EVANGELICALS, THE 2008 ELECTION & BEYOND
The laid back erudite Terri Gross, the hostess of the NPR radio show, Fresh Air, began her December 2, 2008 show with these words, “The evangelical base was pivotal in the election and reelection of George W. Bush. But it wasn’t enough to get a McCain Palin victory. So in this post election period, what influence does the evangelical community have in the Republican Party? In other words, what will its goals be during the Obama administration?”
Gross inquired of Cizik, “Do you think that the evangelical base has lost any clout within the Republican Party because the Republicans lost the Presidential election?”
Cizik's answer was unequivocal, "Oh, it is inescapable, that loss of clout. You hear it in the Party’s leaders who are questioning this. They know, that is the leaders of the GOP, that they cannot win without these votes, but they can’t win the rest of the voters they need at times because of the way evangelicals have behaved within the political parties.”
Gross anxiously asked, “What do you mean by that?”
Cizik boldly declared, “Well, I remember Dick Armey once referred to one of our leaders as a bully and a thug, well those are harsh words. But that was a leader Republican Party referred to as to how he was getting pressure. Well, the tactics that have been employed have altogether backfired, it seems to me. Everyone knows that. And so, look, you have to have vision. And you have to have a strategy, a strategy that works. And if your strategy is not working then rethink it. And so to make its way forward the Republican Party is going to have to, I think, come up with a vision that appeals to people. A strategy that, in fact, works, and its adherence to those who claim it as their own, have to employee tactics that don’t destroy it in the meanwhile."
SARAH PALIN
Gross mockingly theorized, “I’m imaging you didn’t agree with Sarah Palin on environmental issues, for example, her emphasis on “drill, baby, drill.” And also the fact that she wasn’t sure if human behavior contributed to climate change. Now, climate change and the environment issues you are trying to put much more toward the top of the evangelical agenda.”
Cizik, treasonous to the cause of Christ and to conservatism, replies, “I could not have disagreed with her more. Just a year ago, we found out from climate scientists that
the melt in the Arctic had turned into a rout. It was happening so fast that it was like your hair turning gray overnight . . . Well, that is what happened to the environment, an area the size of Colorado disappearing every week. And the Northwest Passage was staying open all September for the first time in history. To look at this and not see what is happening, I think is, well it is sort of ignorance is strength idea. Well, NOT. (laughing) It is not strength. Look, strength is knowing what is happening to the world around us. And moreover, as a Christian we can’t claim to love the Creator and abuse the world in which we live. To do so is like claiming to be a fan of Shakespeare and then burn his plays."GROSS: “Is there a big debate in evangelical circles now about what the future of Sarah Palin should be in the Republican Party? Whether she is the future or whether she is a problem?”
CIZIK: “Oh I think there is a certain amount of that debate going on, but I think people are sort of content to let Alaskans decide that before she becomes a national candidate, and she has to run for re-election, right?
Gross leading, even longingly asks, “So you are thinking that Alaskans will vote her out of Office and thus ending her political career?
Cizik responded, “Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t think that you can humbly walk into the future and not understand that we don’t know all the answers. And if you don’t have a little bit of self-awareness about that, well I don’t think you can embody the Christian values as humility and justice and walking humbly with your Lord. There was something missing there, that I just didn’t see and you are sensing it here. In other words, a certain humility about her that’s all. (Gross uh ha) I like that, I like, look forward in seeing that demonstrated in Barack Obama policies."
Cizik continued, “The younger evangelicals have a different attitude, in fact, even toward the use of the military. I happen to be among (nearly giggling) these evangelical young people, even though, by age, I might be qualified, right? And the idea that, well you can have sort of an anti-science, anti-intellectual and walk into the world with a stick and hope to be able to win these wars, you can’t win these kinds of wars we are fighting with a big stick, we know that.”
COMMENTARY
In discussing the loss of clout among evangelicals, Cizik deliberately failed to mention the fact that conservatives and Christian where provided by the GOP a less than satisfactory top-of-the-ticket candidate. He was a candidate favored and acclaimed in the primaries over the somewhat pro-life Huckabee, for example. Actually until Sarah Palin breathed life into the GOP campaign it was floundering, dead. I for one, even with Palin on the ticket would not vote for the compromiser, the RINO McCain. I voted for someone other than the two major party candidates. So I believe many Christians and conservatives sat out the election rather than endorse the past liberal schizophrenic gyrations of moderate-to-liberal McCain.
Speaking of suspicious and virulent tactics, I would like to ask Cizik about the tactics used by his friends on the left like the homosexual activists, the environmental activists who use violence, slander, intimidation in pursuing their political goals. He does not mention or condemn them. Or what about the Obama campaign and Democrats using ACORN to check in registering voters illegal?
Cizik strikes me as caring more about the future of the earth than he is about the future of America as a Democratic Republic or of the Judeo-Christian value system. And this man represents evangelicals in the halls of congress? What a waste of Christian resources. He should be supporting the causes promoting pro-life and pro-marriage issues rather than the heavily Marxist influenced extreme environmentalism that he seems so passionate about and which he articulate so well and convincingly. Cizik may be an effective spokesman for Green Peace or Save the Whales than he is supposedly representing the name of the Savior of the World, at that he is failing miserably if this interview is any indication as to how he goes about his job.
I detect a shared and fundamental loathing of Sarah Palin and all she represents, both conservatively and as a true Christian in values and principles, by both the liberal journalist Gross her apostate false Christian bedfellow Cizik. Cizik so much as called Governor Palin ignorant, unjust, and proud. To me those adjectives befit Barack Obama more than they do Palin.
Conversely, from what I gather from Cizik’s words throughout the interview, he has more in common and that pro-death, pro-homosexual, pro-global warming, tree hugging believer in black liberation theology Obama than he does with Palin. This to me is a strong indication that Cizik is an impostor, an interloper, a false-prophet and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I detested Palin’s running mate, John McCain, but saw Palin as an otherwise ray of sunshine among the darkness exuded by McCain, Biden and Obama. Furthermore, her executive experience in running a business, a town and a state exceeded that of the three men in the race, combined. Actually the only thing Mr. Obama ran successfully his whole life was his mouth.
