L2L,_LE.LEL1c_ 
A Magazine of 
eligious Freedom 
Vol. 95, No. 5 
eptember/October 
2000 
—page 
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L\LLEL—` 
LL Q. 
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T
he young woman walks down a sidewalk 
toward the downtown abortion clinic. Her head is 
down, her eyes are focused on the pavement, and her heart is 
pounding with apprehension. Then, as she approaches the clinic entrance, a 
grandmotherly woman steps forward and says, "I know why you came here, but 
you don't have to do it. Your baby wants to live." • Is this counseling? Or is it 
harassment? • The young woman, like so many others before her, brushes past the 
older woman on the sidewalk, averting her eyes from a sign with a baby's picture and the 
words "Why, Mom—When I 
Have So Much Love to Give?" 
• "We have only about seven 
seconds to try to make a contact 
with them," says 52-year-old pro-
life activist Linda Gibbons of this 
scenario. "And we save maybe three 
babies per week—in a good week—
while there are maybe 100 babies killed per week." • As the young woman edges past Gibbons and 
into the clinic, police move in to arrest the protester. Arrest is nothing new to Gibbons, who has 
spent a total of 66 months in jail since a 1994 Ontario court injunction outlawed pro-life protests 
outside three Toronto abortion clinics. • Is this a violation of Gibbons's right to free speech? Or 
is it a necessary measure to protect that young woman's freedom to choose abortion? • As with 
so many other issues in the complex and emotionally charged abortion debate, the answers 
depend on whom you ask. To pro-choice activists, injunctions like the one in place in 
Ontario are the only way to ensure that women have free access to medical care, with-
out harassment. These injunctions, says the Canadian Abortion Rights Action 
League (CARAL), "ensure the patient's health and protect them from risks 
and complications, ensure that doctors and their families are free 
from harassment and intimidation, and ensure that abortion 
Trudy J. Morgan-Cole is a freelance writer in St. John's, 
Newfoundland, Canada. 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 3 
MADE A STATEMENT IN 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 
DECLARING THAT THE ARRESTS 
OF PRO-LIFE DEMONSTRATORS 
LIKE GIBBONS CONSTITUTED 
AN ATTACK ON FREEDOM 
as a medically necessary service continues to be 
available in the province."' 
At the crux of the debate is a seemingly unre-
solvable conflict: what one group sees as a "med-
ically necessary service" is labeled "murder" by 
those on the opposing side. But in 
recent months in Canada, 
debate has centered not on 
the issue of abortion 
itself, but on the ques-
tion of freedom of 
speech. Are laws that 
restrict �
pro-lifers 
from promoting 
their views actually 
violating the funda- 
mental right to free-
dom of expression? 
Jason Kenney, the 
federal member of 
OF SPEECH. �Parliament for Calgary 
Southeast, says yes to this ques-
tion. He is a member of the Reform 
Party, Canada's official opposition, a right-
wing party known for supporting "family val-
ues:' So it was no surprise that on December 3, 
1999, Kenney made a statement in the House of 
Commons declaring that the arrests of pro-life 
demonstrators like Gibbons constituted an 
attack on freedom of speech. "Freedom of 
speech is meaningless if it doesn't protect the 
rights of those expressing controversial and 
unpopular views," Kenney said. "If we do not 
stop these attacks, all Canadians will see a funda-
mental right imperiled."' 
Linda Gibbons's arrest in front of Toronto's 
Scott abortion clinic in October 1999 had an 
unusual twist. Arrested along with the veteran 
protester were three journalists: Sue Careless, 
Steve Jalsevac, and Gord Truscott. All three rep-
resented pro-life, pro-family publications or 
organizations. They were charged with obstruct-
ing police, although, according to Gibbons, they 
were simply recording her arrest, not interfering 
in any way. Their cameras and film were confis-
cated. "If they had not been from the Christian 
media," Gibbons says, "if they had been from the 
Star, the Globe, or the National Post, they would 
never have been arrested."' 
The Canadian Association of Journalists con-
demns the arrest of Careless, Jalsevac, and 
Truscott as a violation of freedom of the press. 
"While we understand the journalists are pro-life 
supporters, that in no way gives police the right 
to infringe upon freedom of the press," says Boni 
Fox, president of the Canadian Association of 
Journalists. "This is the kind of muzzling that 
limits the coverage of important events as they 
unfold and ultimately threatens public debate."' 
The CAJ called for the charges to be dropped 
and asked for apologies from the police. 
According to their online newsletter, the incident 
at the Scott clinic "is only the latest example of 
police efforts to silence journalists involved in 
reporting controversial or sensitive stories."' 
The 1994 Ontario injunction that has 
landed Linda Gibbons in jail so many times cre-
ates a 60-foot "bubble zone" around Toronto 
abortion clinics, inside of which pro-life 
demonstrators may not stage any kind of 
protest or engage in sidewalk counseling. Pro-
choice supporters argue that injunctions like 
this have become a necessity in the wake of 
recent attacks and threats against doctors who 
perform abortions. 
"These injunctions were not set in place to 
prohibit those who oppose abortion from 
expressing their views. They were set in place 
for public safety," says Cyndy Recker, informa-
tion officer for CARAL. She cites examples of 
clinic bombings, harassment, and intimidation 
against patients and health-care workers. "Any 
limits injunctions may impose are justified in 
the interests of public safety. We feel it is 
acceptable for people to hold whatever view 
they want on abortion, but they do not have the 
right to intimidate or harass people about their 
views. Words and posters of hate create acts of 
hate. If you call a doctor a murderer long 
enough, someone will eventually think it is law-
ful to impose the death penalty on that doctor. 
This is not speculation: we know it is happening 
in Canada and the U.S. right now."' 
Jason Kenney dismisses such concerns. "It's 
a completely groundless myth invented to jus-
tify this violation of freedom," he says. "In iso-
lated cases some protesters may have been ver-
bally abusive. The vast majority have been 
peaceful, civil, and not disruptive."' He points 
out that while pro-life protesters in the late 
1980s and early 1990s sometimes blocked access 
to abortion clinics "in the tradition of civil dis-
obedience," most of the pro-life demonstra-
tions in Canada's cities today are much less 
obstructive: many are silent protests. 
As an example, Kenney cites two cases in 
Vancouver, British Columbia—a province that 
has legislated 165-foot (50-meter) "bubble 
zones" around all its abortion clinics. One 
young woman was arrested for handing out car- 
<NNEY 
4 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
WOMAN ENTERING A CLINIC 
TO HAVE AN ABORTION? 
nations to women entering a clinic. Another 
pro-life activist, Jim Demers, was arrested for 
silently standing outside a clinic with a sign that 
quoted the United Nations Declaration on the 
Rights of the Child. When told that he was 
intimidating the women entering the clinic sim-
ply by looking at them, Demers returned to the 
Everywoman's Abortion Clinic blindfolded and 
gagged, still holding his sign. 
Sidewalks in front of abortion clinics are not 
the only places where pro-life demonstrators 
claim their freedom of speech has been violated. 
Jason Kenney is appalled that two of the inci-
dents took place on university campuses—
ironic, he says, since "a university campus is 
supposed to be a haven of free speech." At the 
University of Victoria, British Columbia, a pro-
life student club had its anti-abortion signs torn 
down; the university's student association 
deregistered the club. 
The pro-life club Students for Life on the 
campus of the University of British Columbia 
faced a similar experience. In the fall of 1999 the 
club invited the U.S.-based Genocide Awareness 
Project to set up a display on campus featuring 
"two-meter-high photos of bloody, dismem-
bered fetuses:" University officials were con-
cerned, especially when they heard that pro-
choice counterprotesters planned to overturn 
cars, throw paint on the photos, and burn the 
U.S. flag if the display went ahead. They sug-
gested moving the display to a less central loca-
tion on campus and asked the sponsors of the 
Genocide Awareness Project to pay a $20,000 
security deposit. The group refused, and the dis-
play was canceled. They did hold a public lec-
ture on campus, which was disrupted by pro-
choice demonstrators who apparently pulled the 
fire alarm during the presentation. 
The university administration claimed their 
decision to restrict the planned display was 
based not on the content of the display itself, 
but on the rumored counterprotest. This 
appears to support Jason Kenney's theory that 
"what the general public sees on TV at anti-
abortion protests is pushing, shoving, acri-
mony—but 90 percent of the time this is com- 
ing from the counterdemonstrators on the other 
side."' Though . pro-choice advocates would 
certainly debate that claim, the threat of coun-
terprotest was enough to concern University of 
British Columbia authorities. 
Craig Jones, president of British Columbia's 
Civil Liberties Association, says that the univer-
sity's decision restricted the pro-lifers' right to 
free expression. The university, he says, seems 
to have bought into a "troubling drive to inof-
fensiveness" that afflicts many Canadian univer-
sity administrations. "I personally think that 
UBC students are tough enough that they 
wouldn't break down into a mass of sobbing 
jelly if they saw these things." 
Stephanie Gray, an 18-year-old UBC student 
with the Students for Life group, agrees that 
"these are not pleasant images. But we have the 
right to show them—because they're the truth:" 
A month later Gray was in the news again 
when Students for Life erected its own pro-life 
display on the UBC campus. About two hours 
after the display, featuring posters of aborted 
fetuses, was erected, three student officers of the 
university's student association, the Alma Mater 
Society, destroyed the display and ripped up the 
posters. "The complete dismissal of this [dis-
play] by the AMS is telling us that if we, as stu-
dents, hold a different opinion than they do, 
then we're in trouble," says Stephanie Gray." 
Police launched a criminal investigation into 
the incident after Students for Life reported it. 
Many Canadians might agree that 
universities ought to be arenas for 
open discussion and debate, 
and perhaps would agree 
with Craig Jones's observa-
tion that university stu-
dents should be able to 
deal with graphic 
depictions of aborted 
fetuses in the name 
of free speech. But 
' what about a 
woman entering a 
clinic to have an 
abortion? Is she 
more vulnerable? 
'Should her rights to 
privacy and choice be 
protected, even at the 
cost of denying protest-
ers their freedom of 
speech? 
Linda Gibbons, veteran of �
OF SPEECH? 
so many protests, does make a dis- 
tinction. "I don't disapprove of signs 
that show the products of abortion, blood- 
and-gore signs," she says. "I think they have their 
place, such as at a political protest, in front of a 
legislative building. But I don't use those kind of 
signs in front of a clinic." Instead she carries her 
"Why Mom?" sign, and sometimes uses another 
SHOULD HER RIGHTS TO PRIVACI 
AND CHOICE BE PROTECTED, 
EVEN AT THE COST OF DENYING 
PROTESTERS THEIR FREEDOM 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 5 
ARE SEEKING ABORTIONS, 
DOES IT AT THE SAME 
TIME LIMIT ITS CITIZENS' 
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT 
TO FREE SPEECH? 
striking visual aid—a detailed life-size 
model of a I2-week fetus. "I'll show it to 
them and say, 'This is what a 12-week baby 
looks like:" she says. "What we aim for is to get 
the woman to identify herself as a mother, to 
speak for the child who is voiceless."' 
According to CARAL's Cyndy Recker, what 
sidewalk counselors like Gibbons are actually 
doing is posing a health risk to the women 
entering the clinics. "The anxiety created by 
harassment by anti-abortion protesters outside 
clinics could make the procedure riskier for 
women, who need to be relaxed," she says.' 
Naturally, the pro-life protesters see their 
role quite differently. Robert Hinchey is a 
spokesperson for Aid to Women, the pro-life 
center where Gibbons has worked for many 
years. Aid to Women is located next to the 
Cabbagetown Women's Clinic, and its pick- 
eters regularly attempt to speak to 
women entering the abortion 
clinic. To Hinchey, watching 
a woman enter an abor- 
A �
tion clinic is like watch- 
ing a woman about to 
drop her baby off a 
balcony. "If you 
were driving by . . . 
wouldn't you holler 
up to her, 'Please, 
don't kill your baby. 
