“Trump Should Fill Christians with Rage. How Come He Doesn’t?”

The title of this blog post is the title of Michael Gerson’s Sept. 1 opinion piece in The Washington Post. It probably has been the most often-read op-ed article in the WaPo this month. For those of you who haven’t yet read it (or can’t because of the paywall), I have posted it here.*  

Although the title appears to be quite politically partisan, Gerson’s piece is primarily about Jesus, about the political and cultural environment in which he lived and about the gist of his teaching. In particular, Gerson emphasizes that

* Jesus preached against religious hypocrisy.

* Jesus welcomed social outcasts whom polite society rejected. 

* Most important, Jesus proclaimed the arrival of a kingdom. 

Granted, those three points do not summarize the totality of Jesus’ message, but surely most Christians would affirm those points as being central to Jesus’ teaching.

Although Gerson’s portrayal of Jesus may appear “liberal,” Gerson has been and has remained a Christian evangelical, as I tried to make clear in my May 15, 2021, blog post titled “Michael Gerson: An Evangelical with Integrity.” Thus, he is not criticizing evangelicals from the “outside.”

In his Sept. 1 piece, Gerson clearly states, “Having known evangelicals who live lives of moral integrity and serve others across lines of race and class, I have no intention of pronouncing an indiscriminate indictment.” Then he goes on to assert that

all conservative Christians must take seriously a sobering development in America’s common life. Many who identify with Jesus most loudly and publicly are doing the most to discredit his cause.

He then boldly states,

The main danger to conservative churches does not come from bad laws—it comes from Christians who don’t understand the distinctives, the demands and the ultimate appeal of their own faith.

Consequently, Gerson declares that the evangelical support of Trump and what he calls the Trump movement “deserves some woes of its own”:

* Woe to evangelical hypocrisy.

* Woe to evangelical exclusion. 

* And woe, therefore, to Christian nationalism. 

I agree with Gerson not because I am a Democrat but because I am a Christian who, like Gerson, seeks to put faith above politics.

Although there seems to be “Christianophobia” abroad in the land, Gerson seeks to make it clear that much (most?) of the anti-Christian sentiment is reaction to the questionable public stance of the Christian Right and not to the core teachings of Jesus.

From soon after 9/11/01, there began to be talk of Islamophobia in this country. All Muslims were being vilified because of the vile deeds of the militant extremists. That was highly unfair to the vast majority of the Muslims in the country, most of whom were peace-loving people.

I first wrote about Islamophobia in my 5/5/13 blog post, and then on 1/25/16 I posted “Combatting Islamophobia.” The former article begins, “Islamophobia is defined as “prejudice against, hatred towards, or irrational fear of Muslims.” Such an attitude has been quite widespread in the land.

While the term is rarer, for several years now some have written about Christianophobia. For example, a 3/27/15 Christianity Today article is titled, “What Christianophobia Looks Like in America.”

In that article, author George Yancey, a university professor of sociology, says that his research has shown that in the United States, hateful bigotry is directed not only toward groups such as racial and sexual minorities, but also toward conservative Christians. . . . . It’s Christianophobia.”

All hateful bigotry directed toward racial and sexual minorities must be staunchly opposed. Christianophobia should also be opposed/combatted in the same way that I previously wrote about combatting Islamophobia.

All Christians should not be rejected/opposed because of the way those on the religious and political right are misrepresenting Jesus. This is one of the reasons I find Gerson’s essay so important and worth widespread thoughtful consideration.**

_____

* This article is quite long: when I put it on a Word document, it was over 4,300 words, more than the combined length of six of my blog articles, which I limit to a maximum of 700 words.

** It is not mentioned by Gerson, but I highly recommend a closely related book: Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals are Destroying our Nation and Our Faith (2021) by theologian Obery M. Hendricks.

Rightly (or Wrongly) Explaining the Word of Truth

Ralph Drollinger is probably the tallest Bible study teacher you never heard of, at least until recently—and he may be one of the most detrimental to the health of the nation. In the Bible, 2 Timothy 2:15 ends with the words “rightly explaining the word of truth.” It is highly questionable, however, whether Drollinger rightly explains the Bible. 

(From a 4/10/18 online article by Andrew Seidel)

Drollinger’s Capitol Ministries

In 1996, Ralph Drollinger (b. 1954), who is 7’2” tall and a former NBA player, started a new organization in his home state of California. Its goal was “to create disciples of Jesus Christ in the political arena throughout the world.”

