Trump’s Evangelicals And AG Barr Launched A Religious War Against America

By Frank Schaeffer | 10 December 2019
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Attorney General William Barr, who is busy trying to muddy the legal waters around the impeachment process against Donald Trump, is a conservative, far-right Roman Catholic Activist. A Roman Catholic first, and an American second. A right-wing ideologue first, and someone who swore to uphold the constitution second. In his moral framework of thinking, it is ok to lie, cheat, steal, and bully on behalf of this philandering adulterer, thrice-married president who gropes women, who has used his power to try to investigate a political opponent through a foreign country, and all the rest of it, because in William Barr’s ideal world, we would be in an autocratic theocracy. An American version of the papacy that would reflect his and conservative white evangelicals’ views of white nationalist power.

William Barr gave a speech at Notre Dame University that was passed over by much of the mainstream media until quite recently, but I knew exactly what was going on, and called him on it at the time. In that speech, he talked about nefarious dark forces of “secular liberals and humanists” who were trying to undermine Judeo-Christian values. This page is ripped directly from the writings of my father, Francis Schaeffer, who in his last book, “A Christian Manifesto,” called for the violent overthrow of the United States government if it did not change its policy on legal abortion.

I would say to a lot of my more secular friends who grew up in more liberal households, you have no idea how serious these folks are, and when you see someone like William Barr doing what he is doing, you have to understand that, for him, this is an issue of religion, not of politics. This is an issue of faith that he is defending, not politics. There is no logic or rationale to what he is doing any more than what the white evangelical leaders, like Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Franklin Graham, and the rest of them bring to the table.

Billy Graham’s daughter and Franklin Graham’s sister, Anne Graham Lotz, even went on the disgraced Jim Bakker’s show and said that she understood why Trump had allowed Russia to take over our base in Northern Syria when Trump pulled out; because it was fulfilling the biblical prophecy to destroy Israel, kill the Jews, and pave the way for Jesus’ return to Earth.

So when you look at William Barr, you have to understand that his agenda is not an American political agenda. It is one of religious wars carried on by other means. It is one of the Crusaders, who attacked and destroyed Constantinople on their way to Jerusalem back in the 12th Century. It is the policy of the neo-fascists in Germany who paved the way for Hitler.

It is out of the Dark Ages, quite literally. Before the Renaissance. Before the Enlightenment. Before the turn to science. This is the world William Barr inhabits in his other brain –not his policy brain– but the one that now informs him.

So when you ask –How can William Barr be doing this and selling out his country? –How can evangelical leaders embrace this man who puts children in cages at the season of nativity, when we think of Jesus with no place to lay his head after he is born in a manger in a stable? It is because it is not a political issue to them. It is a political issue only in the sense that this is now a war of religion against the enlightenment, against science, against fact and evidence, carried on by other means.

It is the same war carried on by evangelicals who do the bidding of the oil companies and the coal companies when they say that there is no such thing as “climate change,” and if there is, it is “certainly not man-made.”

To understand this moment in history, we HAVE to understand that there has been a Civil War launched against the American State by Religious Fanatics who are using a Fool named Donald Trump to achieve their ends.

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen books, including “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God” and “Letter to Lucy: A Manifesto of Creative Redemption—In the Age of Trump, Fascism and Lies”, an Interactive, Multi-Touch Book available exclusively on Apple Books and Kindle Fire. He has been a frequent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show on NBC, has appeared on Oprah, been interviewed by Terri Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air and appeared on the Today Show, BBC News and many other media outlets. He is a much sought after speaker and has lectured at a wide range of venues from Harvard’s Kennedy School to the Hammer Museum/UCLA, Princeton University, Riverside Church Cathedral, DePaul University and the Kansas City Public Library.

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3 COMMENTS

  2. An "evangelist" is one who bears Good News. I have been "accused" of being an evangelical atheist. I am compelled to admit that I am that indeed. I bear the Good News that there is No Evidence to support the Existence of what Dawkins calls "the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Dawkins goes on to list that character's chief personality flaws. He's not making any of it up. Every one of the list can be backed with one or more, usually more, Old Testament texts.

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