Let me help you'?"' 
For �
Linda 
Gibbons and others 
like her, there's no ques-
tion what they would—
and will—do. Gibbons, 
who had always been pro-life, 
felt a call to become more actively 
involved in the movement when she 
attended a church showing of the anti-abortion 
film The Silent Scream. Gibbons is a devout 
Christian who clearly believes she is doing 
God's work. In a National Post editorial about 
Gibbons and her latest arrest, University of 
Western Ontario law professor Ian Hunter says, 
with tongue firmly in cheek, "I do not suggest 
that Gibbons is a model prisoner. Admittedly 
she was a pain when she asked to have a Bible. 
And she sometimes leads her cellmates in 
prayer. Guards have commented that the jail-
house language markedly improves in her pres-
ence. Such is the nefarious control that one 
devious criminal mind is capable of exerting 
over others." 
To pro-life support-
ers, Linda Gibbons, with 
her cumulative total of more 
than five years in jail, is as much 
a martyr to the cause of life as were the early 
Christians hiding in catacombs. To those who 
support the pro-choice view, she is a nuisance, an 
incorrigible lawbreaker who has no respect for 
others' rights and deserves every day she has 
spent behind bars. But one thing everyone can 
agree on is that Gibbons and others like her are 
igniting anew an age-old debate: Where do one 
person's rights end and another's begin? When a 
government acts to protect women who are seek-
ing abortions, does it at the same time limit its 
citizens' fundamental right to free speech? When 
pro-lifers exercise their freedom of speech, are 
they in fact stirring up the kind of hatred that can 
lead to clinic bombings and the murder of doc-
tors? Where should the line be drawn? 
Despite Jason Kenney's attempts to shine a 
spotlight on what he calls "the most gross sys-
tematic violation of any group's freedom of 
speech in Canada," Canadian legislators are 
not likely to resolve these disturbing questions 
anytime soon. And Linda Gibbons, currently 
free after serving a minimal sentence, may soon 
be on her way back to jail. 
FOOTNOTES 
'Linda Gibbons, interview with author, Feb. 24, 2000. 
'Cyndy Recker, CARAL information officer, interview with 
author, Feb. 9, 2000. 
"'Kenney Assails Attacks on Pro-Lifers' Freedom of Speech," 
news release, office of Jason Kenney, Dec. 3, 1999. 
'Gibbons interview. 
'"CAJ Condemns Arrest of Journalists," Canadian 
Association of Journalists, Dec. 2, 1999 [online: 
http://www.caj.ca/news/99_dec3_arrests.html]. 
'Ibid. 
'Recker interview. 
'Jason Kenney, interview with author, Feb. 23, 2000. 
'Ibid. 
"Todd Douglas, "UBC Imposes Restrictions on Anti-abor-
tion Campaign," Vancouver Sun, Oct. 1, 1999, pp. Bl, B4. 
'Kenney interview. 
"Douglas. 
"Ibid. 
"Michelle Simick, "RCMP Probe Razing of UBC Anti-abor- 
tion Ads," Vancouver Sun, Dec. 2, 1999, p. B1. 
'Gibbons interview. 
"Ibid. 
"Recker interview. 
"Kathy Friedman, "Pro-choice Students Unite," Toronto 
Star, Nov. 9, 1999, p. E3. 
"Ian Hunter, "Ontario's Speech-free Bubbles," National 
Post, Nov. 11, 1999, p. A14. 
"Kenney interview. 
HEN 
GOVERNMENT ACTS TO 
PROTECT WOMEN WHO 
6 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
identi
f people who claim to follow Jesus are to 
act as rocks in the midst of swirling change— 
. �
4 �
if they are to bring eternal perspectives to shift- 
() �
1 L ICS ing debates—they must be sure of their identity, 
which is not rooted in politics or the power 
games of this world. And, by the way, that identity 
is not only about knowing who they are, but 
what the wider culture thinks when looking at 
them. Are they known for "loving one another" and 
obeying the commands of Jesus, or are they 
known as petitioners in the corridors of power, 
standing no higher than others with grievances 
they seek to have addressed by the state? 
"If they are but another voice in the crowd, 
their power comes only from the ability 
to shout down the others—and they shall 
never prevail, because after they 
shout them down, the others will 
assemble a larger crowd next time and 
shout them down. And the contest becomes 
a never-ending struggle for what is presumed to be 
power' but is not. . . . 
"The church has a source of authority and stan-
dards beyond politics, beyond the tides of passing 
fashion. It bears witness to a transcendent vision." 
-ED DOBSON, Blinded by Might, p. 148. 
By 
BARRY HANKINS 
er 
The 
maturing 
of a religio- 
political 
movement. 
R
eligious Right watchdogs may 
remember the flap in late 1996 
and early 1997 over a symposium 
in Richard John Neuhaus's jour-
nal First Things. I argued in the 
pages of Liberty (September/October 1997) that 
two constituencies of what could be termed 
broadly the Religious Right were demonstrating 
very different loyalties. Neuhaus and his fellow 
Christian neo- or theo-conservatives were sug-
gesting the time might be right for resistance to 
what they called "the regime," meaning the 
American government.' At the same time, the 
Christian Coalition and its former head Ralph 
Reed had become an integral part of the 
Republican Party. Just a few months after the 
First Things fiasco, Religious Right leader ... 
James Dobson proved to be the consummate 
insider in the Republican Party by threaten-
ing to bolt and take Christian conservatives 
with him if the party didn't straighten up 
and heed his and other Religious Right 
leaders' mandates for change.' In other 
words, while Neuhaus was sounding like 
some sort of resister in the tradition of 
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Dobson, Reed, and thL 
Christian Coalition showed clearly that they 
had become something akin to ward bosses for 
the Republican Party.' 
Then, during the spring of 1999, the fracture 
in the Religious Right seemed to grow more seri-
ous when some major voices declared that the 
Religious Right had lost the "culture war" and 
should now withdraw from, or at least substan-
tially scale back, its political activism. Three key 
Religious Right players called for a retreat from 
the type of political activity that had marked the 
Moral Majority of the 1980s and the Christian 
Coalition and other like groups in the 1990s. 
While many interpret both the First 
Things controversy and this more recent 
debate as a sign that the Religious Right is 
coming apart and perhaps showing signs of 
demise, it is just as likely that what we are seeing 
is the maturing of a religiopolitical movement. 
No longer do all members of the Religious 
Right feel the need to speak with one voice lest 
their strength be diluted by internal disagree-
- ment. Comfortable with their 
secure place on the American 
political landscape, the 
Religious Right now 
appears to have at least 
three major wings- 
1 �
sophisticated thinkers 
• �of the First 
• Things 
• genre, 
• • 
• • • • • 
1 
1 
1 
1 
Barry Hankins is assistant professor of his-
tory and church state studies at the J. M. 
Dawson Institute of Church State Studies 
at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. 
8 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
:LLUSTRATION BY JOHN KACHIK �
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 9 
Wiser 
conservative activists in the mold of Jerry 
Falwell or Pat Robertson, and those who are 
now advocating that conservative Christians 
build their own alternative institutions and to 
some degree separate from the mainline culture. 
The 1999 controversy began with a letter 
written by Paul Weyrich, a conservative Catholic 
political activist who has been involved with 
Religious Right causes from the very beginning. 
In fact, he was present at the formation of the 
Moral Majority in 1979 and was the one who 
suggested to Jerry Falwell that the organization 
take that name. In February 1999 Weyrich wrote 
an open letter to like-minded Christian conserv-
atives in which he repudiated the political 
approach to cultural transformation that the 
Religious Right had been taking for two decades. 
That approach, wrote Weyrich, was based on two 
premises: the assumption that there was a moral 
majority that agreed with the basic views of 
Christian conservatives, and the belief that if the 
Religious Right elected enough conservatives to 
political office, the agenda of the Religious Right 
would be enacted and the culture saved.' 
Weyrich now rejects both of those premises. 
He sees Christian conservatives as a minority 
who must withdraw and live separately while the 
culture collapses all around them, much like "a 
band of hardy monks [in the early middle ages] 
who preserved the culture while the surround-
ing society disintegrated."' Moreover, while he 
continues to believe that politics is important, 
he now rejects the belief that cultural transfor-
mation can be the result. The withdrawal he 
advocates is already happening in some quar-
ters. Specifically, he cites home schoolers who 
have dropped out of the educational system and 
others who have gotten rid of television sets. He 
also cites the Southern Baptist call for a boycott 
of Disney and urges that the success of such 
I d Dobson became haunted by the 
belief that he was really called 
to preach and pastor, not to hobnob 
with political and media elites. 
resistance be measured not by whether Disney 
itself is crippled financially, but in terms of the 
number of people who have decided to forgo 
"the kind of viciously anti-religious, and specif-
ically anti-Christian, entertainment that Disney 
is spewing out these days."6 
Weyrich's strategy is a three-part variation 
on the rallying cry of sixties radicals. Christian 
conservatives should "turn off" (the television 
sets), "tune out" ("create a little stillness"), and 
"drop out" (of the culture).' He concluded by 
calling for a roundtable meeting to discuss his 
new strategy. 
Coming out at roughly the same time as 
Weyrich's letter was Blinded by Might: Can the 
Religious Right Save America? a book coau-
thored by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas 
and pastor Ed Dobson. The two authors argued 
a theme similar to Weyrich's and, therefore, 
quickly became linked with Weyrich against the 
Religious Right political activists. Television 
host Lesley Stahl even called the book "an obit-
uary for the Christian Right." 
Like Weyrich, both Thomas and Ed Dobson 
were associates with Jerry Falwell in the early 
days of the Moral Majority. Thomas was vice 
president for communications, then executive 
director of that organization in the 1980s. 
Dobson served as an associate pastor at Falwell's 
Thomas Road Baptist Church and was coau-
thor with Falwell of The Fundamentalist 
Phenomenon: The Resurgence of Conservative 
Christianity.' For many years since leaving the 
Moral Majority, Thomas has been affiliated 
with the Los Angeles Times. Those who read his 
widely circulated columns should not have been 
surprised by the book 
Blinded by Might. 
Several years ago Thomas began to criticize 
what he called "trickle-down morality," the 
belief that culture could be changed through 
political activity geared toward electing 
Christians and passing the right kind of legisla-
tion. This was the underlying premise of the 
Moral Majority in the 1980s and exactly what 
Weyrich had criticized in his letter. 
In Blinded by Might Thomas and Dobson 
wrote, "If the so-called Religious Right focuses 
mainly on politics to deliver us, we will never get 
that right because politics and government can-
not reach into the soul."' Even more pointedly, 
the authors challenged, "Those conservatives 
who argue that liberals used government to 
undermine what the Founders began should not 
now seek to grab the reigns of government from 
liberal hands in order to use government solely 
to fix problems that are beyond its reach and 
power to solve." Throughout the book Thomas 
and Dobson argue that the Religious Right, of 
which they were both part, was seduced by its 
proximity to power and thereby compromised 
in its ability to serve as a 
prophetic voice within 
American culture. As an 
alternative, they, like 
Weyrich, advocate that 
conservative Christians 
seek to be salt and light 
within the darkness that 
pervades American soci-
ety, rather than the ones 
who control the reins of political power. 
