to describe Jews that know of Jesus, but refuse to believe that he was the Son of God and continue to persecute the Christians.
But then I don't know much about religion.
No Antichrist, huh? That would leave only Satan as a defined biblical person who is the personification of evil.
Then what the f*ck are all these nutters, who claim they are literal believers in the Bible, talking about?
last night I was jumping up and yelling "Fuck yeah!" at what this guy was saying.
Everytime she brings Frank on he out truths himself.
He really says it with conviction.
And I too am proud to be an Atheist
ex-evangelical, but still a believer, and I know he articulated everything that's wrong with evangelicals.
I've just finished Frank Schaeffer's book. He comes across as a very reasonable guy - he even ended up supporting abortion in some circumstances. And he smoked pot.
Schaeffer family. Frank's father started out as a very Bohemian-type Pastor. All kinds of people were welcomed to his commune no matter who they were. GLBT folks were accepted for who they are, and Schaeffer hated homophobia. But something clicked in the elder Schaeffer's mind and he became very anti-choice, but otherwise stayed sort of Bohemian. It's interesting.
I think what drove my parents was their reaction to the theological battles in which their early faith was forged. Both Mom and Dad were traditional Protestants trying to come to terms with the theological liberalism that was sweeping through the seminaries and mainline denominations starting in the early 1900s. There had been doctrinal differences between Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians; but prior to this time, the denominations shared an orthodoxy that today would be called fundamentalism. All Protestants had believed in a literal Bible and the divinity of Christ, not to mention the virgin birth and Christ's resurrection. But Darwin's theory of evolution challenged the Bible, and the academic discipline of "higher criticism" claimed mere human authorship for scripture.
Traditional Protestants such as my mother's missionary parents, or my newly born-again father, inherited the enthusiasms --and the paranoia --of the counterattack by fundamentalists against the so-called modernists. By the 1920s, the modernists were taking over the seminaries and the bureaucracies of the big denominations. New York's most prominent Baptist minister, Harry Emerson Fosdick, converted to a new kind of orthodoxy --the belief in a liberal progressive vision of mankind. And he began to preach that the Bible was not literally true, but that God would save the world through human progress. (After the horrors of the World Wars, his ideas about utopian progress fell out of fashion, but the liberal deconstruction of the scriptures continued.)
J. Gresham Machen, a theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary, opposed Fosdick. Machen published a book called Christianity and Liberalism and argued that any theology that denied Christ's divinity or doubted the Bible was not Christianity. But Machen lost the battle. Princeton Theological Seminary was taken over by the liberals. And Machen was fired for being too conservative, a last hold out for the old literalist view, of the Bible.
Machen was my father's hero, mentor, and friend. Dad kept a big black-and-white picture of him taped inside his bedroom cupboard. When I was very young, I heard Machen's name a lot. As I got older, Dad talked about him less.
I think my father lived with a tremendous tension that pitted his growing interest in art, culture, music, and history against stunted theology frozen in the modernist-fundamentalist battles of his youthful Christian experience. Dad took Machen's firing from Princeton personally. My father's theology was formed in a particularly bitter moment and never evolved along with the rest of his thinking. The theological battles of the 1920s and 1930s shaped Dad in the same way that political battles would shape the Vietnam generation in the 1960s. Passions forged in those battles became part of a personal identity that was difficult for people who did not share the passionate and polarizing experiences to understand.
--FRANK SCHAEFFER (Part 1 Childhood - Chap. 18 pp. 114-115)
Most of the orthodoxy was based on the Apostles Creed, the Athansian Creed, and the Nicene Creed
Whether or not a church considered itself creedal or confessional (Augsburg).
Most of the differences came in power structures, and struggles over those structures, like who appoints bishops.
Athanasian.
...Not!
