Among the Intellectualoids
The New Yorker and Evangelicalism
Is the liberal elite out of touch with evangelical America, or willfully ignorant?
With Republican presidential contenders lining up for a run at the party’s nomination, Francis Schaeffer’s name is once again in the air. In this week’s New Yorker, Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza presents a ten-page exposé on Michele Bachmann, tying her to the man Newsweek religion editor Kenneth Woodward once called “the guru of fundamentalism.” Lizza classes Schaeffer as an “exotic” influence on Bachmann’s religious and political formation and links Schaeffer to Rousas Rushdoony. Rushdoony was the architect of Reconstructionist political theology (also called Dominionism by some). He argued in massive tomes that Old Testament law was normative and should and would someday be installed into American law. As critics never tire of pointing out, this would mean the death penalty for adulterers, homosexuals, and perhaps even incorrigible children.
Lizza uses the alleged connection between Schaeffer and Rushdoony as a way of marginalizing Bachmann and, by implication, other evangelicals of the Right who have been influenced by Schaeffer. In doing so, Lizza only gets some of the details on Schaeffer correct while presenting an overall view of the evangelical pop intellectual that is almost wholly without merit. Ironically, Lizza’s approach is much like Schaeffer’s, who often got the details wrong about, say, Soren Kierkegaard, the Renaissance, or Samuel Rutherford’s alleged influence on the American Revolution, but still presented a big picture that was remarkably helpful for Christians in thinking about the trajectory of western moral and intellectual life.
After a helpful overview of Schaeffer’s first film How Should We Then Live?, Lizza alleges that Schaeffer was a major influence on Dominion theology. A paragraph or so later, Lizza also labels evangelical author and Schaeffer disciple Nancy Pearcey a Dominionist and by implication perhaps Bachmann and anyone else who has ever been influenced by Schaffer.
The truth quite different from Lizza’s macro-indictment of all things evangelical. Schaeffer had a brief flirtation with Rushdoony’s thought in the Sixties, but not with the Reconstructionist/Dominionist vision of Old Testament civil law. Rather, like some other evangelical figures, Schaeffer was enamored with Rushdoony’s analysis of where, when, and how western civilization allegedly abandoned the moral standards of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The link between Schaeffer and Rushdoony was John Whitehead — who was friends with both figures and who practically wrote Schaffer’s immensely influential book A Christian Manifesto. Lizza cites Manifesto as arguing for the overthrow of the U.S. government if Roe v. Wade is not overturned. Schaeffer actually said that once Christians had worked through legal channels then practiced civil disobedience, he wasn’t sure what they should do next. He did not advocate violence, but because he referenced the founding fathers’ resort to revolution after exhausting legal channels in the 1770s, Schaeffer’s son Frank remarked loosely and infamously on his blog years later that his father had called for the overthrow of the government. This is just not the case, but Frank Schaeffer has made a career out of debunking his and his father’s evangelical past. (See, for example, his book 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).
As for Lizza’s alleged link between Schaeffer and Rushdoony, Schaeffer insisted publicly and privately that there should never be a theocracy in America. The moral law of the Old Testament was normative and abiding, but the civil law of the ancient Hebrews had no place under the U.S. Constitution.
As for Whitehead, he too was influenced by Rushdoony’s analysis of the history of western law, but Whitehead never took Rushdoony’s remedies seriously and neither have the vast majority of evangelicals. Having observed the Reconstructionist patriarch doting on his grandchildren, the idea that Rushdoony would actually support the death penalty for incorrigible children struck Whitehead as a bit far-fetched. It was one thing for Rushdoony, like many other utopians of the Right or Left, to theorize about the ideal society off in the future somewhere, but quite another for him to actually support such a thing in the present.
The larger point here is the degree to which a reporter for a reputable and influential national magazine can be so out-of-touch with evangelicalism — one of the two most influential religious movements in America, the other being Roman Catholicism. Calling Schaeffer exotic, and interpreting him through the lens of a figure he fawned over for about ten minutes, is akin to forgetting who Billy Graham is. I am not the only one who has argued that Schaeffer was second only to Graham when it comes to influence on evangelicalism during the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, Lizza’s interpretation of Schaeffer ignores that the “guru of fundamentalism” also influenced a whole generation of young people who became Christian scholars, artists, musicians, teachers, lawyers, business people, moderate evangelical pastors, and even a few activists on the evangelical Left. Citing his influence on Dominionism, then running that influence backward to imply Schaeffer or Nancy Pearcey were Dominionists is akin to arguing that since Ho Chi Minh cited the Declaration of Independence when proclaiming Vietnam’s independence in 1945, Thomas Jefferson must have been a communist.
