"A Christian Looks
At the Religious Right"
The Hate Right
The Reverend Fred Phelps has reached national notoriety because of his vocal opposition to homosexuals that has taken on peculiar expressions. Phelp's church members picket funerals of deceased homosexuals holding posters that say; "Fags are reprobates". You can call up Phelp's church on the internet under the call letters, "wwwgodhatesfags." Fred says that "you can't believe the Bible without believing that God hates people."(1) Reverend W.N. Otwell likes to also encourage his church to take trips to picket. He sent a group to Waco's Calvary Baptist church to protest the church's calling of a woman pastor. Otwell, who once picketed the city of Nacogdoches for replacing Confederate flags on the police department logo, said the Waco church had committed a crime against God.(2)
Women Pastors seem to touch off a volatile response from many fundamentalists. CHALCEDON REPORT, a magazine published by Reconstructionists, is a case in point. Reconstructionist represent some of the farthest right in the movement. An article in Chalcedon dealing primarily with the view that a 6-day literal creation was the only viable Biblical position is a case in point. Men who happened to hold different viewpoints were described as follows: "Whether he is a self-serving SOB out to line his own pockets, or only an idealistic fool, he is still a traitor." The article stated that seminaries and colleges that employed people who tolerated women pastors and teaching other than a 6-day literal creation needed to deal with the matter. They needed to "fire the wimps, equip the gimps and expose the blackguards."(3)
Kingdom Identity Ministries, out of Harrison Arkansas aptly represents the racialists section of the Religious Right. The group markets a booklet on Jews that is covered with a picture of a male Jewish figure head on the body of a snake. Their doctrine prescribes that Jews today actually originated from a serpent's copulation with Eve. They say they are the true Jews and adherents of Abraham's promises. Jews, like blacks come from another species. Dr. Wesley Swift, a one time Alabama Methodist minister who reformed to the movement, sells a book through the group about Noah's flood. Swift was influenced by the rabid anti semite Gerald Smith. Swift has a following among the hard right and has been known to influence David Duke. Swift writes that there were other races in the world who were not on Noah's ark. These races survived the flood and are still around today.(4) This theory means that not all of the races on earth are descendants of the same parents. These theologies help promote, the racial hatred of the group.
Racist viewpoints are a part of the program at Bob Jones University in South Carolina. The school adheres to the viewpoint that Blacks suffer from the curse of Ham and will never equal the prominence of whites. Graduates serve in Jerry Falwell's college as professors. At a chapel service during the seventies the speaker commented on Betty Ford's visit to a clinic to deal with her alcoholism. The speaker from the platform called her a "Slut".(5) The hateful propaganda coming from these circles has caused concern in the Christian community. Though most of these groups are on the fringe their influence is growing. It is an influence most mainline Christians find alien to the ministry of Jesus found in the pages of the New Testament.
Endnotes
Jim Henderson, "Preaching Hate", HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 1998, pg. 45.
Allan Turner, "Waco Baptist Church to Have Senior Pastor Despite Protests", HOUSTON CHRONICLE, June 9, 1998, pg. 15A.
Brian Abshize, "Wimps, Gimps and Blackguards", CHALCEDONREPORT, Sept. 1998, pg. 10.
Wesley A. Smith, WERE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THE EARTH DROWNED IN FLOOD?" Kingdom Identity Ministries, Harrison, Arkansas.
Walter Capps, THE NEW RELIGIOUS RIGHT, Univ. of S.C. Press, Columbia, S.C., 1990, pg. 98.