MY LIFE

This report is highly upsetting:  Rachel Maddow Interview with Former Evangelist Frank Schaeffer: Christian Right Is ‘Trolling for Assassins’

The whole article is sickening, of course, because it merely highlights how bad the Christians are becoming.  But this one part is particularly bothersome because it hides a double-message:

Maddow: And then, there‘s this biblical quote making the rounds in anti-Obama circles.  As reported this week in the “Christian Science Monitor,” “Pray for President Obama, Psalm 109, verse eight.”  What‘s psalm 109 version eight?  Well, it reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”  Let his days be few.  It‘s followed immediately by another verse, “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

And don‘t forget, that sentiment is now being merchandised on bumper stickers, on mouse pads, on Teddy Bears on aprons, framed tiles—those are nice.  Keepsake boxes, t-shirts?  “Let his days be few”—cute on a Teddy Bear.

Has anybody else crept [sic] out by this?

Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer, whose father, Francis Schaeffer helped shape the evangelical movement in the United States.  Mr. Shafer grew up in the religious far-right and he‘s the author of “Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don‘t Like Religion (or Atheism).”

Mr. Schaeffer, thanks very much for coming back on the show.

Frank Schaeffer: Thanks for having me on.

Maddow: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office,” “Let his children be fatherless, and 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 the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of biblical language—language from the antiabortion movement, for instance, death panels and this sort of thing.  And what it‘s coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they‘ve already called him, as something foreign to our shores.  We‘re reminded of that.  He‘s born in Kenya—as brown, as black, above all, as not us.  He is Sarah Palin‘s not a real American.

There are many simple-minded Christians who will see such bumper stickers reading “Pray for Obama, Psalm 109:8-9″  and not have a clue what that passage says.   They’ll merely pray for Obama in whatever way they think appropriate, assuming that the Bible reference is a command to pray for our leaders.  (The New Testament does, in fact, have directives to pray for leaders.)

On the other hand, there will be people who will take the time to look up the reference and read:

8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

and will be crazy enough to lift these verses out of context and take it as a suggestion to actually help God accomplish this end — i.e., seek to assasinate President Obama.  They don’t seem to have any qualms about dispatching abortion doctors in support of their misguided beliefs, so they likely wouldn’t see any problem shortening Obama’s days on earth.

How can these right-wing idiots actually believe they are doing the will of God, or even seeking it?   It seems that they are increasing attempting to establish what THEY want God’s will to be and then carry it out.   (This, of course, has been a big problem with Christianity from the start — humans making fiction in their heads and calling it “God’s will” to control others.)