Author and blogger Frank Schaeffer really, really doesn't like what he calls "evangelical/fundamentalist" Christians. In the past, he's suggested that their "hatemongering" was responsible for the "continuing ugliness of the response to President Obama." And now, in a new blog on The Huffington Post, he's calling for the "eradication" of fundamentalist Christianity.
"The next great task for the human race is to wean ourselves off literal interpretations of religion. We need to eradicate fundamentalism in all its forms," Schaeffer wrote. "Atheism is no help," he later added.
It is no surprise that he feels this way toward Christianity. After all, it flies in the face of liberal ideology, which promotes gay marriage and heterosexual cohabitation before marriage.
Right on cue, Schaeffer used the blog promote the gay agenda, beginning in the fifth paragraph. Killing two birds with one stone he attacked the Church in America and promoted the homosexual lifestyle. Schaeffer praised, "Those of us who have no problem with celebrating the fact that some people are created gay, or that other people live with a girlfriend or boyfriend because marriage isn't always the best way to relate to a lover" as having a wider circle of acceptance.
While co habitation before marriage may be a "better way to relate to a lover," it certainly does not always produce a healthy and successful relationship.
Psychology Today reported the findings of Yale University sociologist Neil Bennett that cohabiting women were 80% more likely to separate or divorce than were women who had not lived with their spouses before marriage. The National Survey of Families and Households indicates that "unions begun by cohabitation are almost twice as likely to dissolve within 10 years compared to all first marriages: 57% to 30%."
Similarly, a study by the National Council on Family Relations of 309 newlyweds found that those who cohabited first were less happy in marriage.
The blog waged war on Christianity and many of its principles, mocking the faith at every turn. Schaeffer made the argument that no one reads or even cares about the Bible anyway.
"Admit it: the Bible is nuts in many places. Who follows this stuff? No one! So why stick it to people for choosing to not follow homophobic nonsense?" Schaeffer said.
According to the largest, most comprehensive surveys on religious identification, a many people follow the Bible. The study, conducted at the City University of New York, found that Christians comprise 76.5% of the American population.
"The big "Moral Teachings" fundamentalists love so much because they provide a stick with which religious bullies may beat their fellow human beings into submission, are meaningless. If these same anti-gay or anti-abortion advocates actually took their Bibles literally they would be weighing people at their church door to check for gluttony and excommunicating half the parish for being overweight," Schaeffer said.
From this statement it is apparent that Schaeffer has both a biased and distorted view of fundamental Christianity. The insults did not end there.
"Well, there goes the whole of American God-is-their-belly porkers-for-Jesus evangelicalism with its consumer-oriented free enterprise "ethic" and overeating!" Schaeffer said.
Schaeffer arbitrarily pulled sensational passages of Scripture, none of which related to another, apparently in an effort to provide readers with some shock value.
Schaeffer's conclusion about fundamentalists who read the Bible literally: relativism. "To find the spiritual truth that is hidden within the Bible it must be mentally ‘edited' by people of goodwill who are informed by the spiritual truth we carry within our evolving ethical selves," Schaeffer said.