The Christian Right was indeed one of Schaeffer’s constituencies, and arguably the one that has been most visible, significant, and influential. Still, only a tiny minority of the Christian Right is devoted to Dominionism and an even smaller minority of the wider evangelical subculture. One might have expected in the 1980s that a correspondent for the New Yorker might fail to understand evangelicalism in even a rudimentary way. At that time evangelicals had only recently re-entered conservative politics after a half-century hiatus. We might look back to that time and forgive, or at least snicker at, reporters who thought evangelical activists were like Iran’s Ayatollah. But after more than 30 years of high evangelical visibility, in an era where roughly 30 percent of the American population is evangelical, and that evangelicals for the most part live pretty much like everyone else, one has to ask the New Yorker, “Where have you been?”
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POST American| 8.15.11 @ 6:56AM
-----The Liberal elite 'out of touch'?
How about a conservative Baptist estabishment
that's well over 90% fu blown Freemason?
Likewise the Lutherans and Methodists.
The infitrations of the Cathoic Church for purpose
of degradation, demoralization and 'larger'
social CON-troll is already well known.
Consider also the Hearst set up Bily Graham
who, unmasked earlier by Christopher Hitchens
among others as a fraud ---now openly admits
that insomuch as he's a 'Christian' at all, he's
an Arminian Heretic (--read Freemason).
*NotOnMyBeat*| 8.15.11 @ 8:33AM
" Old Testament law {is} normative and should ... someday be installed into American law!" Holy horrors! Old Testament law is as evil as Sharia law.
And as for Christianity, Christian fundamentlists' fantasy of "forgiveness of sins" is unfortunately matched by an equally extreme admonition—which is that the refusal to accept such a sublime offer may be punishable by eternal damnation.
Not even the Old Testament, which speaks hotly in recommending genocide, slavery, genital mutilation, and other horrors, stoops to mention the torture of the dead. Those who tell this evil story to small children should be condemned by those who shrink from cruelty to children (a moral essential that underlies all cultures).
Christian Fundamentalists are not only to be feared, but to be condemned at every opportunity. They are as extreme as Islamic fundamentalists and just as hateful and intolerant.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 8:41AM
Atheists murdered 100 million people last century and should be thought of as worse than Sharia proponents.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 12:47PM
Baloney. Communism's war was against private property; atheist was a side issue. As for Nazism, the enemy was racial -- most of all, the Jews. Nonbelieving Jews were targeted every bit as ruthlessly as religious Jews. The whole notion of "atheist holocausts" is designed to stigmatize Freethought as one step removed from the Gulag or gas chamber.
Vlady| 8.15.11 @ 1:41PM
The Communists like to kill Jews, too, there genuis. Communism, like Nazism, offered the choice: G-d or Man?
And neither the Communists nor the Nazis chose G-d.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 3:04PM
It is what atheists do not their particular motivation that I was concerned. I was just making a generalization about a group that confidently throws out generalizations about others. If you think that atheism was just some kind of coincidence with respect to Marxism, you are pretty uninformed. Marxists spoke about science and reason a little like Freethoughters. Atheists sure are a sensitive group. You might say they can dish it out but can't take it. What a pansy you are Seek. I like the Freethought expression. It looks so Orwellian.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 3:24PM
Ah, pansy! I like that. If you can't refute the point, question the masculinity. There's nothing Orwellian about thinking freely.
Here's an Orwellian term for you: "school choice." In the context of the last two decades in the U.S., it amounts to advocating the imposition of the costs of religious proselytizing on the taxpaying public.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 4:18PM
The pansy is the symbol chosen by Freethought. Sorry you jumped to any other conclusion. You didn't state anything that was based on reason so how could I refute it? Atheists killed 100 million people and you think that you let them off the hook by talking about their reasoned motivations. They are still science talking atheists that killed unprecedented numbers of innocents.
So it is the government's money that is spent on education and you have the right to indoctrinate my children any way you like. I don't think so sweety.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 6:26PM
Political wisdom is hard to come by. Your posts amply demonstrate as much. If you insist that "atheism" was at the root of Communist and Nazi atrocities, well...go ahead.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 7:17PM
You are a bigoted idiot with a fixation on Blacks. Today you are taking off the gloves against religion. What explains these hatreds? I am really curious.
Atheism is at the heart of Communism, Nazism and many other isms. It is adopted by those that want to throw off the shackles of "Christian morality". I somehow think that is your angle as well.
Doorgunner| 8.15.11 @ 12:57PM
Totalitarian communists murdered that "100 million". Atheism is tool employed to ensure all feasance is toward the state. Nowhere near a majority of atheists in the U.S., not even more than a couple thousand, actively work against others' religious endeavors. Fewer yet organize themselves for any other purpose related to non-belief. It's kind of one of the 'big selling points'.
