Following my recent appearance on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, where I was talking about my new book Patience With God--Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism) and
where I warned her viewers that that the religious right is now
??trawling for assassins ? with the use of inflammatory items like
T-Shirts calling for President Obama's death, I got a lot of email.
What is interesting to note is just how unimaginative and downright
stupid the hate mail from the right is.
The cretinism and unhinged nature of the responses from the anti-Obama legion is scary.
That's what my friend Richard Cizik, former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, learned. He was being interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 2009 and mentioned that maybe he wasn't against gay civil unions. He didn't even mention gay marriage. He was fired within days. Rich told me that he was never even asked by the board what he'd meant by his remarks and was never given a chance to respond. Cizik had almost been forced out several years before when James Dobson, of ??Focus on the Family ? fame, wrote to the NAE board demanding Cizik's dismissal for saying that he thought global warming was real. Cizik got away with that apostasy against the Republican Party, which had long since come to be a stand-in for the ??true church ? for power-hungry evangelical/fundamentalist leaders such as Dobson. But when Cizik didn't hate gays enough, game over!
I said that the T-shirt vendors selling the Psalm 109:8 logo as in pray that the President dies, had crossed a line into a place that is nothing more than the organizing of a death squad, or ??trolling for assassins ? as I put it. Here's what is in the Psalm they quote:
"May his days be few; may another take his office!"
Here are what the other verses in that Pslam call for (in case you didn't "get" verse 8).
The Christian leadership that fails to denounce this fiasco is morally bankrupt. If the president is killed, ask the editors of Christianity Today magazine where they were and what they did to stop the hate. Where's the Catholic League on this one? Where are the editors of far right Obama-hating World magazine? Where's Franklin Graham, and Chuck Colson and James Dobson and Rick Warren?
The far right "Christian" leadership managed to crank out a new deceleration against abortion and stem cell research just this week called the "Manhattan deceleration." All the right wing "Christian" leaders signed it. Where are these same people's deceleration of conscience against their own followers and fellow "Christians" when it comes to not murdering the President and/or seeming to encourage violence with Bible verse bumper stickers?
What do you hope to accomplish through your writing and by speaking out?
For one thing, I'd like to present people with better spiritual choices than choosing between Hitchens' brand of hate of religion and say Dobson's brand of hate of God (by the way he hates gay men and women). For another, I'd like to shame the religious leadership into speaking out against the threats (Psalm 109: 8 etc.,) against President Obama.
Who's listening?
That's hard to say. Judging by the email I get a lot of former religious people who take comfort in my views. And judging by the attacks on me by the far right in places like the American Spectator and World magazines, the right is hearing me, too.
Anything you'd like to add, Frank?
The point isn't "correct" belief, but who we are. Yes, and one other thing too: support President Obama! enough sniping from the left. He is the man and our best hope. I trust him and expecting him to do everything in one year is plain dumb.
My website is Frankschaeffer.com
The cretinism and unhinged nature of the responses from the anti-Obama legion is scary.
That's what my friend Richard Cizik, former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, learned. He was being interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air in 2009 and mentioned that maybe he wasn't against gay civil unions. He didn't even mention gay marriage. He was fired within days. Rich told me that he was never even asked by the board what he'd meant by his remarks and was never given a chance to respond. Cizik had almost been forced out several years before when James Dobson, of ??Focus on the Family ? fame, wrote to the NAE board demanding Cizik's dismissal for saying that he thought global warming was real. Cizik got away with that apostasy against the Republican Party, which had long since come to be a stand-in for the ??true church ? for power-hungry evangelical/fundamentalist leaders such as Dobson. But when Cizik didn't hate gays enough, game over!
I said that the T-shirt vendors selling the Psalm 109:8 logo as in pray that the President dies, had crossed a line into a place that is nothing more than the organizing of a death squad, or ??trolling for assassins ? as I put it. Here's what is in the Psalm they quote:
Here are what the other verses in that Pslam call for (in case you didn't "get" verse 8).
9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!Where is the response from the evangelical leadership to what ?? from a ??Bible believing ? point of view is a blasphemous misuse of the Bible in a hate crusade?
10 May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!
The Christian leadership that fails to denounce this fiasco is morally bankrupt. If the president is killed, ask the editors of Christianity Today magazine where they were and what they did to stop the hate. Where's the Catholic League on this one? Where are the editors of far right Obama-hating World magazine? Where's Franklin Graham, and Chuck Colson and James Dobson and Rick Warren?
The far right "Christian" leadership managed to crank out a new deceleration against abortion and stem cell research just this week called the "Manhattan deceleration." All the right wing "Christian" leaders signed it. Where are these same people's deceleration of conscience against their own followers and fellow "Christians" when it comes to not murdering the President and/or seeming to encourage violence with Bible verse bumper stickers?
What do you hope to accomplish through your writing and by speaking out?
For one thing, I'd like to present people with better spiritual choices than choosing between Hitchens' brand of hate of religion and say Dobson's brand of hate of God (by the way he hates gay men and women). For another, I'd like to shame the religious leadership into speaking out against the threats (Psalm 109: 8 etc.,) against President Obama.
Who's listening?
That's hard to say. Judging by the email I get a lot of former religious people who take comfort in my views. And judging by the attacks on me by the far right in places like the American Spectator and World magazines, the right is hearing me, too.
Anything you'd like to add, Frank?
The point isn't "correct" belief, but who we are. Yes, and one other thing too: support President Obama! enough sniping from the left. He is the man and our best hope. I trust him and expecting him to do everything in one year is plain dumb.
My website is Frankschaeffer.com
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