From the Easy Chair

John Lofton Views on Talk Shows

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 139-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161CV181

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161CV181, John Lofton Views on Talk Shows, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 291, May the 12th, 1993.

This evening Douglas Murray, Otto Scott, Mark Rushdoony and I have with us one of our number, John Lofton. John flew out from the Washington, DC area to be in San Francisco for a television appearance and I am going to ask him to tell us about the whole trip, other appearances of a similar character and then we will proceed from that to some other subjects.

John?

[ Lofton ] Hi, Rush.

[ Rushdoony ] Glad to have you with us.

[ Lofton ] I thought that was the San Francisco cable car passing through here. It is good to be here particularly after being in San Francisco.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, John, tell us a little bit about Jerry Springer, who he is and what the show was about, other appearances you have had of late.

[ Lofton ] Well, Jerry Springer has a nationally syndicated TV talk show usually follows Donahue in most cities and it is a ... one of those hour long talk shows and ... and what this one was about is the typical slice of San Francisco life, I guess. It was about a lesbian safe sex shop and voyeurism and it was awful and my role was to come on the show and be outraged by everything and I was and it.

Springer is a former... I believe the former mayor of Cincinnati and he was in the news, the national news when it was revealed that he had once gone to a house of prostitution and used his credit card and actually signed his name and some... I ... I guess the receipt was left in there and the press somehow got on it and it was all over the front pages. So people may have heard of Mr. Springer.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, I recall...

[ Scott ] So obviously someone was...

[ Rushdoony ] ... reading of it.

[ Scott ] Obviously someone with a sharp mind like that was destined for his own national talk show. You know, he was going to big time somewhere. But they were out there of a week taping and the... one person in the audience asked me if I was going to stay for the second show that was being taped and I said I didn’t think so. I was just, you know, glad to escape alive from the first show. And I asked what it was about and they said it was a polygamous. There was a man coming there with seven wives. That was the next show. So I don’t think the shows were getting any... any better as they went through the week.

It is a freak show. It is like all these national talk shows. They are all freak shows.

[ Rushdoony ] You have been called to represent the Christian perspective on what other...?

[ Lofton ] Well, yes, I have..... I have been on the Oprah... the Oprah Winfrey show and Geraldo and Donahue and the Ron Reagan show. You had to look quick to catch that one. And it ... all of... all of the shows that I have been asked to be on have to do with homosexuals, homosexuals marrying, homosexuals adopting children. And one of the interesting things that happens on almost all the shows is that the segment producer will tell me the list of names of prominent Christian leaders, so-called, who have been asked to come on and debate these issues and they say absolutely not. They will not come on to fight in this fight. And... which I think is very interesting, because I think that the homosexuals are on the very front row of this spiritual war that we are in as Christians and it is very interesting that a lot of these so called Christian leaders will have no part of this battle and will not come on and defend the faith against the homosexuals who do defend their faith, of course, very militantly.

[ Rushdoony ] You apparently had a run in on the sidewalk with some of these women.

[ Lofton ] Or whatever they were, yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, describe them and what happened. Well, I... I said coming over here tonight that we didn’t want to have our first x-rated Easy Chair tape with two explicit a description because they were quite vulgar and vile people and they do a lot of things down in the audience while you are up on the stage speaking. And after it was over I went outside and there was a ... a person, I guess, is a fairly safe description in a black leather jacket and nose rings and a Mohawk hairdo. Your typical San Francisco citizen, tattoos. And really wanting to tell me that it was true that the Bible says that a ... that a man shall not lay with a man and a woman with a woman, but this person said, “But right after that it says that whoever judges them is as bad as they are.”

And I had my Scripture inside my coat pocket and I just pulled it out to say one of two things. I am either going to open it up to that Leviticus passage and ... and show the ... the... the thing that I was talking to that it was not there or... or I was going to have more fun and hand that person the Bible and say, “Well, where is that? Show me.”

And the minute I pulled the Bible out this person said, “Oh, God, he has got a Bible.” And just... the person ran down the sidewalk. I thought at first it was shtick, you know, that it was oh, I am, you know, a Bible. I am really afraid of... But, no. But it just... they just kept going. They... they never came back.

And I thought about the scriptural passage about if you resist Satan he flees. So it was as if I had pulled out a .357 magnum or something. You know, duck, he has got a Bible. And just took off. So, obviously the person knew that...

[ Scott ] It is like a crucifix with Dracula. Have you ever tried that before?

[ Lofton ] No, but I am certainly open to the suggestion. Yeah, that.... that is a good... that is exactly what it was like.

[ Rushdoony ] This was Dracula’s girlfriend apparently.

[ Lofton ] Well, if it is, I should send Dracula a sympathy card immediately, because this was one raunchy looking whatever it was. Yeah.

And another... well, anyway. Yes, that is the {?} I think of... all I want to describe what happened. There was another person who got a little grosser.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, did you enjoy your stay in Sodom by the sea?

[ Lofton ] No. I mean I like to get out and I like to preach and I like to ... the combat, but it really does take its toll. It really ... it really knots up your stomach. It really... and I am... I am... I was sincere when I said earlier that it is really good to be able to go to a show like that and then to come here with Christians and that is the way it has worked several times in the past is that it have gotten these shows and then you allowed me to come out and here it is... it is really a ... it is... it is really refreshing because you are really on edge after doing this combat. I mean, that is a very evil city and if you just looked out at that audience it was just for the most part people that were enthusiastically on the pro lesbian, pro death side. There was very few Christians or very few people applauding any Scriptures.

[ Rushdoony ] How about your appearance in Secaucus, New Jersey? What was the subject there...

[ Lofton ] Well, it was...

[ Rushdoony ] And what was the audience and the...?

[ Lofton ] It was another show of... of... about a week, a week and a half earlier, a cable show on channel nine, WWOR in Secaucus, New Jersey and the subject was women in combat, whether or not it was a good idea now to have women in combat and it was ... there were three men against... three men and a... and a woman against including myself and three women that were for it and, once again, the audience was ... looked like it was something out of the bar scene in Star Wars, you know, I mean, all kinds of very alien creatures. And I mean they are just crazy. They are ... they are... they are just ... they are not subject to any kind of rational arguments about anything.

