Insider: "The Christian Right is Aiming to Destroy All Things Public"

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




De Capo Press / By Frank Schaeffer

Insider: "The Christian Right is Aiming to Destroy All Things Public"
The Right has pushed for the state to hand over its public duties to private companies, including military operations, prisons, health care, public transport, and all the rest.

May 13, 2011 |


The following is an excerpt from Frank Schaeffer's new book, 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 (Da Capo Press, 2011). Raised in Switzerland in l'Abri, a utopian community and spiritual school his evangelical parents founded, Schaeffer was restless and aware even at a young age that "my life was being defined by my parent's choices." Still, he took to "the family business" well, following his dad as he became one of the "best-known evangelical leaders in the U.S." on whirlwind speaking tours. While rubbing shoulders with Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, Schaeffer witnessed the birth of the Christian anti-abortion movement, and became an evangelical writer, speaker and star in his own right.

****

Ironically, at the very same time as Evangelicals like Dad and I were thrusting ourselves into bare-knuckle politics in the 1970s and 80s, we were also retreating to what amounted to virtual walled compounds. In other words we lashed out at “godless America” and demanded political change—say, the reintroduction of prayer into public schools—and yet also urged our followers to pull their own children out of the public schools and homeschool them. The rejection of public schools by Evangelical Protestants was a harbinger of virtual civil war carried on by other means. Protestants had once been the public schools’ most ardent defenders.

For instance, in the 1840s when Roman Catholics asked for tax relief for their private schools, Protestants said no and stood against anything they thought might undermine the public schools that they believed were the backbone of moral virtue, community spirit, and egalitarian good citizenship.

The Evangelical’s abandonment of the country they called home (while simultaneously demanding change in that society) went far beyond alternative schools or homeschooling. In the 1970s and 1980s thousands of Christian bookstores opened, countless new Evangelical radio programs flourished, and new TV stations went on the air. Even a “Christian Yellow Pages” (a guide to Evangelical tradesmen) was published advertising “Christcentered plumbers,” accountants, and the like who “honor Jesus.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/belief/150936/insider%3A_%22the_christian_right_is_aiming_to_destroy_all_things_public%22/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. K&R

[jberryhill]

2. The objective is to destroy any community life which is not a funnel to them

Bottom line - congregations are shrinking and if you can't sell your own product, then you want to eliminate alternatives.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. I don't know what happened to the Catholic church.

[Demeter]

4. They Are Domestic Terrorists and AdvocateTreason

and stupid, but we knew that.

[ann1e]

5. I would like if...

...the leaders of the Christian right were put in a cell for 1 week with the leaders of China's Communist Party. They just might come up with the perfect balance between privatization and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

[LeftishBrit]

14. They're bad enough separately...

Actually I have a friend who was brought up in Mao-era China, and she spontaneously stated that she found a lot in common between the ways in which Mao used Communist ideology to keep himself in power and manipulate people, and Bush used Christian ideology to keep himself in power and manipulate people.

[madamesilverspurs]

6. The Christian Right is neither. n/t

[roxiejules]

7. Love this quote:

"Hang out with the Schaeffer clan for a bit and discover why the religious right is mired in perpetual sexual dysfunction and weirdness that creates a self-loathing culture ready to lash out at the rest of us. And when they lash out, they do it all in the name of Jesus. Go figure."

- Powell's Books


http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780306819285-0?&PID=32513

[Citizen Worker]

8. Yesterday I walked into our local branch library. The building is three years old and modern in

appearance but in tune with the local architecture. As one of the librarians was assisting me I looked around at the signage outside the building and nowhere was the noun, public, in evidence. I mentioned this to the librarian as she looked up from her computer and she responded with a look of amazement. She hadn't noticed but offered that of course it is a public facility. We all know that it is a public library but the public perception of what constitutes public space is changing and this is not good.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. Having spent my early years in the company of ultra-conservative

religious zealots - my tiny rural home town had a majority of such - from all so-called mainstream Christian religions, I can confirm that this is a trend I've personally seen since the 1950s, when I first really became aware of what was happening. Given the power and political and financial influence of the fringe evangelicals who have come to the fore since then (even the ultra-conservatives of my youth considered the fringe evangelicals loonies at the time) and after barely living through the eras of Raygun and the "President that God Spoke To," I am amazed that US public service in any form has lasted as long as it has.

But I am unsure how much longer US public service WILL last at all.

I am sorry to offend those who are sincerely religious who truly live out the basic principles of loving one another and are capable of making the distinction between Church and State. But we do not need religions to love one another or to treat others in the way we ourselves would wish to be treated. Those are basic tenets of any civilized society. One's relationship (or lack of one) with a Higher Power should be a private one. IMO, a pox on ALL religions - unless they remain in the private, not public, sphere!

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Excellent article. Has anybody read the complete book yet?

[jwirr]

11. Correction: The christian right is letting themselves be used by the

corporations and the rich to destroy all things public. I for one think they are so stupid as to believe that God wants them to set up the world for his takeover and the corporations are using that belief for their own goals.

[Stuart G]

12. kick nt

[blackspade]

13. Good stuff.

Christofacists want to have their cake and eat it too.