They do, however, belong to all sorts of other mainstream organizations- say, for instance, the U.S. military wherein they actively fight against things like sharia and totalitarianism.
But make no mistake. Although most U.S. atheists appreciate how religion and belief in a deity imforms the typical participant's value system, they also view their atheism as a rejection of anti-intellectual tribalism as well a simple non-belief. As such, atheists tend to have two societal wants related to their atheism: to not be perpetually prostelyzed to by adherents, and to have political leadership that understands that.
Give me that and I'll keep fighting your wars for you, 'kay?
Doorgunner| 8.15.11 @ 1:16PM
PS
The New Yorker has a tiny circulation aimed at a demographic which smugly fantasizes that Tina Brown would instantly offer up a job writing for Newsweek if only they were to cross paths at the right event.
Let's not give them all the satisfaction of watching us chase our collective tail in irresolvable squabbling.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 3:27PM
Tiny circulation? For The New Yorker, it's a little over 1 million. Circulation for The American Spectator, by contrast, has been hovering between 50,000 and 100,000 these past few years. Who's "out of touch" now?
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 4:32PM
Are the best sellers really always the best books? Numbers mean little when discussing quality although I grant the New Yorker is not a bad, just an elitist, left/liberal statist, magazine.
Doorgunner| 8.15.11 @ 4:33PM
A million subscribers? Huh. Well, affirmations for the bien pensant will always sell. Witness Franzen's sales numbers. As for The Spectator's numbers? Well, they're apparently sufficient to draw you like a retarded moth to a flame... so to speak.
And I don't recall making any assertions about myself or any other commentor being in or out "of touch".
Vlady| 8.15.11 @ 1:44PM
Oh, the atheists don't want to be prostelyzed to... Fair enough. But they do want to be able to trumpet their bilge all over the place and try and act like they aren't religious in nature simply because they say they don't believe in G-d... And they want their beliefs in the public square while they actively try to exclude the beliefs of others.
Doorgunner| 8.15.11 @ 2:09PM
Did you really read what I wrote? That tiny group of jackasses you're referring to do not speak for me; I'm all for a creche on the town square. It' s beautiful and the sentiment it evokes even more so. I have no desire to denounce your beliefs as, on the whole, I believe they lead you to better citizenship.
You're damning the whole based on the actions of a very few; sort of like what The New Yorker is trying to do to evangelicals by painting Bachmann as a zealot as related in the essay above.
Try to be better than that. It's your Christian duty.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 3:23PM
I will accept your truce unless you start comparing me to Muslim Fundamentalists. Then I will have some fun as well. By the way what happened last century was orders of magnitude higher than the usual list of sins against Christianity. The Muslim conquest of India got similar numbers (about half) but over a much greater time. Atheists seemed to be able to really turn it on with respect to killing innocents. Murder is part of the human condition and isn't stopped because somebody is hyping science and reason. In fact there is some evidence that it will be totally unrestrained.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 3:29PM
Those Nazi belt buckles said "Gott Mit Uns" ("May God Be with Us") for a reason. It sure as hell wasn't atheism.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 4:37PM
You get to 100 million with just the commies. The Nazi leadership wasn't very friendly to Christianity. Tradition explains the belt buckles. The SS didn't use them.
"The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science." Hitler
Sounds a little like you.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 6:29PM
Hitler was a Catholic and never renounced his Church membership. That's a matter of historical record. And to the very end, he insisted that he was doing God's work. However perverted his take on Christianity, he was no atheist.
Shill Watch| 8.15.11 @ 7:09PM
You are a dimwit and a bigot. He was hostile to Christianity but used religion politically. There is quite a bit written on this front if you care. He also had racial views much like yours. You are quite the piece of work.
Doorgunner| 8.15.11 @ 4:42PM
And you have that buckle on a gold lame belt right next to the peaked SS cap, the leather bustier, and garter belt and fishnets in your bottom bureau drawer, don't you?
Ryan| 8.15.11 @ 10:07AM
What is God's view of sin? What is its just punishment?
ejp| 8.15.11 @ 11:13AM
It always amuses me to read the bigoted blatherings of whacked out atheists whose knowledge of the Bible is always the same old spoon fed phony characterizations they have picked up from their own bigoted gurus, who are worthy of the kind of critical scrutiny that the hacks for the New Yorker will obviously never bother to give.
The only thing worse than a bigoted atheist though, is a phony "Christian" like Franky Schaeffer who decided long ago that fealty to secular leftism trumped all devotion to Christian orthodoxy.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 1:01PM
Not on mybeat,
OK, so die and be dog-food.
We Christians would prefer you humble yourself before God and live in eternity.
God Himself gave you the choice.
Vlady| 8.15.11 @ 1:39PM
You are an idiot. And not a very intelligent one at that. I am a Jew, and I have nothing to fear from real Christians (Catholic or Protestant).
