From 1970 to 1976, it was Ed Rausch, who was a Democrat. Then Quayle defeated him and was in four years. Then Coats won for eight. Then a Democrat, Jo Long, took the seat when Coats moved up to Senate. Then I turned around and beat her. She had three terms. There were twelve years of Democrats and twelve years of Republicans. Then I came in and kind of stabilized it. So it was kind of back and forth a number of years. It wasn't a straight line. But it is accurate to say it was a seat that Coats and Quayle held.
Yeah. One of my pastors when I first moved to Washington as a staffer -- Barry Leventhal was a Jew who became a Christian and made the Old Testament sing. And Lon Solomon at McLean Bible Church is another Jew who's become a Christian and has a big following here in Washington. But that isn't the primary goal. I don't support Israel because I think they're going to be converted; I think that they're wrong in many cases. All of us are wrong at different times. But they're God's chosen people. And he gave, in the Old Testament, Israel to the Jews, more or less, right or wrong. They were going to drift. At the end, they'll come back. And with that kind of confidence, it doesn't mean there's not going to be drifting, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to influence their policy and say, "Look, can't you kind of cool it here or there? Maybe a settlement -- back off here or there." On the other hand, it's pretty clear that some fundamentalists would be harder-line than the government of Israel about which areas they should be giving up, because God gave them certain areas, and yet they're negotiating some of the areas away that maybe God gave them. So sometimes the fundamentalists would be worse to be negotiating than even [Ariel] Sharon -- which is an irony.
There's not as many who understand the term, because it may be more that just believe that way. But there are, around the country, many people, for example, in any evangelical church who would support programs in health care for the poor, who would say, "I believe in vocational education," who say, "Congressman Souder, can you do this over here for this particular kid who has special needs in education?" They aren't saying, "I have a philosophical opposition to the federal government." They're saying, "There are particular needs here; can the federal government do it?" Then there'll be other ones who come up in church and say, "Federal government ought to just get out of everything. I don't understand why you're doing this." But I think it's close to 50/50, even in conservative churches.
Is there a movement among some evangelicals who think that the administration has not protected the environment enough?
Yes. They tend to be more liberal on a number of other issues. I'm a little more moderate on environmental issues. Now, an environment group will tell you I'm not moderate. I'm a big supporter of the national parks, but I also represent a district that is very manufacturing oriented, and therefore, in my area we make things that suck up gas when you use them -- we're the biggest area for making pick-ups or SUVs. We design the big international trucks -- number one in recreational vehicles in the United States. The Hummer -- most of the parts come from my district, and it's made next door. We make things that use a lot of gas. So when you come to whether we should drill, really Christian concerns get mashed up with job concerns and other type things.
But many evangelicals believe that God created the universe, the Earth, and everything in it, and that we are stewards. While we have dominion over the earth, if we absolutely need an area for energy, we should balance that out with the environment, but it can be used. But we also have an obligation to protect the grizzly bears, to protect the parks, to work these things in balance. At what place does going for too-clean air put your neighbor out of work and they can't support their family, they start drinking, they beat their wife? At what point does having the air clean make it better for all of us and protect God's universe for our children? There are those evangelicals who are deeply involved in that question, trying to think it through. But it isn't as conspicuous, because we're doing that trade-off. So they aren't as likely to be involved in the environmental movement, which doesn't really look at that kind of trade-off and balance. But they are also a little nervous about this "Drill anywhere, use the Earth as though it's kind of an industrial division of the United States." So there is an uncomfortability. I don't know that it'll play through in the election precisely, because other issues will trump it. But I think there is some uncomfortability at the administration pushing too hard in reaction to the Clinton administration that pushed too hard the other direction.
A lot of the environmental movement has been captured by almost an antireligious segment that worships nature in and of itself. And the environmental movement also is a big promoter of evolution -- that we all evolved from some amoeba, and therefore we ought to treat the grizzly bear [well] because it's our ancestor. That turns off a lot of conservative Christians to the environmental movement. But if you ask them, "Where would you like to go?" "A national park. I like to camp." "Why? Why do you like to watch the sunset?" "Because it's God's creation. I feel closer to God. I want to have this preserved for my kids." There are consensus items where we could work, if it wasn't seen many times by the radical environmental groups and the liberal environmental groups as almost anti-Christian.
You use the words "radical and liberal." People probably use the words "radical and conservative" about you, right?
Um-hm. I would define myself as an ultra-conservative.
A radical conservative?
"Radical" might be a little hard. "Ultra" would be ... on social issues, I'm very conservative; on some other issues, I'm moderate.
On social issues, do you think our country is in peril?