As a Christian, I certainly can’t fault that goal. But it is important to understand the kind of disciples he and his organization were/are trying to create.

Ten years ago, in 2010, Drollinger established his first national ministry in Washington, D.C., where he began a weekly Bible study for U.S. Representatives. Five years later he began a separate ministry to U.S. Senators. Then in 2017 he created a ministry to members of the White House Cabinet.

In addition, according to the Capitol Ministries website, they have “also created discipleship Bible studies to the political leaders of 24 nations on four continents.”

In their “comprehensive doctrinal statement,” Capitol Ministries declares,

We teach that the Word of God is an objective, propositional revelation (1 Cor. 2:13; 1 Thess. 2:13), verbally inspired in every word (2 Tim. 3:16), absolutely inerrant in the original documents, infallible, and God-breathed. We teach the literal, grammatical-historical interpretation of Scripture, which affirms the belief that the opening chapters of Genesis present creation in six literal days (Gen. 1:31; Ex. 31:17).

But, does the world really need more “disciples” who adhere to biblical inerrancy, including belief in a literal six-day creation?

Drollinger’s Bible Studies

Drollinger’s Bible studies on Capitol Hill has an impressive list of “sponsors.” The Cabinet members who are sponsors include Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos. Former Cabinet member sponsors include Rick Perry and Jeff Sessions.

Eleven Republican Senators are listed as Bible study sponsors, including Joni Ernst from Iowa, Cindy Hyde-Smith from Mississippi, James Lankford from Oklahoma, and David Perdue from Georgia.

Then there are 41 Representatives who are sponsors. The two most widely known are Kevin McCarthy, currently the House Minority Leader, and Louie Gohmert, the outspoken Congressman from Texas.

Although who actually attends each Bible study is not made known, the weekly schedule is 7 a.m. Wednesdays for the Cabinet, 8:00 a.m. Tuesdays for the Senate, and 7:45 a.m. Thursdays for the House.

There is no indication that DJT has attended any of the Bible studies, but Drollinger sends a copy of his printed studies to him and reportedly sometimes receives back comments written in his felt tip marker pen.

On March 23, Drollinger’s Bible study was titled, “Is God Judging America Today?” An online article the next day (see here) was very critical of what Drollinger said in that study—and on March 27 Drollinger issued a questionable rebuttal titled “Lies, Distortions and Inaccuracies.”

Drollinger’s Detrimental Influence

Questions about Drollinger’s Bible studies are not just recent. A 10/05/17 article in Newsweek magazine refers to Drollinger as the “next most prominent godly voice in Trump’s White House” after Paula White.

That article points out that in “Entitlement Programs Viewed Through the Lens of Scripture,” an August 2016 Bible study, Drollinger asserted that the Bible “is clear” that caring for the poor is the responsibility of the family and the church, not the government.”

Newsweek also published “White House Bible Study Led By Pastor Who Is Anti-Gay, Anti-Women and Anti-Catholic,” a 4/11/18 article even more critical of Drollinger. That headline doesn’t seem to be inaccurate—and it could have included anti-environment as well.

All of Drollinger’s Bible teaching is, no doubt, based on “the literal, grammatical-historical interpretation of Scripture.” But that is the problem—and I address that issue in “Fed Up with Fundamentalism’s View of the Bible,” the fifth chapter of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007, 2020).

To a large extent, sadly, Drollinger seems to be wrongly “explaining the word of truth.”

Christianism: What It Is and Why It’s Objectionable

Christianism isn’t exactly a household word, but it expresses an important, and troubling, aspect of USAmerican religious and political life. Let’s look at what it is and why it’s objectionable. 

What is Christianism?

The contemporary use of the word Christianism/Christianist seems to have started with Andrew Sullivan. He coined those words in a June 2003 post in his political blog “The Daily Dish,” which he maintained from 2000 to 2015. Sullivan (b. 1963), wrote,

I have a new term for those on the fringes of the religious right who have used the Gospels to perpetuate their own aspirations for power, control and oppression: Christianists. They are as anathema to true Christians as the Islamists are to true Islam.

In a June 2005 blog posting, Sullivan wrote, “Christianism—politicized Christianity—argues for the imposition of one religion’s values over the entire society.”

Sullivan later expanded on his usage of the terms in a May 2006 Time magazine article titled “My Problem with Christianism.”

