OPINION – President Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists (Frank Schaeffer – Huffington Post)

Frank Schaeffer, blogger at The Huffington Post, and son of one of the founders of the religious right, Francis Schaeffer, makes some very interesting observations about the results of yesterday’s election.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/president-obama-bad-news_b_141342.html

Full disclosure: I was raised by American missionaries — Francis and Edith Schaeffer — who became leaders within the American Evangelical subculture. When I was in my twenties I was their sidekick. We Schaeffers had a lot to do with the formation of the Religious Right. (Sorry!) In the mid 1980s I escaped my tribe’s literal-minded religion and currently go to a Greek Orthodox Church. I’ve also been one of President elect Obama’s most vocal and prolific — judging by the amount I’ve written — supporters.

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Into the all or nothing culture wars, and the all or nothing wars between the so-called New Atheists and religion the election of President elect Obama reintroduces nuance. President elect Obama’s ability to believe in Jesus, yet question, is going to rescue American religion in general and Christianity in particular, from the extremes. 

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To the New Atheists who think that with the resounding defeat of the Religious Right, we are entering a secular age, think again. Obama will block your path. He’ll do it for the same reason he’ll make the Religious Right’s paranoid fantasies about him soon seem shamefully ridiculous. That’s because President elect Obama is that rarest of all rare people: a thoughtful, compassionate and likable statesman who also is a thoughtful, compassionate and likable religious believer.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/president-obama-bad-news_b_141342.html