Unquestionably, there is a dark, fundamentalist side to American evangelicalism, most recently showcased in a new book, "The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age," by Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens.
Extremist theoreticians and theologians like Dominionist David Barton and C. Peter Wagner of the New Apostolic Reformation would like to take over the nation and world in Jesus' name. They plot to use their political influence to leverage the United States in a theocratic direction -- or at least to further smudge the separation of church and state.
If they could. The thing is, they can't and they won't. So left-wing Jews and progressives generally -- among whom I number myself -- should stop acting like Chicken Little on the subject of evangelicals.
Sure, as Giberson and Stephens point out, evangelicals have their fair share of scoundrels and charlatans. There is an undeniably ugly, sinister and narrow-minded strain of the movement that equates religious tolerance with theological equivalence, or affirmation. For some pastors, especially among the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, "ecumenism" and "interfaith" are dirty words. And at the grass roots, there is some hatred of gay people.
But progressives generally, and Jewish progressives in particular, should stop looking at evangelicals through a parochial, Park Slope prism, and stop frightening themselves. I have lived among them for nearly two decades and I know what I am talking about.
Despite their high level of support for John McCain in 2008 (74 percent), enough white evangelicals stayed home or voted for Obama in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia to give the Democrats the White House. Even in Indiana, an estimated 161,000 white evangelicals voted for Obama.
If Obama is reelected, extremist evangelical influence in the White House will likely continue to be what it has been for the past three years: nil.
True, in next year's election, white evangelicals are likely to come out in even greater numbers to vote Republican, according to Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, especially in Sun Belt swing states like Florida, North Carolina and Virginia that Obama carried last time. All three are keystones of the Obama campaign's 2012 strategy, according to the New York Times.
"Given the present polling data on the president's support -- that he has difficulty breaking 40 percent of whites overall -- his chances of doing any better among white evangelicals seem small," Brown said.
John Green, of the Pew Center and the University of Akron, agrees.
"If the Republicans are to recapture the White House in 2012, their nominee will need strong support from white evangelicals, especially in the battleground states," he said, "So mobilizing white evangelicals is likely to be an important element of the Republican campaign."
The question implicit in these predictions is: Who are evangelicals? I maintain that, conventional media wisdom notwithstanding, the political center of gravity of American evangelicalism is in the Sun Belt suburbs and at the grass roots they are center-right and middle class, and do not dream of taking over America. While they oppose abortion and gay marriage, only a minority believe the world is 6,000 years old, and growing numbers believe that action needs to be taken to combat global climate change. And there are more of this kind of white evangelical here in Central Florida's pivotal I-4 Corridor than are likely to vote in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.
And if the Republicans do capture the White House? Ironically, Jews and progressives are not alone in their concern about evangelical influence in that event. Evangelical voters (and leaders) face their own dilemma. Polls in 2008, the last time former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney ran, found that white evangelicals voiced strong skepticism about whether they could support a Mormon for President. While willing to make common cause with Mormons on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, many Southern evangelicals do not consider them Christians. Thus, while evangelicals don't mind being political bedfellows with Mormons at night, they don't like walking around with them the next morning in sunlight -- or voting for one of them for president.
This issue flared again in October, at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., when the Rev. Robert Jeffress, of the First Baptist Church of Dallas -- who introduced Perry at the gathering -- described Mormonism in those same terms, igniting a media furor. But in a written statement, Perry came to Romney's defense.
"The governor does not believe Mormonism is a cult," a campaign spokesman said. "He is not in the business of judging people. That's God's job." And a Washington Post-ABC poll conducted a week earlier found that the percentage of evangelicals opposed to Romney has dropped to 20 percent.
Nevertheless, if Romney wins the GOP nomination without the support of evangelicals, they are still likely to hold their noses and back him against Obama in the fall. Yet they would constitute a "captive constituency," with nowhere else to go (much like progressive Democrats).
Fundamentalist evangelicals would have much less influence in the White House than they did when George Bush was the occupant. This outcome -- Romney clearly has no interest in making the U.S. a "Mormon nation" -- might leave Jewish voters considerably less uneasy, which may account for the presence of so many major Jewish Republican donors in his corner.
