Red, White and Liberal

by Alan Colmes

  Some of our founders were deists, not Christians. Deism rejects revealed scripture but does acknowledge a God that created the universe and then left the rest up to us. Deist James Madison declared, "Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." Madison also had this to say about Christianity: "During almost fifteen centuries had the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

  In his book Washington and Religion, Paul F. Boiler Jr. quotes a minister and contemporary of our first president who asserted, "while Washington was very deferential to religion and its ceremonies, like nearly all the founders of the Republic, he was not a Christian, but a Deist."

  Ethan Allen, the champion of Vermont statehood and the man who led the battle at Fort Ticonderoga, the Revolutionary War's first colonial victory, proclaimed, "That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words." He said he was "denominated a Deist. . . being conscious that I am no Christian." During his wedding to Fanny Buchanan, he stopped the service when he was asked if his marriage would be "agreeable to the laws of God," refusing to answer until the judge allowed that the God here was the God of nature and the laws were those "written in the great book of nature."

  Benjamin Franklin, also considered a Deist, mentioned Jesus of Nazareth in a letter to his friend, Yale president Ezra Stiles, by saying, "I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth." Franklin may well have soon found out the truth, for he died a month later.

  Why is it so important for some Americans to insist this is a Christian nation? Are they so insecure in their beliefs that they need government sanction for their faith? They decry the lack of religious imagery around us, as though our country would be better served if there were crosses, pictures of Jesus, and plaques of the Ten Commandments everywhere we turn. Everyone should believe what they believe, and think like they think, but don't insist that I believe what you believe or think like you think in order to justify your own beliefs.

  The Real Chosen People

  Defending the view that God put Bush 43 in the White House and Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, a number of conservatives sent me this passage from the New King James Version of the Bible, Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority, except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God."

  There you have it. Our authorities are appointed by God. I've asked many who e-mailed me this passage if this means we should stay home from the polls on Election Day, but I have yet to receive a satisfactory reply. Perhaps each election is good versus evil, and Satan guides the hands of Democrats while God guides the hands of Republicans.

  From: Michelle W.

  Sent: Tuesday, November 12,2002 9:37 PM

  To: colmes

  Subject: did God use -call Politicians

  On your show tonight... you asked if God chooses people in the political world—you bet He does. How do you think George Bush became President???

  All of us Christians prayed for someone who was morally good and loved God and we got him.We still pray for him everyday, and you just wait and see if God doesn't win. George Bush is going to be one of His best disciples.

  Michelle WND

  Some true believers hold the notion that George W. Bush was chosen to be president by God. This view was enhanced after September 11, 2001, when many sensed that Bush 43 exhibited a sense of mission that seemed fervent and religious in nature. On the July 11, 2002, Hannity & Colmes I asked Dr. James Dobson, the highly respected head of "Focus on the Family" who has a huge following among Christian conservatives, if he believes George W. Bush was chosen by God.

  COLMES: Do you think God chose George W. Bush to be president?

  DOBSON: Well, I think an awful lot of people were praying about that last election, not that God is a Republican, but I think that he does influence the affairs of men, especially when people are asking him for guidance, and so—I don't really know. We'd have to ask him directly, but I suspect that maybe he did.

  So I did eventually get a yes on how Bush ascended to the presidency, but the good doctor was a bit more hesitant to give God credit for our previous president:

  COLMES: Let me ask you then—if that's the case, did God then choose Bill Clinton at one time to be president? I mean, is that how it works?

  DOBSON: You know, you have to talk to God about that, which might be a good idea, you know.

  COLMES: We communicate regularly, Dr. Dobson.

  Ironically, for those who believe in the marriage of evangelical Christianity and Republicanism, our first modern-day evangelical in the White House was a Democrat—-Jimmy Carter. He is a devout Southern Baptist, taught Sunday school while president, and read die Bible daily. He is a Christian of unquestionable faith who continues to pray daily. Speaking to Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air program in 2002, Carter shared his practice, "I never prayed for popularity, never prayed to be re-elected, things of that kind. I prayed that I could keep my nation at peace; I prayed that I could extend the advantages of peace to other people; say between Egypt and Israel at Camp David. When the hostage crisis came along, the prayer that I made was that all the hostages would come back home safe and free, that I would not betray the principles of my nation or do anything to embarrass it. And I think in all those cases my prayers were answered."

  While Jimmy Carter walked the walk, it was Ronald Reagan who was embraced by conservative religious activists, even though Reagan was less openly religious. Yet Carter is denounced by many on the religious right for being one of our worst presidents, ever, and an anti-God liberal. In fact, when Carter was a Georgia state senator, he proposed an amendment to remove a paragraph in the state Constitution stating that all citizens have "the natural and inalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience." Carter preferred that Georgia's Constitution have the same wording as our U.S. Bill of Rights, which states, "No law shall be passed respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." His political opponents seized on this to describe him as an "ultra-liberal who had once worked to delete the word 'God' from the Georgia Constitution."