Yeah. I'm not a pessimist, however, and I'm not one of those people who believe we've fallen from this wonderful Christian pedestal, where everybody who came first to America was a Christian and everything was just jim-dandy at the beginning, and now we've just fallen off the wagon; the spiritual country has become this terrible place. The truth is we were a mixed bag from the beginning. If you look at the settlement of the West, there were more bars and whorehouses than there were churches. The churches came in later. We were a mixed country. We were not a Christian nation; we were a nation founded [on] Judeo-Christian principles and the remnants of Christian civilization, with many Christians in it. I would even go so far to argue that from a conservative Christian perspective, there may be more conservative, Bible-believing, Bible-practicing, multi-times-a-week people in churches now than there were at the founding of the republic. It isn't impressive to me that a third of the Founders went to a Bible college; that's all there was. There are people now who go to Bible colleges out of choice, when most people are going to secular colleges. And they're in Congress and they're in key positions, such as our Speaker [of the House, Dennis Hastert]. Now, with that perspective, I still feel that we've gone in waves. We had the [George] Whitefield revival at the time of the American Revolution. We had revival periods in the United States. And now we're in a trough. We need to have a revival in America or, if you continue to sink, we will go to the dustbin of history.
Would you look at gay marriage as "continuing to sink"?
I believe that the fundamental change in America was the legalization of abortion, because I think it demeaned, at the beginning of life, the creation of life. And from the demeaning process, we're now struggling with the end of life, with how we should micro-manage that because we lost the definition at the very beginning. In Chuck Colson's HOW NOW SHALL WE LIVE? book terms, you can't save somebody if they don't understand that they're fallen. And you can't be convinced you're fallen unless there was a Designer. And when we lost the principle that there was a Designer, [got the idea] that we're random amoeba, then all of a sudden the questions of abortion, of euthanasia, of stem cells -- the creation of life changed. And then the question of homosexuality merely becomes a gene question -- What's your tendency? -- and not a creation question. And that is a fundamental difference in perspective that's very difficult to [bridge] in our society. I believe people can have a propensity to alcoholism. I believe they can have a propensity to look at pornography on [the] Internet. I believe they can have a propensity to be homosexual. But I believe that it's wrong and it's controllable. That is a fundamental, biblically based view that doesn't leave a lot of room or comfortability in a society where they don't want you to have absolutes.
The slide down the slippery slope began with ROE V. WADE?
That was the fundamental acknowledgment by the courts that there was a change. Some people would include other things that I don't believe are necessarily there. Some people felt that BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION -- certain religious groups held that up. Or feminism. I don't think that's true. The church has always been divided on civil rights. Evangelicals were marching in civil rights crusades. Women's issues -- it's one thing in fundamentalist circles [whether] you should be a pastor, but women have always been leaders in the church. You go to any conservative church, you're going to find more women in it than you're going to find men. But these issues that started with ROE V. WADE started to come up with a new class of issues, which is really how the evangelical movement became seen as more Republican, because historically it wasn't necessarily Republican. When issues of poverty, environment, and war were dominant, many evangelicals, if not most, were Democrats. But when the issues became pornography, prostitution, prayer in schools, whether God should be in the Pledge of Allegiance, whether homosexuals should be recognized for marriage, whether children should be aborted -- you saw movement, because those things were pretty clear in Scripture. If you were a fundamentalist who was looking at a literal interpretation, it was really hard to reconcile a vote for someone who had a liberal view on those issues with what was staring you in the face -- if you believed the Bible was literal. If you believe it's allegorical, if it's just stories and examples and parables to draw from, you have a different view than if you look at that as literal and fundamental.
Could you be an evangelical if you didn't think the Bible was literal?
I've been kind of doing this liberal evangelical versus conservative evangelical. Fundamentalists clearly would [have] a fundamental interpretation of the Bible. Chuck Colson argues that what we call "conservative evangelicals" have chosen that term rather than "fundamental," because fundamentalists were people who weren't supposed to be educated. They weren't supposed to be able to articulate their views. So we use the word[s] "conservative evangelicals." Historically, an evangelical was not necessarily as committed to the fundamentals. But because of the false image that was created of fundamentalists, we've kind of gone into this liberal evangelicals [and] conservative evangelicals. But really what we're talking about is: Do you believe that the books in the Bible are literal? Do you believe God created, or that's just ... a nice story? Do you believe the characters in the Bible, in many cases at the margins, were allegorical, or are they literal? Do you believe the Passion of the Christ, for example; that the examples in there are literal, or that those were just stories that enhanced the image? Did Christ walk on the water? I believe he walked on the water. I believe he turned the water into wine. I believe He healed and produced the miracles, just as the Bible says.
How has it been having a president who is in agreement with you on so many issues?
I am excited not only that we have a president who seems to share many of my values. I wouldn't say he necessarily comes from exactly the same tradition I am by any means, but he shares many of my values. And he put many people in critical places who share my values that I believe are biblical values. Therefore, I have been more inclined to support some things that I wouldn't have necessarily [been] inclined [to support], if I didn't believe. ...