But me gots lots to "fear" from the Sharia crowd. Course, they have lots to fear from me when they come a callin' with knives and guns and Sharia and such.
ronlsb | 8.15.11 @ 8:54PM
Just curious. Have you written any comments concerning the attempt to have Sharia law instituted as normative in certain parts of the US? Didn't think so. It's only Christ that causes you consternation, not Mohammad. Might that be because Christ calls you to account for your sins and declares there is no forgiveness outside of belief in Him?
Alan Brooks| 8.15.11 @ 8:37PM
They made the mistake of trusting the evangelical Carter.
Not all evangelicals are equal.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 7:15AM
Well, Prof,
We Evangelicals live quite a bit more joyfully than "everyone else".
I noted you teach at Baylor. Sir, you follow some huge boot-prints. I went to Baylor in the late 60s,
and was taught by some giants; Kyle Yates et al.
(I'm enduring a senior moment here. I can't spit out the name of my magnificent Counseling professor. John?)
He exposed me to Victor Frankl. Watershed event in my life and career.
Sandra| 8.15.11 @ 10:00AM
Ken (Old Texican)
I remember your acrimonious and public correspondence with Margie right here on this blog. You were shrill and angry in your accusations that she had somehow cheated you on not selling your books, or something crazy or similar to that. You were attempting to publically humiliate her.
You claim to live "a bit more joyfully," but I seriously doubt it. You're just as mean-spirited as the rest of the so-called "Christians" on this site.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 11:05AM
Sandra,
I'm so sorry for your whole life to be bitterness.
Margie jumped all over me for something and I merely reminded her that I had done nothing but try to help her in her business life...with NO profit potential for me.
Margie has a little trouble with folks that disaggree with her on a given pin-head of scripture.
I personally think she is a lovely lady. I have said so many times here.
I spent five years at Baylor University, (Christianity major in Counseling)
I studied some six translations of the New Testament; six flavors if you will of the "Good News" in three languages.
I merely reminded Margie to not get bogged down in jots and tiddles...(smile)...but she seems to have a crush on King James' translators.
She has the gist of it all though...Love one another and trust in Jesus through the Holy Spirit's guidance.
I can only be a "witness" to what I have personally witnessed. Jesus is Lord.
Margie| 9.6.11 @ 10:58PM
"Margie jumped all over me.."
That is a blatant lie. YOU took to slandering me right here because I DARED to disagree with what YOU said, hypocrite.
I therefore took it upon myself to post your threatening e mail to me, which you couldn't handle.
It is THOU who has a HUGE problem with others that do not agree with THOU.
You did NOT "merely remind me not to get bogged down in jots and tiddles".. you did MUCH more than that~ and you know it.
You slandered me personally, then sent me repeated threatening e mails.
And I do NOT have a crush on KJ translators~ what a liar you are. I quote from the RSV Bible here, and not the KJV. I have quoted from an Interlinear Bible that uses the KJV at times, but rarely.
You have misrepresented my person here, and God sees you, Ken.
You aren't getting away with anything.
C.K. Amos| 8.15.11 @ 9:57PM
Whoa, there, cowgirl!
About Ken (Old Texican), you declared, "You're just as mean-spirited as the rest of the so-called 'Christians' on this site."
I could take offense at that, were I of that bent.
But I don't. Being insulted and offended by the world and non-Christians -- particularly behind the anonymity of blogs -- comes with the territory once anyone declares his/her relationship with Christ Jesus or anything about such relationship.
But I do suggest that, perhaps, the next time you throw uninformed stones at others, in your glass house take a long honest look in your mirror.
And I suggest also that before you use the pejorative "so-called" in describing Christians, you explain how you've been appointed as the arbiter of who is and who is not.
That said, I wish you peace and salvation through the Christ, if you so choose. There's still time.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 10:48AM
Ah Ha!
Senior moment completed! My professor in Counseling at Baylor was Doctor John Davidson.
Heh, I must admit my history professors were locked into names, and dates instead of the flow of history. Please don't waste students' time that way.
Timothy L. Pennell| 8.15.11 @ 7:59AM
I don't get the premise of this story. Isn't this one of those 'Dog bites Man' things? Why would you think that the little darlings at the New Yorker, a place that, most likely, has a Condom Dispenser in the Mens Room, right next to the K-Y Dispenser) would "Understand Evangelicals"?
These Upper West Side FREAKS, think that THEY are normal. That, there's nothing wrong with "hooking up" in the local Highway Rest Area, or Truck Stop, or Airport Bathroom. It's not just for Democrat Governors and Andrew Sullivan, you know.
