Moral Majority and Vote Common Good are not Moral Equivalents

[The following is a "letter to the editor," published (here) by Baptist News Global on Oc. 30 and is posted here as an "extra" blog article because of the significance of the Nov. 6 election.] 

In his opinion article published Oct. 26 on baptistnews.com, Jonathan Frank contends that “today’s Vote Common Good is much like yesterday’s Moral Majority.” Having attended a Vote Common Good “rally” and written a blog article about Vote Common Good, I must say, Sorry, Jonathan, but they’re not the same at all.

Further, having written a book on Christian fundamentalism, I have also spent considerable time seeking to understand the thinking and actions of the late Jerry Falwell, the primary power behind the formation of the Moral Majority. In reviewing Falwell’s activities and pronouncements in 1979 and the years following, again I must declare, Sorry, Jonathan, but the Moral Majority and the Vote Common Good movements are definitely not moral equivalents.

Vote Common Good is focused on one limited goal: flipping the control of Congress in the midterm elections on Nov. 6. This goal is rooted primarily in their strong opposition to the character and policies of President Trump and the almost unanimous support he has received from the Republican-controlled Senate and House.

At the rally I attended, Frank Schaffer declared that he is not trying to make Democrats out of Republicans and he is not saying how people ought to vote in future elections. He is merely emphasizing the critical nature of the current political situation in Washington and the need for there to be some check on the erratic and unchristian statements and policies of the President. That check depends on Congress being “flipped,” and that is what Vote Common Good is seeking to do. It is an ad hoc response to a current crisis in government.

Jonathan asserts that the “clear mission” of Vote Common Good is to “urge Christians to vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.” No, Jonathan, that is not what their declared mission is: it is only to flip Congress – and by that they mean primarily the House of Representatives. The only political candidate mentioned in the Kansas rally I attended was the challenger to Rep. Kevin Yoder in the 3rd District of Kansas.

Jonathan says that Vote Common Good is urging voters to oppose the GOP. Well, yes and no. They are certainly urging voters to oppose the GOP candidates for the House because of the need to have some check on the President. But that is the only GOP opposition that I have heard or read from them.

Jonathan complains the Vote Common Good group is rejecting praiseworthy Representatives such as Kathy McMorris-Rogers of Washington and Ann Wagner of Missouri. Yes, no doubt Rep. McMorris-Rogers and Rep. Wagner have done many good things and are decent people. But they are also quite loyal to President Trump. Consider, for example, their questionable support of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Near the end of his article Jonathan avers that Vote Common Good attempts “to shoehorn faith into the mold of a political party, instead of letting our faith be the mold through which we reach our political decisions.” To the contrary, Vote Common Good speakers such as Schaffer (whom I heard), Tony Campolo, Shane Claiborne, and Brian McLaren are urging people to Vote Common Good because of their Christian faith and their firm commitment to the teachings of Jesus – not because they are Democrats.

These are just some of the reasons for this rebuttal to Jonathan Frank’s article. Today’s Vote Common Good is considerably unlike yesterday’s Moral Majority and it has a message Christians of all stripes need to consider seriously in these days before the midterm elections.

Vote Common Good

Last Sunday afternoon I drove over to a church in Overland Park, Kansas, and attended a meeting of a group touring the country under the name Vote Common Good (VCG). It was a very small, but quite interesting, meeting.

Introduction of VCG

“Evangelical Christians against Trump are trying to 'flip Congress' with bus tour ahead of midterm elections.” That is the title of an October 9 article in Newsweek (see here) that describes the activities of the Vote Common Good (VCG) group. (Their website is here.)

Led primarily by Doug Pagitt, the founding pastor of Solomon’s Porch church in Minneapolis and a prominent emergent church leader, speakers at some of the VCG rallies also include such well known Christian authors as Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren, and Frank Schaeffer.

The latter was at the meeting I attended on October 14, and I enjoyed hearing him and chatting a bit with him again. (My blog articles of 9/25/11 and 8/20/14, see here and here, were mostly about Schaeffer.)  

Between October 2 and today (Oct. 20) VCG has held 17 rallies in ten different states. At least 12 more rallies, mostly in Texas and California, are scheduled between now and the midterm elections.

Appeal of VCG

In what seems to be a self-contradiction, VCG claims to be non-partisan while at the same time strenuously seeking to “flip” the control of Congress by electing Democratic candidates to the U.S. Congress.

