The Evangelical Swing Vote
The Religious Right is once again bamboozling the press and the public with a brilliant sleight-of-hand trick.
They're distracting us with the idea that they are becoming a kinder, gentler force, hoping that while we're pondering that happy change, we'll miss the true shift.
What's really happening is that the Religious Right does not control the hefty percentage of voters that it claimed as its own. These evangelicals voted with the Religious Right for a season, but they never were a solid GOP voting bloc. This election, they're the swing vote.
The non-Religious Right, swing-vote evangelicals are three to five times as numerous as evangelicals who toe the Religious Right political line.
Who says?
The evangelicals themselves. Only 20 percent of evangelicals say they are among the Religious Right, according the country's pre-eminent evangelical magazine, Christianity Today. Other surveys show that the great majority of evangelicals don't even know who their putative leaders, those the press goes to for opinions, are. Given a list of their names, they shrug and say, "Never heard of the guy."
These aren't new statistics. They are ignored statistics.
Seventy to 80 percent of people whom pollsters classify as evangelicals don't believe like, don't behave like, and this election, they aren't going to vote like the Religious Right. These evangelicals are pretty much middle America. They like their leaders to believe in God, to pray for guidance, to be good people. They worry about abortion but don't want to make it a crime. They aren't ready for gay marriage, but they aren't calling anybody an abomination in the sight of God. Discrimination of any kind doesn't sit well with them.
They're culturally conservative but not so much reactionary as merely cautious. They act as a storm anchor for a country being tossed every which way by change. Sometimes they go for the Republicans. Sometimes for the Democrats.
Religious Right leaders, on the other hand, still want their kind of God to be the only god allowed on the public stage, everywhere, all the time. They oppose legal abortion and gay rights as fiercely as ever. They still want sex education to be abstinence-only. They still oppose child protective services, teaching evolution, hate crimes legislation, condom distribution to combat AIDS... the list goes on. It hasn't changed.
Religious Right leaders have merely shifted public attention by adding more palatable issues. The environment. The poor.
It's a good trick.
Journalists, many of whom think born-agains and snake-handlers are pretty much on par, have never quite realized that two groups of very different evangelicals exist. Reporters have so often gone after the flamboyant character and the outrageous quote that there hasn't been room in the stories for the rest of the evangelicals, the bulk of them.
Pundits who worry that John McCain will lose the Religious Right vote don't get the picture. McCain has no rivals for the Religious Right vote. A good portion of those voters are convinced that Obama is a Muslim stealth candidate, and Clinton is the anti-Christ in a pant suit. Given such sentiments, McCain doesn't need to woo them. He merely has to keep that 5 to 8 percent of the population awake and alarmed enough that they won't stay home.
But it's only 5 to 8 percent. The other 17 to 20 percent of Americans who call themselves evangelicals are busy prising open the donkey's lips to get a look at his teeth. The Democrats have this vote if they remember to be moderately pious, as they are being, and mainly concerned with bread and butter issues: health care, jobs, energy.
As for the war, nobody quite knows what to do about that. Nobody wants to think about it. It can be safely ignored for now.
Religious Right leaders have stopped talking about their core issues -- publicly, at least -- only because they are afraid of being exposed for what they are. Not hate-mongers. That doesn't bother them. Not un-Christian. That doesn't bother them either.
What they fear is being exposed as the small minority of evangelicals that they actually are.
That is the important Religious Right story this year. So far, the press is missing it.
Christine Wicker is the author of The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church and a former religion reporter for The Dallas Morning News. Saved in a Southern Baptist church at the age of nine, she comes from a family going into its sixth generation of evangelicals. Her mother's grandfather was an itinerant Baptist preacher. Her dad's father was a Kentucky coal miner and foot-washing Baptist. Her blog is www.christinewicker.com.
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I don't think that the evangelicals were ever the block they
were presented as either. But they were distracted.
The key social points of the religious right bans on abortion, gay
marriage, etc, remain elusive. Probably unassailable given
California' Supreme Court ruling yesterday and the direction that
the congressional and senate races are going.
Maybe evangelicals are realizing that the Republicans have been
treating them like yard tools - handy when needed, but not respected.