For more than a decade now, Dobson has 
consistently lived out this apolitical stance, 
admittedly to a fault. After being feted on the 
Phil Donohue show and many other television 
and radio programs of the 1980s, he became 
haunted by the belief that he was really called 
to preach and pastor, not to hobnob with polit-
ical and media elites. Eleven years ago he left 
Falwell's church and the Moral Majority and 
became pastor of Calvary church in Grand 
Rapids, Michigan. Since then he has studiously 
avoided all political alliances and eschewed 
political activism. Instead he has led his church 
in a variety of ministries that combine evangel-
ical evangelism with a serious concern for the 
poor and marginalized of the Grand Rapids 
community—all while maintaining conserva-
tive theology. 
Perhaps the degree to which Dobson has 
broken ranks with the Religious Right can best 
be seen in how he now deals with the issue of 
homosexuality. While much of the Religious 
Right pours its energy and resources into fight-
ing the gay lobby, he and Calvary church have 
developed a ministry to victims of AIDS. Much 
like Jim Wallis's Sojourners Community in 
Washington, D.C., an organization that could be 
classified as part of the Evangelical Left, 
Dobson's Calvary church has several different 
10 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
/ obson argued in a very measured tone 
that the situation was not nearly 
as dire as Weyrich had argued and that there 
still was a real chance that moral Americans 
could be stirred to political action that would 
make a difference in the culture. 
programs that reach out to the inner-city, 
poverty-stricken community, including basket- 
ball leagues populated by players who are gang 
members and mentoring programs for recover-
ing crack addicts and urban children." These are 
the sort of salt and light activities that Dobson 
believes are biblically countercultural and more 
consistent with the message of Christ than 
attempts to take over the machinery of politics. 
Weyrich's letter and the Thomas-Dobson 
book immediately became the topic of discus- 
sion in the Religious Right and even secular 
right, and both received blistering rebuttal from 
some of the Religious Right's heavy hitters. In 
the April issue of Focus on the Family's maga- 
zine Citizen, political activist and family coun-
selor James Dobson (no relation to Ed) took 
issue with Weyrich's assessment of the culture. 
Dobson argued in a very measured tone that the 
situation was not nearly as dire as Weyrich had 
argued and that there still was a real chance that 
moral Americans could be stirred to political 
action that would make a difference in the cul-
ture. The same issue of Citizen also carried 
rebuttals by Chuck Colson, Charles Donovan of 
Gary Bauer's Family 
Research Council, and 
Religious Right activist 
Connie Marshner." 
Just a short time later 
James Dobson's tone was 
markedly different. In 
his own "Dear Friends" 
letter to supporters that 
appeared in his June 
newsletter, he character-
ized the call for cultural 
withdrawal this way: 
"Some have concluded 
that Americans no longer 
care about right and wrong, and that believers 
should throw up their hands and surrender."' 
This time the object of Dobson's wrath was not 
primarily Weyrich. Rather, Dobson was taking 
aim at Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson. 
Characterizing the Thomas-Dobson message as 
"this resurgence of isolationism," James Dobson 
said that while the authors are Christian men, 
"they are dead wrong in their perspectives about 
public policy?' "Furthermore," Dobson wrote, 
"what they recommend for the Christian com-
munity would accelerate the decline of America 
if the ideas they espouse become widely 
accepted." While agreeing with Thomas and Ed 
Dobson that the church should never be married 
to politics, Dobson lashed out at the two authors 
as if they were part of the liberal enemies he so 
often excoriates. In discussing a recent key vote 
in the Senate concerning abortion, he boasted, "I 
was there on that day, but I didn't see Cal or Ed. 
And I wonder if Pastor Dobson mourned the 
tragedy in his sermon the following Sunday?' 
Then, after listing some recent Religious Right 
political successes, Dobson wrote, "And I have to 
tell you that I deeply regret Cal Thomas' and Ed 
Dobson's disparagement of these precious peo-
ple who are steadily winning the battle for the 
hearts and minds of their fellow countrymen.' 
As the letter progressed, Dobson became 
increasingly agitated. "Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 
Lutheran pastor and theologian, stood against 
the Nazi regime and its oppression of the Jews, 
for which he paid with his life," Dobson wrote. 
"Would Cal and Ed have suggested that he 
accommodate Hitler's henchmen just because 
he had no chance of winning?" Then, shifting 
to American history, Dobson wrote, "Who 
would dare criticize those courageous pastors 
today, who were undoubtedly maligned at the 
time, for speaking out against the Confederacy? 
No one did, and yet Cal and Ed now offer this 
ill-considered advice to today's churches, urging 
them to ignore the current moral issues in gov-
ernment and society." Dobson called the 
authors' title "a low blow" because "it implies 
that the sacrifices made to defend righteousness 
in the culture have been products of egotism 
and naivete." Linking authors Thomas and Ed 
Dobson with Weyrich, James Dobson closed his 
letter by asking, "Is the culture war really lost, as 
Paul Weyrich recently asserted?" Clearly 
Dobson believes that conservative Christians 
can and must win the culture war. 
A few months after Dobson's scathing cri-
tique of the Weyrich-Thomas-Dobson thesis, 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 11 
Christianity Today brought together the views of 
seven conservative evangelical Christians in a 
series of short essays answering the question "Is 
the Religious Right Finished?" Included 
among the seven were Thomas and Weyrich, 
along with former head of the Christian 
Coalition Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, former 
Reagan aide Don Eberly, James Dobson, and 
Charles Colson. Weyrich's piece was a slightly 
condensed version of his February letter, and 
Dobson's was his June letter of rebuttal. Reed 
defended Christian political activism from a 
historical perspective (he has a Ph.D. in his- 
tory), arguing that much good has in fact come 
from such activities and that the culture would 
be in much worse shape than it is had 
Christians of the Religious Right not been active 
in recent years. In short, he refuted the 
Weyrich-Thomas-Dobson argument that the 
culture war is being lost. Rather, as with other 
sociopolitical movements such as abolition and 
women's rights, it will take decades of incre-
mentalism to transform the culture. 
Following the written' exchange in 
Christianity Today several Religious Right lead-
ers met at the Library of Congress in 
Washington, D.C., to discuss the Weyrich-
Thomas-Dobson thesis. Participants in the dis-
cussion that was covered by C-SPAN included 
the three principals, along with Charles 
Donovan, Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition 
executive director Randy Tate, Republican rep-
resentative from Pennsylvania Joseph Pitts, Don 
Eberly, and some others. 
Weyrich passionately rebutted the suggestion 
that he had ever encouraged people to withdraw 
from politics. Rather, he argued, his message 
was that he wanted more honesty. "We better be 
honest about what we are saying," he urged his 
fellow Religious Right leaders. "Frankly, some of 
the organizations that put out information that 
suggests to the people who are coming across 
with the dollars, that in fact they're on the verge 
of a brand-new era of winning in the political 
process and in the cultural era, they are not 
being honest.. . . There is a limit to what can be 
done in the political arena." Likewise, Eberly, 
Thomas, and others supported the notion that 
conservative Christians must be involved in 
more than politics. They must also penetrate 
the other gatekeeping institutions of society 
such as law, journalism, the arts, and entertain-
ment. While the individuals did not iron out all 
disagreements, there emerged a consensus that 
there is much to be done and that politics was 
only one part of the equation. 
Taken together, the various voices repre-
sented in the mini-symposium in Christianity 
Today and in the C-SPAN roundtable discus-
sion answer the question "Is the Religious Right 
finished?" with a resounding "No!" To be sure, 
the Religious Right is not finished. Rather, it is 
maturing. While this was 
not the acknowledged 
consensus in either 
forum, this is what the 
exchange in Christianity 
Today and on C-SPAN 
revealed. There are some who believe that 
infant movements cannot afford to give the 
impression that there is diversity in their ranks, 
let alone dissension. Under this interpretation 
of group dynamics it is only as they mature and 
become comfortable with their status in the 
larger scheme of things that they can begin to 
turn inward to reflect on what might be the best 
way to advance the cause. Moreover, it is only 
when movements mature that they can become 
self-critical. While in infancy or adolescence 
they go to great lengths to present a united front 
against the enemy. Their own sense of insecu-
rity in the face of enemies, real and imagined, 
precludes them from realistically facing their 
weaknesses. All members must walk in lockstep 
in the early years of the revolution. 
Thomas himself acknowledges this in 
Blinded by Might when he tells of his resistance 
to the negative mailouts that the Moral 
Majority used in the early 1980s. In fact, a good 
part of Thomas's criticism is that Religious 
Right political organizations use deceptive, and 
therefore un-Christian, methods to raise 
money. After reviewing a Moral Majority 
mailout that contained the standard litany of 
powerfully evil forces that were opposed to tra-
ditional morality, Thomas asked one of the 
direct-mail fund-raising gurus who advised the 
Moral Majority, "Why don't we ever send out a 
positive letter on what we've accomplished with 
people's money?" The fundraising expert 
responded, "You can't raise money on a posi-
tive." Indeed, James Dobson's critique of 
Blinded by Might used this negative everyone-is-
against-us style, then asked, not for money per 
finished. 
;'o be sure, the Religious Right is not 
Rather, it is maturing. 
12 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
se, but whether or not Focus on the Family sup-
porters were willing "to stand with us" against 
the Weyrich-Thomas-Dobson wing of the 
Religious Right. "Are you there?" Dobson wrote. 
"Do you care? I really need to know. It would 
be helpful if you would write us a note or a let-
ter to explain your position?'2° Clearly Dobson 
was seeking to intensify support, if not financial 
contributions, by portraying the enemies of the 
"pro-family" movement as now within the gates 
of the kingdom itself. Charles Donovan ended 
a similar letter to Family Research Council sup-
porters with a standard postscript asking for 
contributions. "If you can make a gift to FRC to 
bolster our efforts, now would be a perfect time 
to do so:' he wrote.' 
Still, tempers, egos, and fund-raising letters 
aside, the fact that Weyrich, Thomas, and Ed 
Dobson are now engaged in a dialog with those 
who are responding to their critique of the 
Religious Right reveals a level of diversity in the 
movement that would have been considered 
dangerous to the Religious Right's health just a 
few years ago. 
Make no mistake, neither the First Things 
flap of 1997 nor the Weyrich-Thomas-Dobson 
thesis of 1999 mean that the Religious Right is 
cracking up or going away. Rather, as is the case 
with the feminist movement, which is nearly its 
contemporary, we will need now to start dis-
cussing various wings of the Religious Right. 
The one-size-fits-all era of uniformity is over. 
The Religious Right has matured into a 
movement that will grapple inwardly with how 
best to transform culture while at the same 
time continuing as a presence in electoral pol-
itics and cultural transformation. Moreover, 
anyone looking for evidence of the latter need 
only make a cursory overview of the early pres-
idential race, in which George W. Bush and Al 
Gore were falling all over themselves to see 
who could connect best with evangelicals. 
Bush claimed that Jesus was his favorite politi-
cal philosopher "because He changed my 
heart," while Gore trumpeted his own born-
again status. 
The leading candidates were clearly appeal- 
ing to a Religious Right constituency that has 
been identified, organized, and mobilized dur- 
ing the past 20 years. As long as that voting 
block exists, there will be politicians appealing 
to it and Religious Right activist leaders orga- 
nizing it. This will continue even as the First 
Things intellectuals contemplate resistance to 
the regime and the Weyrich-Thomas-Dobson 
wing of the Religious Right movement 
attempts to keep everyone sober about the lim-
its of politics. 
FOOTNOTES 
'"The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of 
Politics," First Things, November 1996, pp. 18-42. 
'See Rob Boston, "Family Feud: Focus on the Family's James 
Dobson Dares to Discipline Wayward Members of the 
GOP—And Maybe America, Too," Church and State, May 
1998, pp. 9-14. Ironically, while playing the role of GOP 
insider, Dobson also applauded the First Things considera-
tion of resistance to "the regime." See "The End of 
Democracy? A Discussion Continued," First Things, January 
1997, pp. 21-23. 
