"A Christian Looks
At the Religious Right"
The Religious Right and the John Birch Society
Founded in 1958, by Robert Welch the famous candy maker, the John Birch Society reached its peak in the 1960' s with around 60, 000 members. Make up of the higher echelon of the organization was that of extremely wealthy families with new money.1 Right wing organizations attracted wealthy men with this new money who held a common fear that their sudden rise to financial power and influence would be taken from them by the Left.
The Society, named after Fundamentalists missionary to China John Birch,2 is an extension of the Joseph McCarthy movement. McCarthy' s demise after his questionable tactics and rumor spreading, caused Americans to look with suspicion on rabid Communist fighters in the country. The society thus went underground. Membership is secretive. Their recent magazine does not carry any Society logo or name. Founder Welch ran the organization with a strong dictatorial arm. He published the magazine "American Opinion" that has just changed its name to the "New American". A 1994 version of the magazine claimed that the United Nations was setting up a conspiracy to disarm Americans and overthrow the Constitution.3 Society magazines were handed out at the 1994 Christian Coalition national meeting.
Missionary Birch had strong ties with Fundamentalist Baptist preacher J. Frank Norris.4 Birchers lost membership and influence whenever they claimed that President Eisenhower was a Communist. Birchers' hatred of President Kennedy was notorious. Their death wish ad, similar to Jesse Helm' s statement about President Clinton, raised eyebrows across the nation. President Kennedy read the ad commenting on it' s craziness to his wife the day he was shot in Dallas.5 This famous ad, taken out in a Dallas paper, was another blow to Bircher popularity. Franklin Littell notes that Birchers had placed posters around Dallas with President Kennedy's picture mounted with cross-hairs for a target. Birchers were constantly finding so-called Communists behind every tree. They even believed the P T A was secretly Communist.6 Welch often promoted the idea in his magazines that foreign aid was a secret Communist plot. 7
Alan Westin, in his essay on the John Birch Society, claims the Society "stands between the 'hate' right and the semi-respectable right.8 Birchers have recently been popping up in the public at Religious Right gatherings. Southern Baptist, Tim LaHaye, a Christian lobbyist, is linked to the group. LaHaye is a prime mover in the Religious Right. Joseph Coors was seen handing out JBS literature while he was on the board of regents at the University of Colorado.9 Joe Coors underwrites funding of many right-wing groups. R.J.Rushdoony, founder of Reconstructionism, was a John Birch Society member. Many will recall the racist remarks made by Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission trustee Curtis Caine. Caine praised South African apartheid and called Martin Luther King a fraud. He was nominated to his post by fellow John Birch Society member Reuel May.10 Al Smith is another Bircher placed on the Baptist Joint Committee trustee board by fellow Fundamentalist in the early eighties.11 Eagle Forum, a Religious Right women's organization, has strong ties to Bircher organizations through its leader Phyllis Schlafly.12 Russ Bellant documents the Society connections with the secretive and powerful Council on National Policy.13 The Society's Al Smith would prove to be a thorn in the flesh of the Baptist Joint Committee. His efforts helped lead to the defunding of the BJC by the Southern Baptist Convention. One of the leading Baptist Fundamentalists in Texas is a JBS member from Baylor. I have been told that Baylor has had active chapters of the Society. Teenage chapters of the JBS were spread across the Lone Star state in the sixties.14 Influential families in First Baptist Church in Dallas have strong ties to the organization. This author has picked up John Birch Society magazines from the shelves of Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth. Southern Baptist Fundamentalists leader James Hefley has just published a book about missionary Birch."
JBS members are tied to extremist views believing that "one worlders" are secretly taking over the country. These mentalities can be traced to a book by Dan Smoot, an early organizer. Smoot's book, THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT, claims all of recent history has been manipulated or controlled by a small group of bankers and investors. Smoot linked Republican and Democratic Party platforms in the 1960s with secret Communist ploys. According to Dan, World War I I was even staged by these bankers.15
The National Affairs Briefing, held in Memphis in January 1996, featured a Society booth according to the "Atlanta Constitution". Beverly LaHaye was a featured speaker who hammered home her fear that our nation was being subjected to U.N. supervision.16 This is a common theme in Bircher circles. No doubt Beverly's husband, Tim has helped to indoctrinate her on the subject. In Tim LaHaye's book, THE BATTLE FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, the author has several quotes from John Birch Society leaders and magazine articles.17
Ed McAteer, who has Adrian Rogers as his pastor and is known in Americans United circles as the "Godfather of the Religious Right", is linked to Society circles. One of Ed's board members on his political/religious organization is a JBS member.18
Robert Welch denied anti-Semitic links years ago. The fact of the matter is that groups that monitor Right Wing extremism see dangerous concepts taught in John Birch Society circles. Popular author Eric Hoffer coined the term "religiofication", which he calls the art of turning practical purposes into holy causes.19 Welch has definitely turned religiofication into an art form. This places the Birchers identifying themselves with the Christian faith.
The Public TV documentary "With God on Our Side", tied in the Republican Party in the sixties with the Society. Senator Mark Hatfield claimed that at least 1/3 of the 1964 delegates at the National GOP were Birchers.20 At the Houston Chapter meeting of the Society I attended the Republican link with John Birch Society people was evident. Several State Republican Platform Committee leaders were present. The speaker was from Eagle Forum. She highly recommended the John Birch Society magazine. The Houston chapter leader shared a quote from Pat Buchanan who also endorsed the Bircher magazine. The focus of the meeting was a speech centered around founder Welch's premise that the United States was not a Democracy but a Republic. This was a quote I had received earlier from local Christian Coalition members.
