Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. I spent a lot of time deliberating over this episode, and it's not because I had a difficult time coming up with material for it. Quite the contrary. There is so much here that I could have gone with that selecting what to focus on was challenging. Drawing on a large number of works, I could have talked about Christian propaganda surrounding slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, lynchings, and anti integration.

Derek: 00:58

All of those injustices were saturated with a Christian presence and often led by Christians. And those injustices were undergirded by beliefs, which were often instilled through heavy propaganda. I decided against any of these issues for one main reason. They're all well in the past. Now I don't at all mean that they're in the past in terms of their impact on society or that there aren't still racist people.

Derek: 01:25

What I mean is that you're gonna be hard pressed to find a white evangelical who argues for slavery or segregation today. I know they exist, but it's rare in the mainstream. So while it could be helpful to talk about propaganda surrounding integration, and we might touch on that a little bit here, focusing on something like that holds an inherent danger. My white evangelical community would listen smugly about those evil people in the past and think themselves exempt. It would be just like Jesus' interaction with the Pharisees as the Pharisees thought they were so different from their ancestors who stoned the prophets, yet they ended up being all too willing to stone the true prophet, the son of God himself.

Derek: 02:11

If I focused on race issues in the distant past, many white evangelicals would tune out and think that it was inapplicable to them. Therefore, I decided to choose an issue, which, while beginning decades ago, is something which is at the forefront of the church today. As the issue is still in effect today, I want to lay an important foundation before naming the issue and delving into it. In 1969, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote an article entitled, The King's Chapel and the King's Court. The article is one of the first, which I'm aware of at least, by a renowned theologian that identified a shift that had taken place between the church and the state.

Derek: 02:55

Niebuhr had seen what was transpiring over the past two decades in regard to the state and religion, and he prophetically called it out. In his article, Niebuhr warns that the true good prophets in the Bible were ones who were focused on addressing injustice and oppression, which always meant calling out the systems that fostered injustice and oppression, namely systems related to the government and the elite, those who had the power to oppress. These prophets, because of their honesty and willingness to confront, typically did not find themselves residing in the king's chapel or in the king's court. Rather than being court prophets who scratched the king's itching ears, they were wilderness prophets who often had to flee for their lives due to their willingness to speak truth to power. In 1969, Niebuhr finds himself living amidst the turmoil of racial and political upheaval, not to mention being right in the middle of the Cold War.

Derek: 03:53

Niebuhr has seen how political leaders have co opted Christianity to justify segregation and racist policies, and he's seen how the government has sought to co opt Christianity for propagandistic purposes in the Cold War. Niebuhr has seen the advent of presidential prayer breakfast, the addition of under God to the pledge of allegiance, and in God we trust placed on bills and made the national motto. And all of this within just a couple of years. Religion, and specifically Christianity, was being wielded as a political weapon. It was being wielded to differentiate ourselves from those godless communists and to set ourselves up as superior.

Derek: 04:30

And it was being used to maintain laws by declaring that blacks were ontologically inferior to whites because the Bible told me so. What Niebuhr saw in 1969 was that as religious leaders were being invited by the powers to be, they began leaving their prophetic home in the wilderness in order to make their home in the comfort of the king's court. Whereas governments of old had established Erastianism, or the state's supremacy over the church, they had established this by the sword. Well, in Niebuhr's time, they discovered a much better way to control the church. Erastianism now didn't come through the sword, but through charm, making the church the willful mouthpiece of the government, not a coerced one.

Derek: 05:16

Or as we call them today, false prophets. But Niebuhr wasn't the only one to realize this. Even though Billy Graham was one of, who Niebuhr criticized in his 1969 article, we find that a little over a decade later, Graham gave an interview with Parade Magazine, where he identifies something similar, though a little bit softer than than how Niebuhr put it. In the interview, Graham said of Jerry Falwell, quote, I told him to preach the gospel. That's our calling.

Derek: 05:47

I want to preserve the purity of the gospel and the freedom of religion in America. I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. Liberals organized in the sixties and conservatives certainly have a right to organize in the eighties, But it would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalist and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it. It would be unfortunate if people got the impression all evangelists belong to that group.

Derek: 06:15

The majority do not. I don't wish to be identified with them. I'm for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak out with such authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists can't be closely identified with any particular party or person.

Derek: 06:36

We have to stand in the middle to preach to all people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future. End quote. Graham, like Niebuhr, recognized the desire that those who seek power have to manipulate religion.

Derek: 06:54

And he recognized that true morality went beyond a platform morality, which focused on legislation. In fact, later in life, Graham said that he regretted how much he had gotten into politics at some point in his life. But interestingly, this Jerry Falwell guy who was in the King's court and who Graham was telling to just preach the gospel, Jerry had once given a very similar admonition to his congregation in a sermon entitled ministers and marches. It was 03/21/1965, and The United States was embroiled in civil rights battles. In fact, Falwell's sermon, given on March 21, was exactly four weeks after Malcolm x was assassinated and exactly two weeks after Bloody Sunday, and only four days before the Selma to Montgomery march would come to a close.

