Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians. Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature, including Sarah Palin, to whom she is inevitably compared. Bachmann said in 2004 that being gay is “personal enslavement,” and that, if same-sex marriage were legalized, “little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and that perhaps they should try it.” Speaking about gay-rights activists, that same year, she said, “It is our children that is the prize for this community.” She believes that evolution is a theory that has “never been proven,” and that intelligent design should be taught in schools.
That is a paragraph from the fascinating, and important, piece by Ryan in Lizza in The New Yorker, Leap of Faith: the making of Republican front-runner. Among the things I learned about her background is that she actually spent a summer on a Kibbutz in Israel. Who knew?
There is also some good writing about her husband Marcus.
But there is much more in this important article.
When, in 2005, the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked Bachmann what books she had read recently, she mentioned two: Ann Coulter’s “Treason,” a jeremiad that accuses liberals of lacking patriotism, and Pearcey’s “Total Truth,” which Bachmann told me was a “wonderful” book.
You will of course know about Ann Coulter. But odds are you know nothing about Nancy Pearcey. You should.
Francis Schaeffer, father of Frankie Schaeffer, was one of the most important figures on the religious right, who after Roe v Wade became an important advocate of what we now know as Christian Dominionism, the kind of thinking also behind the New Apostolic Reformation actively involved with The Response at which Rick Perry preached this past Saturday. He argued for Christians to dominate all the secular institutions until Christ returned. Quoting againt from Lizza,
In 1981, three years before he died, Schaeffer published “A Christian Manifesto,” a guide for Christian activism, in which he argues for the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed. In his movie, Schaeffer warned that America’s descent into tyranny would not look like Hitler’s or Stalin’s; it would probably be guided stealthily, by “a manipulative, authoritarian élite.”
Nancy Pearcey was a student of Schaeffer, and is herself at this point a prominent creationist. And as Lizza notes,
Her 2004 book, “Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity,” teaches readers how to implement Schaeffer’s idea that a Biblical world view should suffuse every aspect of one’s life. She tells her readers to be extremely cautious with ideas from non-Christians. There may “be occasions when Christians are mistaken on some point while nonbelievers get it right,” she writes in “Total Truth.” “Nevertheless, the overall systems of thought constructed by nonbelievers will be false—for if the system is not built on Biblical truth, then it will be built on some other ultimate principle. Even individual truths will be seen through the distorting lens of a false world view.”
Here it is worth noting that the portion of the Republican primary electorate that is sympathetic to this kind of think is not large enough to sustain two candidates. Thus if both Perry and Bachmann are in the race, one is going to be pushed out. But if only one, this represents a real possibility that someone with this kind of thinking could be the Republican nominee. Remember, besides being a flip-flopper both on choice and on his own health care plan, Romney is a Mormon, whose religion is viewed with outright hostility by many on the religious right.
There is a wealth of detailed information about Bachmann's background. Lizza is thorough not only in his observations but also in his research. Let me cite one more example, having to do with Bachmann's attitudes. Ryan found a list of book recommendations on her State Senate campaign website. Let me pick up with his words:
The third book on the list, which appeared just before the Declaration of Independence and George Washington’s Farewell Address, is a 1997 biography of Robert E. Lee by J. Steven Wilkins.
Wilkins is the leading proponent of the theory that the South was an orthodox Christian nation unjustly attacked by the godless North. This revisionist take on the Civil War, known as the “theological war” thesis, had little resonance outside a small group of Southern historians until the mid-twentieth century, when Rushdoony and others began to popularize it in evangelical circles. In the book, Wilkins condemns “the radical abolitionists of New England” and writes that “most southerners strove to treat their slaves with respect and provide them with a sufficiency of goods for a comfortable, though—by modern standards—spare existence.”
There is more, including a quote from the book itself:
Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith.
Somehow I suspect that such a benign viewpoint of slavery is as much at odds with historical reality as is he argument that the North was Godless and the south Christian - after all, many of the Abolitionists took that position at least in part because of their Christianity.
What is important is the window this gives into Bachmann's thinking. It is one reason she should not be underestimated, because her religious beliefs and expressions like those about the South will both play quite well with the primary voters in the South.
Lizza sees two possible risks to her campaign. The first is her propensity to talk about religion. I would agree that in a general campaign that could be a problem, but in Republican primaries not so much, except that what you say in the primaries can get played back against you in a general should you win the nomination. She talks a lot about liberty to try to pivot away from the focus on religion.
The second is something Lizza sees as harder to control:
Part of what’s so appealing about her is that she speaks passionately and off the cuff. But she often seems to speak before she thinks, garbles words, mixes up history, or says things that don’t make sense. At some point, when more people are paying attention, she might go just a bit too far.
Perhaps. But starting as early as she has, she has lots of time to develop the discipline to keep that from happening. And she has a staff determined to protect her from questions or situations that might prove challenging.
I strongly suggest reading the Lizza. It will give you a very complete picture of Bachmann, which despite her obvious flaws is not necessarily someone we should quickly dismiss.