Quotes

WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE, like any documentary series, was only able to include a select amount of the hundreds of hours of interview footage collected. Many interesting comments and thoughts made by the interviewees did not make it into the final series. The producers have graciously forwarded some of these statements for exclusive presentation here.

The last thing the Christian Coalition needs is to become what the blacks became to the Democratic Party: something you trotted out at election time but that you really didn't want to deal with later on. So in my opinion a strategic alliance is fine, provided you don't sell your soul in order to have the alliance and thus will remain silent when treasonous acts occur, which they will on the part of Party officials. They need to be very, very careful because getting in bed with the Party too much may end up causing them to get a fatal disease.

Think about how terribly diverse the Roosevelt coalition was: You had the big-city corrupt machines, you had all the liberal reform intellectuals, you had almost all the Jewish people of the United States, you had virtually every member of the Ku Klux Klan, you had most Catholics in the United States, and almost every Southern Baptist. And that was the New Deal coalition.

And all of those conflicting groups with all the differences of ethnicity and philosophy and whatever--but they all voted reliably for Democratic candidates for President and for the Congress. And it was stable. Between 1932 and 1980 there were forty-eight years, and the liberal New Deal coalition had either the White House or the Congress or both for all but two years ....

This new governing coalition is an entirely different coalition. Now most Southern Baptists are Republicans, et cetera. It's a quite different make-up, but there is almost none of the inherent obstacles where you had the anti-Semitic Ku Klux Klan and almost all the Jewish voters both in the same Party. There is not that contradiction ... Millions of Americans go to bed at night perfectly competent, perfectly capable, perfectly happy, being economic conservatives and social-issue conservatives, and there's no inherent contradiction.

We just began to do what any two politicos do: You just start to talk shop. And we just started talking about politics, about what was happening. And I thought it was interesting because I was really, as someone who had been outside of his campaign--although sympathetic to his candidacy, I had pledged my support to Jack Kemp as early as 1982, and I had supported Kemp, but not really in opposition to Pat, I thought very highly of Pat-- I was sort of critiquing and offering my view of some things that I thought had gone right but had also gone wrong with the campaign. And I think he was a little taken aback by that, that somebody that he'd never met before was saying, "I think your people did the following things wrong."

I was always a conservative. Conservatism wasn't something that you talked about or defined or identified in those years, and a lot of people didn't exactly use the term. But I would say as I look back over the years, I can't see that I've changed my views significantly on anything important. And it does look to me like the whole world has shifted to where it's come around to what I thought was right all along.

From the beginning when I founded Operation Rescue, the vision was not solely to end child-killing; the vision was to recapture the power bases of America, for child- killing to be the first domino, if you will, to fall in a series of dominoes. My feeling was, and still is, once we mobilize the momentum, the manpower, the money, and all that goes with that to make child-killing illegal, we will have sufficient moral authority and moral force and momentum to get the homosexual movement back in the closet, to get the condom pushers in our schools to be back on the fringes of society where they belong where women are treated with dignity, not as Playboy bunnies, etc., etc. We want to recapture the country, because right now the country's power bases are in the hands of a very determined, very evil elite who are selling us a bill of goods. They call it good but it truly is evil. They say, "Here, it's sweet," but in reality it's bitter. It's wormwood and gall.

I also think that to change culture, you change it from the inside out, not the top side down. I think the religious right bought into the idea that you can change values and culture beginning from the White House down, kind-a trickle-down morality. I don't think that's worked. We're worse off today than we were ten years ago. I think you change from the inside of people out and in the trenches of your community up, not the other way, and I think you do that by living out your faith with radical acts of compassion: by loving people who are H.I.V. [positive], by forming coalitions across ethnic and racial boundaries, by breaking down walls of racism, by extending love and compassion to the poor, by empowering people through opportunity. I know this all sounds like a social gospel, but to me it's the Gospel lived out in real life, and Jesus said, "It's by your good works that they will glorify your Father Who is in Heaven." I think we've forgotten that.