♥ [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqWHPjWRVpg ]
The democratic Dutch apportioned their state TV budget between various production entities based on demographics, so much for the Roman Catholics, so much for the liberal Protestants, so much for the communists, so much for the evangelicals, and so on. We hooked up with EO, the evangelical state-funded Dutch TV producers. They supplied the logistics that a state TV entity has and got us permission to film in museums all over the world, where Dad would stand in front of great artworks, from Michelangelo's David to Marcel Duchamp's Bride Descending a Staircase, and proclaim our answers to modern culture.
When we started making How Should We Then Live? Dad had not wanted to even mention abortion in the series. We were already in production when the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
If it hadn't been for me, Dad's reputation as an evangelical scholar—a somewhat marginal but interesting intellectual figure—would have remained intact. As it was, my absolutist youthful commitment to the pro-life cause goaded my father into taking political positions far more extreme than came naturally to him.
There was nothing intellectual, let alone religious, about my visceral opposition to abortion. My antiabortion fervor was strictly personal. It had a name, Jessica, my little girl, proof that conception is good, even an unexpected teen conception. I knew that "unwanted" can become very wanted indeed. I also think that my gut reaction against abortion originated back when I was a child pressing my ear against a series of fat lovely bellies of my sisters, various unwed mothers (who were guests), and several L’Abri workers and listening to all those unborn babies' hearts beating. There was also another very personal motive: all the CP kids at Chalet Bellevue I had played with, and, in the case of Jean Pierre, merrily jacked off with. I didn't want people just like my spastic friends to be eliminated. And perhaps my polio, being the only "Yank" in an English school, my dyslexia, and a weird childhood, all also gave me a natural empathy for outsiders, and the unwanted.
I barged into Dad's bedroom while he was eating his daily breakfast of two soft-boiled eggs with toast, and tea. I had just come home from yet another successful fundraising tour in the States. Dad and I had been arguing for several weeks before my trip. We picked up where we left off.
"They're Catholics!" Dad said, before I even opened my mouth. We instantly got into a screaming match.
"How can you say you believe in the uniqueness of every human being if you won't stand up on this?" I yelled.
"I don't want to be identified with some Catholic issue. I'm not putting my reputation on the line for them!" Dad shouted back.
"So you won't speak out because it's a `Catholic issue?'
"What does abortion have to do with art and culture? I'm known as an intellectual, not for this sort of political thing!" shouted Dad.
--FRANK SCHAEFFER (Part 3 Turmoil - Chap. 42 pp. 265-266)
That's the rub. The hypocrisy. How one Christian organization(religion) can hate another Christian religion is completely baffling to me.
Then , to teach this kind of behavior to their young. Dead rotten.
All of them do it. There's and old saying. "It's bred into them."
Too true.
Thanks for that Truth Critic. Much appreciated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rl8SMcVbrk&fe...
http://www.dymaxionweb.com/dymaxionweb/wonder...
...sorry so belated, I was talking to myself on another thread. :)
The view of these Evangelicals prescribes terrible death and destruction for me, my sons and my daughter, and for all of YOU. And this ruin for all of us is for the most SELFISH of all reasons; for their own personal salvation. They don't contribute to society. They only work for OUR end.
Why do we tolerate them?
This Maddow segment had great line after great line that should become parts of the common lexicon for Progressives. One of my favorites:
"...Reorganize the village to suit the village idiots..."
I highly recommend saving the video to savor and retain for future reference.
Also, this timely, relevant piece from Salon on Glen Beck, Cleon Skousen and the Teabaggers is a MUST READ and should be widely distributed:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/16/...
"A village cannot reorganize the village to suite the village idiot" is, for my money, absolutely, positively the money quote. That's sums up what's wrong with America in a nutshell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNBNqUdqm1E
Off-topic, but a pertinent lesson...
The House just passed the most sweeping changes in the Federal Student Loans Program since the inception of the program.
I have a granddaughter who'll be going off to college next year and have followed this legislation closely. It's a darn good Bill. Only opposed by 3 Dems, a minor miracle in these Blue Dog Days.
