On The Front Lines
New to Oldspeak: Frank Schaeffer Talks Candidly with John W. Whitehead About the Legacy of the Christian Right & Its Impact on Politics Today
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- OldSpeak, an online publication of The Rutherford Institute, hosts a provocative discussion between Frank Schaeffer, the son of Christian evangelist Francis Schaeffer 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, and John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
The interview, "Creating a Political Firestorm That Is Still Burning," is a candid discussion of politics, the current state of our country, and the evolution of the evangelical movement between two individuals, Schaeffer and Whitehead, whose ideas and actions have shaped our national dialogue on matters of faith, freedom and politics.
WHITEHEAD: At the end of the day, the Christian involvement in politics produced little in terms of definable positive results spiritually. For example, forty percent of births are now out of wedlock. The highest divorce rate is in the Bible belt. A recent survey found that the states with the highest conservative Christian population were the biggest Internet porn users. The fastest growing religious group in the United States is atheists, or non-believers. Fewer and fewer people are going to church. The huge mistake was that a religion of great validity was identified with a political party. Thus, in the end, the experiment from the actual spiritual nature of merging politics and religion was a failure.
SCHAEFFER: You put your finger on it when you said that we identified Christianity with a political movement to the point where the politics and the religion were confused. When you now use the term "Christian" to Americans, whether they are evangelicals or atheists, they immediately think of evangelical American Christianity. The word "evangelical" became synonymous with Republican. And then it became synonymous with right-wing Republican. All of a sudden, Christ has the Republican Party, the evangelicals and their hatred and their failed policies on his back. Thus, who is going to be looking at Jesus Christ anymore as a religious figure or the Son of God or even as a prophet? What they are seeing is the Republican Party. And so essentially the cart not only flipped and drove the horse, the horse disappeared altogether. All that is left is this stalled cart of Republican right-wing failure.
Frank Schaeffer is a prolific blogger and a New York Times best-selling author. His most recent books include Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps (2003) about his son's military service in Iraq. He also co-authored AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service--and How It Hurts Our Country (2006) and How Free People Move Mountains: A Male Christian Conservative and a Female Jewish Liberal on a Quest for Common Purpose and Meaning (2003). His upcoming book is Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (2009).
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