Evangelicals Stay Loyal And Lose

So where were those white evangelicals last night?

From early reports it looks as if they were in about the same place they were four years ago. A little shift, maybe 4 percentage points toward Obama and away from McCain.

But by and large, McCain took about three fourths of the white evangelical vote, just as God's man George W. Bush did. We won't know for sure until more exit polling comes in.

But from several accounts, the evangies didn't stay home. They didn't greatly shift their support.

And all those young white evangelicals who were going to desert in droves and become Obama-ites? They didn't do it.

All that outreach Obama did to attract white evangelicals? It didn't do much.

That big, scary, unstoppable white evangelical vote, call it whatever you want, the King-maker vote, the values vote, the God vote. It turned out. It stayed loyal. And it didn't deliver the election.

So what gives?

The obvious answer seems to be that other voters turned out and overwhelmed that evangelical vote.

That's true. Certainly it's true in states like Florida and Virginia.

But that explanation doesn't quite get to the important truth that Americans need to understand if we are going to stop being manipulated by white evangelical extremists. I've said this before. And the election results confirm it.

The great bulk of what's being called the evangelical vote is by and large what used to be called the white Southern vote. The Religious Right claims to control that vote. But actually the Religious Right and the Southern vote merely travel along some of the same paths.

Many evangelicals may have deserted the Republican Party. Many others were already progressives or moderates ready to swing away. But the South didn't desert the Republicans. And it's the Southern states, not those self-identified evangelicals that pollsters are mistakenly lumping with the Religious Right who have the big numbers.

Look at the Pew Center maphttp://religions.pewforum.org/maps of the U.S. Click on evangelicals. Now compare it with an election http://www.politico.com/ map.
Evangelical numbers are highest in the South. Southern states are red states. What's been called the evangelical vote is merely the Bible Belt renamed and cleaned-up. (Western states also go for Republicans but not because of evangelicals or the Religious Right, as both maps show.)

The Southern vote went for McCain. Just as the Southern vote has gone for Republican presidents since Nixon. Nixon didn't call on God. He captured the Southern vote with racist appeals and Republicans have been doing that ever since. I won't say McCain captured the South in the same fashion. He consistently painted Obama as "the other."

But any white Southerner who looks at Obama won't have to be told that he's "the other."

Do Southerners vote Republican because Southerners are evangelicals? Yes.

But the number of fervent church-going evangelicals is declining in the South, not increasing. A large and growing number of Southerners are merely cultural evangelicals. They talk nice about Jesus. They think God and patriotism are linked. They bridle at disrespect to the flag. They favor states rights over the federal control.

But they don't go to church much, if at all. They don't take marching orders from the evangelical preachers. They aren't followers of the Religious Right. They are, instead, fellow travelers on some issues because Southerners are cultural conservatives, just as they were even before the Civil War.

As one piece of evidence, I'd offer Colorado. Despite his widely disseminated and publicized letter predicting that an Obama victory would bring every kind of horror, Focus on the Family's James Dobson couldn't even deliver Colorado, where his organization is based.

The takeaway?

The Religious Right isn't some new, huge and fearsome development in the United States that tells something frightening about the kind of people Americans are becoming.

It's the Southern vote. And a small, but loud and organized minority elsewhere.

By and large, what we saw in this election and the last two shows a political split that preceded the Religious Right by hundreds of years.

Christine Wicker is the author of "The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church." Her website is www.christinewicker.com.

Comments

[drl15son]

The pastors leading the Christian right and their followers are fake Christians. They hooked up to the political idolatry train and done more harm to the Body of Christ than any group. Please don't think for one minute they represented God. You error when you look at what they did and associate it with the Gospel of Jesus. Many of us true Christians who account our faith to the full council of the Word have to work extra hard to get the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the non believer.

[LeaderofMen]

You really have to ask yourself why didn't God and Jesus deliver this for them. After all, their god is mighty and powerful and hates everyone unlike itself.

The evangelicals should be laughed at until we're blue in the face. Their mighty god forsaking them tells me so much about them.