Lenin, they understand. Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Castro. All of them can be explained. But, JESUS? That's crazy. A guy who preached LOVE and FORGIVENESS, and treating others, the way you, yourself, would like to be treated? That's crazy talk. And, anyone stupid enough to believe such nonsense, has no business being allowed in mixed company.
The same goes for the Jews. It's just not as PROFOUND as it is for Christians, because, most of these guys ARE Jews (albeit, SELF HATING ones) and they never believed in CHRIST, anyway.
So. Like I said, before. What is the purpose of this story? And, what's next? "Empire State Building BLOWN UP. Jay Carney tells reporters that President Obama will return from his Vacation at St. Andrews Golf Club, and after a quick stop in California, for a coupla $50,000 a Plate, FUND RAISERS, he will be right here, on the Job, as usual".
Rodeoamy| 8.15.11 @ 8:51AM
I only look at the cartoons.
Ryan| 8.15.11 @ 8:57AM
Something that amuses me is that there are quite a few on the left who lump practically all evangelicals into the "Dominionist" camp, even though we may come from markedly different theological viewpoints (Arminian or Calvinist).
the permanent newbie| 8.15.11 @ 11:13AM
That's because the "Dominionist" label has become a convenient scare word for secularists who couldn't even tell you the religious differences between the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, let alone between Protestant denominations.
While we're on the subject, both the Dominionists and those who make them a bogeyman have NO idea what they're talking about, because if you want to understand the actual APPLICATION of "Old Testament law," both historical and current, you must: 1) observe the Orthodox Jewish community closely, in its various forms; and 2) study the Talmud thoroughly, especially the Mishnah. Yammering about "Old Testament law" without knowing its orally transmitted traditions is like going on about the physics of the sun's motion around the earth.
Vern Crisler | 8.15.11 @ 9:01PM
newbie, have you actually read anything by Rushdoony? One may disagree with his view that the penalties of the Israelite theocracy are applicable today, but he always stuck to the actual text of the Old Testament, not to "traditions" -- many of which are silly or perverse (cf. Jesus complaint against the Pharisees).
C. S. P. Schofield| 8.15.11 @ 9:41AM
Where has the New Yorker been? Making its collective way around the cocktail party circuit in New York City, where those present discuss their fantasies of what life is like outside the confines of Manhattan. Fantasies that bear about the same relation to reality as the world of Dungeons and Dragons has to Medieval Europe.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 12:48PM
So what New Yorker articles have you read?
Merlin| 8.15.11 @ 9:54AM
Death penalty for incorrigible children? We could call it retroactive abortion and then it becomes a constitutional right. I'd have more to say about this, but I am late for an appointment with my Baptist minister to test my sucide belt.
*NotOnMyBeat* How many moons do you see in your sky?
Vern Crisler | 8.15.11 @ 9:03PM
Rushdoony always explained that this law referred to incorrigible juvenile delinquents, not to children. He had vicious gang members in mind, not smart-alecky children.
Petronius| 8.15.11 @ 9:55AM
Oh. Oh. Oh. the fundies are coming. The fun dies because the fundies are voting. All one has to do is corner the Liberals by asking what they're afraid of. They can't tell you outside of the old, "nobody can tell ME what to do" rant. It's about personal fulfillment. The Liberal is validated through nullification of his enemy's beliefs. Doing unto others is purely egocentric. Any lefty Jesuit calls that "God's work." Does the Almighty give brownie points to clerics who block the gates of Ft. Benning two weekends a year? Is the foremost issue who's side He is on? That's bogus too. To the Liberal, He is ME. So who are the jerkwater fundies to oppose him? How dare any person antithetical to Him even exist? Simple effrontery to Him garners condemnation: To what? The Liberal doesn't care about Hell. That leaves what He believes to be Hell's equivalent; the Midwest. It's no better or worse. There are Liberals and fundies there too.
Seek| 8.15.11 @ 12:49PM
When surrounded by fundamentalists, I don't have to worry about hell. I'm already in it.
Quartermaster| 8.15.11 @ 7:31PM
Wait 'til you see the real hell. You'll wish you were back among the fundamentalists.
C.K. Amos| 8.15.11 @ 10:05PM
I know you think that's funny or pithy or whatever.
But you may not have the last laugh, though.
With your attitude, you may find yourself inhabiting eternal real estate that you could have avoided.
I pray you do, while you still have the time.
Citizen Jerry| 8.15.11 @ 10:15AM
"Is the liberal elite out of touch with evangelical America, or willfully ignorant?"
My vote is willfully ignorant. The rebellious nature of the leftist will not acknowledge a God larger than him or herself. And that's a pretty small god indeed.
Hillel| 8.15.11 @ 10:16AM
The New Yorker doesn't understand Evangelicalism? It doesn't understand Orthodox Judaism,or Roman Cathoicism. The New York Times is another fount of ignorance. They've published articles that were so off base that even their readers corrected them. It's the Pauline Kael effect.
