WWSD - What Would Schlafly Do?

Posted by J.D. Dunn on 10.11.2009

Maybe this is the real question we should be asking ourselves.

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book.(Revelations 22:19)

That seems fairly straightforward, especially for the Bible.

Since it's Sunday, I thought it would be a good idea to look at the big religious issue burning up the blogosphere. Be prepared for some sacriliciousness.

For those of you who love Jesus but don't care for those pesky notions of charity, kindness and good will toward men, does Andy Schlafly have a proposal for you. Schlafly, if you didn't know, is the son of Phyllis Schlafly, mother of the Christian Conservative movement and noted anti-feminist. Andrew Schlafly founded Conservapedia, the right's answer to Wikipedia, which Schlafly thought was too liberally biased – perhaps because it's based on the marketplace of ideas… Wait for it. Wait for iiiiiiiiiit.

Schlafly's latest project is called "The Conservative Bible Project" which seeks to edit the Bible to give it a more conservative bent, the way God intended. The translations of the Bible that have existed for nearly 2000 years are too "touchy-feely" for Schlafly, which makes it all the more odd that he decided to translate the New Testament first because the Old Testament God seems far more up Schlafly's alley.

To aid his supporters in this little endeavor, Schlafly has proposed 10 Commandments uh, "guidelines" to keepin' it real:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: Because as Jesus was being staked to the cross, we all know his final thoughts were, "A 39-percent upper marginal tax-rate instead of 36?!!! For My sake, that's socialism!" And though you'd think Jesus, of all people, would be in favor of giving people - especially pregnant women - access to healthcare, apparently he's not.

2. Not Emasculated: Schlafly and his followers are all about the penis, I guess, except in the crucial part of Genesis where, as conservatives so cleverly point out, it does not say "Adam and Steve." That. Is. Hilarious. By the way, it's apparent from his writings (and those of his mom) that Schlafly has some issues with women, mostly stemming from the teachings of Saint Paul. Did you know that women are to submit to their husbands as their church submits to Christ? I wouldn't be surprised if Andy Schlafly also ran a hotel on a deserted stretch of highway in Southern California. You know, just him and his invalid mother upstairs… lot of blondes disappearing near the swamp.

3. Not Dumbed Down: I'm tempted to ask how that doesn't make it "less conservative," but I'll fight my baser instincts and point out that Schlafly's complaint about the New International Bible being written at a 7th-grade level would be well-founded if people were also allowed to question why all the animals in the world lived within walking distance of Moses' house.

4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: I hardly think that "fag" and "wetback" are appropriate substitutions. A cursory evaluation of Schlafly's "list of conservative terms" shows that he's adopted quite a few words for his movement that are in everyday use. A sane person probably wouldn't even consider them conservative in nature. "Bedrock," for example, is a conservative term that means "strong values" and is also the place where Schlafly thinks the real Fred Flintstone lived. Liberals, on the other hand, use words like "comrade," "fellow" and "worker," except for the Blue Dogs who only know words like "ball" and "good,"… and "rape."

5. Combat Harmful Addiction: I'll include Schlafly's own words here. "[C]ombating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots"; using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census." How does using "register" rather than "enroll" for the census combat harmful addiction? And doesn't this conflict with Schlafly's Seventh Guideline (see below). What about derivatives trading? And if one really wanted to stress the importance of combating harmful addictions, wouldn't the reasonable course of action be to create disincentives (like surtaxes) for addictive substances like nicotine or alcohol? Doesn't that conflict with the Seventh Guideline as well?