Mark Shea, another blogger, who like Sullivan is a Catholic, is more contentious in his description of the current meaning of the term(s). He begins his Oct. 2018 Patheos.com article called "I keep getting asked what I mean by ‘Christianism’” with these sharp words:

A Christianist is an adherent of a political [cult] centered on Donald Trump and informed by a magisterium of FOX, right wing talk radio and right wing social media, which uses Christian imagery and jargon in the service of a diabolical antichrist gospel of racism, war, torture apologetics, gun fanaticism, misogyny, mammon worship, cruelty to the least of these and hatred of both science and orthodox Christian belief.

Christianism and Christendom

Politicized Christianity, however, is certainly nothing new. In fact, it can be traced all the way back to Constantine in the 4th century. When Christianity was co-opted by the Roman Empire, Christendom was established—and it flourished for fifteen centuries until weakened by the historical process of secularization.

In his 2019 book Postcards from Babylon, Brian Zahnd writes negatively about Christendom: “Tying the gospel to the interests of empire had a deeply compromising effect upon the gospel, as seen in the sordid history of the church being mixed up with imperial conquest, colonialism, and military adventurism around the world” (p. 16).

Contemporary Christianism is manifested differently, but is similar in many ways to the ethos of Christendom that goes all the way back to Constantine—and to what we Anabaptists sometimes refer to as the “fall” of the Church.

Christianism and Christian Nationalism

The move toward “Christian nationalism” is one of the main ways Christianism has been apparent in recent years, although many seem to be unaware of that movement. The stealth activities of The Family and Project Blitz, both of which I wrote about last year (see here and here[LS1] ) is a part of the movement toward Christian nationalism.

Last year, the Baptist Joint Committee (BJC), an organization I have supported for decades, started a campaign called Christians Against Christian Nationalism (CACN). This campaign is clearly in opposition to Christianism, even though they don’t use that word.

(To learn more about BJC and CACN, see this important October 2019 article by Frederick Clarkson—or you can read directly about CACN and even sign the statement opposing Christian nationalism, as I did last year, by clicking here.)

Even though much more needs to be said, I close with more from Brian Zahnd, who wrote that “in the American experiment the United States deliberately broke with Christendom practice of claiming to be a Christian nation with a state church. It was America that pioneered the experiment of secular governance.”

And then he asserted:

America is not a Christian nation; it never was and never can be. The only institution that even has the possibility of being Christian is the church. When we confuse the nation with the church, it may not do any particular damage to the nation, but it will do irreparable harm to the church (p. 46).

Yes, Christianism is highly objectionable, for, indeed, it does “irreparable harm” to the work and witness of the faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

* * * * *

Two new books about Christian nationalism have just been published, and I am looking forward to learning more about Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States (2/20) by Andrew L. Whitehead and The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (3/20) by Katherine Stewart.

Still Fed Up with Fundamentalism's View of Religious Freedom

This article is based on the sixth chapter of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007), which I am currently updating (and slightly revising) for re-publication by the end of the year. Matters related to religious freedom were not prominent during the first decades of fundamentalist Christianity, but such matters became a major concern in the 1980s and the following decades.  

Current Emphases

From the first years of the resurgence of fundamentalism, conservative evangelical Christians have made ongoing efforts to get prayer back into public schools, to procure sanctions for public displays of the Ten Commandments, and to protect the use of “one nation under God” in the pledge of allegiance and “in God we trust” on USAmerican currency.

Those emphases were accompanied by strong condemnation of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which conservative evangelicals saw/see mainly as an anti-Christian organization. To combat the activities of the ACLU, in 1990 Pat Robertson founded a new legal action organization, naming it the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

The headquarters of ACLJ is, as they proudly state, “just steps away from the Supreme Court and Congress.” Since 1992, Jay Sekulow has been the chief counsel of ACLJ. Many of you, though, know his name in another context: in 2017 Sekulow (b. 1956) also became one of DJT’s lawyers.

The ACLJ has been a major force of the Religious Right seeking religious freedom as they understand it. But the freedom they seek is mainly the freedom for Judeo-Christian religion to have predominance in the public square.

Current Ties to the Republican Party

It is evident that the ACLJ and most other Religious Right organizations are closely aligned with the Republican Party. That link is clearly seen with Sekulow being both the chief counsel of the ACLJ and a prominent member of the President’s legal team.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition is another prominent organization of the Christian Right. Incorporated in 2009, founder Ralph Reed (b. 1961) has described it as “a 21st century version of the Christian Coalition.”