[ Scott ] Who was... whose show was that in New Jersey?

[ Lofton ] The Richard Bey Show, B E Y. He is on cable. He goes to some cities that have cable, but he is not nationally syndicated in as many places as Jerry Springer.

[ Scott ] Do... is the audience ... I recall when I was in New York a long time ago, 30 years or so ago that certain people used to receive free tickets to particular shows in the mail or they would be called up and driven a block or what not. Generally there was an effort to cue the audience in to the type of show so these shows that you went to, you could tell the minute you walked in they are crazy shows because the audience was crazy.

[ Lofton ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Do they still do that?

[ Lofton ] Yeah. I think these shows have something at the end about if you want to come where you can get tickets so they know I am going to come, but you almost have to assume that anybody that is at an 11 AM taping on a weekday is, you know, either cutting school or they have just escaped prison or...

[ Scott ] Yeah, yeah.

[ Lofton ] Or ... or they don’t have jobs so it is a very motley...

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Lofton ] ...crew out there and they are just there to ... it is like the old Morton Downey show, you know they are just there to cheer one side or boo or it... it... it really is a zoo. Maybe I have been unfair to the animals at the zoo, zoo like. Secaucus, New Jersey.

As... as a matter of fact, it was in the old studio of the Morton Downey show.

[ Rushdoony ] You mentioned that even the man putting on the show, Bey, got a bit disturbed by the audience.

[ Lofton ] Well, he was about as disturbed as the audience. He just frequently screamed and his neck bulged and he told people to shut up and even on the break one of the producers was screaming at somebody to shut up and it is ... it was very wild.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, it reflects the disintegrating culture around us.

[ Lofton ] You know, when you look at that audience, even before anybody made a sound you... it just was ... I mean it said it everything to just look out across and see the tattooed women and the nose rings and the hats on backwards and the… it is a grim crew.

[ M Rushdoony ] What is the market for... for these ... for these talk shows? Is it just a voyeuristic thing to watch all kinds of weird people scream at each other?

[ Lofton ] That... that is a good question. I am... I am not exactly sure how big a... I mean, there is obviously an increasing number of them and I am ... I am not sure how big a share they actually draw. I mean it is... it is clear that the ones that you continue to see are obviously staying on the air, but yeah, if you just look at the titles you can see... Sally Jessie Raphael whose show ... I don’t think I ever told you about this one. It was embarrassing. As if the others weren’t. But there... they had a show about disgusting people with disgusting jobs and ... and then they wanted someone to come on and be outraged by the disgusting people and that was my role and there was a ... one woman, a... a... a black woman, lady. And her... and she posed for gag post cards.

And at one point in the show she just ran up and tried to kiss me. It was horrifying. And it was just a freak show. And you say, “Well, what is the purpose of this show?” Raphael recently had people... this is a true title: People who suck blood for sexual pleasure, people who actually slit a vein or bite a neck and actually suck the blood of another person for sexual... that was the whole hour was devoted to that with the people on the stage that were both the, you know, the... the person with the blood and... and... and these people are like seriously interviewed. Why do you do this? And, you know, what is this really? Do... do your parents know and...

Well, I guess they do now. They are probably seeing me.

Yeah, I think it is just a freak show, a side show, like the carnival, you know, you used to walk by and see the snake woman or see the lobster man.

[ Rushdoony ] How do they react to your preaching?

[ Lofton ] Well, there is always a hard core training bunch that... the Christians are the cowards. The anti Christians come to the microphone. They will say you are a narrow minded bigot, a hater, that you are... that you are... what is wrong with the world. The Christians, if, indeed, they are ... are the ones who will come up after the taping and squeeze your hand or give you a peck on the cheek or give you a little note that says, “God bless you, keep it up.” And a couple of times I have... I have grabbed their arm and said, “Hey, why didn’t you go to the microphone and say this? You don’t have to make a speech. Just say, ‘I am a Christian. I agree.’”

But this... you know, remind me of that joke you used to tell which really wasn’t funny about the two Christians followed by the two toughs and how...

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, yeah.

[ Lofton ] ... one of the Christians, you know, they gained the ... the bad guys gained on them and the one said to the other what was wrong and this is basically it. I think he said, “Well, there is...” talking about the toughs. “There is two of them, but we are alone.”

I thought... there is... but this is uniform, the cowardice of the Christian in the audience to say anything. They don't do it.

[ Rushdoony ] Another story which had some basis in fact. I told it for a long, long time as an apocryphal story and then learned otherwise in a particular case about the two Christians who were very evangelical, very much given to saving souls and they saw a hoodlum on the street beating up on a helpless person. And they refused to intervene. She was screaming for help, because, they said to one another, that man needs to be witnessed to. How can we witness to him if we offend him by going to protect the old woman?

Now I think that story tells us more than we need to know about the cowardice of so-called Christians today.

[ Lofton ] Well, there is two things. There is the cowardice that I have alluded to, the silence. And then there are the people in the audience that will say, “Well, I am a lesbian and I am a Christian. And I just want you to know that this man does not ... I mean the... speak for Christians or Christianity.” You... most often on these programs the role of the Christian is to, you know disassociate themselves from the Scripture.

You know, I have said before that a lot of these so called Christians if they organize honestly under a name they would call themselves Christians against Christianity, because their role seems to be at key points to stand up and say, “Well, I am one and he is wrong” and to, you know put the knife in you and to confuse people, muddy the water.

[ Scott ] They almost always manage to get a minister.

[ Lofton ] Oh, undoubtedly. Yes.

[multiple voices]

[ Scott ] Almost always.

[ Lofton ] Yes, a collar is even better.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] … when some one can...

[ Rushdoony ] How do you respond to those people?

