Seattle Orthodox rabbi finds friends in Christian Coalition

ATLANTA -- The delegates to the national Christian Coalition Convention here had been sitting and cheering through nearly 14 hours of speeches. But they still had enough energy left for the man known as "their rabbi."

"There's only one interpretation to the warm introduction you are giving me tonight," Rabbi Daniel Lapin said, beginning his fifth annual address to the conservative group earlier this month.

The applause, he said, represented "the bonds we have built and the friendships we have formed."

The Seattle-based Orthodox rabbi, founder of a group called Toward Tradition, is a familiar speaker at conservative political events.

He said "the chasm" in this country is not between "good" people and "bad" people, but between "people who understand America's biblical blueprint and those who don't.

"Good people who toss the biblical blueprint away become liberals. Such well-intentioned people become secularists and socialists. And therein lies the problem."

At times, his 20-minute talk took on the cadence of a stereotypical Baptist minister's preaching. When the audience would respond to a question, he'd shout back, "I can't hear you!" The response would come in a thunderous chorus of "yes" or "no."

He lashed out at recycling, homosexuals, sex education in public schools and women serving in combat.

"The sacred sacrament of secularism is recycling," he said. "Why? Because if we are animals then there is a shortage in the world. God doesn't take anything from us and God doesn't create and therefore there is a shortage...Do not feel guilty [for] using what God has provided us. Enjoy it!"

He closed on this note: "Anytime anyone tells you that restoring the biblical blueprint is anti-Semitic, you call me and I will come to speak!"

After the talk, the last of the evening, Lapin greeted visitors in the lobby.

"Thank you for blessing me five years in a row," said one man.

The rabbi's remarks "show that we all serve the same God and that we can work together and that the Christians are not the enemy of the Jews and vice versa," said Liz Schofield of Clinton, Iowa.

"It's my third time that I've heard him and he gets better each time."

In an interview, Lapin said that too many Jews are unable "to isolate ourselves from medieval Europe" when Christians committed pogroms against Jews.

"For all our vaunted love of diversity and tolerance, there is absolutely no tolerance from the Jewish organizations of anyone who doesn't play the party secular line," he said. "I believe that contains the seeds of tragedy to the people who reject the biblical blueprint."