So, how would it have fared under a Republican controlled House (let alone ever have been brought to the floor)? 6 Republicans supported it.
A little reminder for 2010, for those of you who in your passion for health care or whatever believe there's no important differences between the two parties. And that elections do matter!
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/insu...
I've been disappointed with the Democrats, so news like this is balm for my atittude.
Somebody has to say and he did.
I wish I could articulate as well. It means little coming from me as I'm an atheist. Well sort of, I don't believe in God but he scares me!
.
Nope. Unless I misread, he says he doesn't believe in god. That's all it takes to be an atheist. And that's all it includes also.
exists?
I'd say the same way you can be afraid of ghosts or zombies or Hannibal Lecter. The god in the bible is a pretty scary character.
See where I'm going here?
Yeah, and I don't believe that little girl from The Ring is real, but she still terrifies me. Having a scared feeling doesn't necessarily mean that intellectually you believe something exists. Although you'd really have to ask him what he meant.
must acknowledge at least the possibility of its existence?
I really don't know much about phobias, though my first instinct would be to say not necessarily, since fear doesn't need to be rational.
Anyway, my only point was, if you say you don't believe in the claim "there is/are god(s)," you're an atheist. Simple as that.
but as to your second one, his statement is a contradiction. I tend to beat everything to death. Even if I end something with the phrase, "It's that simple," I don't mean that it is actually that simple.
What I am getting at is that I take a statement as a whole, then break it down into pieces. They I compare the pieces. I parse them, per a professor who beat that into the heads of all his students. I enjoyed fencing with you, but I have to go do something. Back later.
That's fine and dandy, but I really only had one point to make, not two. Just got sidetracked on that fear thing. And it really is that simple, that if you reject god claims you're an atheist. That I did mean.
Proves the majority of Americans don't believe Reslugs have a smart leader or future, but they do believe the bigoted party is thankfully dying and all that is left are the fringe lunatics, tea-baggers, birthers and the uneducated, ignorant racists.
Fringe! The "Oh, look! A shiny thing" play seems to be working. They are still driving the train. By "they" I mean the rest of the GOP. Acting like they are dead is a mistake. First Rule of War: Do not underestimate the enemy.
The mere fact that these people believe in, and are worried about, a thing they call "antichrist", ought to be a pretty strong indication that they're not rational people. A rational person wouldn't even take the question seriously.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgEUYPHSp0c
"we have a subculture which is literally a fifth column of insanity that is bread from birth, through home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever to reject facts as a matter of faith."
When you suggest Obama individually, Democrats generally, the media institutionally have not done enough to successfully argue against these folks, remember that they cannot be argued with.
When you suggest Obama and Democrats should not try and compromise with them, suggest it again and again in a louder voice each time.
See what I see and I have been saying for some time now that republicanism is a mental illness!
How else can you explain the fact that these people will vote against their own best interest, they don't mind if people are killed or tortured as long as the president says he is keeping them safe. They get so upset if they even think someone wants them to take care of someone less fortunate. I don't know how you could come up with any other conclusion.
republicanism is a mental illness!
I work with a female who thinks that interracial dating is immoral because she's "the most Christian moral person you'll ever meet." When I asked, "What does interracial dating have to do with morality?" she said "It's in the Bible."
Did she come to that conclusion on her own, or did someone tell her to think that, someone who already had a bias against non-white races?
together? That's in the Bible too. Not supposed to mix fibers.
Does she eat seafood that has no scales and creeps (i.e. shrimp, crabs)?
ABOMINATION!!
It all depends on whose she's dating.
interracial coupling and interracial families. Like Kinism for instance.
On the other side of the aisle, the pride of the church I attended was its general multiracial makeup, and the amount of interracial couples, and multiracial children, teens, and young adults. I am multiracial, and I was 21 when I started attending the church, so I was one of them.
Kinism website just to give you an idea:
"We appeal to God’s creation mandate of “kind after kind.” It is the obligation of both church and state to forbid mixed unions according to biblical laws prohibiting unequal yoking."
