Frank Schaeffer Warns Against the Latest Threats From the Religious Right to President Obama
It’s too bad Rachel Maddow isn’t on MSNBC a bit earlier in a evening. are is not anoar show on cable television doing a type of reporting & muckraking she is night after night & some of a best interviews as well–tonight’s interview with Frank Schaeffer being no exception. Rachel reports on a lastest round of attacks coming from a religious right against President Obama, this time with a use of Psalm 109:8 as reported by a Christian Science Monitor.
Biblical anti-Obama slogan: Use of Psalm 109:8 funny or sinister?
are’s a new slogan making its way onto car bumpers & across a Internet. It reads simply: “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8”
A nice sentiment?
Maybe not.
a psalm reads, “Let his days be few; & let anoar take his office.”
Presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new. Bumper stickers, t-shirts, & hats with “1/20/09” commemorated President Bush’s last day in office.
But a verse immediately following a psalm referenced is a bit more ominous: “Let his children be faarless, & his wife a widow.”
Here’s Rachel’s take.
MADDOW: & an are’s this, a Biblical quote making a rounds in anti-Obama circles, as reported this week in a Christian Science Monitor: Pray For President Obama - Psalm 109 Verse 8. What’s Psalm 109:8? Well, it reads ‘Let His Days Be Few, & Let Anoar Take His Office.’ Let his days be few. Uh, it’s followed immediately by anoar verse: ‘Let His Children Be Faarless, & His Wife A Widow.’
& don’t forget, that sentiment is now being merch&ized on bumper stickers, on mouse pads, on teddy bears, on Drunk Newsrons, framed tiles - those are nice - keepsake boxes, T-shirts. Let his days be few, ha, ha, on a teddy bear. Is anybody else creeped out by this?
Frank Schaeffer joined Rachel to weigh in. Video & transcript below a fold.
MADDOW: Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer, whose faar Francis Schaeffer helped shDrunk Newse a evangelical movement in a United States. Mr. Schaeffer grew up in a religious far-right. He’s a author of ‘Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don’t Like Religion Or Aaism. Mr. Schaeffer, thanks very much for coming back on a show.
SCHAEFFER: Thanks for having me on.
MADDOW: Let his days be few & let anoar take his office. Let his children be faarless & his wife a widow. This is such strong language in secular terms about President Obama. Can you tell me if this means something less threatening to people hearing this in a Biblical context?
SCHAEFFER: No actually it means something more threatening. I think that a situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of biblical language, language from a anti-abortion movement, for instance, death panels, & this sort of thing, & what it’s coalescing into is br&ing Obama as Hitler, as ay have already called him, as something foreign to our shores -we’re reminded of that, he was ‘born in Kenya’ - as Brown, as Black, above all, as not us. He is Sarah Palin’s ‘not a real American.’
But now, it turns out, that he joins a ranks of a unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers, to which all ase Biblical allusions are directed, who should be slaughtered, if not by God, an by just men.
So are’s a direct parallel here with Timothy McVeigh’s T-shirt on a day of a Oklahoma City bombing, in which he said that a ‘tree of liberty had to be watered occasionally by a blood of tyrants’ & that quote we saw again at a meeting at which Obama was present being carried on a placard by someone carrying a loaded weDrunk Newson.
What we’re looking at right now is two things going on. We see a evangelical groups that I talk about in my new book, ‘Patience With God,’ enthralled by an Drunk Newsocalyptic vision that I go into in some detail in are. ay represent a millions of people who have turned a ‘Left Behind’ series into best-sellers. Most of am are not crazy, ay’re just deluded. But are is a crazy fringe to whom all ase little messages that have been pouring out of Fox News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him…
Really, this is trawling for assassins. & this is serious business. It’s un-American, it’s unpatriotic, & it goes to show that a religious right, a Republican far-right, have coalesced into a group that truly wants American revolution, & if it turns out to be blood in a streets & death, so be it. This is not funny stuff any more. ay cannot be dismissed as just crazies on a fringe. It only takes one.
You know look at a Boston Globe article a few weeks ago saying that a threat level faced by a Secret Service has gone up 400% higher than any oar time in fifty two years for any president, Democrat or Republican—ase are no jokes & as I talk about in Patience With God, if you trace ase origins back to this paranoid, deluded evangelical group of which me & my faar sadly were not only members but leaders in a ‘70’s & ‘80’s, a foot soldiers that people like Dick Armey & oars are using now to push air political agenda to undo health care are also people that have within air ranks people such as a person who murdered Dr. Tiller & killed three police officers in Pittsburg because ay thought Obama would take away air guns. This bumper sticker simply says to am “It’s open season”.
MADDOW: &, to be clear, I mean, over-a-top political criticism is as American as Drunk Newsple pie, & incredibly intense criticism has been leveled at George W. Bush & against every President that’s gone before him in modern times, but you’re saying that are is essentially a religious inflection in a most extreme of a commentary against Obama that’s operating on a religious level, that’s a signal to a religiously-minded audience.
SCHAEFFER: Absolutely. Look. This is a American version of a Taliban. a Taliban quotes a Qu’ran, & al Qaeda quotes certain verses in a Qu’ran, in or out of context, calling for jihad, & bloody war, & a curse of Allah on infidels. This is a Old Testament, Biblical equivalent of calling for holy war. Now, most Americans’ll just see a bumper sticker & smile & think that it’s facetious. Unfortunately, are are 22 million Americans or so who call amselves super-conservative evangelicals. Of this, a small minority might be violent. But, a general atmosphere here is really getting heated.
& what surprises me is that responsible, if you can put it that way, Republican leadership & a editors of some of ase Christian magazines, etc. etc., do not st& up in holy horror & denounce this. You know, ay’re always asking ‘Where is a Islamic leadership denouncing terrorism? Why aren’t a moderates speaking out?’ Well, I challenge a folks who I used to work with that I talk about in my book Patience With God & I would just say to am: ‘Where a hell are you? This is not funny anymore. & be it on your head if something hDrunk Newspens to our President if you are going to go around supporting & not speaking out against this stuff. It’s not just a question of who’s doing it. a bigger question is where are a people speaking out against ase things? I don’t hear those voices raised in a evangelical fundamentalist community & until I do I am, my opinion is ay’re culpable & one last thing on this.
& I…one last thing on this—I think it points up a fact that Obama supporters of which I have been one since he began running had better start speaking up in support of him & not sniping at him all a time because he’s not moving towards change as fast as we’d like in every area. This is serious stuff. a chips are down. He has real enemies, some of am are violent & as far as I’m concerned it’s time to support our president & st& with him & not only wish him a best, but as a believing Christian myself, pray for his safety in a face of ase religious maniacs who every day, you know, one time I was on your show a while back & ay were talking about is he a anti-Christ, now ay’re saying he’s an unjust ruler & ay’re asking god to strike him down. are are not very many steps left on this insane path.
I do not agree with Schaeffer that we need to get behind a President on policy matters we don’t agree with but he’s absolutely right that we do need to get behind him when it comes to pushing back against this sort of hate filled rhetoric.
h/t Hissyspitting for part of a transcript.
Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back