Derek: 07:43

In fact, in the very first paragraph of the sermon, Falwell references voting rights in Alabama, a seemingly clear acknowledgment of the circumstances under which the sermon was given. In all of this racial turmoil, Falwell's basic admonition for believers was that they should not focus on political change, but should rather focus on preaching the gospel, which would change people from the inside out. Now I'm not at all here to critique Falwell's position in regard to abstention from politics. Neither do I wanna focus on the fact that Falwell did a complete one eighty from 1965 to the time when Graham confronted him about the need to avoid being caught up in politics. I think it's vital that we all have the humility to be able to change our minds where we feel we've been wrong, and we should allow others the leeway to change their minds as well.

Derek: 08:30

However, what I do want to focus on is the why here. A change of one's belief and position is not necessarily a bad thing, but we recognize that it can indeed be indicative of something problematic. So let's talk a little bit about Falwell's change of position from avoiding politics to jumping headlong into them. When we think about why people change their positions about something, there are three general reasons for doing this. First, there might be a change of information, which moves someone to a different belief.

Derek: 09:03

Sometimes this information is new information that's discovered. For instance, when we found out that cigarettes were carcinogenic, many people changed how they viewed cigarettes. At other times, this information may just be something that we ourselves didn't know, but isn't really newly discovered knowledge. A middle schooler learning about health and sanitation may start wearing deodorant once they realize what their aromatic problem is. And, of course, one may also change their minds due to faulty information, faulty calculations, or lies that are believed to be, true and acted upon.

Derek: 09:37

So change of information is important and often an acceptable reason for us changing our minds about an issue. There's another reason we might change our position on something. We may have a change of heart. This change of heart is known as repentance and is to be a central part of a Christian's walk. When God illuminates our sin, we are to turn away from it.

Derek: 09:59

And when we see others turn away from their sin, we ought to rejoice in this and encourage that transformative act. The truth of the issue didn't change, but an individual's moral decision has changed. That's a good thing. So a change of information or a change of heart can cause us to change our positions and beliefs. But there's one final reason we may change, and that is as a result of external motivators.

Derek: 10:24

There may be some external incentive, positive or negative, which motivates us to a change in our position. Now this isn't always a bad thing. While it doesn't change one's heart, it can prevent negative results. It may be a good thing that a child who is incentivized with the reward reads more books than she might have otherwise read. Or it may be good that learning about an alarm system at a house prevents burglars from breaking in, therefore, averting armed conflict with the homeowner.

Derek: 10:52

Not only is property protected, but so is life. Now in both the reading and burgling burglaring situation, the motivation is not intrinsic. The girl who reads more books doesn't have a deeper love for learning, though we hope she does develop that as a result. And the would be robbers still have hearts which are lusting after material goods and seeking to do harm to others. Yet in both situations, we hope that through the action or inaction, which external motivators caused, that a greater good comes about.

Derek: 11:25

We hope that the extrinsic is transferred into intrinsic. Of course, we could also find negative examples of external motivators, like bribes causing injustice or blackmail motivating the actions of an individual or offering money to someone to do a hit on a target. Now there are many cases where external motivators are intended and used to do evil. So external motivators are where an outside influence, like the promise of money, threat of violence, or the building of one's reputation, may cause one to choose an action that they wouldn't otherwise have chosen. With this understanding of what can cause us to change our minds and actions, a change of information, a change of heart, or an external motivator, we can now take a look at Jerry Falwell's position change from 1965 to Graham's assessment sixteen years later in 1981.

Derek: 12:19

What was it that caused Jerry Falwell to change his belief on politics? The Christian narrative that I had heard all my life was that Roe versus Wade and abortion was the issue which consolidated conservative Christians as a political base originally known as the Moral Majority. Abortion was such a huge issue for Christians and always had been because we had always valued life, especially the lives of the most oppressed. That was the Christian thing to do. So in 1973, when abortion was legalized, true Christians just couldn't stand by anymore, and we became one issue voters.

Derek: 12:56

From that point on, true Christians were wed to the Republican party. Now that's a very nice story to believe as a Christian, but it is, unfortunately, pure propaganda. While the Anti Nicene church, view was against abortion, Protestants didn't have a strong connection to the Anti Nicene church. Much of what the Anti Nicene church said about wealth and nonviolence was dismissed. So evangelicals didn't really think that the the anti Nicene church held much clout in a lot of places.