'See, for example, David Neff, "Outsiders No More: How 
Conservative Christians Scrapped, Wheedled, and 
Bargained for Their Place at the Table," Christianity Today, 
April 28, 1997, pp. 22-25. The article carries a photo of Pat 
Robertson and Bob Dole together. The most thorough and 
up-to-date history of the Religious Right also argues that 
the movement has become a staple of the American politi-
cal scene. See William Martin, W th God On Our Side: The 
Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway 
Books, 1996). 
'Paul Weyrich to "Dear Friend,' Feb. 16, 1999. As late as 
November 1999 Weyrich's letter could be accessed at the 
Web site www.rfcnet.org/archives/weyrich.htm. This is the 
Web site for the Religious Freedom Coalition. Weyrich's 
own organization is called Free Congress. 
'Ibid., p. 2. 
'Ibid. 
'Ibid. 
'Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, and Ed Hindson, The 
Fundamentalist Phenomenon: The Resurgence of 
Conservative Christianity (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday-
Galilee, 1981). 
'Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, Blinded by Might: Can the 
Religious Right Save America? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 
1999), p, 9. 
'Ibid., pp. 9, 10. 
"Ibid., pp. 15-20; and Jim Wallis,"Hostage to an Illusion: An 
Interview with Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson," Sojourners, 
November-December 1999, pp. 18-21. For a full article on 
Dobson and Calvary church, see Dean Merrill, "The 
Education of Ed Dobson," Christianity Today, Aug. 11, 1997, 
pp. 26-30. 
'James Dobson, "Our Faith Compels Us," Citizen, April 
1999, p. 15. The other articles were on pages 15 through 19. 
"James Dobson to "Dear Friends," June 1999, p. 1. As of 
November 1999 Dobson's letter could be accessed at the 
Focus on the Family Web site address www.family.org/doc-
study/ newsletters/A0006398.html. A version of this letter 
also appeared in Jerry Falwell's journal. See Dr. James 
Dobson, "Christians Must Remain Involved," National 
Liberty Journal, July 1999. This version can be accessed at 
www.liberty.edu/chancellor/nli/Ju1y1999/activism.htm. 
"Dobson to "Dear Friends," pp. 1, 2. 
"Ibid. 
'Ibid., pp. 3, 4. 
""Is the Religious Right Finished: An Insiders' 
Conversation," Christianity Today, Sept. 6, 1999, pp. 43-59. 
""Conservatism and Cultural Change," C-SPAN2 Today. 
"Quoted in Thomas and Dobson, Blinded by Might, p. 54. 
'Dobson to "Dear Friends," p. 5. 
"Chuck Donovan to "Dear Friend," Monthly Letter, Apr. 2, 
1999, p. 3. This newsletter can be accessed at 
www.frc.org/letters/april.html. 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 13 
We live in an era of change. So many of the assumptions of the past have been swept away, and it is 
increasingly easy to question such once-settled principles as the separation of church and state. After 
all, some reason, if we are to remain more than a nominally Christian society, it might be necessary 
to use the power of the state to reinforce morality. Liberty magazine has not changed in its princi-
pled enunciation of the separation of powers, as this excerpt from April 1906 shows. Editors, 2000. 
The Limits 
of CIVIL 
T
here are limits to the authority of 
the civil power, and these limits 
should be clearly understood by 
the people. A republican form of 
government, as contrasted with an 
absolute monarchy, implies a limitation to the 
powers of the government beyond which it can-
not rightfully go. 
Civil government is not the custodian of the 
souls of the people. Upon all the pages of human 
history the truth is written plainly that there are 
two spheres of life within which man moves, 
with one of which—the higher sphere of con-
science and of his relation to God—the civil 
power can rightfully have nothing to do. Again 
and again the Almighty has vindicated the 
course of those who, in order to be true to Him, 
have refused obedience to unjust mandates from 
the civil authority. The darkest pages of history 
are those recording the results of the invasion by 
the civil power of the realm of conscience. The 
early history of most of the leading religious 
denominations of this day was marked by their 
resistance to the dictates of the civil power out-
side the sphere of its legitimate authority. 
The true sphere of civil government was well 
defined by the men who founded the American 
republic. The Declaration of Independence, 
justifying the separation from Great Britain that 
led to the founding of this nation, says: "We 
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. That to secure these rights, govern-
ments are instituted among men, deriving their 
just powers from the consent of the governed:' 
This is the principle of government upon which 
this nation is established. 
Governments are instituted among men to 
preserve the natural, unalienable rights that 
men have by creation, that is, as individuals; and 
not to curtail these rights, or to take them away. 
When civil government invades these rights, it 
does exactly the opposite of that which it is 
instituted to do. This is a perverted and illegiti-
mate use of its power. 
Legislatures cannot create natural rights, nei-
ther can they make right wrong, or wrong right. 
The law of right and wrong is a law antedating 
and wholly independent of any legislative enact-
ments. Legislators are bound to shape their leg-
islation by their knowledge of this law of justice 
which is inherent in the human mind, and their 
legislation will be excellent in proportion as they 
approximate to this ideal standard. It is proper 
to say, therefore, that the province of the legisla-
ture is not to create law, but to ascertain and 
define it. Righteousness is a law, and has been 
such from the foundation of the world. It is 
14 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2 0 0 0 
ER 
4 �
TY 
")
„„, �
MP
-1441w all Mr /ael,/ r.,/t,, ail th, 
hi/rah/twits thereg: Lev. 2 :e0. 
APRIL, /906 
No. s 
is the 
ie lib-
I, and 
the 
e laws 
f men. 
Mal to 
te land. 
ight f ully 
A UTHORIT'N 
binding upon men everywhere, and at all times. 
All men are bound, always, to do right. 
The question What is the law? is therefore 
not the question lying at the foundation of one's 
duty in any religious or spiritual matter which is 
brought before him. There is another question 
lying deeper than this, and that is the question 
What is right? Sometimes injustice becomes 
enthroned in law; but this does not put upon 
any person an obligation to do morally wrong. 
He is still bound to do right, still bound by con-
science to the higher law of God. This higher 
law must be obeyed at any cost. 
A statute commanding one to commit mur-
der on certain occasions, or to steal, or to swear 
falsely, would not be binding on anyone, and 
would not be obeyed; and the reason given for 
disobedience to it would be that it was unjust. 
No one would claim that it ought to be obeyed 
simply because it was "the law"; and what would 
be true of such a statute would be true of every 
enactment that is contrary to the law of God. 
Unjust enactments do not derive any sanctity 
from being on the statute books. They ought to 
be repealed, not enforced. 
In secular affairs the principle of majority 
rule is at the foundation of government; and this 
is proper and necessary. But in matters of con-
science majority rule has no place. An individual's 
duty toward God cannot be determined by a 
majority vote. Every individual's relation to God is 
a direct relation, not sustained through any other 
individuals or through the government. "Every 
one of us shall give account of himself to God:' 
Faith, which is the essence of Christianity, is 
individual belief of God's Word, irrespective of 
the belief or opinions of any or all other per-
sons. In religion the majority have always been 
on the wrong side. It is the majority that throng 
the broad way leading to destruction, and only 
the small minority who travel the narrow way 
leading unto life. Thus the spheres of religion 
and of civil government must be wholly sepa-
rate from each other. 
Within its legitimate sphere the civil power 
should have the unhesitating obedience of all 
persons. Only the higher claims of duty toward 
God can justify anyone in refusing obedience to 
the civil ruler. Only a plain conflict with the 
higher law of God can justify any disobedience 
to the laws of men. The legitimate realm of the 
civil power is that of preserving the rights of the 
people, and within this realm it has the sanction 
of God. No one can, under a plea of conscien-
tious conviction of duty, be permitted to invade 
the natural rights of another person. These 
rights do not conflict, and each one must 
respect the rights of others. 
L. A. Smith, editor of Liberty magazine in 1906. 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 15 
The 
olsorlecl 
1.1a ice' 
he cable television talk show featured a heated debate over vouchers for reli-
gious schools. Cohost Pat Buchanan, an aggressive voucher advocate, was 
insisting that taxpayer-financed tuition at private religious schools would be 
the ideal solution for everyone involved in the process of reforming the edu- 
cational system—kids would be exposed to religion and get a better education, families 
would feel safer, and public schools would improve because of the increased competition. 
Pat continued to stake out that position. But as a guest on that show back in 1998 I 
felt duty-bound to remind the conservative firebrand that just 
four years earlier a nationally syndicated columnist had 
written, "The reason voters in 16 states rejected voucher 
proposals on the ballot was because they didn't want 
the 'poisoned chalice' of what would come after it." 
The Barry W. Lynn is executive director of Americans United for 
Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog 
group that monitors religious liberty concerns. Lynn is a longtime civil 
liberties attorney, as well as an ordained minister. 
16 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
While many 
supporters of 
the voucher 
movement view 
public funds as a 
financial boon for 
private schools, 
other leaders 
in the religious 
community are 
increasingly 
cautious. 
The columnist who had so eloquently 
identified this facet of the voucher debate was 
none other than Pat Buchanan! 
Recognizing an opportunity, Bill Press, 
Buchanan's cohost and ideological adversary 
on that show, punctuated the point with a 
comment of his own. "I graduated from . . . a 
great Catholic high school in Wilmington, 
Delaware," he said. "If I were principal of that 
high school today, I'd tell [voucher sup-
porters] to get lost. Because, if I may say, 
right now without you, I'm free to hire 
the teachers I want, fire the teachers I 
want, buy the textbooks I want, set 
the curriculum I want. Why 
should I allow you to come in 
and destroy my freedom?" 
It was an embarrassing 
moment that Buchanan would 
probably prefer to forget. But 
the issue raised in the exchange 
highlights a part of the broader 
voucher debate that is fre-
quently overlooked. The "poi-
soned chalice" Buchanan 
warned of, and the "destruction 
of freedom" Press alluded to, is 
the inevitable regulation that 
comes with public funds—and 
that will adversely affect houses 
of worship. 
Once private religious 
schools begin accepting public 
tax dollars from the state, there 
is inevitable scrutiny of the use 
of those funds to ensure their 
proper use. Many believe it is 
only a matter of time before 
these schools will lose their independence and 
bow to increased government control. This of 
course will undermine the religious mission 
of such schools. 
No wonder that while many supporters of 
the voucher movement view public funds as a 
financial boon for private schools, other lead-
ers in the religious community are increas-
ingly cautious. They wonder if the practical 
risks outweigh the potential financial benefits. 
Actually, the most frequently used argu-
ment against the use of private school vouch-
ers is the constitutional one, and it must be 
resolved before this touted "reform effort" can 
get very far. The First Amendment guarantees 
government neutrality on religious matters, a 
"separation" of church and state. While it was 
common in the early days of the American 
colonies to tax citizens to pay for churches and 
clergy, such practices were seen to undermine 
religious freedom and were eventually aban-
doned. Donating one's money to a house of 
worship should be an individual choice. 
Therefore our constitutional and democratic 
principles mandate that such contributions be 
voluntary. 
When the government uses the state 
treasury to write checks to be delivered 
to religious schools, directly or by 
action of parents who transfer the 
"vouchers" themselves, taxpayers 
are burdened with paying for 
religion, whether they agree 
with the religious mission of a 
particular school or not. 
Naturally, supporters of 
church-state separation see 
vouchers in direct conflict 
with the First Amendment. 
Private religious schools 
are what the Supreme Court 
labels "pervasively sectarian." 
In other words, religion per-
meates every aspect of the 
school and its curriculum. 
Unlike private universities, 
which often have historical ties 
to a religious denomination, 
private religious elementary 
and secondary schools are aca-
demic extensions of the houses 
of worship with which they are 
affiliated. 
