John Eidsmoe

David Barton’s WallBuilders is tireless in pushing its “Christian nation” version of American history.   Today it encourages its supporters to “Celebrate Columbus Day!” and to read John Eidsmoe’s Columbus and Cortez: Conquerors for Christ.  

Eidsmoe is the Christian Reconstructionist cited by Michele Bachmann as her mentor and major influence.  He is also a colleague of Roy Moore, who lost his job as Chief Justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court when he refused to obey federal court orders to remove a Ten Commandments memorial he had installed in the state courthouse.

As we have reported, Eidsmoe believes that feminists “violate the normal order” that God put in place for husbands to head households, that “homosexuality invites the judgment of God upon all of society,” that gays will turn the military into a “cesspool of immorality,” and that public education is brainwashing students to believe in secularism and evolution.  Ryan Lizza recently reported that Eidsmoe was uninvited from a Tea Party event last year after addressing an event in Alabama commemorating Secession Day and telling an interviewer that it was the state’s “constitutional right to secede,” and that “Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun understood the Constitution better than did Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Webster.”

Eidsmoe’s book on Columbus has an introduction by Peter Marshall, another “Christian Nation” advocate who served with Wallbuilders’ founder David Barton as an “expert” to Religious Right members of the Texas Board of Education pushing massive revisions to social science textbooks.  Marshall writes:

In his customary careful and thorough manner, John Eidsmoe has pierced through the obfuscating fog of twentieth-century humanist bias and judgments that have obscured the truth about two of the most controversial figures in American history, Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez. Using earlier sources, he has presented us with a well-researched, even-handed, and fair treatment of both their Christian motives for their incredible exploits, and the very real mistakes they made .This is a valuable contribution toward restoring a true Christian perspective on our American past.

WallBuilders’ Columbus Day email celebrates Columbus’ belief that he was being led by the Holy Spirit and complains that modern scholarship has denigrated Columbus specifically because of his religious motivation:

It is especially because of Columbus’ religious motivations and convictions that today he has become a villain for most modern educators and writers, who regularly attack and condemn him.

That echoes Eidsmoe’s book, which claims, “A scholarly desire to correct the historical record is not the primary reason [for modern criticism of Columbus]…No, the attack is directed toward values – biblical values and the Christian civilization that is based on biblical values.”

Eidsmoe writes:

The reason may of us find history boring is that we fail to see the sovereign hand of God at work as history unfolds. The way you look at history depends in large part upon your world view….For the Christian, history is, or should be, the unfolding of God’s plan for the human race. For the Christian, the discovery, exploration and settlement of the Western Hemisphere takes on a whole new dimension of meaning as God works through imperfect vessels like Columbus, Cortez….and others who bring salvation to the inhabitants of the Western world through the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

He decries the effort to “move this nation away from its Christian foundations” in order to “remake America into a secular or pagan society….If the Christian professions of Christopher Columbus and others can be proven insincere, if their deeds can be downplayed and their sins and shortcomings magnified, then this element of America’s Christian past can be discredited and set aside.”

Earlier this summer the group Truth Wins Out exposed Marcus and Michele Bachmann for practicing ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy, the disreputable therapy that attempts to make gays and lesbians become straight, at their counseling clinic. Bachmann’s mentor John Eidsmoe was not only a proponent of reparative therapy but also wanted it used by the military. Eidsmoe writes in Gays & Guns that “one cannot help wondering why homosexuals would persist in a life-style that is in fact a ‘death-style’” (p. 79), and urges the military to adopt a policy to use reparative therapy to change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian servicemembers. If the transformation is unsuccessful, they will be discharged:

Since considerable evidence indicates that a large percentage of homosexuals can convert or revert to heterosexuality, especially if they strongly desire to do so, they should if possible be given that opportunity. The armed forces could establish a program similar to the Limited Privileged Communication program which the Air Force operated for drug abusers during the 1970s. The individual could report to an internal department overseeing social actions, acknowledge his homosexuality, and have his admission treated with complete confidentiality. He coudl then be given a program of therapy to convert or revert to heterosexuality. if, upon completion of the program, a military psychologist or psychiatrist certifies that he has been cured of homosexuality and is unlikely to revert to homosexuality in the future, and if the member himself affirms that he has no intention of engaging in future homosexual behavior, he may be retained in the armed forces and his past homosexuality and treatment would be kept confidential. If a cure cannot be effected, he would be honorably discharged.

…

One of the most encouraging elements of this rather sober study is the abundant evidence that homosexuals can change, particularly if they are motivated to do so. It is my hope that the hard data presented in this study will persuade homosexuals to seek help and escape from a life-style that is in fact a death-style (ps. 116-117).

Michele Bachmann told an audience in 2006 that she followed her husband’s education path because, “The Lord says be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.” Her mentor John Eidsmoe makes a similar case throughout God & Caesar, his book on how Christians should engage in politics and government.