Derek: 13:27

Many evangelicals were divided on the issue, but the issue wasn't at all a central point of discussion or concern. At least, not a one issue voting type of concern. Abortion was largely up to Christian conscience at this point, particularly in regard to rape, incest, fetal deformity, and the mental or physical health of the mother, which is even mentioned in, in SBC's write up of the issue. Many Christians even praised the, Roe v Wade decision afterwards. Falwell himself didn't preach an anti abortion sermon until over five years after Roe v Wade.

Derek: 14:05

Randall Balmer, a lifelong evangelical, recounts an event where he was at in 1990 when he heard Paul Weyrich and James Dobson, one the mastermind of the Moral Majority, and one the former right hand man of Jerry Falwell, he heard them declare that abortion had little, if anything, to do with the origins of the moral majority. Balmer recounts, quote, in the initial session, someone made passing reference to the standard narrative that the Roe v Wade decision of 1973 had served as a catalyst for the religious right. I tuned in. Weirich forcefully disputed that assumption, recounting that ever since Barry Goldwater's run for the presidency in 1964, he'd been trying to enlist evangelicals in conservative pal political causes. But it was the tax exemption for religious schools that finally caught the attention of evangelical leaders.

Derek: 14:57

Abortion, he said, had nothing to do with it. That comment apparently got others thinking. The religious new right did not start because of a concern about abortion, Ed Dobson, formerly Jerry Falwell's lieutenant added. I sat in the nonsmoke filled backroom with the moral majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion being mentioned as reason why we ought to do something. During the ensuing break in the proceedings, I pulled Weyrich aside to be certain that I had heard him correctly, that Roe v Wade did not precipitate the religious right.

Derek: 15:28

He was emphatic. Abortion, he repeated, had nothing whatsoever to do with the rise of the religious right. End quote. So abortion had nothing to do with a push for conservative politics by the masterminds of the moral majority. It wasn't an issue that they were concerned about at all, even several years after the Roe decision.

Derek: 15:50

The abortion issue was long viewed as a Catholic issue among evangelicals, just like birth control is today. The rise of the religious right then doesn't seem to be attributable to a change of information. It's not like there was this new input legalized abortion or the science of what a baby is that was entered into the system, and all of a sudden, everybody was up in arms. Not at all. Abortion was legalized, and many evangelicals praised the decision, while most were relatively indifferent.

Derek: 16:22

Once the position against abortion did materialize, it also doesn't seem to have been a change of heart. There wasn't an acknowledgment of the previous stance as being wrongly held. There wasn't a repentance for indifference all these years. The anti abortion position was simply inherited and fostered the self righteousness of a community who believed that it had always been on God's side. But if a change of information and a change of heart weren't the explanations for Falwell or the evangelical community to change, what was?

Derek: 16:53

There must have been some external motivator. The external motivator came about in the form of a different Supreme Court case known as Green versus Connolly. In that case, tax exempt status was threatened to any institution which practiced racial discrimination. While many religious organizations at this time prided themselves on not taking any money from the government, nearly all religious groups were happy to accept exemption, which in reality is still receiving money from the government. Evangelicals were mostly blindsided by the court's decision, which hit them in their pocketbooks and began to recognize the impact that politics could have on them.

Derek: 17:32

When another group was impacted, the gospel was enough. But when churches were made to pay for their fair share, I mean, as far as taxes are fair anyway, well, churches weren't having any of it. The problem for those like Falwell and others like Bob Jones is that after the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision to desegregate schools, many racist Christian organizations began what became known as segregation academies. These were essentially segregated private schools, which provided schooling for whites who didn't want to attend school with blacks. Falwell himself founded Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967, only two years after he preached against political action against discrimination.

Derek: 18:17

Falwell, Jones, and many, many other institutions faced the threat of a significant loss of money if the IRS followed through with the court's ruling. Now some schools held strong in their discrimination policies, like Bob Jones did all the way up to the year February. Many, however, capitulated, at least on paper, so as not to lose tax exempt status. But I suppose capitulation may not be the most appropriate term, as while schools like Liberty ended up complying with policies on race, Falwell began to thrust himself into the political sphere. Just as the South had fought for states rights in regard to slavery, unless, of course, we're talking about runaway slaves because then states don't have the rights that, you know, of individual states and were mandated to return them at the behest of the South.

Derek: 19:06

But I guess that's an aside. Well, the South was, now again, fighting for states rights to discriminate in schooling, or to get around anti discrimination in schooling by putting segregation academies under the umbrella of religion. The problem was that enough public sentiment had build up built up by this time that a platform wasn't going to succeed if it was run on overt racism and discrimination. It just so happened that at this time, a man named Paul Weirich was ready to capitalize on the fact that there were now a significant number of disgruntled evangelicals claiming their religious rights were now under threat by the government. Who cares if this right was the right to discriminate against other image bearers of God?

