Christian right regroups after Obama victory

Pundits declared evangelicals among of Election Day's losers. Conservative Christian leader James Dobson confessed he was grieving. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said religious right leaders "kept their own flock in line, but the majority of Americans were unmoved."

But few are writing obituaries this week for the Christian right, which has been wrongly considered dead after setbacks like the demise of the Moral Majority and crumbling of the Christian Coalition.

White evangelicals remain a large, loyal and organized Republican voting bloc that delivered Tuesday for John McCain but could not offset the battery of factors working against Republicans in 2008.

One pressing question in the wake of Barack Obama's historic victory is whether the Christian right can grow its own ranks or take positions with broader appeal. Some Republicans believe a tight embrace of social conservative values turns off independents and moderates, but many Christian right leaders resist compromise and contend that, if anything, the GOP has strayed too far from its principles.

Once again, conservative evangelicals engaged in politics find themselves at a crossroads.

"Do they want to be an oppositional force, lambasting the administration at every turn, which can help their organizations raise money?" said Mark Rozell, a political science professor at George Mason University. "Or do they find ways to intersect with new leadership and either try to minimize damage to their agenda or move forward issues where they can find consensus? It's an important turning point for the movement."

Exit polls showed McCain carried white evangelicals 74 percent to 24 percent _ not far off George Bush's 79 percent to 21 percent margin over John Kerry in 2004.

Six in 10 white evangelicals ranked the economy as their most important issue _ slightly less than the voting population as a whole. One difference that emerged was over terrorism: 14 percent of white evangelicals identified that as their top issue, compared with 7 percent of all other voters.

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The exit polls did not ask about abortion or gay marriage, but polls throughout the campaign showed those issues ranked low with voters regardless of religion.

Several Christian right leaders, however, dwelled not on the presidential result but on the success in California, Arizona and Florida of constitutional amendments that, in effect, banned gay marriage. In Florida, however, gay marriage wasn't enough to tilt the pivotal battleground state to McCain.

"Conservative politicians lost. Traditional values succeeded," said Tom Minnery, a vice president of Dobson's Focus on the Family. "It ought to tell them to get a clue about the importance of marriage. We were frustrated that Sen. McCain would not speak out about marriage strongly and repeatedly."

Still others pointed to how Hispanics and African-Americans _ who overwhelmingly backed Obama _ sided with white evangelicals in rejecting gay marriage.

"There is a common thread among these different ethnic groups, and it's church. It's faith," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "If Republicans want to reach into those ethnic groups, really the only bridge they can cross over are the social issues. But they have to be true to them."

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said immigration is another issue that holds promise.

"Social conservatives are open to some sort of immigration reform that will be far less offensive to Hispanic voters than some of the more nativist forces" within the Republican family, he said.

But make no mistake. These leaders have no intention of shifting focus from their big three issues: abortion, gay marriage and judges.

Obama's election might open the door to a different breed of evangelicals _ those who advocate consensus-building and expanding the agenda to include global poverty and the environment.

Joel Hunter, an Orlando, Fla., megachurch pastor, fits that definition. Hunter, 60, is anti-abortion but also signed a statement on climate change and has denounced "hateful immigration rhetoric." He also delivered the closing prayer at this summer's Democratic National Convention and prayed with Obama by phone Tuesday before the president-elect took the stage in Chicago's Grant Park.

"What really works in this country is not inciting the base, but making partnerships with people with different views to advance your agenda," Hunter said. "Those who don't will marginalize themselves politically. I don't think advancement of a cause primarily by attack is the way of the future."

On gay rights, Hunter said evangelicals can find a home in coalitions that support restricting the institution of marriage to one man and one woman but advocate that gays be able to form legal relationships short of marriage _ and that no one face job discrimination.

Even on a divisive issue such as abortion, evangelicals have found success in promoting laws on parental notification, late-term abortion bans and prohibiting federal funding for abortion, Rozell said.

Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, has clashed with culture war-oriented leaders over his activism to combat global warming. He said white evangelicals' support for McCain is not a repudiation of a broader issues agenda.

"Evangelicals, whether showing it at the ballot box or not, are showing a larger palette of concerns," Cizik said. "... There is a spiritual renaissance occurring here and it is broad-based."

There was some evidence Tuesday that younger evangelicals are drawn to a wider agenda. While younger white evangelicals did not vault en masse to Obama, the Democrat made significant inroads. Exit polls showed the proportion of white evangelicals under age 30 who backed Obama this year was double the 16 percent who supported Kerry in 2004.

Four years ago, white evangelicals under 30 were even stronger Bush supporters than those over 50.

"It's too early to say this portends really badly for Republicans in the future and means Democrats are going to pick up a lot of support from the evangelical community for the next 20 years," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist who specializes in evangelicals and politics. "Younger evangelicals desperately wanted a change because they were so disappointed in the Bush administration."

Obama and the Democrats will have to deliver on issues dear to young evangelicals or they'll become disillusioned by more empty rhetoric and vote Republican again, he said.