[ Lofton ] Well, these TV shows are amateur fighting matches. It is three rounds. Put the white thing on the other guy’s face. You know, there is no ... punches in bunches from bell to bell. So there is no time of exegesis or elaborate argument.

I do think before the show about short Scriptures in exchange. These are fire fights. They are not real talk shows. That is a misnomer.

[ Scott ] They are not real debates.

[ Lofton ] No. They are knock down...

[ Scott ] This...

[ Lofton ] Drag out...

[ Scott ] It is cartoon debates.

[ Lofton ] Yes, yes. I... I defend going on the shows on the basis of the idea or... or the Scripture that God’s Word never returns to him void and that if you can have in the course of an hour... and... and they will allow you this if you are in the minority, as I always am. They will allow you three or four, you know, good exchanges where you can talk and they will tell the other people to be quiet. And if you can get in some Scripture or some preaching then I think it is worth going on the program.

And one of the gratifying things to me over the years has been to have people call me. In one case it was an older couple that was in tears that said that they had never seen a person on television who said they were Christians. They were moved. The... the guy was almost crying but they could not believe that someone prefaced his answer by saying, “Well, I am a Bible believing Christian and I think, you know, that homosexuality is a sin.” They had just never heard it. They never said... and they were greatly ... I don’t know, emboldened or lifted up by this.

Now sometimes you get trapped. I was on a Donohue show where the guy ... where they called me and said, “Do you mind a little nudity?” And I said, “Well, no. I am occasionally nude myself. You know, in the shower or in the...”

[ Scott ] What is a little nudity?

[ Lofton ] Huh?

[ Scott ] What is a little nudity?

[ Lofton ] Yeah, I... I... well, that is what I said. That was my next question. What is a little nudity?

He said, “Well, there will be one segment where all these people will be naked on the stage. They are performance artists and they are down town in a window and they, you know, roll around on a couch and that is art.”

And I said, “Ok, well, yeah, I am not a prude.” I mean... of course, I went up there and they were on the stage the whole time totally naked.

Now as it turns out one of the elders in my church happened to see part of that show. He was in an emergency room at a hospital taking someone there and he looked up on the monitor and there I was amidst all these naked people {?}

[ Scott ] As the master of ceremonies.

[ Lofton ] Well, he ... he just got a little... it was out of context is what I said later to him.

Now this was a show where I wore a... a baseball hat with a moose hat and I had a... a... a t-shirt with a happy face with a bullet hole in its head. And I had yellow rubber gloves on.

[ Scott ] So you were posing as a brain surgeon?

[ Lofton ] I told Donohue that I was a Christian performance artist. The idea was to mock the show...

[ Scott ] Of course.

[ Lofton ] You know, answer the fool according to his folly. Anyway, when I came out Donohue just gave me the mic to say my peace.

The funny thing was, by the way, I do tell my wife that I wore any of that stuff. I took it up there and then when I told her watch the show it is like... oh, no, I don’t... but anyway.

He said... I said, “You know, the happy face with the bullet hole in it represents the death of sappy optimism, the idea that our country could endure once severed from its Christian roots. The yellow rubber gloves I wear because I am a homophobe. You know, I fear these people. They can kill you.”

And Donohue came over next to me and he said, “The hat, John. What about the hat?”

I said, “I just like the hat.”

And they laughed and... but that is a show, in retrospect that I think it is arguable that it was not proper for a Christian to be on and I certainly know that the elder of my church ...

[ Rushdoony ] Well, I think it ...

[ Lofton ] ...argued that. So...

[ Rushdoony ] ...I think it was worthwhile for what you said to the naked, black, gay who was seated next to you. Can you...

[ Lofton ] How about do you want to say that? Do you want to say that?

[ Rushdoony ] All right. What happened was that John...

[ Lofton ] I want to hear this explanation.

[ Rushdoony ] John looked down at the man’s crotch and said, “Well, it certainly is not true what they say about you fellows.”

And he bridled and said, “What do you mean? What do you mean?”

And John said, “You know full well what I mean and if I were so poorly endowed I wouldn’t appear naked in public.”

The men in the control booth just about fell out of their chairs laughing.

[ Lofton ] Yeah, it was... this... this exhibit of the people rolling around on the couch was called.... the title of it was Love, Spit, Love. And I thought... already

[multiple voices]

[ Lofton ] I can... can tell by Otto’s face you would like to have a movie of this exhibit.

[ Scott ] That... that... that baffles me. I don’t...

[ Lofton ] I... I... I ... I never figured it out either. But any event the couple that put it on, the man and the woman, of course, denounced me as just the focus of all evil in the universe and full of hate and everything and like four weeks later the New York Post page six, their gossip page had an item where this woman had been knocked down the stairs by this man and chased with a butcher knife by him and he had been put in jail. So I thought this was the love couple that had denounced me as full of hate that this guy later, you know one hour later probably went out and killed...

[ Rushdoony ] That is a news item.

[ Lofton ] ...killed his wife. This is the unconditional love person that tried to kill his wife. But ... but I think it was really funny in church, because the elder could not really just ... maybe this is typical with elders, he could not just come and say, “Look, I saw you in a moose hat, yellow rubber gloves and a goofy... with a bunch of naked people. What is the deal?” It was just like, “Could I talk to you about a show that my family and I we just glanced up and...”

You know and I... he ... he couldn’t just ... because I think ... I think it was questionable, but I sort of got sand bagged once you are up there and then... and then they were... like you said, a little nudity turned out to be all that they could do. It was a whole hour.

[ Scott ] And where... where do they go next? What is the next station on this rail road?

[ Lofton ] Well, there is not too many other places to go other than maybe doing a live surgery on stage or seriously...

[ Scott ] I have thought...

[ Lofton ] ...mutilating.

[ Scott ] ... of explicit sex.

[ Lofton ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Is the... is the final destination.

[multiple voices]

[ Murray ] You don’t watch day time soap operas.

[ Lofton ] Maybe on the...

[multiple voices]

[ Rushdoony ] They will get it first I suspect, the way they are going. Well...