Vern Crisler | 8.15.11 @ 9:04PM
Dittos Hillel....
conservative academic| 8.15.11 @ 10:28AM
Can anyone here explain away the following parts of the New Yorker article?
//At Oral Roberts, Bachmann worked for a professor named John Eidsmoe, who got her intested in the burgeoning homeschool movement ..... After that, Bachmann worked as Eidsmoe's research assitant on his book "Christianity and the Constitution", published in 1987. Eidsmoe has stirred controversy. In 2005, he spoke at the national convention of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a defiantly pro-white, and anti-black, organziation. (Eidsmoe says that he deeply despises racism, but that he will speak "to anyone").//
Futher on:
//While looking over Bachmann's State Senate campaign website,, I stumbled upon a list of book recommendations. The third book on the list, which appeared just after the Declaration of Independence and George Washington's Farwell Address, is a biography of Robert E. Lee by J Stevens Wilkins. ..... African slaves brought to America, he [Wilkins] argues, were essentially lucky: "Africa, like any other pagan country, was permated by the cruelty and barbarism typical of unbelieving cultures." Echoing Eidsmoe, Wilkins also approvingly cites Lee's insistence that abolition could not come until "the sanctifying effects of Christianity" has time " to work in the black race and fit its people for freedom" .... For several years, the book, which Bachmann's campaign declined to discuss with me, was listed on her web site, under the heading "Michele's Must Read List."//
Somebody ought to come up with some kind of explanation soon, or Bachmann is eventually going to be burnt at the stake by the MSM, and the Tea Party and the Republican Party covered with the ashes in the process.
David T| 8.15.11 @ 11:05AM
The explanation is simple: Eidsmoe will speak to any audience, regardless of its makeup, with the hope that his ideas will enlighten some. In the same way, African slaves who came to America had the chance to become Christian, unlike their brothers and sisters who remained in a pagan environment.
The explanation, as I said, is simple, but the MSM, of course, will never buy it. In their view, Bachmann is a closet racist and a bigot.
Vern Crisler | 8.15.11 @ 9:16PM
Eidsmoe is a good guy and I'm happy to learn Michelle worked for him, but he needs to be more discerning about his audiences. Wilkins' book has been roundly criticized, but its point that blacks were better off here as slaves than as free in Africa is a trivial truth. That's one reason most black slaves did not want to be returned to Africa during the pre-Civil war years, even though it meant their freedom. America was their home. Such truths, however, are used by neoconfederates as a way of whitewashing the South so Michelle was right to ditch the book.
These sorts of trivial jabs at Michelle are typical and hardly worth responding to, so she should probably ridicule anyone who brings them up, and direct them to a book on logic, under the section called ad hominem fallacy.
C.K. Amos| 8.15.11 @ 10:06PM
Well put, sir.
Big Leo| 8.15.11 @ 10:32AM
Compare the thoughtful and nuanced analysis of liberal ideas in Christianity Today with the outright fantasy and misinformation in the New Yorker and then ask yourself which group is intellectually sophisticated. My daughter attended both Gordon and Bowdoin and said that classroom fairness to both sides of the political and theological spectrum was widespread at Gordon and unknown at Bowdoin.
Jeremiah| 8.15.11 @ 10:37AM
Doesn't surprise or alarm me. I have read some decently argued arguments for atheism, but none written in the last 100 years. The establishment is completely theologically illiterate and so constantly tosses up straw men to knock down. It's irritating, but the truth is that that same establishment is working with bad intelligence (bit of a pun there - I mean in the sense of information - but both senses work) and the side that confidently works from bad information ultimately loses. It is baffled about its failure, but fail it does.
Kyle Roberts | 8.15.11 @ 11:21AM
"Schaeffer...who often got the details wrong about, say, Soren Kierkegaard..." Well, S didn't just "get the details wrong" about SK. He pretty much laid the blame for the demise of Western Civilization at the feet of Kierkegaard (and Hegel, and 'those Kierkegaardians'), without giving any indication in any of his writings that he actually had read anything by Kierkegaard (or Hegel, or several of the major figures that are central to his 'intellectual' analysis. I just think at some point we need to reckon with the fact that S didn't just miss a few details here and there, but was rather fast and loose with his entire analysis (which has had ongoing detrimental effects on the 'evangelical mind' in our engagement with culture, philosophy, etc.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 2:07PM
This debate has been going on since the foundations of Western Civilization were laid. Sophistry v. Truth. Is there a Truth that men can know or is moral relativism the only condition? The Western world has dealt with this since before Socrates. To the Chrisitan however, there is a known Truth which one defends with life itself. Does the relativist find anything larger than himself or is Truth simply a cultural condition or a simple convienience? The position we take in that debate determines our position on much more beside.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 2:21PM
I should add that for the Christian the central question was posed by Pontius Pilate, "Quid est Veritas?" what is Truth.