Is this the most religious administration in a century?
I believe ever. ... I know some conservatives don't necessarily share that view, but I believe that, from a conservative Christian perspective, he is the closest as an administration in American history to that. Now, that doesn't mean that we all agree with him on everything. Quite frankly, it's not clear that somebody who is as conservative as I am in my religious views would ever be elected President of the United States. I have some concerns about some of his attempts to calm down the Muslim world, implying that we all worship the same God. Nevertheless, he has earned some slack from us for other things that he's stood for and stood firm for. I believe that the only real rivals for as devout an administration were John Quincy Adams and Calvin Coolidge, who, in their personal writings, show that they had a strong faith. But there is no evidence that they put people in key positions. Of course, back in John Quincy Adams's day, you didn't have the big bureaucracy you have today, where you could tell that. And it's not just that. We have a Speaker of the House who went to Wheaton College. We have a Majority Leader of the House, Tom DeLay, who is clearly an outspoken fundamentalist evangelical. We have Roy Blunt [R-Missouri, House Majority Whip]. We have Eric Cantor [R-Virginia, Chief Deputy House Majority Whip], who is more of an Orthodox Jew, a very conservative Jew at least, in another one of our leadership positions. So we have lots of people who have a very devout religious faith in key positions in the House, in key positions in the Senate, and in the administration. Attorney General Ashcroft -- charismatic. That's the first time we've ever had a charismatic Christian in a cabinet position.I assume that you're not exactly enthralled with the idea of John Kerry replacing George W. Bush?
I think it's fairly safe to say that I am not enthralled; I am appalled.
And why is that?
My opposition to John Kerry isn't just on what I would term evangelical or social issue grounds. I believe he would be a disaster in the international arena, in foreign policy. He's been inconsistent in how he would handle terrorism. I disagree with his economic philosophies, which I don't think are necessarily driven by my evangelical theology, although they might be shaped by it. But I also believe on the social issues -- whether it's abortion, whether it's homosexuality, whether we would enforce pornography laws, whether he would aggressively pursue religious liberty around the world -- I believe he would be a disaster on the social issues as well. Not as bad as Howard Dean and not even maybe as bad as Clinton, but the difference is that Kerry may be more an actual liberal, committed to be liberal, whereas Clinton was more left but willing to negotiate, because it wasn't clear he was as philosophically committed to his position, which is ironic, because Clinton's personal life was so morally bad. I don't know there's any evidence that Kerry's is. Christians were blinded to the fact that Clinton at times would negotiate with you, whereas Kerry is actually probably more liberal in the sense of negotiating. But his personal life doesn't appear to be as much of a mess.
Do you think politicians ought to be held to the standards or positions of their churches? I was mentioning to you the Catholic Church's denying communion to some Catholic politicians who are pro-choice. How do you feel about that?
I believe they should. Part of the reason I left the Apostolic Christian Church, although I never gave up my membership or anything, but went to another church, is that I had some disagreements with some of the policies of the church. And I don't believe that I should stay there to undermine those policies if I don't agree. I have tremendous respect for that denomination. It was so critical in shaping me. And I probably still more identify with that than my current church in most places. But a minister once asked me, "Mark, there's lots of other places you could go, if you want to have more moderate views. The people here deserve the right to have a church that has these views." Now, if you're going to say, as the Catholic Church, or as a fundamentalist church, or as a Lutheran church, that these are our beliefs, then you ought to have not joined that church if you don't share them, if they're fundamental. The question is: Are certain of these things fundamental to that faith? -- which has to be decided by the faith. I believe certain things are, in fact, fundamental.
[The reasons I left the Apostolic Christian Church] were more lifestyle questions at the edges. One of the arguments we were having [was] my hair touched my ears, and could I hold a church office? Another thing is, I'm a Notre Dame football fanatic. Could I go to the football games? Should I become more involved in the political system? They weren't really heavy theological questions, but more application questions that would change certain lifestyle practices inside that faith. The faith has actually adapted over the years, as many do, too. They just adapt more slowly than the rest of society. Those were the types of things. There was nothing major. That's why I'm real comfortable going back to my home church, where my mom still goes. It's just that there were subtle differences in whether to go to movies, watching TV shows. They would say I'm more worldly. Most of the world would say I'm still on the right flank.
And do you think that politicians who go against fundamental church positions ought to be punished?
We used to have, and still do, in the Apostolic Christian Church, a term called "a friend." In other words, just because you aren't a communion-taking member doesn't mean you can't go to that church. It doesn't mean you're not a Christian; it doesn't mean you can't be saved. The question is, when you belong to a membership, to a group, and that group has a particular position, should you be allowed to keep membership -- or, in this case, take communion -- as part of that group? If you're on the board of Planned Parenthood and suddenly announce that you're pro-life; if you're going to be in a group that opposes capital punishment, and all of a sudden you're for it -- presumably you're not going to be part of the board of that group or an active participant in the decisions of that group. Now, whether you should be allowed to retain your membership, if there are multiple things, that's really what each denomination has to decide. What about if you agree with everything in the Catholic Church except abortion? Is abortion a defining issue in the membership or not? Each denomination has to determine that.