I'm sorry if anyone lost their breakfast/lunch.
Sheesh!
as just friends?
I think.
as a platonic soul mate discussed in the texts of all theological strains of a monotheisttic nature?
I know earlier polytheistic religions like to use female fowl for entrail readings rather than as BFFs.
How could anyone be cruel to an innocent birdie?
2 Corinthians 6:14 -
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"
Kinism extends this verse to interracial marriages, not just interfaith marriages.
When I was an evangelical, we had this verse repeated to us to get us to only really associate with other evangelicals.
Yoker?
:P
*insert sound of symbols crashing here* ;)
That was a point of controversy between Paul and James, when Paul would eat with gentiles
Could've been woist; Paul could've eaten genitals.
*
Bible. Then tell me so I can see it myself. I must have missed that part--wait. I never read the Bible, because in my Catholic church, reading the bible and going to the YMCA or YWCA was forbidden. Pederasts were allowed to practice, but no swimming at the Y was allowed, you little sinners! Yo! Pope! How come the Vatican has so much "priceless" art work and other valuables, and people are starving in this world? Huh?
Holy crap. He pulls no punches. This is so long overdue.
This man thrusts a wooden cross into the fundamentalist heart. What a great interview.
it will cause their brains to engage.
Schaeffer: "But the larger point this brings up is that the mainstream not just media but culture doesn’t sufficiently take stock of the fact that within our culture we have a subculture which is literally a fifth column of insanity that is bread from birth, through home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever to reject facts as a matter of faith."
___
True. And the Texas Textbook Commission is making sure that the fifth column's influence is felt in the public schools of Texas. Unfortunately, what Texas' choices -- given the state's size and economic heft -- affect text book choices nationwide, or so analysts have been pointing out lately. We are a willingly and relentlessly undereducated nation and our dying democracy has been paying the price for it.
These people have decided the world is too complicated for them, and therefore must be rendered simplistic for everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-FvGjEw-ss
I don't know much about the organized religions but i recorded this Maddow segment for future reference.
Though this is not directly related, you can see Dennis Kucinich and the House Oversight Committee Hearing on Private Health Insurance, live right now on C-SPAN 3, online. Several of the top Health Insurance Corporations are being questioned UNEDER OATH.
Thanks.
bastards.
This man knows from where he speaks. I used to be very involved with a Full Gospel Pentecostal church and he knows what he is talking about. Calling them crazy is putting it lightly. I have always said that the religious Fundies are one of the main reasons why this country is in the mess it's in. The Bush Administration embraced them and gave these whack-a-moles jobs. That in itself was frightening enough. If they are trying to paint Obama as the Antichrist they had better re-study scripture because he doesn't fit the the description in the least. I agree with Mr. Schaeffer completely. These people who aren't that intelligent in the first place are trying to get their followers who are even less intelligent whipped up into a frenzy until one them makes an attempt on the Presidents life. Those who are charged with protecting the President certainly have their hands full.
Frank Schaeffer must keep coming back & should be a guest
host on Rachel's show. This guy is gold b/c he knows the
mentality b/c HE HAD that mentality. Fundamentalists deserve to be
called village idiots and a subculture of insanity and more.
They are the left behind and like their Mormon fundamentalist counterparts the resentment they embody can never be
satisfied or resolved. Just scratch the surface & you see
the vitriol & seething anger that is barely & only
sometimes kept under control. In addition to "Crazy For God" read "Under The Banner Of Heaven" if you want the hair to stand up on
the back of your neck. Think you have problems?
See what happens when insanity translates into "revelation"
resulting in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart & other crimes.
The problem comes about when insanity is called virtue
& being "crazy for God" makes you an exception to every rule b/c under God there are no rules especially when you claim to have
"the mind of God". Imagine how "exceptional" that makes you?