The Society has its own book stores called American Opinion Book services. Their catalogues peddle David Barton's books. Baptist political activist pastor Rick Scarborough uses sources from the Society in his book ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. 21 Scarborough's cross town rival for right-wing activity is Second Baptist Church in Houston. Second's alleged pointman for their political activism is Bill Borden. Bill was at the meeting I attended. He introduced himself to me bragging that he helped write the Nehemiah Project for his church. The Nehemiah Project was the political activity the church engaged in that drew a suit by the Federal Election Commission for being involved in partisan politics. Borden is active in the chapter as well as the State Republican Party.
The John Birch Society is a peculiar blend of patriotism and anti-government sentiment. On the one hand the group portrays the role of a super patriot condemning flag burning and foreign aid.22 On the other hand their paranoid view of a conspiracy and the government has caused critics to claim they are a threat to national security.23 The September 16, 1996, issue of the "New American" said. "Not only was the Gulf war undeclared, unconstitutional, and unwarranted, but there are many indications that it was as phonily fomented as its predecessors."
The "New American" is similar to Billy Hargis' monthly newspaper called "Christian Crusade." One would think they both came from the same source. Hargis, the self-proclaimed father of the Religious Right, is a philosophical bedfellow with the group. Hargis would feel a kinship and the Society's claim that Civil Rights marches in the sixties were set up and controlled by secret One World movements.24
These "insiders", the group claims, are actually behind every election, foreign policy decision and declaration of war in the nation. Members believe America must be warned for these "insiders" want to make slaves out of American citizens. Society writer Edward Griffin does a concise job of summing of their political positions. He writes, "Federal agencies and tax-exempt foundations lavishly fund those organizations which create the appearance of pressure 'from below' and for more government. The beneficiaries of this funding are not grassroots movements; the entire operation is orchestrated 'from above' by the Insiders. These are the agents who constitute a massive conspiracy to defraud the American people of their economic security and personal freedom."25
The society meeting I attended was filled with active church members. Everyone I met was active in a Fundamentalists oriented church. Some of their writings claim that this diabolical world organization created in Europe and now operating through the Council on Foreign Relations has the Christian faith as a primary target. Their end of times theories helps give endnotes to second coming authors who are never short of space at Christian bookstores.
The JBS current web site is www.jbs.org and advocates the pulling out of the U.N. with a huge emphasis on gun ownership. A lifetime membership is $2,000. Youth summer camps are advertised. One is held annually in East Texas. Many Bible verses are quoted as well as the theme that America has divine origins. Understanding their positions helps to comprehend the glue that binds the Religious Right together.
ENDNOTES
1. Daniel Bell Ed., THE RADICAL RIGHT, Doubleday, N.Y., N.Y. 1963, pg. 202.
2. William Pitts ED., TEXAS BAPTIST HISTORY VOL. VII, Baptist Historical Society, Fort Worth,Tx., 1987, pg.3.
3. John McManus, "Becoming the UN's Globocop", THE NEW AMERICAN, Nov. 14, 1994,pg.44.
4. Pitts, pg.
5. "The Assassination", TIME, Nov.1988, pg.4.
6. Bell, pg. 208.
7. Ibid. pg. 205.
8. Ibid. pg. 204.
9. Rus Bellant, THE COORS CONNECTION, Southend Press, Boston, 1988, pg.XIV & 31
10. Neil Rodgers, Ed. "Christian Speech", BAPTIST LAITY JOURNAL Oct. 1988, pg. 4.
11. Steve Fox, " Why Southern Baptist Convention is Upset with Dunn and the BJCPA" SBC TODAY, Jan. 1989, pg. 20.
12. Ibid. pg.40.
13. Bellant, pg. 41.
14. Jerome Tucille, KINGDOM, Jameson Books, Ottawa, Ill. 1984, ( See index on Nelson Bunker Hunt.)
15. Dan Smoot, THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT, Western Islands, Boston, 1962, pgs. 3, 31, 35, 51, 110, 116, 123.
16. Mark Wingfield, "Candidates Seek Blessing of Religious Right"' BAPTIST STANDARD, Jan. 31, 1996, pg. 8.
17. Tim LaHaye, THE BATTLE FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Fleming Revelle Co., Old Tappan, N.J., 1983, pgs. 271-275.
18. Joseph Conn, " Pyramid Scheme", CHURCH AND STATE, March 1996, pg. 8.
19. Eric Hoffer, THE TRUE BELIEVER, Harper & Row, N.Y., N.Y., 1951,pg.15.
20. "With God on Our Side Part 1"' KUHTV, Houston, Tx. 1996.
21. American Opinion Book Services, Winter 1996.
22. James Thornton, "Thrashing Our Sacred Symbols", NEW AMERICAN, Dec. 23, 1996, pg. 31.
23. Richard Abanes, AMERICAN MILITIAS.
24. G. Edward Griffin, "Applying The Pincers Strategy", NEW AMERICAN, Sept.16,1996, pg. 56.
25. Ibid., pg. 58.