Please, Lord, do not destroy us just because religious people are cranky.
January 5, 2012 8:49 pm

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Newt and the Loony Religious Fringe That Now Runs the Republican Party
December 28, 2011 10:15 pm

Frank Schaeffer

.....Gary North, who apparently channels both Ayn Rand and Attila the Hun when reading his Bible, has seriously argued that in the Sermon on the Mount the commandments about love are "recommendations for the ethical conduct of a captive people."

North says that when Jesus commands us to agree with adversaries quickly, to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, He is really doing nothing more than telling us how to survive captivity at the hands of unbelieving rulers while we -- Jews under the pagan Romans then, American Christians under the wicked U.S. Federal Government now -- are not in power. Once we take over the government and the "unbelieving ruler" is overthrown, then Jesus' ethics no longer applies. Once we take over, according to North, the Christian should no longer go the second mile to love others as he loves himself, let alone turn the other cheek to those who hurt him.

Once Christians are in charge, according to North we, "should either bust him in the chops or haul him before the magistrate, and possibly both." North says, and I quote (no kidding), "It is only in a period of civil impotence that Christians are under the rule to 'resist not evil '." In other words, I suppose the "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" part of the Lord's Prayer no longer applies, once we've got "the power, the glory and the kingdom"--at least until Jesus comes back.

How far would the Reconstructionists go? For North, the death penalty (preferably by stoning people to death) should be part of our law. "The question eventually must be raised," he writes in a book on economics and the Ten Commandments. "Is it a criminal offence to take the name of the Lord in vain? When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime (Exodus. 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death. Clearly, cursing God (blasphemy) is a comparable crime, and is therefore a capital crime (Leviticus. 24:16)." .....

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Scandal in the Age of Obama
October 24, 2011 7:14 pm

Why Washington feeding frenzies aren't what they used to be.

By Jonathan Alter

....Obama's presidency is nearly three years old. It has been nearly four years since the furor over Reverend Jeremiah Wright. During this period, Obama has been reviled by conservatives to a degree matched only by the venom directed at Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Bill Clinton. But the vituperation, distortions, and outright lies have been mostly about policies, alleged policies, conspiracy theories, and ludicrous fantasies.

In all that time-a record span, according to scholars-there has been no major Obama scandal to speak of. Some potential scandals-like Tom Daschle's back taxes-have been nipped in the bud. (Two weeks after the inauguration, Daschle asked that his nomination to be HHS secretary not be sent to the Senate.) Other stories that might have paralyzed earlier administrations just fizzled.

The question is why....

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Wall Street Protests and the Religious Right
October 16, 2011 1:13 pm

Frank Schaeffer: ....The fundamentalist have replaced economic and political justice with a bogus (and hate-driven) "morality" litmus tests of spurious red herring "issues" from abortion to school prayer and gay rights. The result has been that the masses of lower middle class and poor Americans who should be voting for Democrats and thus their own economic interests, have been persuaded to vote against their own class and self interest.

This trick of political sleight of hand has been achieved by this process:

Declare the US Government agents of evil because of the fact that "the government" has allowed legal abortion, gay rights etc.,

Declare that therefore "government is the problem" not the solution,

Now that the government is the source of all evil thus anyone the government wants to regulate is being picked on by satanic forces. The US Government is always the bad guy,

Thus good God-fearing folks will always vote for less government and less regulation because "the government" is evil,

So unregulated corporations, banks and Wall Street are always right and represent "freedom" while government is always wrong and represents "tyranny." .....

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Frank Schaeffer interviewed in Kansas City
September 29, 2011 10:05 pm

Today Frank Schaeffer is back to talk with Steve Kraske about his memoir; Sex, Mom, & God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway. They talk about how the attitudes toward sex expressed in the Good Book made their way through the evangelical faithful into the Republican party to become among the strongest influences in the GOP today.

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