6. Accept the Logic of Hell: Schlafly does not want people to downplay the "very real" existence of hell or the devil. I'm not so sure about using logic here, though. Sometimes a good "because I said so" works best. Using logic invites the "Problem of Hell" which states that a just God would not A) punish people for the sins of another (we are damned because of Adam's sin, according to evangelicals), B) punish people for an eternity when they could not possibly commit sins worthy of infinite punishment in a finite lifetime. So, by logic, either A) God is unjust, B) Hell is not eternal, or C) God, Hell or both don't even exist. Ample Biblical evidence exists for any of the three. Just ask Er. Of course, we know the devil exists, WE JUST CAN'T FIND HIS DAMNED BIRTH CERTIFICATE! ::storms off::

7. Express Free Market Parables; Wouldn't this mean that we have to get rid of the First Commandment? "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me." That sounds like something that would come out of a Command Economy, not a free-market system. What if another god makes me a better offer? Shouldn't competition determine who the best god really is? It sounds suspiciously like single-payer to me. And what of tithing? Isn't that just collecting taxes for God? Granted, God is a flat-taxer, but still, they're taxes. Don't make me throw tea into the Dead Sea to protest this! Oh, and ancient Israel was an agrarian community with heavy emphasis on the "commune," so if you're looking for a pro-free-market book, this probably isn't it. Try the Torah.

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: Schlafly objects to the story of Jesus protecting the adultress by telling his followers, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone," (John 8:7). Schlafly thinks the moral of the story is too liberal and objects because he's found scholars who think the story was inserted after the Bible was written, and as we all know, you can't re-write the Bible for your own purpo… uh, moving on!

9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: Nothing says open-mindedness like conservatism. Schlafly even has a test to examine whether or not you're open-minded. It goes something like this:

Schlafly: Isn't it possible that Obama is actually Satan reincarnated on Earth and sent to bring about the destruction of the Earth through his evil socialist, baby-killing, pro-environment, anti-capitalist policies?
Normal Person: No. I don't think he is.
Schlafly: So you don't even allow for the possibility that Obama is Lucifer reborn? You can't conceive of a world where the president is the bringer of sin into the world?
Normal Person: No. I may not agree with him on some—
Schlafly: So are you so closed-minded to possibilities that you refuse to entertain even the chance – however remote – that the president is Beelzebub? Are you so arrogant in holding your own view so steadfastly that you exclude all other viewpoints as invalid?
Normal Person: Well… well, no.
Schlafly: So you admit there's a possibility that Obama is the anti-Christ! Thank you. Now you're open-minded.

Don't believe me? Here is the actual list.

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: Words, you see, are a nasty-but-necessary invention of the left. Conservatives were happy with symbols – eagles, flags, swastikas. So revisionists have to use as few words as possible. Does this conflict with 'dumbing down' the language since the way you arrive at that "7th-Grade Level" status is to divide the number of sentences by the number of syllables? Of course not. If it did conflict, it would be an example of 'doublethink,' another one of those conservative terms, which means 'holding two contradictory ideas.' It would be like trying to explain why an omniscient God who can see to the end of time would be surprised and angry that his creation disobeyed Him within a matter of days, or how God never changes His mind yet sent his only Son to save the world from His own wrath. The use of the modifier "very" in "very real existence of hell" back in #6 also does not conflict with the economy of words Schlafly touts here because it's not a choice between "real/not real." There are degrees of distance from reality, just as there are degrees of distance from Kevin Bacon movies, and because Satan is *very* real, we know that he is *very* close to reality (and, as it turns out, very close to Kevin Bacon because Satan was in The Witches of Eastwick as played by Jack Nicholson, and Jack Nicholson was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon!)

To their credit, most Christian organizations, even those with an admitted conservative bent, have balked at the project. And why not? To them, the Bible already is a conservative treatise as written.

Re-writing the Bible is nothing new, though. It's been translated into over 400 languages, and with those translations must come some degree of revision. Thomas Jefferson excised many of the supernatural passages and just used the "Jeffersonian Bible" as a philosophy on life. Ah, those wacky deists. Of course, God probably "took away his part of out of the book of life" or perhaps gave him some sort of plague. Gender-neutralists got in on the re-writing act over a decade ago. Hell, one only needs look up the phrase "Markan Appendage" to know that people have been adding to or subtracting from the Bible since just after they were warned not to.