W| 8.15.11 @ 8:49PM
As usual, excellent,Al Adab
Vern Crisler | 8.15.11 @ 9:21PM
Interestingly enough, one of those "Dominionist" leaders, philosopher Greg Bahnsen, gave some lectures in philosophy in which he used Schaeffer's book *How Should We Then Live* but he also criticized Schaeffer's views on Hegel.
Wayne | 8.15.11 @ 11:25AM
I think Evangelical is a vague term with different meanings. My understanding is that Bachmann is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It is a synod that is composed of the more moderate synods of the Lutheran Church and not fundamentalist like the Missouri synod. It is far different than any fundamentalist Baptist church.
So I would say Bachmann is more middle of the road Christian. Now these churches to some degree have been taken over by Progressives at the top, but at the level of the congregation and individual church, not so much.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 11:43AM
Evangelical stems from a Greek root meaning "good news". We call the writers of the New Testament books and letters "evangelists" because they spread the good news. It has been turned into a convienient term for more fundamentalist sects within Christianity but is much misused and clearly misunderstood (by design no doubt) to radicalize the adherents of the particular doctrines some, but not all, hold.
Ryan| 8.15.11 @ 1:08PM
I think some of the opposite is actually occurring. The "evangelical left" really stands against evangelizing at all.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 2:00PM
True indeed. Simply calling it a duck doesn't make it one.
C.K. Amos| 8.15.11 @ 10:08PM
"Evangelical left"? Now there's an oxymoron.
RCV| 8.15.11 @ 11:41AM
Ah yes, Mr. Hankins knows Schaeffer so much better than Schaeffer's son, who exposed this crankpot -- Bachmann's inspiration -- for what he was.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 12:49PM
RCV,
If you will simply repent, (180 degree turn), humble yourself before God, and genuinely ask the Holy Spirit for LIFE...you can be born into eternity......instead of dieing into dogfood.
Are you just terminally stupid?
All of your crafty words are essentially the sounds of your death-rattle.
Look, knothead,
If God our Creator can keep every atom in the universe spinning at the right speed, why are you so obtuse?
RCV| 8.15.11 @ 1:11PM
Ken, I've long ago accepted Christ as my Saviour and sure don't need a blustering, violence-prone hack like you to lecture me on religion. Your repeated attempts to claim Christianity for yourself to exclusion of others don't fly with me. Stuff it.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 4:51PM
RCV...
I'm so glad!
I send up another prayer of thanksgiving!
Now we got to get on the same page.
Yes Sir! I'm one of the guys...prone to violence in your terms......that allows you to chickenshit out on bowing to communism.
What happens when your "lawfare" fails to defeat us ?
YOU SEEM TO WANT US TO PLOPP DOWN AND DIE?
i AM ONE OF THE GUYS WHO HAS ALLOWED YOU YOUR FANTSSIES.
sHAME ON ME?
Jeremiah| 8.15.11 @ 1:30PM
Hey Ken, at this moment I am in Waco, home of your old alma mater, Baylor. I am six months into a year and a half pilgrimage walking across the country. It's nice to know that where I am at right now was a formative area for one of my old friends on AmSpec.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.15.11 @ 4:23PM
Aw, man, Jeremiah...................COOL!
Walk in to the "Religion building" and walk into a class...any class. No one will stop you.
Simply sit and learn cool stuff.
Jeremiah| 8.15.11 @ 5:26PM
Beautiful campus, Ken. The rest of southwest Waco looks a bit parched, though. I love walking along the Brazos Rover...expect John Wayne to come striding up next to me. Tried to stop at the Dr. Pepper Museum, but it was closed.
I will check out the religion building. If you want, I post some pictures at Abraham's Journey (the Facebook Page that follows me across the U.S.) in the album labelled Texas Hills. You might even suggest a few spots I have missed. Keep the fiath, pardner - and you and Margie and Dr. Right all get some of the Catholic prayers I pray every day, so I sure hope you'll say a few Protestant prayers for me! I stop at a lot of Catholic and Protestant Churches - spoke at a Methodist Church in Louisiana a month ago - and I'll stop at synagogues, too, when I encounter them. Much as I feel for those Muslims who want to live and let live, I have passed by the Islamic Centers I spotted in Houston and Austin. I might be more tolerant if 'Alahu Akhbar' didn't mean "Duck!" in English.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 9:37PM
Do not forget Jeremiah, that many Arabic speakers are Christian and to them God is most Great.