Americans United for 
Separation of Church and 
State has been involved in legal challenges to 
religious school aid for decades. During the 
course of litigation, AU has deposed dozens of 
operators of religious schools. Never once has 
a representative claimed to create a school in 
the interest of lowering class sizes, or because 
the house of worship had money left over 
from the collection plate. Just the opposite is 
true. Religious school administrators are 
proud of the fact that they build and run 
schools for the propagation of their faith. 
While there's nothing wrong with this form of 
pedagogy, legal problems arise when taxpayers 
are asked to finance it. 
Indeed, these constitutional arguments 
have been consistently persuasive in courts in 
which the cases have been litigated. For exam- 
18 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
Nothing 
damaging to a 
religious body 
than a "watering 
down" of its 
e. 
messag 
could be 
ple, on May 27, 1999, the U.S. 1st Circuit 
Court of Appeals considered a controversy 
over financing religious education in 
Vermont. The three-judge panel delivered a 
tremendous victory for church-state separa- 
tionists when it ruled unanimously that tax-
payers cannot be forced to finance private reli-
gious school tuition. 
"Writ simple, the state cannot be in the 
business of directly supporting religious 
schools?" observed Chief Judge Juan 
Torruella, writing for the court. "The 
historic barrier that has existed 
between church and state 
throughout the life of the 
Republic has up to the present 
acted as an insurmountable 
impediment to the direct pay-
ments or subsidies by the state 
to sectarian institutions, partic-
ularly in the context of primary 
and secondary schools?' added 
Torruella in the ruling. 
The Maine Supreme Court 
expressed a nearly identical 
sentiment in April of that year. 
In a 5-1 ruling, the state 
supreme court rejected the very 
idea of public subsidies for reli-
gious schools. "The purpose 
of the [First Amendment's] 
establishment clause," wrote 
Justice Leigh Saufley, "is 
reflected in the often repeated 
words of Thomas Jefferson: to 
build 'a wall of separation 
between church and state: . . . 
Distilled to its essence, the 
establishment clause prohibits the govern-
ment from supporting or advancing religion 
and from forcing religion, even in subtle ways, 
on those who choose not to accept it." 
As recently as December 1999 a federal 
court in Ohio found Cleveland's voucher pro-
gram unconstitutional. Judge Solomon Oliver, 
Jr., found that public funding of private reli-
gious schools "has the effect of advancing reli-
gion through government-supported reli-
gious indoctrination?' 
These cases are just a few of the recent 
decisions. It is worth noting that voucher pro-
grams have also been rejected by the Supreme 
Court of Vermont, the Supreme Court of 
Puerto Rico, and two state courts in 
Pennsylvania. 
Of course there has not been unanimity 
among all courts on this issue. State courts in 
both Ohio and Wisconsin have ruled that 
vouchers do not run afoul of religious free-
dom principles. But the growing body of case 
law shows these decisions to be anomalies. 
Every federal court that has considered the 
issue has ruled the same way: Vouchers force 
taxpayers to finance religion and are there-
fore in conflict with the First Amendment. 
While the U.S. Supreme Court has 
not yet taken the opportunity to hear 
a voucher case, justices have laid out 
specific principles that the court 
may adhere to in the future. 
For example, in the land-
mark Everson v. Board of 
Education ruling in 1947, 
Justice Hugo Black said the 
First Amendment means at 
more �
least this: "Neither a state nor 
the federal government can set 
up a church. Neither can pass 
laws which aid one religion, aid 
all religions, or prefer one reli-
gion over another.... No tax in 
any amount, large or small, can 
be levied to support any reli-
gious activities or institutions, 
whatever they may be called, or 
whatever form they may adopt 
to teach or practice religion." 
To circumvent constitu-
tional problems, a religious 
school may be tempted to sacri-
fice a significant part of their 
sectarian character in exchange 
for tax dollars. But nothing 
could be more damaging to a religious body 
than a "watering down" of its message. A reli- 
gious school should never deny its purpose or 
hide its mission for financial gain. 
The idea that a religious institution might 
be "forced" to abandon part of its religious 
identity in exchange for public aid is anything 
but abstract speculation. On the contrary, Our 
Lady of the Americas, a Catholic school in 
Kansas City, Missouri, removed each class-
room's crucifix in order to qualify for funding 
under the "Title I" remedial education pro-
gram. The same thing occurred at a Catholic 
school in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. 
So the constitutional debate rages on, 
pending a final ruling from the Supreme 
Court. But in a sense establishment clause vio- 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 19 
Most religious 
people, while 
enthusiastic sup- 
porters of 
their own faith, 
are justifiably 
hesitant about the 
government giving 
their money to 
every faith group 
with a school. 
lations are almost irrelevant to the practical ♦ �
The most obvious choice left to unregu- 
lated schools is religious neutrality. Parents 
are not only aware of the religious education 
that their child will receive at one of these pri-
vate schools—they expect and in many 
instances demand it. Public schools, mean-
while, represent diverse communities and stu-
dent populations, and are required to stay out 
of religious matters altogether, neither 
advancing nor hindering religion. 
But the differences only begin there. 
Private schools are free to discrimi- 
nate when accepting incoming stu- 
dents and faculty It is not uncom- 
mon for these schools to segre-
gate on the basis of gender. 
They can apply strict standards 
for interested "applicants" and 
test children to see if they qual-
ify for admission. Of course, 
they can choose only—or 
mainly—children whose par-
ents are of a particular faith. 
Further, a private school's 
curriculum is not specified by 
government officials, nor are 
its financial records audited by 
government administrators. 
Private schools, in other 
words, are hardly accountable 
to the public at all. They are 
truly independent facilities. 
Though the reason may be 
obvious, it is important to 
note that these schools are 
accorded the luxury of such 
independence because of the 
distance they have placed 
between themselves and the government. 
There is nothing wrong with this relation-
ship. Once a house of worship creates an edu-
cational institution, few would disagree they 
should be permitted to run that school as they 
wish, free of government aid or interference. 
That is part of the basis for the separation 
between the church and the state. 
But consider how the dynamic of that 
relationship changes once the two institu-
tions are brought closer together by way of 
financial ties. 
The government is expected by its con-
stituents to spend public funds in a wise and 
effective fashion. The state's money, it is fre-
quently noted, is the taxpayers' money, and as 
such, we demand accountability. 
and philosophical concerns faced by people of 
faith and houses of worship. Conventional 
wisdom might suggest that people of faith 
would want and approve of public funding for 
religion, whether through vouchers or some 
other mechanism. But many religious people, 
while enthusiastic supporters of their own 
faith, are justifiably hesitant about the gov-
ernment giving their money to every faith 
group with a school, whether they 
believe in the religion taught there or 
not. Yet this is exactly what occurs 
with religious school aid pro-
grams, as taxpayers are effec-
tively and literally purchasing 
holy texts, religious icons, and 
religious classes. 
Our constitutional ideals 
buttress the commonsense 
understanding that forced sup-
port for religious indoctrina-
tion is oppressive and a viola-
tion of freedom of conscience. 
It is ultimately no different than 
forcing taxpayers to place their 
money in a collection plate. 
Troubling too is the likeli-
hood of interreligious strife as 
religious institutions battle for 
scarce public resources. Once 
public funds are made available 
to any church with a school, all 
religious institutions will have to 
battle before state legislatures 
over who should get public 
funding and who shouldn't. To 
pit Methodists against Lutherans 
or Baptists against Muslims for support is divi-
sive—and more than a little unseemly. 
The result would be an intolerable 
prospect. Many religious groups that a tax-
payer might find frightening, offensive, or just 
theologically wrong, such as the neo-Nazi 
World Church of the Creator, would likely be 
in line for a check. 
The regulatory concerns for religious insti-
tutions and their schools are just as serious, if 
not more so. 
Under existing law, houses of worship are 
free from government control or oversight, as 
they should be. In education matters, religious 
schools are largely exempt from the many laws 
that govern public schools, with the exception 
of clear health and safety regulations. 
20 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
Cleveland 
students 
receiving 
vouchers did 
not achieve 
better test 
scores than 
their counter- 
Under these circumstances it becomes 
increasingly difficult for a religious body to be 
asking for money with one hand while trying 
to sever the attaching strings with the other. 
Consider what occurred a year ago when 
the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Wisconsin sent letters to 112 private religious 
schools that accepted voucher funds in 
Milwaukee, asking if the schools would agree 
to guarantee basic civil rights public 
school students enjoy. The response 
from the schools ranged from silence 
to hostility. 
"We do not believe that you 
have standing or any basis to 
seek the information re-
quested," replied Dr. John 
Norris, superintendent of 
schools of the Catholic 
Archdiocese of Milwaukee. 
But �
Norris's �
position 
appears inconsistent, as the 
schools he oversees take in mil-
lions of tax dollars from those 
doing the asking. We'll take 
your money, Norris seems to 
imply, but not your questions 
about how it's spent. 
When rights that parents 
have come to expect from pub-
lic schools go ignored by pri-
vate ones, it becomes easy to 
imagine the onslaught of litiga-
tion from taxpayers who seek 
justice. How will a judge react 
when a private school on the 
public dole is sued for denying 
admission to a bright young 
woman who seeks entrance to an excellent all-
boys school? Or what about complaints from 
a Protestant family objecting to Catholic ser-
vices for students at a Catholic private school? 
Understandably, families would feel that as 
taxpayers, they should have an opportunity 
for redress, and they would have a point. 
Americans have come to expect some "repre-
sentation" to go alofig with "taxation." 
Elected officials and state agencies are 
therefore given a choice: monitor and regulate 
the recipients of the money to ensure respon-
sible fiscal management or write a sizable 
check and hope (and pray) for the best. 
In the first two voucher "experiments" 
attempted in the United States, Cleveland 
and Milwaukee, the state chose the latter. 
Millions of dollars were spent on publicly 
financed tuition at private religious schools, 
and in the interest of preserving the indepen-
dence of those schools, very little regulation 
was tied to the tax dollars. The results were 
less than satisfactory for both the public and 
private institutions. 
In Cleveland financial mismanagement 
has been common. By 1998, just three years 
after the program had been initiated, the 
city's voucher experiment suffered from 
a $2.9 million overrun, which consti-
tuted nearly half of the program's 
entire $7.1 million budget. 
Further, while the program 
was advertised as a benefit to 
impoverished children in 
Cleveland's innercities, Ohio 
state auditor Jim Petro discov-
ered after an audit that dozens 
of families earning between 
$50,000 and $90,000 received 
tax dollars for private school 
tuition. The audit also discov-
ered that the voucher project 
was overbilled $419,000 by 
taxicab companies that had 
been hired to transport stu-
dents to the private schools—
and then even discovered that 
some of the funds went for 
nonexistent rides for nonexis-
tent students. 
Making matters worse, the 
vouchers also failed to deliver 
the academic improvements 
that had been virtually guaran-
teed by the program's sponsors. 
A comprehensive study completed in 1998, 
commissioned by the state of Ohio and con-
ducted by researchers at Indiana University, 
reported that Cleveland students receiving 
vouchers did not achieve better test scores 
than their counterparts in public schools. 
After one full academic year under the pro-
gram, the report concluded there were "no sig- 
nificant differences" in achievement for stu- 
dents in math, reading, or science between 
students who had used vouchers to go to pri- 
vate schools and those still in public schools. 
University researchers examined two groups 
of third graders with nearly identical socioe- 
conomic backgrounds. The groups were tested 
before the voucher program began and a year 
after the program was implemented, and the 
parts in 
public schools. 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2 0 0 0 21 
"When 
a religion 
is good, 
I conceive 
it will 
support 
itself." 
test scores in the various subjects remained 
roughly equivalent. 
