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Title: Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero
Source:
The Huffington Post
URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank ... minister-committe_b_91774.html
Published: Mar 16, 2008
Author: Frank Schaeffer
Post Date: 2008-03-17 14:21:40 by aristeides
Keywords: None
Views: 269
Comments: 16
Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero Posted March 16, 2008 | 04:23 PM (EST) When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr. Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton. Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation's sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father's sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American. Consider a few passages from my father's immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies. Here's Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience: And this: Then this: Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop). Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad's statements. Take Dad's words and put them in the mouth of Obama's preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words "godly" and "prophetic" and a "call to repentance." We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did. My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany. The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to "bear arms" as "insurance" to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as "fallen away from God" at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed. Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the "progressive" Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post "[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/im-already-against-the-n_b_90628.html ) Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days. Frank Schaeffer is a writer and 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
If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable.
In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union....
There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation...
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#1. To: aristeides, Brian S, Elliott Jackalope, iconoclast (#0)
Thanks, I once read something by his father, Frances Schaeffer. Looks like Frank is just as thought provoking.
'Individuals should not take responsibility for their own defense. That’s what the police are for. ... If I oppose individuals defending themselves, I have to support police defending them. I have to support a police state.”' Alan Dershowitz
'Individuals should not take responsibility for their own defense. That’s what the police are for. ... If I oppose individuals defending themselves, I have to support police defending them. I have to support a police state.”' Alan Dershowitz
I wonder what the critics of Rev. Wright think about prophets like Jeremiah.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
I think prophets are generally despised during their lifetimes.
'Individuals should not take responsibility for their own defense. That’s what the police are for. ... If I oppose individuals defending themselves, I have to support police defending them. I have to support a police state.”' Alan Dershowitz
I have heard Hillary called any number of "colorful" names and one of them was "wigger." I doubt that would need any explanation to anyone who posts here.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. Who's paying you now, Frank? All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence Just another lefty. The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. It's only hypocrisy if, with the other side of your mouth, you denounce "racism." Mainly though, I think it's just that Wright's [and others'] "racism and injustice" rants have passed their sell-by dates among whites. Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. If that argument gains currency, and he wins, he will rightly be called the first affirmative action president. It is of course the argument diversitoids will everywhere parrot should he lose (at least, those that don't simply chimp out.)
Red states? Blue states? It's an Obama nation!
Why wasn't JFK that? I remember plenty of my Irish Catholic relatives supporting him just because of his religion and ethnicity?
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Partisan politics is a funny thing. When white preachers condemn abortion, homosexuality, and various vices, or when they defend teaching the Bible instead of science in schools, liberals accuse them of being hateful, ignorant, intolerant, etc. When black preachers say the exact same things, liberals them as comrades in arms. The same hypocrisy works in reverse for "conservatives."
That would solve your problems.
The Jews are responsible for much of the racial problems this country faces. They stir things up on purpose to make it easier for them to control us. They brought the slaves over here for crying out loud. People really need to wake up and see the huge problem America and the world has from these people.
God is always good!
Prophets normally aren't racists, right? At any rate, the Obama blimp is deflating as I type and it couldn't happen to a more deserving soul. Now, since you've been on the Ron Paul bandwagon, and the Obama bandwagon, who's next?
You're the one to call someone a racist.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
"Think" is the in-operative word there.
Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. T. S. Eliot
Justin Raimondo doesn't share your opinion of Obama and Wright. Smearing Obama : Every antiwar candidate has to endure the same hate campaign . But he cares about things like ending war and restoring liberty. You seem to have other priorities.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Justin Raimondo is right on some issues and terribly wrong on others. Obama is fatally wounded thanks to the good pastor. It's time you find a new political god.
If Obama is fatally wounded -- and that remains to be seen -- it's thanks to the ministrations of the media and the powers that be. That he has such enemies speaks in favor of him, in my book.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.
#2. To: Cynicom, mirage, Jethro Tull (#0)
#3. To: robin (#1)
#4. To: aristeides (#3)
(Edited)
#5. To: aristeides (#0)
All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.
Lord Acton
#6. To: aristeides (#0)
#7. To: Tauzero (#6)
If that argument gains currency, and he wins, he will rightly be called the first affirmative action president.
#8. To: aristeides (#0)
(Edited)
#9. To: aristeides (#0)
Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency.
#10. To: aristeides (#0)
All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.
#11. To: aristeides (#0)
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#11)
#13. To: aristeides (#3)
I wonder what the critics of Rev. Wright think about prophets like Jeremiah.
#14. To: Jethro Tull (#11)
#15. To: aristeides (#14)
#16. To: Jethro Tull (#15)
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