For Eidsmoe, the role of a woman is chiefly second class to her husband: “God’s Word gives women respect and respectability which they had never enjoyed in any other culture, and we must do what we can to preserve biblical standards. But it establishes the man as the head of the house” (p. 125). He writes:

Humans cannot function without leadership, at least not when they must live and work together. And the basic unit of authority in human society is the family. The husband is the head of the wife (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:23), and children are to obey their parents (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:2).

Husbands are to instruct their wives in things of the Lord (1 Corinthians 14:35), and parents are to instruct their children (ps. 115-116).

He goes on to condemn the rise of feminism and criticize feminist scholars, saying that they “violate the normal order” God put in place: “I personally believe there would be no women’s liberation movement today, were it not for the weakness of men. But that is the exception, not the rule. The normal order of God’s institution in the family with the husband and father as its head” (p. 126).

Eidsmoe especially attacks feminists for what he believes is their disrespectful attitudes towards housewives, lamenting that husbands now have to deal with wives who want to have careers of their own:

Many had planned all their lives to become housewives and mothers, believing such a calling would bring meaning and fulfillment to their lives. Now they are told by the feminists that it is ‘demeaning’ and ‘unfulfilling’ to be a housewife, and they don’t know what to believe. They are frustrated as housewives and feel guilty for not being ‘more,’ but don’t feel any inclination for anything else. And the husband, who planned all this life to be a traditional husband and father and thought he was marrying a traditional wife, feels threatened, insecure, and resentful about these changes in his wife. If the wife goes to work, he may resent sharing housework; that wasn’t what he bargained for when he entered the marriage (p. 124).

Michele Bachmann’s zealous opposition to gay rights helped launch her career in local politics and made her a darling of social conservatives, and reading God & Caesar by her mentor John Eidsmoe sheds some light on her views. Eidsmoe’s God & Caesar serves to encourage Christians to enter politics in order to introduce and impose biblical law. As Frederick Clarkson writes in Political Research Associate’s Public Eye that Reconstructions want to shape not just the state but all of society, as “Reconstructionists believe that there are three main areas of governance: family government, church government, and civil government” that need to abide by “God’s law.” Similarly, Eidsmoe thinks that the family, the church, and the government are the three divine institutions that must follow biblical precepts.

But the family, like the church and government, Eidsmoe explains is under attack by secular humanism. He points to welfare, tax policies, divorce law, “women’s liberation,” “kid’s liberation,” and “gay liberation” as the principal dangers to the stability of the family.

Eidsmoe explains that “gay liberation” may be the most pernicious “attack upon the family” because it not only tears families apart but can doom all of society. He attacks gays and lesbians for destroying families by “coming out” and warns that “the more widespread homosexuality becomes, the greater the likelihood that homosexuals will recruit our children into homosexuality, voluntarily or involuntarily.” Eidsmoe concludes that “homosexuality invites the judgment of God upon all of society” and America may face the same fatal judgment as Sodom and Gomorrah if gays and lesbians gain equal rights and affirmation:

Few sins are denounced in Scripture as strongly as homosexuality.

…

Homosexuality is not only a moral issue, but a political one, and it is largely the gay liberation advocates who have made it so. They have pushed, at the federal and state level and in counties and cities across the nation, for special laws recognizing them as a minority group and giving them special protection against discrimination. They have asked for the right to teach our children in public schools, at our expense. They have demanded that our public schools teach our children that homosexuality is an acceptable life-style. But homosexuality is not simply an individual matter; it affects society as a whole. It influences the entire moral strength and moral fibre of society. Furthermore, the more widespread homosexuality becomes, the greater the likelihood that homosexuals will recruit our children into homosexuality, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Homosexuality also constitutes an attack upon the family. Not only is homosexuality by nature contrary to the very purposes and functions of the family; in addition, as homosexuality comes ‘out of the closet’ and is openly practiced and advocated in society, it tears families apart. Parents and children are alienated from one another when a child announces that he is homosexual; marriages are torn apart at the seams when a spouse announces that he has become ‘gay.’ Parents are fearful of public schools, media, and other community agencies that teach their children that homosexuality is an acceptable life-style, or a ‘swinger’ life-style, or any of the other alternatives advocated today, the traditional family declines in influence and number in society.

And homosexuality invites the judgment of God upon all of society. The great sin that brought destruction by fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality (Genesis 19:5, 8). It is a mistake to suggest that the decision to become a homosexual affects no one but oneself. (ps. 126-127).

Ryan Lizza has a long profile in the new issue of The New Yorker in which he explains that "Bachmann's views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians" and that "her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature."

As Lizza explains, one of the people who played a key role in shaping Bachmann's views was John Eidsmoe, her professor at Oral Roberts Univeristy: 

At Oral Roberts, Bachmann worked for a professor named John Eidsmoe, who got her interested in the burgeoning homeschool movement. She helped him build a database of state homeschooling statutes, assisting his crusade to reverse laws that prevented parents from homeschooling their children. After that, Bachmann worked as Eidsmoe’s research assistant on his book “Christianity and the Constitution,” published in 1987.