[ Scott ] Well, of course in the movies or even on... even on television they cannot tell you people are having an affair or that they are married without showing them rolling around in bed.

[ Rushdoony ] [ affirmative response ]

[ Scott ] They don’t believe you would understand the relationship otherwise.

[ Rushdoony ] I think the two things you do, John, that are especially telling are these first. You hit them with Bible verses. You don’t say, “I think so and so.” You say, in effect, “Thus saith the Lord.”

[ Lofton ] You better do it early, too, because they are going to shut you down and talk over you. The minute they realize you are the Christian then they all just pile on you.

[ Rushdoony ] And the second you treat them as a big joke, as something ridiculous and to be laughed at. And they are demanding to be take with the ultimate seriousness.

[ Lofton ] That is right. They have no sense of humor.

[ Rushdoony ] No sense of humor.

[ Lofton ] And they can’t take ridicule or lampoon. You know, right... right after that Donohue show or right after it had aired I went down to Orlando, Florida, my home town for.... I think I was speaking well it... Dr. Mc Intire’s in Napes and then I drove up to Orlando and saw my friends I was going to meet with there and they had rented a little room at one of the swanky clubs there in Orlando and we were sitting in this private room and there were four of my friends there, none of them who had seen this Donahue show and the waitress came in and she gave each one of us a menu and she went... you are... you are the guy with the moose hat on the Oprah Winfrey show.

And the guys, all of who I went to high school with who know that, you know, maybe not both oars are in the water all the time just like... what is this woman talking about? And I got very indignant and in a mock way and said, “Yeah, I don’t know what you are talking about. I am having a business meeting here with my associates. What you say is absolutely untrue. It was Donahue.”

And she was like, “Oh, thank God I was right,” because she thought, oh, this guy complains. It is not him. I am fired.

That is a... that is a vicious lie. It was Donahue. And then... and then the other day when I went to this Christian radio station where Larry Kubin and I have this radio show we are trying out.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] ...at... in... on WDCT outside of Washington of a couple of hours every Sunday there was a pastor in there taping his show. And he said... he looked at me and he said, “Are you the guy that was in the moose hat on Donahue?”

So ... and... and... as a matter of fact, I... they used a little clip of that show on the 25 year highlight package of Donahue. So I told my wife, “Boy, you had to really be nutty to get in the 25 year highlight package. You had to do something very wild.”

[ Rushdoony ] You might tell a little bit about the radio show that you just started. Who Larry X Kubin, your partner is.

[ Lofton ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] He is another one of our Chalcedon...

[ Lofton ] Yeah, I am ... I am going to mail you all tapes and I hope at some point to try to offer them for sale. We have done two shows. It is two to four o'clock.

Larry Kubin, K U B I N is the way you spell his last name. He is a ... someone that is very interested in Chalcedon’s work and your books and... and the writings of all of us. And he is on the report list. He is a former Washington Redskin and ...

[ Rushdoony ] All American.

[ Lofton ] Penn State All American and I guess he is in his... yikes, I have got to guess his age here. I don’t know, late 20s, early 30s. And we have a two... this two hour show and it is called Onward, Christian Soldiers and that is our theme song and it is a talk show and I do most of the talking and Larry is like the number two guy and gives me questions and we take things that are in the news and try to apply the Bible. We also take telephone calls. So we have done it two weeks and we... we just have our own ads in the show. We have a couple of ads for our... for my newsletter and a couple of ads for the show asking for money.

And we have done money for about ... I don’t know maybe six weeks worth of more shows and...

[ Rushdoony ] It is 100 dollars an hour.

[ Lofton ] A hundred dollars an hour and it is in Fairfax County, Virginia which is, I believe, the wealthiest county in the United States.

The point is that I want to take a little bit of what we do here at the report and put it on the radio, run the flag all the way up the pole and see if anybody is there.

[ Scott ] What...

[ Lofton ] By the way, from the first week no one is there.

[ Rushdoony ] That is no one ...

[ Lofton ] No one at the mailbox.

[ Rushdoony ] ... send money.

[ Lofton ] That is right, right. Well, that means no letter bombs, too.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, why don’t you. If somebody sent you 100 of an hour or 200...

[ Lofton ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... for two hours would you give their name as the sponsor?

[ Lofton ] Well, the... what I say is that if they would like to be mentioned, fine, but some people ... one person has given and you would know his name if I said it, but he said that he didn't want to be mentioned and he thought it was better if the show was not sponsored because then the people will say, “Well, he said this because you have go this group’s money and stuff.”

So if anybody wants to be mentioned, fine, they would be mentioned.

[ Scott ] At what time does it come on?

[ Lofton ] It is two to four PM on Sunday.

[ Scott ] Oh, that is a good time.

[ Lofton ] And it is live and, you know, we are going to see what happens.

[ Scott ] Well, tell me. What is the ... you... you are not following politics anymore, are you?

[ Lofton ] Sure, a little bit, but...

[ Scott ] Not... not as intensely as you used to.

[ Lofton ] No. Not... not... not back.... not as intensely as when it was my religion, that is right.

[ Scott ] Do you ... do your sources still get in touch with you?

[ Lofton ] Not much.

[ Scott ] Not much.

[ Lofton ] Not much. Of course, living so close to Washington you can’t really avoid it, politics, I mean.

[ Rushdoony ] John, tell us about some of the conversations with call ins that you have had on the radio talk show.

[ Lofton ] Well, we have had to date two shows, two Sundays and the only show just was sort of a scene setter where I talked about why this show and how it is we thought we were different because we would be Christians who actually defended Christianity rather than running away from the faith and unlike a lot of talk shows on Christian stations that say, “Well, I am not a theologian. I… You know, we don’t use this as a pulpit. We don’t really tell anybody anything, we just give them facts and they can go decide themselves.” We are a... a ministry. We are a pulpit and we are theologians. And, beside, everybody is a theologian. You are either a bad one or a good one. There is nobody who is not a theologian.