Not to be outdone, the Milwaukee pro-
gram also has had its share of problems and 
"invisible" students. For example, Adrian T. 
Hipp, founder and former executive director 
of a Milwaukee "alternative" school, was 
found guilty of falsifying attendance records 
to receive a $42,000 overpayment under the 
Wisconsin school voucher program. 
Circuit court judge Michael J. 
Barron decided in an August 1997 
ruling that 90 students that Hipp 
said attended his Exito High 
School did not exist. In addi- 
tion, Hipp supplied state offi-
cials with names of teachers 
and courses that were entirely 
fictional, and as the school's 
financial difficulties escalated 
he garnisheed bank accounts 
and paid school employees 
with money orders. Hipp, 
meanwhile, claimed that he 
knew nothing of the fraudu-
lent documents. 
Unfortunately Hipp wasn't 
the only example of voucher 
fraud in Milwaukee. Frederick 
Hampton, the founder of 
Milwaukee Prepatory, a school 
participating in the voucher 
program, was charged with 
defrauding the state of thou-
sands of dollars by lying about 
the age of 10 students so they 
would remain eligible for reim-
bursement from the state. As a 
result, authorities issued an arrest warrant for 
Hampton, who himself went into hiding for a 
year, leaving his school to close in February 
1996 and the school's students left temporar-
ily in the cold. 
The state said the school received more 
than $317,000 in public funds for 275 stu-
dents, 10 of which were ineligible because 
they were too young. One parent told author-
ities she attended a meeting at which 
Hampton advised parents of 3-year-olds to 
misrepresent their children's ages as 4 so the 
school could get the voucher aid. 
Further complicating the voucher contro-
versy, some of the few regulations that were 
imposed on the private schools in Milwaukee 
appear to have been ignored. 
That became clear this August after an 
audit of schools participating in the voucher 
program by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair 
Housing Council, a government agency that 
seeks to ensure compliance with civil rights 
laws. When the voucher program was written 
into law in 1995, the law required that schools 
accepting the funds could not impose addi-
tional fees on students, had to accept stu-
dents randomly, and had to allow students 
the opportunity not to attend the 
school's religious activities. 
Despite these limited and unam-
biguous requirements, the coun-
cil's audit discovered a number 
of instances in which schools 
illegally charged excess fees to 
voucher students, examples of 
improper screening and selec-
tion of applicants, and the vio-
lation of the religious free-
doms of students' families by 
discouraging parents from 
opting their children out of 
religious services. 
The more common the 
cases of fraud and legal trans-
gressions become, the greater 
the certainty that the govern-
ment will feel it necessary to 
regulate the religious institu-
tions that receive public 
money. Effective governing 
and public accountability 
would require nothing less. 
The answer is not to ask 
the state to be less accountable 
for our tax dollars and main-
tain a high tolerance for fraud and abuse. 
Rather, the answer is for religious institutions 
to avoid feeding at the public trough, severing 
the ties between the two institutions for the 
benefit of both. 
Perhaps those who prefer to remove a 
brick or two from the wall that separates 
church and state in the United States would 
do well to remember the prudent observation 
of Benjamin Franklin nearly two centuries 
ago. 
"When a religion is good, I conceive it will 
support itself?' Franklin said, "and when it 
does not support itself, and God does not take 
care to support it so that its professors are 
obliged to call for help of the civil power, `tis a 
sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." 
* 
-BENJMIN FRANKLIN 
22 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
I/ 
o cherish peace and 
friendly intercourse with all 
nations having correspondent 
dispositions; to maintain sincere neutral-
ity toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all 
cases amicable discussion and reasonable 
accommodation of differences to a decision of 
them by an appeal to arms; to exclude 
foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so 
degrading to all countries and so baneful to 
free ones; to foster a spirit of independence too 
just to invade the rights of others, too proud 
to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge 
unworthy prejudices ourselves, and too 
elevated not to look down upon them in 
others; to hold the Union of the States as the 
basis of their peace and happiness; to 
support the Constitution, which is the cement 
of the Union, as well in its limitations as in 
its authorities; to respect the rights and 
authorities reserved to the States and to the 
people, as equally incorporated with, and 
essential to the success of, the general system; 
to avoid the slightest interference with the 
right of conscience or the functions of religion, 
so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to 
preserve in their full energy the other salutary 
provisions in behalf of private and personal 
rights, and of the freedom of the press." 
—JAMES M AD IsoN, First Inaugural Address, 
March 4, 1809. 
N. NA• 
ss, �
• •••••• �
' 
• "'"1/4.-- 
CC �I thought he was a good Christian man," said 
one woman. 
"I knew him through church," explained a 
man who lost his $119,000 IRA. "He seemed 
honest and smart, and had lots of assets and a 
happy family." 
"He was a pillar in the church and the community," 
agreed the woman, who with her husband lost $123,000, 80 
percent of their retirement funds. "He was a success." 
These people were talking about Philip Harmon, a genial 
salesman from Camano Island, Washington. Unfortunately, 
their experience was shared by hundreds of other churchgoers. 
They were all mistaken in their judgment of this "good" 
man. Harmon was a "crook," who stole more than $30 mil-
lion from several hundred investors. Many of his victims 
were in his own congregation, the independent Camano 
chapel, where the losses included $48,000 from its school 
fund and almost $40,000 from the pastor's family. Harmon 
used the money to buy a yacht, an estate overlooking Puget 
Sound, beachfront condos in Maui, numerous antique cars, 
and other luxuries. 
Harmon did not spare his own relatives. He took his 
brother for $96,000 and a sister for $59,000. Then there was 
Norma Beebe, of Eugene, Oregon. After her husband died, 
her son Terry, married to Harmon's daughter and working 
for him, persuaded his mother to put most of her inheritance 
into Harmon's investments. She lost $135,000. 
In October 1997 Harmon pleaded guilty to fraud charges, 
and he is serving an eight-year sentence in federal prison. 
Terry Beebe later pled guilty to a similar charge. 
Unfortunately, church members "make good victims" for 
scam artists, according to Steve Schroeder, the veteran federal 
prosecutor on the Harmon case. When I first heard this state-
ment I wasn't sure I believed it. But my work since then has 
made it clear Schroeder is right. The evidence is overwhelming. 
In March 1998 Priscilla Deters, a 63-year-old California 
woman, was convicted of defrauding churches and individu-
als in 21 states of more than $4 million. She had told them 
she could double their money for church projects in a year, 
using the profits from other vaguely described lucrative busi 
nesses. But there were no other businesses. Like Harmon, she 
was running a classic Ponzi scheme. 
F 
 leglii. 
In a Ponzi scheme, investors are promised quick large 
profits from some usually mysterious business—and at first 
they get them. But in fact there is no mysterious business; the 
"profits" are really paid out of the funds put in by later 
investors, rushing to cash in. The cycle continues until the 
supply of new investors dries up. Then the scheme collapses, 
and most later investors lose their money. 
That's exactly what happened to Priscilla Deters' opera-
tion. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for the fraud 
implicit in such a scheme. 
I am a churchgoer myself, and much about these two 
cases was hard to take. I spent four months investigating the 
Harmon and Deters cases, and two weeks covering Deters' 
trial in a Wichita federal court. It was depressing to discover 
how easily many church leaders and members greedily suc-
cumbed to quick-money schemes presented in "Christian" 
garb. Since then I have reported on several more such fraud 
cases, most involving much larger sums. Among these are: 
I Quoting from Luke 6:38 ("Give, and it shall be given 
unto you") Pastor Gerald Payne and his cronies at Greater 
Ministries International Church, of Tampa, Florida, 
promised thousands of donors from all 50 states they would 
get back more than double their "gifts" to the church in less 
than two years. They claimed that profits would come from 
fabulously rich diamond and platinum mines in Liberia and 
elsewhere. Greater Ministries took in more than $400 mil-
lion. With this Payne and his cohorts planned to start their 
own country, "Greaterland," in which they would be safe 
from prosecution. The mines didn't exist, the money disap-
peared, and the plans for Greaterland went aglimmering 
when Payne and six other church officials were indicted in 
March 1999 on numerous fraud and conspiracy charges. 
I The Baptist Foundation of Arizona was set up a half cen-
tury ago to raise money for church charities. Instead it turned 
into a massive real estate investment Ponzi scheme that made 
a few insiders rich and gave only a pittance to charity. When 
the foundation filed for bankruptcy in November 1999, 13,000 
investors, mostly elderly church members from several 
Southwestern states, stood to lose more than $640 million. 
Chuck Fager is a reporter and writer who lives in central 
Pennsylvania. He has covered church-based financial frauds 
since 1997. 
By 
CHUCK FAGER 
24 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 �
ILLUSTRATION BY JIM OWENS 
rime 
experts ca 
such
- churc 
scams 
"affinity grou 
frauds,"
since they are 
based on 
some bond 
of trust 
between 
perpetrator 
and victim. 
Lawsuits alleging fraud and conspiracy have been filed, and 
state investigators are pursuing possible criminal charges. 
• Run by Jonathan Strawder, a charismatic, Bible-quoting 
young college graduate, Sovereign Ministries, of Orlando, 
Florida, took in more than $12 million in a year, with a dou-
ble-your-money pitch very similar to that of Greater 
Ministries, where Strawder once worked. State authorities 
arrested Strawder on charges of fraud in December 1998. 
Crime experts call such church scams "affinity group 
frauds;' since they are based on some bond of trust between 
perpetrator and victim. Professional, ethnic, and family 
groups are other targets for this type of crime; but nothing 
seems to beat religion as a bait for suckers. In fact, the North 
American Securities Administrators Association has named 
"affinity group fraud" as number one on its "Top Ten" list of 
frauds threatening the public today. 
While my investigations showed these frauds to be wide-
spread, it is troubling to observe how weak the typical law 
enforcement response is. Cases like these are notoriously 
hard to investigate—complicated, far-flung, 
expensive. Priscilla Deters' victims were scat-
tered across the continent. Moreover, she 
intimidated many into silence, threatening 
that those who talked to investigators would 
never see their money again. 
Other victims have been too ashamed to 
talk. As Dick Johnston, head of the National 
Center on White Collar Crime, told me: "The 
situation with white-collar crime today is not 
unlike the under-reporting of rape a few 
years ago, when we couldn't get many victims 
to come forward." 
Another obstacle is that these cases are not 
"sexy" mediawise. They are tough to explain 
and seldom draw more than local media 
interest. With low public attention comes a 
low law enforcement priority. After all, white 
collar criminals usually look and talk like 
their victims—and who gets elected being 
tough on grandparents? 
When North Dakota securities officials 
issued a cease and desist order against Deters in 
1991, Roger Wegner, a Nazarene district super-
intendent, was quoted in a daily paper there 
openly ridiculing it. "I happen to believe people 
that are in the church," he said. "I happen to 
believe Priscilla Deters:' Wegner also knew who 
not to believe: "It's not illegal. I don't care what 
[the] Securities [Commissioner] says. . . ." 
Then he simply ignored the order and sent 
Deters $600,000 of his churches' money, almost 
all of which was lost. 
The official response? Seemingly none. 
South Dakota issued a similar order 
against Deters in 1995. But when I called in 
1998 to ask about it, the staff only vaguely remembered it, 
and nobody could even find a copy to send me. 
California was somewhat tougher. Its Department of 
Corporations issued a "desist and refrain" order against 
Deters' operation in 1991. She ignored it for four years. 
Finally in 1995 the state noticed and obtained an injunction 
ordering her to stop. Again she ignored it. In early 1997 
Deters was cited for civil contempt and fined $2,000. She 
paid the fine and kept going until her federal criminal trial. 
