The Freedom Files
columnist: RS Davis

Topic: Religion
The Rise and Fall of the Religious Right

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Fallwell, Robertson, and the Political Schizm in the Evangelical movement

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by RS Davis
(Libertarian)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The rise of the Religious Right in America can be mostly lain at the feet of that man, Jerry Falwell, founding member of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Son of an agnostic bootlegger, early in life Falwell embraced fundamentalism, in which the Bible is viewed as the inerrant word of God from the words "In the beginning" to the last "Amen,"  and switched to evangelicalism later, which focuses more on the Gospels.

He garnered a lot of attention for his more outrageous comments, like when he warned parents that Tinky Winky, the cute, babbling purple Teletubby, was gay. He also blamed the terrorist attacks of September 11th on liberals:

"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Wayall of them who have tried to secularize AmericaI point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

If you'd like the whole rundown of controvercial comments, check out this Slate article, but otherwise, I am here to talk about something a bit different. Focusing on random outrageous comments over a decades-long career is a fun diversion, but misses the power of his mission and the success he had in waging his culture war, for good or bad.

Before the Evangelical Revolution, most of the Christian community believed that secular politics were relegated to the physical world, while their own spiritual beliefs were non-political, living in the realm of interpersonal communications and outreach.  In other words, they took the Bible at its word and tried to "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

In fact, even Falwell himself believed this to be true, telling his congregation in 1965 that "nowhere are we commissioned to reform the externals. We are not told to wage wars against bootleggers, liquor stores, gamblers, murderers, prostitutes, racketeers, prejudiced persons or institutions, or any other existing evil as such. I feel that we need to get off the streets and back into the pulpits and into our prayer rooms."

It was Francis Schaeffer that changed Falwell's mind. Schaeffer (right), who founded the L'Abri community in Switzerland, was a proponent of Dominion Theology, which was essentially a group of evangelicals of various stripes that believed it was their moral duty to refashion man's law to mirror what they believed to be God's law, as revealed in the Bible.

More politically important though was the paradigm shift that evolved from this relationship, giving Falwell the moral go-ahead to form political alliances with non-evangelicals who shared a certain policy opinion.  As Cathy Young tells us:

Evangelical Protestants could work together with conservative Catholics and even Jews to defeat their liberal secularist enemies. This ecumenicism was rooted in shared hatred: of abortion, homosexuality, feminism, secularism, and other bogeymen and bogeywomen of modernity.

Through Moral Majority, Falwell was able to reach out to disaffected Christians, who believed themselves at the time to be moral refugees, adrift in an ocean of secular humanism, powerless to change the culture.

It was this newly active political base, the Religious Right, that through their extraordinary grassroots activism and turnout at the polls, helped elect Reagan in 1980, George Bush in '88, and George W Bush in 2000.

Although Reagan's rhetoric was steeped in religious symbolism, he largely ignored their policy concerns.  Much can be said of the Bushs', as well.  Aside from half-hearted bones being thrown, the Religious Right has largely been relegated to the same status as homosexuals in the Democratic Party - useful to get elected because they'll never vote for the opposition, and easy to rile up with promises of partisan injustice if they don't vote.

Throughout the 80s and 90's, they were undeterred, pushing forward, flexing their political muscles, and they found that once used, those muscles build fast.  They now account for nearly 15% of the electorate.  That's a powerful voice, that minority.  In fact, I'd say that libertarians, who have similar numbers, could learn a lot from them.

Falwell died last year, and that has left a gaping hole in the evangelical movement, without a powerful voice - Dobson and Robertson (right) are too controvercial, Billy Graham too namby-pamby. Evangelicals are left now largely to fend for themselves, and it is showing in blow-ups, like the one about who is better for Christians - Mormon Romney or Baptist Minister Huckabee - for example.

This may actually be best, in the end, for evangelicals, as a bottom-up approach to coalition-making will be more representative of the spiritual values of the people who make up the demographic.

It will also undoubtedly lead to fractions, which can be evidenced by a recent statement from an evangelical group, who believe that the culture wars spawned by the rise of the Religious Right have ultimately ruined modern Christianity. They plan to release tomorrow an Evangelical Manifesto, which says that when religion becomed politicized, "faith loses its independence, Christians become 'useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology."

They don't encourage Christians to melt back into the political landscape and become disenfranchised all over again, but they stress that love is the most important fundamental aspect of their faith.  As CNN reports:

But the drafters say evangelicals have often expressed "truth without love," helping create a backlash against religion during a "generation of culture warring."

"All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others," the statement says, "while we have condoned our own sins." It argues, "we must reform our own behavior."

More than 80 evangelical leaders have signed the document, but many of the biggest names have not.  James Dobson, for example, has not, although it is unclear whether he was even asked.

It opens up an interesting question - has this greater involvement in politics been good for politics?  Has it been good for religion?  I'd say yes and no.  As Cathy Young points out:

Two decades later, President George W. Bush seems not simply to talk the talk but to care about the religious right's agenda, whether it's "saving marriage" from gays, banning "partial-birth abortion," or curbing federal stem cell research. And yet, 28 years after the launch of the Moral Majority, a reversal of Roe v. Wade seems unlikely, and statewide bans on same-sex marriage are offset by the legalization of civil unions in some states and moves toward full marriage rights for same-sex couples in others. Even Bush has spoken in favor of civil unions.

Interestingly, Falwell was wary about one of the Bush administration's most successful moves to blur the lines between religion and government: the "faith-based initiative" to funnel federal funds for social services to religious organizations. Falwell worried that entanglement with the federal government could subject churches to restrictionsand that funds could also go to liberal churches or, worse yet, to such suspect groups as Scientologists and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Personally, I liked the old guard, who tried to convince people either through words or example of the right ways to behave, without using the coercive apparatus of government.  It's a very libertarian position, actually, that recognized the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

As a libertarian may be for legalized prostitution but against it morally, a Christian can understand that allowing it legally is not the same as sanctioning it. There's a movement growing around this view of faith, and can be seen in evangelical Christian and Faulkner University professor Andy Olree's (left) book The Choice Principle: The Biblical Case for Legal Toleration.  As W James Antle III comments:

An important part of Olree's thesis is that you can believe in moral absolutes without legislating morality. Indeed, he argues, God may prefer a legal order in which Christians tolerate sin rather than use the power of the state to stamp it out...

...The framework Olree proposes for effective Christian civic involvement that nevertheless respects the limits of secular law is something he rather obtrusively describes as the Choice Principle: Just public policies should generally seek to expand human choice rather than reduce it. Choice frequently carries negative connotations in conservative Christian politics, not least because of its association with legal abortion. But perhaps this should not be the case, especially for evangelicals.

After all, the evangelical faith depends on a choice: the choice to receive salvation by accepting Jesus Christ. The most important thing evangelicals believe God asks of them in their view, the most important thing of all is something they must choose freely. For evangelicals, God does not coerce people into being saved and accepts their decision in the matter as final.

Agreed.  I have always believed that when God created us in his image, it didn't mean he had a belly button, but that we have been given free will.  There is no virtue in coercion, no goodness without choice.  That's one evangelical message I can support.

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2008 RS Davis, all rights reserved.
Published: Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, May 6, 2008

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