Your journey must be a fascinating one and I shall follow along on the site. I look forward to hearing more as you go. May He speed your travels and keep you in His care.
Jeremiah| 8.16.11 @ 10:14AM
Thanks, Al Adab. In Louisiana I had some Arab Christians - and some flat out Arab Muslims pray for me and ask for my prayers as I go. I genuinely hurt for those Muslims who came here to escape the brutality of Jihadist tyranny and sharia - only to discover that our left-wing nutjobs define tolerance as empowering the very Jihadists that terrorize both us and fellow Muslims.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 11:46AM
Those on the Left will never understand the Christians of all sects and denominations for The Faith of The Left precludes any deity and focuses instead on idols such as Tolerance, Diversity, Gaia, Choice and others to the exclusion of a moral absolute in any form. Beyond all the rhetoric it is in fact a battle for the 2500 year old traditions of Western Civilization many of which obviously pre-date Christianity which nonetheless is the central tenant of Western Civ itself.
Ted| 8.15.11 @ 1:47PM
The New Yorker doesn't understand religion? This is news?
sotto voce| 8.15.11 @ 3:47PM
In addition to "Where have you been" one could also should ask the New Yorker "Where were you?" I was still reading the magazine in 2007-2008 when Obama was being lauded as America's best hope and can't remember seeing any article therein questioning or examining his long association with Reverend Wright.
Al Adab| 8.15.11 @ 4:38PM
To The New Yorker and the rest of the institutional Left, it is not about qualifications but rather the personal destruction of any viable alternative candidate to the sitting President. Think what a second term, one without the need to maintain any popularity for re-election, might mean by way of policy. Is that erally where we want to go? To The Left, it is a dream come true.
Ann| 8.15.11 @ 4:55PM
There was an article by Rick Hertzberg last year in the New Yorker in which he mentioned he had spoken at a Christian college--I still chuckle when he said how STUNNED he was that the students and faculty were intelligent, engaged and sophisticated. These people live in a total bubble and they are unaware of it. And what do you expect of a publication that earlier this year published a "cartoon" that equated the Catholic Church with the KKK? For a moment, I thought it was 1870, not 2011--though some of comments on AS sometimes lead to the same conclusion. I'm no big fan of relativism, but it's too bad we can't see each other as human beings--at least on the conservative side. I've given up on smug liberals.
Quartermaster| 8.15.11 @ 7:38PM
Communists were and are atheists. The Nazis were German pagans. Gott Mit Uns on the Army belt buckles was a hold over from Wilhelmine times.
Frankie claims to have known his father, but almost everything he has published about his father shows he may have been able to recognize his father's face, but he knew almost nothing about what his father taught.
C.K. Amos| 8.15.11 @ 9:36PM
By definition, audience and location, "The New Yorker" will always be out of touch with Christianity.
But they'll slander and malign Christians, but particularly ones who don't fit the TNY's uninformed view of Christianity.
Like all humanists and moral agnostics, they fear what they don't know when it comes to Christ Jesus and Christianity.
They need prayers for their deliverance from the intellectual and spiritual darkness in which they reside.
Dacron Mather| 8.15.11 @ 9:50PM
Before Dominionists and other glum alums of Oral Hogwarts roll back the renaissance and consign the enlightenment to the scrap heap of ecclesiastic polity, they should recall that the name of Addison's Spectator won't be available for plagiarism next time around
Ned Ferguson| 8.15.11 @ 10:36PM
I'll stack Schaeffer's evangelicalism against Tony Campolo's any day. Just sayin'.
POST American| 8.15.11 @ 11:21PM
--------------------BOTTOM LINE-----------------------
Governments, around the world, slaughtered
well over 200 MILLION people in the name of
'scientific social progress' last century --most
of it in 'peacetime'.
AS history's MOST awesomely genocidal regime
across the Pacific has been 'brought up' by the
American taxpayer, and will soon be our resident
creditor ---ALL scripted, directed and engineered
by the 'benny violent' powers of Global,
largely London based, USURY ----even as
a vast, many decades long program of cultural
takedown finishes off ---our 'churches' cower
and fold and buckle before Rockefeller 'Council
of Churches' bribes, and mass FREEMASONIC
infiltration, and such sinister federal sy grid
innovations as 'Clergy Response'.
--------THIS is--the---PRIME DISGRACE-------
Garnett| 8.16.11 @ 9:20AM
And neither the Communists nor the Nazis chose G-d.
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Sara| 8.16.11 @ 9:21AM
The New Yorker doesn't understand religion? This is news?
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John Lofton | 8.16.11 @ 1:35PM
The assertion that Dr. RJ Rushdoony was a "utopian" is laughably ignorant. He was NOT. He simply believed in God's Law and devoted his life to preaching and teaching it.
John Lofton, Editor, Archive.TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com