Even though it is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization, there is no question of it working
“hand in glove” with the Republican Party.

Since 2010, they have held conferences in Washington, D.C. My 6/5/11 blog article was about the 2011 conference, which I attended as a researcher. Nearly all the Republican 2012 presidential hopefuls spoke, as did DJT, who decided not to run for President that year.

The ties of the Faith and Freedom Coalition as a conservative evangelical Christian organization and the Republican Party could not have been more evident. This link as well as much that was said about the emphases mentioned above, also made evident a very questionable understanding of the principle of the separation of church and state.

Current Rejection of the Separation of Church and State

Although I am still very much a baptist (with a small “b”), Fed Up with Fundamentalism was written when I was still a Baptist, and the sixth chapter is clearly the most Baptistic chapter of the book.

Earlier and more consistently than any other Christian denomination, beginning with Roger Williams, who in 1638 started the first Baptist church in what is now the United States, up until about forty years ago Baptists have been outspoken proponents of the principle of the separation of church and state.

(Click here to read my 2/5/11 article titled “In Praise of Roger Williams.”)

But with the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, that historic position has been largely lost. Consequently, I am fed up with fundamentalism’s view of religious freedom, for it does not endorse that precious freedom for all people equally.

The Resurgence of Fundamentalism

Last month I posted an article about the (slightly) updated first chapter of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism: A Historical, Theological, and Personal Appraisal of Christian Fundamentalism (FuF), which I plan to re-publish at the end of the year. This article is about the updated and renamed second chapter.

Christian Fundamentalism from 1980 to 2005

The first chapter of FuF was largely a historical review of the rise and fall of fundamentalism as a major movement among Christians in the United States in the years between 1915 and 1940.

The second chapter is now primarily historical also, summarizing Christian fundamentalism in the twenty-five years from 1980 to 2005. That was a period marked by the renewal and resurgence of fundamentalist prestige and power, a period of unprecedented growth in denominational organizations and institutions.

Moreover, during those years the fundamentalist-fueled “Religious Right,” also called the “New Christian Right,” greatly increased in numbers and strength not only in ecclesiastical circles but especially in the political arena.

In fact, perhaps the major difference between the fundamentalism of 1915~1940 and the fundamentalism of 1980~2005 was its pervasive participation in politics during the latter period.

Fundamentalist Leaders from 1980 to 2005

In Chapter One I wrote about four main leaders of Christian fundamentalism from 1915 to 1940. Among many leaders that might have been considered in the second chapter, I focus on these four: Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Albert Mohler.

Two of these four have already died (Falwell in 2007 and LaHaye in 2016) and one is now quite elderly (Robertson celebrated his 89^th birthday this month). Only Mohler (b. 1959) is still an active leader and spokesman.

Understanding the thought and public activities of these four men—and because of its inherent patriarchalism, the fundamentalist leaders past and present have been men—goes a long way toward understanding the growth and power of conservative evangelicalism in this recent historical period.

Moreover, their strong influence continues to the present day.

Fundamentalism in Other Religions

In the introduction of her widely-read book The Battle for God (2001), Karen Armstrong asserts: “One of the most startling developments of the late twentieth century has been the emergence within every major religious tradition of a militant piety popularly known as ‘fundamentalism’” (p. ix).  

Interestingly, perhaps now more people associate the word “fundamentalists” with Islamists more than with Christians. At any rate, the third part of Chapter Two gives a brief summary of Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu fundamentalism. 

As I say at the end of the chapter, fundamentalists in all religions are the “true believers,” committed to what they consider to be the absolute truth. Consequently, they are not willing to accept any compromise with anything they deem as deviant from their foundational faith.

While writing this chapter back in 2005, it seemed that there was every likelihood that in the years ahead there would be escalating conflicts between Christian fundamentalists and the fundamentalists in other religions—but now it seems as if that scenario has not developed as much as considered likely then.

However, I also wrote then that there would be ongoing conflicts between fundamentalists and other Christians in this country—and that has certainly been the case from 2005 until the present, seen particularly in the support of DJT by conservative evangelicals.

When working on FuF 15 years ago, I never dreamed that the fundamentalists, by whatever name they’re called, would be the demographic most in support of a President such as the current one.

Chapter Three, which I will write about next month, deals largely with this question: why in the years between 1980 and 2005 did Christian fundamentalism grow in such numerical strength and political power?