Your simplifications are wrong-headed.
evangelical DOES NOT EQUAL religious right
Gay marriage issue if front and center and Obama is sucking wind on this issue
You're surprised? He didn't campaign with ex-gay freaks for nothing.
Evangelicals a "swing vote," eh? Well, I hope they Swing low sweet chariot/Bringin' Obama Back Home (to Pennsylvania Avenue, that is). Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your p.o.v.), the minority comprising the Right numbers the Revs. Hagee and Parsley among its ranks, and they happen to be McBush's "spiritual advisors." (Those who thought Rev. Wright was the Albatross of All Ecclesiastrical Albitrosses, you got another think coming.) These people support bombing Iran because it will set off a world-wide conflagration in fulfillment of their silly Rapture theology. They're the preachers for the Dangerous Lunatics who want to hurry sundown for our species just to show you how right they were when they flashed their bumperstickers reading, "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE EMPTY." Most of their cars are empty now -- and parked in the garage -- because SUV's and pick-ups guzzle lots of Mideastern oil.
Great points!
"A good portion of those voters are convinced that Obama is a Muslim stealth candidate, and Clinton is the anti-Christ in a pant suit."
Here's another suitably timed yesterday to sink in and take hold for the general election campaign--thank you republicans; this is an old but groovy one from 2000 and 2004. Homophobia!
California's Supreme Court ruled same sex couples should be allowed to marry.
Thank you for writing this. I am an evanglical Christian who dislikes GWB intensely, who has been against the Iraq war from the start, and who will vote for Obama in the upcoming presidential election. I know many other like me. Obama will definitely get an evangelical swing vote and the media is missing this.
Most evangelicals are pro-life.To vote for Obama would be out of the question.
You can be pro-life AND pro-choice. I cannot imagine a situation that I would have an abortion, but I do not believe the government should make this decision for women.
If you believe all abortions should be banned, there can be no exceptions. If any abortion, even at 4 weeks gestation, is murder...then it is murder whether the mother got pregnant after a drunken one-night-stand or if she is a 12-year-old girl that was raped by her father.
Obama has it right...women should make this choice. And the majority of women do NOT take it lightly. As Christians we can focus on preventing unwanted pregnancies and making the world a safer and friendlier place for young unmarried pregnant women. Many of the staunchest opponents of abortion will treat a pregnant single girl as a tramp, rather than embrace her and try to help.
As if abortion and gay rights are the only issues we face as American's right .That is plain stupid ! We have far more important issues facing us like an economy that is in the toilet ,this never ending war ,poor health care, tainted food and higher prices, high gas and oil prices thanks to those of you who voted Republican based on these two issues .
I asked my Republican sister who also is a christian why she votes Republican and guess what she didn't have an answer .If she were to give an answer I would have a list of sins her Republican party stands for greed at the top of that list .
I don't vote based on one or two issues I vote based on which party and which candidate has the interests of all American's in mind ,especially the middle class and the poor who have suffered greatly under this administration.
They may be pro-life, but that doesn't mean that this issue will supercede all the others. If one is pro-life, then it makes no sense to vote for the party which has brought about so much killing and destruction in the formerly stable country of Iraq. I know many evangelicals who get this and who will vote for Obama.
The thing that always amazes me is that us Evangelicals are called out for so much the left says is evil and that our culture and beliefs deserve no respecting and yet they still blithely ignores things like this...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080516/wl_nm/india_honourkilling_dc;_ylt=AiGbXDPkdi2T799I3dAmnWNn.3QA
...saying its just part of another culture that we should respect.
HuffPost's Pick
Does anyone speak for this evangelical majority? I don't hear any Christian leaders speaking out against our preemptive war, except perhaps Jimmy Carter but he is really more a political leader than a religious leader. I would like to hear what they have to say about the war before listening to them about other issues.
Please give us more Jimmy Carter... the kiddies have no clue how life was back in the Late 1970's but there parents know.
Lots of Christian leaders have spoken out against our preemptive war, from the beginning, even President Bush's own United Methodist bishop. But you'll never hear about it because the media ignore them; the media won't even sell them advertising time. If you want to know what the Christian leaders who aren't invited as TV talking heads have to say, you have to find their websites.
My denomination is currently trying to feed and shelter Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. You probably haven't seen on TV the millions who've fled for their lives and overwhelmed the poor countries that extended hospitality. Among many others, the million Iraqi Christians now have no place among the warring Shia factions and Sunnis---and I bet you never saw on TV that Iraq had a large Christian minority.