Think of all the people who think they can talk to God
or control the weather. Think of what happens when someone
tells you that this is perfectly natural b/c you are a God
yourself. This is a manic phase usually followed by paranoia
as in "the Government is out to get you". The "revelation and
the paranoia go hand in hand & Russian Limbaugh, Michael Levin
& particularly Beck understand this very well. Glenn Beck
is a Mormon & Glenn Beck has experienced mental illness
& he knows how to exploit it, extremely well.
... we'll simply see a more widespread schism. When Mohammed died, it kicked off what would become the Sunni and Shiite sects, and there's also Wahabism. We've got Protestant, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal ... and some of those faiths are splitting (Episcopalian and Baptist, most notably).
Fundamentalism and conservatism seem to fit nicely with each other, espousing a rigid doctrine and unwillingness to change - even in the face of evidence to the contrary. It would seem, of course, that the natural response to any change or hint of liberal thought (not liberalism per se, but that which differs with approved and official church holdings) is to become more rigid, more conservative in turn.
It's a nice little delusion factory. Conservatives rail against change and fear a loss of control, but since change is often inevitable - whether it is beneficial or not - they establish a worldview in which their greatest fear is repeatedly made manifest.
There's nowhere to go but down.
accepting the change. Not in the fundamentalist or conservative repertoire.
I think that is a ridiculous statement Savannah. There are a lot of ways to do things some faster some easier lots of reasons for change. Changing does not mean admitting wrong in any way. Have you ever changed back? If so why?
I loved hearing this guy say these things. Especially the part about these people feeling resentful about being left behind in terms of modernity, science, education, art and literature. I think lots of people in the former CSA states have been distrusting, resentful and resistant to modernity and progress since losing the Civil War and over generations paid the price for it, leading to even more resentment. Fundamentalist religious groups and causes, I would imagine, would be a great outlet to channel your rage at modernity. This is true whether you were born in the South or in the Middle East.
(That said, in terms of the survey--if a few years ago I had gotten a survey and one of the questions was "Is George W. Bush the anti-christ?"...even as an atheist, it would have taken massive effort in every fiber of my being to keep from marking the box "yes".)
I would submit that we will be better prepared to deal with the Fundie problem in the Middle East once we've figured out a way to solve our Fundie problem here at home.
.
where are dennis and bile duct? Don't they care about God,
or just squirrel forage?
I saw this interview on Rachel Maddow last night and I've got to admit, it was the first time in MONTHS that I've been so fascinated with (and horrified by) a news story! Talk about laying all the cards out on the table! MSNBC ought to give this guy a show of his own! Mr. Schaeffer also made a book sale immediately following the segment.
but can you imagine what would happen if he put this sort of thing out over the airwaves everyday? There would be a backlash against MSNBC the likes of which has never been seen. Sponsors that have left Glen Beck would be nothing. Wingers and Bible thumpers would have an absolute coniption. I don't think MSNBC or CNN has the balls to put a guy like this on his own tv show, but it would be great if they did, to counter the bs that comes from the nutjobs on a daily basis.
I read a piece years ago by William Sloane Coffin, the former chaplain of Yale University and former Pastor of the Riverside Church in NYC, (now deceased). He reminded his readers that one of the four basic principals of Catholism is "Prudencia," when translated by Coffin meant "damn good thinking." Faith and critical thinking are not in opposition. Some of the most respected scientists are people of faith. It is just that their faith is not the same as the fundamentist nut cases that have risen to the top of the cess pool of dogmatic haters.
i have been writing letters to the editor to all my local papers calling these jerks fifth columnists engaged in sedition for months. limbaugh, beck, fox news and the rest of the righties are nothing more than fifth columnists.
i watched this interview. and was glad to finally see someone say what i have been saying all along.
I'm a Christian and a Democrat. But I never mix the two. Religion should be kept out of politics. It makes me so mad when I see fake christians wishing and praying for a man's death. It also makes me mad when they "quote" the bible to back up their ludicrous talking points.
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