The second show I said, “Well, I will try an interview format.” And I had a lady on there named Barbara Handman, H A N D M A N, from New York City. She is the director of the People for the American Way office up there which is the left wing liberal, anti Christian group founded by Normal Lear, the TV guy, producer. I had... she... I had seen her on the CBS evening news speaking out very forcefully against all the Christians in New York who are evidently... really got some clout in these local school districts because nobody turns out to vote. So if you get three percent out you are like a majority.

Well, P A W, People for the American Way is very panicky over this. So they are sounding the alarm. And I saw a little snippet of her on the nightly news, CBS saying, “Well, these people just want a theocracy and want to, you know, get their way with the political establishment and run the government.”

So I brought her on the show and I said, “You know, I am going to ask you about this statement.” And then I read the statement. And I said, “The second part is, you know, unremarkable. Everybody who is voting and trying to elect somebody is trying to change to their point of view. So that is not what I wanted to ask you about. But I did want to ask you about this theocracy. What is wrong with godly rule? That is what it means?”

Well, you know, we have the Constitution and the separation and all this, of religion. You can’t have an establishment of religion.

I said, “But is it your impression that God is a religion? He is God. God is not a religion.” I said, “Are you a Christian?”

She said, “No, I am Jewish.”

I said, “Are you a religious Jew?”

No. I am not.

I said, “Are you a secular Jewish person?”

She said, “Yes.”

And I said, “Well, what ... what makes you think you are Jewish if you are secular?”

Oh, well, she wasn’t sure, but she knew that she felt very deeply about things Jewish, she said, about the Jewish people over the centuries and that she was very concerned about anti Semitism.

And I said, “Well, but if there is no God, why... who care about anti Semitism or anti Gentilism or anti any human anything? What is a human? Who cares? What does it matter?” I said, “I assume you are also an evolutionist.”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “Well, then Jews are... and Gentiles are just accidental piles of atoms and molecules. What is your concern? This is silly.”

Well, she agreed that ... well she said, “First of all, I... I... I didn't say I didn’t believe in God.”

I said, “But you said you were a secular Jewish person.”

Well, yes, I am.

I said, “Well, who is this God you believe in?”

“Well, I can’t exactly explain ... explain it,” she said. “It is a... it is a higher something.” And she said, “I admit. It is a very fuzzy concept. It is very difficult to explain things from my view point.”

And I said to her, “Well, in fact, it is impossible. It is not just very difficult, it is impossible.”

And ... and then the show switched. See, this is the kind of show I want to be, that the show switched...

[ Scott ] What she was really saying is not that she had any belief of her own, but that she is against the beliefs of other people.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] I think that is a very good... a way of putting it. I mean, her organization, People for the American Way, it is people against the American way.

[ Scott ] It is people against the beliefs...

[ Lofton ] Well...

[ Scott ] ... of the majority of Americans.

[ Lofton ] Well, at one point she talked about she was very worried about some minority taking over. I said, “Well, excuse me, but Christians...”

[ Scott ] What about Americans?

[ Lofton ] ...Christians are not 12 guys down in the catacombs. They are 80, 85 or 90 percent according to polls. Now we... you know, have another show about it.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] ...whether you telling George Gallup you are a Christian makes you one, but the point is they are the overwhelming majority of the country. And ... but she got very upset when you talked about her not believing in God. And then... and then basically the whole show... and this is what I want the show to be. It did not continue on a... on a political thing and... and, you know, once it got kid of dicey with her in her belief we abandoned it like most people do, because it is sensitive. You don’t want to offend her. Then she was engaged on the God issue. Then we talked to her and I talked to her about being Jewish and caring about the Jewish people, the Lord was Jewish and the apostles and have you ever looked at the Old Testament prophecies? Have you ever read the New Testament? Are you in the least curious?

You have to admit it is an important question whether or not what Jesus said was true or not.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “I think it is very important.”

But you have never examined any of the prophecies and whether or not he fulfilled them?

Well, no, I haven’t.

I mean, this went on and on. And then a woman called in that had three or four tremendous Scriptures about believing in the Lord. So we were like witnessing and this lady stayed on for the whole hour. This was on Mother’s Day, too. We roughed her up pretty good on Mother’s Day.

[ Scott ] Well, the... she occupies, in the first place, six positions at once. She wants to be part of the community, but against the community. She wants to be Jewish, but not Jewish.

[ Lofton ] Exactly.

[ Scott ] She wants to be... express a belief, but has no belief. She wants to believe in God, but deny that you should. And if we were living in a more rational society we would lock her up.

[ Rushdoony ] Otto, that is well put, Otto, because insanity in politics and religion is a governing element in our time, a radical irrationality. If these people talked as irrationally in other spheres as they do when they are confronted with the faith, they would be put away.

[ Scott ] There is something about religion, especially Christianity. In my opinion the towering intellectual structure of Christianity is beyond the grasp of a great many people. They simplify it. I think in varieties of religious experience that the author talks about the projection of God for most people being a projection of their own dimension. I mean, God ... you can only visualize so much. God, of course, is beyond our powers to visualize. But I sometimes think nobody should be allowed to read Revelation because I keep running into individuals that go crazy after having read it.

[ Lofton ] David Koresh comes to mind.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] Just as a current example.

[ Scott ] Yes and... and this is the very strong medicine. And for somebody like the woman you described to plunge into it takes a enormous amount of arrogance to straighten out other people’s thinking, to take a... to take a 2000 year old faith and say, “You shouldn’t bring this into the public dialogue.” It is almost on the same level of idiocy as the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled a four line nursery poem to be a religion.

[ Lofton ] Well, I... I... I... I have spoken here to all of you off microphone about a ... a ... another thing that I have been doing recently and I ... it... which is preaching on my citizen’s band radio, short... short... short Scriptures and ... and one of the things you hear over and over when you come on the radio with a Scripture is, “Hey, buddy, this isn’t Sunday. This isn’t church.”

See? The idea is that, see, God is a one day a week God. He is a little tiny God. He is a lot... he is allowed in a building one day a week for one hour. But we don't want to see God out here running around the rest of the day, see? So I tell them, you know, J B Philips, your God is too small, friend. God is the God of every day, every week, every year. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Your God is too small. And, oh, by the way, he doesn't exist other than between your ears. See?

