The Values of the Christian Right: American Family Association host likens Native American Indians as 'abominations' and declares that today's Native Americans must leave 'indigenous superstition' and convert to Christianity

Saying that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington wanted to convert Native Americans to Christianity, ignoring the Six Nations, and mocking the spiritual beliefs of Native Americans, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association compared Native Americans at the time of the country's founding to "abominations" that the biblical god of the Old Testament was "vomiting" from the land.

In his "Focal Point" program aired on American Family Radio, Fischer talked about the "moral disqualification by the Native American tribes from their right to have sovereign control of American soil" and how today's Native Americans must drop their superstitious beliefs, convert to Christianity, and move off of reservations.  According to Fischer, the reason that so many Native Americans live in poverty is because they "cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture."

EDITOR'S UPDATE:  It should be obvious that this is a news story reporting on people associated with the American Family Association, a designated hate group.  It is not our endorsement.  Take the time to read it before calling us Nazis, haters and the rest.  We report on what the religious right is up to because we feel that people must know about them and how they influence politics and society.  Their message is often very offensive.  We are not going to hide in a corner, reporting only happy, politically correct news in order to avoid hurting people's feelings.

The following is a transcript of the video posted by the American Family Association (the video is on the bottom of the page):

I left off with the excerpt from the Declaration of Independence in which Thomas Jefferson says one of the complaints against King George is he's trying to stir up what Jefferson calls 'the merciless Indian savages' against settlers — European settlers — on the frontier and Jefferson cites the fact that their known rule of warfare — in other words, everybody understood this — is that they're going to kill everybody.  In a just war theory under Christianity, your goal is enemy combatants.  You want to avoid civilian casualties if at all possible.  In Indian warfare, Jefferson says the purpose is to inflict civilian casualties regardless of age, sex or gender.

[...]

The Native American tribes ultimately resisted the appeal of Christian Europeans to leave behind their superstition and occult practices for the light of Christianity and civilization. They in the end resisted the attempts to “Christianize the Savages of the Wilderness,” that's  George Washington’s phrase.  He supported that, he thought it was a great idea, thought that's what we ought to do.  Get them civilized and Christianized.  That was Washington's objective.  Neither of those worked.  The Indian tribes were neither Christianized nor were they civilized.  They refused to accept those efforts.

They also rejected Washington’s direct counsel to the Delaware chiefs in 1779.  This is what Washington said to the chiefs of the Delaware Indians, “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life — that is to become civilized — and above all, to learn the religion of Jesus Christ.”  To become Christianized.  So Washington says look, this is what the Indian tribes need – they need to become civilized and they need to become Christianized.  That was his direct appeal to the Delaware chiefs.  It didn't take.  It didn't work.

Thomas Jefferson three times signed legislation that appropriated federal tax dollars — this is Mr. Separation of Church and State — three times signed a law that provided money out of a federal treasury for the evangelizing of the Native American tribes. It all came to naught.   One tribe after another rejected the offer of spiritual light and advanced civilization.

Missionaries were sent to Indian tribes including Marcus Whitman.  Marcus Whitman went to tribes in now what is southeastern Washington and he was tomahawked to death by the Cayuse and Umatilla Indians in 1848 in what eventually became the Oregon Territory.

Now, as I mentioned, God explained to the nation of Israel — this is Leviticus 18 — that because of the “abominations” — that's God's word, not mine — because of the abominations of the indigenous Canaanite tribes — and by abominations, he was referring to incest, adultery, sexual immorality, homosexuality, and bestiality, all of the above were abominations in God's eyes — he said the land had become unclean and “vomited out its inhabitants.”

I have an explanatory paragraph.  Is this to say the same thing holds true for native American tribes today? In many and perhaps most respects, the answer is of course no. But in some senses, the answer is still yes. Many of the tribal reservations today are still remain mired in poverty and alcoholism because many native Americans still to this day continue to cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture.

You know, I think the best thing that the father of children that are born and grow up on an Indian reservation is get them off of that reservation.  Get them mainstreamed, convert them to Jesus Christ, and get them off the reservation and into American life.  Help them to become full fledged American citizens instead of hanging out in dependency, in poverty and sterility on the Indian reservation.

Now we still have, this Native American superstition is alive and well and it is being fostered and encouraged by the President of the United States.   Remember the invocation that was offered at that Tucson event, the memorial for the people that were killed by Jared Loughner,  remember they had that Native American guy?  And where did he seek his inspiration from?  From the Seven Directions.  That's his words, the Seven Directions.  And he was seeking direction from “Father Sky” and “Mother Earth,” rather than from the God of the Bible.

Now I suggest this column is liable to generate a firestorm of nuclear proportions but here is the takeaway for me. This is the takeaway, the bottom line for us.   Here's the sobering lesson for today. America in 2011 is as guilty of “abominations” as the Native American tribes we replaced. We have the blood of 53 million babies on our hands through abortion. We have normalized sexual immorality, we've normalized adultery, we've normalized homosexuality, all of these are horrors in the eyes of God, and we are witnessing a surge in incest, pedophilia and even bestiality in our midst.

Remember that Thomas Jefferson  wrote at the time of the Founding, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” And I say  it is long past time for us once again to tremble for our country.  Who knows how long we have left before we've filled up the slop bucket and we will have morally disqualified ourselves from sovereign control of our own land.

D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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