Can we expect to see evangelicals energized in this campaign on behalf of the reelection of President Bush?
Yes. My position is real simple. I've already said it: What are you going to tell your kids and your grandkids at this watershed year of which direction our nation's going to go? How did you vote? Did you vote? Even in states like Indiana, which are probably going to go solidly for George Bush, you ought to be recorded, because you're going to record your vote on which direction America should go.
Because this is such an important juncture?
My theory is a little bit different than others. A lot of conservative Christians would argue that we're just declining steadily and falling apart. I believe we're dividing. It's the collapse of the middle. We've had a rise in conservative evangelicalism, conservative Catholicism, conservative mainline Protestant denominations, conservative Judaism, conservative Muslim faiths. We have a rise in conservatism and a simultaneous rise in liberalism and a collapse in the middle. Therefore, the battle has become more significant. And our challenge in our country, which is really important, if you are a fundamentalist, as I am, [is] that you respect the other side, because with the collapse of the middle, if the one side wins and tries to demolish the other side's freedoms, we're in trouble. That's the tough thing in public policy to try to reconcile, because how do you reconcile abortion?
Is it becoming more important to evangelicals to get involved in politics, to become decision makers and have more of a role in government?
The most conservative group of fundamentalists in the evangelical movement would be the Amish. The Amish in my district -- and I have very Old Order Amish, which means no tops on their buggies, and Old Order Amish, which have tops on their buggies, like around Lancaster and other places -- in Indiana, in LaGrange County, and in Elkhart County. They are looking at registering to vote for the first time, because even a separatist community like the Amish sees things like health regulations -- whether buggies have to have certain license plates or lights on them, how telephone service is going to be, do they get any kind of Medicaid or hospital funding; with these huge costs now, they can't all just self-fund -- what is going to be their interaction? So if the Amish are deciding it's more important to vote, you would think everybody else would be, too.
Do you feel you have been used and abused by Washington, as you expected to be? Or has it been a little different?
In the first stretch, I was just amazed there were these different Bible studies, there were additional contacts. I was impressed with how many evangelicals and committed Christians there were here in Washington -- devout Catholics. When we're in a Bible study, we don't even know who's Catholic, who's Lutheran, who's evangelical, because there were so few of us that we were together. So I was astounded when I first got here. And then I realized I'd met most of them in the first couple of months. As that has expanded, it's more comfortable than it was when I first came out to Washington as a staffer. I believe that there is a false impression around the rest of the country about how hard it is to be a Christian in Washington. There are strong support groups. The fact is members of Congress who deeply disagree with me are perfectly comfortable being friends and talking. It sometimes upsets people when we do the faith-based argument that I refer to Bobby Scott [D-Virginia] as my friend. He and I are friends, even though we go down there and you'd never guess from the debate that we're friends. Barney Frank and I were both in Colombia together for the swearing-in of President Uribe. We sat with each other. We spent a couple of days with each other. It isn't that I don't treat him with decency and he isn't a great guy and one of the funniest and brightest guys in Congress. I just don't agree with him on many issues. If you realize that we're all human beings, that we work together, we've tried to work through our differences but sometimes in this environment we can't, then you can hold to your principles. But if you don't have firm principles when you come to Washington, the place will grind you down. That's really what a lot of people see. If you come out here as kind of wishy-washy, you'll just sink into looking for power, seeking fun, looking for the best deal. Your marriage will break up. You'll probably turn to alcohol or other things to try to calm yourself down and pump yourself up. It is a different environment if you don't come in with principles.
I notice you have the Ten Commandments over there by your desk. Why is that?
The Ten Commandments are the closest thing we have to a foundational set of principles that are both in the Old Testament and reinforced in the New Testament. The specific reason I have them in my office is that, a number of years ago, after we introduced a bill that would allow the posting of the Ten Commandments, a group from my district came in and presented them to me. I said I would keep them in my office. We also have them posted in our district office as well. I believe they are foundational principles. The first four relate directly to honoring God. Sometimes, when people say, "Are you concerned about the language on television?" I'm more concerned about the blasphemy than the crudity. The crudity just shows people are crude and they're wrong and it's immoral. But the blasphemy is taking our Lord and Savior's name in vain. Read the Ten Commandments and understand why some people don't want them posted. It's because they are a warning that the Lord is God, and do not take his name in vain, and honor him, and put no other gods before him. That is a rebuke to much of what happens in our society.
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