But there is this notion of, gee, is it Sunday already, when they hear you preaching. It is just a Sunday thing, see?

You know, if I wanted to go to church I would go there. I don’t need to hear this.

I say, “Well, the church is coming to you.” God is bringing it to you. How do you like them apples, you know? Very interesting that popular conceptions nowadays of what God is. He is a religion for Mrs. Hanlon. He is a religion. He is just a religion and you can’t impose a religion. So that is...

[ Scott ] Did she come from New York just to talk to you?

[ Lofton ] No, no. We did it on the phone.

[ Scott ] Oh, you did it on the phone.

[ Lofton ] We did it in the phone. Yeah and she was very nice and ... usually when you attempt to talk ... or my own personal experience has been that when you attempt overtly as it obviously was to witness, as they say, to a secular Jewish person, it is usually a very short conversation.

[ Scott ] Well, I wonder how she would react if you called up an orthodox Jew and began to argue with him about his faith.

[ Lofton ] I think she would be very upset if she thought that I was attempting, as they say, to impose my view on him.

[ Scott ] But to question his views?

[ Lofton ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] Well, I don’t think I have ever heard anybody question Judaism. And yet to Christianity is questioned in this country around the clock.

[ Lofton ] Well, you know, I once wrote about this obliquely in the report when I did an interview with Paul Johnson the British book historian and ... and he wrote a history of Christianity and a history of ...

[ Scott ] ... of the Jews.

[ Lofton ] Of the Jews, that is right. I was going to say Judaism. And what I asked him on the show... he is a Roman... he is a Roman Catholic. And what I asked him on the show was: You have a lot in your books, both books about so-called Christian anti Semitism, but what about Jewish anti Christainism? Already the head was shaking like, uh, oh, I... I... this is a non starter.

[ Scott ] That is a forbidden territory.

[ Lofton ] Yeah. He... he ... he was already shifting in his chair and I had that line out of his own book about the Talmud that has the allusion to Christ. Of course they don’t have his name because to ... to them he is so vile that his name will not even pass their lips, but that everybody knows who are you talking about. About how he was boiling in excrement eternally.

I said, “That sounds vaguely anti Christian to me.”

Well, Johnson said that the most important thing between ourselves and people of the Jewish faith is that we believe in God and that the question of whether or not Christ was who he said he was is of lesser importance.

[ Scott ] Oh, my.

[ Lofton ] Oh, my. Oh, my. Now I never went to college, you know.

[ Scott ] Oh, my.

[ Lofton ] But, yes... this is...

[ Scott ] I mean that is a skewer at the center of this case.

[ Lofton ] Yeah. In other words the... the question that Jesus himself said is the most important question. Who do they say that I am? It is the lesser question. The point is ... and we hear this often about Islam, too. Well, look. We all believe in God. They call it Allah. We.... you know, so what is... why... why fight? So we have got this side show about who Jesus was.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Lofton ] That is a side show, see?

[ Scott ] Yes, we call him...

[ Lofton ] See in Johnson.

[ Scott ] They might as well call it Krishna.

[ Lofton ] Krishna.

[ Scott ] Yes. It is Krishna.

[ Lofton ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] The Hindu god. Yes.

[ Lofton ] Well, and Islam continues to grow... to grow in America, I am sure that 50, 100 years from now people will be alluding to the Judeo Christian Islamic tradition or ... right?

[ Rushdoony ] Well...

[ Lofton ] It is going to be...

[ Rushdoony ] Well, Paul Johnson and his History of Christianity saw true Christianity in every heretic over the centuries.

It was a master work of heresy because orthodoxy to him was the problem. And yet amazingly he considers himself a good devout Catholic. And in a recent issue of Spectator he obviously is looking forward to the Church of England collapsing and Rome picking up the pieces.

So he is a very brilliant scholar, but he can be more resolutely wrong headed than almost anyone ...

[ Scott ] Well, his History of the Jews was interesting. It was a ... a very flattering book.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] They never committed a massacre. They never committed crimes which is really unusual for a historian to say who wasn’t Jewish. He seemed to believe, if I can recall it now, that ... well, at any rate, he did his best for them. And he was trying to reconcile a mainly non Jewish audience, but also to please the Jewish audience, because he knew they would read it. This was a book that was bound to make a great many sales. It was a very, very smart move on his part. But to his astonishment they beat him over the head with clubs. They kicked him. They struck him with knives. They went all out.

First of all they were outraged that he dared, being a Gentile, to write a history of the Jews.

[ Lofton ] Oh, ok.

[ Scott ] He was not qualified. And then they went through all the different languages that the Jews have picked up through the years of Europe, languages of the Middle East and so forth and the fact... and it is true, that like the Catholics, their sects or their divisions or what do you call them? Their branches...

[ Rushdoony ] Orders, branches.

[ Lofton ] Their orders and what not have certain local flavorings. There is a difference between Hungarian Jews, for instance, and Greek Jews and so forth like there is in the Catholic Church between the Irish Catholic and so forth.

So they had a high old time talking about his ignorance and ... and, of course, overall they were insulted.

[ Lofton ] Who is the conservative Jewish scholar that is down at the University of South Florida? You know, the seven {?} guy.

[ Rushdoony ] Rabbi....

[ Scott ] Nusser.

[ Rushdoony ] Yeah. Very able.

[ Lofton ] Well, he wrote that review of Johnson’s book, Jacob Nussner...

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] Wrote the review of Johnson’s book. What... I think it was in National Review maybe, maybe not. But it tore him to pieces. He just said that he was a boot licker of Israel, that it was just a... his whole book was a... an apologia for the state of Israel, that it was designed to please Zionists. It was a masterful...

[ Rushdoony ] Well....

[ Lofton ] ...hatchet job on ... on the book. Nussner.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Nussner is very interesting.

[ Lofton ] He is.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] But Johnson is ...