It tells me they're liars and their god doesn't exist. Because if they weren't liars and if their god existed, this election would have been tilted so far in McCain's direction that nothing could have stopped it.

Not even a bunch of voters.

[Keith52]

The Neo-Cons thought they had a two pronged "southern strategy" that had synergy. Racists and evangelicals. Religion = faith not fact. There is no actual "thinking" required. Your faith is all that matters. So naturally if you are an evangelical it doesn't matter if Neo-Con ideology is toxic. It doesn't matter if the economy and jobs are in the toilet. It must be God's will. Because the Neo-Cons are the party of God.

This is why we need better education policy, people. We need to keep religion out of science classes. And we need ideas not simply opposition. There is a place for religion studies in public schools, however. Theology and philosophy class is where it belongs. And I don't see what is wrong with that. Religion must be understood in historical context. We will have children who understand middle eastern attitudes toward the US and they will make better political leaders and better voters for it.

[keith2808]

Evangelicals are radioactive. No one wants to be near or associated with them after their boorish, mean spirited and divisive behavior of the last 7 years.

[kellygrrrl]

I sure hope the IRS is going to crack down on the tax-free status of some of these churches

[kellygrrrl]

The NeoChristo­FascoFring­e - along with the NeoMormonFreakShow - managed to BAN marriage for a group of innocent loving families in 3 states

[derik]

My understanding is that there are many evangelicals that are now quite freaked out by some of their mentally created nightmares based on their literal interpretation of the good old books of myths. All of this is quite profound that apparently rational minded people run around creating their own nightmares based on magic or something. What is somewhat mind boggling is the the evangelical map, the "red" state map and the confederate state map all seem to be the same, more or less (other than the non-Southern states that were never really a part of the confederacy). In my opinion, if we take away rhe non-profit status of reglious institutions we then would have an open market for such institutions going after the hearts and minds of people believing in magic. Then for the rest of us, it would be merely a choice we make in the same vein as to whether we play or not. Realistically, if we did not have these relgious institutions I would be inclined to think that some of the sex, alcohol and violence as detailed in all these myths may take over. So, I guess, thank god for god.

[TrooAmerican]

notice a key fact that most of them dont really act like christians or even talk like them. Dobson is a good example of a purveyor of hate and intolerance.
Hypocrisy abounds in the Hate monger Evangelical church. Ted Haggard is another good example.
He was their Nationwide LEADER and direct liason to George Bush. He had over 20 in-person contacts with Dubya.
He then got removed for having a decades long tryst with a male prostitute and using up that $250,000 a year salary on illegal narcotics.

Good Leadership there Evangelical hypocrites

[kellygrrrl]

NeoChristoFascism has lost all sight of the True teachings of Jesus Christ.

[Dystopic]

yeah, to destroy the romans!

[Rural Juror]

These are the people that purport to follow "God's will" but refuse to believe God's will may be opposite of what they pray for. Selfish, and self-centered, not true Christians. If they truly had faith, they would believe that everything happens for a reason.
Jesus in a nutshell: Love One Another. I don't see evangelicals doing that, ever. They twist, distort and interpret things to their liking.
I cannot wait for this poison to wear off.

[kennyfasugbe]

Evangelicals staying loyal is not surprising when churches and faith organizations have become a multi-billion dollar industry like Wal Mart, where they preach Love, as in Wal Mart's low prices. However, enslaving their own flocks to the aggrandizement of the few at the top is the machination within. Until the so called value voters or evangelicals wise up, they will remain in Moses' political wilderness for another generation. This is just the beginning!

[mommadona]

What do you expect?

They "pin the note" on their jacket as they leave their mega-church compounds

"Vote for ______________"

There is no free will thought process in those sheeple heads.

"I will follow HIM (insert rightwing nut du jour)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJWjmDa79Iw&feature=related

[justoverit333]

It truly amazes me that the evangelicals still
support an administration that is so dishonest
and greedy. It makes no sense. They can
have them. They are turning people off of
religion, along with the Catholics and their
one issue.

[doublels]

They vote for one thing....t­he end of abortion. They are completely oblivious to what ever other havoc this administration has wrought. They are blind sheep in the name of God & Jesus.