Sermons on the hill.

• Author: Lynch, Micahel W.
• Position: Speeches by Rabbi Daniel Lapin and VP Al Gore

In which our man in Washington checks out various political preachers

Date: Thurs, March 18, 1999 7:15:17 PM From: mlynch@reasondc.org Subj: The Radical Rabbi's War

Everything in life - politics, art, culture, family relations, economic order - flows from the answer to this question: Where did human beings come from? "There are only two potential answers," Rabbi Daniel Lapin, president of Toward Tradition and author of America's Real War, told about 15 Washingtonians gathered at the Heritage Foundation Tuesday night.

One possibility is "over billions of years, in a process of unaided materialistic evolution, we evolved from primitive protoplasm into Bach and Beethoven," a proposition that elicited muted chuckles. "The other answer is God created us in His image and breathed the breath of life into us and made us the pinnacle of creation and put us on Earth." Rabbi Lapin continued, "How you run your life, and how you choose and make decisions throughout your life, flow directly from this." And, the rabbi contends, which side you choose in America's next civil war will hinge on this as well.

Politically active religious conservatives have been a bit down lately. Impeachment didn't go their way, prompting the coiner of the phrase "Moral Majority," Paul Weyrich, to declare that there is no such thing. Introducing Lapin, the always intense Joe Loconte, Heritage's William E. Simon Fellow for Religion in a Free Society, pointed to a post-impeachment Wall Street Journal op-ed by former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed as evidence of decline: "This is what Ralph says about the whole moral agenda in a 1,300-word oped: "Moral issues will require consistent attention. Not election-eve histrionics.'"

But Lapin, who was scheduled to speak on "Beyond Affluence, Decadence and Depravity: Focusing on the Road Back," is optimistic. At first it wasn't clear why.

A skilled orator, Lapin spent his first 10 minutes comparing the march of liberalism to that of Hitler's Europe and Japan's Pacific. "The left has managed to avoid waking the sleeping giant of American conservatism," said Lapin, after explaining how Hitler had done the same with France and England until it was too late. "It has taken victory after victory, gain after gain. It has managed to dominate stage by stage each and every institution of American society, until we look a lot like the Pacific looked before Gen. Douglas MacArthur began his return. Every island in our culture is held and dominated by the left: the schools, higher educational institutions, the courts, entertainment, the news media," he continued, later adding, "And at no stage have we been willing to take it seriously enough to go to war over it."

As I listened to Lapin, drinking my Coors and taking notes, two thoughts rambled through my head: This guy spends a lot of energy on war metaphors and I hope they are metaphors - and his picture of America sure is bleak. I couldn't quite locate his optimism. But then he told us straight out: He's optimistic because good Americans, those who pick the second answer, at last know there is a war. "There is a war," he said. "And the war is between the people who recognize that there are two different Americas."

Only two? Yes, two. "There are two nations occupying the same piece of real estate. There is the America that listens to Tom Leykis and Howard Stern. And there's the nation that listens to Christian broadcasting, Dr. Laura, and Rush Limbaugh." To whom one listens, and few listen to both, is determined by the fundamental question: "Are human beings unique God-made creatures, or are they sophisticated animals?" Lapin recognizes there's a spectrum but claims the center is getting thinner and thinner, as Americans sort themselves based on their view of how they got here.

I found myself getting a bit nervous as the rabbi posed rhetorical questions.

He said that we were among friends, but I began to feel like an unwelcome ambassador, perhaps a spy or an infiltrator, from the other America. And this was even before he posed the "Where do we come from?" question, which didn't emerge until the last third of his hour-long speech.

Lapin offered a choice of crowded elevators: "You are about to be stuck in a small elevator for eight hours with seven other people. You may choose...