Reluctantly Remembering Rushdoony

It was 100 years ago that Seinan Gakuin was founded as a small school for junior high boys in Fukuoka City, Japan. June and I have just arrived in Japan to see old friends and to participate in the centennial activities of Seinan Gakuin. I will share more about those events next month.

It was also 100 years ago, on April 25, 1916, that a baby was born in New York City and given the name Rousas John Rushdoony. His parents were recently arrived Armenian immigrants, having fled the Armenian Genocide of 1915. His ancestors had lived for generations in a remote area near Mount Ararat.

R.J. Rushdoony followed his father and many of his ancestors into the ministry. He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church USA in 1944 and later transitioned to the more conservative Orthodox Presbyterian denomination.

In the early 1950s, Rushdoony became a reader of, and then a contributor to, the Christian libertarian magazine Faith and Freedom, which advocated an “anti-tax, non-interventionist, anti-statist economic model” in opposition to FDR’s New Deal.

Rushdoony moved to Los Angeles in 1965 and founded the Chalcedon Foundation. The monthly Chalcedon Report, which Rushdoony edited, began appearing in October of that year. In the early 1970s, his daughter Sharon married Gary North (b. 1942), an economic historian. Rushdoony and his son-in-law worked together, and later separately, on what is known as Christian Reconstructionism.

Rushdoony’s major work, and the foundational book for Reconstructionism, is his 890-page book The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973). His key ideas of theocracy (“government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided,” according to Merriam-Webster) and theonomy (rule by God’s law) are found in that book.

Rushdoony’s ideas are also known as Dominionism, the belief that Christians following God’s law should have dominion over civil affairs. As Rationalwiki.org puts it “Dominionists are, for all intents and purposes, the literal Christian equivalent of Islamists demanding Sharia law.”

“Dominion Theology” is succinctly explained in Sara Diamond’s authoritative book Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States (1995). (See especially pages 246~9.)

A recent and also notable book on the subject is Michael J. McVicar’s Christian Reconstruction: R.J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism (2015). In it also there is a brief section titled “Dominion Theology” (pp. 197~201).

As noted in these two books, Rushdoony’s greatest influence was in the late 1970s and 1980s. I briefly wrote about him and his influence in my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (see pp. 48~51). That influence was seen in his contact with Pat Robertson (and his appearances on Robertson’s “700 Club”), with Jerry Falwell, and with Francis Schaeffer, who, to his credit, later repudiated the Reconstructionist movement.

While his influence may not be as great now as it was 30 years ago, neither is it negligible. Among current right-wing politicians, perhaps Sen. Ted Cruz has, partly through his father, been most influenced by Rushdoony’s view of Christianity.

In Christian Nation, the dystopian novel that I wrote about on Feb. 14 (see here), Rushdoony is mentioned repeatedly.

So, because of his historical significance as a “mover and shaker” of the Christian Right, R.J. Rushdoony is someone who needs to be remembered on this 100^th anniversary of his birth. But I remember him reluctantly because of the justifiably negative reactions toward the kind of Christianity he espoused and for his failure to have a more enlightened view of God, the Bible, and the responsibility of Christians in the world.

A Victory for the Christian Right

Last Tuesday’s mid-term elections, as everyone knows, resulted in the Republican Party taking decisive control of the U.S. Senate.

There is not just one reason for this shift in political power. Nevertheless, a major factor has been the relentless six-year campaign against President Obama by religious conservatives.

From the day of his inauguration in 2009 the President (and the Democratic Party) has been the target of unending criticism and unceasing attacks by the Christian Right, which overwhelmingly supports the Republican Party.

One of the most active organizations on the Christian Right is the Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC), of which I have written previously; e.g., here and here.

In a Nov. 5 article on their blog, the FFC announced, “Evangelical Vote Played Decisive Role in GOP Wave in 2014 According to Post-Election Survey.”

Their second headline gloated, “Self-Identified Conservative Christians Comprised Record Share of the Electorate, Backed GOP Candidates by 8 to 1 Margin.”

The FFC was gloating because they had worked so hard for a Republican victory. Ralph Reed, Chairman of the FFC, reported that the Coalition “distributed over 20 million voter guides in over 117,000 churches nationwide” prior to the Nov. election.”

They also “made over 10 million ‘get out to vote’ phone calls, knocked on 400,000 doors, mailed over 6 million voter guides, and emailed or texted over 4.6 million additional voters.”

My good friend Charlie Broomfield recently completed a Master’s degree at UMKC, writing his dissertation on the Christian Right and its political power.