So what's the big deal? Well, this is the first time that the Bible has specifically been written to advance a political ideology – except, of course, the first time, heh heh. Sure, the Today's New International Version and the New Revised Standard Version were lauded by liberals and feminists for their gender-neutral language, but the original reason for those revisions wasn't to make a political point but to correct gender-specific language from the original translations that may or may not have been intended (Anyone who's taken a foreign language can tell you that gender creates a mess of problems when translated to and from English).

The bigger problem is what this does to Christianity. Schlafly is pushing to excise Christ's final lamentation "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34) because it was a late addendum, was cited by only one apostle, and (most importantly) is too forgiving. Schlafly's argument, which misses the point entirely, is that the executioners knew damned well what they were doing. And there we run into a fundamental problem with Schlafly's re-writes. Schlafly objects, saying that "for they know not what they do" implies that ignorance of the law is an excuse. I think most reasonable people, which Jesus was, would say it's a mitigating factor at least. If I pick up your IPod thinking it's mine, I've stolen it, but I wasn't aware of it. That's a far cry from rifling through your bag and snagging it. Likewise, Jesus' executioners thought he was a blasphemer, not the actual son of God. (Boy, were their faces red.) Therefore, Jesus' plea was more along the lines of, "Hey, Dad, you gotta admit, it does sound far-fetched. Don't take it out on them."

Does anyone else see a problem with erasing Christ's plea because it expresses a call for forgiveness? Like maybe, "What's the point in Christianity then?" For those who believe that Christ died on the cross for their sins as a gift to humanity, and that accepting that gift means acknowledging his sacrifice, then his final plea to God is essential. That's what fulfills the prophecy. He didn't just get killed by a bunch of thugs; he sacrificed himself on our behalf. Jesus was cool like that. Whether or not you believe that Christ literally said that is irrelevant. His *actions* were to give his own life in exchange for mercy on us, and if you erase the words based on the inconvenient premise that it implies liberal mercy, then you're changing the reason for him being on the cross.

If "forgiveness" and "mercy" are liberal traits, then one has to acknowledge that the Bible has some liberal traits as well as conservative ones. Either that, or one has to jettison the major tenet of Christianity itself – that Christ died for our sins and our path to salvation is through Him.

The real dividing line between the liberal and conservative views of the Bible, as I see it, is whether or not you believe Christ's philosophy or identity are most important. That's why the real antithesis of Schlafly's Conservative Online Bible is not the TNIV — which Schalfly seems to hate with a passion heretofore only reserved for vagina — but the Jeffersonian Bible, a tome that focuses solely on the moral teachings of Christ while excluding the miracles.

To me, the greatest conversation on the need and use for religion took place not in the halls of Congress, nor a convention hall, nor even a house of worship. It took place on a Hollywood soundstage between Spencer Tracy and Frederic March as they sat in rocking chairs playing friendly rivals "Henry Drummond" and "Matthew Harrison Brady" (stand-ins for real-life Scopes counterparts Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan) in Inherit the Wind. It's the one scene in the film where Brady isn't portrayed as a cartoon character – although that aspect certainly makes the film more entertaining.

In the scene, both men have just come from a town prayer meeting in which the Reverend Brown (Claude Akins) has just damned his daughter to hell for defending her evolutionist boyfriend. Brady approaches noted-agnostic Drummond as he's sitting on the porch and asks him why Drummond has moved so far away from him (Drummond had campaigned for Brady for president). Drummond smiles: All motion is relative. Maybe it is you who have moved away by standing still.

Brady, undeterred, challenges Drummond by asking, "These are simple people, Henry, poor people. They work hard and they need to believe in something, something beautiful. They're seeking something more perfect than what they have. Why do you want to take it away from them?"

To me, this is the positivity of religion in a nutshell. I'm a rationalist and a pragmatist, but I think there is a kind of Beauty in having something that is "unknowable," something beyond material understanding. But I also understand that there are men like Schlafly who would cynically twist honest belief into political capital.

Drummond sums this up nicely when he responds, "All shine and no substance. All glitter and glamour; you say you're giving the people hope? I say you're *stealing* their hope. As long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry, and hate, I say to hell with it!"