When You're A White Evangelical, Being Anti-American Will Get You Tea At The White House

The current and grossly continued uproar over Obama’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Wright’s opinions about this country make me wholly appreciate the utter hypocrisy and selective memory of those crusaders on the right and the convenient ignorance of our news media.

Let’s not forget some of those hellfire and brimstone favorites from days past who thought nothing about trashing America and its citizens, all in the name of their God. Yes, I’m talking about Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer and his benevolent cohorts, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell. All of these darlings of the evangelical right, loved and endorsed by the Nixons, the Fords the Reagans and the Bushes, spewed more anti-American hatred than Rev. Wright could ever hope to.

Don’t believe me? Try these gems on for size.

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable.

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union....

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation...

All three of these quotes were taken from Schaeffer’s Christian Manifesto, published in 1980. The man was advocating an overthrow of the United States. Treason. He was calling arms against a government he did not agree with. He was the poster child for ANTI-AMERICANISM. And what about the anti-gay venom spewed from Falwell and Robertson after 9/11, apparently blaming all catastrophes on the sins of other Americans? Yeah, they got barely a blip or slap on the wrist.

So where was the outrage? The condemnation? The uproar? Was Schaeffer ostracized? Indicted? No. He was invited to tea at the White House. Have politicians run from these words of hatred? Or apologized for being associated with these American traitors? No, in fact, when Huckabee was asked to provide a desert island list of books, he chose, apart from the bible, a Schaeffer book that compared America to Nazi Germany.

So who are the traitors? Who has the right to point to one person and shout “Treason!” Apparently, a white man, preferably one standing behind a pulpit, can hate America and Americans and be revered for it. But when a man of any other color tries to offer up his own condemnations, he is labeled a traitor.

This post was inspired by a piece written by Schaeffer's son reminiding the right of its history of hating America.