  I wonder if those who believe that Bush is God's choice can bring themselves to the view that if God guides hands as they pull levers in voting booths, he doesn't guide them only toward "Row A." On April 12, 2002, Tom DeLay, then house whip, spoke at the First Baptist Church of Pearland, Texas, and said that God was using him to promote "a biblical worldview" in American politics and that Bill Clinton had to be impeached because he had "the wrong world-view." I have no quarrel with Congressman DeLay's belief that his prominence came at the hands of God, as long as he will acknowledge that it cuts both ways.

  James Dobson, like Tom DeLay and Bush 43, believes that God chose him for a special kind of ministry. While I disagree with Dr. Dobson politically, I don't doubt his dedication and sincerity. Dobson really wants government to reflect his religious and moral views. On February 7, 1998, he threatened to bolt the Republican Party if it didn't give higher priority to conservative social issues, saying he'd take his flock with him: "If I go, I will do everything I can to take as many people with me as possible," And its a considerable flock, given that his radio listenership is estimated at 200 million listeners in 98 countries.

  I enjoyed telling Dr. Dobson, on our November 22, 2002, broadcast, that I'm where I am, too, because of God's will:

  DOBSON: But I think there is free will. I think that's what happened in the Garden of Eden, where God allowed . . .

  HANNITY: Like Alan chooses to be a liberal. I mean, he chooses that path.

  COLMES
: God has made me a liberal.

  DOBSON: That's kind of hard to understand, but you know I love him anyway.

  COLMES: God has made me who I am and I'm proud of it.

  The Blame Game

  I don't believe Jesus played the blame game, but that can't be said of many of Jesus' most visible disciples. Even though conservatives love to tag liberals as the "Blame America First Crowd," I heartily reject that designation. Two days after the September 11 attacks, it was Reverend Jerry Falwell on Reverend Pat Robertson's 100 Club who implicated liberals for God's decision to remove the aura of protection over America. Falwell blamed "the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gay and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way

  —all of them who have tried to secularize America." Who's pointing fingers here? Read on: "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen,' " Falwell said. The "Moral Majority" founder went on to say that these Americans "make God mad." Here was a self-proclaimed religious American blaming his fellow Americans for allowing September 11 to happen. At the same time, liberals who asked that we not only fight terrorism, but look within for the causes of hatred, were accused of not putting the blame where it belonged—on foreign-bred terrorists. We were branded "the Blame America first" crowd. See if you can grasp those concepts at the same time without your head exploding.

  Now, let me get this straight: if we had prayer in schools and the Ten Commandments adorning federal walls, bin Laden would have said, "I can't fly into buildings in that country. Their children say prayers on public property and their federal building walls display what Moses handed to God on Mount Sinai!"

  To his credit, when asked by Geraldo Rivera if that was the "real" Jerry Falwell who spoke on the 100 Club, the reverend replied, "I want to tell you that I regret those comments ... I wrongly blamed others, misrepresented my own beliefs."

  Muslims, both foreign and domestic, became easy prey after September 11. Reverend Franklin Graham, the harder-edged son of Reverend Billy Graham, called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion" in an interview with former Charlotte television reporter Bruce Bowers that was sold to NBC. Trying to clarify his comments, Graham wrote in the Wall Street Journal on December 3, 2001, "I do not believe Muslims are evil people because of their faith. I personally have many Muslim friends. But I decry the evil that has been done in the name of Islam, or any other faith—including Christianity. Graham then went on to say, "The persecution or elimination of non-Muslims has been a cornerstone of Islamic conquests and rule for centuries." He condemns "the ultimate goal of an Islamic world." But many Christians have the ultimate goal of a Christian world, with Graham as one of the leading proponents of this view.

  Franklin Graham appeared on the February 19, 2002, edition of Hannity & Colmes, and I asked him about his controversial comments:

  COLMES: You believe Islam then is an evil religion, and—do they—that's what you're saying. Do they worship the same God as the Judeo-Christian God? Is it a different God?

  GRAHAM: No, it's a different God. The God that we worship is a god that has—that's a father, and he has a son, and his name is Jesus Christ, who came to this earth to die for the sins of mankind. And of course, in Islam, their God is not a father. He—it does not have a son, and, of course, if you said that he has a son, that's blasphemous to a Muslim . . .

  Again, on August 5, 2002, the issue of Islam as evil came up with Reverend Graham:

  COLMES: But is the religion itself evil, in fact?

  GRAHAM: Well, you tell me. I mean, just what you see. When people go up and blow themselves up and the religious leaders of this religion say nothing, something's wrong here. And two plus two doesn't add up.

  It's amazing to me that this religious scion, dedicated to carrying on the works of his father, said the things he did after September 11. He placed himself squarely in the center of the "Blame America First" crowd.