"If you want to know what the Christian leaders who aren't invited as TV talking heads have to say, you have to find their websites."
If we haven't heard about them because we haven't found their websites, perhaps they aren't trying hard enough. Instead of websites, perhaps they should be preaching to their own congregations. It might be I am just too much in a conservative part of the country, but I am not aware of anyone hearing anything in church against the war except the uniterians. Some preachers say it is not their place to preach about politics. Their churches are full of people who voted for Bush.
Most of the true evangelical leaders are apolitical, as they should be. They do not climb into the political muck, becoming no better than political hacks, but still expecting a tax exemption. True evangelicals are concerned with saving our souls and keeping our moral compass straight. They are NOT thinking about trying to use the government as a tool to ram their personal view of Christianity down the throats of others.
MJ20
thank you
You may well be correct but who are these evangelical leaders? Why are they not speaking-out to counter the fundamentalist extremists who are defaming Christianity?
Yes, there was a good program on NPR on this.
There is a strong movement within evangelicalism to reject the religious right. It is called the Evangelical Manifesto. Google it. A couple of key leaders are Jim Wallis and Richard Mouw. They want to follow the gospel, which basically means looking out for God's creation and caring about poor people. They reject any alignment with a political party.
Not surprisingly, the Dobson's and Robertson's reacted like they would if their son came home and said he was going to marry Fred, become a late term abortion doctor, buy a Prius and vote for a Negro for president..
Jim Wallis seems to take the attitude that the left doesn't get it, and I am concerned that that might still be a little bit superioristic. After what they have done by selling their soul to the Republicans, I think Christianity needs to come down off their high horse. Perhaps the left does get it. Perhaps Christianity just blew it this time. Why don't we start the discussion from that place, and see if it can bring us some healing. Christians might be able to learn something from non-Christians if they would give us a chance.
You are absolutely correct. I am a "Christian" who has never been "Religious Right", but I supported Mike Huckabee. I will even vote for him in our late June 3 primary, my first Republican vote, even though he withdrew. Many many "evangelicals" voted for him in early primaries and that is why he won some states. His economic views were very different from those of Bush or McCain.
Who will I vote for in the General Election? I guess I will have to very reluctantly vote Obama or less reluctantly vote Clinton. McCain? Some of "us" will vote for him just to get pro-life judges in there, but as for me that's overlooking the pro-death stance he has on other issues. Will I just not vote? Or will I hope for a miracle? I don't know. Looks like bad things coming if the miracle does not manifest.
Romans 8:6: "The mind of the flesh is death; the mind of the spirit is life and peace."
Set aside the "abortion is murder" perspective long enough to consider the question of when human life begins. and its implications.
The net effect of believing that human life begins at conception is to reject the role of the spirit in human life. Surely, it's the most zealous position possible, but zeal and truth are different things.
I would encourage you to read Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15. If you believe something that denies the spirit, your faith is useless, and worse, you may have committed what Jesus himself considered the unforgivable sin - denying the work of the spirit.
I pray, Mariel, that you and others like you will take this seriously (read my other comments here also).
JohnOneOne, I too am an evangelical, Methodist by tradition who does not, has never supported the Republican platform. I am trying to understand your statement: "The net effect of believing that human life begins at conception is to reject the role of the spirit in human life. Surely, it's the most zealous position possible, but zeal and truth are different things." Can you clarify this? I am intrigued and a little confused by your argument since it is a little abreviated. Would you expand on this?
Thanks, Kat
I followed your thinking until you asked for a miracle. Just what miracle are you waiting for?
Eight years ago, my partner and I moved to a new neighborhood, partly because of homophobic harrassment we had received in our home of 19 years.
We had a bit of trepidation about the fact that our back yard bordered the property of an Evangelical Church with a nursery school and playground, so we immediataly put up a 6-foot fence to avoid problems.
Well, bit by bit, we have had to talk to the Pastor of the church about neighborhood issues, and we have never found him and his congregation to be anything but good neighbors. Sure, they know we're gay. But it was the Pastor who offered the church property for us to do our daily walk (recommended to all us old geezers by our doctors) when he heard my partner had a neuro-muscular disease and was afraid to walk too far from home. Now we get hellos from all of the church members who see us on the property.