Derek: 19:51

Once again, Ballmer writes about this issue. Says, quote, ever since Goldwater's campaign, Weirich had been trying to organize evangelicals politically. Their numbers alone, he reasoned, would constitute a formidable voting block, and he aspired to marshal them behind conservative causes. The new political philosophy must be defined by us in moral terms, packaged in non religious language, and propagated throughout the country by our new coalition, Weirich wrote in spelling out his vision. End quote.

Derek: 20:22

So Weirich recognized that he had a large voting block to work with, and now he just had to figure out how to package this morality to get other evangelicals and Christians on board. As Weirich and others looked around at what was triggering other groups, they saw their opportunity. With Roe being passed relatively recently, and with the smaller but still numerous Catholics already being against abortion, they saw that the abortion issue could end up being a significant unifier of Christians. With the help of Falwell, Dobson, and others, the moral majority was created, and abortion became the one issue requirement for Christian voters. Requirement so important that it could cover over the racist core at the heart of the movement.

Derek: 21:07

Now I do wanna make clear that I think the issue of abortion is a significant moral issue. In fact, I did a whole season on abortion because it's so important, and why I think it takes life and a lot of other issues surrounding that. However, I have a number of issues with the way that evangelicals go about abortion. Evangelicals focus on negative justice rather than positive justice in regard to legislation. We embrace one issue voting, which, through its consequentialist ethic, embraces many immoralities in terms of both policy and the candidates that that, evangelicals accept.

Derek: 21:42

And perhaps worst of all, we use this one very new issue to silence one very old issue that we haven't wanted to deal with for centuries, racism. Abortion gives our group, a group we know, birth the moral majority out of racism. It gives our group the ability to never deal with race issues. There is never a real moment of repentance or embracing of racial reconciliation or policies by evangelicals because we used slight of hand in the nineteen seventies to bypass and shut up race conversations with one magic word, abortion. Now anytime an issue dealing with race is brought up, we say that it's illegitimate and just a political ploy that we have to ignore so that Democrats don't win and kill more babies.

Derek: 22:29

Abortion conveniently perpetuates racism in our ranks by preventing conversations about race. Repentance about our group's racism, past and present, and preventing us from honestly calling out the racist policies or dog whistle politics that we see. We can't call a spade a spade because if we call out our own group for racism, it'll make us lose elections. And think of all the babies that will die without having more Supreme Court justices on the bench. Now don't get me wrong.

Derek: 22:58

I hate that abortions happen, but there's so much more going on under the surface here. I would love to say more about this issue, but, you know, you really need to just go back and check out the the season on abortion if you you want more of what I have to say on that aspect. So anyway, while I detest abortion, seeing all the events that surround the political change in evangelicalism, it's very clear that abortion is being used as a tool of propaganda, which gets us to ignore or excuse other significant justice issues. Alright. So let's wrap this episode up.

Derek: 23:36

I'm almost 40 years old. And from my earliest memories about politics, I knew that we even evangelicals were very patriotic, politically involved, and against abortion. That's how we'd always been. This moral majority, spiritual progeny of the founding fathers and their Christian ideals, which founded our great nation. We were the continuation of their line, and we would march into the future, ensuring freedom for all, even the most depressed and vulnerable class, the unborn.

Derek: 24:07

That's what my all white church led me to believe, and what my almost all white Christian school led me to believe. But history tells us another story, and it's not the one that we've evangelicals want to hear. We aren't the great bastion of hope for the oppressed because we never stopped our oppressing. While we ended up being right about the immorality of abortion, though for the wrong reasons at first, we hijacked that issue to perpetuate America's original sin, as Jim Wallace calls it, the sin of racism. What I've said before, I'll say again, is that the power of propaganda lies in the fact that it either makes atrocities possible, or it makes them unbelievable.

Derek: 24:52

Propaganda either causes people to so demonize another group that they're willing to slaughter them, dehumanize them, or it elevates one's own group so much that no one could believe the evils that are being done by that group. Now while abortion is a moral issue, it's elevation as the moral issue, which eclipses all our racism, past and present, and an issue we self righteously mythologize as one that we've always stood behind. It causes us to think that our group is the vessel of God holding back the fire of damnation that he'd surely bring upon our wicked nation, should we not, like Abraham with Sodom, be interceding and intervening on its behalf. Our propaganda and mythologization of this issue not only makes evangelicals obnoxiously self righteous, but it makes us lack the introspection required to deal with our own wicked hearts and our own sin. And in fact, it even keeps us from taking the first step in the step of salvation, repentance.

Derek: 25:55

So long as we fail to grapple with our past and our present, we will, at least in some ways, continue to be a false prophet to the world. But such is the lot of those who have chosen not to be fed by the manna in the wilderness, but rather to be fed by the victuals of the king, where we reside and seek power in his court. That's all for now. So peace. And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.

Derek: 26:43

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