As Schaeffer emphasized, they are not trying to make Democrats out of Republicans. Rather, they are just trying to get a Democratic Congress (or at least a Democratic House) to counter what they consider a President who is grossly acting in opposition to central Christian values.

They, most likely, agree with the October 12 Washington Post op-ed article by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.): “How a Democratic House would check this erratic president.” Here is Schiff’s opening sentence:

Our democracy is broken, and President Trump is only one reason. Congress is the other. It has failed to serve as an equal branch of government, failed to play its essential role as a check and balance and, most glaringly, completely abdicated its oversight responsibilities.

Suggestion to VCG

There are some who agree with the activities of VCG but think they are being too overtly political. I share some of those feelings. That is why at the meeting I recommended to them, and to the pastor of the church where we met, that attention be given to the “Reclaiming Jesus” document, which was drafted on Ash Wednesday this year.

That document, which was produced by people such as Walter Brueggemann, Tony Campolo, Richard Rohr, and Jim Wallis, is well worth reading and taken seriously. (Here is the link to it—and, yes, there were also women and people of color who were part of the group that drafted it.)

There are pastors, and others, who wish to stay out of the political fray and who perhaps don’t want to be identified with VCG even though they may personally agree with what they are trying to do.

Use of the Reclaiming Jesus document is one good way to emphasize the values being promoted by VCG without overt political statements or identification. I am pleased with the way my pastor has done that over the past few weeks.

Since I am not an active pastor—or on anyone’s payroll—now, I am happy to identify with the work and the goals of Vote Common Good. Many knowledgeable people are saying that next month’s election is the most important midterm election of our lifetime—and they may well be right.

That is the reason to vote and to Vote Common Good!

An Atheist Who Believes in God

Frank Schaeffer is an interesting guy, and I’m looking forward to hearing him again tonight. He has come to Kansas City to promote his new book, “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty and Find Peace.”

The other time I met Frank was when he was in town promoting a previous book, one with an even more arresting title: “Sex, Mom, and God” (2011).

Frank’s “Mom” was Edith, who died last year at the age of 98. And his father, Edith’s husband, was the widely known conservative/fundamentalist theologian and author Francis Schaeffer (1912-84).

Frank is a complex man. You see that in the title of his new book. Some may even say his thinking is perhaps a bit schizophrenic.  

But rather than being schizoid, he just has a paradoxical view of reality. That is one reason I appreciate his views so much. (One chapter in my as yet unpublished book, “Thirty True Things Every Christian Needs To Know Now,” deals with the significance of paradox.)

Early in his book, Frank avers, “Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure (p. 13). I like this, for I too often feel negative toward religion but positive about faith.

“With the acceptance of paradox,” Frank writes, “came a new and blessed uncertainty that began to heal the mental illness called certainty” (ibid.).

Later on, Frank advises his readers to “flee from exclusionary certainty.” Then he asserts,

There is only one defense against the rising, worldwide, fear-filled fundamentalist tide engulfing all religions (including the intolerant religion of the New Atheists) which once engulfed me: the embrace of paradox and uncertainty as the virtuoso expression of love (p. 90).

Frank seems to be a very honest man. He shares himself, “warts and all,” quite freely. (I do wonder, though, if the title of his new book was chosen more to sell books than to express accurately his real belief about God.)

Frank is not so much an atheist as he is an afundamentalist. That is, he is not a nonbeliever in God. Rather, he is a nonbeliever in the God of his fundamentalist past.

Actually, he is quite a good apologist for Jesus—and for Christianity as it should be: a religion of love and grace.

While his rhetoric is perhaps exaggerated at times (as was that of the One who spoke about camels going through eyes of needles), his is a vibrant spirituality that probably Jesus would have been, and is, delighted with.

“Jesus’ co-suffering love,” according to Frank, “is the best lens through which to reconsider God” (p. 127). A little later he writes, “Our hope is that when we look at God through the eyes of the loving Christ we will see who God really is “ (p. 138).

So it is because of Jesus that Frank is “an atheist who believes in God.” Blessings on him and his highly significant writing and speaking!
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Frank Schaeffer is in Kansas City this week thanks to the efforts of Thinking Friend Charlie Broomfield. Frank will be speaking at the Community Center in North Kansas City this evening from 7:30 and at the beautiful downtown Kansas City Public Library from 6:30 tomorrow (Thurs.) evening. There is no charge for attending either gathering. 

“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.