“Don’t Blame Washington”

In the minds of many, the name of former Moral Majority spokesman Cal Thomas is synonymous with the Christian Right. But there is more to the syndicated columnist and former Moral Majority spokesman than staunch conservatism. “If you’re looking for a savior in Washington—Republicans or whomever—you’re making a big mistake,” he says. “Salvation isn’t going to come through this town.”

Thomas wants Christians to be more engaged with the national culture, and he has taken his own advice, having authored nine books and written a column that appears in 330 newspapers. Here he talks about The Things That Matter Most, which is the title of his new book, to be released next month.

Conservative columnist Cal Thomas is reaching out to liberals—and calling evangelicals to account.

What are the things that matter most, and why do we need to be reminded about them now?

This book is about what I call the broken promises of the 1960s. By that I mean the promises of sexual liberation, progressive education, liberation from the traditional family, bigger government, and what I call pharmaceutical enlightenment. But most important, I mean the broken promise of God’s “death,” the supposedly freeing notion that he was irrelevant if he was even around.

All of these philosophies sown in the sixties are reaping a whirlwind in the nineties. The consequences are broken homes, broken lives, broken spirits. This book is an indictment of that flawed philosophy and an Isaiahlike appeal, even to the Left: Come, let us reason together.

Is there one broken promise that has caused the rest?

Yes—the one that had us turn our backs on God as a nation. I’m not just talking about pagans. I’m talking about a lot of Christians as well who give lip service to God, and even go to church every Sunday, but have retreated into this kind of subterranean culture of their own in which they only associate with people of similar beliefs. They don’t go out and confront the culture like Paul did on Mars Hill.

I believe that this is the primary problem in the culture. It isn’t the Clinton administration. It isn’t the abortionists. It isn’t the pornographers or the drug dealers or the criminals. It is the undisciplined, undiscipled, disobedient, and biblically ignorant church of Jesus Christ. Several years ago, a USA Today/Gallup poll found that only 11 percent of people who claim to be believers read their Bibles every day. There’s your problem. If you’re ignorant of the Word of God, you’re going to be blind to the way of God and disobedient to the will of God.

Is any particular institution or group well-positioned to turn us back to God?

No. Institutions are the problem. Christ did not come to establish institutions. He came to establish a relationship. Believers turn to political institutions and wonder why they can’t save us, but they are turning in the wrong direction. Even as they turn to religious institutions—that’s even worse. Because the idea that this trickle-down morality from some hierarchical structure is going to deliver us from evil is a totally unbiblical concept.

How do you explain your success? Do you consider your audience to be only conservatives?

The very fact that I’m on the editorial pages—not the religion or sports pages—conveys a desire to communicate to a wider audience.

I use humor. I try not to be offensive in attacking people per se; I go after issues and character quality instead.

And I genuinely try to reach out to liberals. I have many liberal friends. I just love people, and I try to separate the value of an individual—which is established and never changes because individuals are made in the image of God—with their positions, which is something different.

I don’t take it as a given that because most of my colleagues are liberal and don’t agree with my philosophy that therefore I’m going to be locked out. That’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In what ways are traditional Christians and Jews the new counterculture?

We hold to a value system that is not popular—that never has been popular, really. The culture in the past has reflected more of it, or at least it has not been so aggressively opposed to it. But now, it is evangelistically antibiblical.

But I’m not depressed at all. I think this is one of the greatest opportunities we’ve ever had. Maybe Jesus is orchestrating this and saying, “Look, you’ve tried everything else: you tried the Moral Majority, you tried the Christian Right, you tried Reagan, you tried Bush. Are you ready to try me?”

How concerned, then, should we be about our leaders’ personal faith?

First and foremost, we should pray for our leaders, including, and especially, those we don’t like. I don’t meet a whole lot of Christians who pray for Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v. Wade. Oh, they send him letters condemning him to hell, and he reads them. That’s affected him more than anything. “Look at all these Christians who are writing and condemning me to hell.” And very few pray for my friend Ted Kennedy. I happen to love Ted Kennedy. George McGovern is a friend of mine.

What were the mistakes of conservative Christians in the eighties?

A lot of people burst back on the scene who had been disconnected from politics and, like any newly born individual, they were a little wobbly in their steps. Many went a little too far in thinking that Reagan was going to usher in the new millennium morally. While he certainly held off a lot of things the liberals wanted to do, that they are now doing with Clinton, even he told me once, “You know, people think this job is all-powerful, but I’ll frequently give an order and see it frustrated two or three levels down.”

Is the Christian Coalition using a different strategy from that of the Moral Majority?

They are grassroots oriented, and I think politically that is a much better way to be. Moral Majority and some of those other groups focused mostly on the national scene. When your President leaves, you don’t have much left if you haven’t built up the grassroots.

Why did you leave the Moral Majority?

I had never intended to stay there forever. I had always been in journalism, and I had wanted to return to it when the Lord literally dropped my column in my lap in 1984.

The column is important, but just as, or more, important is the access it has given me to people. I have had wonderful opportunities to share my faith. We’ve had a couple of television producers recently come to Christ. I had the privilege of leading to Christ the general manager of the local Fox television station about a year before she died of lung cancer; that was a great, great moment. These are the things that really matter most.

By John Zipperer.

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