Is this law and order? Are the slick crooks out there steal-
ing the millions of dollars really supposed to fear such 
Keystone Kops routines and slaps on the wrist? 
Effective white-collar crime enforcement involves coop- 
eration. In Tampa last August, a task force involving local 
police and several state and federal agencies joined in a raid 
on the Greater Ministries International Church headquar-
ters. They acted because Gerald Payne had bragged he was 
busy destroying possibly incriminating records. Priscilla 
Deters was finally stopped when the Kansas Securities 
Commission teamed up with federal authori-
ties. In the Philip Harmon case, Washington 
State insurance investigators worked with 
agents from the FBI, IRS, and Department 
of Labor in a task force they dubbed 
"Operation Island Scam." 
Steve Schroeder, prosecutor in the 
Harmon case, is very proud of this coop-
erative investigation and considers it a 
model for the prosecution of white-col-
lar crime. "State agencies by themselves 
have a hard time stopping these frauds;' 
he says. "Most don't have the enforce-
ment clout. So unless you get the atten-
tion of the feds, it's hard to get convic-
tions." 
So where does that leave us, the folks 
in the pews? I think we have two main 
courses of action: 
First, if you are victimized this way, 
refuse to be a "good victim." Don't take 
the loss in silent shame: Speak up. Make 
the so-called "tough on crime" politi-
cians and prosecutors take notice. 
Second, understand that prevention 
is unquestionably our best protection. 
The first step in protection is requir-
ing outside audits. Many of the church 
groups I covered had no audits. They 
trusted their leaders, as persons chosen 
by God, to handle the financial affairs of 
the church or agency honestly and 
responsibly. So the accountability was 
spotty at best. 
And most of those leaders were in 
fact "honest," in the sense that they were 
26 LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
reporting 
on church 
frauds 
persuades me 
that unless 
we study to 
be wise, 
we will not 
succeed 
in being 
harmless as 
doves. 
MY 
not diverting church funds into their own 
pockets. On the other hand, many were nei-
ther responsible nor professional in per-
forming what lawyers call "due diligence" 
about investments. Too many were also just 
plain gullible. Further, it was extremely rare 
to find one who was ready to stand up and 
sound the alarm about a fraud scheme, 
whether from embarrassment or guild loy-
alty. Many more were anxious to hush the 
scandals up and divert their flocks' atten-
tion to happier topics. 
Outside audits are a basic institutional 
precaution. They are well worth the cost. As 
a recent auditor's report for a Philadelphia 
church group put it, "we plan and perform 
the audit to obtain reasonable assurance 
about whether the financial statements are 
free of material misstatements." Put even 
more plainly, auditors are paid to look for 
fraud, and thus they can deter much of it. 
The second ingredient in meaningful 
prevention must be self-education. But 
this should not be left to individuals. Con 
artists target groups, and deterring them is 
a group responsibility. Indeed, fraud edu-
cation should be a standard part of every denomination's 
adult education efforts, for leaders, clergy, and laypeople 
alike. For Christians, this education program could be built 
around a single motto: "Trust in Jesus, and check out every-
body else." 
Checking everyone out does not require taking on 
worldly cynicism. It means learning about, and insisting on, 
items as basic as a prospectus (Phil Harmon didn't have 
one), and verifying the securities licenses required by every 
state (Harmon didn't have one of them, either, nor did 
Deters, or Gerald Payne of Greater Ministries). 
To these checks should be added regular reminders of the 
cliche that if something financial sounds too good to be true, 
it probably is. One of Priscilla Deters' early brochures for her 
matching program anticipated and tried to neutralize this 
caution: "Isn't the [matching] concept too good to be true?" 
it asked. To the contrary, it declared, "It is not too good to be 
true—it is GOOD BECAUSE IT IS TRUE!" 
None of these preventive measures is foolproof, of course. 
Prospectuses and licenses can be faked. Auditors can be 
fooled, at least for a while. The Baptist Foundation of Arizona 
managed to get a clean bill of health from their auditors for 
years, even as the fraud mushroomed right under their noses. 
But such measures are much better than nothing. 
Unfortunately, if such fraud prevention programs exist in 
the churches, I haven't heard of them; and the reluctance to 
engage the topic is itself a sign of continuing vulnerability. 
As Professor Arthur Leff, of Yale Law School, noted in an 
excellent book, Swindling and Selling, "There are structural 
components in a religious context which 
make the job of the conscientious swindler 
very much easier?' One component is a 
reluctance to deal with the topic at all. 
Another is the refusal to believe one could 
be victimized by one's own. As Norma 
Beebe, who lost $135,000 to Philip 
Harmon, admitted to me, "The hardest 
thing has been to recognize that such a trust 
could have been broken in Christian cir-
cles?' But it was. 
In 1993 one Kansas church leader who 
had invested church funds with Priscilla 
Deters was confronted by a member of his 
board of trustees. The board member, a 
banker, brandished a Dun and Bradstreet 
report that clearly pointed out the shady 
character of her operation. In rebuttal, the 
leader indignantly declared that his wife 
had prayed and wept with Deters, and God 
had assured her of Deters' probity. Thus 
inappropriately pitted against God, Dun 
and Bradstreet had no chance. 
In a similar manner R. J. Wegner, the 
North Dakota Nazarene superintendent, 
defiantly declared he would take the word 
of people "in the church" over worldly interlopers such as the 
state securities commissioner. Wegner's devotion provides a 
prime example of such folly. It was five years before he sheep-
ishly and furtively admitted that the $527,000 he had so 
enthusiastically collected for Priscilla Deters, from nearly 
twoscore North Dakota churches and individuals, was lost. 
Only in October 1996 did he finally file a claim with 
California authorities. 
A shrewder Dakota Nazarene, whose church had opted 
out of the Deters "project," summed up such studied, all-too-
common gullibility for the Grand Forks Herald this way: 
"Like Billy Sunday said, 'Sinners can always repent, but stu-
pid is forever." 
A kinder way to put this is to stress the aptness of Jesus' 
admonition "I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves: 
be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" 
(Matthew 10:16). My reporting on church frauds persuades 
me that unless we study to be wise, we will not succeed in 
being harmless as doves. Instead, we'll be more like the 
sheep, ready to be shorn or turned into mutton. 
In the cases I have followed, some perpetrators have been 
brought to justice and others will soon come before the bar. 
But even if all the money taken in these scams is recovered 
and all the crooks locked up, new "affinity group" con artists 
will take their places. 
Indeed, new swindlers are already planning to use our 
deepest beliefs as ways to target our life savings and our 
churches' bank accounts. This is as sure as sunrise tomorrow. 
We had better be ready. 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
27 
fiBER T Y 
Clarence E. Hodges 
Chairman, Editorial Board 
Lincoln E. Steed 
Editor 
Loleta Thomas Bailey 
Associate Editor 
Monika Greenhow 
Editorial Assistant 
James A. Cavil 
Copy Editor 
Leo Ranzotin 
Jan Paulsen 
Don C. Schneider 
B. B. Beach 
John Graz 
Consulting Editors 
Vernon Alger 
Amireh Al-Haddad 
Charles Eusey 
Samuel Green 
Greg Hamilton 
Nathaniel Higgs 
Darrel Huenergardt 
Ralph Janes 
Diana Justice 
Brad Newton 
Robert Patterson 
Alan Reinach 
Mitchell A. Tyner 
Consultants 
Jeffrey L. Dever 
Art Director 
Amy W. Sucherman 
Designer 
Kenneth W. Osborn 
Treasurer 
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Vol .95, No.5, September/October 2000. 
 
 OP. CIT. 
�
Back to Creation 
From time to time I've come 
across a copy of your magazine and 
have enjoyed several of the articles 
in its pages. A recent article, 
"Monkey Fever in Kansas" 
(March/April 2000), was of particu-
lar interest to me as I do workshops 
for teachers and am a consultant 
with public schools concerning the 
topic of teaching about religion. 
On the one hand, this article was 
a fine presentation of the complex 
history and the varied facets of the 
conflict between creationists and 
evolutionists. I appreciated Derek 
Davis's clear and astute presenta-
tion of the essential court cases 
concerning this topic. On the other 
hand, I perhaps did not understand 
his suggestions for handling this 
controversy "more effectively than 
• it has been in the past." 
Yes, both sides could better 
appreciate the other's claims for 
"diametrically opposed approaches 
to apprehending truth." No one 
who has studied the issue would 
disagree that our schools have the 
legal freedom, some would say the 
responsibility, to teach about reli-
gion in the public schools. But this 
is the difficulty. It seems Professor 
Davis is suggesting creationism, 
as a different perspective on 
approaching truth, could naturally 
be a topic for discussion in the 
science class. There are two prob-
lems with this approach. 
First, the biblical story of cre-
ation is not the only creation story 
in the myriad of religious traditions 
(each with its perspective on truth), 
nor is the fundamentalist creation 
interpretation universally held by 
readers of the Bible. Thus those 
who argue for creationism in the 
schools are not actually arguing for 
the subject of creationism, they are 
arguing for a particular type of cre-
ationism. As a rabbi and reader of 
Hebrew Bible I have no problem 
with Darwin, or evolutionary 
approaches such as the big bang. 
On the other hand, I have several 
problems with biblical creationism 
as presented by the likes of Jerry 
Falwell, or the ICR, and their follow-
ers. As a subject for academic 
study, t don't have a problem with 
creationism that includes the Native 
American, ancient Mesopotamian, 
ancient Chinese, or a myriad of 
other approaches to truth; I do 
have a serious, problem with the 
singular approach that I fear would 
be the result of following Professor 
Davis's suggestions. Whose per-
spective on approaching truth do 
we leave out? 
The second problem is the issue 
of mixing the two topics of science 
and creationism. By following 
Professor Davis's suggestion it 
would seem that health science 
instructors should take time out of 
their classes to instruct their stu-
dents in the perspective of Mary 
Baker Eddy or those who practice 
the ancient and venerable Chinese 
"medical science" of acupuncture. 
Frankly, I want my child who suf-
fers from diabetes to take his 
insulin, and I don't care to have his 
health class spend precious 
instruction time balancing the sci-
entific view of health with that of 
Ms. Eddy. Science is about the 
inductive reasoning process, draw-
ing conclusions based on the high-
est degree of probability given the 
empirical evidence. It is about the 
physical universe. Religion, on the 
other hand, is about the metaphysi- 
cal universe, about abstract truth 
and spiritual claims. As regards 
theism, one can debate the merits 
of the cosmological, teleological, or 
ontological arguments in support of 
the existence of God, and then turn 
to the atheist responses to each. 
But these arguments are hardly the 
topic of a class in the sciences. 
Conversely, from Maimonides and 
Aquinas to Spinoza, Kant, and 
Kierkegaard, each has, in some 
form, argued that ultimate truth 
requires something pure reason 
and science cannot provide us. In 
the final analysis the core of reli-
gion requires that famous "leap of 
faith" in the face of a science that 
cannot provide the ultimate 
answers for the followers of reli-
gion. Would Professor Davis have 
us interject an elaborate discussion 
of carbon-base theory into 
Kierkegaard's leap of faith or 
Spinoza's monism? 
I have one other area of differ-
ence with Professor Davis. He 
says, "One of the greatest tests of 
any free society is its willingness to 
allow dissent about important 
issues of the day." One can hardly 
object to what seems to be a noble 
observation. And I agree, 
allowance for dissent is a corner-
stone of a free society. The ques-
tions are Where? What kind of dis-
sent? Holocaust revisionists use 
the same argument for courses in 
history. Do we give them balanced 
time in the public education of our 
youth? Does the rabbi, in total 
dissent from the creationist reading. 
of the Bible, get equal time for his 
view of the creation story in the sci-
ence class? When will the science 
teacher get back to science? 