Over the last few months, I have said that I thought the Christian Right was losing power and that they weren’t going to have as much political clout this year as in the past few elections.

Charlie disagreed with me—and it turned out that he was right, about this election, at least.

One of the most disheartening results of last week’s election was Thom Tillis’s election as the new U.S. Senator from North Carolina.

According to data supplied by Sarah Posner, 40% of voters in that state identified as white evangelical or born again—and 78% of them voted for Tillis. Only 16% of them voted for incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan.

Mark Sandlin is a progressive Christian whose articles are posted on Patheos.com from time to time. His Nov. 5 article was titled, “A Minister From Thom Tillis’ State Tells Us What To Expect After The Election Results.”

Sandlin avers, “With the GOP taking over all of Congress, particularly with Tea Party lackeys like Tillis among the crowd, we will see legislative moves that aid the ever-growing separation of classes, which is defined by the continued shrinking of the middle class.”

He continues, “Corporations will continue to have more rights than people and those rights will trump the rights of individuals. Woman can expect to have more of their rights (particularly reproductive rights) challenged.”

But Tillis, partly, or maybe mainly, because of his outspoken anti-abortion stance was one of the three candidates for the Senate most strongly supported by the FFC.

The other senatorial candidates most ardently supported by the FFC were Joni Ernst in Iowa and Cory Gardner in Colorado, who both, like Tillis, are adamantly against abortion and same-sex marriage.

They, like Tillis and most of the other new Republican senators, also have said they are for repealing “Obamacare.”

Yes, last Tuesday was a victory for the Christian Right. But it was a sad loss for a sizable majority of the citizens of this country, many of whom, regrettably, didn’t even bother to vote.

“Crazy for God”

Frank Schaeffer is the only son of Francis Schaeffer, who was a household name, for many conservative Christians at least, in the 1970s and early 1980s. The elder Schaeffer (1912-84) is still well known for establishing the influential L’Abri Community in Switzerland (in 1955) and for books such as The God Who Is There (1968) and He Is There and He Is Not Silent (1972). 

Francis Schaeffer is also the author of How Should We Then Live?: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1976), which was made into a ten-part documentary film series the next year, and A Christian Manifesto (1981), both of which encouraged Christians to be more actively engaged in politics.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has cited Schaeffer’s film series as having a “profound influence” on her life and that of her husband Marcus. And much earlier, Jerry Falwell said, “If it were not for Francis Schaeffer, we would never have gotten into politics.”

For many years Frank (b. 1952) worked “hand in glove” with his father. For example, he directed the film series mentioned above. But things changed. In 2007 Frank published an autobiography under the title 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. 

Earlier this year, Frank published another memoir: Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics—and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway. (Frank seems to like long and catchy subtitles!) 

In this latest book, Frank Schaeffer discusses growing up with his parents and their role in the rise of the American Religious Right, arguing, among other things, that the root of the “insanity and corruption” of that force in U.S. politics, and specifically of the religious right’s position on abortion, is a fear of female sexuality.

In his theological/religious books, humility is one of the primary themes that Frank emphasizes. The lack of humility is one of the main problems with fundamentalists who are “crazy for God.” But he also is critical of the contemporary atheists who also show a serious lack of humility.

In Sex, Mom, and God, Schaeffer writes about being “adrift in an ocean of uncertainty.” But, he goes on to say that “perhaps that’s the only honest place to be. No one ever blew up a mosque, church, or abortion clinic after yelling, ‘I could be wrong’” (p. 73).

Frank Schaeffer is still a Christian, but no longer an evangelical. Since 1990 he has been a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.

And Schaeffer is no longer “crazy for God.” In fact, after reading Sex, Mom, and God, I remarked to June, “Franky thinks highly of sex and his mom, but not so highly of God—at least the way God is understood by most conservative Christians.”

His main criticism is of both conservative preachers and politicians who seek to use God, or God-talk, to boost their own finances, prestige, and power. That is an important criticism we need to pay attention to, for there are such preachers and politicians among us now, some looking hungrily toward 2012.

Invitation to those who live in the Kansas City area:

Schaeffer will be speaking at the downtown branch of the Kansas City Public Library at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 27 (Tues.), at an informal luncheon at William Jewell College at noon on Sept. 28 (Wed.), and at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City on Sept. 28, also at 6:30. All three events are open to the public and free of charge, except for $5 for lunch at WJC.