Most evangelicals won't agree with Obama, but they can learn from his positive brand of politics as they regroup under an administration movement leaders fought so hard to prevent, said Mark DeMoss, an evangelical public relations specialist who initially backed Mitt Romney and voted for McCain.

"I don't like the fact that a lot of evangelicals are taking this view of Barack Obama, that he's the anti-Christ or something," DeMoss said. "I'm going to disagree with him politically on probably a whole lot of things _ maybe everything. But we ought to try to win on the strength of ideas."

Comments

[MJinCanada]

Soon the wind was blowing hard and the waves were growing higher. A cabin cruiser pulled up beside the Fundamentalist's boat. "You can't stay out in this," the skipper shouted. "Take this line and I'll tow you in." The Fundamentalist refused. "I trust in the Lord and I will be all right."

When rain began to fall and lightning lit the crashing waves, a coast guard vessel drew up to the Fundamentalist's boat. "Come aboard," the captain shouted. "We'll take up your boat and take you in." The Fundamentalist refused. "God is my foundation and strength," he shouted back. "I trust in the Lord to save me. My prayers will see me through this."

But when his boat was being tossed like a leaf on the wind and the Search and Rescue helicopter dropped him a ladder, the Fundamentalist still refused to be rescued. "God will save me," he cried. "I will make it through the storm."

But when the drowned Fundamentalist stood before God, he cried reproachfully, " Why? I trusted You. I prayed to You. Why did You let me drown?"

And God glared at him and said, "I sent three boats and a helicopter. What the heck did you expect?"

[MJinCanada]

A Fundamentalist wanted to try his hand at sailing. The fellow who rented him a small sailboat warned him the weather could change quickly at that time of year and he should come back to port immediately if the sea got rough. "I'll be fine," the Fundamentalist said. "God is looking out for me."

By mid-afternoon, he was far from land and the sea was growing choppy. Another sailboat passed the Fundamentalist, and the young couple in it called, "There's a storm coming up. We're heading in. You should too." "I'll be fine," he told them. "I'm a man of faith and prayer and God will protect me."

[SirReal1]

While I would not impose my views on anyone of faith, I also do not wish their views imposed on me!

Isn't it time for "people of faith" to require some "intellectual honesty" from their Religious Leaders? I think this is perhaps the issue that many on the right saw as an essential problem that resulted in their shift in voting. There must be a growing number of "true believers" who see a very significant problem with a doctrine that advocates for "political involvement" from their "church leaders".

It is one thing to advocate for your perspective to be included in the debate, and quite another to neglect your ministry in order to "become" a politician . Politics (and business) is a pursuit that is rife with subtle seductions as well as "personal compromises" that few can survive without it changing them. The "leap of faith" that is required, to believe that a "person of religion" can also be a politician, without the process altering their faith, may be more than many on the right can embrace. There are simply too many "biblical references" (e.g. accruing Wealth and Power, and the lust for more of it that generally follows) that preclude such notions from being "acceptable" to those who hold to the "literal word" of the Bible.

[SirReal1]

There is also a growing realization that Theocratic Government is exactly the enabling force that has provided the means for the radicalization of the very groups that WE (Americans) are currently opposing as "terrorists". It's a difficult concept to sell, that we should oppose their efforts to impose their religious views on an entire nation, while we should support the efforts of the religious right to do the same thing here!

I feel confident that there are also some within the religious right who have difficulty with some of the "core religious beliefs" of some of their fellow constituents, many of which fall into a realm of extremism that MUST be difficult for more moderate members to embrace.

Belief that "Dinosaurs and Humans roamed the earth together", or that "God's Plan" includes a theocratic Nation of America to promote dominion (by force if necessary) over the entire earth "in his name", or that religious belief should supplant Man's ability to apply "reason and science" in his quest to "explain" the natural world, must be difficult for those who have pursued higher education in an effort to to satisfy their own "intellectual curiosity" about the world. The notion that "we cannot know anything unless it is embodied in the teachings of the Bible" is patently offensive to ANYONE who places any faith in their own, personal, (God given?) ability to make sense of the world.

[SirReal1]

Add to this, the suggestion by many of the "Leaders" of the Religious Right, that we SHOULD continue to "dump our trash" from our increasingly industrialized society ALL OVER the earth, and God will take care of it (as if we've somehow made him into some kind of "Janitor for the Earth"), or that it is acceptable for us to "use our religious belief" as a justification to attack, denigrate, and persecute those who have beliefs that differ from our own, and I think you have a "dogma" that will surely alienate a large number of people that might have at one time supported you.

Many of these "leaders" began their political involvement in an effort to promote the "values" of their belief.

Unfortunately, as they have seen their sphere of influence increase, and with it their "personal level of power", they have abandoned their "values" to pursue greater levels of influence.

I think the eyes of many of their followers are opening to this reality.

[bubbles3660]

"Isn't it time for "people of faith" to require some "intellectual honesty" from their Religious Leaders?"

Faith doesn't require intellect or honesty. The sheep's only task is to follow the shepherd.