Former "evangelical" Frank Schaeffer supporting Obama

For many on the Christian Right, Frank Schaeffer is a traitor. Frank is the son of the late well-known, radical Christian evangelist, Francis Schaeffer. For years, Frank followed in his father's footsteps, schmoozing with all the big-name extremist poohbahs like Dobson, Falwell and others, helping, in fact, to create the monstrous Christian right movement we know today. Back in 2000, Frank voted for John McCain. McCain endorsed one of Frank's books.

Then Frank saw the light. You can read all about it in his new book, Crazy for God.

Frank was interviewed recently by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Frank spoke of an op-ed piece he wrote for the Baltimore Sun in which he took John McCain to task for "feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate."

Schaeffer reminded McCain that he has a choice: "Go down in history as a decent senator and a honorable man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

"John McCain," he wrote, "you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out 'Terrorist' or 'Kill him,' history will hold you responsible for all that follows."

Schaeffer's concluding statement warned, "John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations. ...

"We will hold you responsible."


Further into the interview Schaeffer spoke of Sarah Palin. This is information that should be fed daily to the American people:

"...speaking of the secessionists in Alaska, the evangelical right-wing subculture in this country, particularly the Assemblies of God, by the way, that Sarah Palin comes from, have really ceded from our union, in the sense of the fact that have have, you know, between home schooling and their own schools, their own publishing, their own radio, their own TV, many times very fundamentally anti-American, waiting for the Apocalypse, waiting for Jesus to take everybody away in the Rapture, weirdly Christian Zionist and at the same time assuming that the Jews will all be killed in Armageddon, when Jesus comes back, as part of their Rapture enterprise."

He goes on: "And the dangerous thing about Sarah Palin is, is that there's a very direct line from her to the kind of extremism that would literally destroy this country. ...

"So, basically, I think what this election is about and what my book is certainly about is, besides the politics, besides whether we have Barack Obama or John McCain as our president, is also another kind of choice, and this is, are we going to give the right-wing evangelical/fundamentalist wing nuts of all stripes, of the Sarah Palin types, a voice in literally destroying this democracy?"


Methinks Mr. Schaeffer got it right. The choice is between a man of principle, education, erudition and morality; a man who not only loves his country but believes in a future built upon the fundamentals that have made our country great, or a man so demented he chose to include on his ticket a woman who believes in the necessity of turning the United States into a theocratic state built upon the insanity of fundamentalistic Christianity in order to hasten the return of Jesus and the fantasy of the Rapture.


You can read the entire interview here.