Righting America

by Paul Braterman

Paul Braterman is Professor Emeritus in Chemistry, University of North Texas, and Honorary Research Fellow (formerly Reader) at the University of Glasgow. His research has involved topics related to the early Earth and the origins of life, and received support from NSF, NASA, Sandia National Labs, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is now interested in sharing scientific ideas with the widest possible audience, and was involved in successful campaigns to persuade both the English and the Scottish Governments to keep creationism out of the science classroom. He blogs at  Primate’s Progress, paulbraterman.wordpress.com.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at 3 Quarks Daily, where Braterman is a regular contributor. You can find the full article here. And we are grateful to the editors for their permission to republish.

Tim LaHaye gives us a bridge between traditional morality, anti-Communism and Reaganism, and present-day Christian Conservatism, with humanism having taken the place of Communism. His claim that evil humanists had successfully conspired to take over the American power structure is echoed in today’s denunciation of the “deep state,” the end-of-the world thinking of his highly successful Left Behind novels underlies much of the religion-linked opposition to action on climate change, and his rejection as satanic of every idea that he regards as unbiblical now surfaces as anti-wokeism, along with opposition to examining America’s racist past and to the teaching of evolution.

Add to this his lamenting a morally superior past, his claim that American exceptionalism is biblical, along with capitalism, and his appeal to moral patriotic Americans (he repeatedly links those adjectives in his writing) to take back the country from the forces of evil, and we have a direct link to the doctrines of evangelical Trumpism. His claims that the US constitution is Bible-based, that the US “was founded on a basic consensus of Christian principles – more so than any nation in history,” and that the division of powers was inspired by a biblical awareness of the fallen nature of man, fall short of more recent assertions that the constitution itself was divinely inspired, but nonetheless point the way to the explicit Christian Nationalism now about to assume power.

LaHaye graduated in 1950 from Bob Jones University, then as now strictly six-day creationist and socially conservative, and at the time strictly segregationist, and proud of it. He later became pastor of Scott Memorial Baptist Church (a.k.a. Shadow Mountain), in the suburbs of San Diego. Here he served for 25 years, developing the church into a megachurch, while embarking with his wife on a broadcasting career, offering family advice from their socially conservative Christian perspective. In the 1960s he committed himself to anti-communism, joining the John Birch Society. He was also powerfully influenced by the philosopher Francis Schaeffer, who regarded faith as absolute, Genesis 1 – 11 as foundational to our knowledge of space and time, and all secular thinking that ignored this foundation as misguided.

In 1970, he helped establish Christian Heritage College (now San Diego Christian College) adjacent to Scott Memorial Baptist Church, with Henry Morris, the most significant figure in 20^th century Young Earth creationism, as Academic Vice President. Morris’ Institute for Creation Research was intimately connected with the College. The College’s Doctrinal Statement is Six Day creationist, and asserts the imminent return of Christ.

LaHaye’s The Battle for the Mind was published in August 1980 at the height of Reagan’s US Presidential campaign. It already contains, fully developed, the doctrines of Christian Conservatism. It takes the doctrine of guilt by association, which McCarthy applied to Communism and extends it to association with humanism. Humanism, in turn, is defined so broadly that LaHaye can apply the term to any doctrine that is not to his liking. Creationist science is the best science, and humanists only reject it, along with belief in God, to justify their own lack of morality. Here LaHaye shows an obsession with abortion and homosexuality, and defends capitalism on (unstated) biblical and moral grounds. He then justifies American exceptionalism by claiming that the separation of powers is inspired by a specifically Christian vision of humanity as fallen, so that institutions and rulers are not to be trusted. This in turn shows that the US was built “on biblical principles and a clear recognition of God.” Thus defending US national interests is doing God’s work. He claims that the US should have won in Korea and Vietnam, but was prevented by the influence of humanists. Disarmament is immoral because it weakens America. It is the duty of the religious to mobilize in order to capture the levers of political power, and in particular the judiciary. Evolution is part of man’s wisdom, as opposed to God’s, directly contradicts the Bible, and destroys the basis for morality. Those who accept it, even if they profess Christianity, are not really religious in their thinking, because they have been influenced by humanist ideas. It is therefore the duty of moral Americans to oppose them, and they must organize accordingly, in order to gain control of the centers of political power, as well as the judiciary and the school boards.

