The Legacy of the Christian Right & Its Impact on Politics Today
By John W. Whitehead
April 7, 2009
New to Oldspeak: Frank Schaeffer Talks Candidly with John W. Whitehead About
the Legacy of the Christian Right & Its Impact on Politics Today.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- OldSpeak, an online publication of The Rutherford
Institute, hosts a provocative discussion between Frank Schaeffer, the son of Christian
evangelist Francis Schaeffer and author of 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,
and John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
The interview, "Creating a Political Firestorm That Is Still Burning," is a
candid discussion of politics, the current state of our country, and the evolution of the
evangelical movement between two individuals, Schaeffer and Whitehead, whose ideas and
actions have shaped our national dialogue on matters of faith, freedom and politics.
WHITEHEAD: At the end of the day, the Christian involvement in politics produced little
in terms of definable positive results spiritually. For example, forty percent of births
are now out of wedlock. The highest divorce rate is in the Bible belt. A recent survey
found that the states with the highest conservative Christian population were the biggest
Internet porn users. The fastest growing religious group in the United States is atheists,
or non-believers. Fewer and fewer people are going to church. The huge mistake was that a
religion of great validity was identified with a political party. Thus, in the end, the
experiment from the actual spiritual nature of merging politics and religion was a
failure.
SCHAEFFER: You put your finger on it when you said that we identified Christianity with
a political movement to the point where the politics and the religion were confused. When
you now use the term "Christian" to Americans, whether they are evangelicals or
atheists, they immediately think of evangelical American Christianity. The word
"evangelical" became synonymous with Republican. And then it became synonymous
with right-wing Republican. All of a sudden, Christ has the Republican Party, the
evangelicals and their hatred and their failed policies on his back. Thus, who is going to
be looking at Jesus Christ anymore as a religious figure or the Son of God or even as a
prophet? What they are seeing is the Republican Party. And so essentially the cart not
only flipped and drove the horse, the horse disappeared altogether. All that is left is
this stalled cart of Republican right-wing failure.
The interview, "Creating a Political Firestorm That Is Still Burning," is
available at www.rutherford.org.
Frank Schaeffer is a prolific blogger and a New York Times best-selling
author. His most recent books include Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and
the United States Marine Corps (2003) about his son's military service in Iraq. He
also co-authored AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military
Service--and How It Hurts Our Country (2006) and How Free People Move Mountains:
A Male Christian Conservative and a Female Jewish Liberal on a Quest for Common Purpose
and Meaning (2003). His upcoming book is Patience With God: Faith for People Who
Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (2009).
OldSpeak, the online journal of The Rutherford Institute, is dedicated to
publishing interviews, articles and commentary on subjects often overlooked by the
mainstream media in the areas of politics, art, culture, law and religion. The Rutherford
Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to
defending constitutional and human rights.
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