Abortion is, I think, an unusual issue in American politics in that it is at its core an issue that revolves around morality and virtue and the proper relationship of liberty to virtue and so forth. But on the other hand, it is an issue that has become very hot in the political arena. About the only thing that I can come up with that is comparable would be the great national debate in the 18OO's over slavery and the personhood of black men and women held in bondage; that too involved deep moral divisions about all sorts of issues, but ultimately it was also a political battle about what Parties would stand for and whether or not they would be able to verbalize and lead people in something that was deeply divisive. But on an issue like abortion, it's very difficult to find any real common ground.

I think it's one of the reasons that politicians on both sides hate the issue: because it doesn't lend itself to the kind of typical Washington deal-making that we've seen over the years. And again, the analogy I would make is to the issue of slavery: America tried in the middle of the 18OO's to compromise on the slavery issue, to suggest that some states could be free and other states would be slave and that new territories would be divided. It didn't work. Ultimately the passions of the issue were so strong that the country had to go through an incredible, horrible ordeal before a national consensus was reached.

I haven't changed in the sense that I believe sexuality is a gift from God to be expressed exclusively within the commitment of heterosexual marriage and that all other expressions of that are outside the boundaries of God's creative intent as revealed in the Scripture. However, I do not believe that gives you a license to hate people, including homosexuals, and I think part of the struggle for people is that it's easy, it's easy to beat up what you don't understand. I have sat and listened to story after story after story from gay people of their journey and have cried with them and tried to listen to the awful pain they go through, hasn't changed what I believe about the practice of homosexuality, but it has reminded me that "Whom you would change you must first love." Martin Luther King, Jr. said that. And in general, Christians have not been very good about loving gay people. Oh, they'll tell you they hate the sin but they love the sinner, but I don't see much love for the sinner.

[In] 1979 an interesting meeting occurred, very private. Bill Bright called and said that he and Billy Graham had talked, and they had a great concern for the future of our country. This to me was a very significant thing. ... He wanted to meet at the at then the Airport Marina Hotel [in Dallas] ... They secured a floor, an' there were ten or twelve of us there [Charles Stanley, Adrian Rodgers, Jimmy Draper, Pat Robertson, Rex Humbard Billy Graham, Bill Bright] ...

Billy Graham said, "I believe God has shown me that unless we have a change in America, we have a thousand days as a free nation, three years." Bill Bright said, "I know. I heard it." Dr. Graham said, "I've just come from overseas"; Bill Bright said, "I have too. I do not believe we'll survive more than three years as a free nation. It's that serious." An' Bill Bright said, "When I talk to Dr. Graham about this," I said, "Would you come meet with these other men?" An' Pat Robertson said, "I believe the same thing" with Charles standing there. I can just remember so well [CLAPS HANDS]; he sort-a jus' put his hand down on the table with resolve, an' Charles Stanley said, "I'll give my life to stop this. I'll give everything I've got to turn this country." An' I said, "I just-- Me too, I'll die to turn this county, I'll--whatever it takes. We can't lose the country."

And each man around the room said, "We're gonna get involved." Rex Humbard said, "I don't--I'm uncomfortable politically, I really am, very uncomfortable," and Dr. Graham said this: "I cannot publicly be involved. I can only pray. I've been burned so badly with the public relationships that I've had, associations. Ah, I can't afford it. I care so much."

We had an awesome time of prayer; it was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. Dr. Graham, to be honest, moved us with his humility and his brokenness. Boy, I could almost start cryin' right now. This man he wept before God, I mean, he really did, he had such a love for God an' this country, but he said, "My hands are tied in a lot of ways. But we're goin' to lose the country."