According to LaHaye: 

• The history of humanism can be illustrated by a bookshelf that runs from Aristotle through Paine and Hegel (!) to Bertrand Russell. There is also a favorable mention of Morris’ suggestion that it can be traced back to Nimrod at Babylon. 
• Humanism is the world’s greatest evil: “Humanists have totally rejected God, creation, morality, the fallen state of man, and the free-enterprise system [note the unexplained coupling of this last to religion]. As such they are the mortal enemy of all pro-moral Americans, and the most serious threat to our nation in its entire history. Unless both Christians and non-Christian lovers of virtue stand together as upright citizens, humanists will turn this great land into another Sodom and Gomorrah.”
• True wisdom comes from God. Philosophy is foredoomed if it depends on unaided human thought, rather than God’s biblical revelation. This revelation, which teaches that man was created by a direct act of God, is easy to accept this because of the scientific evidence. The biblical precepts of morality are absolute, and are expressed in the last six Commandments, as well as in the much higher moral code of Christianity. 
• Whatever does not rely on God’s word, but on human judgement, is humanism. Humanist governments have imposed humanist education on the tax-paying public, with no regard to their wishes.
• The Puritan work ethic, free enterprise, private ownership of land, and capitalism” emanate (in some unstated way) from biblical teaching.
• A humanist does not think like a pro-moral American, and humanism has ingeniously conceived the plan to introduce an inordinate number of humanists into government, where they continually pass laws that favor the advancement of humanism and chaos, at the expense of the biblical basis for moral society that produced the liberty, peace, and safety we once enjoyed.
• Evolution is scientifically unsound, but humanists accept it in order to do away with God, hence their advocacy of sexual activity and promiscuity. Their rejection of a personal God who is interested in the affairs of man is itself an “unscientific religious belief,” especially as the evidence for the existence of God is so convincing.
• The feminist movement is led by humanists. 
• The humanistic ideas of psychology lead to permissive child raising, as opposed to the biblical practice of applying correction (he means spanking). 
• Leniency to criminals is another humanist error, based on the mistaken belief that humans are basically good. 
• The evils advocated by politicians under humanist influence include “abortion-on-demand, legalization of homosexual rights, government deficit spending, the size of big government, elimination of capital punishment, national disarmament, increased taxes, women in combat, passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, unnecessary bussing, ad infinitum.”

In a direct echo of what McCarthy said about communists in the State Department, he says that a group of 600 people with influence, including Congressmen and particularly State Department employees since 1940, have been humanists, which explains “our present status of military inferiority to Russia.” 275,000 Humanists control American social organizations such as the ACLU, the National Organization of Women, and the unions. They control TV, radio, newspapers, Hollywood movies, magazines, and porno magazines. They also control (remember that he was writing in 1980, not long after Roe v. Wade) the Supreme Court, state governments, government bureaucrats, public education, colleges and universities, textbooks, and the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie Foundations.

LaHaye warns us against things are many of us would regard as achievements. Among these are the formation of the American Civil Liberties Union (which he links to communism), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Organization of Women, as well as UNESCO, UNICEF, and the UN World Health Organization, which government diplomats often quote “on such issues as population control, birth control, abortion, and so forth.” Through these, “they have used the vast fortune paid by the United States for support of the UN to advance the cause of world humanism.”

LaHaye advocates Christian control of school boards, to prevent the teaching of evolution, which has resulted in “approximately 50 million school-age children . . . growing up in a moral vacuum, misled by educators to think of themselves as amoral primates.”  The other campaign issues that he lists include making sure that no tax money is used to fund abortion, which he repeatedly refers to as murder. There should be stronger laws against homosexuality, and elimination of pornography and prostitution. He is opposed to infanticide and euthanasia, since “only God can exercise the right to decide who has the right to live.” (This despite his support of the death penalty.) Lawmakers should defend parents’ rights (unspecified). There should be no legalization of drugs. And finally, “any and all forms of religious humanism should be vigorously opposed, particularly in government and education.” (Remember: he regards evolution, and all questioning of biblical literalism, as humanist doctrine, and labels humanism a religion.)

In A Minimum Morals Test for all politicians, he suggests candidates be asked 21 questions, beginning with

Do you agree that this country was founded on a belief in God and the moral principles of the Bible? Do you concur that it has been departing from these principles and needs to return to them?