[ Rushdoony ] And he is a brilliant man.

[ Lofton ] ...is mush. He is an Erasmian. That is what he is. He doesn’t want to fight. He wants to dodge everything.

[ Rushdoony ] I don’t know what he is, but his book on modern times was brilliant.

[ Scott ] True. That is false {?}.

[ Rushdoony ] ...on modern intellectuals...

[ Lofton ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] ...was excellent, outstanding. But when he enters into the field of religion...

He is a devout Catholic who doesn’t like a single thing that the Church stands for.

[ Scott ] Well, I think the problem that you re describing is that he is really a political and social historian, but he didn’t take the time to study theology before he wrote The History of Christianity or the Judaism. And how can you do that if you are not theologically learned?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] Well, I think there are certain Christians that are just on this anti Semitism charge. They are just on all fours. I mean, they are just ... they are on the defensive. They are crawling...

[ Scott ] Well... Well, there is no reason to collapse.

[ Lofton ] Oh, no.

[ Scott ] These are just people like anyone else and they have more arguments than we have.

[multiple voices]

[ Rushdoony ] Just...

[ Lofton ] By the way, one of the other things I asked Johnson about was the... there... there have... try to... get him to say something about Jewish anti Christainism though... although this thing involved Mormonism, was the... the Mormons had tried to build some kind of center there in... in Israel and the Israeli government made them... said they had to sign a pledge to not proselytize if they built the center and they... and the Mormons signed it.

[ Scott ] Well, proselytizing to them is ... I think goes pretty far. If you tell people who you are that is proselytizing. That is coming about here in the United States. If you say that you are a Christian...

[ Lofton ] Absolutely.

[ Scott ] ... and you are engaged in a public issue dialogue, you are immediately accused of pushing your Christian views down somebody else’s throat. To even announce that you are...

[ Lofton ] But the... the kicker was that when I asked him about that and, you know, he ... because he had talked about the ... the religious liberties in Israel. In the interview I don't know if he talked about the book...

[ Scott ] Where is it?

[ Lofton ] I said, “Well, what about this Mormon thing?” And... and he said, “Well, you know, Israel is under attack from a variety of enemies in that area.”

And I said, “Mormonism?” I mean I... I heard about the PLO, but the Mormons?

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Lofton ] He even... even he had to kind of chuckle at that. But he was... he had an agent with him, a literary agent who set up these shows. And, boy, once this...

[ Scott ] You...

[ Lofton ] ...line of questioning. He kept looking at this guy like where am I? Why am I on this show?

[ Scott ] I remember that tape you sent us on that dialogue. It was really funny.

[ Lofton ] Oh, you should have seen his face it was...

[ Scott ] ...because...

[ Lofton ] ...with rage.

[ Scott ] That thing that made him very angry was that John asked him what he believed.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] And who are you to ask me? There was also an arrogant kind of...

[ Scott ] And he was ... he was insulted to be asked, which reminds me of a dialogue between Malcolm Muggeridge and ... and William F. Buckley. Buckley said, “After all, you can’t bring up your faith at a dinner table.”

Muggeridge said, “I don’t have any problem with that at all.”

[ Lofton ] Do you remember Buckley’s word? Buckley was worried that if he brought it up that he would become known as a Christer. I... I... I had never heard the term.

[ Scott ] That is a phrase from the last generation.

[ Lofton ] Yeah and I thought...

[ Scott ] No they don’t... they haven’t used that phrase since my grandfather... since my father as a young man.

[ Lofton ] A Christer.

[ Scott ] I have only heard it once in the last 50 years.

[ Lofton ] Well, I thought considering some of the other things that it have heard Buckley called, that would be... an improvement, wouldn’t it? I mean, is that bad for a Christian to be called a Christer? Buckley thought that would be horrible.

[ Scott ] Well, Buckley seems to be ... what would you say? Socially insecure.

[ Lofton ] I think that is maybe the euphemism of the century.

[ Scott ] I mean people ... people that don’t like me, I really don't give a damn about.

[ Lofton ] Well, I am not going to argue with you. I am very...

[ Scott ] I wasn’t looking for...

[ Lofton ] That has certainly been my experience.

[ Scott ] I was hoping I wouldn’t have to look at you.

[ Lofton ] But I do give a damn about you, Otto. No, a Christer. What a horrible thing for a Christian. Again, Christians against Christianity, afraid to talk about it. Well, at the dinner parties Buckley goes to, I am sure you would probably start a fist fight if you...

[ Scott ] He has moved away from what he... where he started.

[ Lofton ] Oh, my.

[ Scott ] A long distance.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] He wasn’t too hot when he started.

[ Scott ] Well, he was better...

[ Murray ] He was...

[ Lofton ] He was better, but...

[ Scott ] He was better.

[ Murray ] Let me ask you a question, John. Why do you think that Christians are not better prepared to come back in the public arena?

[ Lofton ] I think because they are biblically illiterate, that boldness is, in part, a function of knowledge and the Scripture tells us about the spiritual war and the full armor of God. And when you have people that have zeal but no knowledge, it is a deadly combination. They have ... they have no ... they have none of the armor of God on, yet they are charging onto the battle field. And I have never been in the service, but it is my understanding that if you charge onto a battlefield unarmed, you tend to have a rather high casualty rate, don’t you, Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, what... what gets me is this confusion between the faith and niceness. That you have to be nice.

[ Rushdoony ] Well...

[ Lofton ] In a battle. How about that? You have to be...

[ Scott ] You can’t be nice in a battle...

[ Lofton ] On the battlefield. You ... what do you smile before you put your sword through?

[ Scott ] This is serious.

[ Lofton ] Yeah, it is a battle. The sword of truth. That is what the Scripture is. How can you be loving when you are running a guy through with the sword of truth? Of course, we would say that is love. It is an act of love for me to tell this Jewish lady that Jesus is the Messiah, that if you don’t believe in him you will perish and go to hell. That is an act of love.