It took us a while, but we came to realize these Evangelicals were no more rabidly far-Right political than Methodists or Episcopalian.
Sure, they're friendly, wmfor, but don't forget that they virtually all voted for bush. The one criterion for whether or not someone was a bush voter was whether and how often he/she attended church.
If they're friendly to an openly gay couple, they probably didn't vote for Bush. Trust me. I'm a Texas-born and -resident Christian. Bush voters don't say hello to gay people.
I think that many evangelicals, good Christian people who are serious about their faith, have been led astray by the Republican machine who has played them like a fiddle. I am a Sunday School superintendant at a United Methodist church who attends church 3-4 days a week, depending on what work needs to be done that week. I am a proud Democrat, as is my pastor. I think "they" are beginning to wake up and realize they have been used and wedge issues are exactly the kind of thing Jesus railed against, Pharisee thinking "I am holy and if you aren't just like me, you are not". I think they are finding it difficult to admit to themselves that they have been duped by leaders who claim to be Christian but bear no fruit to indicate they really are. We need to lose our frustration with them and embrace them and gently bring them back to the fold. We are brothers and sisters and we are one in the Spirit.
Speaking of prying open the donkey's mouth...
You likely know the story of Balaam's donkey (Numbers 22); I would point out the reference to it in 2 Peter as well.
What about the theology of the RR's notion that human life begins at conception? I read scripture otherwise, namely, that human life begins at first breath, and I find it consistent (Genesis 2:7, Ezekiel 37, among others).
But even Jesus spoke to the point, namely, that human life begins when spirit joins with flesh, in two notable passages. In John 6:63, he asserted that "the spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing." But John 3:8 is more interesting, where he said, "the spirit breathes, and you hear the sound of its voice ..." I take that, considering verse 12 where he said he was talking about earthly things, as a reference to a newborn crying - the sound of its voice - as a manifestation of spirit having joined with flesh.
It's also worth noting that in both Hebrew and Greek, the word for spirit is based on the word for breath.
And it should be enough to note that human flesh can obviously be dead, as it is at the end of life, so it would be consistent if the beginning of the flesh is not the beginning of life. Paul spoke to this directly in 1 Corinthians 15.
There are atheists among the RR...
So what you're saying is that life does not begin until the first breath.
Kind of takes care of the abortion issue don't it?
I'd have said more (250 word limit), but yes, and you would think it would settle the issue.
I would point out, though, that this isn't just my opinion - it's my best exegetic reading of scripture. I used to be an atheist, and first heard the idea about life beginning at conception from other atheists, who used it to argue with Christians about the possibility of the existence of anything spiritual, not just a God.
I next heard it from Pat Robertson, who used Jeremiah 1:5 to justify it. The thing is that Jer. 1:5 talks about _before_ the forming of the flesh, i..e., about the prophet's spirit, not his flesh at all. I've presented it to the likes of James Dobson myself - he didn't want to hear it, nor have others.
A part of the atheist argument is that neither Adam nor Jesus are human by the conception standard, since neither was naturally conceived. I.e.., if they existed, they were not human.
Atheists also argue about cloning with the same idea, and the same response works - the spirit breathes where it wishes. They suggest that if a human is ever cloned, then by the conception standard, there can't be such thing as spirit.
Thankfully, scripture doesn't use the conception standard at all.
I should also mention two other things.
First, first breath is also essentially the medical standard. Newborns must have viable respiratory function (note: re_spir_atory - from the Latin), but need not even have fully formed or functional neural function, among other things that need not be fully formed and functional. If a child breathes, it's considered alive and viable.
Think also about the Terry Schiavo case - she could still breathe on her own.
Second, the framing as "abortion is murder" is revealing. Romans 8:6 says, "To set the mind on the flesh is death; to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace."
McCain is picking Hillary as his running mate just heard it on Fox news.
Thanks for this article. It puts numbers on something I had suspected: that there are a lot of really good people made suspect by the rantings of some particular evangelicals.
As far as I am concerned, your beliefs are your own business and no religion has the right to enforce their beliefs on those who believe otherwise. Religion should be private or public WITHIN the group, but not trotted out in ostentatious displays of religiosity.
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