I teach courses in world reli-
gions, philosophy, and ethics at 
the local junior college. I find 
young people are starved for stud- 
28 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES 
The God-given right of religious liberty is best exercised 
when church and state are separate. 
Government is God's agency to protect individual rights and 
to conduct civil affairs; in exercising these responsibilities, offi-
cials are entitled to respect and cooperation. 
Religious liberty entails freedom of conscience: to worship 
or not to worship; to profess, practice and promulgate religious 
beliefs or to change them. In exercising these rights, however, 
one must respect the equivalent rights of all others. 
Attempts to unite church and state are opposed to the inter-
ests of each, subversive of human rights and potentially perse-
cuting in character; to oppose union, lawfully and honorably, is 
not only the citizen's duty but the essence of the Golden Rule—to 
treat others as one wishes to be treated. 
 
 OP. CIT. 
�
ies in these vital areas. It is a 
shame so few public schools 
include courses in the awe-inspir-
ing world of comparative religions, 
or that survey the complex, won-
derful worlds of philosophy and 
ethics. Yes, great religious, philo-
sophical, and ethical questions 
might arise in a math class or a 
science class, but the objective of 
that math class or science class 
has enough to fill the curriculum 
without adding an entirely different 
agenda. And a shallow treatment 
of such complex issues by simply 
giving the briefest recognition that 
there is a different way of perceiv-
ing the issues raised hardly quali-
fies to be called educational. 
So let our students learn that 
there are many ways of perceiving 
ultimate truth in this world; let 
them learn that there are those who 
read the same sacred texts who 
have diametrically opposed views 
about what those texts say and 
mean. But of course this won't 
please the creationists. 
RABBI LESTER G. SCHARNBERG 
Bayside, California 
[A well-thought-out reply by the 
good rabbi, which underscores the 
perils of any religious instruction 
in a secular environment. We do 
need a balanced presentation of 
evolution that acknowledges its 
own deficiencies and required 
leaps of faith. We also do not need 
generic or, worse, partisan views 
on creationism forced on students 
in public schools!—Editor.] 
A Warning 
Imposition of a particular reli-
gious faith is hardly the way to 
prevent school carnage. Some 
would require their version of reli-
gion to be part of every public 
school curriculum. They would 
do this by mandatory religious 
laws and amendments to the 
Constitution. Some, I am sure, 
would change this democratic 
republic into a theocracy. 
Religious rites required in public 
schools can only polarize a com-
munity that needs more than ever 
to be held together. 
In this nation, with our separa-
tion of church and state, the gov-
ernment cannot tell us what to 
worship, when to worship, where 
to worship, or how to worship.. 
The fourth R, religion, is a function 
of the home and church. Religion 
is personal, private, and, most of 
all, divisive. Have we learned noth-
ing from religious history, past and 
especially present? 
MELVIN S. FRANK 
Poland, Ohio 
[Yes, we should be accommo-
dating to the spiritual sensitivities 
of others. We should not expect 
the state to formalize by general 
decree the holy days of any group, 
however.—Ed.] 
Let Us Know 
One of the big rewards in editing 
a magazine like Liberty is hearing 
from our readers. Sure, sometimes 
you send us your opinions pack-
aged in verbal cudgels. But how 
could we object, given our commit-
ment to freedom of belief? Other 
times there are heartwarming affir-
mations of the big principles that 
we are covering in Liberty. Either 
way the bottom line is that we need 
to hear from you to keep the rela-
tionship vital and healthy. 
After all, there's never been 
more to discuss. The topics are 
wide: ranging from vouchers and 
other forms of state aid to schools, 
prayer in public places, charitable 
choice, church zoning challenges, 
the societal tension from increasing 
religious diversity, the dynamics of 
Supreme Court deliberations on 
religion, the politicization of the 
religious community, and so on. 
So get on the horn, computer, or 
whatever information highway you 
prefer and let us know your opinion 
on what we say and what we 
should be saying. We promise to 
read the letters and will try to print 
your comments where possible. 
We are easy to reach. Try writ-
ing to us at Liberty, 12501 Old 
Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, 
Maryland 20904, e-mail me at 
steeli@NAD.adventist.org, or fax 
us at 301-680-6695. 
LINCOLN STEED, Editor 
The Liberty editors reserve the 
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LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2 0 0 0 29 
 
 0 BITER 
�
pL AY XI 
ALAI 
S
o far this millennium has 
packed a sprightly pace of 
events into the opening 
months (I choose to begin 
it with this year and not the 
next. The purists are out of step 
with public perception, which is, 
after all, the only meaningful mea-
sure to something that is an artifice 
of convenience). Perhaps it is pri-
marily because of the irritant of a 
presidential election year, but I can-
not remember so many remarkable 
changes in such a short time, even 
allowing for the fall of the Soviet 
Union a decade ago. 
Days ago Israel unilaterally 
pulled out of Lebanon, precipitating 
a collapse of the Christian militia 
there and bringing taunting 
Hezbollah fighters right to the bor-
der fences. The lingering war 
between Ethiopia and breakaway 
Eritrea suddenly seems to be near 
settlement. Farther south the implo-
sion of Sierra Leone has sucked in 
United Nations troops and con-
cerned internationalists with the 
implications for spreading anarchy 
(and yes, anarchists seem to have 
reappeared here in North America 
with nihilistic notions). Robert 
Mugabe in Zimbabwe has incited 
retribution against White farmers 
and sent jitters throughout South 
Africa. In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tiger 
insurgency has cut off an entire 
area of the country and now threat-
ens the government. Western 
peace negotiators fled the Solomon 
Islands under a hail of gunfire. In 
Fiji ethnic Fijians still hold their 
prime minister, an ethnic Indian, 
hostage ... But why go on? This 
is already a proven time of change 
and upheaval! 
How to make sense of it. 
Someone once observed that while 
history does not repeat itself, it 
does rhyme. Clearly the past is a 
good guide; often a salutary warn-
ing in dealing with the present. 
Human nature being what it is, 
there are clear patterns that will 
repeat in similar circumstances. 
I just returned from a week in 
Guatemala, Central America. Over 
the years I have been there about a 
dozen times and have seen it 
change from a rather ominous mili-
tary dictatorship battling insurgency 
in a brutal way to a palpably free 
and more secure society. The ben-
efits of that change are obvious in 
the way that people now feel free to 
voice political dissent, in the build-
ing boom, the business expansion, 
the sight of indigenous Indian chil-
dren enjoying a water park along-
side families of the oligarchy. 
But some things remain. There 
is fear of violence. Guards stand 
out front of any major business and 
wealthy residence with pistol-grip 
short shotguns at the ready. 
Some years ago, in the midst of 
the guerrilla war and right-wing 
death squads, a dictator named 
General Efrain Rios Montt came to 
power with the promise of ending 
the conflict. In spite of his ardent 
evangelical faith (one hopes not 
because of it) Rios Montt quickly 
created a brutal scorched earth pol-
icy toward the Mayan Indians he 
believed were aiding the rebels. 
Villages were destroyed and people 
routinely lined up against the wall 
and shot. It is a testimony to the 
inherently civil nature of the trau-
matized people of Guatemala that 
they removed him, and without vio-
lence. 
Incredibly, this general has made 
a political comeback, now heading 
a major faction in the parliament. 
And as people worry about escalat-
ing crime his appeal as a tough 
law-and-order candidate is growing. 
Incredible! This lesson of history 
seems to have failed to take in pub-
lic memory. 
Back in the United States at the 
Miami airport I picked up a copy of 
the Miami Herald. And couldn't help 
but feel a certain sense of deja vu. 
One front-page story told of three 
DOT police officers disciplined for 
purchasing assault rifles to use in 
off-duty traffic assignments. Early 
30 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 
LINCOLN E. STEED 
 
 OBITER 
�
shades of right-wing paramilitary 
and death-squad justice perhaps! 
Another front-page story was 
titled "Battling for Vouchers From 
Brickell Avenue." It told the tale of 
Patrick Heffernan, a onetime semi-
narian and church school official 
who "sees himself as David fending 
off the Goliath of public schools" 
and is taking action as founder of 
the state's largest pro-voucher 
group, Floridians for School Choice. 
In the words of Sabrina Walters, 
the Herald reporter, "His is a story 
of what happens when a civic orga-
nizer's politics happen to align with 
those of the influential and the 
wealthy—people with a willingness 
to give money and who seemingly 
have an endless supply of it." The 
voucher issue has gathered quite a 
head of steam this election season, 
after Milwaukee and Cleveland 
school districts approved the pub- 
licly funded private school vouch-
ers. It is sure to be a major cam-
paign issue, with Republican gover-
nor George W. Bush strongly pro-
voucher, and so far Vice President 
Gore very much opposed. 
(Interestingly, a recent fund-raising 
letter from the Hillary Clinton for 
New York senator campaign is quite 
forthright in her opposition to 
school vouchers.) 
"Critics," according to the article, 
"contend Heffernan is part of a big-
ger right-wing crusade seeking to 
undermine public schools and 
divert state funds to private, reli-
gious-based schools." One of his 
critics is Howard Simon, president 
of the American Civil Liberties 
Union. "To steer children into 
parochial schools is constitutionally 
impermissible," he says. 
Perhaps it was the juxtaposition 
of my trip to what once was called 
a banana republic, and all the right-
wing abuses implied by the history 
of such systems, that colored my 
reading of the Miami headlines. 
Perhaps it was just a series of rec-
ollections from my history studies. 
But I don't think a get-tough free-
lance paramilitary approach will 
work any better here than in 
Guatemala or Kosovo. And I do 
think that the voucher movement, 
while clearly toying with constitu-
tional constraints, is also a disturb-
ing attempt by a privileged class to 
use the government for its benefit, 
and the public school system be 
damned—another step toward an 
oligarchy in my heavy-handed inter-
pretation of historic tendencies. 
Quite apart from the fact that it will 
also tend to institutionalize the 
power of one or more major 
churches and create a very unholy 
union of church and state. And the 
history of such in Latin America is 
chilling. Let's not go down that 
path—ever. 
I started off my comments with 
a patchwork reporting of a world in 
flux to show the revolutionary times 
we live in. Don't think for one 
moment that I'd forget to mention 
the United States. I think it self-evi-
dent that it faces its greatest chal-
lenge since its founding and the 
cold war. It's not proper for Liberty 
to take politically partisan posi-
tions: but without fear of that I can 
say that in the past few months we 
have witnessed either a creeping 
coup d'etat, perhaps by a "vast 
right-wing conspiracy," or the expo-
sure of the most corrupt, manipula-
tive, lawless administration ever. 
God help us if both of these are 
anywhere close to a reality. 
God help us to maintain a decent 
and fair society. God help us to 
learn the lessons of history—and 
not just of our own country. God 
help us to uphold the constitutional 
liberties so clearly established by 
people in awe of past mistakes. 
Liberties cherished by people deter-
mined not to repeat the horrors of 
past ages. 
LIBERTY SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 31 
• . 
dr .1 
AV% t.7# 
• 
)' • . �
T'.'"•- • 
- 
f I could have 
entertained the slightest 
apprehension that the 
constitution framed in the convention, 
where I had the honor to preside, 
might possibly endanger the religious 
rights of any ecclesiastical society, 
certainly I would never have placed my 
signature to it; and, if I could now 
conceive that the general government 
might ever be so administered as to 
render the liberty of conscience 
insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, 
that no one would be more zealous 
than myself to establish effectual 
barriers against the horrors of 
spiritual tyranny, and every species 
of religious persecution." 
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, in a letter sent 
in response to an address of the General Committee of 
the United Baptist Churches in Virginia, May 1789.