[ Scott ] Well, let’s put it this way. If you do somebody else a courtesy of telling them your sincere thoughts, that is a great courtesy. I don’t do it very often. I mean, I choose my company on that score. I ... I am not ... I haven't chosen the path that you have chosen.

[ Lofton ] Sure. But I don’t want to impose it on you.

[ Scott ] I know it and... but if I choose to answer, I will answer seriously and I will answer honestly. But I don’t bring up the subject that most people. If I do, I consider it a great courtesy.

[ Lofton ] Well, I tell you. It is straight talk of almost any kind today will get you in great trouble and if you are a pastor in a church who just goes around and slaps everybody on the back and smiles and shakes hands today, you can get by with anything and they are. If you are Mr. happy face, Mr., you know, hail fellow, well met, you can just steal the store.

[ Scott ] Well, it is a second rate world and second rate people out number everyone else. So second raters do better.

[ Murray ] Well, might not... might that not be answer why there isn’t a great deal of courage out there. It is that peoples pastors are... should be their role model as far as ...

[ Scott ] That was the second part of my answer. Not only are probably most Christians biblically illiterate and don’t know anything about the armor of God, but they are also encouraged to not use the armor of God to fight. A lot of so called Christian leaders somehow have hit upon a better way to fight the spiritual war than God said, you know? I mean, I have had written about that in the report. The advice by Chuck Colson and Gary Bauer and Tom Minnery at Focus on the Family that you are not supposed to quote the Bible. Oh, no. Don’t quote the Bible. Put down that Bible. Don’t swing that Bible. Don’t use Christian language. That turns people off. Use a ... what Paul would call vain babbling. Use logic and syllogisms and as Gary Bauer said, “You know, as the missionaries say, the best rule is speak the local language.” Well I think that is probably the worst rule. When in Rome what? Do as the Romans? You know, if you are in a cannibal culture, you just sit down and eat human meat with them while you chat about what? I mean, lifestyle evangelism. That is another thing that has come in, you know...

[ Scott ] Well...

[ Lofton ] That you have got to first get someone to like you first before you tell them about the Lord.

[ Scott ] Well, your... your ... in a sense, you are limiting this to the faith, but in the United States it has been my opinion or my observation that plane talk has been out of fashion for an awfully longtime. Most Americans could not be blunt if you put a gun to their head, because they have been trained from childhood not to offend.

[ Lofton ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ... not to start an argument, not to say this or that or use this term or that term. Politically correct terms have been the fashion in this country as long as I can remember. So this is a slop over. If they can’t speak honestly about the boss or to their wife or on the job, how are they going to speak honestly about the faith?

[ Rushdoony ] Anthropologists have, for some years, recognized that cultures all over the world can be described in terms of two terms. They are either face cultures where the emphasis is entirely on appearance or they are guilt cultures where the emphasis is not on appearance, but on morality, on right and wrong, on confrontation in terms of that.

Well, Japan has always been the classical example of a face culture where if you lose face you used to commit suicide. And what has happened is that the entire western world and all other cultures have become face cultures where you don’t do anything as gauche or rude as to speak the truth. That is bad form. You are hurting people. So because we have become a face culture and all of Europe and ... has joined Asia and Africa in a face culture, we have a world crisis, because no one wants to be confronted with the truth.

[ Lofton ] What... what... what is so interesting about this to me is, I mean, I... I agree totally with what you say. It is that verse in John 7:24 where our Lord says that we are to judge righteous judgment, not on the basis of appearance. The face culture is the appearance oriented culture.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Lofton ] So we have now become appearance, superficial judgment, not on the ... and... and there is even in the abstract when truth is spoken it is resented, but when the ultimate truth, when it is a Christian truth that is the most outrageous thing, because we have this view of in the church, we have... we have many unmanly men in the Church. They are effeminate. I am not talking about necessarily homosexuals. I am talking out sissified men in the pulpit, in the pew. There is this popular version of a sappy happy faced Jesus who went around slapping everybody on the back and saying, “I am praying for you, brother. You know, I... I am a struggler like you.” And that kind of a silly... and so whenever anyone sees a person forcefully preaching the gospel it is like, well, you are not Christian. You know? That is not a Christian way. You are making people mad.

I have heard people on TV saying you shouldn’t preach because you are aggravating people. Well, there is a sense in which Jesus was the greatest aggravator in the history of the world.

[ Scott ] Well, let’s go back to the larger society. It isn’t true, for instance, that everybody... that all Europe has gone face. They are a lot more blunt in Europe than they are here. They are more blunt in England than they are here. This is the country that has gone the farthest in terms of face. And it is excused here on the question of multi culturalism and multi racialism. But both my grandfathers who came from different social levels, one from the blue collar level and one from an executive level, were born in 1860 and both of them were blunt enough to let your hair drop out. They came right out. They hit you right between the eyes of what they had to say if it was an important statement. They didn’t go out of their way to hurt people, but if the issue arose and I... I have experienced it from both of them as a boy. When they wanted to straighten me out, they straightened me out very quickly. I don’t believe that the average man today can do that. I don’t believe that he has the ... the vocabulary...

[ Lofton ] Yes. That’s good.

[ Scott ] ...to express himself.

[ Lofton ] Well, I told Rush earlier that what once was said of economists that if you laid them all end they couldn’t reach a conclusion can now be said of the clergy and people in churches who counsel.

I hope none of you are ever really subjected to counseling sessions....

[ Scott ] Well...

[ Lofton ] ...because they are just endless sessions that everyone starts over again. There is no record. There is no...

[ Scott ] Well, look at our... look at our...

[ Lofton ] It is maddening.

[ Scott ] ...look at our trials. Look at our court trials. At one time I had a set of famous English murder trials. And in those days when the English system of justice was very famous, a trial lasted one day, one day.

[ Lofton ] One day?

[ Scott ] And if... if... if a lawyer repeated a question the magistrate would say, “Mr. Smith, you asked that once before. It was answered. Do not offend again.”

[ Rushdoony ] Well, our time is up. Thank you all for listening and thank you, John.

[ Lofton ] Thank you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.