"A Christian Looks
At the Religious Right"
Jefferson's Wall
The late goateed and somber Francis Schaeffer is the philosophical seed bed for the current Religious Right. Researchers in the 1996 PBS documentary "With God on our Side", found him in the archives of Religious Right folklore. Schaeffer's intellectual monologue graced the pulpits of right wing activist churches across the nation. At the National Christian Coalition rally I attended, Schaeffer's positions on church and state were exhumed for clarification on the purpose of the church.
I am not sure the Coalition breakout session had Francis nailed down on his positions but their theory on his theology is an often promoted concept in the Religious Right. Their position on Schaeffer was that the European intellectual believed the church occupied no neutral ground. The government and the church existed in a sphere much like two male pit bulldogs in a ring. One was going to eventually dominate the other. They could not coexist as equals or neutral parties. The world was thus one great vacuum in which if Christians vacated the civic powers then satanic forces would fill up the void.
Religious author Walter Capps has an interesting observation about Francis Schaeffer:
It is a serious charge to make, but it is apparent that Schaeffer has fashioned a version of the Gnostic attitude, has offered it as authentic Christian teaching, and has employed the force of its intrinsic dualism to bring judgment against contemporary American society as well as Western culture. One can find compelling evidence, in contemporary American life, that judgment and criticism are appropriate. But the effective prophets within the biblical tradition did more than cast judgment: they also offered a redemptive proposal, to assist those who lay under judgment to find some compelling way out. In the Schaeffer version, redemption is to be found in some idealized and supernatural alternative to the human situation as human beings know and experience it.
Walter Capps THE NEW RELIGIOUS RIGHT pg. 88.
Schaeffer's dualism is the role model selected by Religious Right activists. Its philosophical roots spurned the growth of the Theocracy tree. This model of the evil world, i.e. government versus the church, is the dualistic model. (Again this might be what is being promoted about Schaeffer and not really his concepts.) We all know how that Frued's followers took him to mean things about human sexuality that were not his theories. In a case like this the supposed truth becomes more powerful than the idea promoted in the first place.
As Jerry Falwell put it, we are no longer peeping in through the window of civil powers, we are now at the table. The pit bulldog model is apparently adequate. Behind some Religious Right fear of government is an apocalyptic suspicion that persecution looms on the horizon for believers inflicted by a world government. This helps account for the black helicopters stories circulated on the Religious Right circuit.
The Schaeffer version of church and state allows for no separation of powers. That concept would only aid the enemy in their attempt to take control and persecute the church. As Rushdoony, the father of Reconstructionism says, Christians are supposed to take dominion of the earth. Dominionists have spread like wildfire among the movement though most Religious Right agencies deny they are Reconstructionists. The truth is that Reconstructionist are on the boards of have been at the Christian coalition, Moral Majority and Focus on the Family. TV evangelist James Kennedy, an enemy of the concept of separation of church and state, uses Dominionists language in his sermons. The local Republican Party candidate for U.S. Congress ran on the slogan "Restore America" which is a part of the language of Reconstructionism. He probably got the slogan from his neighbor who took over the Harris County Republican Party marching on the "Restore America" billing. Herein lies an interesting point. As Christians we have looked with suspicion at government programs at times wondering if they are harmful to society. Many Religious Right figures like Pat Robertson promote a basic fear Christians ought to have toward their government. Some in the militia movement claim they joined the group after watching Robertson. The point is this - does the government need to be frightened of the church.? .(Specifically the Religious Right Church.) In Acts, Roman authorities are continually mentioned as wanting to question the early church about where it was headed. Paul and followers seek to console the government into understanding this movement is not a resurgence movement attempting to take over the state. Schaeffer's followers would have a hard time doing this. The Baptist Joint Committee quotes scholars like Laurence H. Tribe who comments on the idea of a wall of separation between the church and state.
Religious Right advocates deny the idea of a wall for the most part. Those who acknowledge the idea of a wall claim it was only meant to keep the state out of the church's affairs. It was not meant to keep the church out of state affairs. This is interesting to note the comment that Tribe makes about Jefferson's comments about a wall
of separation. Tribe claims the idea of the wall was more concerned with keeping the powers of state church out of the state's affairs. Thus early founding fathers feared the menace of a state church seeking to impose its power much in the way it had in England.
If Tribe is right the founding fathers feared what many fear today ... a misguided church seeking to take over the state. Schaeffer's concept of two powers not being able to exist side by side is refuted by Jesus in His comments about Caesar. Caesar's things are not God's things and we can render unto both of them. Jesus described a state and church separated. He allowed for neutral ground. Francis Shaeffer's disciples do not.