And looking back on it, what has happened is exactly what always happens in situations like that, is when religion allows itself to become the handmaiden of politicians, inevitably more damage is done to the church than to the government, I think. And I think that has been the result here. You know, nothing gives more comfort to the hardened skeptic or the unbeliever, I think, than to have religious leaders chasing around the country invoking God's Name on behalf of what are clearly secular causes.

When I remember Mr. Falwell and his crowd in the name of Christianity attacking people who had voted against the B-1 bomber, for heaven's sake, now, the question of whether or not the B-1 bomber on this hand or the air-launch Cruise missile on the other was the best option for preserving American nuclear deterrence for the balance of the century was a thorny and difficult one. It was not one which in my heart I could imagine that the good Lord took a position.

There was almost jubilation in the Carter White House over his [Reagan's] nomination. I mean, here was a person already in his seventies, who had positions on issues like Medicare and Social Security which made him highly vulnerable, and it was not immediately apparent that he would have such a resonance with conservative Southern whites who had been, again, a key part of the Carter constituency in 1976. Only as the campaign wore on did one see that.

Now, some of it, by the way, in fact most of it, was not-- He did not try to compete with Jimmy Carter on the religious issue; he couldn't: He was not a regular churchgoer; he had been divorced; he didn't teach Sunday school. I mean, you know, putting it in those terms was a loser for him. What he did do quite brilliantly was identify conservative political issues--for example, if you will look at his first speech after his nomination when the general election campaign began after Labor Day, you'll see it was given in a small Southern town, and it was on states' rights, which sent all sorts of resonances to people in the South, Southern whites, that we had no intention of trying to compete for. Indeed, Jimmy Carter, then President, strongly criticized Reagan using that states' rights allusion, because people knew that it had a historical meaning in the civil-rights area ....

Jimmy Carter was a native Southerner, he had grown up amongst Southern whites, he was part of that whole background, all the social organizations, the Elks and all the civic clubs that are part of the whole Southern pattern, these were all things which helped him enormously in 1976, quite apart from the religious element. And it was very painful to see someone from California, from Hollywood be able to so successfully appeal to this constituency.

I communicated it directly, straight on, to Pat Robertson just a few days ago: "The Christian Coalition can be one of the most meaningful contributions you'll ever make--I think it may be the most meaningful--if you will keep it educational, if you will simply show common people how they can in fact be involved if they wish to. If you make it a power base, if it becomes a great power, a kingmaker, I believe that it will prove ultimately to be a detriment." ....

I think that people should be able to be involved, with knowledge on how to be. So to educate people, to say, "If you want to make a difference on the School Board or in your local area, in your state, in your coun--here's how you do it"--to provide that service is the American way and right and responsibility.

But to try to manipulate 'em, play off of their emotional responses that can be easily stirred an' stimulated by just, you know-- Many times the fund-raising tactics are really --Sometimes they're just tragic; I mean, you know they're tragic, it's a-- That bothers me. And so I would say, "Let's educate, let's encourage people to be involved, but for the church, for Christians, with all our heart let's focus on changing people from within spiritually." That's the major focus.

We had some funny experiences at our Convention, and one in particular that I can remember. We were at a Convention, and one of the elected officials came up to me and told me that if I could take care of these folks I was bringing to this Convention because he'd just been hit over the head by a Bible--well, I didn't [LAUGHS] quite understand that, and I kind-a like--"Oh, really? Well, I'll see about it." So I got into the meeting and told the group, settled them down, and said, "Listen, we gotta talk about this," because never did I expect them to come to the Convention with a Bible under their arm. And I proceeded to tell 'em the difference between a Convention and going to a church revival or something and said, "I just had someone express the fact that he got hit over the head with a Bible. You know, did anyone do that?" Well, this guy raises his hand, an' he was pretty proud of himself. He said, "Yes," he said, "He was in front-a me and so he used this profanity, an' I just took the Bible and hit him in the head and told him we don't talk like that" [LAUGHS], which I immediately said, "Well, we don't do that here."