  I was raised to believe that we each have our own way, that we are all struggling to find the right spiritual path, and that it doesn't matter which path you use to get there. And I have no vested interest in increasing the traffic on my particular path; in fact, I rather enjoy an uncrowded one. Graham, however, prefers the divide and conquer technique: "The God of Islam is not the same God. . . . It's a different God and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion."

  Funny how these good, caring, compassionate souls, while they're busy demonizing Mohammed, never bring up those little periods of Christian history known as the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Thirty Years War. Just a slight omission, I'm sure.

  Former television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart's response to September 11 was to call for expelling all Muslims with visas, and Reverend Pat Robertson referred to Islamic anti-Semites as "worse than the Nazis." Swaggart, like Falwell, later said he regretted his comment and Robertson said he should have said "some Muslims."

  But Robertson hasn't backed off comments he made in his 2002 book Bring It On. He was clearly implicating those who favor a woman's right to choose when he wrote, "It is logical to assume that any nation that has willingly slaughtered more than forty million innocent unborn babies, as we have done in the United States, would be subject to the wrath of God. Indeed, any nation that has embraced sodomy, adultery, fornication, and all manner of debauchery as we in America have done should live in terror not from Islamic fanatics, but terror at what Almighty God will do when His patience is exhausted. At minimum, God is no longer bound to protect such a nation from its enemies."

  So, God is off the hook, but he's really, really pissed. Maybe if everyone were faithful to his and her spouse, restricted sexual activity to the missionary position, and did so only within the confines of marriage, September 11 would have been just another sunny day on the East Coast. Maybe, but I doubt it.

  On his 100 Club broadcast of February 21, 2002, Robertson didn't exactly call the Welcome Wagon lady to greet new Muslims to the neighborhood. "The fact is that our immigration policies are now so skewed to the Middle East and away from Europe that we have introduced these people into our midst and undoubtedly there are terrorist cells all over them." He went on to accuse some Muslims of not wanting to live here peacefully, saying, "they want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then if need be, destroy." Can you imagine anyone talking so publicly about an American religion in that manner?

  Pat Robertson's appearances on Hannity & Colmes have been provocative, to say the least. I must say, that in spite of our differences, I've thoroughly enjoyed the many back-and-forths I've had with him. We've argued often and vociferously. On September 18, 2002, he referred to Mohammed as "a wild-eyed fanatic, a robber and brigand." The conversation then turned to politics, and I asked Robertson to explain a statement he'd made previously on Hannity & Colmes when he said, "Liberals always lie":

  COLMES: What—Pat, what would Jesus say about that kind of a comment. Liberals always lie?

  HANNITY: Amen.

  COLMES: Jesus has spoken. Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus has spoken.

  HANNITY: He'd say "Amen."

  COLMES: He's come back! He's sitting next to me! We have just seen the second coming. Go ahead.

  ROBERTSON: You know, Jesus spoke to the Pharisees. He called them whitewashed tombs. And he said you know, you always speak a falsehood. So he talked about the devil being a liar and the father of lies. So he said some pretty rough words as well.

  COLMES: All right. Is that—do you want to interpret that as antiliberal bigotry? You make a blanket statement: liberals lie. That's not a Christian-like thing to say.

  ROBERTSON: Well, it's not Christian, but it's true.

  Some of the staunchest supporters of Israel reside on the Christian right, but not for reasons that would warm the heart of Jews. Many evangelical Christians believe that the second coming of Christ can occur only after the temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt. And they believe that on the last day, Jews will suddenly fi
nd Jesus and be saved. I don't think that's quite what Israelis fighting for survival have in mind.

  I addressed this with Reverend Robertson on the April 10, 2002, Hannity & Colmes:

  COLMES: I know you are a very strong supporter of Israel and the Jews. You have historically been very supportive of Israel's right to exist and its biblical prophesy. But these are people who do not accept Jesus Christ.

  ROBERTSON: The Bible says that Israel is going to be converted in a single day. There is going to be an event that is going to bring them to the point where they say, "Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord." . . . And we've seen many many Jewish people who are responding and becoming so-called messianic Jews.

  COLMES: So the Jews who accept Jesus will be okay.

  ROBERTSON: Well, I think the whole nation, in the not-too-distant future, is going to recognize their messiah.

  John Ashcroft, that paragon of Christian love, gave us all a theology lesson, courtesy of an interview with my Fox News colleague and friend Cal Thomas, during which he said, "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you." Ashcroft may have just read Franklin Graham's book, The Name, in which a similar statement appears. Although Cal Thomas had packed up his tape recorder by the time this comment was made, the quote was read back to the attorney general before he left the interview, and the words stood. And when the words were made public, Thomas, a man of impeccable virtue and journalistic ethics, was accused of misquoting the attorney general. Now, wait a minute: which administration said it would be the most ethical one, ever?