There are also questions on abortion, the legalization of drugs such as marijuana, prostitution, laws that would allow known homosexuals to teach school, and the right of parents to send children to private school, protecting the tax-exempt status of churches and of church-related schools, and, tellingly, whether candidates favor busing to desegregate schools (correct answer: NO), and “capital punishment for capital offences” (correct answer: YES). 

All of this brings us to the Christian Nationalism of the 21^st-century. All we need is a pseudohistory, to parallel creationist pseudoscience. This we have with the work of the highly imaginative author David Barton. Barton’s only qualification is a 1976 BA in Religious Education from Oral Roberts University, which tells us that it seeks “To develop Holy Spirit-empowered leaders through whole-person education to impact the world.” 

His 2012 book, The Jefferson Lies, which maintains that Jefferson and nearly all the founding fathers were believing Christians, had the rare distinction of being officially disowned by its publisher, Thomas Nelson, despite having reached the New York Times Best Sellers List, because of its manifold inaccuracies. It was, however, reissued as a paperback in 2016 by WND, a far-right news and opinion site and publisher better known for promoting various conspiracy theories. In any case, Barton had himself bought 17,000 copies of the Thomas Nelson edition, which continues to be available through third parties. 

Barton is the founder of an organization ironically entitled Wallbuilders, whose main ambition seems to be undermining the wall of separation in the US between Church and State. His prominent followers include Mike Huckabee (now ambassador-designate to Israel), Michele Bachmann, and Mike Johnson, at the time of writing Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Huckabee, while Governor of Arkansas, said that he was not convinced by evolution, and that the theory of creation should be taught alongside. In 2017, he denied that Israel is “occupying” the West Bank, on the grounds that the Bible gives it title to what he describes as “Judaea and Samaria.” Bachmann, like Tim LaHaye, was powerfully influenced by Francis Schaeffer. She also rejects evolution, and thinks that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. We have described Johnson’s views here before. He considers Young Earth creationism the only valid kind of Christianity, believes that the US constitution was divinely inspired, and sees himself as a watchman on the wall (a deliberate echo of the name of Barton’s organization?)

Russell Vought, one of the architects of Project 2025, obtained his first degree from Wheaton College, whose Statement of Faith, to which faculty must recommit annually, specifies “that God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race.” He does not to my knowledge repeat Barton’s specific claims, but nonetheless argues that Christianity is part of the nature of American nationhood. In an unintentionally self-revealing article titled Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?’ , written in response to criticisms, he answers his own question. He begins by justifying the concept of a nation by quoting words attributed to Moses in Deuteronomy, over 2000 years before the modern concept of a nation even existed. He goes on to impose an equally tortured and anachronistic interpretation on Psalms 2:1-2, saying that these verses “recognize the healthiness of a people, including public officials, consciously and publicly positioning themselves for the Lord or under God.” He perversely interprets George Washington’s words, “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself as ordained,” as invoking Heaven rather than morality as fundamental to society, cherrypicks a statement from a 19^th-century Supreme Court judge who described Christianity as necessary to support a civil society, asserts that such views were common at the time, and concludes that it is appropriate to regard America as a Christian nation. In conclusion, he contrasts this attitude with those of its critics, who “have their own agenda: progressive, secular globalism.”

Not surprisingly perhaps, the structure of the argument is identical of the arguments used by creationists from Henry Morris’ The Genesis Flood onwards. An uncritical acceptance of Scripture with no attention to historical context, unstated reinterpretation of that Scripture to further an agenda, selecting and misconstruing quotations, claiming a monopoly of Christian thought for his own wealth-friendly version, and finally and most dangerously, grouping together wildly disparate opinions, to make it seem as if our choice is restricted to two alternative worldviews, only one of which is sanctioned by God.

In conclusion, let me quote his final two sentences in response to critics:

It’s their right, under our system, to have that view and to participate themselves. But let’s not pretend — and I say this with great respect to pastors and writers like Tim Keller [who maintained that evangelical Christianity should not commit to a political party] — that their agenda is about anything other than power.

Vought is direct-designate of the US Government’s Office of Management and Business, where he is expected, according to the Washington Post, to help enable Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations, and to impose his views by staffing the civil service with loyalists.

Power indeed.