What we've seen is a reversal of the New Testament concept that "Perfect love casts out fear." In our case, among Christians, fear cast out perfect love, and I think that's universally an experience of humanity, that when you're afraid, love dries up, you begin protecting rather than giving yourself away, and love is a giving-yourself-away kind of thing. In the process of perfect love giving you courage to do and an abandon about the way you do it fear is banished; It's just unimportant.

One of the striking things is how much loyalty Ronald Reagan won from this constituency without--except on judicial appointments, which proved important, without delivering much to them at all. There was no prayer-in-school amendment; there was no anti-abortion amendment. A lot of their core issues--you know, there was never a school-choice program--a lot of their core issues, were just not dealt with.

And I think Reagan from a political point of view was very intelligent in that he sensed, as it turned out, correctly, that he could maintain loyalty of this constituency 'cause they still thought in his heart of hearts he was with them without alienating the more sort of socially moderate liberal wing of his coalition by not doing much. John Buckley, Kemp's press secretary, once said that whenever Ronald Reagan spoke about abortion or spoke to the religious right, his kind of younger yuppie supporters always thought they saw him wink.

And it was the genius of Ronald Reagan that he could do that, that he could reassure the more socially liberal moderate folks and still give these very passionate, moving speeches to evangelicals.

I'm not ascribing this as a motive to Pat Robertson, I can't get into his head, but I know that a ministry, a national ministry, in our day and age is soliciting names and addresses. That's how it operates, I don't care what your objective. If your objective is to feed hungry people in starving countries, it depends on names and addresses; if your objective is evangelizing the world, it depends on names and addresses. And the mailing list of these great ministries is like gold, it's protected like gold, and you can't coopt another guy's mailing list, you can't get it, someone will give money to all of the evangelists, but most people give to one, and that's their base.

But if you run for President, everybody is gonna fall into line, and you are going to successfully coopt everybody else's mailing list. In other words, you can do your job, whatever that is, better running for President than you could staying in your little ghetto, your little block, as a televangelist. And somebody was, if not going to run for President, was going to lead some kind of a political charge, and as a result become the spokesman for the evangelicals.

I'm not criticizing that. Maybe if Jesus were alive today, He'd be getting names and addresses. I'm not criticizing; I'm just saying it as a fact. And nor am I ascribing that as his motivation, but I saw it as a real possibility: "Someone can run for President and do what they're doing now even better running for President."

The run for President was terribly expensive for me and my ministry. When I got back to CBN, I found my absence had led to a fall-off in contributions of seventy-five million dollars a year. In the eight subsequent years we haven't gotten back to the level that we had in 1976. So the cost in dollars is two, three hundred million dollars, and, you know, that's-- No politician has to pay that price [LAUGHS]. For them it's an easy thing: They go back to the Senate; it doesn't cost anything.

There was just no way that I could even consider taking on somebody like George Bush at that time [1992], or in '96. I had no desire to run for the presidency. I have flirted with the thought for the year 2OOO, but, the flirting, goes away very rapidly [LAUGHS] when I think I've got more important things to do.

But we quickly located who Robertson was gonna send to that Cavalcade, and I got my numbers down, and this time Lee--he reminded me of Wile E. Coyote during this period, because he never gave up, and this time he said, "Wead, I know, I know, I know how many, I know how many votes he's gonna have there, I know, I know, I know." And then somebody told me, probably Kaufman, somebody told me, "Look, Lee's got a spy in the Robertson campaign, and he knows exactly how many votes." .... So it turned out Lee's spy worked in the catering firm that provided the chicken dinners to the Robertson delegates, so if you came to the Cavalcade and you voted for Robertson you were gonna get a free chicken dinner, and all Atwater had to do was monitor the number of dinners and he knew the number of votes.

Now of course I didn't know. But one thing I've learned is that if you sound morally certain, people will tend to believe you. So whatever I'm saying, I try to sound morally certain.