And so, that leaves Rick Perry, and what some believe are his sinister ties to leaders of various arcane, marginal and sensational theological doctrines like "Dominionism," "Christian Reconstructionism" and the "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR).
While these are undoubtedly catnip to conspiracy theorists and their opportunistic media enablers, I'd be surprised if more than 5 percent of suburban evangelicals would recognize the bizarre tenets of the NAR, as outlined by one of its founders on public radio's "Fresh Air."
Nonetheless, the former Texas governor does have ties -- some tenuous, some not -- to advocates for those theories, some of whom helped mobilize a faith rally on his behalf in Houston as he launched his campaign. An early TV campaign ad implied that America is in what some evangelicals call "End Times," giving credence to insiders' views that there is a greater likelihood of Perry manipulating them than vice versa.
Mark I. Pinsky, longtime religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel and Los Angeles Times, is author of A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed (Westminster John Knox. 2006)
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all we need do is acknowledge him before men like he demands that we do..having my name mentioned before the Holy angels and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is a tremendous pleasure;
especially when I am reviled for his name sake.. :)
You failed to note one factor. The goals of the 1%Ers. The money of the 1%Ers. Synergy.
The 1%Ers desire to have all power to themselves, and to have an authoritarian nation with themsleves as the head.
The Evangelicals want American run by people who agree with their values and beliefs, and see to it that they are enforced nationwide. The Evangelicals oppose individual liberty and freedom.
You see how the interests of the Evangelicals, right wing Catholics, conservative Mormons, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews overlap?
The various causes that the 1%Ers promote, and their leased employees, a/k/a Republican office holders push, all lead in the same direction. Reduction of individual rights, limitation of personal freedom, and anti-science.
The question is not will the 1Ers provide the money and politicians to push the 1Ers over the top?
Synergy mixed with money can have a dramatic effect.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind that people believe in absurdities, I would just prefer they didn't vote. And why would they want to, anyway? I mean, if political "Christians" were truly Christian, they wouldn't be political. I suspect those who are, don't really believe the nonsense they're peddling anyway and just want to use Jesus to bludgeon those with whom they disagree. They call themselves "Christians" for the sanctimony it affords them.
If they truly believed in their heart of hearts that they were destined for Paradise, they wouldn't mind paying their taxes, or health insurance reform or gay marriage or losing elections. And they certainly would be so miserable as they seem to be. If they really, truly believed they were destined for Paradise, they'd be happy as a kid with a new puppy and sincerely sorry that others didn't share their joy.
It seems to me that we need to remain vigilante in keeping the separation of church and state strong in this nation because the christian right is chipping away at the wall one brick at a time to the detriment of Christianity and indeed all religions not to mention freedom from religion.
Those who cannot see beyond the box fear those who do.
There is an 'authoritarian' syndrome in play also.
So what you're saying is that these oh so scary "dominionists" make up only about 5% of American Evangelicals at most...who themselves only make up about 20% of the population. That would make these dominionists at most 1% of the entire population...and that's being generous. Why then should we pay so much attention to these people and use them as a boogeyman to smear evangelicals?
Really? What planet are you on? Obviously not this one...where what I call the "peni-uterine Big Government In Your Bedroom (and doctor's office and hospital and school ...." have spent 90% of their time:
1. trying to prevent women from getting not only abortions but also birth control
2. Trying to keep gay people from getting married
3. Trying to force other people's kids to engage in the cultic ritual known as "prayer" in public schools
4. Trying to legitimize religious, gender and sexual orientation discrimination in employment
5. Trying to de fund legitimate (as in the kind that works) sex education in favor of "abstinence education" that is proven NOT to prevent teen pregnancy
And all of this, mind you, in the name of their "god."
"Evangelicals" as such (nor any other kind of religion) doesn't bother me, so long as its adherents do not try to force their narrow minded precepts on the rest of us. Unfortunately...they do.
"I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Rom. 11: 25-32)
There aren't any secret Zionist bad guys talking to pastors through ear pieces as they give their sermons.