{"id":481,"date":"2011-06-16T02:17:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T02:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/06\/michelle-bachmanns-radical-theocratic-politics.html"},"modified":"2011-06-16T02:17:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T02:17:00","slug":"michelle-bachmanns-radical-theocratic-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/06\/michelle-bachmanns-radical-theocratic-politics.html","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Bachmann’s Radical Theocratic Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Over at The Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg<\/a> has an excellent expose about Michelle Bachmann.\u00a0 It paints her as a radical fundamentalist Christian with an especially hard line antagonism toward gays and lesbians.\u00a0 It also reveals \u2013 and de-codes \u2013 some of the language that she uses especially to signal the fundamentalist community that she\u2019s one of them:<\/p>\n

On Monday, Bachmann didn\u2019t talk a lot about her religion. She didn\u2019t have to\u2014she knows how to signal it in ways that go right over secular heads. In criticizing Obama\u2019s Libya policy, for example, she said, \u201cWe are the head and not the tail.\u201d The phrase comes from Deuteronomy 28:13: \u201cThe Lord will make you the head and not the tail.\u201d As Rachel Tabachnick has reported<\/a>, it\u2019s often used in theocratic circles to explain why Christians have an obligation to rule.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article uncovers a world view that very few of us outside these radical Christian circles can truly grasp.\u00a0 It views America not just as a Christian nation, but as a theocratic Christian country that has lost its way.\u00a0 Goldberg lays out Bachmann\u2019s religious conversion and political development within these Christian circles:<\/p>\n

A key moment in her political evolution, as for many of her generation, was the film series How Should We Then Live<\/i> by the theologian Francis Schaeffer, who is widely credited for mobilizing evangelicals against abortion, an issue most had previously ignored. A Presbyterian minister, Schaeffer argued that our entire perception of reality depends on our worldview, and that only those with the right one can understand the true nature of things. Christianity, he argued, is \u201ca whole system of truth, and this system is the only system that will stand up to all the questions that are presented to us as we face the reality of existence.\u201d Theories or assertions from outside this system\u2014evolution, for example\u2014can be dismissed as the product of mistaken premises.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article goes on to describe, in detail, her political influences going back to her days at Oral \u201cGod will call me home!\u201d Roberts University.\u00a0 She recently praised one of her law professors there:<\/p>\n

At Coburn [Law School at Oral Roberts University], Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, who she recently described as \u201cone of the professors who had a great influence on me.\u201d Bachmann served as his research assistant on the 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution<\/i>, which argued that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, and that it should become one again. \u201cThe church and the state have separate spheres of authority, but both derive authority from God,\u201d Eidsmoe wrote. \u201cIn that sense America, like [Old Testament] Israel, is a theocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eidsmoe, who hung up the phone when asked for an interview, is a contentious figure. Last year, he withdrew from speaking at a Wisconsin Tea Party rally after the Associated Press raised questions about his history of addresses to white-supremacist groups. In 2010, speaking at a rally celebrating Alabama\u2019s secession from the Union, he claimed that Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun understood the Constitution better than Abraham Lincoln.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bachmann\u2019s success or failure in the Republican primaries will be a significant litmus test for that party.\u00a0 For too long Republicans have tried to appear mainstream while wackadoodles like her put them in office.\u00a0 With a comparatively moderate Mormon in the game, which way will they go?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at The Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg has an excellent expose about Michelle Bachmann.\u00a0 It paints her as a radical fundamentalist Christian with an especially hard line antagonism toward gays and lesbians.\u00a0 It also reveals \u2013 and de-codes \u2013 some of the language that she uses especially to signal the fundamentalist community that she\u2019s one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,33],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-fundamentalist-christianity","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nMichelle Bachmann's Radical Theocratic Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over at The Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg has an excellent expose about Michelle Bachmann.\u00a0 It paints her as a radical fundamentalist Christian with an\" \/>\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.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/06\/michelle-bachmanns-radical-theocratic-politics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michelle Bachmann's Radical Theocratic Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over at The Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg has an excellent expose about Michelle Bachmann.\u00a0 It paints her as a radical fundamentalist Christian with an\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2011\/06\/michelle-bachmanns-radical-theocratic-politics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-16T02:17:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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