{"id":563,"date":"2009-08-14T12:20:03","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T12:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/08\/note-to-ed-schutlz-it-is-the-a.html"},"modified":"2009-08-14T12:20:03","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T12:20:03","slug":"note-to-ed-schutlz-it-is-the-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/08\/note-to-ed-schutlz-it-is-the-a.html","title":{"rendered":"Note to Ed Schultz: It is the Apocalypse, Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Ed Schultz posed a question on both his radio
\nprogram and his MSNBC show:\u00a0 <\/span>Where
\nis the religious community on health care?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ed, a Christian who admits he is not a regular churchgoer,
\nsees the issue in pretty simple terms.\u00a0
\n<\/span>Jesus healed the sick.\u00a0 <\/span>For
\nfree.\u00a0 <\/span>Period.\u00a0 <\/span>Why aren’t churches out on the front
\nlines arguing for a compassionate government that will care for the infirm,
\nill, and dying?\u00a0 <\/span>After all, don’t
\nthese same people understand that America is somehow a Christian nation?<\/p>\n

Hey, Ed, I’m a fan.\u00a0
\n<\/span>And since I was driving to the beach, I listened to you for two hours
\nget more and more heated–and take some pretty heated calls–on the issue.\u00a0 <\/span>I was with you, buddy.\u00a0 <\/span>But I think you missed a thing or
\ntwo.\u00a0 <\/span>Let me help you get the religion story straight.<\/p>\n

First, many mainline and liberal churches are on the front
\nlines with this issue.\u00a0 <\/span>For
\nexample, the Episcopal Church’s policy office issued an alert<\/a>\u00a0to Episcopalians to contact their members of Congress and has tried to answer
\nquestions regarding the current legislation.\u00a0 <\/span>And they aren’t the only ones.\u00a0 <\/span>Most American mainline denominations have policy offices
\nworking on this issue (and some have for quite a number of years now, around
\nSCHIP and other health concerns).\u00a0 <\/span>In
\naddition to denominational efforts, on August 10, cooperating groups across a
\ntheological spectrum kicked off “40 Days of Health Care Reform<\/a>” campaign to rally faith communities to support new health care policies.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>There are lots of Christians–mainstream, mainline, moderate,
\nliberal, emergent, and progressive ones–who care about healing as a social and
\nspiritual issue.<\/p>\n

Second, and I say this quite ruefully to you, Ed:\u00a0 <\/span>mainstream religion is of little
\ninterest to most of the media.\u00a0 <\/span>Ed,
\nwhile you may be quite supportive of the Episcopal Church or the 40 Days
\nCampaign, you really wanted to know where James Dobson, Joel Osteen, Rick
\nWarren, and Franklin Graham stood on health care.\u00a0 <\/span>Ed, you wanted to know about the leaders of the conservative
\nevangelical community–the big TV preachers and religious right political types.<\/p>\n

I can tell you where they are.\u00a0 <\/span>They are hiding.\u00a0
\n<\/span>Some people think that evangelical opposition to abortion is keeping
\nthem away from the health care bill (the abortion issue is a factor worrying
\nsome Roman Catholics).\u00a0 <\/span>But I think
\nthat many conservative evangelicals are using abortion as a way to duck
\naddressing the issue.\u00a0 <\/span>In
\nWashington, religious leaders know that abortion is pretty much off the table
\nin regards to the health care bill.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The Hyde Amendment will keep the government from paying for abortion (as
\nlong as the Hyde Amendment remains in force) and private insurance companies
\nwill–or will not–pay for abortion as their policies dictate.\u00a0 <\/span>As you rightly pointed out, Ed,
\nabortion stays status quo in the current discussion.<\/p>\n

The real thing keeping these leaders from speaking out is
\nthat large segments of their audiences suspect that President Obama is the
\nAntichrist<\/a>,
\nthe long-predicted evil political leader who will usher in a universal
\nsocialist state, complete with a false religion that will doom untold millions
\nto eternal damnation with “666” stamped on our foreheads.\u00a0 <\/span>“Becoming Russia” is code language for
\nthese fears–whether overtly or intuitively understood.<\/p>\n

In other words, Ed, this isn’t a health care debate<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>This is the Apocalypse.<\/p>\n

The most chilling aspect of the apocalyptic fever gripping
\nthe Bible Belt right now?\u00a0 <\/span>I can’t
\nthink of a time when American fundamentalists believed that the Antichrist was
\nthe President of the United States.\u00a0
\n<\/span>Typically, fundamentalists have identified the Antichrist as someone
\noutside the United States–Hitler, Stalin, Gorbachev, or Saddam Hussein to name
\na few recent candidates.\u00a0 <\/span>A few
\nfundamentalists thought Bill Clinton might be the Antichrist, but he was more
\noften seen as the “forerunner” the real bad guy, a kind of wicked John the
\nBaptist-type preparing the way for the big apocalyptic show.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And for whatever perverse reason,
\nBarack Obama is seen as the real thing. \u00a0Some Christians have turned inward for the Antichrist; President Obama is the darkness (and I mean “dark”) within. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words, Ed, don’t expect any sort of rational
\ndiscussion–or even biblical argument about a compassionate Jesus–to convince
\nthese folks.\u00a0 <\/span>This isn’t
\nrational and sophisticated theology is out of the question.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>This is pretty much the
\nworst kind of religion that can be imagined–apocalyptic fervor and biblical
\nliteralism stoked by the fears of racism and xenophobia–the sort of stuff that
\nmakes me think that the neo-atheists have a point.\u00a0 <\/span>Wonder why the town halls are so heated?\u00a0 <\/span>It isn’t that religion isn’t in the
\nroom.\u00a0 <\/span>Bad religion–and lots of it–is
\npresent in the room.\u00a0 <\/span>It just isn’t
\nthe sort of religion that you or I approve of Ed.\u00a0 <\/span>It isn’t about healing the sick; it isn’t about caring for
\nthe least of these.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It isn’t
\nreally about Jesus.\u00a0 <\/span>It is about
\nwide-eyed fear over the end of the world as some people know it.<\/p>\n

And the only thing that can possibly speak to it is sane religion, the simple teachings of Jesus: \u00a0Heal the sick, care for the poor. \u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Ed Schultz posed a question on both his radio program and his MSNBC show:\u00a0 Where is the religious community on health care?\u00a0 Ed, a Christian who admits he is not a regular churchgoer, sees the issue in pretty simple terms.\u00a0 Jesus healed the sick.\u00a0 For free.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 Why aren’t churches out on the front…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,13,413,14,51,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-evangelicals","category-health-care","category-mainline-protestants","category-media","category-religion-in-the-public-square"],"yoast_head":"\nNote to Ed Schultz: It is the Apocalypse, Friend - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/08\/note-to-ed-schutlz-it-is-the-a.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Note to Ed Schultz: It is the Apocalypse, Friend - 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}