Eidsmoe explained to me how the Coburn School of Law, in the years that Bachmann was there, wove Christianity into the legal curriculum. “Say we’re talking in criminal law, and we get to the subject of the insanity defense,” he said. “Well, Biblically speaking, is there such a thing as insanity and is it a defense for a crime? We might look back to King David when he’s captured by the Philistines and he starts frothing at the mouth, playing crazy and so on.” When Biblical law conflicted with American law, Eidsmoe said, O.R.U. students were generally taught that “the first thing you should try to do is work through legal means and political means to get it changed.”

“Christianity and the Constitution” is ostensibly a scholarly work about the religious beliefs of the Founders, but it is really a brief for political activism. Eidsmoe writes that America “was and to a large extent still is a Christian nation,” and that “our culture should be permeated with a distinctively Christian flavoring.” When I asked him if he believed that Bachmann’s views were fully consistent with the prevailing ideology at O.R.U. and the themes of his book, he said, “Yes.” Later, he added, “I do not know of any way in which they are not.”

Eidsmoe has stirred controversy. In 2005, he spoke at the national convention of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a defiantly pro-white, and anti-black, organization. (Eidsmoe says that he deeply despises racism, but that he will speak “to anyone.”) In Alabama last year, he addressed an event commemorating Secession Day and told an interviewer that it was the state’s “constitutional right to secede,” and that “Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun understood the Constitution better than did Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Webster.” In April, 2010, he was disinvited from a Tea Party rally in Wausau, Wisconsin, because of these statements and appearances.

Bachmann has not, however, distanced herself, and she has long described her work for Eidsmoe as an important part of her résumé. This spring, she told a church audience in Iowa, “I went down to Oral Roberts University, and one of the professors that had a great influence on me was an Iowan named John Eidsmoe. He’s from Iowa, and he’s a wonderful man. He has theology degrees, he has law degrees, he’s absolutely brilliant. He taught me about so many aspects of our godly heritage.”

When Bachmann spoke at the Rediscover God In America conference in Iowa earlier this year, she prasied Eidsmoe for the influence he had on her:

She also pointedly praised David Barton, calling him "a gift to our nation":

So the next time Bachmann says something absurd and you wonder "where does she get these extreme ideas?" ... well, now you know.

A Republican State Senator wants to amend the state constitution to allow the Ten Commandments to be placed in public schools and buildings in the same state where ex-Judge Roy Moore had his monumental and ultimately unsuccessful fight over his display of the Ten Commandments, which was found to be unconstitutional. In fact, Moore’s new group, The Foundation for Moral Law, is supporting the proposal because a spokesman says that opponents would have a “hard time saying the Ten Commandments are distinctly religious.”

Alabama State Sen. Gerald Dial is seeking the amendment in order to stop people “from going berserk or killing folks,” which presumably occurs due to the absence of the Ten Commandments from public institutions. According to Dial, “Whether you’re Baptist or Christian or Muslim or anything else the Ten Commandments are rules we ought to live by” and “if we did we’d have a much better world.”

During his campaign for the State Senate, Dial claimed that “liberal Democrats are attempting to hoodwink the voters,” and said he would “make sure the government stays out of our lives and doesn’t tell us how to raise our families” and stand up for “pro-family, pro-gun, pro-America, Christian values.”

The Anniston Star reports:

And on the first day of the 2011 legislative session, Sen. Gerald Dial, R-Lineville, introduced a bill to amend the state constitution to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools and buildings.

“I’d like to see the Ten Commandments posted in public buildings and school rooms,” Dial said. “If it keeps one person from going berserk or killing folks then it’s worth the effort.”

This marks the seventh time Dial has introduced the bill and 10 years since his first attempt. But the “whole climate” in Montgomery changed with the last election, Dial said. This time the bill, which is currently in committee, will pass, he says.

“On a scale of one to 10, I’m about a 12 more confident,” Dial said in a phone interview while he drove back from Montgomery. He noted that he was both driving the speed limit and talking on Bluetooth during the interview.

If the bill does pass this time, Dial can expect its constitutionality to be challenged in court.

…

But this bill might not be as clear-cut violation of the federal constitution as Lynn and Neal make it out to be, said John Eidsmoe, a member of the Foundation for Moral Law’s legal team. A number of different religions accept the Ten Commandments, he said.

Beyond that, Eidsmoe said, courts have cited it in opinions and laws are based on its guidelines.

“I think you’d have a hard time saying the Ten Commandments are distinctly religious,” Eidsmoe said. “They’re an expression of the basic precepts that just about every society has been built upon.”

Dial grew up with the Ten Commandments freely displayed and discussed in school, he said. He saw them then as he does now: as a constant reminder, a flickering caution light as to how one should act.

Today Dial has a framed copy of the commandments waiting to go up in his Montgomery office. He’s been busy with the start of the legislative session and hasn’t had a chance to put it up. He will soon though, Dial said. And if the bill passes, he and the bill’s other five sponsors will provide free laminated copies of the commandments to schools wishing to display them.

“Whether you’re Baptist or Christian or Muslim or anything else the Ten Commandments are rules we ought to live by,” Dial said. “If we did we’d have a much better world.”